“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.

But Buzzby was wrong, for at that moment a very small and particularly fat little boy in a fox-skin dress appeared at the mouth of one of the low tunnels that formed the entrance to the nearest hut.  This boy looked exactly like a lady’s muff with a hairy head above it and a pair of feet below.  The instant he observed the strangers he threw up his arms, uttered a shrill cry of amazement, and disappeared in the tunnel.  Next instant a legion of dogs rushed out of the huts barking furiously, and on their heels came the entire population, creeping on their hands and knees out of the tunnel mouths like dark hairy monsters issuing from their holes.  They had spears and knives of ivory with them; but a glance showed the two parties that they were friends, and in a few moments Awatok and his comrades were chattering vociferously round the sailors, and endeavouring by word and sign to make themselves understood.