thick, and an
inch wide. That evening all six were lighted--five of them being of
cotton thread, and the sixth cut from the brim of an old white felt
summer hat, used by Waring instead of his fur cap, when the sun shone
too warmly at noon. The top was made loose, so as to rest on the
blubber, and the heat tried out the oil as fast as it was wanted.

The heat produced was quite sufficient for this narrow room, and the
soft light afforded by the seal-oil, lit up the hut with a mild yellow
radiance, far more cheerful than the red glare of the wood-fire, and the
old stove suspended above the flame carried off the smoke, and refracted
the heat more perfectly into the lower part of the hut.

The day's hunt had afforded all the blubber which they could burn in a
month; and their stock of meat, "cached" in another hillock of their
berg, was nearly sufficient food for the same period. But long before
that time should elapse the young leader knew that relief must come, or
that in some grand convulsion of the warring elements, amid the crash of
colliding ice-fields and the sweep of resistless surges, the unequal
conflict between human weakness and the tireless forces of nature must
end, and to him and his comrades "life's fitful dream" would be over.

Therefore, as he made the seventh brief entry in his pocket diary, he
watched jealously the faces of his companions, lest they should read in
his face the reflection of his misgivings, as he traced these lines,--

"A week has elapsed since we left St. Pierre's; and as yet we have been
safe in the centre of the pack. It is scarcely possible that another
week will be as favorable to us as this has been, and no risk must
prevent us from reaching the first sail in sight."

CHAPTER XVII.

ENLARGING THE BOAT.--WINGED SCAVENGERS.--NOTICE TO QUIT.

Orloff's final observation, at about ten o'clock on the night of the
19th, judging by the position of the North Star, gave the wind as about
west-south-west, blowing pretty sharply, and closing the scattered pack
well together. The following morning the wind still remained in the same
quarter, and it was generally agreed that they must be somewhere in
latitude 48 deg.+ and longitude 63 deg.+, or say about forty miles north-west of
Amherst Island, the largest of the Magdalen group.

After a breakfast of stewed phalaropes, whose tender, plover-like flesh
was a pleasing change from the hitherto almost unvaried roast sea-fowl
diet of