! there are three or four of those who are beginning to
reflect, and they are not easy in their minds about the prolongation
of the voyage."

"I fancy Captain Len Guy and his lieutenant will how to get
themselves obeyed."

"We shall see, Mr. Jeorling. But may it not that our captain
himself will get disheartened; that the sense of his responsibility
will prevail, and that he will renounce his enterprise?"

Yes! this was what I feared, and there was no remedy on that side.
"As for my friend Endicott, Mr. Jeorling, I answer for him as for
myself. We would go to the end of the world--if the world has an
end--did the captain want to go there. True, we two, Dirk Peters
and yourself, are but a few to be a law to the others."

"And what do you think of the half-breed?" I asked.

"Well, our men appear to accuse him chiefly of the prolongation of
the voyage. You see, Mr. Jeorling, though you have a good deal to do
with it, you pay, and pay well, while this crazy fellow, Dirk
Peters, persists in asserting that his poor Pym is still
living--his poor Pym who was drowned, or frozen, or
crushed--killed, anyhow, one way or another, eleven years ago!"

So completely was this my own belief that I never discussed the
subject with the half-breed.

"You see, Mr. Jeorling," resumed the boatswain, "at the first
some curiosity was felt about Dirk Peters. Then, after he saved
Martin Holt, it was interest. Certainly, he was no more talkative
than before, and the bear came no oftener out of his den! But now we
know what he is, and no one likes him the better for that. At all
events it was he who induced our captain, by talking of land to the
south of Tsalal Island, to make this voyage, and it is owing to him
that he has reached the eighty-sixth degree of latitude."

"That is quite true, boatswain."

"And so, Mr. Jeorling, I am always afraid that one of these days
somebody will do Peters an ill turn."

"Dirk Peters would defend himself, and I should pity the man who
laid a finger on him."

"Quite so. It would not be good for anybody to be in his hands,
for they could bend iron! But then, all being against him, he would
be forced into the hold."

"Well, well, we have not yet come to that, I hope, and I count on
you, Hurliguerly, to prevent any against Dirk Peters. Reason with
your men. Make them understand that we have time to return to the
Falklands before the end of the fine season. Their reproaches must
not be allowed to provid