d the fire-place.
The other side discloses a broad doorway (closed by a canvas screen),
which serves as a means of communication with an inner apartment,
devoted to the superior officers. A hammock is slung to the rough
raftered roof of the main room, as an extra bed. A man, completely
hidden by his bedclothes, is sleeping in the hammock. By the fireside
there is a second man--supposed to be on the watch--fast asleep, poor
wretch! at the present moment. Behind the sleeper stands an old cask,
which serves for a table. The objects at present on the table are, a
pestle and mortar, and a saucepanful of the dry bones of animals--in
plain words, the dinner for the day. By way of ornament to the dull
brown walls, icicles appear in the crevices of the timber, gleaming at
intervals in the red fire-light. No wind whistles outside the lonely
dwelling--no cry of bird or beast is heard. Indoors, and out-of-doors,
the awful silence of the Polar desert reigns, for the moment,
undisturbed.

Chapter 7.

The first sound that broke the silence came from the inner apartment. An
officer lifted the canvas screen in the hut of the _Sea-mew_ and entered
the main room. Cold and privation had badly thinned the ranks. The
commander of the ship--Captain Ebsworth--was dangerously ill. The first
lieutenant was dead. An officer of the _Wanderer_ filled their places
for the time, with Captain Helding's permission. The officer so employed
was--Lieutenant Crayford.

He approached the man at the fireside, and awakened him.

"Jump up, Bateson! It's your turn to be relieved."

The relief appeared, rising from a heap of old sails at the back of the
hut. Bateson vanished, yawning, to his bed. Lieutenant Crayford walked
backward and forward briskly, trying what exercise would do toward
warming his blood.

The pestle and mortar on the cask attracted his attention. He stopped
and looked up at the man in the hammock.

"I must rouse the cook," he said to himself, with a smile. "That fellow
little thinks how useful he is in keeping up my spirits. The most
inveterate croaker and grumbler in the world--and yet, according to his
own account, the only cheerful man in the whole ship's company. John
Want! John Want! Rouse up, there!"

A head rose slowly out of the bedclothes, covered with a red night-cap.
A melancholy nose rested itself on the edge of the hammock. A voice,
worthy of the nose, expressed its opinion of the Arctic climate, in
these words: