"Yes," I replied, "it is a bright still morning. I have been on deck. There has been a great fall of ice close to."
"Does it block us?"
"No, on the contrary, it clears the way to the sea; the ocean is now visible from the deck. Not that it mends our case," I added. "But there is a great rent in the ice that puts a fancy into my head; I'll speak of it later after a closer look."
The breakfast was ready, and we fell to in a hurry, the Frenchman gobbling like a hog in his eagerness to make an end. When we were finished he wrapped himself up in three or four coats and cloaks, warming the under ones before folding them about him, and completing his preparations for the excursion by swallowing half a pint of raw brandy. I bade him arm himself with a short-headed spear to save his neck; and thus equipped we went on deck.
He stood stock-still with his eyes shut on emerging through the hatch, crying out with a number of French oaths that he had been struck blind. This I did not believe, though I readily supposed that the glare made his eyeballs smart so as to cause him a good deal of agony. Indeed, all along I had been surprised that he should have found his sight so easily after having sat in blindness for forty-eight years, and it was not wonderful that the amazing brilliance on deck, smiting his sight on a sudden, should have caused him to cry out as if he had lost the use of his eyes for ever.
I waited patiently, and in about ten minutes he was able to look about him, and then it was not long before he could see without pain. He stood a minute gazing at the glories upon the rigging, and in that piercing light I noticed the unwholesome colour of his face. His cap hid the scar, and nothing of his countenance was to be seen but the cheeks, eyes, and nose; he was much more wrinkled than I had supposed, and methought the spirit of cruelty lay visible in every line. I had never seen eyes so full of cunning and treachery—so expressive, I should say, of these qualities; yet they were no bigger than mere punctures. I was sensible of a momentary fear of the man—not, let me say, an emotion of cowardice—but a sort of mixture of alarm and awe, such as a ghost might inspire. This I put down to the searching light in which I watched him for a moment or two, an irradiation subtle enough to give the sharpest form to expression, to exquisitely define every meaning that was distinguishable in his graveyard physiognomy. I left him to stare and judge for himself of the posture in which the long hard gale had put the schooner and stepped over to the two bodies. They were shrouded in ice from head to foot, as though they had each man been packed in a glass case cunningly wrought to their shapes. Their faces were hid by the crystal masks. Tassard joined me.
"Small chance for your friends now," said I, "even if you were agreeable to my proposal to attempt to revive them."
"So!" cried he, touching the body of the mate with his foot; "and this is the end of the irresistible Trentanove! for what conquests has Death robed him so bravely? See, the colours shine in him like fifty different kinds of ribbands. Poor fellow! he could not curl his moustachios now, though the loveliest eyes in Europe were fixed in passionate admiration on him. He'll never slit another throat, nor hiccup Petrarch over a goblet nor remonstrate with me on my humanity. Shall we toss the bodies over the side?"
"They are your friends," said I; "do as you please."
"But we must empty their pockets first. Business before sentiment, Mr. Rodney."