“You hail, Johannes, as you would do if alone.”
The Norseman rose up, placed his hands to his mouth, and uttered a bellowing roar. But though this was repeated again and again there was no reply.
“Give way!” cried the captain, and the oars began to dip, the men rowing steadily without a word, trusting themselves entirely to their captain as the one who must know best under the circumstances; while Steve, who felt that he ought to be perfectly calm and cool, knew that moment by moment he was growing more nervous and uncomfortable, haunted as he was by the idea that they might never reach the Hvalross, and be left alone in that icy solitude, without weapons or provisions, to try and reach Jan Mayen, and find the refuge they had thought possible for the others.
“There is the wrecked ship,” he said to himself, as thoughts came swiftly; “it would do for a shelter, and we should have to live on sea-birds, unless we could find that after all there are some stores buried in the ship’s hold under the sand.”
“Steady!” cried the captain just then, interrupting the flow of his wild thoughts; and the men rested on their oars again, while shout after shout was sent up, but with no reply.
“We must have come far enough,” muttered Captain Marsham; and he hesitated as he vainly tried to pierce the dense medium which surrounded them. “We’ll lie on our oars and drift a little while,” he said aloud; “the fog will pass over soon. What do you say, Johannes?”
“One never knows, sir,” replied the man gravely; “but it is of no use to go on rowing; we must have passed the ship, for there is a strong current here.”
“Well, we shall see.”
They sat listening till, growing fidgety, Steve turned to lean over the stern and take hold of the rope which held the beluga. The great fish-like creature yielded to the drag and came close up, but its head was hardly discernible, and it looked so weird and strange that the boy loosed his hold with a shudder, expecting that it would float away. But it remained stationary for a few moments, and then, urged by the current, rubbed heavily against the boat’s side, imperceptibly altering its position by dragging round the stern.
After listening patiently for some time, the captain drew a little compass from his pocket and placed it beside him on the thwart, waiting till it was steady, when he exclaimed in quite a startled tone: