Page:Furcountryorseve00vernrich.djvu/536

322 THE FUR COUNTRY, rodents ; and the be^r, which seemed terribly puzzled, paced round and round the islet like a caged animal. About five o'clock in the evening the three explorers returned to the camp. The men and women were gathered together in gloomy silence in the rough shelter still remaining to them, and Mrs Joliffe was preparing some food. Sabine, who was less overcome than his comrades, was wandering about in the hope of getting some fresh venison, and the astronomer was sitting apart from every one, gazing at the sea in an absent indifferent manner, as if nothing could ever rouse or astonish him again. The Lieutenant imparted the results of his excursion to the whole party. He told them that they were safer where they were than they would be on any other spot, and he urged them not to wander about, as there were signs of another approaching fracture half way between the camp and Cape Esquimaux. The superficial area of the islet would soon be yet further reduced, and they could do nothing, absolutely nothing. The day was really quite hot. The ice which had been " dis- interred " for drinkable water melted before it was brought near the fire. Thin pieces of the ice-crust of the steep beach fell off into the sea, and it was evident that the general level of the islet was^ being lowered by the constant wearing away of its base in the tepid waters. No one slept the next night. Who could have closed his eyes with the knowledge that the abyss beneath might open at any moment % — who but the little unconscious child who still smiled in his mother's arms, and was never for one instant out of them ? The next morning, June 4th, the sun rose in a cloudless sky. No change had taken place in the conformation of the islet during the night. In the course of this day a 'terrified blue fox rushed into the shed, and could not be induced to leave it. The martens, ermines, polar hares, musk-rats, and beavers literally swarmed upon the site of the former factory. The wolves alone were unrepresented, and had probabljf all been swallowed up with the rest of the island. The bear no longer wandered from Cape Bathurst,. and the furred ani- mals seemed quite unconscious of its presence; nor did the colonists notice it much, absorbed as they were in the contemplation of the approaching doom, which had broken down all the ordinary dis- tinctions of race.