The days had become shorter and shorter as they progressed northward.
“It’s a bad time of the year,” said Hugh, “to make the voyage. The cold will be intense, and there will be no sun north of the seventy-fourth degree after to-day.”
“Yes; I know it,” returned Cobb. “But we will have the aurora, and that will give a sufficiency of light for all our purposes.”
In the steady, strong northerly current, the Orion made rapid progress. The great glaciers of Southern Greenland were passed, and then the chain of mountains which traverses the land from north to south were reached. Keeping exactly along the backbone of the range, the Orion sped northward.
On either side great canyons opened toward the west and east; immense rivers of ice and slow-moving glaciers extended toward the sea. The land was white with snow, save here and there where the black rocks of the mountains broke through. A barren, dreary waste was upon every side, and a scene of utter desolation presented itself to these few mortals far up in the clouds.
Still the vessel moved northward; degree after degree was passed, and it was 12 dial when they reached the seventy-fifth degree of latitude. The sun lay like a ball of fire upon the plain of snow to the south, its disc just visible as it seemed to rest on the horizon. The three officers stood at the rail, and raised their fur caps in salutation.
“Good-bye, old Sol; good-bye to your bright light!” cried Cobb, as he waved his cap. “It will be many an hour—days, even, and perhaps years, ere your face is seen by us again!”
“Let us say days only, Junius,” the others exclaimed, together. “We hope soon to see its glorious face again.”
“Perhaps!” With this single word, Cobb turned and entered the cabin, where he spread out before him a chart of the arctic regions, and examined it intently. Five degrees more and he would turn to the west!