"But," interrupted Mrs Barnett, "look at the sun. Does it no longer rise in the east? Now as we turned our backs on it this morning, and it is still behind us, we must be walking towards the west, so that when we get out of the valley on the western side of the chain of icebergs, we must come to the island we left there."
Marbre, struck dumb by this irrefutable argument, crossed his arms and said no more.
"Then if so," said Sabine, "the sun and the compass are in complete contradiction of each other?"
"At this moment they are," said Hobson, "and the reason is simple enough; in these high northern latitudes, and in latitudes in the neighbourhood of the magnetic pole, the compasses are sometimes disturbed, and the deviation of their needles is so great as entirely to mislead travellers."
"All right then," said Marbre, "we have only to go on keeping our backs to the sun."
"Certainly," replied Lieutenant Hobson, "there can be no hesitation which to choose, the sun or our compass, nothing disturbs the sun."
The march was resumed, the sun was still behind them, and there was really no objection to be made to Hobson's theory, founded, as it was, upon the position then occupied by the radiant orb of day.
The little troop marched on, but they did not get out of the valley as soon as they expected. Hobson had counted on leaving the ice-wall before noon, and it was past two when they reached the opening of the narrow pass.
Strange as was this delay, it had not made any one uneasy, and the astonishment of all can readily be imagined when, on stepping on to the ice field, at the base of the chain of icebergs, no sign was to be seen of Victoria Island, which ought to have been opposite to them.
Yes!-The island, which on this side had been such a conspicuous object, owing to the height of Cape Michael crowned with trees, had disappeared. In its place stretched a vast ice-field lit up by the sunbeams.