"He will behave," she added, quickly. "I'm sure that he will. He is afraid of you."
Her eyes were wide and very blue.
"Please let him go," she asked. "I'm sure of him."
The Ice Pilot turned and strode across the cabin, brushed aside the curtain, and passed into the alleyway. Voices sounded as Helen Marr waited, then Slim appeared with one hand grasping the wrist of the other.
He leered through the half light of the cabin, and glanced up at the deck opening. "It's a fine way to——" he began, but Stirling silenced him with a glance.
"Get on deck!" the Ice Pilot commanded. "Get up and forward! The Russians won't kill you, they're too busy deciding whether to abandon the ship or not. You'll find food in the galley. Go now!"
Slim paused at the top of the steps and glared down, then ducked his unshaven face as Stirling moved toward the foot of the stairs and started upward. There was that in Stirling's face which brooked no excuses; his jaw was set with a fighting bulge at the point.
The deck was deserted, the wheel swung idle, and the Pole Star rose and fell with the ground swell which lifted the ice floes and packed them upon the shelving beach.
Stirling crossed the planks, after shutting the cabin companion hatch, and stood by the canvas rail, studying the excited knot of revolutionists in the waist below him. The leader had mounted a hatch and was speaking rapidly, pointing now and then to the menace of the ice gathering to the north and west.
The land over the starboard rail held a certain lure to ignorant minds, the green moss and lichens which showed being apparently a promise of greener things to the southward. But Stirling knew that this inference could not be made. The way to the American continent was ice strewn and bare of animals; a trail of death and starvation.