Thyra: a Romance of the Polar Pit

Far from altering our plans to accompany Jofrid on her return, Hervard's warning only increased our desire to see the Orm. But we added a few more pounds of cartridges to our packs, and gave Smider a hearty welcome to our party. At the last I tried to dissuade Thyra from going, and had she been thinking only of herself, I might have succeeded. All my arguments, however, failed utterly, for the girl's purpose was to lessen the bitterness of the Vala's return. She laughed at the possibility of danger, and I was estopped from mentioning her arm. It was healing rapidly, and I had myself given assurance that it would not suffer from the journey.

One of the last acts of Balderston and myself before leaving Biornstad was to determine the town's position on the chart, by a series of careful observations. They placed us at longitude 71 deg 11 min west, and latitude 89 deg 3 min 17 sec north,--a distance from the Pole no greater than is covered by a fast express within an hour. But the line northwards ran directly out over the abyss of Niflheim, and, much to our disappointment, we figured that the Ormvol could be little nearer the Pole than was Updal. For the time being, therefore, we had to give up The hope of obtaining the great objective point of our expedition.