258 A VOYAGE IN THE NORTH SEAS. 



and presenting a pistol, offered him the alternative of pushing off with 

 him in the boat, or having its contents in his body. 



" Easy, captain, easy ! wait a bit, and hear reason," said Bill, who 

 had not expected the captain to be armed, and was moreover asto- 

 nished at this display of resolution ; then, suddenly withdrawing his 

 hand from his breast, he shoved the muzzle of a pistol against the 

 very face of the captain, and shouted, " Now, the first to hell !" Bel- 

 lamy dropped his weapon, and sunk down on his knees, begging his 

 life with the most abject supplications. The smuggler uttered a 

 hoarse, low, disdainful laugh ; walked round to the stern of his sup- 

 pliant, and saluting him with a very emphatic kick upon the part 

 usually devoted to that mode of punishment, advised him "to cut and 

 run, if he did not want to have one of the doctor's amputating knives 

 in his guts." Bellamy was at no loss to understand the coarse jest of 

 the seaman ; he looked round to Arundel, and seeing that he was 

 supporting Flora towards the boat, sprang off along the beach with 

 all the speed in his power. The smuggler fired off one of his pistols, 

 and laughed loudly as he saw the fugitive spring up a yard into the 

 air, and then resume his flight. In a short time Flora was placed on 

 a heap of peajackets in the stern sheets, and the wind being fair, they 

 hoisted their sail, and were presently on their way to the mouth of the 

 inlet. Frank was at first too much occupied with his fair companion 

 to dwell on the state of the men they had left on shore ; further than 

 to reflect that they were only undergoing the fate which had been 

 appointed for him, and that boats might be sent for them from the 

 ship. It would have been madness to wait for, or to go in search of 

 them, as they were in the captain's interest. But other considerations 

 of a more pressing nature presently called for the exclusive exercise 

 of the energies of the little crew of the boat, and the fate of their late 

 companions was forgotten in the new and unforseen dangers which 

 closed round them. 



CHAPTER III. 



He shouted ; nor his friends had failed 



To check the vessel's course ; 

 But so the furious blast prevail'd, 



That pitiless, per force, 

 They left their outcast mate behind, 

 And scudded still before the wind. 



COWPER. 



TUB thick fogs and sudden tempests to which the polar regions are 

 subject combine, with the rapid shifting of the enormous icefields and 

 bergs, to make the navigation of these seas the most perilous in the 

 world. A very short period of time is sufficient totally to alter the 

 face of the ocean, a wide expanse of clear smooth water becoming 

 quickly covered with drifting ice, the pieces of which crashing and 

 grinding against each other amid the impenetrable mists, terrify the 

 unhappy mariner with a knowledge of dangers which he cannot use 

 the slightest endeavours to escape. Innumerable are the " hairbreadth 

 'scapes," and frequent the total destruction which these sudden changes 



