The officers answered the question with one accord--"Volunteers!"

The men echoed their officers. "Ay, ay, volunteers."

Wardour still preserved his sullen silence. Crayford noticed him.
standing apart from the rest, and appealed to him personally.

"Do you say nothing?" he asked.

"Nothing," Wardour answered. "Go or stay, it's all one to me."

"I hope you don't really mean that?" said Crayford.

"I do."

"I am sorry to hear it, Wardour."

Captain Helding answered the general suggestion in favor of
volunteering by a question which instantly checked the rising
enthusiasm of the meeting.

"Well," he said, "suppose we say volunteers. Who volunteers to
stop in the huts?"

There was a dead silence. The officers and men looked at each
other confusedly. The captain continued:

"You see we can't settle it by volunteering. You all want to go.
Every man among us who has the use of his limbs naturally wants
to go. But what is to become of those who have not got the use of