"But to leave them to the cruel elements!" Wade whispered.
"Yes—I know—but they're happier here than they would be—in—in some great cotton-factory at home."
"Too true," Wade sighed, and fell to softly whistling "Dixie."
"I suppose," said the captain as we got aboard, "that it will be too late to get into Hudson Bay farther this season."
"Yes," replied Raed: "we are all a little home-sick, I expect. Let's go home."
The boat was taken up, and the schooner brought round. The sails swelled out in the stormy wind. "The Curlew" stood away, down the straits.
"Adieu to Isle Aktok!" cried Kit, looking off toward the snowy island. "Our reign ends here; but no one can say that we have not been kings in our day."
We were five days going out to the Atlantic. During most of that time, the wind blew hard and cold. We were glad to keep snug as we could in the cabin. The ice collected along the water-line of the schooner to the depth of several inches.
With the exception of a heavy gale of seventeen hours' duration while off Halifax, our voyage home to Boston was, though tedious, quite uneventful,—the mere monotony of the ocean, which has been so often and so well described.
Arrived in Boston harbor on the forenoon of the 9th of September. Raed went up to the bank where we had deposited our bonds, and, effecting an exchange of $1,600 worth, came back to pay off our men; viz.:—