“Let him rest,” he said gravely; and Steve started back as he realised the fact that he was disturbing the resting-place of the dead.
He looked at the captain in horror as if to question him with his eyes, and the answer came.
“Yes, some unfortunate Russian party, evidently left to winter here, and they died off one by one. Let us go and look at the crosses.”
It was with a sensation of relief that they all stood out once more in the soft, bright sunshine, and breathed the clear, cold air, which came fresh from the ice-fields; and soon after they stopped before the crosses, beneath which were the resting-places of five unfortunate men.
“There is the history written plainly enough,” said Captain Marsham in a low voice, as if talking to himself. “These were the party of six left here to collect skins during the winter, to be fetched away the next season. One man died, and his kindly-hearted companions laboriously made that rough, wooden coffin, and dug a few inches into this icy rock for its reception. They covered it with these stones to guard it from wild beasts, and put up this elaborate timber with its three cross-pieces, cut in Russian characters as we see. Then another died, and his four companions treated him nearly the same as the first; there was as much care taken to bury him, and the cross is nearly as grand as the first. The third man died, and the survivors were not able to do so much; the grave is more shallow, the coffin rougher, and there is only one cross-piece. Then we have here the fourth man’s resting-place—very shallow, and only an upright post, with his initials, two letters roughly scored by a feeble hand, by one of the two survivors. Then look at this.”
He took a few steps to where Steve shrinkingly saw a hollow in which, barely covered by small pieces of rock and ice, lay the remains of a man, from which all turned without a word. For it wanted no words to tell how he had pined and died, and been dragged to his last resting-place by his feeble companion, the last of the party, so helpless now that he could not chip out a grave, but was fain to lay his dead companion in a natural rift, and slowly pile over him little pieces of the stone and ice around; then crawl back into the hut to lie there, covered by the skins, waiting for the dawn to come after the long, long wintry night, and bring with it the hopes of rescue which came too late.
The Norseman who had stood by the graves with his cap in his hands went softly away on tip-toe to the boat, and the captain said sadly: “There is something very awful as well as grand up here in these solitudes. Poor fellows! What a history they have left behind! Steve, lad, it is a painful sight for you.”
“Yes,” said the boy huskily, and his voice shook as he looked up apologetically at the speaker. “I can’t help it—makes me feel quite ill and weak; for when I think of it all, and of those who must have been hoping they would return like some one we know, I feel as if I could sit down and cry.”
“Hah!” ejaculated the doctor; and as the others looked at him he sharply turned away his face.
“Yes, it is very sad,” said the captain briskly; “but we will not take that view of the case, my lad. Let’s only be thankful that you were wrong in your ideas. Our friends would be better provided than these poor fellows were, and I have always a strong feeling that we shall find them alive and well.”