"Well, well, we have not yet come to that, I hope, and I count on you, Hurliguerly, to prevent any attempt against Dirk Peters. Reason with your men. Make them understand that we have time to return to the Falklands before the end of the fine season. Their reproaches must not be allowed to provide the captain with an excuse for turning back before the object is attained." "Count on me, Mr. Jeorling, I will serve you to the best of my ability." "You will not repent of doing so, Hurliguerly. Nothing is easier than to add a round 0 to the four hundred dollars which each man is to have, if that man be something more than a sailor--even were his functions simply those of boatswain on board the _Halbrane_." Nothing important occurred on the 13th and 14th, but a fresh fall in the temperature took place. Captain Len Guy called my attention to this, pointing out the flocks of birds continuously flying north. While he was speaking to me I felt that his last hopes were fading. And who could wonder? Of the land indicated by the half-breed nothing was seen, and we were already more than one hundred and eighty miles from Tsalal Island. At every point of the compass was the sea, nothing but the vast sea with its desert horizon which the sun's disk had been nearing since the 21st of December, and would touch on the 21st March, prior to disappearing during the six months of the austral night. Honestly, was it possible to admit that William Guy and his five companions could have accomplished such a distance on a frail craft, and was there one chance in a hundred that they could ever be recovered? On the 15th of January an observation most carefully taken gave 43° 13' longitude and 88° 17' latitude. The _Halbrane_ was less than two degrees from the pole. Captain Len Guy did not seek to conceal the result of this observation, and the sailors knew enough of nautical calculation to understand it. Besides, if the consequences had to be explained to them, were not Holt and Hardy there to do this, and Hearne, to exaggerate them to the utmost? During the afternoon I had indubitable proof that the sealing-master had been working on the minds of the crew. The men, emerging at the foot of the mainmast, talked in whispers and cast evil glances at us. Two or three sailors made threatening gestures undisguisedly; then arose such angry mutterings that West could not to be deaf to them. He strode forward and called out: "Silence, there! The first man who speaks will have to reckon with me!"