ld the ship if
she swam. I would also put a quantity of provisions on the ice along
with materials for making us shelter and the whole of the stock of coal,
so that we could go on supporting life here if the schooner capsized."

"Then," said he, "you would remain ashore during the explosion?"

"Most certainly. But as all these preparations would mean a degree of
labour impracticable by us two men, I am for the bold venture--prepare
and fire the mines, return to the ship, and leave the rest to
Providence."

He made another ugly face and indulged himself in a piece of profanity
that was inexpressibly disgusting and mean in the mouth of a man who was
used to cross himself when alarmed and swear by the saints. But perhaps
he knew, even better than I, how little he had to expect from
Providence. He filled his pipe, exclaiming that when he had smoked it
out we should fall to work.

Now that I had settled a plan I was eager to put it into practice--hot
and wild indeed with the impatience and hope of the castaway animated
with the dream of recovering his liberty and preserving his life; and I
was the more anxious to set about the business at once, on account of
the weather being fair and still, for if it came on to blow a stormy
wind again we should be forced as before under hatches. But I had to
wait for the Frenchman to empty his pipe. He was so complete a
sensualist that I believe nothing short of terror could have forced him
to shorten the period of a pleasure by a second of time. He went on
puffing so deliberately, with such leisurely enjoyment of the flavour of
the smoke, that I expected to see him fall asleep; and my patience
becoming exhausted I jumped up; but by this time his bowl held nothing
but black ashes.

"Now," cried he, "to work."

And he rose with a prodigious yawn and seized the lanthorn. Our first
business was to hunt among the boatswain's stores in the run for tackles
to hoist the powder-barrels up with. There was a good collection, as
might have been expected in a pirate whose commerce lay in slinging
goods from other ships' holds into her own; but the ropes were frozen as
hard as iron, to remedy which we carried an armful to the cook-house,
and left the tackles to lie and soften. We also conveyed to the
cook-house a quantity of ratline stuff--a thin rope used for making of
the steps in the shroud ladders; this being a line that would exactly
serve to suspend the smaller parcels of powder in the spl