Entering the harbor, Ferratoni pointed to the surface of the water, a little way ahead, where something appeared to be floating. As we drew nearer our wonder increased, for it proved to be a part of a small boat, or canoe. It did not appear to have been in the water for any great length of time, and did not much resemble any craft we could recall. Captain Biffer decided that it was from some island of the South Pacific, and had been brought to us by the salt undercurrent. It had been forced into the harbor, he said, by the recent in-tide caused by the new berg. To me, however, his argument did not seem tenable. I believed the craft had been brought by our warm river from the inner continent, battered to pieces on the way by rocks or crushed against the ice overhead. Edith Gale quite agreed with me in this, as did Ferratoni. Her father also seemed to favor the idea. We took the fragment—it was a piece of a sharp bow—to the forward cabin of the Billowcrest. Here we placed it on a little table, and gathering about it, Edith Gale, Ferratoni, and I constructed some curious fancies of those whose hands had fashioned it. To Ferratoni more than to us it seemed to speak; but, on the other hand, he revealed less of what it told him. XIX. A LONG FAREWELL. And now indeed the shadows gathered and closed in about us. Already our day was but a brief period of mournful twilight. Soon there would be only a chill redness in the northern sky at midday. Then this too would leave us, and the electric glow of the Billowcrest would be our only cheer. With the coming of the dark, the friendly sea life—the penguins and the seals—vanished. They had visited us numerously during the early days of our arrival in Bottle Bay, and we did not realize what a comfort they had been until they were gone. Neither did we quite understand why they should go, when the water of the bay was still open. Yet we knew that they must be wiser in the matter than we, and we could not help being a bit depressed as we watched them becoming fewer each day, until the last one had regarded us solemnly and with a harsh note of farewell had deserted us for the open waters of the north. Instinctively we drew nearer together and our interdependence became daily more evident. What gave trifling pleasure to one was a signal for a general rejoicing, while the slightest individual ailment became a matter of heavy concern to all. There were so few of us, and the darkening waste about was so wide and desolate. Personal consideration and even tenderness crept into our daily round, and any dim shadows of discontent that may have lingered among us were gathered up by the approaching gloom. The Captain informed us that on the Saturday before Easter we should see the sun for the last time. Gale said he was glad Easter fell late that year, and that we ought to do something special in the way of farewell ceremonies.