HIS ESCAPE. 
89 
1 went on board for irons; for both Bonsall and myself 
were barely able to walk, and utterly incapable of con¬ 
trolling him by manual force, and Petersen was out 
hunting: the rest, thirteen in all, are down with 
scurvy. I had just reached the deck, when he turned 
to run. Mr. Bonsall’s pistol failed at the cap. I jumped 
at once to the gun-stand; but my first rifle, affected by 
the cold, went off in the act of cocking, and a second, 
aimed in haste at long but practicable distance, missed 
the fugitive. He made good his escape before we could 
lay hold of another weapon. 
“I am now more anxious than ever about Hans. 
The past conduct of Godfrey on board, and his muti¬ 
nous desertion, make me aware that he is capable of 
daring wrong as well as deception. Hans has been gone 
more than a fortnight: he has been used to making the 
same journey in less than a week. His sledge and 
dogs came back in the possession of the very man 
whom I suspected of an intention to waylay him; and 
this man, after being driven by menaces to the ship’s 
side, perils his life rather than place himself in my 
power on board of her. 
“Yet he came back to our neighborhood voluntarily, 
with sledge and dogs and walrus-meat! Can it have 
been that John, his former partner in the plot, was on 
the look-out for him,- and had engaged his aid to con¬ 
summate their joint desertion? 
“One thing is plain. This man at large and his 
comrade still on board, the safety of the whole com¬ 
pany exacts the sternest observance of discipline. I 
