"More refugees from inland, eh?" exclaimed a rough but cordial seaman, who proved to be the captain's harpooner and boat-steerer. "We have some traders from Aleukan already with us."
"Ah!" said Professor Henderson, "we have been looking for them. They have arrived in safety, then?"
"But nearly frozen," said the boat-steerer.
"And where are the people of Nigatuk?"
"We believe all those not killed or burned in the first earthquake were taken off by the United States revenue cutter Bear. She sailed for Bering Sea some time before the final earthquake."
"And where is the ocean?" demanded Phineas Roebach.
"It was sucked away in a great tidal wave and left the Orion high and dry yonder," said the sailor.
It was evident that the sailors had no appreciation of the real happening. They did not know that they were cut off from the old earth by thousands of miles of space. "Your bark's name is Orion, then?" queried the professor.
"Aye, aye, sir," said the boat-steerer. "The Orion, out o' New Bedford; the only whaler under sail in these seas, I reckon. Most o' them that's after the ile is steam kettles," he added, thus disrespectfully referring to the fleet of steam whalers from San Francisco.
"But we got 'em all beat, I guarantee," he added, grinning. "We was chasin' a school of big fellers when the sea sucked out and left us an' them high and dry. But the skipper says the sea will come back in good time and mean-times we gits the ile."