Page:An Antarctic Mystery.pdf/141

Rh "Then that will be Bennet Islet or Tsalal Island, provided there are any taverns in those savage islands, and any Atkinses to keep them."

"Tell me, boatswain—I always get back to Hunt—does he seem so much pleased to have passed the Polar Circle as the Halbrane's old sailors are?"

"Who knows? There's nothing to be got out of him one way or another. But, as I have said before, if he has not already made acquaintance with the ice-barrier."

"What makes you think so?"

"Everything and nothing, Mr. Jeorling. One feels these things; one doesn't think them. Hunt is an old sea-dog, who has carried his canvas bag into every corner of the world."

The boatswain's opinion was mine also, and some inexplicable presentiment made me observe Hunt constantly, for he occupied a large share of my thoughts.

Early in December the wind showed a north-west tendency, and that was not good for us, but we would have no serious right to complain so long as it did not blow due south-west. In the latter case the schooner would have been thrown out of her course, or at least she would have had a struggle to keep in it, and it was better for us, in short, not to stray from the meridian which we had followed since our departure from the New South Orkneys. Captain Len Guy was made anxious by this alteration in the wind, and besides, the speed of the Halbrane was manifestly lessened, for the breeze began to soften on the 4th, and in the middle of the night it died away.

In the morning the sails hung motionless and shrivelled along the masts. Although not a breath reached us, and the surface of the ocean was unruffled, the schooner was