course of the storm, might mean the drowning of them all. After a few
moments Adler spoke again, touching his cap.

"I'm sure I see a signal, sir."

"No, you don't," answered Bennett.

"Beg pardon, I'm quite sure I do."

Bennett leaned toward him, the cast in his eyes twinkling with a wicked
light, the furrow between the eyebrows deepening. "I tell you, you don't
see any signal; do you understand? You don't see any signal until I
choose to have you."

The night was bitter hard for the occupants of the whaleboat. In their
weakened condition they were in no shape to fight a polar hurricane in
an open boat.

For three weeks they had not known the meaning of full rations. During
the first days after the line of march over the ice had been abruptly
changed to the west in the hope of reaching open water, only
three-quarter rations had been issued, and now for the last two days
half rations had been their portion. The gnawing of hunger had begun.
Every man was perceptibly weaker. Matters were getting desperate.

But by seven o'clock the next morning the storm had blown itself out. To
Bennett's inexpressible relief the cutter hove in view. Shaping their
course to landward once more, the boats kept company, and by the middle
of the afternoon Bennett and the crew of the whaleboat successfully
landed upon a bleak, desolate, and wind-scourged coast. But in some way,