"Bad luck In said the boatswain, "for now if we were to pass by land we should not perceive it.""And our drift?"

"More considerable than yesterday, Mr. Jeorling. The captain has sounded, and he makes the speed no less than between three and four miles."

"And what do you conclude from this?"

"I conclude that we must be within a narrower sea, since the current is so strong. I should not be surprised if we had land on both sides of us within ten or fifteen miles."

"This, then, would be a wide strait that cuts the antarctic continent?"

"Yes. Our captain is of that opinion."

"And, holding that opinion, is he not going to make an attempt to reach one or other of the coasts of this strait ?"

"And how ?"

"With the boat."

"Risk the boat in the midst of this fog!" exclaimed the boatswain, as he crossed his arms. "What are you thinking of, Mr. Jeorling? Can we cast anchor to wait for it? And all the chances would be that we should never see it again. Ah! if we only had the Halbrane!"

But there was no longer a Halbrane!

In spite of the difficulty of the ascent through the half-condensed vapour, I climbed up to the top of the iceberg, but when I had gained that eminence I strove in vain to pierce the impenetrable grey mantle in which the waters were wrapped.

I remained there, hustled by the north-east wind, which was beginning to blow freshly and might perhaps rend the fog asunder. But no, fresh vapours accumulated around our floating refuge, driven up by the immense ventilation of the open sea. Under the double action of the atmospheric and antarctic currents, we drifted more and more rapidly, and I perceived a sort of shudder pass throughout the vast bulk of the iceberg.

Then it was that I felt myself under the dominion of a sort of hallucination, one of those hallucinations which must have troubled tile mind of Arthur Pym. It seemed to me that I was losing myself in his extraordinary personality; at last I was beholding all that he had seen! Was not that impenetrable mist the curtain of vapours which he had seen in his delirium? I peered into it, seeking for those luminous rays which had streaked the sky from east to west! I sought in its depths for that limitless cataract, rolling in silence from the height of some immense rampart lost in the vastness of the zenith! I sought for the awful white giant of the South Pole!

At length reason resumed her sway. This visionary madness, intoxicating while it lasted, passed off by degrees, and I descended the slope to our camp.

The whole day passed without a change. The fog never once lifted to give us a glimpse outside of its muffling folds, and if the iceberg, which had travelled forty miles since the previous day, had passed by the extremity of the axis of the earth, we should never know it.

CHAPTER XXI.

AMID THE MISTS.

So this was the sum of all our efforts, trials and disappointments! Not to speak of the destruction of the Halbrane, the expedition had already cost nine lives. From thirty-two men who had embarked on the schooner, our number was reduced to twenty-three: how low was that figure yet to fall? Between the south pole and antarctic circle lay twenty degrees, and those would have to be cleared in a month or six weeks at the most; if not, the iceberg barrier would be re-formed and closed-up. As for wintering in that part of the antarctic circle, not a man of us could have survived it. Besides, we had lost all hope of rescuing the survivors of the Jane, and the sole desire of the crew was to escape as quickly as possible from the awful solitudes of the south. Our drift, which had been south, down to the pole, was now north, and, if that direction should continue, perhaps vle might be favoured with such good fortune as would make up for all the evil that had befallen us! In any case there was nothing for it but, in familiar phrase, "to let ourselves go." The mist did not lift during the end, 3rd, and 4th of February, and it would have been difficult to make out the rate of progress of our iceberg since it had passed the pole.