That there fog lasted three days, and when it was gone, there was no ship nowhere, and the iceberg drifting away doo north as hard as ever it could go.
I wouldn’t ha’ cared if it hadn’t been so cold, for I got plenty of seals and sea-birds, snaring ’em when they was asleep; but the cold was awful, and when we got stuck fast—froze up at last—I was glad to get a good run over the solid ice, which I did till I came to the edge of a big basin, like, where I lay down, tired out, and dropped off to sleep. You’ve just come, I suppose?
The doctor nodded.
“Ah! and it’s as cold as ever,” said the English sailor. “Now, if Atlantic Jones—Heigh—was—he—here—hum! Well, I am sleepy. Got a tot of grog, mates?”
The doctor reached out his hand for the case-bottle; but, as he did so, there seemed to be a mist come on suddenly where the English sailor sat; and, when it cleared away, there was a lot of moisture freezing hard, an empty tobacco-box, and the rusty blade of a knife.
“As-tonishing!” said the doctor. “Suspended animation!”
“But where’s he gone now?” I says.
“Into his original constituents,” said the doctor; and our fellows all shuffled out of the tent, with their fur caps lifted up by their hair, and wouldn’t go in again; so we had to move the bit of a camp farther up along the edge of the big basin, and scrape and clear the snow off the transparent ice—where, hang me! if there wasn’t another fellow a few inches down.
“Yes,” says the doctor; “this place is full of relics of the past, and if we searched we should find hundreds. Get him out!”
“But what’s the good?” growled Scudds, “if they on’y melts away again?”