When the darkness of the winter
closed down upon us, this apparently unnatural order of things so preyed
upon his superstitious mind that he became seriously alarmed. Where the
sea-ice joined the land in front of the hut was of course a working
crack, caused by the rise and fall of the tide. Sometimes the sea-water
found its way up, and Anton was convinced that the weird phosphorescent
lights which danced up out of the sea were devils. In propitiation we
found that he had sacrificed to them his most cherished luxury, his
scanty allowance of cigarettes, which he had literally cast upon the
waters in the darkness. It was natural that his thoughts should turn to
the comforts of his Siberian home, and the one-legged wife whom he was
going to marry there, and when it became clear that a another year would
be spent in the South his mind was troubled. And so he went to Oates and
asked him, "If I go away at the end of this year, will Captain Scott
disinherit me?" In order to try and express his idea, for he knew little
English, he had some days before been asking "what we called it when a
father died and left his son nothing." Poor Anton!
He looked long and anxiously for the ship, and with his kit-bag on his
shoulder was amongst the first to trek across the ice to meet her. Having
asked for and obtained a job of work there was no happier man on board:
he never left her until she reached New Zealand.
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