“Yes, I feel better now. How the stars shine!”
“You’ll see them brighter by-and-by, sir,” said Johannes. “Have you got anything hard in your pocket?”
“Only my knife. What do you want?”
“Something for you,” replied the Norseman. “Wait a minute, sir.”
He turned and stepped down into the furnace-room, to return directly.
“Take that, sir.”
“What is it? Lump of coal? What for?”
“Throw it right out on the ice, sir. I want you to try it. Quick! there’s something for you to look at now.”
“But surely there’s no ice for it to fall on,” said Steve. “It’s impossible.”
All the same, he took the lump of coal, and, drawing back, threw it as far as he could out over the fiord; and, to his utter astonishment, when it fell he heard it rebound with the regular musical ring of a hard substance upon ice, and strike again and again before it became motionless.