"Regnie, please write this in French on the other side--will you?" said the writer, as he finished.
Orloff took the page, and turning it over, did as requested; but as he finished signing his own name, he let the pencil drop from his fingers, and for a moment found himself incapable of movement or expression. Controlling himself with an effort, he folded the note neatly, and returned it, with the pencil, to La Salle.
"Who is your fair correspondent, M. La Salle?" said he, in French.
La Salle, with flushed face and eyes lighted up with due resentment of the other's curiosity, answered,--
"A thousand pardons, monsieur, but I have a good reason for asking the lady's name."
"Pauline H. Randall, as you may see for yourself," was the quiet reply.
"One more question, sir. Do you know her middle name?"
"I did, but cannot exactly recall it, as she never uses it in full, and I have forgotten whether it is Hobel or Hubel; that it is one of the two, I am pretty certain."
A glance of mingled expression shot from the eyes of Orloff, but he restrained himself with a visible effort, and he became again the somewhat phlegmatic pilot of the Gulf shore.
"Thank you, M. La Salle. You shall know more at a fitting season."
Taking one of Waring's cartridge cases, La Salle forced the record into its narrow chamber, and selecting a small strip of pine,--a part of the thin side of his crushed float,--he stopped the cartridge with a tightly-fitting wad, and fastened it to the board with a piece of stout cord. On the white board he printed, in large letters, "Read the contents of the case;" and going out, he placed it firmly upright on the summit of the berg.
At twelve that night the rain fell fast, the wind blew steadily from the southward, and the undulations of the ice, from time to time, told that, although safe in the very heart of the pack, yet still the field had already resolved itself into its component parts. Towards midnight all fell asleep, being satisfied that no immediate danger threatened them; but at about half an hour before daybreak, Waring awoke, and placed a few blocks on the smoldering embers. As he waited for them to burst into a flame, he heard the air filled with confused murmurings, unlike any sounds that he had previously experienced. Gradually they appeared to draw nearer, to sound from all sides, to fill the air overhead, and even at last to ascend from the depths below. Strangely sweet, yet sadly plaintive, they at once charmed and terrified the poor boy, weak from his recent illness, and worn with the anxieties of his situation.