No friendly voice answered him. No friendly face showed itself at the
door.

An interval passed; and there came over him another change. He recovered
his self-possession almost as suddenly as he had lost it. A smile--a
horrid, deforming, unnatural smile--spread slowly, stealthily,
devilishly over his face. He left the fire; he put the ax away softly in
a corner; he sat down in his old place, deliberately self-abandoned to a
frenzy of vindictive joy. He had found the man! There, at the end of
the world--there, at the last fight of the Arctic voyagers against
starvation and death, he had found the man!

The minutes passed.

He became conscious, on a sudden, of a freezing stream of air pouring
into the room.

He turned, and saw Crayford opening the door of the hut. A man was
behind him. Wardour rose eagerly, and looked over Crayford's shoulder.

Was it--could it be--the man who had carved the letters on the plank?
Yes! Frank Aldersley!

Chapter 11.

"Still at work!" Crayford exclaimed, looking at the half-demolished
bed-place. "Give yourself a little rest, Richard. The exploring party
is ready to start. If you wish to take leave of your brother officers
before they go, you have no time to lose."

He checked himself there, looking Wardour full in the face.

"Good Heavens!" he cried, "how pale you are! Has anything happened?"

Frank--searching in his locker for articles of clothing which he might
require on the journey--looked round. He was startled, as Crayford had
been startled, by the sudden change in Wardour since they had last seen
him.

"Are you ill?" he asked. "I hear you have been doing Bateson's work for
him. Have you hurt yourself?"

Wardour suddenly moved his head, so as to hide his face from both
Crayford and Frank. He took out his handkerchief, and wound it clumsily
round his left hand.

"Yes," he said; "I hurt myself with the ax. It's nothing. Never mind.
Pain always has a curious effect on me. I tell you it's nothing! Don't
notice it!"

He turned his face toward them again as suddenly as he had turned it
away. He advanced a few steps, and addressed himself with an uneasy
familiarity to Frank.

"I didn't answer you civilly when you spoke to me some little time
since. I mean when I first came in here along with the rest of them. I
apologize. Shake hands! How are you? Ready for the march?"

Frank met the oddly abrupt advance which had been made to him with
perfect good humor.

"I a