The next moment Watty appeared at the window.
“I’ll tell the skipper ye sat the tyke at me!” cried the boy.
“If you don’t behave yourself I will!” retorted Steve; and then patting Skene’s head he walked away, the dog, quite sobered now, following him, muttering in growls, and looking back now and then at the galley, whose door was softly opened, and a hand protruded holding a piece of cold salt meat.
Skene saw it, and hesitated. Then he stopped short, and Watty whistled and wriggled the piece of meat about. That was too much for any animal. Meat is meat after all, and to keep him healthy Skene had been dieted a good deal upon biscuit. He was only a dog, and rushing back, he snatched the piece in his trap-like jaws.
“Poor fellow, then; poor old Skene!” whispered Watty. But he might as well have whispered his soothing words to the winds, for the dog only uttered a low growl and trotted back to his master, who was once more eagerly scanning the coast.
But it was always very much the same: heavy breakers tumbling over to a chain of rocks—foaming, rushing, falling back, and swinging to and fro till fresh help came from the tide, and they gathered themselves for a fresh assault. Beyond the waves a more or less narrow line of shore, and then cliff, and above that mountainous heights glittering with ice and snow, and here and there in some opening a frozen river looking as if it were rushing headlong down to the sea, but hanging there solid, save for a little rill which trickled forth from a cavern of celestial blue at its foot.
They steamed on for hours quite slowly, rounding the southern shore, and then further progress was stayed, for, once more, there before them was the low cliff of ice, extending apparently right up behind the island, and connecting it with the mainland. Ice everywhere now, and another mountain, emitting a faint film of smoke.
“No sign of human being on the shore: all that journey southward for nothing,” said the doctor.
“One can hardly call it for nothing, eh, Steve?” said the captain. “We have satisfied ourselves pretty well that our friends are not here.”
“But they may be inland beyond those cliffs, sir!” cried the boy.