Simpson was gasping for breath. Suddenly, with a last effort, he half rose, stretched his clinched fist at Hatteras, who was gazing steadily at him, uttered a heart-rending cry, and fell back dead in the midst of his unfinished threat.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "Suddenly, with a last effort, he half rose."]
"Dead!" said the doctor.
"Dead!" repeated Bell.
Hatteras, who was approaching the corpse, drew back before the violence of the wind.
He was the first of the crew who succ.u.mbed to the murderous climate, the first to offer up his life, after incalculable sufferings, to the captain"s persistent obstinacy. This man had considered him an a.s.sa.s.sin, but Hatteras did not quail before the accusation. But a tear, falling from his eyes, froze on his pale cheek.
The doctor and Bell looked at him in terror. Supported by his long staff, he seemed like the genius of these regions, straight in the midst of the fierce blast, and terrible in his stern severity.
He remained standing, without stirring, till the first rays of the twilight appeared, bold and unconquerable, and seeming to defy the tempest which was roaring about him.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
CHAPTER x.x.xII.
THE RETURN TO THE FORWARD.
Toward six o"clock in the morning the wind fell, and, shifting suddenly to the north, it cleared the clouds from the sky; the thermometer stood at -33. The first rays of the twilight appeared on the horizon above which it would soon peer.
Hatteras approached his two dejected companions and said to them, sadly and gently,--
"My friends, we are more than sixty miles from the point mentioned by Sir Edward Belcher. We have only just enough food left to take us back to the ship. To go farther would only expose us to certain death, without our being of service to any one. We must return."
"That is a wise decision, Hatteras," answered the doctor; "I should have followed you anywhere, but we are all growing weaker every day; we can hardly set one foot before the other; I approve of returning."
"Is that your opinion, Bell?" asked Hatteras.
"Yes, Captain," answered the carpenter.
"Well," continued Hatteras, "we will take two days for rest. That"s not too much. The sledge needs a great many repairs. I think, too, we ought to build a snow-house in which we can repose."
This being decided, the three men set to work energetically. Bell took the necessary precautions to insure the solidity of the building, and soon a satisfactory retreat arose at the bottom of the ravine where they had last halted.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
It was doubtless after a hard struggle that Hatteras had decided to discontinue his journey. So much effort and fatigue thrown away! A useless trip, entailing the death of one of his men! To return without a sc.r.a.p of coal: what would the crew say? What might it not do under the lead of Shandon? But Hatteras could not continue the struggle any longer.
He gave all his attention to their preparations for returning; the sledge was repaired; its load, too, had become much lighter, and only weighed two hundred pounds. They mended their worn-out, torn clothes, all soaked through and through by the snow; new moccasins and snow-shoes replaced those which were no longer serviceable. This kept them busy the whole of the 29th and the morning of the 30th; then they all sought what rest they could get, and prepared for what was before them.
During the thirty-six hours spent in or near the snow-house, the doctor had been noticing Duke, whose singular behavior did not seem to him to be natural; the dog kept going in circles which seemed to have a common centre; there was a sort of elevation in the soil, produced by acc.u.mulated layers of ice; Duke, as he ran around this place, kept barking gently and wagging his tail impatiently, looking at his master as if asking something.
The doctor, after reflecting a moment, ascribed this uneasiness to the presence of Simpson"s corpse, which his companions had not yet had time to bury. Hence he resolved to proceed to this sad ceremony on that very day; the next morning they were to start. Bell and the doctor, picks in hand, went to the bottom of the ravine; the elevation which Duke had noticed offered a suitable place for the grave, which would have to be dug deep to escape the bears.
The doctor and Bell began by removing the soft snow, then they attacked the solid ice; at the third blow of his pick the doctor struck against some hard body; he picked up the pieces and found them the fragments of a gla.s.s bottle. Bell brought to light a stiffened bag, in which were a few crumbs of fresh biscuit.
"What"s this?" said the doctor.
"What can it be?" asked Bell, stopping his work.
The doctor called to Hatteras, who came at once.
Duke barked violently, and with his paws tried to tear up the ice.
"Have we by any possibility come across a supply of provisions?" said the doctor.
"It looks like it," answered Bell.
"Go on!" said Hatteras.
A few bits of food were found and a box quarter full of pemmican.
"If we have," said Hatteras, "the bears have visited it before we did.
See, these provisions have been touched already."
"It is to be feared," answered the doctor, "for--"
He did not finish his sentence; a cry from Bell interrupted him; he had turned over a tolerably large piece of ice and showed a stiff, frozen human leg in the ice.
"A corpse!" cried the doctor.
"It"s a grave," said Hatteras.
It was the body of a sailor about thirty years old, in a perfect state of preservation; he wore the usual dress of Arctic sailors; the doctor could not say how long he had been dead.
After this, Bell found another corpse, that of a man of fifty, exhibiting traces of the sufferings that had killed him.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
"They were never buried," cried the doctor; "these poor men were surprised by death as we find them."
"You are right, Doctor," said Bell.
"Go on, go on!" said Hatteras.
Bell hardly dared. Who could say how many corpses lay hidden here?
"They were the victims of just such an accident as we nearly perished by," said the doctor; "their snow-house fell in. Let us see if one may not be breathing yet!"
The place was rapidly cleared away, and Bell brought up a third body, that of a man of forty; he looked less like a corpse than the others; the doctor bent over him and thought he saw some signs of life.
"He"s alive!" he shouted.