our drear sunless gloom, made worse by the fact that the windmill would
not work, leaving us without the electric light.

Ah me, none but those who have felt it could dream of one half the
mental depression of that long Arctic night; how the soul takes on the
hue of the world; and without and within is nothing but gloom, gloom,
and the reign of the Power of Darkness.

Not one of us but was in a melancholic, dismal and dire mood; and on the
13th December Lamburn, the engineer, stabbed Cartwright, the old
harpooner, in the arm.

Three days before Christmas a bear came close to the ship, and then
turned tail. Mew, Wilson, I and Meredith (a general hand) set out in
pursuit. After a pretty long chase we lost him, and then scattered
different ways. It was very dim, and after yet an hour's search, I was
returning weary and disgusted to the ship, when I saw some shadow like a
bear sailing away on my left, and at the same time sighted a man--I did
not know whom--running like a handicapped ghost some little distance to
the right. So I shouted out:

'There he is--come on! This way!'

The man quickly joined me, but as soon as ever he recognised me, stopped
dead. The devil must have suddenly got into him, for he said:

'No, thanks, Jeffson: alone with you I am in danger of my life....'

It was Wilson. And I, too, forgetting at once all about the bear,
stopped and faced him.