d
up by the aid of the boat sails and tarpaulins, making the place have
the appearance of a cosy encampment, and offering a pleasant change to
the desolate look it had worn the previous afternoon--when the sea was
roaring in, hurling a deluge of foam on the beach, and we, wet and
forlorn, were endeavouring to save the flotsam and jetsam of the long-
boat's cargo.

"Sure an' you're a foine gintleman, taking it aisy," said Pat Doolan,
when I went up to him. "An' is it a pannikin o' coffee you'll be afther
wanting, this watch?"

"I shouldn't refuse it if you offered it," said I, with a laugh.

"Be jabers, you're the bhoy for the coffee!" he replied cheerily. "An'
its meeself that's moighty proud to sarve you. Sure an' I don't forgit
how you thried, like a brave gossoon, to save that poor chap last
night!"

"Ah!" I ejaculated, feeling melancholy when he thus brought up Harmer's
fate, which had passed out of my mind for the moment. "But you did your
best, too, Pat."

"Bad was the bist then, alannah, bad cess to it!" said he. "There, now,
Mister Leigh, dhrink your coffee an' ha' done with it. The poor chap's
gone, and we can't call him back; but have you heard tell of the news?
Misther `Old-son-of-a-gun' is moighty bad this morning, too, and the
skipper think's he's a going too, by the same token!"

"Indeed!" I cried, turning towards the tent, seeing Captain Billings
standing close by it. The news was too true. The wetting and shock to
the system had completed what a low fever had begun, and Mr Ohlsen's
days--nay, hours--were numbered. Ere the sun had again set, we had to
mourn the loss of the second of our shipmates!

Towards evening of this day, the wind got up again even more fiercely
than it had done the night before--the heavy southern billows rolling in
again upon the beach with a terrible din, although they could do no harm
now to either of our boats, both being snugly sheltered beyond their
reach.

But when it grew dark, we witnessed a wonderful phenomenon.

It made many of the seamen believe that they were dreaming over again
the scene connected with the burning of the _Esmeralda_; while others
went almost wild with terror, fancying that the end of the world was
come--or that, at all events, the natural display we saw of the greatest
wonder of the arctic and antarctic worlds, was a portent of fresh
disasters to us, greater than all we had already passed through!

The heavens were as black as d