Claude and Dr Barrett shook hands, but neither spoke; their hearts were too full. Perhaps both were at that moment breathing a prayer of thankfulness to the kind Father who had hitherto protected them from every danger and from sickness itself.
There were great doings that night in the Icebear and in the Icebear’s snow-house. A supper on board, a concert on shore!
Paddy’s Irish jig was pronounced to be “a caution out and out,” so the men phrased it.
Boy Bounce’s “break-down” almost outstripped it.
Even Byarnie must take the floor to dance all by himself a wild Norse “hoolichan.”
If you can imagine a rhinoceros tripping it on the light fantastic toe, then you see honest Byarnie. If you cannot, then I have only to confess that figures of speech fail me.
The doctor played a selection of airs on his violin, that the engineer, who, like most good engineers, was a Scotchman, declared made him “laugh and greet (cry) by turns.”
Why were those mariners—far away in the desolate regions of the Pole—so happy, so gay?
Because they were hopeful. The purple cloud had done it all. The sun was returning. The long Arctic night had received notice to quit, and in two or three months at most summer would be with them; they would accomplish the object of their adventurous voyage, and bear up for home.
