On
returning home there was a general feasting and merrymaking, and
Saunders felt that if he remained there long they would not only eat up
their own meat, but his also. He therefore resolved to return
immediately to the ship with his prize, and leave part of his men behind
to continue the hunt until he should return with the sledge.
But he was prevented from putting this intention into practice by a
hurricane which burst over the Arctic Regions with inconceivable
bitterness, and for two days kept all the inhabitants of the
snow-village confined to their huts. This hurricane was the fiercest
that had swept over these bleak regions of ice since the arrival of the
_Dolphin_. The wind shrieked as it swept round the cliffs, and down the
ravines, and out upon the frozen sea, as if a legion of evil spirits
were embodied and concentrated in each succeeding blast. The snow-drift
rose in solid masses, whirled madly round for a few seconds, and then
was caught by the blast and swept away like sheets of white flame. The
thermometer stood at 25 deg. below zero, a temperature that was mild
compared with what it usually had been of late, but the fierce wind
abstracted heat from everything exposed to it so rapidly that neither
man nor beast could face it for a moment. Buzzby got a little bit of his
chin frozen while he merely put his head out at the door of the hut to
see how the weather looked; and Davie Summers had one of his fingers
slightly frozen while in the act of carrying in one of the muskets that
had been left outside by mistake.
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