All hands were on deck as the Icebear was turned shorewards and headed straight for the rocks. The boat that had gone in pursuit of the bears was ahead, guiding. To go steaming stem on to that adamantine wall seemed courting destruction, but lo! after a progress of a few hundred yards, the cliffs opened up as if by magic, showing a long channel of deep blue water. It got wider inland, but the cliffs were higher; gradually, however, they receded from the water’s edge, and got lower and lower.
The ship was now stopped, and a party sent on shore to climb the highest peak adjoining the sea, and plant thereon the flagstaff that should signal to the Kittywake the whereabouts of her consort.
Slowly on and on steamed the Icebear, two men taking soundings from the chains, lest the water should suddenly shoal, but the beach at each side still continued rocky, though no longer high.
“What do you think of this?” asked Claude of Dr Barrett, who stood near him on the bridge.
“I am rejoiced beyond measure at our discovery,” was the reply. “Why, this would please Professor Hodson, for no slowly descending glaciers ever made this wonderful cutting—it is volcanic entirely. Behold the rocks, Captain Alwyn.”
“You are right, doctor, beyond a doubt.”
“And I should not be surprised now what we came to.”
“Nor I.”
“I wish,” said Mr Lloyd, “I could see things with the eyes you seem to possess, doctor. How delightful it must be to be quite at-home-like with everything you see around you! You are a learned man, doctor.”