into another chamber, hung with skins as the first was, but
containing a dining-table laid for four persons in a very elegant
manner, with cut glass, and silver epergnes laden with luscious-looking
fruit and the best of linen. The light came from electric lamps in the
ceiling, and from other lamps cunningly placed in a great block of ice,
which formed the central ornament. Nor have I eaten a better dinner
than the one then served. The only servant was a black giant, who
waited with a dexterity very singular in such a place; and the guests
of the captain were the young doctor, the Scotsman known as Dick the
Ranter, and myself. The Scotsman alone displayed signs of that
rollicking spirit of dare-devil which had characterised the meeting in
Paris; but the captain soon silenced him.

"D'ye ken that we've no said grace?" remarked the lantern-jawed fellow,
as we sat to table; and then, raising his hands in impudent mockery, he
began to utter some blasphemy, but Black turned upon him as with the
growl of a wild beast.

"To the devil with that," said he. "Hold your tongue, man!"

The Scotsman looked up at the rebuke as though a thunderbolt had hit
him.

"Verra weel, mon; verra weel," he muttered; "but ye're unco melancholy
the nicht, unco melancholy." And then he fell to the silence of
consumption, eating prodigiously of all that was set before him; but in
high dudgeon, as a man rebuked unworthily. Of the others, the doctor
alone talked, chatting fluently of many European cities, and proving
himself no mean _raconteur_. I listened in the hope of getting some
idea of what was intended in my case; also, if that could be, of the
situation of this strange place in which I found myself; for as yet I
knew not if it were to the North of America; or, indeed, in what part
of the Arctic Sea it might be. To my satisfaction the captain made no
attempt to conceal the information from me. The first occasion of his
speaking during dinner was in answer to a remark of mine that I found
the room very pleasantly warm.

"Yes," he said, "you must feel the change, although you will feel it
more when we get winter here. You know where you are, of course."

I said unsuspectingly that I had not the faintest idea, when he cast a
quick glance at the doctor, and the latter slapped me on the back quite
joyously.

"Bravo!" he cried. "That prevents our putting one unpleasant question
to you, anyway. I knew that your innuendo in the cabin was all
mak