"Where away?"
"On the starboard bow."
"And what does it look like?"
"I can only raise some mountain cones. They seem volcanic, and their sides are covered with snow."
"Bravo! Come down and I'll get up myself."
Frank was soon on deck.
"Well done, Frank," said Talbot laughing. "I promised a pair of canvas trousers to the man who should first sight land, and you shall have them."
"Yes, thank you, and I shall wear them too."
Away went the skipper up to the crow's-nest, and before long came an order to alter the course a point or two.
Close to the Islands of Desolation, as Kerguelen is called, it was fully a week before the Flora M'Vayne was able to reach and enter one of the friths or creeks. For on the very day on which land was sighted a fearful hurricane swept down on the ship, and so suddenly, too, that before sails could be taken in many were rent into ribbons, that cracked and rattled with a sound like the independent firing of troops in action. There was no standing against wind of this awful violence, and it was necessary to run for it under what is termed "bare poles", that is, the smallest amount of sail that can be carried with steering power.