out someone at the bows, leaning well over, looking my way. Something
put it into my head that it was Sallitt, and I began an impassioned
shouting. 'Hi! Sallitt! Hallo! Hi!' I called.

I did not see him move: I was still a good way off: but there he stood,
leaning steadily over, looking my way. Between me and the ship now was
all navigable water among the floes, and the sight of him so visibly
near put into me such a shivering eagerness, that I was nothing else but
a madman for the time, sending the kayak flying with venomous digs in
quick-repeated spurts, and mixing with the diggings my crazy wavings,
and with both the daft shoutings of 'Hallo! Hi! Bravo! I have _been to
the Pole!_'

Well, vanity, vanity. Nearer still I drew: it was broad morning, going
on toward noon: I was half a mile away, I was fifty yards. But on board
the _Boreal_, though now they _must_ have heard me, seen me, I observed
no movement of welcome, but all, all was still as death that still
Arctic morning, my God. Only, the ragged sail flapped a little, and--one
on each side--two ice-floes sluggishly bombarded the bows, with hollow
sounds.

I was certain now that Sallitt it was who looked across the ice: but
when the ship swung a little round, I noticed that the direction of his
gaze was carried with her movement, he no longer looking my way.

'Why, Sallitt!' I shouted reproachfully: 'why, Sallitt, man...!' I
whined.

But even as I shouted and whined, a perfect wild certainty was in my
heart: for an aroma like peach, my God, had been suddenly wafted from