"If we were near the sea," the doctor went on, "I should think it was ice breaking."
"In fact," said Johnson, "there is no other explanation possible."
"Can we have reached the coast?" asked Hatteras.
"It's not impossible," answered the doctor. "Hold on," he said, after a very distinct sound; "shouldn't you say that was the crashing of ice? We may be very near the ocean."
"If it is," continued Hatteras, "I should not be afraid to go across the ice-fields."
"O," said the doctor, "they must be broken by such a tempest! We shall see to-morrow. However that may be, if any men have to travel in such a night as this, I pity them."
The hurricane raged ten hours without cessation, and no one of those in the tent had a moment's sleep; the night passed in profound uneasiness. In fact, under such circumstances, every new incident, a tempest, an avalanche, might bring serious consequences. The doctor would gladly have gone out to reconnoitre, but how could he with such a wind raging?
Fortunately the hurricane grew less violent early the next day; they could leave the tent which had resisted so sturdily. The doctor, Hatteras, and Johnson went to a hill about three hundred feet high, which they ascended without difficulty. Their eyes beheld an entirely altered country, composed of bare rocks, sharp ridges entirely clear of ice. It was summer succeeding winter, which had been driven away by the tempest; the snow had been blown away by the wind before it could melt, and the barren soil reappeared.
| "They climbed a hill which commanded a wide view." |