se problems of
the chess-board. All of them, too, would be happy in the confidence that
when the time should come, England would have full meed of praise to
award to the gallant soldiers who had adhered so well and so manfully to
their post.

It did, indeed, more than once occur to the minds both of Servadac
and his friends that, if their condition should become one of extreme
emergency, they might, as a last resource, betake themselves to
Gibraltar, and there seek a refuge; but their former reception had
not been of the kindest, and they were little disposed to renew an
acquaintanceship that was marked by so little cordiality. Not in the
least that they would expect to meet with any inhospitable rebuff. Far
from that; they knew well enough that Englishmen, whatever their faults,
would be the last to abandon their fellow-creatures in the hour of
distress. Nevertheless, except the necessity became far more urgent than
it had hitherto proved, they resolved to endeavor to remain in their
present quarters. Up till this time no casualties had diminished
their original number, but to undertake so long a journey across that
unsheltered expanse of ice could scarcely fail to result in the loss of
some of their party.

However great was the desire to find a retreat for every living thing
in the deep hollow of the crater, it was found necessary to slaughter
almost all the domestic animals before the removal of the community from
Nina's Hive. To have stabled them all in the cavern below would have
been quite impossible, whilst to have left them in the upper galleries
would only have been to abandon them to a cruel death; and since meat
could be preserved for an indefinite time in the original store-places,
now colder than ever, the expedient of killing the animals seemed to
recommend itself as equally prudent and humane.

Naturally the captain and Ben Zoof were most anxious that their favorite
horses should be saved, and accordingly, by dint of the greatest care,
all difficulties in the way were overcome, and Zephyr and Galette were
conducted down the crater, where they were installed in a large hole and
provided with forage, which was still abundant.

Birds, subsisting only on scraps thrown out to them did not cease to
follow the population in its migration, and so numerous did they become
that multitudes of them had repeatedly to be destroyed.

The general re-arrangement of the new residence was no easy business,
and occupi