You see, we had had time to speculate on a good many things during the long Antarctic Night. Even in an ordinary night, between the hours of three and five in the morning, strange problems come drifting in and the boundary lines between substance and shadow waver. Keep this up for a period of months, without a break of sunlight, and one’s skepticism on almost any point begins to totter. At the end of the third month, if Ferratoni had announced that he could render himself invisible and transport himself to any point of the compass at will, we would have been less surprised than eager to learn the process; and had Mr. Sturritt suddenly declared that he had perfected a lozenge which would confer eternal youth, I feel certain that any of us would have been willing to accept a trial package.
Curiously enough the sun made its first chill, brief reappearance on the anniversary of our sailing. Chill and brief it was, but that thin edge of light skirting the far northern horizon meant to all who saw it new hope, and a new hold on the realities of life.
The sky there had for some time been growing redder each day, and more than once we believed that the Captain’s calculation would be proved at fault, and that the sun itself must appear. But the Captain’s mathematics were sound, and the sun was on schedule time. In spite of Zar’s prophecy we were all there to bid it “howdy,” and there was not a soul on board, from the Admiral to the cook, that sent “regrets” to that reception. Captain Biffer had “bent on” a stiff new shirt for the occasion, and was smiling and triumphant.
“Wheah you reckon dat sun shinin’ _warm_, now?” Zar asked in an awed voice.
“In New York City,” answered her mistress, “just as it was the day we sailed.”
“Shall we be back there a year from now?” I asked.
She held my arm close. Chauncey Gale answered.
“I will. Too far away from the Bowery down here.”
But Ferratoni, who stood next me, said—speaking to himself, and so low that only I heard it—
I did not seem to hear, either, and I doubt if he knew that he had spoken; but a thing said like that creates an impression, and it set me to wondering. Then the brief exhibition was over, and we descended hastily to the warmth and feast waiting for us below.