"Nothing missing from the ship?" "No, sir, nothing." "It's most unaccountable." "Captain Guy," said O'Riley, addressing his commander with a solemn face, "haven't ye more nor wance towld me o' the queer thing in the deserts they calls the _mirage_?" "I have," answered the captain, with a puzzled look. "An' didn't ye say there was somethin' like it in the Polar Seas, that made ye see flags, an' ships, an' things o' that sort when there was no sich things there at all?" "True, O'Riley, I did." "Faix, then, it's my opinion that yon bears is a _mirage_, an' the sooner we git out o' their way the better." A smothered laugh greeted this solution of the difficulty. "I think I can give a better explanation--begging your pardon, O'Riley," said Captain Ellice, who had hitherto looked on with a sly smile. "More than a year ago, when I was driven past this place to the northward, I took advantage of a calm to land a supply of food, and a few stores and medicines, to be a stand-by in case my ship should be wrecked to the northward. Ever since the wreck actually took place I have looked forward to this _cache_ of provisions as a point of refuge on my way south. As I have already told you, I have never been able to commence the southward journey; and now I don't require these things, which is lucky, for the bears seem to have appropriated them entirely." "Had I known of them sooner, captain," said Captain Guy, "the bears should not have had a chance." "That accounts for the supply of tobacco and sticking-plaster we found in the bear's stomach," remarked Fred, laughing. "True, boy; yet it surprises me that they succeeded in breaking into my _cache_, for it was made of heavy masses of stone, many of which required two and three men to lift them, even with the aid of handspikes." "What's wrong with O'Riley?" said Fred, pointing to that eccentric individual, who was gazing intently at the bears, muttering between his teeth, and clinching his cudgel nervously. "Sure it's a cryin' shame," he soliloquized in an undertone, quite unconscious that he was observed, "that ye should escape, ye villains. Av I only had a musket now--but I han't. Arrah! av it was only a spear. Be the mortial! I think I could crack the skull o' the small wan! Faix, then, I'll try!" At the last word, before any one was aware of his intentions, this son of Erin, whose blood was now up, sprang down the cliffs towards the bears, flourishing his stick, and shouting wildly as he went. The bears instantly paused in their game, but showed no disposition to retreat. "Come back, you madman!" shouted the captain; but the captain shouted in vain. "Stop! halt! come back!" chorused the crew. But O'Riley was deaf. He had advanced to within a few yards of the bears, and was rushing forward to make a vigorous attack on the little one. "He'll be killed!" exclaimed Fred in dismay. "Follow me, men," shouted the captain, as he leaped the ridge: "make all the noise you can."