And the poor little dog?

Why, after he had kicked and coughed a little, he sneezed so hard, that he sneezed himself clean out of his skin, and turned into a water dog, and jumped and danced around Tom, and ran over the crests of the waves, and snapped at the jellyfish and the mackerel, and followed Tom the whole way to the Other-end-of-Nowhere.

Then they went on again, till they began to see the peak of Jan Mayen’s Land, standing up like a white sugar loaf, two miles above the clouds.

And there they fell in with a whole flock of mollymocks, [Footnote:  The mollymocks, or mallemawks, are petrels, larger than the stormy petrels.] who were feeding on a dead whale.

“These are the fellows to show you the way,” said Mother Carey’s chickens; “we cannot help you farther north.  We don’t like to get among the ice pack, for fear it should nip our toes; but the mollys dare fly anywhere.”

So the petrels called to the mollys; but they were so busy and greedy, gobbling and packing and spluttering and fighting over the blubber, that they did not take the least notice.

“Come, come,” said the petrels, “you lazy, greedy lubbers, this young gentleman is going to Mother Carey, and if you don’t attend to him, you won’t earn your discharge from her, you know.”

“Greedy we are,” said a great, fat old molly, “but lazy we ain’t; and as for lubbers, we’re no more lubbers than you.  Let’s have a look at the lad.”

And he flapped right into Tom’s face, and stared at him in the most impudent way (for the mollys are audacious fellows, as all whalers know), and then asked him where he hailed from, and what land he sighted last.

And when Tom told him, he seemed pleased, and said he was a good plucked one to have got so far.

“Come along, lads,” he said to the rest, “and give this little chap a cast over the pack, for Mother Carey’s sake.  We’ve eaten blubber enough for to-day, and we’ll e’en work out a bit of our time by helping the lad.”

So the mollys took Tom up on their backs, and flew off with him, laughing and joking—­and oh, how they did smell of train oil!

And now they came to the edge of the pack, and beyond it they could see Shiny Wall looming, through mist, and snow, and storm.  But the pack rolled horribly upon the swell, and the ice giants fought and roared, and leapt upon each other’s backs, and ground each other to powder, so that Tom was afraid to venture among them, lest he should be ground to powder too.

But the good mollys took Tom and his dog up, and flew with them safe over the pack and the roaring ice giants, and set them down at the foot of Shiny Wall.

“And where is the gate?” asked Tom.

“There is no gate,” said the mollys.

“No gate?” cried Tom, aghast.

“None; never a crack of one, and that’s the whole of the secret, as better fellows, lad, than you have found to their cost; and if there had been, they’d have killed by now every right whale [Footnote:  A right whale is a whale which yields much whalebone and much oil; it is so called because it is the “right” whale to take.] that swims the sea.”