you say about it, commander?"

"And you, doctor--what do you think?" asked Shandon.

"I think Johnson's reasoning is just."

"And you, Wall?"

"Unless there's better advice forthcoming, I shall stick to the
opinion of these gentlemen."

Shandon reflected seriously during a few minutes, and read the letter
over again carefully.

"Gentlemen," said he, "your opinion on this subject is certainly
excellent, but I cannot adopt it."

"Why not, Shandon?" asked the doctor.

"Because the instructions of this letter are formal: they command
me to give the captain's congratulations to the crew, and up till
to-day I have always blindly obeyed his orders in whatever manner
they have been transmitted to me, and I cannot----"

"But----" said Johnson, who rightly dreaded the effect of such a
communication upon the minds of the sailors.

"My dear Johnson," answered Shandon, "your reasons are excellent,
but read--'he begs you to give evidence of his gratitude to the crew.'"

"Act as you think best," replied Johnson, who was besides a very strict
observer of discipline. "Are we to muster the crew on deck?"

"Do so," replied Shandon.

The news of a communication having been received from the captain
spread like wildfire on deck; the sailors quickly arrived at their
post, and the commander read out the contents of the mysterious letter.
The reading of it was received in a dead silence; the crew dispersed,
a prey to a thousand suppositions. Clifton had heard enough to give
himself up to all the wanderings of his superstitious imagination;
he attributed a considerable share in this incident to the dog-captain,
and when by chance he met him in his passage he never failed to salute
him. "I told you the animal could write," he used to say to the sailors.
No one said anything in answer to this observation, and even Bell,
the carpenter himself, would not have known what to answer.

Nevertheless it was certain to all that, in default of the captain,
his spirit or his shadow watched on board; and henceforward the wisest
of the crew abstained from exchanging their opinions about him.

On the 1st of May, at noon, they were in 68 degrees latitude and 56
degrees 32 minutes longitude. The temperature was higher and the
thermometer marked twenty-five degrees above zero. The doctor was
amusing himself with watching the antics of a white bear and two cubs
on the brink of a pack that lengthened out the land. Accompanied by
Wall and Simpson