The lads were out on the trampled snow about a hundred yards from the _Hvalross_, which looked, with its snow-covered roofing, like some long, low house, out of which three tall masts had grown. And as they were talking a hail came from the canvas-covered doorway at the top of the gangway. The resemblance to a low, long house was increased by the iron chimneys rising out through the snow and the big funnel of the boiler, from all of which black smoke was issuing; for, the ample supply of coal being so near, Captain Marsham had the engine furnace kept going for the sake of the heat given by the boilers, as well as from the fire itself. In fact, the engine-room and stoke-hole became favourite places with the men of an evening before bed, or after a long tramp round somewhere through the snow; for, now that they were fairly started in their battle with the arctic winter, the weather had to be very bad, and the wind very keen, for the crew to be kept out of their daily exercise. The loud hail came from the doorway, and a curious-looking figure like a diver in a fur suit came down the well-made flight of ice steps, and advanced to join the two lads. The resemblance to a diver increased as it drew nearer, for the face was almost completely hidden by the visor-like arrangement of the round, helmet-shaped cap, and in place of a visor's bars there were two large, round green-glass goggles which glistened in a peculiar manner when the object advanced, as if he were not only a diver, but a steam diver who was moved by some internal machinery which caused him to emit little puffs of steam at breathing intervals. "Morning, Mr Handscombe," cried Steve as he drew near. "Morning, my lad; but look here, you are doing a very foolish thing. We're below zero, and yet you're standing about here talking as if it were summer." "We haven't felt the cold, sir." "The more likely for the cold to be dangerous for you, my lad. A frost-bite comes on without the sufferer knowing about it, the cold making the part quite insensible to pain, and a bad bite may mean utter destruction of the tissue and the loss of even hands and feet." "Phwat!" cried Watty, forgetting his awe of the doctor in the horror of the announcement; "wad a man who was frost-bit lose her han's or her foots?" "Yes, if it were a bad case of freezing." "An' wad her han's or foots tummle off?" "More likely the patient's medical attendant would have to cut them off." "Coot her han's an foots off? What wi'--chopper?" "No," said the doctor, smiling at the lad's horrified looks; "they would be carefully taken off with a knife and saw. Surgeons are very careful." Watty groaned. "It's a' ower wi' her, Meester Stevey, an' she's ferry sorry she's iver fote and ca'd her, for she'll nivver see bonnie Scotland more." "Why not? What's the matter with you, my lad?" said the doctor. "She's ferry pad, sir. Poth her foots an' poth her han's is frost-pitten."