"That would be unpleasant," laughed Wade; "worse than they have it up at the north pole."
"It is some consolation," said Raed, "to know that such a state of things is not likely to come in our time. According to a careful calculation, the length of the day is not thus increased more than a second in a hundred and sixty-eight thousand years."
"But how are we to go aboard, sir?" inquired Hobbs, to whom our present fix was of more interest than the long days of far-distant posterity.
The boat had been tossed about here and there, and was now some twenty or thirty yards astern of the schooner.
"Have to swim for it," said Donovan.
"Not in this icy water, I hope," said Kit. "Can't we devise a plan to capture it?"
"They might tie a belaying-pin to the end of a line, and throw it into the boat," said the captain.
"Or, better still, one of those long cod-lines with the heavy sinker and hook on it," suggested Hobbs.
"Just the thing!" exclaimed Capt. Mazard. "Sing out to them!"
"Unless I'm mistaken, that is just what old Trull is up to now," said Wade. "He's throwing something! see that!"