Worn as I was, I made little delay to set out for that ship; and I had
not travelled over water and ice four hours when, to my in-describable
joy, I made out from the top of a steep floe that she was the _Boreal_.
It seemed most strange that she should be anywhere hereabouts: I could
only conclude that she must have forced and drifted her way thus far
westward out of the ice-block in which our party had left her, and
perhaps now was loitering here in the hope of picking us up on our way
to Spitzbergen.
In any case, wild was the haste with which I fought my way to be at her,
my gasping mouth all the time drawn back in a _rictus_ of laughter at
the anticipation of their gladness to see me, their excitement to hear
the grand tidings of the Pole attained. Anon I waved the paddle, though
I knew that they could not yet see me, and then I dug deep at the
whitish water. What astonished me was her main-sail and fore-mast
square-sail--set that calm morning; and her screws were still, for she
moved not at all.
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