160 THE WORLD OF ICH.

There was a deep, solemn. stillness all around—a
stillness widely different from that peaceful compo-
sure which characterizes a calm day in an inhabited
land. It was the death-like stillness of that most
peculiar and dreary desolation which results from
the total absence of animal existence. The silence
was so oppressive that it was with a feeling of relief
he listened to the low, distant voices of the men as
they paused ever and anon in their busy task to note
and remark on the progress of their work. In the
intense cold of an Arctic night the sound of voices
can be heard at a much greater distance than usual,
and although the men were far off, and hummocks of
ice intervened between them and Fred, their tones
broke distinctly, though gently, on his ear. Yet these
sounds did not interrupt the unusual stillness. They
served rather to impress him more forcibly with the
vastness of that tremendous solitude in the midst of
which he stood.

Gradually his thoughts turned homeward, and he
thought of the dear ones who circled round his own.
fireside, and perchance talked of him—of the various
companions he had left behind, and the scenes of
life and beauty where he used to wander. But such
memories led him irresistibly to the Far North again ;
for in all home-scenes the figure of his father started
up, and he was back again in an instant, searching
toilsomely among the floes and icebergs of the Polar
Seas, It was the invariable ending of poor Fred's
meditations, and, however successful he might be in