of these doors were open; and I saw the
interiors of well-furnished bedrooms, of smaller sitting-rooms, and of
a beautifully-furnished billiard-room. At the end of the passage, we
descended a flight of stairs to another landing, where there was a
steep rock-slope leading right through the cliff almost to the level of
the water. This proved the way to a small stretch of beach which was at
the uppermost end of the fjord; and here I found several substantial
buildings of stone, evidently for the use of Black's company. The
largest of the houses seemed to be a kind of a hall, well lighted by
arc lamps. Into this we passed, lifting a heavy curtain of skins; and
seated there, on all sorts of rough lounges and benches, were the men I
had seen in Paris, with fifty or sixty others, no less ferocious-looking
or more decently clad. There were negroes in light check suits and red
flannel shirts; Americans in velveteen coats and trousers; Italians
muffled up in jerseys; Spaniards playing cards before the roaring fire;
half-castes smoking cheroots and drinking from china pots; Englishmen
lying wrapped in rugs, asleep, or bawling songs to a small audience,
which gave a chorus back in mellifluous curses; Russians drunk with
spirits; Frenchmen chattering; Chinese mooningly silent; over all an
atmosphere of smoke and foul odours, of fetid warmth and stifling
heaviness.

As we entered the place the din was deafening, a medley of shouts and
oaths, of songs and execrations; but it ceased when the captain bawled
"Silence!" and an unusual stillness prevailed. The man Four-Eyes, who
was always the immediate "go-between" so far as the captain and crew
were concerned, at once put chairs for us near the huge fireplace,
setting a great armchair for the skipper, with a small table whereon
were many papers, and a small wooden hammer such as the chairman of a
meeting commonly uses. Black took his seat in the great chair, with the
doctor, the Scotsman, and myself around him; and then he harangued the
men.

"Boys," he said, "we're home again. I give you luck on it--and swill it
down in liquor."

I noticed that he had put on with his entry into the room all his old
fierceness of manner and coarseness. He shouted out his words whenever
he spoke, and emphasised them with bangs of the hammer upon the table.
The call for wine was answered by some of the niggers fetching in cases
of champagne, and soon the stuff was running in every part of the hall.
The