Page:Furcountryorseve00vernrich.djvu/45

 A SA VANT THA WED. 1 5 " No, I bring a traveller." " He is come to see the moon." At this reply, Captain Craventy said to himself the man must be a fool. But there was no time to announce this opinion, for the courier had taken an inert mass from the sledge, a kind of bag covered with snow, and was about to carry it into the house, when the Captain inquired — -^ "What is that bagT' " It is my traveller," replied the courier. " Who is this traveller ? " " The astronomer, Thomas Black." "Well, he must be thawed." Thomas Black, carried by the Sergeant, the Corporal, and the courier, now made his entrance into the house of the fort, and was taken to a room on the first floor, the temperature of which was bearable, thanks to a glowing stove. He was laid upon a bed, and the Captain took his hand. It was literally frozen. The wrappers and furred mantles, in which Thomas Black was rolled up like a parcel requiring care, were removed, and revealed a man of about fifty. He was short and stout, his hair was already touched with grey, his beard was un- trimmed, his eyes were closed, and his lips pressed together as if glued to one another. If he breathed at all, it was so slightly that the frost-work on the windows would not have been aff"ected by it. Joliffe undressed him, and turned him rapidly on to his face and back again, with the words — " Come, come, sir, when do you mean to return to conscious- ness 1 " But the visitor who had arrived in so strange a manner showed no signs of returning life, and Corporal Joliffe could think of no better means to restore the lost vital heat tlian to give him a bath in the bowl of hot punch. Very happily for Thomas Black, however, Lieutenant Jaspar Hobson had another idea. " Snow, bring snow ! " he cried. There was plenty of it in the court of Fort Reliance ; — and whilst the Sergeant went to fetch the snow, Joliffe removed all the astronomer's clothes. The body of the unfortunate man was
 * ' A traveller ! And what does he want?"
 * But he is frozen."