Chapter 12.


Alone! alone on the Frozen Deep!

The Arctic sun is rising dimly in the dreary sky. The beams of
the cold northern moon, mingling strangely with the dawning
light, clothe the snowy plains in hues of livid gray. An
ice-field on the far horizon is moving slowly southward in the
spectral light. Nearer, a stream of open water rolls its slow
black waves past the edges of the ice. Nearer still, following
the drift, an iceberg rears its crags and pinnacles to the sky;
here, glittering in the moonbeams; there, looming dim and
ghost-like in the ashy light.

Midway on the long sweep of the lower slope of the iceberg, what
objects rise, and break the desolate monotony of the scene? In
this awful solitude, can signs appear which tell of human Life?
Yes! The black outline of a boat just shows itself, hauled up on
the berg. In an ice-cavern behind the boat the last red embers of
a dying fire flicker from time to time over the figures of two
men. One is seated, resting his back against the side of the
cavern. The other lies prostrate, with his head on his comrade's
knee. The first of these men is awake, and thinking. The second
reclines, with his still white face turned up to the
sky--sleeping or dead. Days and days since, these two have fallen
behind on the march of the expedition of relief. Days and days
since, these two have been given up by their weary and failing
companions as doomed and lost. He who sits thinking is Richard