As usual, Bennett paced the floor from wall to wall, his cigar in his teeth, his tattered, grimy ice-journal in his hand. At the desk Lloyd's round, bare arm, the sleeve turned up to the elbow, moved evenly back and forth as she wrote. In the intervals of Bennett's dictation the scratching of Lloyd's pen made itself heard. A little fire snapped and crackled on the hearth. The morning's sun came flooding in at the windows.
"... Gale of wind from the northeast," prompted Lloyd, raising her head from her writing. Bennett continued:
Impossible to march against it in our weakened condition.
He paused for her to complete the sentence.
... Must camp here till it abates....
"Have you got that?" Lloyd nodded.
... Made soup of the last of the dog-meat this afternoon.... Our last pemmican gone.
There was a pause; then Bennett resumed:
December 1st, Wednesday—Everybody getting weaker.... Metz breaking down.... Sent Adler to the shore to gather shrimps ... we had about a mouthful apiece at noon ... supper, a spoonful of glycerine and hot water.
Lloyd put her hand to her temple, smoothing back her hair, her face turned away. As before, in the park, on that warm and glowing summer afternoon, a swift, clear vision of the Ice was vouchsafed to her. She saw the coast of Kolyuchin Bay—primordial desolation, whirling dust-like snow, the unleashed wind yelling like a sabbath of witches, leaping and somersaulting from rock to rock, folly-stricken and insensate in its hideous dance of death. Bennett continued. His voice insensibly lowered itself, a certain gravity of manner came upon him. At times he looked at the written pages in his hand with vague, unseeing eyes. No doubt he, too, was remembering.