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Updated: June 2, 2025
There was no speculation in his stare at first; his eyes lay as coldly upon me as those of a fish; but as life quickened in him so his understanding awoke; he slightly knitted his brows, and very slowly rolled his gaze off me to the furnace and so over as much of the cook-room as was before him. He then started as if to sit up, but fell back with a slight groan and looked at me again.
Then, thought I, if I was to put him before the fire, he might presently thaw into some sort of suppleness, and so prove not harder than the other to get on deck. I liked the idea, and without more ado dragged him laboriously into the cook-room and laid him close to the furnace, throwing in a little pile of coal to make the fire roar.
The first was the mortar-gallery, where the mortar for the lighthouse was mixed as required; it also supported the forge. The second was the cook-room. The third the apartment of the engineer and his assistants; and the fourth was the artificer's barrack-room. This house was of course built of wood, but it was firmly put together, for it had to pass through many a terrific ordeal.
I thought, what is the good of anticipating? Suppose the schooner is crushed by the ice or jammed by the explosion? Until we are under way, nay, until the treasure is buried, I have nothing to fear, for the rogue cannot do without me. And, reassuring myself in this fashion, I went to the cook-room and lighted the fire; my companion presently arrived, and we sat down to our morning meal.
Two long yellow tables reached lengthwise down a long, narrow salon, the floor whereof was made of tiles, and the light whereof fizzed and flamed from two unruly burners. A door at the farther end opened upon a cook-room, and the cook, a scorched and meagre woman, was standing now in the firelight, talking in a high key, as only a Frenchwoman can talk.
On our journey up the Mississippi, I give you my honor we were on fire three times, and burned our cook-room down. The deck at night was a great firework the chimney spouted myriads of stars, which fell blackening on our garments, sparkling on to the deck, or gleaming into the mighty stream through which we labored the mighty yellow stream with all its snags.
I had found plenty of coal, and that sufficed. So I returned by the same road I had entered, and sliding to the bulkhead door to keep the cold of the forecastle out of the cook-room, I stirred the fire into a blaze and sat down before it to rest and think.
"So!" cried the Frenchman suddenly, slamming the lid of the chest. "Tis all here! Now then to the business of considering how to come off with it." He thrust the keys in his pocket, and we returned to the cook-room. That night, as afterwards, Tassard occupied the berth that he was used to sleep in before he was frozen.
"And now, Mason," said I, "whilst our friends here empty these bowls, come you with me to the cook-room." And with that we quitted the cabin. "D'ye mean to tell me, Paul," was the first question my relative asked, "that this vessel was on the ice eight-and-forty years?" "Yes," I replied. "Surely you dream?" "I think not." "What we have been eating and drinking is that forty-eight years old, too?"
I found the poor men on board almost in a tumult to get the victuals out of the boiler before it was ready; but my mate observed his order, and kept a good guard at the cook-room door; and the man he placed there, after using all possible persuasion to have patience, kept them off by force: however, he caused some biscuit cakes to be dipped in the pot, and softened them with the liquor of the meat, which they call brewis, and gave every one one, to stay their stomachs, and told them it was for their own safety that he was obliged to give them but little at a time.
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