as frightful; it was not in flesh and blood to
stand it. One day--we had been locked up about five months--Mendoza said
he would get upon the rocks and take a view of the sea. He did not
return. The others were too weak to seek him, and they were half blind
besides; I went, but the ice was full of caves and hollows, and the
like, and I could not find him, nor could I look for him long, the cold
being the hand of death itself up there. The time went by; Trentanove
went stone-blind, and I had to put food and drink into his hands that he
might live. A week before the stupor came upon me I went on deck and saw
Joam Barros leaning at the rail. I called to him, but he made no reply.
I approached and looked at him, and found him frozen. Then happened what
I have told you. We were in the cabin, the mate seated at the table,
waiting for me to lead and support him to the cook-room, for he was so
weak he could scarce carry his weight. A sudden faintness seized me, and
I sank down upon the bench opposite him, letting my head fall upon my
arms. His cry startled me--I looked up--saw him as I have said; but the
cabin then turned black, my head sank again, and I remember no more."

He paused and then cried in French, "That is all! They are dead--Jules
Tassard lives! The devil is loyal to his own!" and with that he lay back
and burst into laughter.

"And this," said I, "was in seventeen hundred and fifty-three?"

"Yes," he answered; "and this is eighteen hundred and
one--eight-and-forty years afterwards, hey?" and he laughed out again.
"I've talked so much," said he, "that, d'ye know, I think another nap
will do me good. What coals have you found in the ship?"

I told him.

"Good," he cried; "we can keep ourselves warm for some time to come,
anyhow."

And so saying, he pulled a rug up to his nose and shut his eyes.

CHAPTER XVI.

I HEAR OF A GREAT TREASURE.

I lighted a pipe and sat pondering his story a little while. There was
no doubt he had given me the exact truth so far as his relation of it
went. As it was certain then that the _Boca del Dragon_ (as she was
called) had been fixed in the ice for hard upon fifty years, the
conclusion I formed was that she had been blown by some hundreds of
leagues further south than the point to which the _Laughing Mary_ had
been driven; that this ice in which she was entangled was not then
drifting northwards, but was in the grasp of some polar current that
trended it south-easte