This magnificent column seemed the flag-staff of a gigantic crystal fortress, which was suddenly revealing by the clearing away of the fog-bank to the north. It was the face of the great glacier of the interior, which here presented an unbroken perpendicular front—a sweep of solid glassy wall, which rose three hundred feet above the water-level, with an unknown depth below it. The sun glittered on the crags, and peaks, and battlements of this ice fortress as if the mysterious inhabitants of the far north had lit up their fires, and planted their artillery to resist further invasion.
The effect upon the minds of the two youths, who were probably the first to gaze upon those wondrous visions of the icy regions, was tremendous. For a long time neither of them could utter a word, and it would be idle to attempt to transcribe the language in which, at length, their excited feelings sought to escape. It was not until their backs had been for some time turned on the scene, and the cape near the valley of red snow had completely shut it out from view, that they could condescend to converse again in their ordinary tones on ordinary subjects.
As they hastened back over the ice-belt at the foot of the cliffs, a loud boom rang out in the distance, and rolled in solemn echoes along the shore.
“There goes a gun,” exclaimed Tom Singleton, hastily pulling out his watch. “Hallo! do you know what time it is?”
“Pretty late, I suppose; it was afternoon, I know, when we started, and we must have been out a good while now. What time is it?”
“Just two o’clock in the morning!”
“What! do you mean to say it was yesterday when we started, and that we’ve been walking all night, and got into to-morrow morning without knowing it?”
“Even so, Fred. We have overshot our time, and the captain is signalling us to make haste. He said that he would not fire unless there seemed some prospect of the ice moving, so we had better run, unless we wish to be left behind; come along.”
They had not proceeded more than half a mile when a Polar bear walked leisurely out from behind a lump of ice, where it had been regaling itself on a dead seal, and sauntered slowly out towards the icebergs seaward, not a hundred yards in advance of them.
“Hallo! look there! what a monster!” shouted Fred, as he cocked his musket and sprang forward. “What’ll you do, Tom, you’ve no gun?”