running
outside, I instantly thought of with a shudder. Had the rock, I mused,
not fallen and liberated the boat, where should I be now? Perhaps
floating, a corpse, fathoms deep under water, or, if alive, then flying
before this gale into the south, ever widening the distance betwixt me
and all chance of my deliverance, and every hour gauging more deeply the
horrible cold of the pole. Indeed I began to understand that I had been
mercifully diverted from courting a hideous fate, and my spirits rose
with the emotion of gratitude and hope that attends upon preservation.

I speedily spied the chimney, which showed a head of two feet above the
deck, and made short work of the snow that was frozen in it, as nothing
could have been fitter to cut ice with than the spade-shaped weapon I
carried. This done, I returned to the cook-room, and with a butcher's
axe that hung against the bulkhead I knocked away one of the boards that
confined the coal, split it into small pieces, and in a short time had
kindled a good fire. One does not need the experience of being cast away
upon an iceberg to understand the comfort of a fire. I had a mind to be
prodigal, and threw a good deal of coals into the furnace, and presently
had a noble blaze. The heat was exquisite. I pulled a little bench,
after the pattern of those on which the men sat in the cabin, to the
fire, and, with outstretched legs and arms, thawed out of me the frost
that had lain taut in my flesh ever since the wreck of the _Laughing
Mary_. When I was thoroughly warm and comforted I took the lanthorn and
went aft to the steward's room, and brought thence a cheese, a ham, some
biscuit, and one of the jars of spirits, all which I carried to the
cook-room, and placed the whole of them in the oven. I was extremely
hungry and thirsty, and the warmth and cheerfulness of the fire set me
yearning for a hot meal. But how was I to make a bowl without fresh
water? I went on deck and scratched up some snow, but the salt in it
gave it a sickly taste, and I was not only certain it would spoil and
make disgusting whatever I mixed it with or cooked in it, but it stood
as a drink to disorder my stomach and bring on an illness. So, thought I
to myself, there must be fresh water about--casks enough in the hold, I
dare say; but the hold was not to be entered and explored without labour
and difficulty, and I was weary and famished, and in no temper for hard
work.

In all ships it is the custom to car