had been put up with dainty care for men and women, all he had for the
ravenous, tasteless creatures, who would have been more pleased with
blubber, came to Banks Land at last, but no game there; awful drifts;
shut up in the tent for a whole day, and he himself so sick he could
scarcely stand! There were but three of them in all; and the captain of
the sledge not unnaturally asked poor Pim, when he was at the worst,
"What shall I do, sir, if you die?" Not a very comforting question!

He did not die. He got a few hours' sleep, felt better and started
again, but had the discouragement of finding such tokens of an open
strait the last year that he felt sure that the ship he was going to
look for would be gone. One morning, he had been off for game for the
dogs unsuccessfully, and, when he came back to his men, learned that
they had seen seventeen deer. After them goes Pim; finds them to be
_three hares_, magnified by fog and mirage, and their long ears
answering for horns. This same day they got upon the Bay of Mercy. No
ship in sight! Right across it goes the Lieutenant to look for records;
when, at two in the afternoon, Robert Hoile sees something black up the
bay. Through the glass the Lieutenant makes it out to be a ship. They
change their direction at once. Over the ice towards her! He leaves the
sledge at three and goes on. How far it seems! At four he can see people
walking about, and a pile of stones and flag-staff on the beach. Keep
on, Pim; shall one never get there? At five he is within a hundred
yards of her, and no one has seen him. But just then the very persons
see him who ought to! Pim beckons, waves his arms as the Esquimaux do in
sign of friendship. Captain McClure and his lieutenant Haswell are
"taking their exercise," the chief business of those winters, and at
last see him! Pim is black as Erebus from the smoke of cooking in the
little tent. McClure owns, not to surprise only, but to a twinge of
dismay. "I paused in my advance," says he, "doubting who or what it
could be, a denizen of this or the other world." But this only lasts a
moment. Pim speaks. Brave man that he can. How his voice must have
choked, as if he were in a dream. "I am Lieutenant Pim, late of
'Herald.' Captain Kellett is at Melville Island." Well-chosen words,
Pim, to be sent in advance over the hundred yards of floe! Nothing about
the "Resolute,"--that would have confused them. But "Pim," "Herald," and
"Kellett" were among the last s