Read "The Frozen Deep" by Wilkie Collins online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
The date is between twenty and thirty years ago. The place is an English sea-port. The time is night. And the business of the moment is -- dancing.
The Mayor and Corporation of the town are giving a grand ball, in celebration of the departure of an Arctic expedition from their port. The ships of the expedition are two in number -- the _Wanderer_ and the _Sea-mew_. They are to sail (in search of the Northwest Passage) on the next day, with the morning tide.