ble. He came forward, stooping slightly, and rubbing
his hands in a deprecating manner.

"'Scuse me, massa Capting. P'r'aps it bery presumsheeous in dis yer
chile for to speak afore his betters, but as no oder man 'pears to want
to volunteer, I's willin' to go in an' win. Ob course I ain't a man--
on'y a nigger, but I's a willin' nigger, an' kin do a few small tings--
cook de grub, wash up de cups an' sarsers, pull a oar, clean yer boots,
fight de Eskimos if you wants me to, an' ginrally to scrimmage around
a'most anything. Moreover, I eats no more dan a babby--'sep wen I's
hungry--an' I'll foller you, massa, troo tick and tin--to de Nort Pole,
or de Sout Pole, or de East Pole, or de West Pole--or any oder pole
wotsomediver--all de same to Butterface, s'long's you'll let 'im stick
by you."

The crew could not help giving the negro a cheer as he finished this
loyal speech, and the Captain, although he would have preferred one of
the other men, gladly accepted his services.

A few days later the boats were ready and provisioned; adieus were said,
hats and handkerchiefs waved, and soon after Captain Vane and his son
and two nephews, with Anders and Butterface, were left to fight their
battles alone, on the margin of an unexplored, mysterious Polar sea.

CHAPTER FIVE.

LEFT TO THEIR FATE.

There are times, probably, in all conditions of life, when men feel a
species of desolate sadness creeping over their spirits, which they find
it hard to shake off or subdue. Such a time arrived to our Arctic
adventurers the night after they had parted from the crew of the wrecked
_Whitebear_. Nearly everything around, and much within, them was
calculated to foster that feeling.

They were seated on the rocky point on the extremity of which their
yacht had been driven. Behind them were the deep ravines, broad
valleys, black beetling cliffs, grand mountains, stupendous glaciers,
and dreary desolation of Greenland. To right and left, and in front of
them, lay the chaotic ice-pack of the Arctic sea, with lanes and pools
of water visible here and there like lines and spots of ink. Icebergs
innumerable rose against the sky, which at the time was entirely covered
with grey and gloomy clouds. Gusts of wind swept over the frozen waste
now and then, as if a squall which had recently passed, were sighing at
the thought of leaving anything undestroyed behind it. When we add to
this, that the wanderers were thinking of the comr