Chapter 32—The Return to the Forward
Toward six o’clock in the morning the wind fell, and, shifting suddenly to the north, it cleared the clouds from the sky; the thermometer stood at -33°. The first rays of the twilight appeared on the horizon above which it would soon peer.
Hatteras approached his two dejected companions and said to them, sadly and gently,—
“My friends, we are more than sixty miles from the point mentioned by Sir Edward Belcher. We have only just enough food left to take us back to the ship. To go farther would only expose us to certain death, without our being of service to any one. We must return.”
“That is a wise decision, Hatteras,” answered the doctor; “I should have followed you anywhere, but we are all growing weaker every day; we can hardly set one foot befor
