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Page 30
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--dashed 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."
Third Scene
The Iceberg.
Chapter 12.
Alone! alone on the Frozen Deep!
The Arctic sun is rising dimly in the dreary sky. The beams of
the cold northern moon, mingling strangely with the dawning
light, clothe the snowy plains in hues of livid gray. An
ice-field on the far horizon is moving slowly southward in the
spectral light. Nearer, a stream of open water rolls its slow
black waves past the edges of the ice. Nearer still, following
the drift, an iceberg rears its crags and pinnacles to the sky;
here, glittering in the moonbeams; there, looming dim and
ghost-like in the ashy light.
Midway on the long sweep of the lower slope of the iceberg, what
objects rise, and break the desolate monotony of the scene? In
this awful solitude, can signs appear which tell of human Life?
Yes! The black outline of a boat just shows itself, hauled up on
the berg. In an ice-cavern behind the boat the last red embers of
a dying fire flicker from time to time over the figures of two
men. One is seated, resting his back against the side of the
cavern. The other lies prostrate, with his head on his comrade's
knee. The first of these men is awake, and thinking. The second
reclines, with his still white face turned up to the
sky--sleeping or dead. Days and days since, these two have fallen
behind on the march of the expedition of relief. Days and days
since, these two have been given up by their weary and failing
companions as doomed and lost. He who sits thinking is Richard
Wardour. He who lies sleeping or dead is Frank Aldersley.
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