United States or Sri Lanka ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The black foxes were worth from fifty to a hundred roubles, the sables from thirty to fifty, the martens some ten roubles less; the other skins were worth from fifteen to thirty roubles. Luka took the sledge and a reindeer and started alone, having gone over the list of things required again and again until Godfrey was convinced that he was perfect. He took his sleeping-bag but no tent.
We'll use a signal I have tried and found far-reaching and easy to yell. Waa-hoo! That's it. Once yelled it means come. Twice means comes quickly. Three times means come danger!" In one corner of the cabin was a platform of poles, covered with straw. I threw the sleeping-bag on this, and was soon stretched out. Misgivings as to my strength worried me before I closed my eyes.
He went out to the ice edge, climbed into his sealskin sleeping-bag, and waved his legs, as per stage directions.
The hammock cannot cope with the cold real cold, that is, not the sudden chill of tropical night which a blanket resists, but the cold of the north or of high altitudes. This is the realm of the sleeping-bag, the joy of which is another story. More than once I have had to use a hammock at high levels, since there was nothing else at hand; and the numbness of the Arctic was mine.
It was with a dizzy brain, therefore, that I went off watch to my bunk. Soon, indeed, I fell asleep: but the rolls and shocks of the ship, combined with the heavy Greenland anorak which I had on, and the state of my body, together produced a fearful nightmare, in which I was conscious of a vain struggle to move, a vain fight for breath, for the sleeping-bag turned to an iceberg on my bosom.
Then I pulled my sled over close to Nunatak cliff, made haste to strip off my clothing, threw it in a sloppy heap and crept into my sleeping-bag to shiver away the night as best I could. July 21. Dressing this rainy morning was a miserable job, but might have been worse. After wringing my sloppy underclothing, getting it on was far from pleasant.
From a fortnight after I had left, Wild would roll up his sleeping-bag each day with the remark, "Get your things ready, boys, the Boss may come to-day." And sure enough, one day the mist opened and revealed the ship for which they had been waiting and longing and hoping for over four months.
But even in this solitude fear drove me on, for I knew that a relentless enemy followed hard after us, camping where we had camped and reading the miles between us by the smouldering ashes of our old fires. At nightfall I would pitch the tent for Jacqueline and place her sleeping-bag within, and while she slept I would lie by the huge fire near the dogs, and we kept watch over her together.
I slipped back into my sleeping-bag, with a keen consciousness of its nature, and carefully pulled the flap in place, which almost hermetically sealed me up. "Hey! Jones! Wallace! Frank! Jim!" I yelled, from the depths of my safe refuge. Wondering cries gave me glad assurance that they had awakened from their dreams. "The cave's alive with tarantulas!" I cried, trying to hide my unholy glee.
"If they come up with us, Uppy you die!" The Eskimo's narrow eyes widened. There was murder in this white woman's face, in the steadiness of her hand, and in her voice. If they came up with them he would die! Swiftly he gathered up his sleeping-bag and placed it on the sledge. Then he roused the dogs, tangled in their traces. They rose to their feet, sleepy and ill-humored.
Word Of The Day