“Excuse us, won’t you?  We thought something had happened and perhaps you were not coming,” said the commander, and then he put me to sit between himself and Martin.

The strange thing was that I was at home in that company in a moment, and if anybody imagines that I must have been embarrassed because I was the only member of my sex among so many men he does not know the heart of a woman.

They were such big, bronzed manly fellows with the note of health and the sense of space about them—­large space—­as if they had come out of the heroic youth of the world, that they set my blood a-tingling to look at them.

They were very nice to me too, though I knew that I only stood for the womankind that each had got at home and was soon to go back to, but none the less it was delightful to feel as if I were taking the first fruits of their love for them.

So it came to pass that within a few minutes I, who had been called insipid and was supposed to have no conversation, was chattering away softly and happily, making remarks about the things around me and asking all sorts of questions.

Of course I asked many foolish ones, which made the men laugh very much; but their laughter did not hurt me the least bit in the world, because everybody laughed on that ship, even the sailors who served the dishes, and especially one grizzly old salt, a cockney from Wapping, who for some unexplained reason was called Treacle.

It made me happy to see how they all deferred to Martin, saying:  “Isn’t that so, Doctor?” or “Don’t you agree, Doctor?” and though it was strange and new to hear Martin (my “Mart of Spitzbergen”) called “Doctor,” it was also very charming.

After luncheon was over, and while coffee was being served, the commander sent Treacle to his cabin for a photograph of all hands which had been taken when they were at the foot of Mount Erebus; and when it came I was called upon to identify one by one, the shaggy, tousled, unkempt, bearded, middle-aged men in the picture with the smart, clean-shaven young officers who sat round me at the table.

Naturally I made shockingly bad shots, and the worst of them was when I associated Treacle with the commander, which made the latter rock in his seat and the former shake and shout so much that he spilled the coffee.

“But what about the fourth man in the front row from the left?” asked the commander.

“Oh, I should recognise him if I were blindfolded,” I answered.

“By what?”

“By his eyes,” I said, and after this truly Irish and feminine answer the men shrieked with laughter.

“She’s got you there, doc,” cried somebody.

“She has sure,” said Martin, who had said very little down to that moment, but was looking supremely happy.

At length the time came for the men to go, and I went up on deck to see them off by the launch, and then nobody was left on the ship except Martin and myself, with the cook, the cabin-boy and a few of the crew, including Treacle.