"It was no easy matter to cut these animals up with our one jack-knife, since, before we could get it done, they had frozen quite hard. The temperature had gone down until it was already below freezing all the time; and very soon a great deal of snow fell, and was drifted into heaps by the wind. The sea, soon after this, became frozen over quite solid all about the island, although we could still see plenty of clear, open water in the distance. There was one satisfaction, at least, in this freezing up of the sea: we could walk out upon it, and go all around the island without having to clamber over the rough rocks.
"You have now seen pretty much what our life was on the island, and how we were prepared for the winter. Well, the winter came by and by in good earnest, I can tell you. The sunlight all went away, and then, soon afterward, the autumn twilight went away; and then came the darkness that I told you is constant, in the winter, up towards the North Pole, for the winter there is but one long night, you know."
Here William, who was, as we have seen, of an inquiring turn of mind, interrupted the Captain to ask if he would not be so good as to mention again how dark it was in this polar winter.
"Dark as midnight," replied the Captain, promptly.
"Dark all the time, did you say, Captain Hardy?"
"Yes, dark all the time, my lad,--dark in the morning, dark in the evening, dark at midnight, dark at noon, dark, all the time, as any night you ever saw; only, everything being white with snow, of course makes the night lighter than it does here, where the trees and the houses, and other dark objects, help along the blackness and make it more gloomy,--absorbing the light, you see, while the snow reflects it."
"But what," asked William, "did you do for light in this dark time, since you did not have a lamp?"
"Easy there, my lad," replied the Captain; "I'm just coming to that, you see. Somebody has said that 'necessity is the mother of invention,' or words to that effect; and darkness, I think, may be considered a 'mother' of that description. First we made an open dish of soapstone, and put some oil in it; and then we made a wick out of the dry moss, and set fire to it; but this was found to make so much smoke that it drove us out of the hut, and it was given up. But we did not throw away the dish, and after a while it occurred to us to powder the dry moss by rubbing it between the hands, and with this powdered moss we lined our soapstone dish all over on the inside with a layer a quarter of an inch thick. After smoothing this down all around the edge (this dish, which we called a lamp, was much like a saucer, only rougher and much larger), we filled it half full of oil, and again set fire to it all around the edge; and this time it worked beautifully,--smoking very little, and giving us plenty of light."