“You’re not losing heart, are you, uncle?” asked Leo, during a pause.
“No, lad, certainly not,” replied the Captain, dreamily.
“You’ve not been bumped very badly in the tumble, father, have you?” asked Benjy with an anxious look.
“Bumped? no; what makes you think so?”
“Because you’re gazing at Toolooha’s lamp as if you saw a ghost in it.”
“Well, perhaps I do see a ghost there,” returned the Captain with an effort to rouse his attention to things going on around him. “I see the ghost of things to come. I am looking through Toolooha’s lamp into futurity.”
“And what does futurity look like?” asked Alf. “Bright or dark?”
“Black—black as me,” muttered Butterface, as he approached and laid fresh viands before the party.
It ought to be told that Butterface had suffered rather severely in the recent glissade on the snow-slope, which will account for the gloomy view he took of the future at that time.
“Listen,” said the Captain, with a look of sudden earnestness; “as it is highly probable that a day or two more will decide the question of our success or failure, I think it right to reveal to you more fully my thoughts, my plans, and the prospects that lie before us. You all know very well that there is much difference of opinion about the condition of the sea around the North Pole. Some think it must be cumbered with eternal ice, others that it is comparatively free from ice, and that it enjoys a somewhat milder climate than those parts of the Arctic regions with which we have hitherto been doing battle. I hold entirely with the latter view—with those who believe in an open Polar basin. I won’t weary you with the grounds of my belief in detail, but here are a few of my reasons—