Page:Works of Jules Verne - Parke - Vol 2.djvu/366

 the cold was felt in all its intensity, and it was little wonder that the poor shivering fellows huddled round the stove in a close group, scarcely ever changing their position.

Yet the Doctor counseled them wisely to try and get inured to the temperature by gradually exposing themselves to its influence. But his advice was in vain, though he practiced what he preached. The men were nearly all too lazy or too benumbed to leave their post, and preferred sleeping away their time in the warm unwholesome atmosphere.

As for Hatteras, he seemed not to feel the change in the temperature in the least. He walked about as usual in perfect silence, and would be absent from the ship for hours, and return, to the astonishment of his crew, without a sign of cold on his face. What was the secret of this? Was he so wrapped in one idea that he was actually not susceptible of outward impressions?

"He is a strange man!" said the Doctor to Johnson. "He amazes even me; he has a blazing fire inside him!"

"It is a positive fact," replied Johnson; "that he goes about in the open air with not a stitch more clothing than he wore in the month of June!"

"Oh! as far as clothes are concerned, that is nothing; what's the good of wrapping up a man who has got no heat in himself? You may as well try and warm ice by putting it in a blanket. Hatteras does not need that; he is so constituted that really I should not be astonished to see things catch alight that come near him, as if they had touched glowing coal!"

On the 28th the thermometer fell to 32° below zero. There was only enough coal to last ten days longer.

Hatteras dispensed now with the fire in the poop, and shared the common room of the men with Shandon and the Doctor. This brought him into more direct contact with his crew, who bestowed on him sullen, scowling glances. He heard their reproaches and recriminations, and even threats, without daring to punish. Indeed, he seemed deaf to all that was spoken, and sat in a corner away from the fire, with his arms folded, in perfect silence.

In spite of the Doctor's advice, Pen and his friends refused to take the least exercise. They spent whole days