Still, it seemed unlikely that any corpse should rest there; there was no beach, and the sea beat against the steep rocks; thick ashes, on which no human foot had ever stepped, covered the ground beyond the reach of the waves. At last the launch slipped between the breakers, and there she was perfectly sheltered against the surf. Then Duke's lamentable howling redoubled; the poor animal called for the captain with his sad wails among the rocks. His barking was vain; and the doctor caressed him, without being able to calm him, when the faithful dog, as if he wanted to replace his master, made a prodigious leap, and was the first to get ashore amid the dust and ashes which flew about him.
"Duke! Duke!" said the doctor.
Duke did not hear him, but disappeared. The men then went ashore, and made the launch fast. Altamont was preparing to climb up a large pile of rocks, when Duke's distant barking was heard; it expressed pain, not wrath.
"Listen!" said the doctor.
"Has he got on the track of some animal?" asked the boatswain.
"No," answered the doctor, quivering with emotion; "he's mourning, crying! Hatteras's body is there!"
At these words the four men started after Duke, in the midst of blinding cinders; they reached the end of the fiord, a little place ten feet broad, where the waves were gently breaking. There Duke was barking near a body wrapped up in the English flag.
"Hatteras, Hatteras!" cried the doctor, rushing to the body of his friend.
But at once he uttered an explanation[*] which it is impossible to render. This bleeding and apparently lifeless body had just given signs of life.