The Fur Country

how patiently they had submitted to the will of God. We have seen Mrs. Barnett cheering everyone by her example and sympathy; and we know that neither she nor those with her yielded to despair when the peninsula on which Fort Hope had been built was converted into a wandering island, when that island became an islet, and the islet a strip of ice, nor even when that strip of ice was melting beneath the combined influence of sun and waves. If the scheme of the Company was a failure, if the new fort had perished, no one could possibly blame Hobson or his companions, who had gone through such extraordinary and unexpected trials. Of the nineteen persons under the Lieutenant’s charge, not one was missing, and he had even two new members in his little colony, Kalumah and Mrs. Barnett’s godson, Michael Mac-Nab.

Six days after their rescue the shipwrecked mariners arrived at New Archangel, the capital of Russian America.

Here the friends, bound together by so many dangers shared, must part, probably forever! Hobson and his men were to return to Fort Reliance across English America, whilst Mrs. Barnett, accompanied by Kalumah, who would not leave her, Madge, and Thomas Black, intended to go back to Europe via San Francisco and the United States.

But whilst they were still altogether, the Lieutenant, addressing Mrs. Barnett, said with considerable emotion⁠—

“God bless you, madam, for all you have been to us. You have been our comforter, our consoler, the very soul of our little world; and I thank you in the name of all.”

Three cheers for Mrs. Barnett greeted this speech, and each soldier begged to shake her by the hand, whilst the women embraced her affectionately.

The Lieutenant himself had conceived so warm an affection for the lady who had so long been his friend and counsellor, that he could not bid her goodbye without great emotion.

“Can it be that we shall never meet again?” he exclaimed.

“No, Lieutenant,” replied Mrs. Barnett; “we must, we shall meet again. If you do not come and see me in Europe, I will come back to you at Fort Reliance, or to the new factory you will found some day yet.”

On hearing this, Thomas Black, who had regained the use of his tongue since he had landed on terra firma, came forward and said, with an air of the greatest conviction⁠—

“Yes, we shall meet again in thirty-six years. My friends, I missed the eclipse of 1860, but I will not miss that which will take place under exactly similar conditions in the same latitudes in 1896. And therefore I appoint a meeting with you, Lieutenant, and with you, my dear madam, on the confines of the Arctic Ocean thirty six years hence.”

Endnotes

1. Captain Craventy’s prophecy has since been realised. ↩

2. A fungus used as tinder (Polyporous igniarius). ↩

Colophon

The Fur Country
was published in 1873 by
Jules Verne.
It was translated from French in 1873 by
N. D’Anvers.

This ebook was produced for
Standard Ebooks
by
Hendrik Kaiber,
and is based on a transcription produced in 2005 by
N. Wolcott
for
Project Gutenberg
and on digital scans from the
Internet Archive.

The cover page is adapted from
Nest of Winter,
a painting completed in 1907 by
Stanisław Witkiewicz.
The cover and title pages feature the
League Spartan and Sorts Mill Goudy
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