But I was alone. Dead! dead! And I went away with my heart cold and
sad, and my future all dark and purposeless.
A twelvemonth ago I fell in with some Shetlanders who were about to
start on a whaling cruise, and, as the expedition promised plenty
of adventure and excitement, I joined them.
Three months after we left Shetland, we were fast in the ice. For
nine months and more we have been almost starving, and have had to
endure bodily suffering in other respects of a most severe kind.
I have written the foregoing part of my story at intervals, and I
would now bring it to a conclusion, for the ice is breaking up, and
we have before us our last chance.
Literature has been very scarce on board, and I had only brought
one book with me. It was Howard Pemberton's Bible. I found it in
the coat I had taken accidentally on the morning I left Blackrock
school, and I never parted with it, hoping I might be able to
restore it some day, for I found it was a sacred relic given to him
by his father, and bearing in its cover his portrait and a copy of
the dying words he spoke to Howard.
That book became my friend, and it led me to recognize a friend in
its Divine author.
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