'Show me to the place. What land lies nearest to it? What is the usual track of ships passing Cape Horn?'
He hung back, evidently ignorant of maps and of latitude and longitude. Mr. Hobbs, picking up a ruler, approached the mantelpiece, and, peering close at the dingy map, presently put the end of the ruler upon a part of it and said:
'This, as nearly as possible, will be the place where the crew abandoned the hull.'
'Is that land there?'
Mr. Hobbs slanted his head to read, and exclaimed; 'Ay; in this little group we have—my sight is not what it was—ah! the South Orkneys. These to the left—' with straining sight and some difficulty he spelt out 'South Shetlands.'
'What sort of islands are they?' I asked.
'About the most desolate, froze-up, oninhabited rocks on that side of the world,' answered Wall. 'There's nothen to be thought of along o' them.'
'Why?' I asked.
'Because going ashore there would be like hittin' ice. In the swell that's always a-running, the hull 'ud go to pieces with the first blow, like a loosed faggot. Their one chance,' he added, in a voice of deep conviction, 'lies in their being fallen in with and taken off. That may have happened. If so, it'll be a question of waiting.'
'If so,' cried Mr. Hobbs, with a raised manner of cheerfulness that was scarcely sincere I thought, 'Captain Burke will bear in mind the suspense and anxiety you and the young lady's father are suffering, and exert his experience as an old seaman to promptly communicate, so that, let us trust, if there be good news in store, we'll get it quickly.'