United States or Tanzania ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"Pierre!" he cried. Pierre stood still as if stunned, and unconscious of what was going on around him. André Vasling looked at Pierre Nouquet's companion with anxiety mingled with a cruel joy, for he did not recognize Louis Cornbutte in him. "Pierre! it is I!" cried Penellan. "These are all your friends!" Pierre Nouquet recovered his senses, and fell into his old comrade's arms.
"Cornbutte," said he to the captain, who had come up to him, "we are buried under this snow!" "What say you?" cried Jean Cornbutte. "I say that the snow is massed and frozen around us and over us, and that we are buried alive!" "Let us try to clear this mass of snow away," replied the captain.
In two hours, though the opening was five feet deep, the points of the staffs could not yet find an issue without. "It is not possible," said Jean Cornbutte, "that snow could have fallen in such abundance. It must have been gathered on this point by the wind. Perhaps we had better think of escaping in some other direction."
Twenty miles off, the ice masses, entirely separated, floated towards the Atlantic Ocean. Though the sea was not quite free around the ship, channels opened by which Louis Cornbutte wished to profit. On the 21st of May, after a parting visit to his father's grave, Louis at last set out from the bay.
At the horizon only, a whitish light, this time motionless, indicated the presence of fixed plains of ice. Jean Cornbutte now directed the "Jeune-Hardie" towards Cape Brewster. They were already approaching the regions where the temperature is excessively cold, for the sun's rays, owing to their obliquity when they reach them, are very feeble.
This news, though meagre, restored hope to the hearts of the sailors, and Jean Cornbutte had no difficulty in persuading them to advance farther in the polar seas. Before quitting Liverpool Island, the captain purchased a pack of six Esquimaux dogs, which were soon acclimatised on board.
Penellan prepared some boiling coffee, which gave them some strength, as well as Marie, who joined them in partaking of it. Louis Cornbutte approached his father's bedside; the old man was almost motionless, and his limbs were helpless from disease. He muttered some disconnected words, which carried grief to his son's heart. "Louis," said he, "I am dying. O, how I suffer! Save me!"
Then Jean Cornbutte decided energetically that they should at once set about devising means of safety. André Vasling now said, "If the storm is still raging, which is probable, we must be buried ten feet under the ice, for we can hear no noise outside." Penellan looked at Marie, who now understood the truth, and did not tremble.
"Forward!" cried Penellan. They went on for half an hour in perfect silence, and perceived an elevation which seemed without doubt to be land. "It is Shannon Island," said Jean Cornbutte. A mile farther on they distinctly perceived smoke escaping from a snow-hut, closed by a wooden door. They shouted. Two men rushed out of the hut, and Penellan recognized one of them as Pierre Nouquet.
"And you shall be at the wedding," replied Jean Cornbutte, interrupting the merchant, and shaking his hand as if he would crush it. "This purchase of wood " "And with all our friends, landsmen and seamen, Clerbaut. I have already informed everybody, and I shall invite the whole crew of the ship." "And shall we go and await them on the pier?" asked Marie. "Indeed we will," replied Jean Cornbutte.
Word Of The Day