“But they’ll soon have the steam up now, Andra.”
“I dinna believe it. She’s fashed wi’ your new-fangled rubbish; all weel eneuch in fine weather, but when she want it the puir feckless mairsheennary isn’t there.”
“But you can hear the fire roaring.”
“Ay, she can hear the great flaming thing burning oop mair coal and mair coal; but it isna fire we want, laddie, but steam.”
“Yes, it is a long time,” sighed Steve. “Do you think we must take to the boats?”
“Ay, laddie; if I were skipper I’d joost hae plenty o’ food and claes pit upon the ice, and camp there wi’ the boats hanging on aboot. We could tak’ to them when the ice was a’ melted doon, an’—”
“Here, hi! lend a hand, my lad!” shouted the mate, and Andrew trotted off, leaving Steve more low-spirited than ever.
For it seemed so terrible, just on the threshold of an exciting voyage, in which he had painted to himself plenty of sport and adventure, ending in the discovery of his uncle and the men who had been his companions. All had gone wrong, and he felt that they would have to accept their failure, and try to get back to the nearest Norwegian port, a terribly dangerous journey in an open boat.
And now, more than ever, he felt the want of some companionship, and, with a feeling of regret, he thought of the one nearest to him in years.
“They’re all men,” he said to himself, “and I’m only a boy. They don’t think about me. Wish I hadn’t kicked poor old Watty.”