"I'll tell you in a word why I refused the captain's flask," said Frank, when the two were seated in the stern sheets. "My dearest friend on earth—he's not on earth now—whom I loved as much as you, because I hadn't you to care for, fell a victim to accursed rum, and one night he threw himself into the sea, Fred, and before my eyes I saw him torn in pieces by the sharks."
What a long story that was that each had to tell the other of their travels and adventures, since last saying farewell on the Broomielaw at Glasgow!
But it was not all told on the ice here.
Fred and Señor Sarpinto, with the skipper of the Resolute, and some of the ailing ones among the crew, were taken at once aboard the San Salvador.
The others remained in camp beside their ship.
The skipper, a little dark-skinned Yankee, told Cawdor at once that he believed it possible to repair and float the Resolute, and so that very day a picked crew was sent on shore to work at her. All the damage that could be found out about the brig had been done to her starboard quarter. Here was a big hole, but as the vessel lay on the port side, two days hard work sufficed to make good repairs.
Then came the tug of war. How was she to be got up?
The skipper's plan at once proved the boldness of Yankee device.
He would, he said, blast the ice from under her.*
* A plan I have seen resorted to in Greenland more than once.