"Well, I think he has."
"I don't know," Lucile said sleepily. Fatigue and the keen Arctic air were making her drowsy.
Presently, she leaned back against an ice-cake and fell asleep.
"I'll let her sleep," Marian mused. "It'll give her strength for what comes next, whatever that is."
An hour passed, but no call echoed across the silent white expanse. Marian, now pacing back and forth across a narrow ice-pan, now pausing to listen, felt her anxiety redoubled by every succeeding moment. What could have happened to Phi? Had some mishap befallen him? Had a slip thrown him into some dangerous crevice? Had thin ice dropped him to sure death in the surging undercurrent? Or had he merely wandered too far and lost his way?
Whatever may have happened, he did not return.
At length, with patience exhausted, she climbed the highest ice-pile and gazed away to the north. The first glance brought forth a cry of dismay. A narrow lane of dark water, stretching from east to west, extended as far as eye could see in each direction. It lay not a quarter of a mile from the spot where she stood.
"He's across and can never recross to us," she moaned in despair. "No creature could brave that undercurrent and live. And there is no other way."
Then, as the full terror of their situation flashed upon her, she sank down in a heap and buried her face in her hands.
They were two lone girls ten miles from any land, on the bosom of a vast ice-floe, which was slowly but surely creeping toward the unknown northern sea. They had no chart, no compass, no trail to follow and no guide. To move seemed futile, yet to remain where they were meant sure disaster.