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"We still have six casks of water, and the
_foremast_. Having risked so {36} much, let us risk three days more,
let us risk everything to reach Avacha Bay." Poor Bering! Had his
advice been followed, the saddest disaster of northern seas might have
been averted; for they were less than ten days' run from the home
harbor; but inspired by fool hopes born of fear, like the old marsh
lights that used to lure men to the quicksands--Waxel and Khitroff
actually persuaded themselves this _was_ Kamchatka, and when one
lieutenant, Ofzyn, who knew the north well from charting the Arctic
coast, would have spoken in favor of Bering's view, he was actually
clubbed and thrown from the cabin. The crew voted as a man to land and
winter on this coast. Little did they know that vote was their own
death warrant.

[1] See _Life of Peter the Great_, by Orlando Williams, 1859; _Peter
the Great_, by John Lothrop Motley, 1877; _History of Peter I_, by John
Mottley, 1740; _Journal of Peter the Great_, 1698; Voltaire's _Pierre
le Grand_; Segur's _Histoire de Russie et de Pierre le Grand_.


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