think I am the only really sane man aboard the vessel--except
perhaps the second engineer, who is a kind of ruminant, and would
care nothing for all the fiends in the Red Sea so long as they
would leave him alone and not disarrange his tools.

The ice is still opening rapidly, and there is every probability of
our being able to make a start to-morrow morning. They will think
I am inventing when I tell them at home all the strange things that
have befallen me.

12 P.M.--I have been a good deal startled, though I feel steadier
now, thanks to a stiff glass of brandy. I am hardly myself yet,
however, as this handwriting will testify. The fact is, that I
have gone through a very strange experience, and am beginning to
doubt whether I was justified in branding every one on board as
madmen because they professed to have seen things which did not
seem reasonable to my understanding. Pshaw! I am a fool to let
such a trifle unnerve me; and yet, coming as it does after all
these alarms, it has an additional significance, for I cannot doubt
either Mr. Manson's story or that of the mate, now that I have
experienced that which I used formerly to scoff at.

After all it was nothing very alarming--a mere sound, and that was
all. I cannot expect that any one reading this, if any one ever
should read it, will sympathise with my feelings, or realise the
effect which it produced upon me at the time. Supper was over, and
I had gone on deck to have a quiet pipe before turning in. The
night was very dark--so dark that, standing under the quarter-boat,
I was unable to see the officer upon the bridge. I think I have
already mentioned the extraordinary silence which prevails in these