62 FARTHEST XORTH 



while our friend to port, lying almost in the line of the 

 wind, has kept somewhat quieter. 



" Everything has an end, as the boy said when he was 

 in for a birching. Perhaps the growth of this ridge has 

 come to an end now, perhaps not ; the one thing is just 

 as likely as the other. 



'• To-day the work of extricating the Frani is pro- 

 ceeding; we will at all events get the rails clear of 

 the ice. It presents a most imposing sight by the light 

 of the moon, and, however conscious of one's own 

 strength, one cannot help respecting an antagonist who 

 commands such powers, and who, in a few moments, is 

 capable of putting mighty machinery into action. It 

 is rather an awkward battering-ram to face. The 

 Frani is equal to it, but no other ship could have re- 

 sisted such an onslaught. In less than an hour this ice 

 will build up a wall alongside us and over us which it 

 might take us a month to get out of, and possibly longer 

 than that. There is something gigantic about it ; it is 

 like a struggle between dwarfs and an ogre, in which the 

 pvgmies have to resort to cunning and trickery to get 

 out of the clutches of one who seldom relaxes his grip. 

 The Frani is the ship which the pygmies have built 

 with all their cunning in order to fight the ogre ; and 

 on board this ship they work as busily as ants, while 

 the ogre only thinks it worth while to roll over and 

 twist his body about now and then, but every time he 

 turns over it seems as though the nutshell would be 



