Well, there was sledging with the dogs, and bear-hunting among the hummocks, as the months, one by one, went by.  One day Wilson, by far our best shot, got a walrus-bull; Clark followed the traditional pursuit of a Chief, examining Crustacea; Maitland and I were in a relation of close friendship, and I assisted his meteorological observations in a snow-hut built near the ship.  Often, through the twenty-four hours, a clear blue moon, very spectral, very fair, suffused all our dim and livid clime.

It was five days before Christmas that Clark made the great announcement:  he had determined, he said, if our splendid northward drift continued, to leave the ship about the middle of next March for the dash to the Pole.  He would take with him the four reindeer, all the dogs, four sledges, four kayaks, and three companions.  The companions whom he had decided to invite were:  Wilson, Mew, and Maitland.

He said it at dinner; and as he said it, David Wilson glanced at my wan face with a smile of pleased malice:  for I was left out.

I remember well:  the aurora that night was in the sky, and at its edge floated a moon surrounded by a ring, with two mock-moons.  But all shone very vaguely and far, and a fog, which had already lasted some days, made the ship’s bows indistinct to me, as I paced the bridge on my watch, two hours after Clark’s announcement.

For a long time all was very still, save for the occasional whine of a dog.  I was alone, and it grew toward the end of my watch, when Maitland would succeed me.  My slow tread tolled like a passing-bell, and the mountainous ice lay vague and white around me, its sheeted ghastliness not less dreadfully silent than eternity itself.

Presently, several of the dogs began barking together, left off, and began again.

I said to myself; ‘There is a bear about somewhere.’

And after some five minutes I saw—­I thought that I saw—­it.  The fog had, if anything thickened; and it was now very near the end of my watch.

It had entered the ship, I concluded, by the boards which slanted from an opening in the port bulwarks down to the ice.  Once before, in November, a bear, having smelled the dogs, had ventured on board at midnight:  but then there had resulted a perfect hubbub among the dogs. Now, even in the midst of my excitement, I wondered at their quietness, though some whimpered—­with fear, I thought.  I saw the creature steal forward from the hatchway toward the kennels a-port; and I ran noiselessly, and seized the watch-gun which stood always loaded by the companionway.

By this time, the form had passed the kennels, reached the bows, and now was making toward me on the starboard side.  I took aim.  Never, I thought, had I seen so huge a bear—­though I made allowance for the magnifying effect of the fog.

My finger was on the trigger:  and at that moment a deathly shivering sickness took me, the wrangling voices shouted at me, with ‘Shoot!’ ‘Shoot not!’ ‘Shoot!’ Ah well, that latter shout was irresistible.  I drew the trigger.  The report hooted through the Polar night.