They found it hard and tedious work to get their dory over the first barrier of ice, which was about a hundred yards wide. After that was passed they progressed more rapidly, and discovered so many little lanes of open water that they reached the berg much more easily than they had expected to.
As they rowed alongside of it they discovered a small level place, close to the water’s edge, upon which a landing could be made. The ends of the berg rose into points fifty or sixty feet high, but above this point was a depression that did not rise more than twenty feet above the water.
When they reached this place Breeze said, “Let me land here, Wolfe, and climb up to the top, where I can look over, while you stay in the dory.”
So saying, and taking the hatchet with him, he stepped out on the ice, and began slowly to make his way up the gentle but slippery incline. As he reached the top he stood there for a moment looking around, and then turned as though about to call out to his friend. Suddenly he seemed to slip, and to Wolfe’s dismay he threw up his arms, uttered a loud cry, and disappeared.
CHAPTER XII.
AN ICE CAVE AND ITS PRISONERS.
At first Wolfe hoped that Breeze had merely slipped and fallen, and for a minute waited anxiously for him to reappear. Then it occurred to him that his companion might have slid into the water, and that possibly he was even now drowning, or struggling in vain to regain a footing upon the treacherous surface. Thus thinking, he sprang to his oars, and pulling furiously, soon carried the dory to the other side of the iceberg, which was not a very large one. To his dismay he could discover no trace of his friend even here, and he now began to be seriously alarmed. He could see the whole side of the ice island as it rose, glittering and sparkling above him, in the light of the setting sun. It shone with all the colors of the rainbow, and was coldly, awfully beautiful to look upon, but nowhere did it offer to his view the faintest trace of a human presence.
This side was rugged, and so precipitous that it would be impossible for any one to gain a foothold upon it from a boat, much less from the water; all of which Wolfe noticed with a feeling of despair. As he examined the frigid mass above him more closely he noticed that, near its top, there seemed to be several platforms or terraces, and he determined to pull back to the landing-place and climb up and examine them. Rowing slowly around the other end of the berg, and scanning every foot of its surface in the vague hope of discovering something, he finally came again to the place where Breeze had left him. Here, with a heavy heart, he made his preparations to follow the course his friend had taken. Hauling the dory partially out of the water, so that there would be less danger of its being crushed by floating cakes, he jammed its anchor into a crack of the ice and pulled the anchor rope taut. Then, taking advantage of the occasional holes Breeze had cut in the ice with his hatchet, he began to climb towards the summit of the ridge.
When at last he reached it he dreaded to look around him; for this was his last hope, and if he should see nothing of his dorymate from here, he felt that he must indeed give him up for lost. At length he forced himself to gaze, slowly and carefully, in every direction about him. There was only the ice, the water, the sunset sky, and, sharply outlined against it, the Vixen, standing off and on beyond the floe, waiting for them.
Waiting for them, and he must return to her alone. This thought broke him down completely, and he groaned aloud in his distress. He knew now how strong a hold his sunny-faced young dorymate had gained upon his affections, and feeling that he had gone from his life forever, the whole world seemed as lonely and dreary and cold as the scene around him. In his misery he called out, “Breeze! oh, Breeze! come back to me.”
“Well, I’m coming as fast as I can,” answered a muffled voice so close to him that he started in affright, and came very near rolling down the incline he had just ascended. He trembled so that he could hardly speak; but he finally managed to call out, “Is that really you, Breeze? And where are you?” for, as yet, he could neither see his friend nor locate the spot from which his voice had come.