The doctor and his companion raised a cairn at the spot where they tried their experiment, and the signal for their return being made, they returned to the ship at five o'clock of the evening.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE FATE OF SIR JOHN FRANKLIN.
The Forward succeeded, though not without difficulty, in getting by James Ross Sound, by frequent use of the ice-saws and gunpowder; the crew was very much fatigued. Fortunately the temperature was agreeable, and even thirty degrees above what James Ross found at the same time of year. The thermometer marked 34°.
Saturday they doubled Cape Felix at the northern end of King William's Land, one of the smaller islands of northern seas.
At that time the crew became very much depressed; they gazed wistfully and sadly at its far-stretching shores.
In fact, they were gazing at King William's Land, the scene of one of the saddest tragedies of modern times! Only a few miles to the west the Erebus and Terror were lost.
The sailors of the Forward were familiar with the attempts made to find Franklin, and the result they had obtained, but they did not know all the sad details. Now, while the doctor was following on his chart the course of the ship, many of them, Bell, Bolton, and Simpson, drew near him and began to talk with him. Soon the others followed to satisfy their curiosity; meanwhile the brig was advancing rapidly, and the bays, capes, and promontories of the coast passed before their gaze like a gigantic panorama.