Page:Works of Jules Verne - Parke - Vol 2.djvu/298

 "Drown him, and see if he ever makes his appearance again," replied Pen, with a grim smile of satisfaction.

About two hundred paces from the ship was a seal-hole, a circular crevasse made by the animals, out of which they come to breathe at certain intervals, basking on the surface of the ice, retreating below when danger approaches.

Pen and Warren directed their course to this hole, and, in spite of the poor dog's vigorous struggles, succeeded in plunging him into the sea, pitilessly placing an immense block of ice afterwards over the opening, to deprive him completely of all hope of release from his liquid prison.

"A good voyage to you!" shouted the cruel Pen as he returned to the vessel with Warren, unperceived by Johnson, for in addition to the thick fog the snow had commenced to fall heavily.

About an hour afterwards Shandon and his two companions came back. Shandon had discovered a single lead to the north-east, and determined to take advantage of it. The crew obeyed his orders with alacrity, for three days still remained; and, moreover, they wished to prove the impracticability of proceeding farther north.

Sawing the ice and tracking went on busily during a part of that night and all next day, and the Forward had gained two miles.

On the 18th they sighted land, and came within five or six cables' length of a singular peak, called, from its strange shape, the Devil's Thumb.

At the very same place the Prince Albert, in 1851 and the Advance, with Dr. Kane, in 1853, were caught in the ice and detained for several weeks.

It was a dismal spot. The weird, fantastic form of the towering peak, the dreary, desolate surroundings, the ominous crackings of the glaciers, echoing and re-echoing over the distant plains, and the vast encircling icebergs, some of them three hundred feet high, invested the whole region with peculiar gloom, and Shandon felt no time must be lost in getting out of it. By dint of strenuous efforts, in twenty- four hours he had pushed on about two miles; but this was not enough. Yet what was to be done? He felt as if his energies were paralysed by the false position in which he was placed, and a sort of shrinking fear began to creep over him, for he knew that he could not carry out the in-