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Frequent mists came up and bounded our outlook to a few cable-lengths. Extreme watchfulness and caution were necessary to avoid collision with the floating masses of ice, which were travelling more slowly than the Paracuta. It is also to be noted that, on the southern side, the sky was frequently lighted up by the broad and brilliant rays of the polar aurora.

We had not gone two cable-lengths, when a hundred savages, howling and gesticulating, entered the water up to their waists. I watched to see if their apparition would attract some men from the Nautilus on to the platform. But no. The enormous machine, lying off, was absolutely deserted. Twenty minutes later we were on board. The panels were open.

It must have been about midnight, when, looking astern, I saw a dark shadowy form gliding over the surface of the ocean. I rubbed my eyes, supposing it to be a thing of the imagination; but there it was, not many cable-lengths off, coming up towards us. "See! see, Arthur! What can that be?" I cried out. "A sloop or a small schooner!" he exclaimed. We at once called up Uncle Paul.

If, however, we meant to try for takuo, a huge variety of the mackerel-tribe, or lahe'u, a magnificent bream-shaped fish, we had no need to go so far as the dangerous Tia Kau; three or four cable-lengths from the beach, and right in front of the village, we could lie in water as smooth as glass, and seventy fathoms in depth.

But the Nautilus, for fear of running aground, had stopped about three cable-lengths from a strand over which reared a superb heap of rocks. The boat was launched; the Captain, two of his men, bearing instruments, Conseil, and myself were in it. It was ten in the morning. I had not seen Ned Land. Doubtless the Canadian did not wish to admit the presence of the South Pole.

So the quarry, although within a few cable-lengths of the shore, is abandoned, useless, and a nuisance, like Robinson Crusoe's boat, with the same drawbacks as to availability.

During the interval of necessary inaction, the floating fragments of the wreck had drifted to a considerable distance, or rather had the raft, buoyed up by its empty casks, glided past them, and was now several cable-lengths to leeward. They were compelled, therefore, to work up the wind and their progress was consequently slow, so slow as to become vexatious.

Bang! crash! Eight jets of flame and smoke leapt from the port battery of the nearest junk, which had by this time drawn down broad on our lee quarter, some three cable-lengths distant, and the next instant the air all round us seemed thick with humming missiles, many of which struck the hull and bulwarks of the ship, making the splinters fly, while others passed through our lower canvas, perforating it in two or three dozen places, and providing a nice little repairing job for the hands in some of their future spare moments.

The wind, the sun, the rain, have wiped out the rest. So the quarry remains abandoned, at a few cable-lengths from the shore, as cumbrous and useless as Robinson Crusoe's canoe in the same unfortunate circumstances.

During a part of the night and the following day the working of the saws and the hauling were actively kept up; the Forward gained about two miles further north. On the 18th she was in sight of land, and at five or six cable-lengths from a peculiar peak, called from its strange shape the Devil's Thumb.