Ax in hand, Wardour approached Frank's bed-place.

"If I could only cut the thoughts out of me," he said to himself,"as I am going to cut the billets out of this wood!" He attackedthe bed-place with the ax, like a man who well knew the use ofhis instrument. "Oh me!" he thought, sadly, "if I had only beenborn a carpenter instead of a gentleman! A good ax, MasterBateson--I wonder where you got it? Something like a grip, myman, on this handle. Poor Crayford! his words stick in my throat.A fine fellow! a noble fellow! No use thinking, no useregretting; what is said, is said. Work! work! work!"

Plank after plank fell out on the floor. He laughed over the easytask of destruction. "Aha! young Aldersley! It doesn't take muchto demolish your bed-place. I'll have it down! I would have thewhole hut down, if they would only give me the chance of choppingat it!"

A long strip of wood fell to his ax--long enough to requirecutting in two. He turned it, and stooped over it. Somethingcaught his eye--letters carved in the wood. He looked closer. Theletters were very faintly and badly cut. He could only make outthe first three of them; and even of those he was not quitecertain. They looked like C L A--if they looked like anything. Hethrew down the strip of wood irritably.

"D--n the fellow (whoever he is) who cut this! Why should hecarve _that_ name, of all the names in the world?"

He paused, considering--then determined to go on again with hisself-imposed labor. He was ashamed of his own outburst. He lookedeagerly for the ax. "Work, work! Nothing for it but work." Hefound the ax, and went on again.

He cut out another plank.

He stopped, and looked at it suspiciously.

There was carving again, on this plank. The letters F. and A.appeared on it.

He put down the ax. There were vague misgivings in him which hewas not able to realize. The state of his own mind was fastbecoming a puzzle to him.

"More carving," he said to himself. "That's the way these youngidlers employ their long hours. F. A.? Those must be _his_initials--Frank Aldersley. Who c arved the letters on the otherplank? Frank Aldersley, too?"

He turned the piece of wood in his hand nearer to the light, andlooked lower down it. More carving again, lower down! Under theinitials F. A. were two more letters--C. B.

"C. B.?" he repeated to himself. "His sweet heart's initials, Isuppose? Of course--at his age--his sweetheart's initials."

He paused once more. A spasm of inner pain showed the shadow ofits mysterious passage, outwardly on his face.

"_Her_ cipher is C. B.," he said, in low, broken tones. "C.B.--Clara Burnham."

He waited, with the plank in his hand; repeating the name overand over again, as if it was a question he was putting tohimself.

"Clara Burnham? Clara Burnham?"

He dropped the plank, and turned deadly pale in a moment. Hiseyes wandered furtively backward and forward between the strip ofwood on the floor and the half-demolished berth. "Oh, God! whathas come to me now?" he said to himself, in a whisper. Hesnatched up the ax, with a strange cry--something between rageand terror. He tried--fiercely, desperately tried--to go on withhis work. No! strong as he was, he could not use the ax. Hishands were helpless; they trembled incessantly. He went to thefire; he held his hands over it. They still trembled incessantly;they infected the rest of him. He shuddered all over. He knewfear. His own thoughts terrified him.

"Crayford!" he cried out. "Crayford! come here, and let's gohunting."

No friendly voice answered him. No friendly face showed itself atthe door.

An interval passed; and there came over him another change. Herecovered his self-possession almost as suddenly as he had lostit. A smile--a horrid, deforming, unnatural smile--spread slowly,stealthily, devilishly over his face. He left the fire; he putthe ax away softly in a corner; he sat down in his old place,deliberately self-abandoned to a frenzy of vindictive joy. He hadfound the man! There, at the end of the world--there, at the lastfight of the Arctic voyagers against starvation and death, he hadfound the man!

The minutes passed.

He became conscious, on a sudden, of a freezing stream of airpouring into the room.

He turned, and saw Crayford opening the door of the hut. A manwas behind him. Wardour rose eagerly, and looked over Crayford'sshoulder.

Was it--could it be--the man who had carved the letters on theplank? Yes! Frank Aldersley!