the narrow lane of blue water which is
our sole means of escape, and which is closing up every day. The Captain
is taking a heavy responsibility upon himself. I hear that the tank of
potatoes has been finished, and even the biscuits are running short,
but he preserves the same impassible countenance, and spends the greater
part of the day at the crow's nest, sweeping the horizon with his glass.
His manner is very variable, and he seems to avoid my society, but there
has been no repetition of the violence which he showed the other night.

7.30 P.M.--My deliberate opinion is that we are commanded by a madman.
Nothing else can account for the extraordinary vagaries of Captain
Craigie. It is fortunate that I have kept this journal of our voyage, as
it will serve to justify us in case we have to put him under any sort
of restraint, a step which I should only consent to as a last resource.
Curiously enough it was he himself who suggested lunacy and not mere
eccentricity as the secret of his strange conduct. He was standing upon
the bridge about an hour ago, peering as usual through his glass, while
I was walking up and down the quarterdeck. The majority of the men were
below at their tea, for the watches have not been regularly kept of
late. Tired of walking, I leaned against the bulwarks, and admired the
mellow glow cast by the sinking sun upon the great ice fields which
surround us. I was suddenly aroused from the reverie into which I had
fallen by a hoarse voice at my elbow, and starting round I found that
the Captain had descended and was standing by my side. He was staring
out over the ice with an expression in which horror, surprise, and
something approaching to joy were contending for the mastery. In
spite of the cold, great drops of perspiration were coursing down his
forehead, and he was evidently fearfully excited.

His limbs twitched like those of a man upon the verge of an epileptic
fit, and the lines about his mouth were drawn and hard.

"Look!" he gasped, seizing me by the wrist, but still keeping his
eyes upon the distant ice, and moving his head slowly in a horizontal
direction, as if following some object which was moving across the field
of vision. "Look! There, man, there! Between the hummocks! Now coming
out from behind the far one! You see her--you MUST see her! There still!
Flying from me, by God, flying from me--and gone!"

He uttered the last two words in a whisper of concentrated agony which
shall