Part 24 (1/2)

At such times it taxed all the energies of Claude and the doctor, and even of Paddy himself, to keep the men from sinking into utter despondency.

Even Fingal, and Alba the snow-bird, seemed to partake of a portion of the general gloom. Fingal lying quietly in his corner, dreaming, perhaps, of the bonnie heather hills of Scotland; and Alba, with drooping wings--her head under one--perched over Claude's couch.

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.

A TERRIBLE TIME--THE DOCTOR'S DREAM--THE WONDROUS MIRAGE.

It was the month of mid-winter. Sickness had come at last; the sickness that is born of privation and absence of vegetable food. The younger and more weakly of the men were first to succ.u.mb. They lost heart, felt weary, tired, depressed. They refused to work. Even Dr Barrett could not find it in his heart to force them. They grew pale and thin, even to emaciation, and their dilated pupils glittered on their sunken eyeb.a.l.l.s.

Their stronger companions tried to cheer them, ay, and many a time went without food themselves to give it to them.

One dropped dead, and was carried away and buried in the ice-hole.

”Buried by the light of glaring torches,” buried at sea you may call it,--a sailor's funeral, but what a sad one!

It was Magnus Jansen, a fair-haired Shetland lad, who had been a great favourite with his messmates, owing to his kind and gentle nature and his ever willingness to oblige.

”We commit his body to the deep,” read Claude, ”looking for the resurrection, when the sea shall give up her dead;” and more than one h.o.r.n.y hand was raised to brush away a tear, as with deep and sullen plash the body sank into the sea.

Two more died in a week--died apparently of utter despondency and weariness.

”I shall soon see the light,” were the last words of one of these. He just smiled faintly, and pa.s.sed away.

Three more in a fortnight.

They nearly all seemed to go in the same way, of utter debility and hopelessness.

Byarnie was nurse-in-chief. He was always with them to the last; the great giant kneeling down beside their pallets, and breathing in their dying ears words that it is to be hoped often deprived even death of its victory.

More than one died leaning against Byarnie's broad breast. I have already said that Byarnie's big fat face was far from handsome. Ah! but it was _so_ honest; and had you seen him there by the bedsides of those dying sailors, you would have said that his face shone at times with almost a heavenly light.

Another, and still another, was borne slowly away to the ice-hole.

Then it seemed as if Death was for a time satiated, and had claimed victims enough.

For almost the first time this winter, the sky cleared, the stars shone like emeralds through the frosty glow, the moon put in an appearance, casting long shadows across the snowfields, from those who walked out.

There was the aurora, too, a brighter display than any one ever remembered witnessing. Away in the north, and overhead, the ever-changing colours s.h.i.+mmered and danced in a way that was magical, marvellous, and it seemed at times that you had but to put up your hand and touch the broad fringes of light that danced and flickered before your eyes.

The sight of the sky evidently gave the men some heart, some hope.

But after a week the stars and aurora disappeared, and the darkness of a Polar night once more descended on the scene.

With so many ill, with so many dead, it would have been but a mockery now to venture on anything approaching to gaiety or merriment. Even Paddy felt that; and though, like boy Bounce, ever earnest, and energetic, and kind, he went about his work quieter and more subdued than probably he had ever been in his life before.

Instead of lecturing, Dr Barrett used in the evenings now to read books to his people; often books of a religious character, though not of the gloomy kind, but rather those that spoke of a Father's love, and carried the thoughts away and away to that bright land where there shall be no more sorrow or crying.

One morning in March, Dr Barrett appeared more than usually cheerful.

There were now so many sick that hardly could those in comparative health attend to their wants.