Crew insist on lowering the boats and pulling them northward over the
ice to open water in hopes of being picked up. Good-bye." In the
position columns of this date the latitude was given as 62 degrees 44
minutes S. and the longitude as 30 degrees 50 minutes E. There were no
more entries.
"What tragedy docs this tell of?" said the doctor. "They left this
ship in the ice fifty years ago. Who can tell if they were saved?"
"Who indeed?" said Boston. "The mate hadn't much hope. He said
'Good-bye.' But one thing is certain; we are the first to board her
since. I take it she stayed down there in the ice until she drifted
around the Pole, and thawed out where she could catch the Cape Horn
current, which took her up to the Hope. Then she came up with the
South African Current till she got into the Equatorial drift, then
west, and up with the Guiana Current into the Caribbean Sea to the
southward of us, and this morning the flood-tide brought her through.
It isn't a question of winds; they're too variable. It's currents,
though it may have taken her years to get here. But the surprising
part of it is that she hasn't been boarded. Let's look in the hold and
see what the fire has done.
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