ng comrades over his
body, which was frozen quite hard before they reached the grave, and
then they laid it in a tomb of ice.

Time hung heavier than ever after that. Death is at all time a terrible
visitant, but in such a place and under such circumstances it was
tenfold more awful than usual. The blank in so small a band was a great
one. It would perhaps have depressed them more than it did had their
own situation been less desperate. But they had too fierce a battle to
fight with disease, and the midnight gloom, and the bitter frost, to
give way to much feeling about him who was gone.

Thus the long winter passed heavily away.

The sun came back at last, and when he came his beams shone upon a pale,
shattered, and heart-weary band of men. But with his cheering light
came also _hope_, and health soon followed in his train. Let young
Gregory's journal tell the rest of our story, little of which now
remains to be told.

"_February 21st_.--I have to record, with joy and gratitude, that the
sun shone on the peaks of the ice-bergs to-day. The first time it has
done so since October last. By the end of this month we shall have his
rays on deck. I climbed to the top of a berg and actually bathed in
sunshine this forenoon! We are all quite excited by the event, some of
us even look jolly. Ah! what miserable faces my comrades have! so pale,
so thin! We are all as weak as water. The captain and I are the
strongest. Baker is also pretty well. Crofts and Davis are almost
useless, the rest being quite helpless. The captain cooks, Baker and I
hunt, Crofts and Davis attend to the sick. Another month of darkness
would have killed the half of us.

"_March 10th_.--I shot a bear to-day. It did my heart good to see the
faces of the men when I brought them the news and a piece of the flesh!
The cold is not quite so intense now. Our coldest day this year has
been the 17th of January. The glass stood at 67 degrees below zero on
that morning. What a winter we have had! I shudder when I think of it.
But there is more cause to be anxious about what yet lies before us. A
single bear will not last long. Many weeks must pass before we are
free. In June we hope to be released from our ice-prison. Fresh meat
we shall then have in abundance. With it strength will return, and
then, if God permits, we shall attempt to continue our voyage northward.
The captain is confident on the point of open water round the Pole.
The