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Yet this was but poor comfort too; it threatened a terrible long spell of waiting, with perhaps disappointment in the end, and months of enforced association with a wretch with whom I should have to live in fear of my life. When I was getting supper Tassard awoke, quitted his mattress, and came to his bench. "Has anything happened whilst I slept?" said he. "Nothing," I answered.
I was in the midst of a dream of the schooner having been boarded by a party of French privateersmen, with Tassard at their head, and the roughness with which I was aroused was exactly calculated to extend into my waking the horror and grief of my sleep. I instantly sprang to my feet and saw Washington Cromwell.
I was at peace neither cold, hungry, nor hopeless! What demon forced you to bring me to this to bring me back to this?" "Mr. Tassard," said I coldly, "I don't ask your pardon for my experiment; I meant well, and to my mind it is no failure yet.
Tassard continued speaking with the pannikin in his hand, and his eyes shut as if to get the picture of the schooner's position fair before his mind's vision: "There was a quarter of a mile of ice beyond the ship: I have it very plain in my sight: it was a great muddle of hillocks, for the ice pressed thick and hard, and raised us and vomited up peaks and rocks to the squeeze.
This, then, was the result of my scheme; it was no failure, as Tassard had said; as he owed his life to me, so now did he owe me his liberty.
But the powder was our only trumps; we had but to play it and leave the rest to fortune. We got our supper and sat smoking and discussing our situation and chances. Tassard was tired, and this and our contemplation of the probabilities of the morrow sobered his mind, and he talked with a certain gravity.
Tassard," said I, approaching him and looking him full in the face, "I would advise you to sweeten your temper and change your tone. I have borne myself very moderately towards you, submitted to your insults with patience, and have done you some kindness. I am not afraid of you. On the contrary, I look upon you as a swaggering bully and a hoary villain. Do you understand me?
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."
"This is a fine sight," said Tassard, poring upon the sparkling mass with falcon nose and ravenous eyes. "Here is a dainty little watch. Fifty guineas would not purchase it in London or Paris. Where is the white breast upon which that cross there once glittered? Ha! the perfume has faded," bringing a vinaigrette to his hawk's bill; "the soul is gone; the body is the immortal part in this case.
"You scared me!" said he, fetching a deep breath. "I was afraid that some one had been beforehand with us. But it is not conceivable. No! we shall look for it presently, and we shall find it." "Find what, Mr. Tassard?" said I.
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