"Wait till you lads encounter a leopard seal, or a sea elephant," said
Captain Hazzard, when the boys confided their scruples to him.
"Sea leopards!" exclaimed Frank.
"Sea elephants!" echoed Harry.
"Yes, certainly," laughed the captain. "The creatures are well named, too. The sea leopard is as formidable as his namesake on land. The sea elephant is his big brother in size and ferocity."
"I shall give them a wide berth," said the professor. "That killer whale was enough for me."
"You will be wise, too," was the rejoinder, and the captain turned to busy himself with his books and papers, for this conversation occurred about noon in his hut.
The next day there were good-byes to be said. The polar winter was near at hand, when the sea for miles beyond the barrier would freeze solid and it would have been foolhardy for the Brutus, which had discharged all her coal but that necessary to steam north with, to have remained longer. She sailed early in the morning, bearing with her letters to their friends in the north, which the boys could not help thinking might be the last they would ever write them. Unknown perils and adventures lay before them. How they would emerge from them they did not know.
All experienced a feeling of sadness as the ship that had gallantly towed them into their polar berth lessened on the horizon, and then vanished altogether in the direction of the north. The Southern Cross alone remained now, but she was no longer their floating home, most of her stores and comforts having been removed to the shore. Her boilers were emptied and piping disconnected in preparation for her sojourn in the ice.
With so much to be done, however, the adventurers could not long feel melancholy, even though they knew their letters from home would not reach them till the arrival of the relief ship late in the next autumn.
The first duty tackled by Captain Hazzard was to call all the members of the expedition into the main hut and give them a little talk on the dangers, difficulties and responsibilities that lay before them. The men cheered him to the echo when he had finished, and each set about the duties assigned to him. Ben Stubbs was ordered to set the watches for the nights and adjust any minor details that might occur to him.