for you, in my judgment, to leave your cargo
in the house, under the keeping of a few hands if you see fit, and go off
with me. I will land you at Rio, where you can almost always find some
small American craft to come south in, and pick up your leavings. If you
choose that the men left behind should amuse themselves in your absence,
by building a small craft, I am certain they will meet with no opposition
from me. There is but one place where a vessel can be launched, and that
is the spot in the cove where we beached your schooner. There it might
possibly be done, though I think not without a great deal of trouble, and
possibly not without more means than are to be picked up along shore in
this group. But there is a very important fact that you overlook, Daggett,
which it may be as well to mention here, as to delay it. _Your_ craft, or
_mine_, must be used as fuel this winter, or we shall freeze to death to a
man. I have made the calculations closely; and, certain as our existence,
there is no alternative between such a death and the use of the fuel I
have mentioned."

"Not a timber of mine shall be touched. I do not believe one-half of these
stories about the antarctic winter, which cannot be much worse than what a
body meets with up in the Bay of Fundy."

"A winter in the Bay of Fundy, without fuel, must be bad enough; but it is
a mere circumstance to one here. I should think that a man who has tasted
an antarctic _summer_ and _autumn_, must get a pretty lively notion of
what is to come after them."

"The men can keep in their berths much of the time, and save wood. There
are many other ways of getting through a winter than burning a vessel. I
shall never consent to a stick of this good craft's going into the
galley-fire as long as I can see my way clear to prevent it. I would burn
_cargo_ before I would burn my _craft_."

Roswell wondered at this pertinacity; but he trusted to the pressure of
the coming season, and changed the subject. Certainly the thought of
breaking up his own craft did not cross his mind: though he could see no
sufficient objection to the other side of the proposition. As discussion
was useless, however, he continued to converse with Daggett on various
practical subjects, on which his companion was rational and disposed to
learn.

It had been ascertained by experiment that the water, at a considerable
depth, was essentially warmer beneath the ice, than at its surface. A plan
had been devis