“You see,” said the doctor, “it was time to come back, otherwise I should have had to amputate your hands.”
Thanks to his cares, all danger was gone in an hour; but it was no easy task, and constant friction was necessary to recall the circulation into the old sailor’s fingers. The doctor urged him to keep his hands away from the stove, the heat of which might produce serious results.
That morning they had to go without breakfast; of the pemmican and the salt meat nothing was left. There was not a crumb of biscuit, and only half a pound of coffee. They had to content themselves with drinking this hot, and then they set out.
“There’s nothing more!” said Bell to Johnson, in a despairing accent.
“Let us trust in God,” said the old sailor; “he is able to preserve us!”
“This Captain Hatteras!” continued Bell; “he was able to return from his first expeditions, but he’ll never get back from this one, and we shall never see home again!”
“Courage, Bell! I confess that the captain is almost foolhardy, but there is with him a very ingenious man.”
“Dr. Clawbonny?” said Bell.
“Yes,” answered Johnson.
“What can he do in such circumstances?” retorted Bell, shrugging his shoulders. “Can he change these pieces of ice into pieces of meat? Is he a god, who can work by miracles?”
“Who can say?” the boatswain answered his companion’s doubts; “I trust in him.”
Bell shook his head, and fell into a silent apathy, in which he even ceased to think.
That day they made hardly three miles; at evening they had nothing to eat; the dogs threatened to devour one another; the men suffered extremely from hunger. Not a single animal was to be seen. If there had been one, of what use would it have been? They could not go hunting with a knife. Only Johnson thought he recognized a mile to leeward the large bear, who was following the ill-fated little party.
“It is spying us!” he said to himself; “it sees a certain prey in us!”
But Johnson said no word to his companions; that evening they made their accustomed halt, and their supper consisted only of coffee. They felt their eyes growing haggard, their brain growing confused, and, tortured by hunger, they could not get an hour’s sleep; strange and painful dreams took possession of their minds.
At a latitude in which the body imperiously demands refreshment, these poor men had not eaten solid food for thirty-six hours, when Tuesday morning came. Nevertheless, inspired by superhuman energy, they resumed their journey, pushing on the sledge which the dogs were unable to draw. At the end of two hours they fell, exhausted. Hatteras wanted to push on. He, still strong, besought his companions to rise, but they were absolutely unable. Then, with Johnson’s assistance, he built a resting-place in an iceberg. It seemed as if they were digging their own graves.
“I am willing to die of hunger,” said Hatteras, “but not of cold.”
After much weariness the house was ready, and they all entered it.
So that day passed. In that evening, while his companions lay inert, Johnson had a sort of hallucination; he dreamed of an immense bear. That word, which he kept repeating, attracted the doctor’s attention, so that he shook himself free from his stupor, and asked the old sailor why he kept talking about a bear, and what bear he meant.
“The bear which is following us,” answered Johnson.
“The bear which is following us?” repeated the doctor.
“Yes, the last two days.”
“The last two days! Have you seen him?”
“Yes, he’s a mile to leeward.”
“And you didn’t tell us, Johnson?”
“What was the use?”
“True,” said the doctor; “we have no ball to fire at him.”
“Not a slug, a bit of iron, nor a bolt!” said the old sailor.
The doctor was silent, and began to think intently. Soon he said to the boatswain—
“You are sure the bear is following us?”
“Yes, Doctor, he’s lying in wait to eat us. He knows we can’t escape him!”
“Johnson!” said the doctor, touched by the despairing accent of his companion.
“His food is sure,” continued the poor man, who was beginning to be delirious; “he must be half famished, and I don’t see why we need keep him waiting any longer!”
“Be quiet, Johnson!”
“No, Doctor; if we’ve got to come to it, why should we prolong the animal’s sufferings? He’s hungry as we are; he has no seal to eat! Heaven sends him us men; well, so much the better for him!”
Thereupon Johnson went out of his mind; he wanted to leave the snow-house. The doctor had hard work to prevent him, and he only succeeded by saying, as if he meant it—
“Tomorrow I shall kill that bear!”
“Tomorrow!” said Johnson, as if he had awakened from a bad dream.
“Yes, tomorrow.”
“You have no ball!”
“I shall make one.”
“You have no lead!”
“No, but I have some quicksilver.”
Thereupon the doctor took the thermometer; it marked +50°. He went outside, placed the instrument on the ice, and soon returned. The outside temperature was −50°. Then he said to the old sailor—
“Now go to sleep, and wait till tomorrow.”
That night they endured the horrors of hunger; only the doctor and the boatswain were able to temper them with a little hope. The next morning, at dawn, the doctor rushed out, followed by Johnson, and ran to the thermometer; all the mercury had sunk into the bulb, in the form of a compact cylinder. The doctor broke the instrument, and seized in his gloved fingers a piece of very hard metal. It was a real bullet.
“Ah, Doctor,” shouted the old sailor, “that’s a real miracle! You are a wonderful man!”
“No, my friend,” answered the doctor, “I am only a man with a good memory, who has read a good deal.”
“Why, what do you mean?”
“I happened to remember something Captain Ross related in the account of his voyage: he said he shot through an inch plank with a bullet of frozen mercury; if I had any
