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Presently, he was too ill to leave his bed, and Waxel, who hated all interference and threatened to put the scientists in irons or throw them overboard, took command. By the middle of July passengers and crew were reduced to half allowance of bad water. Still, there were signs that afforded hope.
Waxel, as he recovered, was afraid of tempting revolt with orders, and convened the crew by vote to determine all that should be done. Officers and men there was no distinction. By March of 1742 the ground had cleared of snow. Waxel called a meeting to suggest breaking up the packet vessel to build a smaller craft. A vote was asked.
It was as if the poor Russians had sailed into some under-world. The decks were slippery as glass, the vessel shrouded in ice. Over all settled that unspeakable dread of impending disaster, which is a symptom of scurvy, and saps the fight that makes a man fit to survive. Waxel, alone, held the vessel up to the wind. Where were they?
With characteristic hospitality, Waxel at once proffered some Russian brandy, which, by courtesy among all Western sailors, is always known as "chain lightning." The chief took but one gulp of the liquid fire, when with a wild yell he spat it out, shouted that he had been poisoned, and dashed ashore.
Waxel had all a sailor's contempt for the bookful blockheads, who wrench fact to fit theory; and deadly enmity arose between him and Steller, the scientist.
When Steller presently found a broken window casing of Kamchatka half buried in the sand, it gave Waxel some confidence about being on the mainland of Asia; but before Steller had finished his two days' reconnoitre, there was no mistaking the fact this was an island, and a barren one at the best, without tree or shelter; and here the castaways must winter.
Possibly to avoid irritation, he kept to his cabin; but he issued peremptory orders for the St. Peter to head back north. In a few days, Bering was confined to bed with that overwhelming physical depression and fear, that precede the scourge most dreaded by seamen scurvy. Lieutenant Waxel now took command.
Poor Waxel had fought desperately against the depression that precedes scurvy; but now, with a dumb hopelessness settling over the ship, the invisible hand of the scourge was laid on him, too. He went below decks completely fordone.
The three Russians succeeded in gaining Waxel's boat, but the Indians grabbed the mooring ropes and seized the Chukchee interpreter, whom Waxel had brought from Siberia. Waxel ordered the rope cut, but the Chukchee interpreter called out pitifully to be saved. Quick as flash, the Russians fired two muskets in midair.
We are here to see that you never go out'; and there was a nasty clutch to the backwash of the billows smashing down from those rocks. Waxel called a last council of all hands in the captain's cabin. 'We should go on home, said Bering, rising on his elbow in his berth. 'It matters not to me.
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