As the days went by the black frost seemed only to increase in severity.
“How long d’ye think,” said Captain Cobb, one morning, while at breakfast in the Arrandoon—“how long d’ye think this state of affairs’ll last? ’cause, mind ye, I begin to feel a kind o’ riled already.”
McBain looked inquiringly at Silas.
“If it’s asking me you are,” said the latter, “I makes answer and says, it may be for months, but it can’t be for ever.”
“But the frost isn’t likely to go for a week, is it now?”
“That it won’t, worse luck,” was the reply.
“Well, then, gentlemen,” said Cobb, “this child is going off, straight away out o’ here back to Jan Mayen.”
“Back to Jan Mayen?”
“Back to Jan Mayen!” everybody said, or seemed to say, in one breath.
“I reckon ye heard aright,” said the imperturbable Yankee.