Also it had hollowed hischeeks, and made faint
pencillings at the corners of his eyes.
Today I couldnt make my body do what it ought to
do.
He passed to Adam a slip of paper with a few words
on it, whichAdam read carefully and then burned.
There was a little chap at home who was the
localpostman. Today I couldnt make my body do what it ought to do. Here he suffered
a complete metamorphosis and acquired a new set ofpapers. Adam boiled water on the
stove and washed the foul body.
Every day he felt his strength growing less, so
hehusbanded it like a miser.
The name on his passport was John More, and he did
nottrouble to have it altered. At Shannon Island he had found the schooner which
Falconet hadinstructed to meet him in June. You have taught yourself to look at
lifeuncoloured by the personal equation. He winked, for he had beenmuch in Egypt and
had picked up foreign manners.
I am going on, he said, for I have a charge laid on
me. Presently itwas caught up in the backwash of the great defeat, and turned
itsface northward.
He understood sledging onshore ice better than on
the ice-cap, and he had no fear for thejourney.
At Shannon Island he had found the schooner which
Falconet hadinstructed to meet him in June.
Id give a good deal to get back to the old terms
withhim. With him its not so simple anaffair as your postman. We must pull up our
socks prettysoon, or the rest of the world will go. He had carried out the first
part of histask.
That wasnot the sort of man to be easily beaten by
difficulties. But the great Liman wasnot loved, and the Turks were very weary of the
business. He guided the dogs without difficulty down a cleft of the ice-capto the
edge of the fjord. Such spots had been carefully marked on the latest map,which was
Rasmussens.
There aretwenty jobs on hand for which he would be
the spot man.
You seea lot of him, I know, and I dont often
manage to run him toground.
He has been spending recent months having a
generallook round. That is going onfor a little while till the ground begins to
quake under them. Many things had gone, but the spirit of man had enlarged
itsborders.