"Oh no. It is not so much an act of strength to dart a harpoon into a soft thing like a white whale, but of practice and knack. The shaft of the harpoon is so long and heavy, that if it is directed well and with good aim it curves over and falls with its own weight as well." "Then you will let me try!" cried Steve eagerly. "If the captain is willing, of course you shall. I could sooner teach you to strike a whale than one of your sailors--Hamish or Andra." "Why?" said Steve eagerly. "Because you are young and pliant, and eager to learn. You would throw it with your head as well as with your arm. They would throw it with the arm, and trust only to their strength." "Here, give us the telescope!" cried Steve. "I want to find a shoal and begin at once." "I daresay," said the Norseman, smiling; "but oil-fishing is not so easy as that, or people would soon make fortunes. I have been on the look-out for hours, but there is nothing in sight." "But there'll be plenty of walrus when we get to Spitzbergen?" "Perhaps. I have been there when we could load our boat in a very little while, and I have been there when all through the season we have hardly seen a walrus." "Oh, but if there are none at Spitzbergen, and we don't find the _Ice Blink_, we must go somewhere else." "If," said the Norseman, smiling. "If? If what?" "If we can. The ice may stop us." "What, for a day or two?" "For a season or two seasons. One can never tell, sir. The ice is king up here, and has its own way." "Yes, but kings are conquered sometimes," said Steve merrily; "perhaps we shall master, find the _Ice Blink_, and go right up to the North Pole, where the open Polar Sea lies." "No open Polar Sea lies up there, young gentleman," said Johannes gravely; and as he spoke he gazed northward with a curious far-off look in his eyes. "I have heard all of that before, but after you pass the southern edge of the floe it is all ice, ice right away. I know there is land here and there, for one year, eastward of Spitzbergen, we came upon a rocky piece of coast; but whether it was an island or a great country running for hundreds of miles, no one yet knows." "Well, but how grand to land there and find out," said Steve eagerly. "I should like that. Would Captain Marsham sail there?" Johannes smiled. "It does not depend on Captain Marsham," he replied. "Look," he said, pointing northward, "there is the edge of the floe. Suppose you knew that there was land two hundred miles northward, how would you sail there?" "Of course you could not for the ice." "That's right," said Johannes; "and so it is year by year. By about August the floe has broken up, and part of it is melted, and one can sail a little way farther north, not very far some years, at others for a long distance; but the time always comes when the ice is solid and the ship cannot pass, and then at nights it begins to freeze again, and you have to hurry back for fear of being frozen up."