THE WORLD OF ICE. 183

“Paix ye’re right. I njver thought o’ that.”

Mivins was evidently a little puffed up with a feel-
ine of satisfaction at the clever way in which he had
got out of the difficulty, without displaying his igno-
rance of astronomy, and was even venturing, in the
pride of his heart, to make some speculative and
startling assertions in regard to the “’eavenly bodies ”
generally, when Buzzby put his head up the hatch-
way.

“Hallo! messmates, wot’s ado now? Here’s the
supper awaitin’, and the tea bilin’ like blazes!”

Mivins instantly dived down below, as the sailors
express it; and we may remark, in passing, that the
expression, in this particular case, was not inappro-
priate, for Mivins, as we have elsewhere said, was re-
markably agile and supple, and gave beholders a sort
of impression that he went head-foremost at every-
thing. O’Riley followed at a more reasonable rate,
and in a few minutes the crew of the Dolphin were
seated at supper in the cabin, eating with as much
zest, and laughing and chatting as blithely, as if they
were floating calmly on their ocean home in temperate
climes. Sailors are proverbially light-hearted, and in
their moments of comfort and social enjoyment they
easily forget their troubles. The depression of spirits
that followed the first disappearance of the sun soon
wore off, and they went about their various avocations
cheerfully by the light of the aurora borealis and the
stars.

The cabin, in which they now all lived together,