What if they were too late after all?
No spark of fire lighted the gloom or took from the deadly chill of the interior, and no voice bade them welcome.

But, as David Gidge struck a match, a low moaning sounded from one side, and told them that White was at least alive.
It took but a minute to remove him from the hut, together with the few things worth taking away that it contained.

Then it was left without a shadow of regret, and the march to the distant ship was begun.

Four men carried White, who seemed to have sunk into a stupor, while two more supported Cabot, who had become suddenly weak and so weary that he begged to be allowed to sleep where he was.
"It's been a close call for both of 'em," said David Gidge, "and now, men, we've got to make the quickest kind of time getting 'em back to the ship." Fortunately there were plenty of willing hands to which the burdens might be shifted, for the "Labrador" carried a crew two hundred strong, and, as the little party moved swiftly from one shouting man to another, it constantly gained accessions.
At length the sealer was reached, and the rescued lads were taken to her cabin, where the ship's doctor, having made every possible preparation for their reception, awaited them.

They were given hot drinks, rubbed, fed, and placed between warm blankets, where poor, weary Cabot was at last allowed to fall asleep without further interruption.
The animal sought by the sealers of Newfoundland amid the furious storms and crashing floes of the great ice pack is not the fur-bearing seal of Alaska, but a variety of the much less important hair seal, which may be seen almost anywhere along the Atlantic coast.