a fine bag of cartridges. But, you beggar, I
make one condition. You take yourself off and away from the ship to do
your hunting. You may make yourself a snow house to stay in, and live on
the meat you kill."

"You wish to murder me?"

"I wish to be rid of you, and that's the truth. Man, I believe you're
Jonah resurrected. We've had no luck since first you put your foot on my
deck planks. And, what's more, the crew is of my way of thinking. So,
refuse my offer, and I'll put you in irons and keep you there till I can
fling you ashore at [v]Dundee."

Now there is no doubt Black meant what he said, and so I did not waste
dignity by arguing with him. I had no taste for the irons, and as for
being turned out on the ice--well, I had a plan ahead. But I didn't
intend to leave Black more comfortable than I could help.

So I shut my eyes and said that the ship would have very bad luck that
winter, that there would be much sickness aboard. (This was an easy
guess.) I said, considering this fact, I was glad to leave such an
unwholesome ship.

The crew were just aching to get rid of me. This prophesying sort of
grows on a man; once you've started it, you've got to go on with it at
all costs, and I could no more resist just letting my few remarks slip
round amongst the men than I can resist eating when I'm hungry.

The nerves of the _Gleaner_ people were in strings from the cold and the
blackness of the Arctic night, and it put the horrors on the lot of
them. The one thing they wanted was to see the last of me. They gave me
almost anything I fancied, but my means of transport were small. There
was a bit of a sledge, which I packed with some food, two Henry rifles
and a few tools, five hundred cartridges, and the clothes I stood in. No
more could be taken.

Then I went on deck into the bitter cold and over the side, and stood on
the ice, ready to start on my journey. The crew lined the rail to see me
off, and I can tell you their faces were very different. The older ones
were savage and cared little how soon Jonah might die. The younger ones
were crying to see a fellow driven away into that icy loneliness, far
from shelter.

But for myself I didn't care. I had method in all this performance. Soon
after we were beset in the ice, a family of Esquimaux had come on the
_Gleaner_ to pay a polite call and get what they could out of us. They
were that dirty you could have chipped them with a scaling hammer, but
they were very frie