By eleven o'clock at night the gale had increased to such an extent and
the sea had begun to build so high that it was a question whether or not
the whaleboat would ride the storm. Bennett finally decided that it
would be impossible to reach the land--stretching out in a long, dark
blur to the southwest--that night, and that the boat must run before
the wind if he was to keep her afloat. The number two cutter, with
Ferriss in command, was a bad sailer, and had fallen astern. She was
already out of hailing distance; but Bennett, who was at the whaleboat's
tiller, in the instant's glance that he dared to shoot behind him saw
with satisfaction that Ferriss had followed his example.
The whaleboat and the number two cutter were the only boats now left to
the expedition. The third boat had been abandoned long before they had
reached open water.
An hour later Adler, the sailing-master, who had been bailing, and who
sat facing Bennett, looked back through the storm; then, turning to
Bennett, said:
"Beg pardon, sir, I think they are signalling us."
Bennett did not answer, but, with his hand gripping the tiller, kept his
face to the front, his glance alternating between the heaving prow of
the boat and the huge gray billows hissing with froth careering rapidly
alongside. To pause for a moment, to vary by ever so little from the
course of the storm, might mean the drowning of them all. After a few
moments Adler spoke again, touching his cap.
"I'm sure I see a signal, sir."
"No, you don't," answered Bennett.
"Beg pardon, I'm quite sure I do."
Bennett leaned toward him, the cast in his eyes twinkling with a wicked
light, the furrow between the eyebrows deepening. "I tell you, you don't
see any signal; do you understand? You don't see any signal until I
choose to have you."
The night was bitter hard for the occupants of the whaleboat. In their
weakened condition they were in no shape to fight a polar hurricane in
an open boat.
For three weeks they had not known the meaning of full rations. During
the first days after the line of march over the ice had been abruptly
changed to the west in the hope of reaching open water, only
three-quarter rations had been issued, and now for the last two days
half rations had been their portion. The gnawing of hunger had begun.
Every man was perceptibly weaker. Matters were getting desperate.
But by seven o'clock the next morning the storm had blown itself out. To
Bennett's inexpressible relief the cutter hove in view. Shaping their
course to landward once more, the boats kept company, and by the middle
of the afternoon Bennett and the crew of the whaleboat successfully
landed upon a bleak, desolate, and wind-scourged coast. But in some way,
never afterward sufficiently explained, the cutter under Ferriss's
command was crushed in the floating ice within one hundred yards of the
shore. The men and stores were landed--the water being shallow enough
for wading--but the boat was a hopeless wreck.
"I believe it's Cape Shelaski," said Bennett to Ferriss when camp had
been made and their maps consulted. "But if it is, it's charted
thirty-five minutes too far to the west."
Before breaking camp the next morning Bennett left this record under a
cairn of rocks upon the highest point of the cape, further marking the
spot by one of the boat's flags:
"The Freja Arctic Exploring Expedition landed at this point October
28, 1891. Our ship was nipped and sunk in 76 deg. 10 min. north
latitude on the l2th of July last. I then attempted a southerly
march to Wrangel Island, but found such a course impracticable on
account of northerly drift of ice. On the lst of October I
accordingly struck off to the westward to find open water at the
limit of the ice, being compelled to abandon one boat and two
sledges on the way. A second boat was crushed beyond repair in
drifting ice while attempting a landing at this place. Our one
remaining boat being too small to accommodate the members of the
expedition, circumstances oblige me to begin an overland march
toward Kolyuchin Bay, following the line of the coast. We expect
either to winter among the Chuckch settlements mentioned by
Nordenskjold as existing upon the eastern shores of Kolyuchin Bay
or to fall in with the relief ships or the steam whalers en route.
By issuing half rations I have enough provisions for eighteen days,
and have saved all records, observations, papers, instruments, etc.
Enclosed is the muster roll of the expedition. No scurvy as yet and
no deaths. Our sick are William Hawes, carpenter, arctic fever,
serious; David McPherson, seaman, ulceration of left foot, serious.
The general condition of the rest of the men is fair, though much
weakened by exposure and lack of food.
(Signed) "WARD BENNETT, Commanding."
But during the night, their first night on land, Bennett resolved upon a
desperate expedient. Not only the boat was to be abandoned, but also the
sledges, and not only the sledges, but every article of weight not
absolutely necessary to the existence of the party. Two weeks before,
the sun had set not to rise again for six months. Winter was upon them
and darkness. The Enemy was drawing near. The great remorseless grip of
the Ice was closing. It was no time for half-measures and hesitation;
now it was life or death.
The sense of their peril, the nearness of the Enemy, strung Bennett's
nerves taut as harp-strings. His will hardened to the flinty hardness of
the ice itself. His strength of mind and of body seemed suddenly to
quadruple itself. His determination was that of the battering-ram,
blind, deaf, resistless. The ugly set of his face became all the more
ugly, the contorted eyes flashing, the great jaw all but simian. He
appeared physically larger. It was no longer a man; it was a giant, an
ogre, a colossal jotun hurling ice-blocks, fighting out a battle
unspeakable, in the dawn of the world, in chaos and in darkness.
The impedimenta of the expedition were broken up into packs that each
man carried upon his shoulders. From now on everything that hindered the
rapidity of their movements must be left behind. Six dogs (all that
remained of the pack of eighteen) still accompanied them.
Bennett had hoped and had counted upon his men for an average daily
march of sixteen miles, but the winter gales driving down from the
northeast beat them back; the ice and snow that covered the land were no
less uneven than the hummocks of the pack. All game had migrated far to
the southward.
Every day the men grew weaker and weaker; their provisions dwindled.
Again and again one or another of them, worn out beyond human endurance,
would go to sleep while marching and would fall to the ground.
Upon the third day of this overland march one of the dogs suddenly
collapsed upon the ground, exhausted and dying. Bennett had ordered such
of the dogs that gave out cut up and their meat added to the store of
the party's provisions. Ferriss and Muck Tu had started to pick up the
dead dog when the other dogs, famished and savage, sprang upon their
fallen mate. The two men struck and kicked, all to no purpose; the dogs
turned upon them snarling and snapping. They, too, demanded to live;
they, too, wanted to be fed. It was a hideous business. There in that
half-night of the polar circle, lost and forgotten on a primordial
shore, back into the stone age once more, men and animals fought one
another for the privilege of eating a dead dog.
But their life was not all inhuman; Bennett at least could rise even
above humanity, though his men must perforce be dragged so far below it.
At the end of the first week Hawes, the carpenter, died. When they awoke
in the morning he was found motionless and stiff in his sleeping-bag.
Some sort of grave was dug, the poor racked body lowered into it, and
before it was filled with snow and broken ice Bennett, standing quietly
in the midst of the bare-headed group, opened his prayer-book and began
with the tremendous words, "I am the Resurrection and the Life--"
It was the beginning of the end. A week later the actual starvation
began. Slower and slower moved the expedition on its daily march,
faltering, staggering, blinded and buffeted by the incessant northeast
winds, cruel, merciless, keen as knife-blades. Hope long since was dead;
resolve wore thin under friction of disaster; like a rat, hunger gnawed
at them hour after hour; the cold was one unending agony. Still Bennett
was unbroken, still he urged them forward. For so long as they could
move he would drive them on.
Toward four o'clock on the afternoon of one particularly hard day, word
was passed forward to Bennett at the head of the line that something was
wrong in the rear.
"It's Adler; he's down again and can't get up; asks you to leave him."
Bennett halted the line and went back some little distance to find Adler
lying prone upon his back, his eyes half closed, breathing short and
fast. He shook him roughly by the shoulder.
"Up with you!"
Adler opened his eyes and shook his head.
"I--I'm done for this time, sir; just leave me here--please."
"H'up!" shouted Bennett; "you're not done for; I know better."
"Really, sir, I--I _can't_."
"H'up!"
"If you would only please--for God's sake, sir. It's more than I'm made
for."
Bennett kicked him in the side.
"H'up with you!"
Adler struggled to his feet again, Bennett aiding him.
"Now, then, can you go five yards?"
"I think--I don't know--perhaps--"
"Go them, then."
The other moved forward.
"Can you go five more; answer, speak up, can you?"
Adler nodded his head.
"Go them--and another five--and another--there--that's something like a
man, and let's have no more woman's drivel about dying."
"But--"
Bennett came close to him, shaking a forefinger in his face, thrusting
forward his chin wickedly.
"My friend, I'll drive you like a dog, but," his fist clenched in the
man's face, "I'll _make_ you pull through."
Two hours later Adler finished the day's march at the head of the line.
The expedition began to eat its dogs. Every evening Bennett sent Muck Tu
and Adler down to the shore to gather shrimps, though fifteen hundred of
these shrimps hardly filled a gill measure. The party chewed
reindeer-moss growing in scant patches in the snow-buried rocks, and at
times made a thin, sickly infusion from the arctic willow. Again and
again Bennett despatched the Esquimau and Clarke, the best shots in the
party, on hunting expeditions to the southward. Invariably they returned
empty-handed. Occasionally they reported old tracks of reindeer and
foxes, but the winter colds had driven everything far inland. Once only
Clarke shot a snow-bunting, a little bird hardly bigger than a sparrow.
Still Bennett pushed forward.
One morning in the beginning of the third week, after a breakfast of two
ounces of dog meat and a half cup of willow tea, Ferriss and Bennett
found themselves a little apart from the others. The men were engaged in
lowering the tent. Ferriss glanced behind to be assured he was out of
hearing, then:
"How about McPherson?" he said in a low voice.
McPherson's foot was all but eaten to the bone by now. It was a miracle
how the man had kept up thus far. But at length he had begun to fall
behind; every day he straggled more and more, and the previous evening
had reached camp nearly an hour after the tent had been pitched. But he
was a plucky fellow, of sterner stuff than the sailing-master, Adler,
and had no thought of giving up.
Bennett made no reply to Ferriss, and the chief engineer did not repeat
the question. The day's march began; almost at once breast-high
snowdrifts were encountered, and when these had been left behind the
expedition involved itself upon the precipitate slopes of a huge talus
of ice and bare, black slabs of basalt. Fully two hours were spent in
clambering over this obstacle, and on its top Bennett halted to breathe
the men. But when they started forward again it was found that McPherson
could not keep his feet. When he had fallen, Adler and Dennison had
endeavoured to lift him, but they themselves were so weak that they,
too, fell. Dennison could not rise of his own efforts, and instead of
helping McPherson had to be aided himself. Bennett came forward, put an
arm about McPherson, and hauled him to an upright position. The man took
a step forward, but his left foot immediately doubled under him, and he
came to the ground again. Three times this manoeuvre was repeated; so
far from marching, McPherson could not even stand.
"If I could have a day's rest--" began McPherson, unsteadily. Bennett
cast a glance at Dennison, the doctor. Dennison shook his head. The
foot, the entire leg below the knee, should have been amputated days
ago. A month's rest even in a hospital at home would have benefited
McPherson nothing.
For the fraction of a minute Bennett debated the question, then he
turned to the command.
"Forward, men!"
"What--wh--" began McPherson, sitting upon the ground, looking from one
face to another, bewildered, terrified. Some of the men began to move
off.
"Wait--wait," exclaimed the cripple, "I--I can get along--I--" He rose
to his knees, made, a great effort to regain his footing, and once more
came crashing down upon the ice.
"Forward!"
"But--but--but--_Oh, you're not going to leave me, sir_?"
"Forward!"
"He's been my chum, sir, all through the voyage," said one of the men,
touching his cap to Bennett; "I had just as soon be left with him. I'm
about done myself."
Another joined in:
"I'll stay, too--I can't leave--it's--it's too terrible."
There was a moment's hesitation. Those who had begun to move on halted.
The whole expedition wavered.
Bennett caught the dog-whip from Muck Tu's hand. His voice rang like the
alarm of a trumpet.
"Forward!"
Once more Bennett's discipline prevailed. His iron hand shut down upon
his men, more than ever resistless. Obediently they turned their faces
to the southward. The march was resumed.
Another day passed, then two. Still the expedition struggled on. With
every hour their sufferings increased. It did not seem that anything
human could endure such stress and yet survive. Toward three o'clock in
the morning of the third night Adler woke Bennett.
"It's Clarke, sir; he and I sleep in the same bag. I think he's going,
sir."
One by one the men in the tent were awakened, and the train-oil lamp was
lit.
Clarke lay in his sleeping-bag unconscious, and at long intervals
drawing a faint, quick breath. The doctor bent over him, feeling his
pulse, but shook his head hopelessly.
"He's dying--quietly--exhaustion from starvation."
A few moments later Clarke began to tremble slightly, the mouth opened
wide; a faint rattle came from the throat.
Four miles was as much as could be made good the next day, and this
though the ground was comparatively smooth. Ferriss was continually
falling. Dennison and Metz were a little light-headed, and Bennett at
one time wondered if Ferriss himself had absolute control of his wits.
Since morning the wind had been blowing strongly in their faces. By noon
it had increased. At four o'clock a violent gale was howling over the
reaches of ice and rock-ribbed land. It was impossible to go forward
while it lasted. The stronger gusts fairly carried their feet from under
them. At half-past four the party halted. The gale was now a hurricane.
The expedition paused, collected itself, went forward; halted again,
again attempted to move, and came at last to a definite standstill in
whirling snow-clouds and blinding, stupefying blasts.
"Pitch the tent!" said Bennett quietly. "We must wait now till it blows
over."
In the lee of a mound of ice-covered rock some hundred yards from the
coast the tent was pitched, and supper, such as it was, eaten in
silence. All knew what this enforced halt must mean for them. That
supper--each man could hold his portion in the hollow of one hand--was
the last of their regular provisions. March they could not. What now?
Before crawling into their sleeping-bags, and at Bennett's request, all
joined in repeating the Creed and the Lord's Prayer.
The next day passed, and the next, and the next. The gale continued
steadily. The southerly march was discontinued. All day and all night
the men kept in the tent, huddled in the sleeping-bags, sometimes
sleeping eighteen and twenty hours out of the twenty-four. They lost all
consciousness of the lapse of time; sensation even of suffering left
them; the very hunger itself had ceased to gnaw. Only Bennett and
Ferriss seemed to keep their heads. Then slowly the end began.
For that last week Bennett's entries in his ice-journal were as follows:
"November 29th--Monday--Camped at 4:30 p.m. about 100 yards from the
coast. Open water to the eastward as far as I can see. If I had not
been compelled to abandon my boats--but it is useless to repine. I
must look our situation squarely in the face. At noon served out
last beef-extract, which we drank with some willow tea. Our
remaining provisions consist of four-fifteenths of a pound of
pemmican per man, and the rest of the dog meat. Where are the
relief ships? We should at least have met the steam whalers long
before this.
"November 30th--Tuesday--The doctor amputated Mr. Ferriss's other
hand to-day. Living gale of wind from northeast. Impossible to
march against it in our weakened condition; must camp here till it
abates. Made soup of the last of the dog meat this afternoon. Our
last pemmican gone.
"December lst--Wednesday--Everybody getting weaker. Metz breaking
down. Sent Adler down to the shore to gather shrimps. We had about
a mouthful apiece for lunch. Supper, a spoonful of glycerine and
hot water.
"December 2d--Thursday--Metz died during the night. Hansen dying.
Still blowing a gale from the northeast. A hard night.
"December 3d--Friday--Hansen died during early morning. Muck Tu shot
a ptarmigan. Made soup. Dennison breaking down.
"December 4th--Saturday--Buried Hansen under slabs of ice. Spoonful
of glycerine and hot water at noon.
"December 5th--Sunday--Dennison found dead this morning between
Adler and myself. Too weak to bury him, or even carry him out of
the tent. He must lie where he is. Divine services at 5:30
P.M. Last spoonful of glycerine and hot water."
* * * * *
The next day was Monday, and at some indeterminate hour of the
twenty-four, though whether it was night or noon he could not say,
Ferriss woke in his sleeping-bag and raised himself on an elbow, and for
a moment sat stupidly watching Bennett writing in his journal. Noticing
that he was awake, Bennett looked up from the page and spoke in a voice
thick and muffled because of the swelling of his tongue.
"How long has this wind been blowing, Ferriss?"
"Since a week ago to-day," answered the other.
Bennett continued his writing.
"...Incessant gales of wind for over a week. Impossible to move
against them in our weakened condition. But to stay here is to
perish. God help us. It is the end of everything."
Bennett drew a line across the page under the last entry, and, still
holding the book in his hand, gazed slowly about the tent.
There were six of them left--five huddled together in that miserable
tent--the sixth, Adler, being down on the shore gathering shrimps. In
the strange and gloomy half-light that filled the tent these survivors
of the Freja looked less like men than beasts. Their hair and beards
were long, and seemed one with the fur covering of their bodies. Their
faces were absolutely black with dirt, and their limbs were monstrously
distended and fat--fat as things bloated and swollen are fat. It was the
abnormal fatness of starvation, the irony of misery, the huge joke that
arctic famine plays upon those whom it afterward destroys. The men moved
about at times on their hands and knees; their tongues were distended,
round, and slate-coloured, like the tongues of parrots, and when they
spoke they bit them helplessly.
Near the flap of the tent lay the swollen dead body of Dennison. Two of
the party dozed inert and stupefied in their sleeping-bags. Muck Tu was
in the corner of the tent boiling his sealskin footnips over the
sheet-iron cooker. Ferriss and Bennett sat on opposite sides of the
tent, Bennett using his knee as a desk, Ferriss trying to free himself
from the sleeping-bag with the stumps of his arms. Upon one of these
stumps, the right one, a tin spoon had been lashed.
The tent was full of foul smells. The smell of drugs and of mouldy
gunpowder, the smell of dirty rags, of unwashed bodies, the smell of
stale smoke, of scorching sealskin, of soaked and rotting canvas that
exhaled from the tent cover--every smell but that of food.
Outside the unleashed wind yelled incessantly, like a sabbath of
witches, and spun about the pitiful shelter and went rioting past,
leaping and somersaulting from rock to rock, tossing handfuls of dry,
dust-like snow into the air; folly-stricken, insensate, an enormous, mad
monster gambolling there in some hideous dance of death, capricious,
headstrong, pitiless as a famished wolf.
In front of the tent and over a ridge of barren rocks was an arm of the
sea dotted with blocks of ice moving silently and swiftly onward; while
back from the coast, and back from the tent and to the south and to the
west and to the east, stretched the illimitable waste of land, rugged,
gray, harsh; snow and ice and rock, rock and ice and snow, stretching
away there under the sombre sky forever and forever; gloomy, untamed,
terrible, an empty region--the scarred battlefield of chaotic forces,
the savage desolation of a prehistoric world.
"Where's Adler?" asked Ferriss.
"He's away after shrimps," responded Bennett.
Bennett's eyes returned to his journal and rested on the open page
thoughtfully.
"Do you know what I've just written here, Ferriss?" he asked, adding
without waiting for an answer: "I've written 'It's the end of
everything.'"
"I suppose it is," admitted Ferriss, looking about the tent.
"Yes, the end of everything. It's come--at last.... Well." There was a
long silence. One of the men in the sleeping-bags groaned and turned
upon his face. Outside the wind lapsed suddenly to a prolonged sigh of
infinite sadness, clamouring again upon the instant.
"Dick," said Bennett, returning his journal to the box of records, "it
_is_ the end of everything, and just because it is I want to talk to
you--to ask you something."
Ferriss came nearer. The horrid shouting of the wind deadened the sound
of their voices; the others could not hear, and by now it would have
mattered very little to any of them if they had.
"Dick," began Bennett, "nothing makes much difference now. In a few
hours we shall all be like Dennison here;" he tapped the body of the
doctor, who had died during the night. It was already frozen so hard
that his touch upon it resounded as if it had been a log of wood. "We
shall be like this pretty soon. But before--well, while I can, I want to
ask you something about Lloyd Searight. You've known her all your life,
and you saw her later than I did before we left. You remember I had to
come to the ship two days before you, about the bilge pumps."
While Bennett had been speaking Ferriss had been sitting very erect upon
his sleeping-bag, drawing figures and vague patterns in the fur of his
deer-skin coat with the tip of the tin spoon. Yes, Bennett was right; he,
Ferriss, had known her all his life, and it was no doubt because of this
very fact that she had come to be so dear to him. But he had not always
known it, had never discovered his love for her until the time was at
hand to say good-bye, to leave her for this mad dash for the Pole. It
had been too late to speak then, and Ferriss had never told her. She was
never to know that he too--like Bennett--cared.
"It seems rather foolish," continued Bennett clumsily, "but if I thought
she had ever cared for me--in that way--why, it would make this that is
coming to us seem--I don't know--easier to be borne perhaps. I say it
very badly, but it would not be so hard to die if I thought she had ever
loved me--a bit."
Ferriss was thinking very fast. Why was it he had never guessed
something like this? But in Ferriss's mind the idea of the love of a
woman had never associated itself with Bennett, that great, harsh man of
colossal frame, so absorbed in his huge projects, so welded to his
single aim, furthering his purposes to the exclusion of every other
thought, desire, or emotion. Bennett was a man's man. But here Ferriss
checked himself. Bennett himself had called her a man's woman, a grand,
splendid man's woman. He was right; he was right. She was no less than
that; small wonder, after all, that Bennett had been attracted to her.
What a pair they were, strong, masterful both, insolent in the
consciousness of their power!
"You have known her so well and for so long," continued Bennett, "that I
am sure she must have said something to you about me. Tell me, did she
ever say anything--or not that--but imply in her manner, give you to
understand that she would have married me if I had asked her?"
Ferriss found time, even in such an hour, to wonder at the sudden and
unexpected break in the uniform hardness of Bennett's character. Ferriss
knew him well by now. Bennett was not a man to ask concessions, to catch
at small favours. What he wanted he took with an iron hand, without ruth
and without scruple. But in the unspeakable dissolution in which they
were now involved did anything make a difference? The dreadful mill in
which they had been ground had crushed from them all petty distinctions
of personality, individuality. Humanity--the elements of character
common to all men--only remained.
But Ferriss was puzzled as to how he should answer Bennett. On the one
hand was the woman he loved, and on the other Bennett, his best friend,
his chief, his hero. They, too, had lived together for so long, had
fought out the fight with the Enemy shoulder to shoulder, had battled
with the same dangers, had dared the same sufferings, had undergone the
same defeats and disappointments.
Ferriss felt himself in grievous straits. Must he tell Bennett the
truth? Must this final disillusion be added to that long train of
others, the disasters, the failures, the disappointments, and deferred
hopes of all those past months? Must Bennett die hugging to his heart
this bitterness as well?
"I sometimes thought," observed Bennett with a weak smile, "that she did
care a little. I've surely seen something like that in her eyes at
certain moments. I wish I had spoken. Did she ever say anything to you?
Do you think she would have married me if I had asked her?" He paused,
waiting for an answer.
"Oh--yes," hazarded Ferriss, driven to make some sort of response,
hoping to end the conversation; "yes, I think she would."
"You do?" said Bennett quickly. "You think she would? What did she say?
Did she ever say anything to you?"
The thing was too cruel; Ferriss shrank from it. But suddenly an idea
occurred to him. Did anything make any difference now? Why not tell his
friend that which he wanted to hear, even if it were not the truth?
After all that Bennett had suffered why could he not die content at
least in this? What did it matter if he spoke? Did anything matter at
such a time when they were all to die within the next twenty-four hours?
Bennett was looking straight into his eyes; there was no time to think
of consequences. Consequences? But there were to be _no_ consequences.
This was the end. Yet could Ferriss make Bennett receive such an
untruth? Ferriss did not believe that Lloyd cared for Bennett; knew that
she did not, in fact, and if she had cared, did Bennett think for an
instant that she--of all women--would have confessed the fact, confessed
it to him, Bennett's most intimate friend? Ferriss had known Lloyd well
for a long time, had at last come to love her. But could he himself tell
whether or no Lloyd cared for him? No, he could not, certainly he could
not.
Meanwhile Bennett was waiting for his answer. Ferriss's mind was all
confused. He could no longer distinguish right from wrong. If the lie
would make Bennett happier in this last hour of his life, why not tell
the lie?
"Yes," answered Ferriss, "she did say something once."
"She did?"
"Yes," continued Ferriss slowly, trying to invent the most plausible
lie. "We had been speaking of the expedition and of you. I don't know
how the subject was brought up, but it came in very naturally at length.
She said--yes, I recall it. She said: 'You must bring him back to me.
Remember he is everything to me--everything in the world.'"
"She--" Bennett cleared his throat, then tugged at his mustache; "she
said that?"
Ferriss nodded.
"Ah!" said Bennett with a quick breath, then he added: "I'm glad of
that; you haven't any idea how glad I am, Dick--in spite of everything."
"Oh, yes, I guess I have," murmured Ferriss.
"No, no, indeed, you haven't," returned the other. "One has to love a
woman like that, Dick, and have her--and find out--and have things come
right, to appreciate it. She would have been my wife after all. I don't
know how to thank you, Dick. Congratulate me."
He rose, holding out his hand; Ferriss feebly rose, too, and
instinctively extended his arm, but withdrew it suddenly. Bennett paused
abruptly, letting his hand fall to his side, and the two men remained
there an instant, looking at the stumps of Ferriss's arms, the tin spoon
still lashed to the right wrist.
A few hours later Bennett noted that the gale had begun perceptibly to
abate. By afternoon he was sure that the storm would be over. As he
turned to re-enter the tent after reading the wind-gauge he noted that
Kamiska, their one remaining dog, had come back, and was sitting on a
projection of ice a little distance away, uncertain as to her reception
after her absence. Bennett was persuaded that Kamiska had not run away.
Of all the Ostiaks she had been the most faithful. Bennett chose to
believe that she had wandered from the tent and had lost herself in the
blinding snow. But here was food. Kamiska could be killed; life could be
prolonged a day or two, perhaps three, while the strongest man of the
party, carrying the greater portion of the dog meat on his shoulders,
could push forward and, perhaps, after all, reach Kolyuchin Bay and the
Chuckch settlements and return with aid. But who could go? Assuredly not
Ferriss, so weak he could scarcely keep on his feet; not Adler, who at
times was delirious, and who needed the discipline of a powerful leader
to keep him to his work; Muck Tu, the Esquimau, could not be trusted
with the lives of all of them, and the two remaining men were in all but
a dying condition. Only one man of them all was equal to the task, only
one of them who still retained his strength of body and mind; he
himself, Bennett. Yes, but to abandon his men?
He crawled into the tent again to get the rifle with which to shoot the
dog, but, suddenly possessed of an idea, paused for a moment, seated on
the sleeping-bag, his head in his hands.
Beaten? Was he beaten at last? Had the Enemy conquered? Had the Ice
enclosed him in its vast, remorseless grip? Then once more his
determination grew big within him, for a last time that iron will rose
up in mighty protest of defeat. No, no, no; he was not beaten; he would
live; he, the strongest, the fittest, would survive. Was it not right
that the mightiest should live? Was it not the great law of nature? He
knew himself to be strong enough to move; to march, perhaps, for two
whole days; and now food had come to them, to him. Yes, but to abandon
his men?
He had left McPherson, it is true; but then the lives of all of them had
been involved--one life against eleven. Now he was thinking only of
himself. But Ferriss--no, he could not leave Ferriss. Ferriss would come
with him. They would share the dog meat between them--the whole of it.
He, with Ferriss, would push on. He would reach Kolyuchin Bay and the
settlements. He would be saved; he would reach home; would come
back--come back to Lloyd, who loved him. Yes, but to abandon his men?
Then Bennett's great fist closed, closed and smote heavily upon his
knee.
"No," he said decisively.
He had spoken his thoughts aloud, and Ferriss, who had crawled into his
sleeping-bag again, looked at him curiously. Even Muck Tu turned his
head from the sickening mess reeking upon the cooker. There was a noise
of feet at the flap of the tent.
"It's Adler," muttered Ferriss.
Adler tore open the flap.
Then he shouted to Bennett: "Three steam whalers off the foot of the
floe, sir; boat putting off! What orders, sir?"
Bennett looked at him stupidly, as yet without definite thought.
"What did you say?"
The men in the sleeping-bags, roused by Adler's shout, sat up and
listened stolidly.
"Steam whalers?" said Bennett slowly. "Where? I guess not," he added,
shaking his head.
Adler was swaying in his place with excitement.
"Three whalers," he repeated, "close in. They've put off--oh, my God!
Listen to that."
The unmistakable sound of a steamer's whistle, raucous and prolonged,
came to their ears from the direction of the coast. One of the men broke
into a feeble cheer. The whole tent was rousing up. Again and again came
the hoarse, insistent cry of the whistle.
"What orders, sir?" repeated Adler.
A clamour of voices filled the tent.
Ferriss came quickly up to Bennett, trying to make himself heard.
"Listen!" he cried with eager intentness, "what I told you--a while
ago--about Lloyd--I thought--it's all a mistake, you don't understand--"
Bennett was not listening.
"What orders, sir?" exclaimed Adler for the third time.
Bennett drew himself up.
"My compliments to the officer in command. Tell him there are six of us
left--tell him--oh, tell him anything you damn please. Men," he cried,
his harsh face suddenly radiant, "make ready to get out of this! We're
going home, going home to those who love us, men."