It was not until midnight that there was the first hint of trouble. Then Lowson same up to say that he was having difficulty with the feedpump, and Reay to report that the 6-inch motor-pump which we had borrowed from the Rollicker and put down No. 3 could not be persuaded to go, and that there was too much water in this hold. It was nothing very serious, but quite enough to unsettle us and keep us up most of the night.

The next day the feed-pump and the 6-inch motor-pump behaved perfectly and the weather remained fine.

The next night trouble began again, and in addition the wind was freshening and the glass falling. It is, perhaps, difficult to explain why it is so much more depressing and alarming when things go wrong at night; but those who know the feeling that comes over one about an hour before morning "stand-to," will appreciate our state of mind on being turned out of bed about midnight to climb down into a dark engine-room (lit only by the glimmer of a few duck lamps) across the floors of which the water swishes as the ship rolls, and to be told that the feed-pump-without which the boilers cannot be

We grew to hate that feedpump with a bitter hatred. All day it would work, wheezing and protesting it is true, but sufficiently; but every night, unfailingly, something would go wrong with it, and frenzied repairs would have to be done, while we debated how long we could chance it before drawing the fires.

Nor was it only the feedpump. Everything else which could go wrong chose the small hours of the morning to do so.

Watching the lights of the homeward bound transports passing us, we would begin to understand the feelings of those who "brought the Bolivar out across the Bay."

Our objective was the Fjords (for we were in no condition to go round the North Cape), and we were not far away when the glass began to tumble down, the wind to inorease, and the swell to get up alarmingly. This was in the late afternoon.

About four miles away on our port hand we could see towering up the black cliffs of the most desolate country in the world.

Ahead of us the Rollicker was making heavy weather of it, and we could watch the seas breaking over the foredeck. The tow-rope we hardly cared to watch as it tightened suddenly and slackened again.

Nor did we care to put our heads down No. 1 hold and listen to the creaking and groaning noises which came from the wooden stanchions, and, as we suspected, from our patch.

It was an anxious afternoon, but, as usual, the worst did not come until night, when we could actually see winking ahead of us one of the lights just inside the North Cape.

By this time the Ulidia was rolling really heavily, and was making a good deal more water, which necessitated running the motor-pumps in No. 2 and 3 more frequently, and keeping both steam - pumps going on the engine-room. It was bitterly cold on deck, with driving showers of sleet, and the wind and sea were inoreasing rapidly.

None of us felt inclined for sleep. About midnight Lowson came up with an anxious face to say that the feed-pump had given out once more. This was nothing unusual, but this time repairs seemed more diffioult than before. At last Lowson came up again to say that no water was showing in the glass, and that, if the pump was not forcing water into the boilers within the next ten minutes or so, he must draw fires-which meant stopping the pumps on the engine-room. Since the weather had got worse, it had taken these two pumps all their time to control the leak in the engine-room, though previously one had done it easily.

There was only one thing to be done to connect up the

But 12-in. suctions, though they may be called "flexible," are not easy things to handle —particularly by hand, by the light of a duck lamp, and with a ship rolling so heavily that it is difficult to stand.

Forcing our way along the deck with difficulty against the wind and gusts of icy rain, we climbed precariously down No. 2 hold, and Reay, our two passengers, and I were soon hard at work, trying to fit in the length of iron piping which should connect up the pump to the stokehold suctions. Haste was more than desirable, for by now Lowson had had to draw his fires, the engineroom pumps were stopped, the engine-room was rapidly filling up, and Lowson and the Russian engineer were working on the feed-pump with the water over their knees.

The law of the obstinacy of inanimate objects now came into full play. Two of us could just lift the heavy length of iron piping and hold it in position for a minute or so. The others would make frantic attempts to drop the securing bolts into position and screw up the nuts. Several times we got all in place except one, only to find that nothing would induce this one to fall into its slot. Our failures were only by fractions of an inch, but unless the joints were tight

it was useless to try the pump. Meanwhile several anxious messengers came up from the engine-room to give us Mr Lowson's compliments and ask how long we thought it would be before the pump would be under way, as there was now three or four feet of water on the engine-room floors. The water was also rising in No. 2, but none of us had time to start up the 6-in. pump.

Eventually, and for no apparent reason, we got the got the length of piping into position, and the big pump was now connected up to the stokehold and engine - room. But before a pump will work, it must be "primed"- that is, the suotion-pipe must be filled with water. There was an automatic priming device, but this had previously given out, and all we could do was to prime the pump with buckets, pouring the water down through the tope of the discharge-pipe. Filling forty feet or so of piping 12 in. in diameter from buckets which have to be lowered on a line into the sea from the upper deck of a ship rolling her rails into the water, and then laboriously pulled up again, half the contents being lost in the process, is not a pleasant or an easy job at midnight in a gale of wind off the North Саре.

Though the water was ioy oold and we were wet through, we were hot enough before it was finished. However, finished it was at last, and we stood anxiously by as Reay swung the starting-handle of

She coughed

the big pump. and spluttered, but in a second or two went away with that full-throated roar which gave us all renewed confidence, and Lowson came up to say that the water was falling rapidly in the engine-room, and that the feed-pump showed signs of becoming more tractable.

We were in time—but only just in time, for there was a great deal of loose water in the engine - room, which was rushing from side to side of the ship in a very dangerous manner as she rolled.

There was no time to rest, for we had now to get the 6-in. pumps in No. 2 and No. 3 holds going to pump out these compartments. This meant more adventures in the darkness in the bottom of the holds, shifting suctions, with icy water and pieces of timber swirling about.

We emerged on deck again at last, but only to find that the wind and sea were, if anything, increasing. At last Grey, who was in charge on board the Rollicker, evidently decided that the case was desperate, and that he would turn and run for it before the sea. Turning was unpleasant, and it was still more unpleasant to feel that we were heading back again in the direction from which we had come.

Altogether, we were not very cheerful that night, though we had so many actual troubles that we had no time to worry as to our certain fate if the tow-rope parted.

Dawn broke cold and grey, with driving rain and a wind

so strong that one could not stand upright against it, and we saw that the Rollicker was heading towards the black wall of cliffs-evidently making, as we had expected Grey would do, for Tana Fiord. It Was some hours before we made the opening, and even then the sea was almost as bad as outside. The fiord was perhaps two miles wide, and the wind rushed down it as down a funnel. We went up farther and farther until Grey apparently decided that he had gone far enough, for the chart showed that the fiord narrowed, and it would be impossible for the Rollicker, with the Ulidia astern of her, to turn round and come out of a narrow place. Having arrived at an open stretch, the Rollicker therefore proceeded to tow us round and round in circles, uttering plaintive screams on her whistle, presumably for a pilot, though the place looked so desolate that one would have thought it incredible that human beings could live there. This process went on for some hours, for the water in these fiords is hundreds of fathoms deep right up to the very edge of the cliffs, and there was no possibility of anchoring.

Eventually, to our surprise, we saw an open boat, evidently with a powerful motor, making her way out towards us.

The wind was still blowing with hurricane force and the seas were mountainous, and it was some time before the boat, wonderfully handled though, she was, could get close

enough for the pilot to spring aboard the Rollicker.

An hour later the Ulidia was passing, with very little room to spare, between two precipitous eliffs into a little land-locked bay where we had just room to swing to our anchor. The waters of the bay were as calm as glass, and it was a wonderful relief to escape the violence of the wind.

Here we lay for two days until the gale had blown itself out, working at the feed-pump and making ready for next dash for Hammerfest, inside the North Cape, and the fiords.

our

the bridge at the cliffs towering actually above one's head. While each of these adventures had its particular thrill, and never failed to bring our hearts into our mouths, there is a certain similarity about them in retrospect, and it is enough to say that we eventuually arrived at Tromso.

Here, for the first time for months, we were able to go ashore and dine at an hotel in comfort and in comparative peace of mind.

The Ulidia was coaled and provisioned again; the feedpump was at last satisfactorily repaired, and the necessary new parts made for it; and, best of all, a second tug was procured to help to bring the ship through the fiords.

Though we were still in the Arotio oirole and, indeed, farther north than at Arohangel-we felt ourselves once more in touch with civilisation, and that the worst was over.

Accordingly we dined and danced with a clear conscience in the beautiful gardens above the town, and our recollections of Tromso and of the hospitable people we met there are of the pleasantest.

Though I felt it to be something of a desertion, I left the ship at Tromso and came on ahead vid Christiana to arrange with the Ministry of Shipping for dry-docking faoilities on the Tyne, and it was in my office that I read Grey's telegram, "Ulidia berthed at Jarrow Bridge Buoys"-on October 24, just a month after leaving Archangel.

Up to the very last she had kept them in a state of anxiety, for, after various adventures in the fiords, they had run into fog outside the Tyne, and it was not until she was in dry dook that we could feel that at last she was safe.

The rest may be told in the words of a letter which I received a few days ago from John Redhead & Sons, her builders.

"SS. Ulidia. - With reference to above steamer, we beg to say she was completed and sailed for an American port in ballast on June 19, under the Norwegian flag, and has been renamed SS. Skaraas."

Good luck to her, whatever her name and wherever she goes, for she was an honest ship.