e
cook-room somehow or other was suggestive of a store behind.

I knew not yet whether more of the crew lay in the forecastle, but so
far I had encountered four men only. If these were all, then I had a
right to believe, grounding my fancy on the absence of boats, that most
of the company had quitted the ship, and this they would have done
early--a supposition that promised me a fair discovery of stores. Herein
lay my hope; if I could prolong my life for three or four months, then,
if the ice was not all gone, it would have advanced far north, serving
me as a ship and putting me in the way of delivering myself, either by
the sight of a sail, or by the schooner floating free, or by my
construction of a boat.

Thus I sat musing, as I venture to think, in a clearheaded way. Yet all
the same I could not glance around without feeling as if I was
bewitched. The red shining of the furnace ruddily gilded the
cook-house; through the after-sliding door went the passage to the cabin
in blackness; the storming of the wind was subdued into a strange
moaning and complaining; often through the body of the ship came the
thrill of a sudden explosion; and haunting all was the sense of the dead
men just without, the frozen desolation of the island, the mighty world
of waters in which it lay. No! you can think of no isolation comparable
to this; and I tremble as I review it, for under the thought of the
enormous loneliness of that time my spirit must ever sink and break
down.

It was melancholy to be without time, so I pulled out the gold watch I
had taken from the man on the rocks and wound it up, and guessing at the
hour, set the hands at half-past four. The watch ticked bravely. It was
indeed a noble piece of mechanism, very costly and glorious with its
jewels, and more than a hint as to the character of this schooner; and
had there been nothing else to judge by I should still have sworn to her
by this watch.

My pipe being emptied, I threw some more coals into the furnace, and
putting a candle in the lanthorn went aft to take another view of the
little cabins, in one of which I resolved to sleep, for though the
cook-room would have served me best whilst the fire burned, I reckoned
upon it making a colder habitation when the furnace was black than those
small compartments in the stern. The cold on deck gushed down so
bitingly through the open companion-hatch that I was fain to close it.
I mounted the steps, and with much ado shippe