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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
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