The Terror

Crozier navigates the grim holiday season aboard Terror. When the weather clears after Boxing Day, preparations begin for the “Second Grand Venetian Carnivale” (380). Fitzjames defends the event to Crozier as necessary for morale. Despite Crozier’s concerns about discipline and resource conservation, he reluctantly allows the celebration.

On the evening of December 31st, Crozier goes with the rest of the crew to the Carnivale site. On the way, Irving reports that Silence is missing again. Despite having been told by Irving about seeing her with the creature, Crozier rationalizes that she’s getting the meat herself somehow.

The Carnivale is held in a constructed maze of seven massive sailcloth chambers built against an iceberg, each dyed a different color. Crozier is disturbed by the decadent atmosphere, and most of all by the final chamber. The ice was blackened, and at the far end sits Franklin’s grandfather clock with a bear head mounted above it. Crozier is furious, both at the grotesque imagery and at having not been informed that two bears were shot and prepared for the feast.

Crozier leaves and finds Fitzjames waiting near Erebus, who explains that the structure was inspired by an American story one of the stewards, Aylmore, remembered reading several years prior.