98 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. 



making good their escape to sea; but this chase 

 occupied many hours, and meanwhile the two ship- 

 keepers took advantage of the captain's absence to 

 institute a search for a cask of brandy which was 

 kept in his cabin — merely with the harmless inten- 

 tion of smelling it, of course ; but from smelling 

 they not unnaturally got to tasting, and from tast- 

 ing they soon became helplessly drunk. While 

 they were in this happy state of oblivion to bears, 

 icebergs, and things in general, one of the sudden 

 dense fogs of the north came on, the tide rose, the 

 iceberg floated, and in a few minutes it, and the 

 sloop along with it, were out of sight of the island 

 and drifting away in the fog. The hunting party 

 had thought nothing of the fog, as they imagined 

 the iceberg to be " fast ;" so, when they had flensed 

 all their bears, they rowed round to where they had 

 left the sloop, and were mightily disconcerted at 

 seeing neither sloop nor iceberg. They shouted, 

 and fired signal-shots, and rowed out to sea, and 

 rowed all around, until they got so bewildered that 

 they lost the island themselves. However, after a 

 great deal of trouble they found the island again, 

 and waited upon it for several days, expecting, of 

 course, that when the weather cleared the sloop 

 would return. The weather cleared, but no sloop 

 appearing, there stared them in the face the alter- 

 native of passing a winter of starvation and almost 

 certain death on the island, or of attempting to 

 cross the stormy 480 miles of sea which divided 

 them from Norway in a small open boat 



