Even the never-failing resource of long yarns, which eke out many a
watch, seemed to have failed us now; for we had been so long
together that we had heard each other's stories told over and over
again, till we had them by heart; each one knew the whole history of
each of the others, and we were fairly and literally talked out.
Singing and joking, we were in no humor for, and, in fact, any sound
of mirth or laughter would have struck strangely upon our ears, and
would not have been tolerated, any more than whistling, or a wind
instrument. The last resort, that of speculating upon the future,
seemed now to fail us, for our discouraging situation, and the
danger we were really in, (as we expected every day to find
ourselves drifted back among the ice) "clapped a stopper" upon all
that. From saying- "when we get home"- we began insensibly to alter
it to- "if we get home"- and at last the subject was dropped by a
tacit consent.
In this state of things, a new light was struck out, and a new field
opened, by a change in the watch. One of our watch was laid up for two
or three days by a bad hand, (for in cold weather the least cut or
bruise ripens into a sore,) and his place was supplied by the
carpenter.
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