The sunrise clouds were still radiantly beautiful in orange, mauve, and crimson, but the wind was gone, and the storm fled to the back of the north pole or elsewhere.
They could see around them, therefore.
"Why, Frank," cried Conal, scratching his head in astonishment, "where on earth have they shifted Mount Terror to?"
Sure enough, the great volcanic mountain on which the young fellow had so nearly lost his life was a very long way astern indeed, and seemed endeavouring to hide its diminished head in a cloud of gray-blue mist.
"The explanation is simple enough, I think," replied Frank. "They--whoever 'they' may mean--haven't shifted the mountain, but we've been driven far to the nor'ard with the force of the gale."
"Oh!" said Conal, laughing, "I know better than that. We've never moved, Frank. There is the same ice about us still, and our big neighbours, the icebergs, are yonder also."
"Well," answered Frank, "we've been like the Irishman on the steamboat, we've been standing stock-still, yet all the while we've been moving."
"That's it," said Captain Talbot, who happened to come up at this moment. "That's it, Conal; Frank's right, and all this vast plain of snow-clad ice has been in motion northwards, and it has taken us with it."
"Wonders will never cease!" said Conal.
"Not in this world, nor the next either. But breakfast will soon be ready--earlier this morning, because we're going to work."