CHAPTER VI: MAROONED ON AN ICEBERG.
“Am I going crazy?�
Raynor, marooned on the drifting berg, passed a hand across his eyes. The white form that had menaced him with he knew not what peril a minute before had vanished as suddenly as it had appeared. Badly overwrought, the lad stood staring at the place where he had seen it.
“This won’t do,� he said to himself, “I mustn’t lose my nerve and get to seeing things.�
With an effort he braced up his faculties. With infinite patience he waited for daylight. At last, after what seemed years, the east began to flush with the dawn. Soon a gray light was diffused over the sea, the fog had lifted and the horizon could be seen in every quarter.
Raynor gave a groan, despite his determination not to give way, as he gazed about him. The sea was empty. The berg, surrounded by a small belt of floating ice, was the only object on the surface of the waters. Not even a streak of smoke on the sky showed the vicinity of steamers.
“I must have drifted right off the ocean track in the night,� muttered Raynor. “It’s a million chances to one now if I ever get picked up.�
The thought overwhelmed even his sturdy determination to bear up. He sank down on the berg utterly unnerved. How long he sat there with his head between his hands in an attitude of abject despair he did not know.
But he was aroused by a sound of snuffling not far from him. He looked up and gave a shout of terror as he did so.
Eyeing him from a slight acclivity of the berg not a hundred feet away, was an immense polar bear!