SUNRISE, NOON, AND SUNSET. 
293 
there were not some more to be remembered, and called 
up one friend or relative after another, but always came 
back to the circle I began with. My thoughts were 
torpid, not worth the writing down ; but I was not 
strong, and they aifected me. It was not good ' Polar 
practice.' 
" Very soon the deep crimson blush, lightening into 
a focus of incandescent white, showed me that the 
hour was close at hand. Mounting upon a crag, I saw 
the crews of our one ship formed in line upon the ice. 
My mind was still tracing the familiar chain of home 
affections, and the chances that this one or the other 
of its links might be broken already. I bethought me 
of the Sortes Virgilianse of my school-boy days : I took 
a piece of candle paper pasteboard, cut it with my 
bowie-knife into a little carbine target, and on one 
side of this marked all our names in pencil, and on the 
other a little star. Presently the sun came : never, 
till the grave-sod or the ice covers me, may I forego 
this blessing of blessings again ! I looked at him 
thankfully with a great globus in my throat. Then 
came the shout from the ship — three shouts — cheering 
the sun. I fixed my little star-target to the floe, walk- 
ed backward till it became nearly invisible ; and then, 
just as the completed orb fluttered upon the horizon, 
fired my ' salut' I cut M in half, and knocked the T 
out of Tom. They shall draw lots for it if ever I get 
home ; for many, many years may come and go again 
before the shot of an American rifle signalizes in the 
winter of Bafiin's Bay the conjunction of sunrise, noon- 
day, and sunset. 
" The first indications of dawn to-day were at forty- 
five minutes past five. By seven the twilight was 
nearly sufiicient to guide a walking party over the 
