Seven Frozen Sailors - George Manville Fenn

“My dear fellow,” he said, gently, “you’ve been delirious, and your head evidently is not quite right yet. There, drink that.”

I took what he gave me, and sank into a deep sleep, from which I awoke much refreshed, and by degrees I learned that I had slipped while we were on the beautiful iceberg, and had a very narrow escape of my life; that, far from walking back to the steamer, and sitting on the deck to hear a scraping noise, I had been carried carefully on board by Bostock and Scudds. Imagination did the rest.

I need not continue our adventures in our real voyage, for they were very uneventful. The doctor got some nice specimens and thoroughly enjoyed his trip; but we were stopped on all sides by the ice, and at last had to return, loaded with oil and preserved natural history matters, after what the doctor called the pleasantest trip he had ever had.

But, all the same, it would have been very interesting if the Seven Frozen Sailors had really been thawed out to give us forth their yarns—of course always excepting the rush down into the misty crater. However, here are their stories, told by seven pens, and may they make pleasant many a fireside.