he whole
ice-continent was crashing, popping, thundering everywhere in terrific
upheaval. Expecting every moment to see the _Boreal_ crushed to
splinters, we had to set about unpacking provisions, and placing
sledges, kayaks, dogs and everything in a position for instant flight.
It lasted five days, and was accompanied by a tempest from the north,
which, by the end of February, had driven us back south into latitude
79 deg. 40'. Clark, of course, then abandoned the thought of the Pole for
that summer.

And immediately afterwards we made a startling discovery: our stock of
reindeer-moss was found to be somehow ridiculously small. Egan, our
second mate, was blamed; but that did not help matters: the sad fact
remained. Clark was advised to kill one or two of the deer, but he
pig-headedly refused: and by the beginning of summer they were all dead.

Well, our northward drift recommenced. Toward the middle of February we
saw a mirage of the coming sun above the horizon; there were flights of
Arctic petrels and snow-buntings; and spring was with us. In an ice-pack
of big hummocks and narrow lanes we made good progress all the summer.

When the last of the deer died, my heart sank; and when the dogs killed
two of their number, and a bear crushed a third, I was fully expecting
what actually came; it was this: Clark announced that he could now take
only two companions with him in the spring: and they were Wilson and
Mew. So once more I saw David Wilson's pleased smile of malice.

We settled into our second winter-quarters. Again came December, and all
our drear sunless gloom, made worse by the fact that the windmill would
not work, leaving us without the electric light.

Ah me, none but those who have felt it could dream of one half the
mental depression of that long Arctic night; how the soul takes on the
hue of the world; and without and within is nothing but gloom, gloom,
and the reign of the Power of Darkness.

Not one of us but was in a melancholic, dismal and dire mood; and on the
13th December Lamburn, the engineer, stabbed Cartwright, the old
harpooner, in the arm.

Three days before Christmas a bear came close to the ship, and then
turned tail. Mew, Wilson, I and Meredith (a general hand) set out in
pursuit. After a pretty long chase we lost him, and then scattered
different ways. It was very dim, and after yet an hour's search, I was
returning weary and disgusted to the ship, when I saw some shadow like a
bear s