Narrowly, indeed, he escaped the fate of the man in the search for whom he had gained his first Arctic experience.
His ship, beset by ice, and sorely wounded, remained fixed and immovable for two years.

At first the beleaguered men made sledge journeys in every direction for exploratory purposes, but the second year they sought rather by determined, though futile dashes across the rugged surface of the frozen sea, to find some place of refuge, some hope of emancipation from the thraldom of the ice.

The second winter all of the brig except the hull, which served for shelter, was burned for fuel; two men had died, and many were sick of scurvy, the sledge dogs were all dead, and the end of the provisions was in sight.

In May, 1855, a retreat in open boats, covering eighty-five days and over fifty miles of open sea, brought the survivors to safety.
When men have looked into the jaws of death, it might be thought they would strenuously avoid such another view.

But there is an Arctic fever as well as an Arctic chill, and, once in the blood, it drags its victim irresistibly to the frozen North, until perhaps he lays his bones among the icebergs, cured of all fevers forever.