A Furnace Afloat

LATER, WHEN THE HEAT and thirst grew so torturous that his tongue swelled in his mouth; when his skin shriveled black and salt-water boils dotted it like smallpox; when Captain Mitchell complained of hearing strange music and the men in the bow stared at him in hunger; then and only then did Henry Ferguson recall his first glimpse of the Hornet and the drift ice crunching against her sides.