The travellers pushed on as quickly as possible, for the precipices on their left forbade all hope of escape in that direction, while the gap between the ice-belt and the floes, which was filled with a gurgling mixture of ice and water, equally hemmed them in on the right. Worse than all, the tide continued to rise, and when it reached half-way to their knees, they found it dangerous to advance for fear of stepping into rents and fissures which were no longer visible. "What's to be done noo?" inquired Saunders, coming to a full stop, and turning to Buzzby with a look of blank despair. "Dun'no'," replied Buzzby, with an equally blank look of despair; as he stood with his legs apart and his arms hanging down by his side--the very personification of imbecility. "If I wos a fly I'd know wot to do. I'd walk up the side o' that cliff till I got to a dry bit, and then I'd stick on. But, not bein' a fly, in coorse I can't." Buzzby said this in a recklessly facetious tone, and Tom Green followed it up with a remark to the effect that "he'd be blowed if he ever wos in sich a fix in his life;" intimating his belief, at the same time, that his "toes wos freezin'." "No fear o' that," said the second mate; "they'll no freeze as lang as they're in the water. We'll just have to stand here till the tide goes doon." Saunders said this in a dogged tone, and immediately put his plan in force by crossing his arms and planting his feet firmly on the submerged ice and wide apart. Buzzby and Green, however, adopted the wiser plan of moving constantly about within a small circle, and after Saunders had argued for half-an-hour as to the advantages of his plan, he followed their example. The tide rose above their knees, but they had fortunately on boots made by the Esquimaux, which were perfectly waterproof; their feet, therefore, although very cold, were quite dry. In an hour and three-quarters the ice-belt was again uncovered, and the half-frozen travellers resumed their march with the utmost energy. Two hours later and they came to a wide expanse of level ground at the foot of the high cliffs, where a group of Esquimau huts, similar to those they had left, was descried. "They're all deserted too," remarked Buzzby.