END OF BOOK II
BOOK III
ON THE GREAT ANTARCTIC CONTINENT
CHAPTER I
A STRANGE DISCOVERY—SHEELAH AND TAFFY
“She is bound to be,” said Captain Mayne Brace, a day or two before the good ship Walrus reached Kerguelen. “Bound to be, Mr. Armstrong. She is the better craft of the two, you know.”
He was talking to Ingomar and Walter, one evening in October, while they all sat together in the cosy saloon, not a mile away from the stove.
Ingomar and Brace were smoking the pipe of peace, and sipping their coffee (which they placed, to keep warm, on top of the stove), between each longdrawn sip. Walter was reading one of Scott’s novels, or trying to, for he was listening to the conversation all the same. Charlie was missing to-night. I rather think he would have been found, if any one had cared to look for him, forward in the galley, listening to the men’s yarns, or playing a hornpipe to please them.