fr:Les Aventures du capitaine Hatteras - Première partie - 32
Toward six o'clock in the morning the wind fell, and, shifting
suddenly to the north, it cleared the clouds from the sky; the
thermometer stood at -33°. The first rays of the twilight
appeared on the horizon above which it would soon peer.
Hatteras approached his two dejected companions and said to
them, sadly and gently,—
“My friends, we are more than sixty miles from the point mentioned
by Sir Edward Belcher. We have only just enough food
left to take us back to the ship. To go farther would only expose
us to certain death, without our being of service to any one. We must return.”
“That is a wise decision, Hatteras,” answered the doctor; “I
should have followed you anywhere, but we are all growing
weaker every day; we can hardly set one foot before the other; I approve of returning.”
“Is that your opinion, Bell?” asked Hatteras.
“Yes, Captain,” answered the carpenter.
“Well,” continued Hatteras, “we will take two days for rest. That's not too much. The sledge needs a great many repairs. I think, too, we ought to build a snow-house in which we can repose.”
This being decided, the three men set to work energetically. Bell took the necessary precautions to insure the solidity of the building, and soon a satisfactory retreat arose at the bottom of the ravine where they had last halted.
It was doubtless after a hard struggle that Hatteras had decided
to discontinue his journey. So much effort and fatigue
thrown away! A useless trip, entailing the death of one of his
men! To return without a scrap of coal: what would the crew
say? What might it not do under the lead of Shandon? But
Hatteras could not continue the struggle any longer.
He gave all his attention to their preparations for returning; the sledge was repaired; its load, too, had become much lighter, and only weighed two hundred pounds. They mended their worn-out, torn clothes, all soaked through and through by the snow; new moccasins and snow-shoes replaced those which were no longer serviceable. This kept them busy the whole of the 29th and the morning of the 30th; then they all sought what rest they could get, and prepared for what was before them.
During the thirty-six hours spent in or near the snow-house, the doctor had been noticing Duke, whose singular behavior did not seem to him to be natural; the dog kept going in circles which seemed to have a common centre; there was a sort of elevation in the soil, produced by accumulated layers of ice; Duke, as he ran around this place, kept barking gently and wagging his tail impatiently, looking at his master as if asking something.
The doctor, after reflecting a moment, ascribed this uneasiness
to the presence of Simpson's corpse, which his companions had not
yet had time to bury. Hence he resolved to proceed to this sad
ceremony on that very day; the next morning they were to start. Bell and the doctor, picks in hand, went to the bottom of the ravine; the elevation which Duke had noticed offered a suitable place for the grave, which would have to be dug deep to escape the bears.
The doctor and Bell began by removing the soft snow, then
they attacked the solid ice; at the third blow of his pick the
doctor struck against some hard body; he picked up the pieces
and found them the fragments of a glass bottle. Bell brought
to light a stiffened bag, in which were a few crumbs of fresh
biscuit.
“What's this?” said the doctor.
“What can it be?” asked Bell, stopping his work.
The doctor called to Hatteras, who came at once.
Duke barked violently, and with his paws tried to tear up the
ice.
“Have we by any possibility come across a supply of provisions?” said the doctor.
“It looks like it,” answered Bell.
“Go on!” said Hatteras.
A few bits of food were found and a box quarter full of pemmican.
“If we have,” said Hatteras, “the bears have visited it before
we did. See, these provisions have been touched already.”
“It is to be feared,” answered the doctor, “for—”
He did not finish his sentence; a cry from Bell interrupted
him; he had turned over a tolerably large piece of ice and
showed a stiff, frozen human leg in the ice.
“A corpse!” cried the doctor.
“It's a grave,” said Hatteras.