“No chance of escaping from this, I fear, for a long time,” said Alf Vandervell to his brother, as they stood near the wheel, looking at the desolate prospect.
“It seems quite hopeless,” said Leo, with, however, a look of confidence that ill accorded with his words.
“I do believe we are frozen in for the winter,” said Benjy Vane, coming up at the moment.
“There speaks ignorance,” said the Captain, whose head appeared at the cabin hatchway. “If any of you had been in these regions before, you would have learned that nothing is so uncertain as the action of pack ice. At one time you may be hard and fast, so that you couldn’t move an inch. A few hours after, the set of the currents may loosen the pack, and open up lanes of water through which you may easily make your escape. Sometimes it opens up so as to leave almost a clear sea in a few hours.”
“But it is pretty tight packed just now, father, and looks wintry-like, doesn’t it?” said Benjy in a desponding tone.
“Looks! boy, ay, but things are not what they seem hereaway. You saw four mock-suns round the real one yesterday, didn’t you? and the day before you saw icebergs floating in the air, eh?”
“True, father, but these appearances were deceptive, whereas this ice, which looks so tightly packed, is a reality.”
“That is so, lad, but it is not set fast for the winter, though it looks like it. Well, doctor,” added the Captain, turning towards a tall cadaverous man who came on deck just then with the air and tread of an invalid, “how goes it with you? Better, I hope?”
He asked this with kindly interest as he laid his strong hand on the sick man’s shoulder; but the doctor shook his head and smiled sadly.
“It is a great misfortune to an expedition, Captain, when the doctor himself falls sick,” he said, sitting down on the skylight with a sigh.