“Yes,” said that gentleman; “and I suppose in a night or two you’ll have snow over it to keep us warmer.”
“It is probable. Wonderful how rapidly we are settling down into winter. A long one, too,” he added in a low voice. “Can you keep us all in good health till the summer comes again?”
“It depends more upon yourselves than upon me,” said Mr Handscombe sharply. “Keep every one so busy that he gets tired and has no time to think.”
“I mean to,” said the captain quietly. “There will be enough to keep them pretty well employed in getting and sleighing over to here all the coal I hope to have on board—enough, that is, to make up for all that is gone, and so as to give us an ample supply to keep our stoves burning as much as we like.”
“Well,” said the doctor, “with plenty of work, plenty to eat and drink, and the means of keeping up bonny fires, I do not see why we should not pass through the winter pleasantly enough. The darkness will be depressing when it comes, but the men will have grown pretty well accustomed to it; for it comes on, I suppose, so thoroughly by degrees. Let’s see, how long will it be perfectly dark?”
“Not at all, I hope,” said Captain Marsham. “Nature counteracts a great deal of the gloom by the brilliancy of stars and moon, and the reflection from the dazzlingly white earth. Then, too, I suppose we shall have the aurora pretty often.”
“But for how long does the sun disappear entirely?”
“About eighteen weeks,” said the captain. “Once it has reached its farthest point to the south I don’t care, for then it will be journeying back to us. Our task seems to be to keep the men in good heart up to the shortest day; after that we can manage.”
Days passed with a fair amount of sunshine, and then came a week of storm, the wind giving them a taste or two of what might be expected later; and the snow fell heavily, loading down the great tent-like arrangement over the deck to such an extent that the men were busily employed rigging up the extra spars and spare yards as rafters and ridge-poles, to help bear the strain put upon the ropes; and then all knew that there was to be no autumn, for the brief northern summer gave place at one bound to winter.
After the storm the snow was piled and drifted up round and about the bows to such an extent that in one place there was a complete slope from the top of the bulwark, and the snow lay deep upon the ice, though here and there a few passages were left where the wind had swept the surface pretty clear; and as the day was fairly bright and the way open in the direction of the narrow, jagged rift, it was decided to take advantage of the opportunity and have a trip through the gorge to the seashore.