e ships in circles, mean storm; and Chirikoff, far
ahead there, signals back doubtfully to know if they shouldn't keep
together to avoid being lost in the gathering fog. The Dane shrugs his
shoulders and looks to the north. The grayish brown thing has
darkened, thickened, spread out impalpably, and by the third day, a
northling wind is whistling through the riggings with a rip. Sails are
furled. The white rollers roll no longer. They lash with chopped-off
tops flying backward; and the _St. Peter_ is churning about, shipping
sea after sea with the crash of thunder. That was what the fog meant;
and it is all about them, in a hurricane now, stinging cold, thick to
the touch, washing out every outline but sea--sea!

{24} Never mind! They are nine days out. It is the twelfth of June.
They are down to 46 degrees and no Gamaland! The blockheads have
stopped spreading their maps in the captain's cabin. One can see a
smile wreathing in the whiskers of the Dane. Six hundred miles south
of Kamchatka and no Gamaland! The council convenes again. It is
decided to turn about, head north, and say no more of Gamaland. But
when the fog, that has turned hurricane, lifts, the consort ship, the
_St. Paul_, is lost. Chirikoff's vessel has disappeared. Up to 49
degrees, they go; but still no Chirikoff, and no Gamaland! Then the
blunder-makers, as usual, blunder more. It is dangerous to go on
without the sister ship. The council convenes. Bering must hark back
to 46 degrees and hunt for Chirikoff. So passes the whole month of
June. Out of five months' provisions, one wasted, the odium on Bering,
the Dane.

It was noticed that after the ship turned south, the commander looked
ill and depressed. He became intolerant of opposition or approach.
Possibly to avoid irritation, he kept to his cabin; but he issued
peremptory orders for the _St. Peter_ to head back north.

In a few days, Bering was confined to bed with that overwhelming
physical depression and fear, that precede the scourge most dreaded by
seamen--scurvy. Lieutenant Waxel now took command. Waxel had all a
sailor's contempt for the bookful blockheads, who wrench fact to fit
theory; and deadly enmity arose {25} between him and Steller, the
scientist. By the middle of July, the fetid drinking water was so
reduced that the crew was put on half allowance; but on the sleepy,
fog-blanketed swell of the Pacific slipping past Bering's wearied eyes,
there were so ma