But there was plenty yet to see; for, as the mist reached the shore, it seemed to grow more dense, and began to roll in great clouds up some vast slope, and then higher and higher, revealing a long, narrow beach; then a line of chaotic rocks, which had fallen from above; then higher and higher, cliff upon cliff, weather-beaten to a hundred hues; and up above these again, towering mountains; lastly, as if to give the culminating beauty to the scene, the clouds rolled away from one tremendous peak, attended by a score of minor heights, crowned with dazzling ice and snow, vivid and beautiful in the glorious summer sun. "That's worth some trouble to come and see!" said Captain Marsham. "Worth trouble?" cried Steve, whose heart was swelling with delight and the words he wanted to say. "Oh!" That ejaculation contained all. It was very short, but it meant everything; and it was some time before he woke up to the knowledge of what he was gazing at and what was being done. It was with quite a start that he turned on being touched upon the shoulder, and found Dr Handscombe at his side. "Well, Steve boy," said the doctor, "what do you think of Jan Mayen?" "Is this Jan Mayen--the island?" "Yes." "Beautiful! lovely! What a place to live in!" "Delightful!" said the doctor drily. "Not a tree hardly a green thing, eternal ice and snow!" "Oh, but it's dazzling, lovely!" "Yes, when the mist's off it," said the doctor. "And it is not quite off that mountain." "Yes, quite off. That smoke you are looking at is from a volcano." "And shall we land and explore it?" "I hope so." "When?" "That depends on the captain. I hope to spend a few good days there." "And do you think _they_ are here?" "Impossible to say yet," said the doctor. "If our friends have taken refuge here, it will be on this southern shore, where they could get most sunshine; but I can see no signal flying, no sign of a wreck. But there, I daresay Captain Marsham will run close in for us to explore." By this time the mist had been driven back so far that they saw, opening before them, white and glistening in the sunshine like a band of silver stretching beyond the floe, the ice of the polar ocean. It was miles away to north, to east, and west, and apparently only a few feet above the sea, that, strain their eyes as they would, there was always the floe offering itself as a barrier to stay further progress in that direction. To their left, and extending toward the north, there was the island; but apparently, too, it did not go very far in the latter direction, but trended round, as if that were the termination of the island. Southward they could not make out its extent. "Well, Handscombe, what do you say to landing and examining the wreck?" It was the captain who spoke, and the doctor and Steve both echoed his last word. "Wreck?"