THE FIRST WINTER 2265 
he had reached the South Pole, and was suitably elated. 
When the darkness of the winter closed down upon us, 
this apparently unnatural order of things so preyed upon 
his superstitious mind that he became seriously alarmed. 
Where the sea-ice joined the land in front of the hut was 
of course a working crack, caused by the rise and fall of 
the tide. Sometimes the sea-water found its way up, and 
Anton was convinced that the weird phosphorescent lights 
which danced up out of the sea were devils. In propitia- 
tion we found that he had sacrificed to them his most cher- 
ished luxury, his scanty allowance of cigarettes, which he 
had literally cast upon the waters in the darkness. It was 
natural that his thoughts should turn to the comforts of 
his Siberian home, and the one-legged wife whom he was 
going to marry there, and when it became clear that a 
‘another year would be spent in the South his mind was 
troubled. And so he went to Oates and asked him, “If I 
go away at the end of this year, will Captain Scott disinherit 
me?” In order to try and express his idea, for he knew 
little English, he had some days before been asking “‘ what 
we called it when a father died and left his son nothing.” 
Poor Anton! 
He looked long and anxiously for the ship, and with his 
kit-bag on his shoulder was amongst the first to trek across 
the ice to meet her. Having asked for and obtained a job 
of work there was no happier man on board: he never left 
her until she reached New Zealand. Nevertheless he was 
always cheerful, always working, and a most useful addition 
to our small community. 
It is still usual to talk of people living in complete 
married happiness when we really mean, so Mr. Bernard 
Shaw tells me, that they confine their quarrels to Thursday 
nights. If then I say that we lived this life for nearly three 
years, from the day when we left England until the day we 
returned to New Zealand, without any friction of any kind, 
I shall be supposed to be making a formal statement of 
somewhat limited truth. May I say that there is really no 
formality about it, and nothing but the truth. To be ab- 
solutely accurate I must admit to having seen a man in a 
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