The smack is coated with ice from the mast-head
to the water's edge; there is not much of a sea, but when a wave does
throw a jet of water over the craft it freezes like magic, and adds yet
another layer to a heap which is making the deck resemble a miniature
glacier.
The smack has a flag hoisted, but alas! the signal that should float
bravely is twisted into a shabby icicle, and it would be lowered but for
the fact that the halliards will not run through the lump of ice that
gathers from the truck to the mast-head. All round to the near horizon a
scattered fleet of snow-white smacks are lingering, and they look like a
weird squadron from a land of chilly death. On the deck of the smack
that has the flag a powerful young man is standing, and by his side--by
all that is astounding--is an enormous man with an enormous beard and a
voice that booms through the Arctic stillness. That is our new scene.
* * * * *
I am not going to play at mystery, for you know as well as I do that the
young man named in that gloomy overture was Lewis Ferrier, and that his
companion was good Tom Lennard;--though what brought the giant out into
the frozen desolation I shall not say just yet.
Yes, Lewis kept his word, and at the time of which we are speaking he
had been three weeks at work on the Bank. He had now three cloth coats
on over his under-wear, and, over all, a leather coat made at Cronstadt,
and redolent of Russia even after weeks of hard wear.
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