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 THE FOUR FOLLOWING DAYS. 321 flung herself before them, entreating them to desist. They yielded, some of them weeping like children. The awful situation of the colonists was indeed manifest enough, and we may well pity the Lieutenant surrounded by the miserable despairing creatures. Twenty-one persons on an islet of ice which must quickly melt beneath their feet ! The wooded hills had disap- peared with the mass of the island now engulfed ; not a tree was left. There was no wood remaining but the planks of the rough lodging, which would not be nearly enough to build a raft to hold so many. A few days of life were all the colonists could now hope for; June had set in, the mean temperature exceeded 68° Fahrenheit, and the islet must rapidly melt. As a forlorn hope, Hobson thought he would make a reconais- sance of his limited domain, and s6e if any part of it was thicker than where they were all now encamped. In this excursion he was accompanied by Mrs Barnett and Madge. " Do you still hope 1 " inquired the lady of her faithful com- panion, Mrs Barnett did not answer, but walked rapidly along the coast at the Lieutenant's side. No alteration had taken place between Cape Bathurst and Cape Esquimaux, that is to say, for a distance of eight miles. It was a't Cape Esquimaux that the fracture had taken place, and running inland, it followed a curved line as far as the beginning of the lagoon, from which point the shores of the lake, now bathed by the waves of the sea, formed the new coast-line. Towards the upper part of the lagoon there was another fracture, running as far as the coast, between Cape Bathurst and what was once Port Barnett, so that the islet was merely an oblong strip, not more than a mile wide anywhere. Of the hundred and forty square miles which once formed the total superficial area of the island, only twenty remained. Hobson most carefully examined the new conformation of the islet, and found that its thickest part was still at the site of the former factory. He decided, therefore, to retain the encampment where it was, and, strange to say, the instinct of the quadrupeds still led them to congregate about it. A great many of the animals had, however, disappeared with the rest of the island, amongst them many of the dogs which had escaped the former catastrophe. Most of the quadrupeds remaining were X
 * ' I hope ever I " replied Madge.