In a one-roomed hut, high within the Arctic Circle, and only a little
south of the eightieth parallel, six men were sitting--much as they had
sat, evening after evening, for months. They had a clock, and by it
they divided the hours into day and night. As a matter of fact, it was
always night. But the clock said half-past eight, and they called the
time evening.
The hut was built of logs, with an inner skin of rough match-boarding,
daubed with pitch. It measured seventeen feet by fourteen; but opposite
the door four bunks--two above and two below--took a yard off the
length, and this made the interior exactly square. Each of these bunks
had two doors, with brass latches on the inner side; so that the owner,
if he chose, could shut himself up and go to sleep in a sort of
cupboard. But as a rule, he closed one of them only--that by his feet.
The other swung back, with its brass latch showing. The men kept these
latches in a high state of polish.
Across the angle of the wall, to the left of the door, and behind it
when it opened, three hammocks were slung, one above another. No one
slept in the uppermost.
But the feature of the hut was its fireplace; and this was merely a
square hearth-stone, raised slightly above the floor, in the middle of
the room. Upon it, and upon a growing mountain of soft grey ash, the
fire burned always. It had no chimney, and so the men lost none of its
warmth. The smoke ascended steadily and spread itself under the
blackened beams and roof-boards in dense blue layers. But about
eighteen inches beneath the spring of the roof there ran a line of small
trap-doors with sliding panels, to admit the cold air, and below these
the room was almost clear of smoke. A newcomer's eyes might have
smarted, but these men stitched their clothes and read in comfort.
To keep the up-draught steady they had plugged every chink and crevice
in the match-boarding below the trap-doors with moss, and payed the
seams with pitch. The fire they fed from a stack of drift and wreck
wood piled to the right of the door, and fuel for the fetching strewed
the frozen beach outside--whole trees notched into lengths by lumberers'
axes and washed thither from they knew not what continent. But the
wreck-wood came from their own ship, the _J. R. MacNeill_, which had
brought them from Dundee.
They were Alexander Williamson, of Dundee, better known as The Gaffer;
David Faed, also of Dundee; George Lashman, of Cardiff; Long Ede, of
Hayle, in Cornwall; Charles Silchester, otherwise The Snipe, of Ratcliff
Highway or thereabouts; and Daniel Cooney, shipped at Tromso six weeks
before the wreck, an Irish-American by birth and of no known address.
The Gaffer reclined in his bunk, reading by the light of a smoky and
evil-smelling lamp. He had been mate of the _J. R. MacNeill_, and was
now captain as well as patriarch of the party. He possessed three
books--the Bible, Milton's "Paradise Lost," and an odd volume of
"The Turkish Spy." Just now he was reading "The Turkish Spy."
The lamplight glinted on the rim of his spectacles and on the silvery
hairs in his beard, the slack of which he had tucked under the edge of
his blanket. His lips moved as he read, and now and then he broke off
to glance mildly at Faed and the Snipe, who were busy beside the fire
with a greasy pack of cards; or to listen to the peevish grumbling of
Lashman in the bunk below him. Lashman had taken to his bed six weeks
before with scurvy, and complained incessantly; and though they hardly
knew it, these complaints were wearing his comrades' nerves to
fiddle-strings--doing the mischief that cold and bitter hard work and
the cruel loneliness had hitherto failed to do. Long Ede lay stretched
by the fire in a bundle of skins, reading in his only book, the Bible,
open now at the Song of Solomon. Cooney had finished patching a pair of
trousers, and rolled himself in his hammock, whence he stared at the
roof and the moonlight streaming up there through the little trap-doors
and chivying the layers of smoke. Whenever Lashman broke out into fresh
quaverings of self-pity, Cooney's hands opened and shut again, till the
nails dug hard into the palm. He groaned at length, exasperated beyond
endurance.
"Oh, stow it, George! Hang it all, man! . . ."
He checked himself, sharp and short: repentant, and rebuked by the
silence of the others. They were good seamen all, and tender dealing
with a sick shipmate was part of their code.
Lashman's voice, more querulous than ever, cut into the silence like a
knife--
"That's it. You've thought it for weeks, and now you say it.
I've knowed it all along. I'm just an encumbrance, and the sooner
you're shut of me the better, says you. You needn't to fret. I'll be
soon out of it; out of it--out there, alongside of Bill--"
"Easy there, matey." The Snipe glanced over his shoulder and laid his
cards face downward. "Here, let me give the bed a shake up. It'll ease
yer."
"It'll make me quiet, you mean. Plucky deal you care about easin' me,
any of yer!"
"Get out with yer nonsense! Dan didn' mean it." The Snipe slipped an
arm under the invalid's head and rearranged the pillow of skins and
gunny-bags.
"He didn't, didn't he? Let him say it then . . ."
The Gaffer read on, his lips moving silently. Heaven knows how he had
acquired this strayed and stained and filthy little demi-octavo with the
arms of Saumarez on its book-plate--"The Sixth Volume of Letters writ by
a Turkish Spy, who liv'd Five-and-Forty Years Undiscovered at Paris:
Giving an Impartial Account to the _Divan_ at _Constantinople_ of the
most remarkable Transactions of Europe, And discovering several
_Intrigues_ and _Secrets_ of the _Christian_ Courts (especially of that
of _France_)," etc., etc. "Written originally in _Arabick_. Translated
into _Italian_, and from thence into _English_ by the Translator of the
First Volume. The Eleventh Edition. London: Printed for G. Strahan,
S. Ballard"--and a score of booksellers--"MDCCXLI." Heavens knows why he
read it; since he understood about one-half, and admired less than
one-tenth. The Oriental reflections struck him as mainly blasphemous.
But the Gaffer's religious belief marked down nine-tenths of mankind for
perdition: which perhaps made him tolerant. At any rate, he read on
gravely between the puffs of his short clay--
"_On the 19th of this Moon, the King and the whole Court were
present at a Ballet, representing the grandeur of the_ French
_monarchy. About the Middle of the Entertainment, there was an
Antique Dance perform d by twelve Masqueraders, in the suppos'd
form of_ Daemons. _But before they had advanc'd far in their
Dance, they found an Interloper amongst 'em, who by encreasing
the Number to thirteen, put them quite out of their Measure:
For they practise every Step and Motion beforehand, till they are
perfect. Being abash'd therefore at the unavoidable Blunders the
thirteenth Antique made them commit, they stood still like Fools,
gazing at one another: None daring to unmask, or speak a Word;
for that would have put all the Spectators into a Disorder and
Confusion_. Cardinal Mazarini _(who was the chief Contriver of these
Entertainments, to divert the King from more serious Thoughts) stood
close by the young Monarch, with the Scheme of the Ballet in his
Hand. Knowing therefore that this Dance was to consist but of
twelve Antiques, and taking notice that there were actually
thirteen, he at first imputed it to some Mistake. But, afterwards,
when he perceived the Confusion of the Dancers, he made a more
narrow Enquiry into the Cause of this Disorder. To be brief, they
convinced the_ Cardinal _that it could be no Error of theirs, by a
kind of Demonstration, in that they had but twelve Antique Dresses
of that sort, which were made on purpose for this particular Ballet.
That which made it seem the greater Mystery was, that when they came
behind the Scenes to uncase, and examine the Matter, they found but
twelve Antiques, whereas on the Stage there were thirteen . . ._"
"Let him say it. Let him say he didn't mean it, the rotten Irishman!"
Cooney flung a leg wearily over the side of his hammock, jerked himself
out, and shuffled across to the sick man's berth.
"Av coorse I didn' mane it. It just took me, ye see, lyin' up yondher
and huggin' me thoughts in this--wilderness. I swear to ye, George: and
ye'll just wet your throat to show there's no bad blood, and that ye
belave me." He took up a pannikin from the floor beside the bunk,
pulled a hot iron from the fire, and stirred the frozen drink.
The invalid turned his shoulder pettishly. "I didn't mane it," Cooney
repeated. He set down the pannikin, and shuffled wearily back to his
hammock.
The Gaffer blew a long cloud and stared at the fire; at the smoke
mounting and the grey ash dropping; at David Faed dealing the cards and
licking his thumb between each. Long Ede shifted from one cramped elbow
to another and pushed his Bible nearer the blaze, murmuring, "Take us
the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil our vines."
"Full hand," the Snipe announced.
"Ay." David Faed rolled the quid in his cheek. The cards were so thumbed
and tattered that by the backs of them each player guessed pretty
shrewdly what the other held. Yet they went on playing night after
night; the Snipe shrilly blessing or cursing his luck, the Scotsman
phlegmatic as a bolster.
"Play away, man. What ails ye?" he asked.
The Snipe had dropped both hands to his thighs and sat up, stiff and
listening.
"Whist! Outside the door. . . ."
All listened. "I hear nothing," said David, after ten seconds.
"Hush, man--listen! There, again . . ."
They heard now. Cooney slipped down from his hammock, stole to the door
and listened, crouching, with his ear close to the jamb. The sound
resembled breathing--or so he thought for a moment. Then it seemed
rather as if some creature were softly feeling about the door--fumbling
its coating of ice and frozen snow.
Cooney listened. They all listened. Usually, as soon as they stirred
from the scorching circle of the fire, their breath came from them in
clouds. It trickled from them now in thin wisps of vapour. They could
almost hear the soft grey ash dropping on the hearth.