..!_'
My eyes, starting with horror, opened to waking; the electric light was
shining in the cabin; and there stood David Wilson looking at me.
Wilson was a big man, with a massively-built, long face, made longer by
a beard, and he had little nervous contractions of the flesh at the
cheek-bones, and plenty of big freckles. His clinging pose, his smile of
disgust, his whole air, as he stood crouching and lurching there, I can
shut my eyes, and see now.
What he was doing in my cabin I did not know. To think, my good God,
that he should have been led there just then! This was one of the
four-men starboard berths: _his_ was a-port: yet there he was! But he
explained at once.
'Sorry to interrupt your innocent dreams, says he: 'the mercury in
Maitland's thermometer is frozen, and he asked me to hand him his
spirits-of-wine one from his bunk...'
I did not answer. A hatred was in my heart against this man.
The next day the storm died away, and either three or four days later
the slush-ice between the floes froze definitely.
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