Page:Works of Jules Verne - Parke - Vol 2.djvu/346

 "Mr. Shandon," replied Hatteras, coolly, "lay that man in irons."

"But, captain," objected Shandon, what the man has said is"

"Repeat what this man has said, and I'll have you locked in your cabin and guarded. Seize that man! Does no one hear me?"

Johnson, Bell, and Simpson went forward; but the infuriated Pen was beside himself. He caught up a hand-spike, and brandishing it above his head, cried out:

"Touch me who dare!"

Hatteras went right up to him with a loaded revolver, which he aimed at his head, and said quietly: "Lift your finger, and I blow your brains out."

A murmur of disapprobation was heard; but it died away immediately when Hatteras said: "Silence among you, or that is a dead man."

Pen made no further attempt at resistance, but allowed Johnson and Bell to disarm him and lead him away to the hold.

"Go, Brunton!" said Hatteras.

The engineer obeyed without further parley, and the captain went up to the poop, followed by the Doctor.

As soon as the steam had acquired sufficient pressure, the anchors were lifted, and the Forward stood off for Point Beecher, and went towards the east, cutting through the newly-formed ice with her sharp prow.

She had to wend her way through narrow channels between numerous small islands. The ice-streams were constantly threatening to unite, hummocks had formed here and there already, and it was easy to see that the first frost that set in would consolidate the whole into one impenetrable mass.

Yet every now and then the sun would reappear and chase away the whirling snow, the thermometer would rise several degrees, difficulties would vanish as if by enchantment, and a stretch of clear, open water would greet the eye.

On Thursday, the 26th of July, the brig sailed close past Isle Dundas, still keeping her prow steadily towards the north; but almost directly afterwards she came to an enormous bank of ice, eight to nine feet high, composed of small icebergs that had been detached from the coast.