Everybody had come to look upon Mac as a brick, and his cheerful Doric voice even in the dark was delightful to listen to. He used to “bag the boys” at night, as he termed it, Charlie with Nick, and Walter with Nora. “Bag them” snugly, too. He was like a mother to them. Of course all hands turned in very early, and as Curtis’s bag (and Collie’s) and also Dr. Wright’s were close to Mac’s and the boys’, the Yak-dogs filling up the intervals or lying round the sides, Mac could lie and yarn, or even sing, to all hands for two hours at a stretch. The British sailors were not far away in their bags, and they could listen too.
There is no seaman in the world like our handy man the British, and through all that long and trying Antarctic night these good fellows, though I have said little about them, behaved like heroes.
All kinds of games could still be carried on in the light, but sleighing was discontinued.
In these regions it is just after turning in that one feels most cold, but any such course as warm drinks or nightcaps (drinkable, I mean) would make matters worse.
Slap-dash and his people used often to worship the moon, just as they had the sun. The sun may be the god of these poor souls, but the moon is his high priest, and the Aurora are his angels.
Well, a religion of any sort is better than none.
Once when the moon was about three days old she took on a strange but most lovely appearance. The stars, except the highest, which were exceedingly brilliant, burned somewhat less brightly at the time. But it was towards the moon all eyes turned.
It was, if I may so describe it, a kind of rainbow moon. The outer arc was of the deepest orange colour, the next and largest arc was pale yellow, but brilliant, then an arc of radiant sea-green, while inside all was an arc of pale but indescribably beautiful mauve.
Hitherto the boys and Ingomar himself had believed, or been taught to believe, that the Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights, with their fringe-like bands of opal, pink, or green, were far more lovely than the Southern magnetic lights, the Aurora Australis.
During their sojourn in the Antarctic they had time to alter their opinion.