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Page 16
"What is the matter? What has frightened you, my dear?"
"Lucy! I _have_ heard of him!"
"Richard Wardour again?"
"Remember what I told you. I have heard every word of the
conversation between Captain Helding and your husband. A man came
to the captain this morning and volunteered to join the
_Wanderer_. The captain has taken him. The man is Richard
Wardour."
"You don't mean it! Are you sure? Did you hear Captain Helding
mention his name?"
"No."
"Then how do you know it's Richard Wardour?"
"Don't ask me! I am as certain of it, as that I am standing here!
They are going away together, Lucy--away to the eternal ice and
snow. My foreboding has come true! The two will meet--the man who
is to marry me and the man whose heart I have broken!"
"Your foreboding has _not_ come true, Clara! The men have not met
here--the men are not likely to meet elsewhere. They are
appointed to separate ships. Frank belongs to the _Sea-mew_, and
Wardour to the _Wanderer_. See! Captain Helding has done. My
husband is coming this way. Let me make sure. Let me speak to
him."
Lieutenant Crayford returned to his wife. She spoke to him
instantly.
"William! you have got a new volunteer who joins the _Wanderer_?"
"What! you have been listening to the captain and me?"
"I want to know his name?"
"How in the world did you manage to hear what we said to each
other?"
"His name? has the captain given you his name?"
"Don't excite yourself, my dear. Look! you are positively
alarming Miss Burnham. The new volunteer is a perfect stranger to
us. There is his name--last on the ship's list."
Mrs. Crayford snatched the list out of her husband's hand, and
read the name:
"RICHARD WARDOUR."
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.
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