Second Scene.

The Hut of the _Sea-mew_.

Chapter 6.

Good-by to England! Good-by to inhabited and civilized regions of the earth!

Two years have passed since the voyagers sailed from their native shores. The enterprise has failed--the Arctic expedition is lost and ice- locked in the Polar wastes. The good ships _Wanderer_ and _Sea-mew_, entombed in ice, will never ride the buoyant waters more. Stripped of their lighter timbers, both vessels have been used for the construction of huts, erected on the nearest land.

The largest of the two buildings which now shelter the lost men is occupied by the surviving officers and crew of the _Sea-mew_. On one side of the principal room are the sleeping berths and the fire-place. The other side discloses a broad doorway (closed by a canvas screen), which serves as a means of communication with an inner apartment, devoted to the superior officers. A hammock is slung to the rough raftered roof of the main room, as an extra bed. A man, completely hidden by his bedclothes, is sleeping in the hammock. By the fireside there is a second man-- supposed to be on the watch--fast asleep, poor wretch! at the present moment. Behind the sleeper stands an old cask, which serves for a table. The objects at present on the table are, a pestle and mortar, and a saucepanful of the dry bones of animals--in plain words, the dinner for the day. By way of ornament to the dull brown walls, icicles appear in the crevices of the timber, gleaming at intervals in the red fire-light. No wind whistles outside the lonely dwelling--no cry of bird or beast is heard. Indoors, and out-of-doors, the awful silence of the Polar desert reigns, for the moment, undisturbed.

Chapter 7.

The first sound that broke the silence came from the inner apartment. An officer lifted the canvas screen in the hut of the _Sea-mew_ and entered the main room. Cold and privation had badly thinned the ranks. The commander of the ship--Captain Ebsworth--was dangerously ill. The first lieutenant was dead. An officer of the _Wanderer_ filled their places for the time, with Captain Helding's permission. The officer so employed was--Lieutenant Crayford.

He approached the man at the fireside, and awakened him. "Jump up, Bateson! It's your turn to be relieved."

The relief appeared, rising from a heap of old sails at the back of the hut. Bateson vanished, yawning, to his bed. Lieutenant Crayford walked backward and forward briskly, trying what exercise would do toward warming his blood.

The pestle and mortar on the cask attracted his attention. He stopped and looked up at the man in the hammock.

"I must rouse the cook," he said to himself, with a smile. "That fellow little thinks how useful he is in keeping up my spirits. The most inveterate croaker and grumbler in the world--and yet, according to his own account, the only cheerful man in the whole ship's company. John Want! John Want! Rouse up, there!"

A head rose slowly out of the bedclothes, covered with a red night-cap. A melancholy nose rested itself on the edge of the hammock. A voice, worthy of the nose, expressed its opinion of the Arctic climate, in these words:

"Lord! Lord! here's all my breath on my blanket. Icicles, if you please, sir, all round my mouth and all over my blanket. Every time I have snored, I've frozen something. When a man gets the cold into him to that extent that he ices his own bed, it can't last much longer. Never mind! _I_ don't grumble."

Crayford tapped the saucepan of bones impatiently. John Want

lowered himself to the floor--grumbling all the way--by a rope attached to the rafters at his bed head. Instead of approaching his superior officer and his saucepan, he hobbled, shivering, to the fire-place, and held his chin as close as he possibly could over the fire. Crayford looked after him.

"Halloo! what are you doing there?" "Thawing my beard, sir."

"Come here directly, and set to work on these bones."

John Want remained immovably attached to the fire-place, holding something else over the fire. Crayford began to lose his temper.

"What the devil are you about now?"

"Thawing my watch, sir. It's been under my pillow all night, and the cold has stopped it. Cheerful, wholesome, bracing sort of climate to live in; isn't it, sir? Never mind! _I_ don't grumble."

"No, we all know that. Look here! Are these bones pounded small enough?"

John Want suddenly approached the lieutenant, and looked at him with an appearance of the deepest interest.

"You'll excuse me, sir," he said; "how very hollow your voice sounds this morning!"

"Never mind my voice. The bones! the bones!"

"Yes, sir--the bones. They'll take a trifle more pounding. I'll do my best with them, sir, for your sake."

"What do you mean?"

John Want shook his head, and looked at Crayford with a dreary smile. "I don't think I shall have the honor of making much more bone soup

for you, sir. Do you think yourself you'll last long, sir? I don't, saving your presence. I think about another week or ten days will do for us all. Never mind! _I_ don't grumble."

He poured the bones into the mortar, and began to pound them--under protest. At the same moment a sailor appeared, entering from the inner hut.

"A message from Captain Ebsworth, sir." "Well?"

"The captain is worse than ever with his freezing pains, sir. He wants to see you immediately."

"I will go at once. Rouse the doctor."

Answering in those terms, Crayford returned to the inner hut, followed by the sailor. John Want shook his head again, and smiled more drearily than ever.

"Rouse the doctor?" he repeated. "Suppose the doctor should be frozen? He hadn't a ha'porth of warmth in him last night, and his voice sounded like a whisper in a speaking-trumpet. Will the bones do now? Yes, the bones will do now. Into the saucepan with you," cried John Want, suiting the action to the word, "and flavor the hot water if you can! When I remember that I was once an apprentice at a pastry-cook's--when I think of the gallons of turtle-soup that this hand has stirred up in a jolly hot kitchen--and when I find myself mixing bones and hot water for soup, and turning into ice as fast as I can; if I wasn't of a cheerful disposition I should feel inclined to grumble. John Want! John Want! whatever had you done with your natural senses when you made up your mind to go to sea?"

A new voice hailed the cook, speaking from one of the bed-places in the side of the hut. It was the voice of Francis Aldersley.

"Who's that croaking over the fire?"

"Croaking?" repeated John Want, with the air of a man who considered himself the object of a gratuitous insult. "Croaking? You don't find your own voice at all altered for the worse--do you, Mr. Frank? I don't give

_him_," John proceeded, speaking confidentially to himself, "more than six hours to last. He's one of your grumblers."

"What are you doing there?" asked Frank.

"I'm making bone soup, sir, and wondering why I ever went to sea." "Well, and why did you go to sea?"

"I'm not certain, Mr. Frank. Sometimes I think it was natural perversity; sometimes I think it was false pride at getting over sea-sickness; sometimes I think it was reading 'Robinson Crusoe,' and books warning of me _not_ to go to sea."

Frank laughed. "You're an odd fellow. What do you mean by false

pride at getting over sea-sickness? Did you get over sea-sickness in some new way?"

John Want's dismal face brightened in spite of himself. Frank had recalled to the cook's memory one of the noteworthy passages in the cook's life.

"That's it, sir!" he said. "If ever a man cured sea-sickness in a new way yet, I am that man--I got over it, Mr. Frank, by dint of hard eating. I was a passenger on board a packet-boat, sir, when first I saw blue water. A nasty lopp of a sea came on at dinner-time, and I began to feel queer the moment the soup was put on the table. 'Sick?' says the captain. 'Rather, sir,' says I. 'Will you try my cure?' says the captain. 'Certainly, sir,' says I. 'Is your heart in your mouth yet?' says the captain. 'Not quite, sir,' says I. 'Mock- turtle soup?' says the captain, and helps me. I swallow a couple of spoonfuls, and turn as white as a sheet. The captain cocks his eye at me. 'Go on deck, sir,' says he; 'get rid of the soup, and then come back to the cabin.' I got rid of the soup, and came back to the cabin. 'Cod's head-and- shoulders,' says the captain, and helps me. 'I can't stand it, sir,' says I. 'You must,' says the captain, 'because it's the cure.' I crammed down a mouthful, and turned paler than ever. 'Go on deck,' says the captain. 'Get rid of the cod's head, and come back to the cabin.' Off I go, and back I come. 'Boiled leg of mutton and trimmings,' says the captain, and helps me. 'No fat, sir,' says I. 'Fat's the cure,' says the captain, and makes me eat it. 'Lean's the cure,' says the captain, and makes me eat it. 'Steady?' says the captain. 'Sick,' says I. 'Go on deck,' says the captain; 'get rid of the boiled leg of mutton and trimmings and come back to the cabin.' Off I go, staggering-- back I come, more dead than alive. 'Deviled kidneys,' says the captain. I shut my eyes, and got 'em down. 'Cure's beginning,' says the captain. 'Mutton-chop and pickles.' I shut my eyes, and got _them_ down. 'Broiled ham and cayenne pepper,' says the captain. 'Glass of stout and cranberry tart. Want to go on deck again?' 'No, sir,' says I. 'Cure's done,' says the captain. 'Never you give in to your stomach, and your stomach will end in giving in to you.'"

Having stated the moral purpose of his story in those unanswerable

words, John Want took himself and his saucepan into the kitchen. A moment later, Crayford returned to the hut and astonished Frank Aldersley by an unexpected question.

"Have you anything in your berth, Frank, that you set a value on?" "Nothing that I set the smallest value on--when I am out of it," he

replied. "What does your question mean?"

"We are almost as short of fuel as we are of provisions," Crayford proceeded. "Your berth will make good firing. I have directed Bateson to be here in ten minutes with his ax."

"Very attentive and considerate on your part," said Frank. "What is to become of me, if you please, when Bateson has chopped my bed into fire- wood?"

"Can't you guess?"

"I suppose the cold has stupefied me. The riddle is beyond my reading.

Suppose you give me a hint?"

"Certainly. There will be beds to spare soon--there is to be a change at last in our wretched lives here. Do you see it now?"

Frank's eyes sparkled. He sprang out of his berth, and waved his fur cap in triumph.

"See it?" he exclaimed; "of course I do! The exploring party is to start at last. Do I go with the expedition?"

"It is not very long since you were in the doctor's hands, Frank," said Crayford, kindly. "I doubt if you are strong enough yet to make one of the exploring party."

"Strong enough or not," returned Frank, "any risk is better than pining and perishing here. Put me down, Crayford, among those who volunteer to go."

"Volunteers will not be accepted, in this case," said Crayford. "Captain Helding and Captain Ebsworth see serious objections, as we are situated, to that method of proceeding."

"Do they mean to keep the appointments in their own hands?" asked Frank. "I for one object to that."

"Wait a little," said Crayford. "You were playing backgammon the

other day with one of the officers. Does the board belong to him or to you?"

"It belongs to me. I have got it in my locker here. What do you want with it?"

"I want the dice and the box for casting lots. The captains have arranged--most wisely, as I think--that Chance shall decide among us who goes with the expedition and who stays behind in the huts. The officers and crew of the _Wanderer_ will be here in a few minutes to cast the lots. Neither you nor any one can object to that way of deciding among us. Officers and men alike take their chance together. Nobody can grumble."

"I am quite satisfied," said Frank. "But I know of one man among the officers who is sure to make objections."

"Who is the man?"

"You know him well enough, too. The 'Bear of the Expeditions' Richard Wardour."

"Frank! Frank! you have a bad habit of letting your tongue run away with you. Don't repeat that stupid nickname when you talk of my good friend, Richard Wardour."

"Your good friend? Crayford! your liking for that man amazes me."

Crayford laid his hand kindly on Frank's shoulder. Of all the officers of the _Sea-mew_, Crayford's favorite was Frank.

"Why should it amaze you?" he asked. "What opportunities have you had of judging? You and Wardour have always belonged to different ships. I have never seen you in Wardour's society for five minutes together. How can _you_ form a fair estimate of his character?"

"I take the general estimate of his character," Frank answered. "He has got his nickname because he is the most unpopular man in his ship. Nobody likes him--there must be some reason for that."

"There is only one reason for it," Crayford rejoined. "Nobody understands Richard Wardour. I am not talking at random. Remember, I sailed from England with him in the _Wanderer_; and I was only transferred to the _Sea-mew_ long after we were locked up in the ice. I was Richard Wardour's companion on board ship for months, and I learned

there to do him justice. Under all his outward defects, I tell you, there beats a great and generous heart. Suspend your opinion, my lad, until you know my friend as well as I do. No more of this now. Give me the dice and the box."

Frank opened his locker. At the same moment the silence of the snowy waste outside was broken by a shouting of voices hailing the hut--"_Sea- mew_, ahoy!"

Chapter 8.

The sailor on watch opened the outer door. There, plodding over the ghastly white snow, were the officers of the _Wanderer_ approaching the hut. There, scattered under the merciless black sky, were the crew, with the dogs and the sledges, waiting the word which was to start them on their perilous and doubtful journey.

Captain Helding of the _Wanderer_, accompanied by his officers, entered the hut, in high spirits at the prospect of a change. Behind them, lounging in slowly by himself, was a dark, sullen, heavy-browed man. He neither spoke, nor offered his hand to anybody: he was the one person present who seemed to be perfectly indifferent to the fate in store for him. This was the man whom his brother officers had nicknamed the Bear of the Expedition. In other words--Richard Wardour.

Crayford advanced to welcome Captain Helding. Frank, remembering the friendly reproof which he had just received, passed ov er the other officers of the _Wanderer_, and made a special effort to be civil to Crayford's friend.

"Good-morning, Mr. Wardour," he said. "We may congratulate each other on the chance of leaving this horrible place."

"_You_ may think it horrible," Wardour retorted; "I like it." "Like it? Good Heavens! why?"

"Because there are no women here."

Frank turned to his brother officers, without making any further

advances in the direction of Richard Wardour. The Bear of the Expedition was more unapproachable than ever.

In the meantime, the hut had become thronged by the able-bodied officers and men of the two ships. Captain Helding, standing in the midst of them, with Crayford by his side, proceeded to explain the purpose of the contemplated expedition to the audience which surrounded him.

He began in these words:

"Brother officers and men of the _Wanderer_ and _Sea-mew_, it is my duty to tell you, very briefly, the reasons which have decided Captain Ebsworth and myself on dispatching an exploring party in search of help. Without recalling all the hardships we have suffered for the last two years-

-the destruction, first of one of our ships, then of the other; the death of some of our bravest and best companions; the vain battles we have been fighting with the ice and snow, and boundless desolation of these inhospitable regions--without dwelling on these things, it is my duty to remind you that this, the last place in which we have taken refuge, is far beyond the track of any previous expedition, and that consequently our chance of being discovered by any rescuing parties that may be sent to look after us is, to say the least of it, a chance of the most uncertain kind. You all agree with me, gentlemen, so far?"

The officers (with the exception of Wardour, who stood apart in sullen silence) all agreed, so far.

The captain went on.

"It is therefore urgently necessary that we should make another, and probably a last, effort to extricate ourselves. The winter is not far off, game is getting scarcer and scarcer, our stock of provisions is running low, and the sick--especially, I am sorry to say, the sick in the _Wanderer_'s hut--are increasing in number day by day. We must look to our own lives, and to the lives of those who are dependent on us; and we have no time to lose."

The officers echoed the words cheerfully. "Right! right! No time to lose."

Captain Helding resumed:

"The plan proposed is, that a detachment of the able-bodied officers and men among us should set forth this very day, and make another effort to reach the nearest inhabited settlements, from which help and provisions may be dispatched to those who remain here. The new direction to be taken, and the various precautions to be adopted, are all drawn out ready. The only question now before us is, Who is to stop here, and who is to undertake the journey?"

The officers answered the question with one accord--"Volunteers!" The men echoed their officers. "Ay, ay, volunteers."

Wardour still preserved his sullen silence. Crayford noticed him. standing apart from the rest, and appealed to him personally.

"Do you say nothing?" he asked.

"Nothing," Wardour answered. "Go or stay, it's all one to me." "I hope you don't really mean that?" said Crayford.

"I do."

"I am sorry to hear it, Wardour."

Captain Helding answered the general suggestion in favor of volunteering by a question which instantly checked the rising enthusiasm of the meeting.

"Well," he said, "suppose we say volunteers. Who volunteers to stop in the huts?"

There was a dead silence. The officers and men looked at each other confusedly. The captain continued:

"You see we can't settle it by volunteering. You all want to go. Every man among us who has the use of his limbs naturally wants to go. But what is to become of those who have not got the use of their limbs? Some of us must stay here, and take care of the sick."

Everybody admitted that this was true.

"So we get back again," said the captain, "to the old question--Who among the able-bodied is to go? and who is to stay? Captain Ebsworth says, and I say, let chance decide it. Here are dice. The numbers run as high as twelve--double sixes. All who throw under six, stay; all who throw over six, go. Officers of the _Wanderer_ and the _Sea-mew_, do you agree

to that way of meeting the difficulty?"

All the officers agreed, with the one exception of Wardour, who still kept silence.

"Men of the _Wanderer_ and _Sea-mew_, your officers agree to cast lots. Do you agree too?"

The men agreed without a dissentient voice. Crayford handed the box and the dice to Captain Helding.

"You throw first, sir. Under six, 'Stay.' Over six, 'Go.'"

Captain Helding cast the dice; the top of the cask serving for a table.

He threw seven.

"Go," said Crayford. "I congratulate you, sir. Now for my own chance." He cast the dice in his turn. Three!" Stay! Ah, well! well! if I can do my duty, and be of use to others, what does it matter whether I go or stay? Wardour, you are next, in the absence of your first lieutenant."

Wardour prepared to cast, without shaking the dice.

"Shake the box, man!" cried Crayford. "Give yourself a chance of luck!"

Wardour persisted in letting the dice fall out carelessly, just as they lay in the box.

"Not I!" he muttered to himself. "I've done with luck." Saying those words, he threw down the empty box, and seated himself on the nearest chest, without looking to see how the dice had fallen.

Crayford examined them. "Six!" he exclaimed. "There! you have a second chance, in spite of yourself. You are neither under nor over--you throw again."

"Bah!" growled the Bear. "It's not worth the trouble of getting up for. Somebody else throw for me." He suddenly looked at Frank. "You! you have got what the women call a lucky face."

Frank appealed to Crayford. "Shall I?" "Yes, if he wishes it," said Crayford.

Frank cast the dice. "Two! He stays! Wardour, I am sorry I have thrown against you."

"Go or stay," reiterated Wardour, "it's all one to me. You will be luckier,

young one, when you cast for yourself." Frank cast for himself.

"Eight. Hurrah! I go!"

"What did I tell you?" said Wardour. "The chance was yours. You have thriven on my ill luck."

He rose, as he spoke, to leave the hut. Crayford stopped him. "Have you anything particular to do, Richard?"

"What has anybody to do here?"

"Wait a little, then. I want to speak to you when this business is over." "Are you going to give me any more good advice?"

"Don't look at me in that sour way, Richard. I am going to ask you a question about something which concerns yourself."

Wardour yielded without a word more. He returned to his chest, and cynically composed himself to slumber. The casting of the lots went on rapidly among the officers and men. In another half-hour chance had decided the question of "Go" or "Stay" for all alike. The men left the hut. The officers entered the inner apartment for a last conference with the bed- ridden captain of the _Sea-mew_. Wardour and Crayford were left together, alone.

Chapter 9.

Crayford touched his friend on the shoulder to rouse him. Wardour looked up, impatiently, with a frown.

"I was just asleep," he said. "Why do you wake me?" "Look round you, Richard. We are alone."

"Well--and what of that?"

"I wish to speak to you privately; and this is my opportunity. You have disappointed and surprised me to-day. Why did you say it was all one to you whether you went or stayed? Why are you the only man among us who seems to be perfectly indifferent whether we are rescued or not?"

"Can a man always give a reason for what is strange in his manner or

his words?" Wardour retorted.

"He can try," said Crayford, quietly--"when his friend asks him." Wardour's manner softened.

"That's true," he said. "I _will_ try. Do you remember the first night at sea when we sailed from England in the _Wanderer_?"

"As well as if it was yesterday."

"A calm, still night," the other went on, thoughtfully. "No clouds, no stars. Nothing in the sky but the broad moon, and hardly a ripple to break the path of light she made in the quiet water. Mine was the middle watch that night. You cam e on deck, and found me alone--"

He stopped. Crayford took his hand, and finished the sentence for him. "Alone--and in tears."

"The last I shall ever shed," Wardour added, bitterly.

"Don't say that! There are times when a man is to be pitied indeed, if he can shed no tears. Go on, Richard."

Wardour proceeded--still following the old recollections, still preserving his gentler tones.

"I should have quarreled with any other man who had surprised me at that moment," he said. "There was something, I suppose, in your voice when you asked my pardon for disturbing me, that softened my heart. I told you I had met with a disappointment which had broken me for life. There was no need to explain further. The only hopeless wretchedness in this world is the wretchedness that women cause."

"And the only unalloyed happiness," said Crayford, "the happiness that women bring."

"That may be your experience of them," Wardour answered; "mine is different. All the devotion, the patience, the humility, the worship that there is in man, I laid at the feet of a woman. She accepted the offering as women do--accepted it, easily, gracefully, unfeelingly--accepted it as a matter of course. I left England to win a high place in my profession, before I dared to win _her_. I braved danger, and faced death. I staked my life in the fever swamps of Africa, to gain the promotion that I only desired for her sake--and gained it. I came back to give her all, and to ask

nothing in return, but to rest my weary heart in the sunshine of her smile. And her own lips--the lips I had kissed at parting--told me that another man had robbed me of her. I spoke but few words when I heard that confession, and left her forever. 'The time may come,' I told her, 'when I shall forgive _you_. But the man who has robbed me of you shall rue the day when you and he first met.' Don't ask me who he was! I have yet to discover him. The treachery had been kept secret; nobody could tell me where to find him; nobody could tell me who he was. What did it matter? When I had lived out the first agony, I could rely on myself--I could be patient, and bide my time."

"Your time? What time?"

"The time when I and that man shall meet face to face. I knew it then; I know it now--it was written on my heart then, it is written on my heart now--we two shall meet and know each other! With that conviction strong within me, I volunteered for this service, as I would have volunteered for anything that set work and hardship and danger, like ramparts, between my misery and me. With that conviction strong within me still, I tell you it is no matter whether I stay here with the sick, or go hence with the strong. I shall live till I have met that man! There is a day of reckoning appointed between us. Here in the freezing cold, or away in the deadly heat; in battle or in shipwreck; in the face of starvation; under the shadow of pestilence-- I, though hundreds are falling round me, I shall live! live for the coming of one day! live for the meeting with one man!"

He stopped, trembling, body and soul, under the hold that his own terrible superstition had fastened on him. Crayford drew back in silent horror. Wardour noticed the action--he resented it--he appealed, in defense of his one cherished conviction, to Crayford's own experience of him.

"Look at me!" he cried. "Look how I have lived and thriven, with the heart-ache gnawing at me at home, and the winds of the icy north whistling round me here! I am the strongest man among you. Why? I have fought through hardships that have laid the best-seasoned men of all our party on their backs. Why? What have _I_ done, that my life should throb as bravely through every vein in my body at this minute, and in this deadly

place, as ever it did in the wholesome breezes of home? What am I preserved for? I tell you again, for the coming of one day--for the meeting with one man."

He paused once more. This time Crayford spoke.

"Richard!" he said, "since we first met, I have believed in your better nature, against all outward appearance. I have believed in you, firmly, truly, as your brother might. You are putting that belief to a hard test. If your enemy had told me that you had ever talked as you talk now, that you had ever looked as you look now, I would have turned my back on him as the utterer of a vile calumny against a just, a brave, an upright man. Oh! my friend, my friend, if ever I have deserved well of you, put away these thoughts from your heart! Face me again, with the stainless look of a man who has trampled under his feet the bloody superstitions of revenge, and knows them no more! Never, never, let the time come when I cannot offer you my hand as I offer it now, to the man I can still admire--to the brother I can still love!"

The heart that no other voice could touch felt that appeal. The fierce eyes, the hard voice, softened under Crayford's influence. Richard Wardour's head sank on his breast.

"You are kinder to me than I deserve," he said. "Be kinder still, and forget what I have been talking about. No! no more about me; I am not worth it. We'll change the subject, and never go back to it again. Let's do something. Work, Crayford--that's the true elixir of our life! Work, that stretches the muscles and sets the blood a-glowing. Work, that tires the body and rests the mind. Is there nothing in hand that I can do? Nothing to cut? nothing to carry?"

The door opened as he put the question. Bateson--appointed to chop Frank's bed-place into firing--appeared punctually with his ax. Wardour, without a word of warning, snatched the ax out of the man's hand.

"What was this wanted for?" he asked.

"To cut up Mr. Aldersley's berth there into firing, sir."

"I'll do it for you! I'll have it down in no time!" He turned to Crayford. "You needn't be afraid about me, old friend. I am going to do the right

thing. I am going to tire my body and rest my mind."

The evil spirit in him was plainly subdued--for the time, at least. Crayford took his hand in silence; and then (followed by Bateson) left him to his work.

Chapter 10.

Ax in hand, Wardour approached Frank's bed-place.

"If I could only cut the thoughts out of me," he said to himself, "as I am going to cut the billets out of this wood!" He attacked the bed-place with the ax, like a man who well knew the use of his instrument. "Oh me!" he thought, sadly, "if I had only been born a carpenter instead of a gentleman! A good ax, Master Bateson--I wonder where you got it? Something like a grip, my man, on this handle. Poor Crayford! his words stick in my throat. A fine fellow! a noble fellow! No use thinking, no use regretting; what is said, is said. Work! work! work!"

Plank after plank fell out on the floor. He laughed over the easy task of destruction. "Aha! young Aldersley! It doesn't take much to demolish your bed-place. I'll have it down! I would have the whole hut down, if they would only give me the chance of chopping at it!"

A long strip of wood fell to his ax--long enough to require cutting in two. He turned it, and stooped over it. Something caught his eye--letters carved in the wood. He looked closer. The letters were very faintly and badly cut. He could only make out the first three of them; and even of those he was not quite certain. They looked like C L A--if they looked like anything. He threw down the strip of wood irritably.

"D--n the fellow (whoever he is) who cut this! Why should he carve

_that_ name, of all the names in the world?"

He paused, considering--then determined to go on again with his self- imposed labor. He was ashamed of his own outburst. He looked eagerly for the ax. "Work, work! Nothing for it but work." He found the ax, and went on again.

He cut out another plank.

He stopped, and looked at it suspiciously.

There was carving again, on this plank. The letters F. and A. appeared on it.

He put down the ax. There were vague misgivings in him which he was not able to realize. The state of his own mind was fast becoming a puzzle to him.

"More carving," he said to himself. "That's the way these young idlers employ their long hours. F. A.? Those must be _his_ initials--Frank Aldersley. Who c arved the letters on the other plank? Frank Aldersley, too?"

He turned the piece of wood in his hand nearer to the light, and looked lower down it. More carving again, lower down! Under the initials F. A. were two more letters--C. B.

"C. B.?" he repeated to himself. "His sweet heart's initials, I suppose?

Of course--at his age--his sweetheart's initials."

He paused once more. A spasm of inner pain showed the shadow of its mysterious passage, outwardly on his face.

"_Her_ cipher is C. B.," he said, in low, broken tones. "C. B.--Clara Burnham."

He waited, with the plank in his hand; repeating the name over and over again, as if it was a question he was putting to himself.

"Clara Burnham? Clara Burnham?"

He dropped the plank, and turned deadly pale in a moment. His eyes wandered furtively backward and forward between the strip of wood on the floor and the half-demolished berth. "Oh, God! what has come to me now?" he said to himself, in a whisper. He snatched up the ax, with a strange cry--something between rage and terror. He tried--fiercely, desperately tried--to go on with his work. No! strong as he was, he could not use the ax. His hands were helpless; they trembled incessantly. He went to the fire; he held his hands over it. They still trembled incessantly; they infected the rest of him. He shuddered all over. He knew fear. His own thoughts terrified him.

"Crayford!" he cried out. "Crayford! come here, and let's go hunting."

No friendly voice answered him. No friendly face showed itself at the door.

An interval passed; and there came over him another change. He recovered his self-possession almost as suddenly as he had lost it. A smile-

-a horrid, deforming, unnatural smile--spread slowly, stealthily, devilishly over his face. He left the fire; he put the ax away softly in a corner; he sat down in his old place, deliberately self-abandoned to a frenzy of vindictive joy. He had found the man! There, at the end of the world--there, at the last fight of the Arctic voyagers against starvation and death, he had found the man!

The minutes passed.

He became conscious, on a sudden, of a freezing stream of air pouring into the room.

He turned, and saw Crayford opening the door of the hut. A man was behind him. Wardour rose eagerly, and looked over Crayford's shoulder.

Was it--could it be--the man who had carved the letters on the plank?

Yes! Frank Aldersley!

Chapter 11.

"Still at work!" Crayford exclaimed, looking at the half-demolished bed-place. "Give yourself a little rest, Richard. The exploring party is ready to start. If you wish to take leave of your brother officers before they go, you have no time to lose."

He checked himself there, looking Wardour full in the face.

"Good Heavens!" he cried, "how pale you are! Has anything happened?"

Frank--searching in his locker for articles of clothing which he might require on the journey--looked round. He was startled, as Crayford had been startled, by the sudden change in Wardour since they had last seen him.

"Are you ill?" he asked. "I hear you have been doing Bateson's work for him. Have you hurt yourself?"

Wardour suddenly moved his head, so as to hide his face from both Crayford and Frank. He took out his handkerchief, and wound it clumsily round his left hand.

"Yes," he said; "I hurt myself with the ax. It's nothing. Never mind. Pain always has a curious effect on me. I tell you it's nothing! Don't notice it!"

He turned his face toward them again as suddenly as he had turned it away. He advanced a few steps, and addressed himself with an uneasy familiarity to Frank.

"I didn't answer you civilly when you spoke to me some little time since. I mean when I first came in here along with the rest of them. I apologize. Shake hands! How are you? Ready for the march?"

Frank met the oddly abrupt advance which had been made to him with perfect good humor.

"I am glad to be friends with you, Mr. Wardour. I wish I was as well seasoned to fatigue as you are."

Wardour burst into a hard, joyless, unnatural laugh.

"Not strong, eh? You don't look it. The dice had better have sent me away, and kept you here. I never felt in better condition in my life." He paused and added, with his eye on Frank and with a strong emphasis on the words: "We men of Kent are made of tough material."

Frank advanced a step on his side, with a new interest in Richard Wardour.

"You come from Kent?" he said.

"Yes. From East Kent." He waited a little once more, and looked hard at Frank. "Do you know that part of the country?" he asked.

"I ought to know something about East Kent," Frank answered. "Some dear friends of mine once lived there."

"Friends of yours?" Wardour repeated. "One of the county families, I suppose?"

As he put the question, he abruptly looked over his shoulder. He was

standing between Crayford and Frank. Crayford, taking no part in the conversation, had been watching him, and listening to him more and more attentively as that conversation went on. Within the last moment or two Wardour had become instinctively conscious of this. He resented Crayford's conduct with needless irritability.

"Why are you staring at me?" he asked.

"Why are you looking unlike yourself?" Crayford answered, quietly. Wardour made no reply. He renewed the conversation with Frank. "One of the county families?" he resumed. "The Winterbys of Yew

Grange, I dare say?"

"No," said Frank; "but friends of the Witherbys, very likely. The Burnhams."

Desperately as he struggled to maintain it, Wardour's self-control failed him. He started violently. The clumsily-wound handkerchief fell off his hand. Still looking at him attentively, Crayford picked it up.

"There is your handkerchief, Richard," he said. "Strange!" "What is strange?"

"You told us you had hurt yourself with the ax--" "Well?"

"There is no blood on your handkerchief."

Wardour snatched the handkerchief out of Crayford's hand, and, turning away, approached the outer door of the hut. "No blood on the handkerchief," he said to himself. "There may be a stain or two when Crayford sees it again." He stopped within a few paces of the door, and spoke to Crayford. "You recommended me to take leave of my brother officers before it was too late," he said. "I am going to follow your advice."

The door was opened from the outer side as he laid his hand on the lock.

One of the quartermasters of the _Wanderer_ entered the hut.

"Is Captain Helding here, sir?" he asked, addressing himself to Wardour.

Wardour pointed to Crayford.

"The lieutenant will tell you," he said.

Crayford advanced and questioned the quartermaster. "What do you want with Captain Helding?" he asked.

"I have a report to make, sir. There has been an accident on the ice." "To one of your men?"

"No, sir. To one of our officers."

Wardour, on the point of going out, paused when the quartermaster made that reply. For a moment he considered with himself. Then he walked slowly back to the part of the room in which Frank was standing. Crayford, directing the quartermaster, pointed to the arched door way in the side of the hut.

"I am sorry to hear of the accident," he said. "You will find Captain Helding in that room."

For the second time, with singular persistency, Wardour renewed the conversation with Frank.

"So you knew the Burnhams?" he said. "What became of Clara when her father died?"

Frank's face flushed angrily on the instant.

"Clara!" he repeated. "What authorizes you to speak of Miss Burnham in that familiar manner?"

Wardour seized the opportunity of quarreling with him. "What right have you to ask?" he retorted, coarsely.

Frank's blood was up. He forgot his promise to Clara to keep their engagement secret--he forgot everything but the unbridled insolence of Wardour's language and manner.

"A right which I insist on your respecting," he answered. "The right of being engaged to marry her."

Crayford's steady eyes were still on the watch, and Wardour felt them on him. A little more and Crayford might openly interfere. Even Wardour recognized for once the necessity of controlling his temper, cost him what it might. He made his apologies, with overstrained politeness, to Frank.

"Impos sible to dispute such a right as yours," he said. "Perhaps you will excuse me when you know that I am one of Miss Burnham's old

friends. My father and her father were neighbors. We have always met like brother and sister--"

Frank generously stopped the apology there.

"Say no more," he interposed. "I was in the wrong--I lost my temper.

Pray forgive me."

Wardour looked at him with a strange, reluctant interest while he was speaking. Wardour asked an extraordinary question when he had done.

"Is she very fond of you?" Frank burst out laughing.

"My dear fellow," he said, "come to our wedding, and judge for yourself."

"Come to your wedding?" As he repeated the words Wardour stole one glance at Frank which Frank (employed in buckling his knapsack) failed to see. Crayford noticed it, and Crayford's blood ran cold. Comparing the words which Wardour had spoken to him while they were alone together with the words that had just passed in his presence, he could draw but one conclusion. The woman whom Wardour had loved and lost was--Clara Burnham. The man who had robbed him of her was Frank Aldersley. And Wardour had discovered it in the interval since they had last met. "Thank God!" thought Crayford, "the dice have parted them! Frank goes with the expedition, and Wardour stays behind with me."

The reflection had barely occurred to him--Frank's thoughtless invitation to Wardour had just passed his lips--when the canvas screen over the doorway was drawn aside. Captain Helding and the officers who were to leave with the exploring party returned to the main room on their way out. Seeing Crayford, Captain Helding stopped to speak to him.

"I have a casualty to report," said the captain, "which diminishes our numbers by one. My second lieutenant, who was to have joined the exploring party, has had a fall on the ice. Judging by what the quartermaster tells me, I am afraid the poor fellow has broken his leg."

"I will supply his place," cried a voice at the other end of the hut. Everybody looked round. The man who had spoken was Richard

Wardour.

Crayford instantly interfered--so vehemently as to astonish all who knew him.

"No!" he said. "Not you, Richard! not you!" "Why not?" Wardour asked, sternly.

"Why not, indeed?" added Captain Helding. "Wardour is the very man to be useful on a long march. He is in perfect health, and he is the best shot among us. I was on the point of proposing him myself."

Crayford failed to show his customary respect for his superior officer.

He openly disputed the captain's conclusion.

"Wardour has no right to volunteer," he rejoined. "It has been settled, Captain Helding, that chance shall decide who is to go and who is to stay." "And chance _has_ decided it," cried Wardour. "Do you think we are going to cast the dice again, and give an officer of the _Sea-mew_ a chance of replacing an officer of the _Wanderer_? There is a vacancy in our party, not in yours; and we claim the right of filling it as we please. I volunteer, and my captain backs me. Whose authority is to keep me here

after that?"

"Gently, Wardour," said Captain Helding. "A man who is in the right can afford to speak with moderation." He turned to Crayford. "You must admit yourself," he continued, "that Wardour is right this time. The missing man belongs to my command, and in common justice one of my officers ought to supply his place."

It was impossible to dispute the matter further. The dullest man present could see that the captain's reply was unanswerable. In sheer despair, Crayford took Frank's arm and led him aside a few steps. The last chance left of parting the two men was the chance of appealing to Frank.

"My dear boy," he began, "I want to say one friendly word to you on the subject of your health. I have already, if you remember, expressed my doubts whether you are strong enough to make one of an exploring party. I feel those doubts more strongly than ever at this moment. Will you take the advice of a friend who wishes you well?"

Wardour had followed Crayford. Wardour roughly interposed before Frank could reply.

"Let him alone!"

Crayford paid no heed to the interruption. He was too earnestly bent on withdrawing Frank from the expedition to notice anything that was said or done by the persons about him.

"Don't, pray don't, risk hardships which you are unfit to bear!" he went on, entreatingly. "Your place can be easily filled. Change your mind, Frank. Stay here with me."

Again Wardour interfered. Again he called out, "Leave him alone!" more roughly than ever. Still deaf and blind to every consideration but one, Crayford pressed his entreaties on Frank.

"You owned yourself just now that you were not well seasoned to fatigue," he persisted. "You feel (you _must_ feel) how weak that last illness has left you? You know (I am sure you know) how unfit you are to brave exposure to cold, and long marches over the snow."

Irritated beyond endurance by Crayford's obstinacy; seeing, or thinking he saw, signs of yielding in Frank's face, Wardour so far forgot himself as to seize Crayford by the arm and attempt to drag him away from Frank. Crayford turned and looked at him.

"Richard," he said, very quietly, "you are not yourself. I pity you. Drop your hand."

Wardour relaxed his hold, with something of the sullen submission of a wild animal to its keeper. The momentary silence which followed gave Frank an opportunity of speaking at last.

"I am gratefully sensible, Crayford," he began, "of the interest which you take in me--"

"And you will follow my advice?" Crayford interposed, eagerly.

"My mind is made up, old friend," Frank answered, firmly and sadly. "Forgive me for disappointing you. I am appointed to the expedition. With the expedition I go." He moved nearer to Wardour. In his innocence of all suspicion he clapped Wardour heartily on the shoulder. "When I feel the fatigue," said poor simple Frank, "you will help me, comrade--won't you? Come along!"

Wardour snatched his gun out of the hands of the sailor who was

carrying it for him. His dark face became suddenly irradiated with a terrible joy.

"Come!" he cried. "Over the snow and over the ice! Come! where no human footsteps have ever trodden, and where no human trace is ever left."

Blindly, instinctively, Crayford made an effort to part them. His brother officers, standing near, pulled him back. They looked at each other anxiously. The merciless cold, striking its victims in various ways, had struck in some instances at their reason first. Everybody loved Crayford. Was he, too, going on the dark way that others had taken before him? They forced him to seat himself on one of the lockers. "Steady, old fellow!" they said kindly--"steady!" Crayford yielded, writhing inwardly under the sense of his own helplessness. What in God's name could he do? Could he denounce Wardour to Captain Helding on bare suspicion-- without so much as the shadow of a proof to justify what he said? The captain would decline to insult one of his officers by even mentioning the monstrous accusation to him. The captain would conclude, as others had already concluded, that Crayford's mind was giving way under stress of cold and privation. No hope--literally, no hope now, but in the numbers of the expedition. Officers and men, they all liked Frank. As long as they could stir hand or foot, they would help him on the way--they would see that no harm came to him.

The word of command was given; the door was thrown open; the hut emptied rapidly. Over the merciless white snow--under the merciless black sky--the exploring party began to move. The sick and helpless men, whose last hope of rescue centered in their departing messmates, cheered faintly. Some few whose days were numbered sobbed and cried like women. Frank's voice faltered as he turned back at the door to say his last words to the friend who had been a father to him.

"God bless you, Crayford!"

Crayford broke away from the officers near him; and, hurrying forward, seized Frank by both hands. Crayford held him as if he would never let him go.

"God preserve you, Frank! I would give all I have in the world to be with you. Good-by! Good-by!"

Frank waved his hand--das hed away the tears that were gathering in his eyes--and hurried out. Crayford called after him, the last, the only warning that he could give:

"While you can stand, keep with the main body, Frank!"

Wardour, waiting till the last--Wardour, following Frank through the snow-drift--stopped, stepped back, and answered Crayford at the door:

"While he can stand, he keeps with Me."