ther?"

"Certainly, and without resorting to magic. I ought to have put the
seed under the protection of Saints Mamert, Panera, and Servais, whose
days are the 11th, 12th, and 13th of this month."

"Well, Doctor," said Altamont, "will you tell me what influence these
three saints have on the weather?"

"A very great influence, to believe gardeners, who call them the three
saints of ice."

"And why so, pray?"

"Because generally there is a periodic frost in the month of May, and
the greatest fall of temperature takes place from the 11th to the 13th
of this month. It is a fact, that is all."

"It is curious, but what is the explanation?" asked the American.

"There are two: either by the interposition of a greater number of
asteroids between the earth and the sun at this season, or simply by
the melting of the snow, which thereby absorbs a great quantity of
heat. Both explanations are plausible; must they be received? I don't
know; but if I'm uncertain of the truth of the explanation, I ought
not to have been of the fact, and so lose my crop."

The doctor was right; for one reason or another the cold was very
intense during the rest of the month of May; their hunting was
interrupted, not so much by the severity of the weather as by the
absence of game; fortunately, the supply of fresh meat was not yet
quite exhausted. They found themselves accordingly condemned to new
inactivity; for a fortnight, from the 11th to the 25th of May, only
one incident broke the monotony of their lives; a serious illness,
diphtheria, suddenly seized the carpenter; from the swollen tonsils
and the false membrane in the throat, the doctor could not be ignorant
of the nature of the disease; but he was in his element, and he soon
drove it away, for evidently it had not counted on meeting him; his
treatment was very simple, and the medicines were not hard to get; the
doctor simply prescribed pieces of ice to be held in the mouth; in a
few hours the swelling went down and the false membrane disappeared;
twenty-four hours later Bell was up again.

When the others wondered at the doctor's prescriptions: "This is the
land of these complaints," he answered; "the cure must be near the
disease."

"The cure, and especially the doctor," added Johnson, in whose mind
the doctor was assuming colossal proportions.

During this new leisure the latter resolved to have a serious talk
with the captain; he wanted to induce Hatteras to give up his
inte