"An island? Yes," said the captain; "but an island hemmed in on two or three sides by the ice. Look, we are close to the pack which touches it on the north. We can get no farther this way, and I daresay that the channel between the island and Greenland is one solid floe. Yes, that's a fine bear; and look, there is its mate." Steve shaded his eyes and gazed shoreward, to see the second bear slowly rise up on its hind legs, looking in the distance wonderfully like some human being, watching the vessel gliding slowly along over the clear water. "You will land and have a try for the bears?" said the doctor; and at another time Steve would have felt all eagerness to be of the party; but he was disappointed, and his eyes were wandering over the shore, which suddenly ended and gave place to ice. "Where shall we land?" said the captain quietly. "No boat can get ashore amongst these breakers, and we can go no farther north. It will be deep water right up to the floe, so we will go close to it in case there is a passage between it and the land. But I doubt it; and our friends yonder will save their skins unless we can land south and come up to them along the shore." "Then you think they have come over the ice?" "Of course; just as reindeer do from other regions hundreds of miles away." They steamed on, passing the bears, which, after watching them for a time as if feeling their security, went on searching among the rock pools and crevices for food. A quarter of an hour later the engine was slowed; five minutes later it was stopped, and the _Hvalross_ lay in the crystal water at the foot of a perpendicular ice cliff ten or fifteen feet high, wonderfully regular at the top, and extending straight to the land on one side, where it met the high rocky cliffs. On their right it stretched away, as far as the telescopes could help them to see, an impassable icy barrier, shutting off all ships from further progress to the north. "You see," said the captain, "we cannot land here, and we can go no farther till the ice breaks up or opens out in channels." "Don't you think a boat could land just there, sir, where the sea is calmer?" said Steve, who felt a strange attraction to the shore. Captain Marsham did not answer, but stood looking in the direction pointed out by Steve, where for a few moments the shore did look quiet; the next minute a heavy swell glided slowly in, rose, curled over, and deluged the shore with white water. "Do you want me to answer your question, Steve?" he said at last. "That breaker was at least ten feet high. Do you think a boat could live there?" "No," said Steve sorrowfully. "But you will try to the south, sir?"