Book Two—Chapter Five.

Book Two—Chapter Five.Afloat on an Iceberg.“Midnight soft and fair above,Midnight fierce and dark beneath,All on high the smile of love,All below the frown of death:“Waves that whirl in angry spiteWith a phosphorescent light,Gleaming ghastly in the night,Like the pallid sneer of Doom.”Tupper.Scene: In Baffin’s Sea. Shipwrecked mariners afloat on an iceberg, which rises and falls on the smooth-rolling waves.Morning broke grey and hazily; the wind, as if it had done its worst and spent its fury, went down, but the sea still ran very high, dashing in cold spray over the bergs on which the shipwrecked mariners were huddled together for warmth, and leaving a thick coating of ice on top of the sail that covered them.Captain Blunt had gone on board one berg with half the crew, about ten all told, and Leonard, with Douglas, on board the other, along with the remainder, the two friends determining to be together to the bitter end, if indeed the end were to come.The sea itself went down at last, as far as broken water was concerned; only a big round heaving swell continued, on which the icebergs rose and fell with a strange kind of motion that made all on board them drowsy.When Leonard looked about him in the morning sunlight never a sign could be seen of the other berg. Nor all that day was it seen or on any other. It was gone. Other icebergs there were in dozens, but none with men on them.Leonard heaved a sigh, and wished that he only had the wings of one of those happy sea-birds, that went wheeling and screaming round in the air, sometimes coming nearer and nearer, tack and half-tack, so close, out of mere curiosity, that they could have been knocked down with a boat-hook. All that day and all the next and next the berg floated silently on,—“As idle as a painted shipUpon a painted ocean.”Almost every day strange, wondering creatures came up out of the water to gaze at them. The tusked walrus, the gazelle-eyed seal—yes, even the narwhal must have spied them, and felt curiosity, for he shifted his course, and ploughed down towards the berg to have a look; then, as if satisfied that his mind could not fathom so great a mystery, went on his silent, solitary way once more.Happily for the poor sailors, they had provisions. Had the ship gone down at once when struck, as vessels do sometimes go, they would now have been in a pitiful plight indeed.But the cold was intense. There was no keeping it out by day hardly; only by constant exercise, which, thanks to the magnitude of the iceberg, they were able to maintain.But at night it was intense, chilling every one to the bone and spinal marrow.They lay there pressed together; not a corner of the sail was left open to admit a breath of the frost-laden air, but even then they were not warm. It was impossible to sleep for hours and hours after lying down, and when at last they did drop off, the cold, the bitter, bitter cold, was with them still—with them in their dreams, with them in their hearts, and on their very brains.When morning light came they would stagger up, looking wonderingly at each other’s pale, pinched faces. To stand for a time was an impossibility. They managed to light a little fire of wood on an iron slab, morning, noon, and evening, to make a little coffee; this, with biscuit and raw pork, was their only diet, and right thankful they were to have such fare.It was on a Tuesday theFairy Queenwent down, and five long weary days rolled slowly on their course. For five weary nights they suffered and shivered, and when the Sabbath morning came round they were, to all appearance, as far from help as ever.Hope itself began to fade in their hearts, especially when two of their number sank and died before their eyes.They committed their bodies to the deep, and, horrible to relate, saw them devoured; for till now they had no idea that the sea around them was swarming with sharks. Some they had seen, it is true, but nothing like the number that now came up to the ghastly feast.It was the Sabbath, and although every morning and evening they had prayed and sung hymns, after the fashion common in Scotland on this day—His day—many chapters of the Book of books were read, and first Douglas and then Leonard gave the men some earnest exhortations. Leonard never knew his friend Douglas could speak so feelingly before, or that his heart was such a well—now bubbling over—of religious feeling and fervour.“Ah, my dear fellows!” he ended with these words, “we never really feel our need of a Saviour until the prospect of death stares us in the face. Then we feel the need of a friend, and, looking around, as it were, we find Him by our side, and right willing are we to take Him then, to grasp His hand, and trust our all in all to Him.”“Amen!” said the sailors fervently.Then some verses of that bonnie hymn-psalm were sung, commencing:—“The Lord’s my Shepherd, I’ll not want,He makes me down to lieBy pastures green; He leadeth meThe quiet waters by.”A strange sight on that clear, still, dark ocean, the white iceberg with its living freight drifting aimlessly about. Strange sound, this song of praise, rising from their cold, blue lips, and from hearts that hardly dared to hope.Another day and another went by, and on the Wednesday an accident happened that had well-nigh proved fatal to nearly all on board the berg. More than one-third part of their ice-ship parted and fell away. Luckily it first gave voice, and showed the rent before finally dropping off.There was no denying it, the danger was now extreme. They had been drifting slowly southwards, and the iceberg was being influenced by warmer currents, and slowly wearing away.It might, moreover, topple over at any moment. Things came to their very worst that same evening when another piece of the berg plunged into the sea, and when morning broke, there was barely room for the men to huddle together, looking fearfully around them, and down into the still black water, and at those hungry sharks, who now seemed to gambol about as if in momentary expectation of their prey.“Look!” cried Douglas about noon that day, “what is that dark object yonder on that immense iceberg that we have been skirting these last two hours?”“Seals, I think,” said Leonard, in a feeble, hopeless voice.“I think not, Leon. Oh, lad! I think they are men.”“Let us signal, anyhow.”A jacket was waved and—answered.Next moment half-a-dozen swift kayaks or Eskimo boats were dashing from the shore to their rescue.“Thank God!” said every man, and the tears rolled down the cheeks of many now, and half-choked them as they tried to speak.But they clasped each other’s thin, cold hands, andlookedthe joy they could not utter.They were Eskimos who had come to the rescue, and it was from the mainland they had come, and not from any iceberg, or even island.Their joy was redoubled when they drew near and found Captain Blunt and their old shipmates waving their hands and hats to them from the snow-clad shore.So happy a reunion no one can fully understand or appreciate except those who have been in the same sad plight, and saved as if by a miracle.Longfellow, in his beautiful poem “The Secret of the Sea,” tells us how Count Arnaldos—“Saw a fair and stately galleySteering onward to the land.“How he heard the ancient helmsmanChant a song so wild and clear,That the sailing sea-bird slowlyPoised upon the mast to hear,—“Till his soul was filled with longing,And he cried with impulse strong,‘Helmsman! for the love of Heaven,Teach me, too, that wondrous song.’“‘Would’st thou so,’ the helmsman answered,‘Learn the secrets of the sea?Only those who brave its dangersComprehend its mystery.’”Yes, reader, the sea hath many, many secrets. We may never know them all. Not even those who have been down to the sea in ships may fathom half the mysteries that everywhere surround them, or can ever hope to explain to those who dwell on land a tithe of what they know and feel.What says the poet?“Ah! what pleasant visions haunt meAs I gaze upon the sea!All the old romantic visions,All my dreams come back to me,—“Till my soul is filled with longingFor the secret of the sea,And the heart of the great oceanSends a thrilling pulse through me.”

“Midnight soft and fair above,Midnight fierce and dark beneath,All on high the smile of love,All below the frown of death:“Waves that whirl in angry spiteWith a phosphorescent light,Gleaming ghastly in the night,Like the pallid sneer of Doom.”Tupper.

Scene: In Baffin’s Sea. Shipwrecked mariners afloat on an iceberg, which rises and falls on the smooth-rolling waves.

Morning broke grey and hazily; the wind, as if it had done its worst and spent its fury, went down, but the sea still ran very high, dashing in cold spray over the bergs on which the shipwrecked mariners were huddled together for warmth, and leaving a thick coating of ice on top of the sail that covered them.

Captain Blunt had gone on board one berg with half the crew, about ten all told, and Leonard, with Douglas, on board the other, along with the remainder, the two friends determining to be together to the bitter end, if indeed the end were to come.

The sea itself went down at last, as far as broken water was concerned; only a big round heaving swell continued, on which the icebergs rose and fell with a strange kind of motion that made all on board them drowsy.

When Leonard looked about him in the morning sunlight never a sign could be seen of the other berg. Nor all that day was it seen or on any other. It was gone. Other icebergs there were in dozens, but none with men on them.

Leonard heaved a sigh, and wished that he only had the wings of one of those happy sea-birds, that went wheeling and screaming round in the air, sometimes coming nearer and nearer, tack and half-tack, so close, out of mere curiosity, that they could have been knocked down with a boat-hook. All that day and all the next and next the berg floated silently on,—

“As idle as a painted shipUpon a painted ocean.”

Almost every day strange, wondering creatures came up out of the water to gaze at them. The tusked walrus, the gazelle-eyed seal—yes, even the narwhal must have spied them, and felt curiosity, for he shifted his course, and ploughed down towards the berg to have a look; then, as if satisfied that his mind could not fathom so great a mystery, went on his silent, solitary way once more.

Happily for the poor sailors, they had provisions. Had the ship gone down at once when struck, as vessels do sometimes go, they would now have been in a pitiful plight indeed.

But the cold was intense. There was no keeping it out by day hardly; only by constant exercise, which, thanks to the magnitude of the iceberg, they were able to maintain.

But at night it was intense, chilling every one to the bone and spinal marrow.

They lay there pressed together; not a corner of the sail was left open to admit a breath of the frost-laden air, but even then they were not warm. It was impossible to sleep for hours and hours after lying down, and when at last they did drop off, the cold, the bitter, bitter cold, was with them still—with them in their dreams, with them in their hearts, and on their very brains.

When morning light came they would stagger up, looking wonderingly at each other’s pale, pinched faces. To stand for a time was an impossibility. They managed to light a little fire of wood on an iron slab, morning, noon, and evening, to make a little coffee; this, with biscuit and raw pork, was their only diet, and right thankful they were to have such fare.

It was on a Tuesday theFairy Queenwent down, and five long weary days rolled slowly on their course. For five weary nights they suffered and shivered, and when the Sabbath morning came round they were, to all appearance, as far from help as ever.

Hope itself began to fade in their hearts, especially when two of their number sank and died before their eyes.

They committed their bodies to the deep, and, horrible to relate, saw them devoured; for till now they had no idea that the sea around them was swarming with sharks. Some they had seen, it is true, but nothing like the number that now came up to the ghastly feast.

It was the Sabbath, and although every morning and evening they had prayed and sung hymns, after the fashion common in Scotland on this day—His day—many chapters of the Book of books were read, and first Douglas and then Leonard gave the men some earnest exhortations. Leonard never knew his friend Douglas could speak so feelingly before, or that his heart was such a well—now bubbling over—of religious feeling and fervour.

“Ah, my dear fellows!” he ended with these words, “we never really feel our need of a Saviour until the prospect of death stares us in the face. Then we feel the need of a friend, and, looking around, as it were, we find Him by our side, and right willing are we to take Him then, to grasp His hand, and trust our all in all to Him.”

“Amen!” said the sailors fervently.

Then some verses of that bonnie hymn-psalm were sung, commencing:—

“The Lord’s my Shepherd, I’ll not want,He makes me down to lieBy pastures green; He leadeth meThe quiet waters by.”

A strange sight on that clear, still, dark ocean, the white iceberg with its living freight drifting aimlessly about. Strange sound, this song of praise, rising from their cold, blue lips, and from hearts that hardly dared to hope.

Another day and another went by, and on the Wednesday an accident happened that had well-nigh proved fatal to nearly all on board the berg. More than one-third part of their ice-ship parted and fell away. Luckily it first gave voice, and showed the rent before finally dropping off.

There was no denying it, the danger was now extreme. They had been drifting slowly southwards, and the iceberg was being influenced by warmer currents, and slowly wearing away.

It might, moreover, topple over at any moment. Things came to their very worst that same evening when another piece of the berg plunged into the sea, and when morning broke, there was barely room for the men to huddle together, looking fearfully around them, and down into the still black water, and at those hungry sharks, who now seemed to gambol about as if in momentary expectation of their prey.

“Look!” cried Douglas about noon that day, “what is that dark object yonder on that immense iceberg that we have been skirting these last two hours?”

“Seals, I think,” said Leonard, in a feeble, hopeless voice.

“I think not, Leon. Oh, lad! I think they are men.”

“Let us signal, anyhow.”

A jacket was waved and—answered.

Next moment half-a-dozen swift kayaks or Eskimo boats were dashing from the shore to their rescue.

“Thank God!” said every man, and the tears rolled down the cheeks of many now, and half-choked them as they tried to speak.

But they clasped each other’s thin, cold hands, andlookedthe joy they could not utter.

They were Eskimos who had come to the rescue, and it was from the mainland they had come, and not from any iceberg, or even island.

Their joy was redoubled when they drew near and found Captain Blunt and their old shipmates waving their hands and hats to them from the snow-clad shore.

So happy a reunion no one can fully understand or appreciate except those who have been in the same sad plight, and saved as if by a miracle.

Longfellow, in his beautiful poem “The Secret of the Sea,” tells us how Count Arnaldos—

“Saw a fair and stately galleySteering onward to the land.“How he heard the ancient helmsmanChant a song so wild and clear,That the sailing sea-bird slowlyPoised upon the mast to hear,—“Till his soul was filled with longing,And he cried with impulse strong,‘Helmsman! for the love of Heaven,Teach me, too, that wondrous song.’“‘Would’st thou so,’ the helmsman answered,‘Learn the secrets of the sea?Only those who brave its dangersComprehend its mystery.’”

Yes, reader, the sea hath many, many secrets. We may never know them all. Not even those who have been down to the sea in ships may fathom half the mysteries that everywhere surround them, or can ever hope to explain to those who dwell on land a tithe of what they know and feel.

What says the poet?

“Ah! what pleasant visions haunt meAs I gaze upon the sea!All the old romantic visions,All my dreams come back to me,—“Till my soul is filled with longingFor the secret of the sea,And the heart of the great oceanSends a thrilling pulse through me.”

Book Two—Chapter Six.The Far North Land.“O! the auld hoose, the auld hoose,Deserted though you be,There ne’er can be a new hooseSeem half sae dear to me.”Lady Nairne.“Beside a weird-like Arctic bay,Where wild and angry billows play,And seldom meet the night and day.”Symington.Scene One: A cottage not far from St. Abb’s Head, a garden before the door, and a porch, around which summer roses and honeysuckle are entwined. The occupants are three. They are out of doors now, seated on the lawn which stretches down to the shingly beach on which the waves are lisping and rippling.Captain Lyle (speaks). “Well, Ethel dear, and you, Effie, you are both very silent. Are you breaking your hearts because we have had to give up Grayling House for a time, and come to live in this tiny cottage by the sea?”Mrs Lyle, looking up from her sewing, and smiling kindly but somewhat sadly: “No, Arnold, I was thinking about our dear boy.”Effie, dropping her book in her lap. “So was I, mother. I was thinking of Leonard and—and poor Douglas. It is now the second summer since they went away. It is wearing through, too. See how the roses fall and scatter their petals when you touch them. Oh! do you think, papa, they will ever, ever come again?”Captain Lyle, smiling. “Yes, love, I do. Here, come and sit by me. That is right. Now you know the country they went away to is a very, very strange one.”Effie. “A very, very terrible one.”Captain Lyle. “No, I think not, dear, else those who have been there would not always wish to return to it. It is wild and lonely, and silent and cold, Effie, and there are no letter-carriers about, you know, not even a pigeon-post, so Leonard can’t very well write. The fact is, they’ve got frozen in, and it may be even another summer yet before we see them.”Effie. “Another summer? Oh, papa!”Captain Lyle. “Yes, dear, because he and honest Douglas are in the regions of thick-ribbed ice, you know; and once it embraces a ship, it is difficult to get clear. But cheer up, lass; Iwon’thave you fretting, there! Now, promise me you—ha! here comes dear old Fitzroy, swinging away on his wooden leg. Good-afternoon, my friend; there is need of you here. My wife and daughter are doing nothing but fretting.”Captain Fitzroy. “Oh! come, Effie, come, Mrs Lyle. Look at me;Idon’t fret. The boys will return as sure as the sun will rise to-morrow.”Effie, smiling through her tears. “Thank you, Captain; you always give us hope.”Captain Fitzroy. “And I suppose you mourn because you’ve had to leave bonnie Glen Lyle—eh!”Mrs Lyle. “Oh yes. We dearly love the old house.”Captain Fitzroy. “Well, then, let me prophesy. First, the boys will return safe and sound, red and rosy; secondly, you’ll get over your difficulties, and return to Glen Lyle; thirdly, we’ll live together happy ever afterwards.”Effie laughs now in spite of herself, for the old Captain always looks so cheery and so comical.Captain Lyle. “Hear that, darling! Now, bustle about, Effie, and get us some nice brown tea and brown toast, while we sit here and chat.”Captain Fitzroy, looking seaward. The ocean is a sheet of blue, with patches of green here and there, where cloud shadows fall, and sails like sea-birds far away towards the horizon.“What a heavenly day, to be sure! Why, there is health in every breath one inhales on this delightful coast. Don’t you feel cosy now and happy in this sweet little cottage? Nothing to do. Nothing to think about except the absent ones. No care, no worry except that of making war upon the weeds in your little garden. I declare to you, Lyle, my lad, I consider such a life as you now lead in a manner quite idyllic.”Lyle, looking thoughtfully for a moment or two on the ground, then up at his friend’s cheerful face.“One of the chief pleasures of my present existence, dear Fitzroy, lies in the fact that I have you for a neighbour. But to tell you the truth, I do feel happier since I let the lauds of Glen Lyle and got rid of an incubus. I feel, and know now, I am retrenching, and that in a few years I shall recover myself.”Fitzroy. “And don’t you think you ought to have let the house as well?”Lyle. “No, no, no; I could not bear to think of a footstep crossing my father’s hall. Old Peter will see to the gardens with the help of a lad, and the ancient cook, who is indeed one of the family, and whom I could not have dismissed, will keep on peat fires enough to defy the damp.”Fitzroy. “And how does your little gipsy lass Zella suit as a housekeeper?”Lyle. “Excellently well. There she comes with the tea; judge for yourself.”Zella, tall, handsome, and neatly attired, comes upon the scene to place a little table near the two friends and lay the tea. What a change from the wild waif! We last saw her springing up at the end of the Gothic bridge, and startling the horse of Bland’s emissary. She is still a gipsy, but a very civilised one.Captain Lyle. “I am expecting old Peter every minute.”Fitzroy. “Talk of angels, and they appear. Lo! yonder comes your Peter, or your Peter’s ghost.”Old Peter opens the gate at the sea-beach as he speaks, and comes slowly up the walk.Lyle. “Come away, Peter. Why, you pant. Sit down and have a cup of tea. How goes all at the dear old house?”Peter, smoothing the head of Ossian the old deerhound, who has arisen from his corner to bid him welcome. “Bravely, sir, bravely and well. But would you believe it, though it’s no a month since you left, they will have it that the hoose is haunted? Heard you ever the like?”Lyle. “No, Peter, it is strange.”Peter. “And they will have it, sir, that the pike wasna canny, and they say that, dead though he be, his ghost still haunts the auld loch.”Fitzroy, laughing. “The ghost of a pike, Peter? Well, well, well; we live to learn.”Peter. “And what for no, sir?”Fitzroy. “Did you bury him, Peter?”Peter. “No, sir, no, on land. I put him cannily back into the loch again. He lay on his side for a whole day, then sank to the bottom afore ma ain een. Dead as a door nail.”Fitzroy. “I doubt it, Peter.”Peter. “Sir?”Fitzroy. “Nothing, Peter, nothing. By the way, Lyle, how came this uncanny fish, that seems so strangely connected with the fortunes of Glen Lyle, into your possession.”Lyle. “Peter can tell you better than I. He is old, and remembers.”Peter. “When the auld laird lived, nane kenned o’ the whereabouts o’ that bonnie fish except himsel’ and me and the gipsy Faas. They gipsies, sir, were part and parcel o’ the estate; they would have died for the auld laird, or for ony o’ his folk or kin. Goodness only kens how auld the fish was himsel’. He was, they say, as big as a grilse when first ta’en in the Tweed and brought up to the river that runs through bonnie Glen Lyle. And woe is me, they tell me that was an awfu’ day, for bonnie Prince Charlie was in full retreat from England. He stayed and slept a night at Glen Lyle, and next week but one the foremost o’ Cumberland’s rievers were there. The old Lyles were out. They were wi’ Charlie, but not a thing living, my father told me, did they leave about the place, and they would have fired the hoose itself had they not been obleeged to hurry on, for Charlie’s men were ahead. But things settled down after that; Cumberland’s rievers were quieter coming back. The beasts they were killed or gone, so they left the auld hoose of Glen Lyle alone. The laird was pardoned, and peace and plenty reigned ance mair in the land.“Time flew on, sirs. The auld laird was fond o’ fishing. There were poachers in plenty in those days, and the laird was kind to them. Let them only leave his ’45 pike alane, and they might take a’ the trouts in the stream. But in later times, when the auld laird got aulder still, cockneys came, and they were no sae particular, and one day an English body hooked and brought the pike on shore. He had the gaff raised to hit him on the head, when all of a sudden the gaff was knocked out of his hand, and he found himsel’ just where the pike had come frae, wallowin’ in the middle o’ the pot. (A large pool in a river is so called in Scotland.)“That same nicht, lang past, the shortest hour o’t, when everybody was fast asleep but mysel’, two o’ the Faas came to the auld hoose. They had the half-dead fish, with the bonnie gowden band around his tail, in a pot. And together we went to the loch and ploupit him in. The owlets were cryin’ and the branches o’ the pine trees creakin’ in the wind, and if I live to be as auld as Methuselah, I’m no likely to forget that eerie-some nicht. But, heigho! Joe is dead and awa’, and the hoose o’ Glen Lyle is tottering near its fall. Wae’s me that I should hae lived to see the like!”Captain Fitzroy. “Drink that China tea, Peter, and things will look far more cheerful.”Long before the major’s departure things do look more cheerful.Ethel, hope in her heart now, has brought out her harp, and is bending over it while she sings a plaintive old Scotch ballad, while the rest sit listening round. The setting sun is throwing tall rock shadows over the blue sea. The waves seem to form a drowsy accompaniment to the harp’s wild notes, and the sea-birds are shrieking their good-night song. Let us leave them, and hie us away to the far north and west.Scene Two: Summer in the Arctic seas. A little Indian village to the north of Cumberland Gulf. Yet not all Indian, for then; are houses here now as well as Eskimo huts, and white men are moving about busy at work, in company with the little brown-skinned, skin-clad natives.Had the shipwrecked crew of theFairy Queenlanded on the south side of the Cumberland Gulf or Sound, it is probable they would have made an attempt to find their way through Labrador to some English or other foreign settlement. But this gulf is a sea in itself, and they had no boats, while the kayaks of the natives were far too frail, even if they had been numerous enough, to be of much use.They had to be content, therefore, to remain prisoners where they were until the long night of winter set in.They were not idle. Indeed, the life they now led was far from unpleasant while summer lasted. It was a very wild one. There were deer and game on the hills, and every stream teemed with fish, to say nothing of the strange creations that inhabited the sea-shore.Among other things saved from the wreck of theFairy Queen, and safely landed by Captain Blunt’s party, were guns and a goodly store of ammunition, which they had managed to keep dry.What with fishing and hunting, manufacturing sledges and training the dogs, the time fled very quickly indeed.The days flew quickly by, and autumn came; then they got shorter and shorter, till at length the sun showed his face for the last time, and after this all was night.In a month more everything was ready for the journey south.So memorable a march, too, has seldom been made. Some of my readers may ask why they chose the winter season for their departure. For this reason: they could go straight along the coast, winding only round the mountains. In summer the gulfs and streams would have formed an insurmountable barrier, but now these were hard as adamant.All being ready, and the friendly Indians accompanying them to the number of twenty or more, to act as guides and see to the care of the dogs, they left the Esquimo village about the end of October, and were soon far away on the silent, lonely midst of the Cumberland Gulf.Luckily Captain Blunt had saved his compass, else even the almost unerring instinct of the natives would have failed to steer them across the ice. Had it been clear weather all the time the stars would have been sufficient to keep them right, but storms came on long before they had got over the gulf. And such storms! Nothing in this country could ever equal them in fury and confusion. Not the wildest winter’s day that ever raged among the lone Grampian Hills could be compared to them. The winds seem to meet and unite in and from all directions. The snow filled the air. It did not only fall; it rose, and the darkness was intense. To proceed in the face of such terrible weather was of course impossible. Dogs and men huddled together in the lee of an iceberg; it was found at times almost impossible to breathe.They encountered more than one of these fearful storms; but at last the sky cleared, the stars and the radiant aurora-bow danced and flickered in the air above them, and after a week of toil they had crossed the gulf, and stood onterra firmaon the shores of Labrador.But their trials were only beginning. They found they could not make so straight a way as they had at first imagined, owing to the mountains and rough state of the country.These men, however, were British—their hearts were hearts of oak—so they struggled on and on, happy, when each day was over, to think they were a step nearer their native land. The dogs were staunch and true, and the natives simple, honest, and kind.To recount all the hardships of this journey, which occupied in all four long months, would take a volume in itself. Let me give a brief sketch of justOne Day’s March.They are well down in the middle of Labrador. Hardened as Leonard and Douglas now are, and almost as much inured to the cold as the Indian guides themselves, the bitterness of the night just gone has almost killed them.All the camp, however, is astir hours before the stars have given place to the glaring light of a short, crisp winter’s day. Dogs are barking and howling for their breakfast, and the men are busy preparing their own and that of their officers. It is indeed a meagre one—sun-dried fish and meat, with snow to eat instead of tea or coffee, that is all. But they have appetites; it is enough, and they are thankful.Then sledges are got ready, and the dogs having been fed and harnessed, Captain Blunt and his young friends put on their snowshoes, and all in camp follow his example.Then the start is made. The pace is slow, though the dogs would go more quickly if allowed. Their path winds through a rough and broken glen at first, and at sunrise scouts are sent on ahead to spy out the land from a mountain top. They can see but little, however; only hill piled o’er hill and crag o’er crag.They cross a wild frozen stream, and at sunrise rejoice to find themselves on the borders of a broad lake. It will be all plain sailing now for some hours to come.But, alas! the wind gets up, and there is no shelter of any kind here. On a calm day one can walk and keep warm with the thermometer far below zero. But with a cutting wind the cold and the suffering are a terrible punishment.The wind blows higher and higher. It tears across the frozen lake—a bitter, biting, cutting blast; there is hardly any facing it. Even dogs and Indians bend their heads downwards, and present their shoulders to the wind.The skin garments of the Esquimos, the coats of the dogs, and beards and hair of the sailors are massed and lumped with frozen snow, and cheeks and ears are coated with ice as if they had been glazed.Struggling on thus for hours, they cross the lake at last, and gain the shelter of a pine wood. Here wood is gathered, and after much ado a fire is lighted. They dare only look at it at first, for well they know the danger that would accrue from going too near it. But this in itself is something, so they begin to talk, and even to laugh, though the laugh hangs fire on their frozen lips, and sounds half idiotic.On again, keeping more into shelter; and so on and on all the day, till, despite all dangers and difficulties, they have put fifteen miles betwixt them and the camp-fire of the previous evening.They find themselves in the shelter of some ice-clad rocks at last, with ice-clad pine trees nodding over them, and here determine to bivouac for the night.The wind has gone down. The sun is setting—a glorious sunset it is—amidst clouds of crimson, gold, and copper.How delightful is this supper of dried fish and broiled deer now! They almost feel as if they had dined off roast beef and plum pudding. So beds are prepared with boughs and blankets and skins, a prayer is said, a hymn is sung, and soon our heroes forget the weary day’s journey, their aching, blistered feet, and stiff and painful joints.Ah! but the cold—the cold! No, they cannot forget that. They are conscious of it all the night, and awake in the morning stiffer almost than when they lay down.During all their long and toilsome march our heroes never saw a single bear nor met a hostile Indian. But the country now, I am told, is peopled by nomadic tribes.Civilisation at long, long last. Only a little fisher village, but men dwell there who speak the English tongue, and a right hearty welcome do they accord to the wanderers.

“O! the auld hoose, the auld hoose,Deserted though you be,There ne’er can be a new hooseSeem half sae dear to me.”Lady Nairne.“Beside a weird-like Arctic bay,Where wild and angry billows play,And seldom meet the night and day.”Symington.

Scene One: A cottage not far from St. Abb’s Head, a garden before the door, and a porch, around which summer roses and honeysuckle are entwined. The occupants are three. They are out of doors now, seated on the lawn which stretches down to the shingly beach on which the waves are lisping and rippling.

Captain Lyle (speaks). “Well, Ethel dear, and you, Effie, you are both very silent. Are you breaking your hearts because we have had to give up Grayling House for a time, and come to live in this tiny cottage by the sea?”

Mrs Lyle, looking up from her sewing, and smiling kindly but somewhat sadly: “No, Arnold, I was thinking about our dear boy.”

Effie, dropping her book in her lap. “So was I, mother. I was thinking of Leonard and—and poor Douglas. It is now the second summer since they went away. It is wearing through, too. See how the roses fall and scatter their petals when you touch them. Oh! do you think, papa, they will ever, ever come again?”

Captain Lyle, smiling. “Yes, love, I do. Here, come and sit by me. That is right. Now you know the country they went away to is a very, very strange one.”

Effie. “A very, very terrible one.”

Captain Lyle. “No, I think not, dear, else those who have been there would not always wish to return to it. It is wild and lonely, and silent and cold, Effie, and there are no letter-carriers about, you know, not even a pigeon-post, so Leonard can’t very well write. The fact is, they’ve got frozen in, and it may be even another summer yet before we see them.”

Effie. “Another summer? Oh, papa!”

Captain Lyle. “Yes, dear, because he and honest Douglas are in the regions of thick-ribbed ice, you know; and once it embraces a ship, it is difficult to get clear. But cheer up, lass; Iwon’thave you fretting, there! Now, promise me you—ha! here comes dear old Fitzroy, swinging away on his wooden leg. Good-afternoon, my friend; there is need of you here. My wife and daughter are doing nothing but fretting.”

Captain Fitzroy. “Oh! come, Effie, come, Mrs Lyle. Look at me;Idon’t fret. The boys will return as sure as the sun will rise to-morrow.”

Effie, smiling through her tears. “Thank you, Captain; you always give us hope.”

Captain Fitzroy. “And I suppose you mourn because you’ve had to leave bonnie Glen Lyle—eh!”

Mrs Lyle. “Oh yes. We dearly love the old house.”

Captain Fitzroy. “Well, then, let me prophesy. First, the boys will return safe and sound, red and rosy; secondly, you’ll get over your difficulties, and return to Glen Lyle; thirdly, we’ll live together happy ever afterwards.”

Effie laughs now in spite of herself, for the old Captain always looks so cheery and so comical.

Captain Lyle. “Hear that, darling! Now, bustle about, Effie, and get us some nice brown tea and brown toast, while we sit here and chat.”

Captain Fitzroy, looking seaward. The ocean is a sheet of blue, with patches of green here and there, where cloud shadows fall, and sails like sea-birds far away towards the horizon.

“What a heavenly day, to be sure! Why, there is health in every breath one inhales on this delightful coast. Don’t you feel cosy now and happy in this sweet little cottage? Nothing to do. Nothing to think about except the absent ones. No care, no worry except that of making war upon the weeds in your little garden. I declare to you, Lyle, my lad, I consider such a life as you now lead in a manner quite idyllic.”

Lyle, looking thoughtfully for a moment or two on the ground, then up at his friend’s cheerful face.

“One of the chief pleasures of my present existence, dear Fitzroy, lies in the fact that I have you for a neighbour. But to tell you the truth, I do feel happier since I let the lauds of Glen Lyle and got rid of an incubus. I feel, and know now, I am retrenching, and that in a few years I shall recover myself.”

Fitzroy. “And don’t you think you ought to have let the house as well?”

Lyle. “No, no, no; I could not bear to think of a footstep crossing my father’s hall. Old Peter will see to the gardens with the help of a lad, and the ancient cook, who is indeed one of the family, and whom I could not have dismissed, will keep on peat fires enough to defy the damp.”

Fitzroy. “And how does your little gipsy lass Zella suit as a housekeeper?”

Lyle. “Excellently well. There she comes with the tea; judge for yourself.”

Zella, tall, handsome, and neatly attired, comes upon the scene to place a little table near the two friends and lay the tea. What a change from the wild waif! We last saw her springing up at the end of the Gothic bridge, and startling the horse of Bland’s emissary. She is still a gipsy, but a very civilised one.

Captain Lyle. “I am expecting old Peter every minute.”

Fitzroy. “Talk of angels, and they appear. Lo! yonder comes your Peter, or your Peter’s ghost.”

Old Peter opens the gate at the sea-beach as he speaks, and comes slowly up the walk.

Lyle. “Come away, Peter. Why, you pant. Sit down and have a cup of tea. How goes all at the dear old house?”

Peter, smoothing the head of Ossian the old deerhound, who has arisen from his corner to bid him welcome. “Bravely, sir, bravely and well. But would you believe it, though it’s no a month since you left, they will have it that the hoose is haunted? Heard you ever the like?”

Lyle. “No, Peter, it is strange.”

Peter. “And they will have it, sir, that the pike wasna canny, and they say that, dead though he be, his ghost still haunts the auld loch.”

Fitzroy, laughing. “The ghost of a pike, Peter? Well, well, well; we live to learn.”

Peter. “And what for no, sir?”

Fitzroy. “Did you bury him, Peter?”

Peter. “No, sir, no, on land. I put him cannily back into the loch again. He lay on his side for a whole day, then sank to the bottom afore ma ain een. Dead as a door nail.”

Fitzroy. “I doubt it, Peter.”

Peter. “Sir?”

Fitzroy. “Nothing, Peter, nothing. By the way, Lyle, how came this uncanny fish, that seems so strangely connected with the fortunes of Glen Lyle, into your possession.”

Lyle. “Peter can tell you better than I. He is old, and remembers.”

Peter. “When the auld laird lived, nane kenned o’ the whereabouts o’ that bonnie fish except himsel’ and me and the gipsy Faas. They gipsies, sir, were part and parcel o’ the estate; they would have died for the auld laird, or for ony o’ his folk or kin. Goodness only kens how auld the fish was himsel’. He was, they say, as big as a grilse when first ta’en in the Tweed and brought up to the river that runs through bonnie Glen Lyle. And woe is me, they tell me that was an awfu’ day, for bonnie Prince Charlie was in full retreat from England. He stayed and slept a night at Glen Lyle, and next week but one the foremost o’ Cumberland’s rievers were there. The old Lyles were out. They were wi’ Charlie, but not a thing living, my father told me, did they leave about the place, and they would have fired the hoose itself had they not been obleeged to hurry on, for Charlie’s men were ahead. But things settled down after that; Cumberland’s rievers were quieter coming back. The beasts they were killed or gone, so they left the auld hoose of Glen Lyle alone. The laird was pardoned, and peace and plenty reigned ance mair in the land.

“Time flew on, sirs. The auld laird was fond o’ fishing. There were poachers in plenty in those days, and the laird was kind to them. Let them only leave his ’45 pike alane, and they might take a’ the trouts in the stream. But in later times, when the auld laird got aulder still, cockneys came, and they were no sae particular, and one day an English body hooked and brought the pike on shore. He had the gaff raised to hit him on the head, when all of a sudden the gaff was knocked out of his hand, and he found himsel’ just where the pike had come frae, wallowin’ in the middle o’ the pot. (A large pool in a river is so called in Scotland.)

“That same nicht, lang past, the shortest hour o’t, when everybody was fast asleep but mysel’, two o’ the Faas came to the auld hoose. They had the half-dead fish, with the bonnie gowden band around his tail, in a pot. And together we went to the loch and ploupit him in. The owlets were cryin’ and the branches o’ the pine trees creakin’ in the wind, and if I live to be as auld as Methuselah, I’m no likely to forget that eerie-some nicht. But, heigho! Joe is dead and awa’, and the hoose o’ Glen Lyle is tottering near its fall. Wae’s me that I should hae lived to see the like!”

Captain Fitzroy. “Drink that China tea, Peter, and things will look far more cheerful.”

Long before the major’s departure things do look more cheerful.

Ethel, hope in her heart now, has brought out her harp, and is bending over it while she sings a plaintive old Scotch ballad, while the rest sit listening round. The setting sun is throwing tall rock shadows over the blue sea. The waves seem to form a drowsy accompaniment to the harp’s wild notes, and the sea-birds are shrieking their good-night song. Let us leave them, and hie us away to the far north and west.

Scene Two: Summer in the Arctic seas. A little Indian village to the north of Cumberland Gulf. Yet not all Indian, for then; are houses here now as well as Eskimo huts, and white men are moving about busy at work, in company with the little brown-skinned, skin-clad natives.

Had the shipwrecked crew of theFairy Queenlanded on the south side of the Cumberland Gulf or Sound, it is probable they would have made an attempt to find their way through Labrador to some English or other foreign settlement. But this gulf is a sea in itself, and they had no boats, while the kayaks of the natives were far too frail, even if they had been numerous enough, to be of much use.

They had to be content, therefore, to remain prisoners where they were until the long night of winter set in.

They were not idle. Indeed, the life they now led was far from unpleasant while summer lasted. It was a very wild one. There were deer and game on the hills, and every stream teemed with fish, to say nothing of the strange creations that inhabited the sea-shore.

Among other things saved from the wreck of theFairy Queen, and safely landed by Captain Blunt’s party, were guns and a goodly store of ammunition, which they had managed to keep dry.

What with fishing and hunting, manufacturing sledges and training the dogs, the time fled very quickly indeed.

The days flew quickly by, and autumn came; then they got shorter and shorter, till at length the sun showed his face for the last time, and after this all was night.

In a month more everything was ready for the journey south.

So memorable a march, too, has seldom been made. Some of my readers may ask why they chose the winter season for their departure. For this reason: they could go straight along the coast, winding only round the mountains. In summer the gulfs and streams would have formed an insurmountable barrier, but now these were hard as adamant.

All being ready, and the friendly Indians accompanying them to the number of twenty or more, to act as guides and see to the care of the dogs, they left the Esquimo village about the end of October, and were soon far away on the silent, lonely midst of the Cumberland Gulf.

Luckily Captain Blunt had saved his compass, else even the almost unerring instinct of the natives would have failed to steer them across the ice. Had it been clear weather all the time the stars would have been sufficient to keep them right, but storms came on long before they had got over the gulf. And such storms! Nothing in this country could ever equal them in fury and confusion. Not the wildest winter’s day that ever raged among the lone Grampian Hills could be compared to them. The winds seem to meet and unite in and from all directions. The snow filled the air. It did not only fall; it rose, and the darkness was intense. To proceed in the face of such terrible weather was of course impossible. Dogs and men huddled together in the lee of an iceberg; it was found at times almost impossible to breathe.

They encountered more than one of these fearful storms; but at last the sky cleared, the stars and the radiant aurora-bow danced and flickered in the air above them, and after a week of toil they had crossed the gulf, and stood onterra firmaon the shores of Labrador.

But their trials were only beginning. They found they could not make so straight a way as they had at first imagined, owing to the mountains and rough state of the country.

These men, however, were British—their hearts were hearts of oak—so they struggled on and on, happy, when each day was over, to think they were a step nearer their native land. The dogs were staunch and true, and the natives simple, honest, and kind.

To recount all the hardships of this journey, which occupied in all four long months, would take a volume in itself. Let me give a brief sketch of justOne Day’s March.

They are well down in the middle of Labrador. Hardened as Leonard and Douglas now are, and almost as much inured to the cold as the Indian guides themselves, the bitterness of the night just gone has almost killed them.

All the camp, however, is astir hours before the stars have given place to the glaring light of a short, crisp winter’s day. Dogs are barking and howling for their breakfast, and the men are busy preparing their own and that of their officers. It is indeed a meagre one—sun-dried fish and meat, with snow to eat instead of tea or coffee, that is all. But they have appetites; it is enough, and they are thankful.

Then sledges are got ready, and the dogs having been fed and harnessed, Captain Blunt and his young friends put on their snowshoes, and all in camp follow his example.

Then the start is made. The pace is slow, though the dogs would go more quickly if allowed. Their path winds through a rough and broken glen at first, and at sunrise scouts are sent on ahead to spy out the land from a mountain top. They can see but little, however; only hill piled o’er hill and crag o’er crag.

They cross a wild frozen stream, and at sunrise rejoice to find themselves on the borders of a broad lake. It will be all plain sailing now for some hours to come.

But, alas! the wind gets up, and there is no shelter of any kind here. On a calm day one can walk and keep warm with the thermometer far below zero. But with a cutting wind the cold and the suffering are a terrible punishment.

The wind blows higher and higher. It tears across the frozen lake—a bitter, biting, cutting blast; there is hardly any facing it. Even dogs and Indians bend their heads downwards, and present their shoulders to the wind.

The skin garments of the Esquimos, the coats of the dogs, and beards and hair of the sailors are massed and lumped with frozen snow, and cheeks and ears are coated with ice as if they had been glazed.

Struggling on thus for hours, they cross the lake at last, and gain the shelter of a pine wood. Here wood is gathered, and after much ado a fire is lighted. They dare only look at it at first, for well they know the danger that would accrue from going too near it. But this in itself is something, so they begin to talk, and even to laugh, though the laugh hangs fire on their frozen lips, and sounds half idiotic.

On again, keeping more into shelter; and so on and on all the day, till, despite all dangers and difficulties, they have put fifteen miles betwixt them and the camp-fire of the previous evening.

They find themselves in the shelter of some ice-clad rocks at last, with ice-clad pine trees nodding over them, and here determine to bivouac for the night.

The wind has gone down. The sun is setting—a glorious sunset it is—amidst clouds of crimson, gold, and copper.

How delightful is this supper of dried fish and broiled deer now! They almost feel as if they had dined off roast beef and plum pudding. So beds are prepared with boughs and blankets and skins, a prayer is said, a hymn is sung, and soon our heroes forget the weary day’s journey, their aching, blistered feet, and stiff and painful joints.

Ah! but the cold—the cold! No, they cannot forget that. They are conscious of it all the night, and awake in the morning stiffer almost than when they lay down.

During all their long and toilsome march our heroes never saw a single bear nor met a hostile Indian. But the country now, I am told, is peopled by nomadic tribes.

Civilisation at long, long last. Only a little fisher village, but men dwell there who speak the English tongue, and a right hearty welcome do they accord to the wanderers.

Book Two—Chapter Seven.A Saturday Night at Sea.“Meanwhile some rude Arion’s restless handWakes the brisk harmony that sailors love;A circle there of merry listeners stand,Or to some well-known measure featly move,Thoughtless as if on shore they still were free to rove.”Scene: The upper deck of a barque in mid-Atlantic, homeward bound. Sailors dancing amidships to the music of flute and fiddle. Aft, under an awning, a table is spread, at which sit Leonard, Douglas, Captain Blunt, with the skipper of the vessel, and one of his officers.Skipper James, of the timber barqueBlack-eyed Susan, was a sailor of the good old school. He was homeward bound, and happening to call at a village on the west shore of Newfoundland, he heard that a shipwrecked crew of his countrymen were residing at a small fishing station on the Labrador coast. He did not hesitate a moment. He put about, and sailed back right away to the nor’ard and west and took every soul on board. Men like Skipper James, I fear, are, nowadays, like angels’ visits, few and far between. Ah! and they are angels, too, when you find them; rough enough to all outward appearance, perhaps, but good in the main, and men, too, who carry their hearts upon their sleeves.Skipper James and our heroes got friendly at once. And before they were three days on board they felt as if they had known this kindly skipper all their lives.“My ship’s only a rough one,” he had told them frankly; “and your fare may not be first-class; but by my song, gentlemen, you are right welcome to the best I have.”It was a Saturday night. They had been three weeks at sea, with fine weather nearly all the time, so no wonder all hands were happy, fore and aft.Now I have said that this skipper was an old-fashioned sailor, and so he was; and this being Saturday night, he determined, as he always did, that his men should enjoy themselves forward as much as the officers aft. There was singing, therefore, and dancing, and sea-pie. A glorious sea-pie steamed on the table of the quarter-deck, and a dozen of the same sort aft.Rory O’Reilly was the mate’s name; the life and soul of the mess he was. He could sing a song or tell a story with any one.“Dear Captain James,” he said to-night, “do tell us a story. Do you believe in the sarpint, sorr?”Captain James quietly finished his second plate of sea-pie, and put the plate in a corner so stayed up that the ship’s motion could not displace it. For this skipper was a most methodical man. Then he took his old brown clay with its tin lid, and proceeded to fill it. He shook out the “dottle,” as the unburned portion of tobacco in the bottom was called, and put it carefully on Rory O’Reilly’s open palm, held out in a friendly and obliging way for James’s benefit. Then he loaded up to near the top with fresh cut, broke up the dottle and put that above, then pinched up the dust and put that over all, then slowly and solemnly lit up. When he had blown a few blasts of such density of volume that further proofs of the pipe’s being well lit up were needless, the skipper cleared his throat and commenced—A Strange, Strange Story.“Rory asked me,” he said, “if I believed in the great sea-serpent. He asked me with a kind of incredulous smile on his face, which spoke volumes as to his own disbelief. Well, I am not sitting here to-night to lay proof before you as to the actual existence of sea-serpents of a monstrous size, but I beg to remind my friend here, that not only one or two officers of the mercantile and fighting navies of the world, but dozens have come forward, and given their oath, that such monsters were seen by them, or by their whole crew, at certain times and in certain latitudes and longitudes. And these men, both at the times of the awful visitations, and at the times of their swearing to what they considered facts, were neither intoxicated nor otherwise out of their minds.“But my story is not about sea-serpents altogether, though it may throw a new light on those submarine monsters.“It is a strange, strange story—one told me years and years ago by my gallant old grandfather. I remember, as though it were but yester evening, the first time I heard him tell it.“Grandfather, mates, had at this time retired from the army. He was of an old Scottish family, that had been crushed at Culloden, so that with the exception of the half-pay a stingy government granted him, he had little else to live upon. He resided in a pretty little cottage about a quarter of a mile from our house, and it used to be my delight to visit him in the gloaming. I would go quietly in, and seat myself on a stool in a corner, and wait to be recognised. By-and-bye I would lead him to speak of the olden times, and of the battles and sieges by sea and land he had taken part in.“But this story I am going to tell you he has repeated to me again and again, in different words maybe, but the facts were always the same.“It was in the days of the American war, the war of freedom and independence, which, to my way of thinking, are the birthrights of every man born, and of every nation as well. England, mates, did not fight in an over-gentlemanly fashion in those days, and I think it is a stain on our country’s escutcheon that the Indians of the Far West were armed and employed at all.“But this is not what I am sitting here to discuss, only my grandfather and Tom Turner, a junior of his, both belonged in those days to Pontius Pilate’s guards (the 1st, or Royal Scots Regiment), and were stationed at the same place.“Though Tom was a few years younger than grand-dad, they were inseparables, so to speak, and always in the same ’ploy, whatever that ’ploy might be. To say that they were both Highlanders is equivalent to telling you they were both fond of field sports; and when one day Wild Eye, Chief of the Cheebuk Indians, promised them some first-rate hunting if they could get leave for a few days, you may be sure they were not long in applying for it—ay, and obtaining it, too; for young Tom Turner had a wonderful tongue for getting round his colonel, and, as the troops were in garrison, the services of these officers wouldn’t be much missed.“It was a lovely morning when they set out on their journey west, mounted on three half-bred horses, as fleet as the wind, and just as independent.“Now it would seem that hiring Indians was a game that in those days two could play at; and though the honour of the idea should be awarded to the British, as having been the inventors, as it were, still tit-for-tat, you know, and everything is fair in war, so the Yankees were not far behind.“There were, in reality, two different sets of Indians on the warpath, both bent upon getting as many scalps as possible for the decoration of their wigwams, for the Christmas season, as one might say.“This fact made travelling a very risky kind of a business.“The first day passed over without almost any kind of adventure, only it was summer on the prairie they were passing over, and there was no shade of bush nor tree, and the insects were almost as much of a torture as the sun’s rays.“Old Wild Eye, the chief, must have been a clever fellow, indeed, for on this rolling plain there was neither road nor track, except the trails of wild animals; to have followed those would have led my grand-dad a queer dance.“When the sun went down at last, glaring red through the haze of blue, it got almost cold, but they dared not think of lighting a fire, because of the hostile Indians, so they hobbled their nags, ate their supper, and sat huddled up in their blankets beneath the stars till long past twelve. They were listening to Wild Eye’s adventures on the warpath.“Wild Eye was a border chief, and friendly with the British; in fact, he had been once to Quebec, and so considered himself about half a Christian. Wild Eye was as bald as the back of my watch, and had no more teeth than a tin whistle. He had scars innumerable, only one ear, and about half a nose, for he had been twice put to the torture, and saved as if by a miracle.“His scalp, he told my grand-dad, hung in many wigwams. The fact is, Wild Eye wore a wig, and when he lost one in warfare, he wore a morsel of buffalo hide until he was able to negotiate with his barber in Ontario. Each wig was paid for not in coin but in land. Each wig cost Wild Eye twenty acres of territory, and they say that the descendants of his barber are millionaires to-day.“But my grand-dad and his friend fell sound asleep at last, and not even the presence of a grizzly bear, who came round to snuff after the remains of the supper, awoke them until the sun was so high that it nearly hardened the whites of their eyes, as heat does the white of an egg.“‘I say, John,’ said Tom Turner to my grand-dad, ‘we’ve got five days’ leave. I feel so happy, that I think we ought to make it a fortnight.’“But grand-dad laughed. ‘No,’ he said, ‘that wouldn’t be fair, Tom. Let us stick to our furlough, and be back in five days if we can.’“About evening on the second day they bade farewell to the rolling prairie, and plunged into a deep ravine, and bivouacked in a pine-clad gorge near the banks of a stream. This river was teeming with fish of the most delicate flavour. They caught enough for supper, and once more settled themselves to listen to the tales of the Indian chief.“There were strange, unearthly noises in the forest that night which my grand-dad could not Understand—shrieks and yells and awful howlings, but he dozed off at last and dreamt he was head keeper in a kind of pandemonium.“Next morning sport began in earnest, for they found they were near the head-quarters of the grizzly and wilder cinnamon bear.“Next to our friend the Arctic Bruin, there is no creature in the world with which a man has less chance in a fair stand-up fight than with the cinnamon. I don’t say, mates, but that any bear will prefer shuffling off to coming to close quarters, but don’t you catch a grizzly or cinnamon unawares behind a rock or a bush. I tell you that the only comfort you can have at that awful moment is the memory that you’ve made your will, and don’t owe your tailor anything to signify.“Tom Turner was following up a grizzly, who was well on ahead, so he had eyes for nothing else; but on rounding a point on the hill-top, he was startled with a roar that went through him like a rip-saw, and found himself face to jowl with a cinnamon bear. Tom sprang back so suddenly that he burst his waistcoat buttons. His musket went off at the same moment, and Bruin made a spring to hug Tom Turner. The bullet found a billet in the beast’s neck, but didn’t stop his way, and next moment the bear and Tom both were tumbling down, down, down over a precipice. The bear fell on the top of a rock, and was killed. Tom alighted on the top of a juniper tree, and wasn’t a bit the worse, for Tom was a tough lad.“There were three or four bears altogether killed that forenoon, and I daresay a good many more frightened. However, about one o’clock the three friends were seated on the top of a breezy eminence overlooking the bonnie glen, and in sight of their horses, while they enjoyed their lunch or tiffin.“‘What a lovely day!’ said Tom, as he lay at full length on the greensward. ‘How wildly sublime those hills are! Wooded almost to the summits everyone of them; and look, John, at that river far beneath yonder, like a silver thread winding away through the greenery of the forest. You’re not looking, John.’“‘I’m looking at something else,’ said my grand-dad.“Ugh!” cried the Indian chief, springing to his feet, seizing his gun, and pointing with it to a hill-top beyond the ravine.“There were figures there—dark, creeping figures, no bigger apparently than coyotes.“They were Indians.”A Gallop for Life and Freedom.“They were Indians sure enough, and doubtless only scouts of a bigger party.“There was no time to lose. Sport and all was forgotten; they must mount their horses, and be off back to the prairie land. There they would be clear, at least, of an ambush, and could trust to the fleetness of their horses.“They hurried madly down hill, reaching and mounting their mustangs just as a volley was fired from both sides of the stream, the bullets peppering the trees about, and splashing on the rocks and stones. They were off like the wind next minute. Rough though the path was, round rocks, over fallen trees, and slippery, mossy banks, the good nags kept their feet, and soon the prairie was gained.“Once fairly in it, they ventured to look behind. To their surprise they found themselves followed by several mounted Indians—a dozen in all, at the very least.“Out on the open prairie, the half-bred mustangs seemed to fly over the ground, but they were not so fresh as the horses of the pursuers, and the pace soon began to tell, and three out of the four savages came rattling on abreast.“A bullet or two flew over them. It was evident they must fight. At a given signal, then, they wheeled their horses, and took deadly aim, and next moment there were two empty saddles; again they fired, and the bewildered third Indian came tumbling down over a dead horse.“But the others came thundering on behind with yells for revenge, yells for blood and scalps.Away went our gallant trio once again, but now, alas! Tom’s horse tripped and fell, and at the same moment the chief’s steed was shot.“They must fight on foot now, and with terrible odds. But they were all determined to sell their lives dearly.“Now, whatever old chroniclers may say to the contrary, American Indians never did fight fairly if they could do the reverse. So in this case, instead of coming on with a wild rush or a warlike shout, they paused, and quietly waited till their companions swarmed up. Meanwhile, Wild Eye had killed his horse, and also Tom’s fallen one. Why leave the poor brutes to fall into the hands of the enemy? Then the three entrenched themselves as well as they could behind them, and waited events.“They had not very long to wait, either. A volley was fired by the savages who had guns. It was returned with interest, and as they were crowded together it must have had terrible effect.“The yelling and buzzing was now frightful. It was as threatening as that which proceeds from a hollow tree with a hornet’s nest in it when you kick the trunk.“And just as hornets rush out from their hive, so rushed those Indians now on, spreading out, and entirely surrounding the three brave men, shrieking and brandishing their tomahawks.“My grand-dad said he never understood what put it into Wild Eye’s head to sing out ‘Surrender!’ but he did, and at once there was peace and a parley. The two Britishers would have preferred fighting to the bitter end, and having it over; but as most of the attacking savages had laid down their weapons, they felt in duty bound to cease firing, and submit to the fortune of war—to the inevitable.“Tom and my grand-dad were bound with withes and tied together. Wild Eye was tied to an Indian, then without further palaver the march westward was commenced.“My grandfather forgot how long they were on that terrible journey into the fastnesses of the far west. It must have been, he thought, fully a fortnight.“They were fatigued beyond measure, footsore, heartsick, and weary. If they had entertained any hopes at first of being treated as prisoners of war, and in due time exchanged, every day’s journey served to dispel the illusion.“Poor Wild Eye fell sick, and was slain. His wig was hung at the girdle of one of his captors, his body left to swelter in the sun, till birds and beasts should eat his flesh and ants pick his bones.“Grand-dad was sufficiently conversant with the language of this tribe to know what the doom was that he and Tom had to look forward to. They were being hurried away to the wigwam village of their captors, to be tortured at the hands of squaws. The chief of the party even condescended to enliven the last few miles of the journey, by telling his prisoners such tales of the torture, that, brave though they were, made the blood run cold along their spines.“At last they reached the Indian village, which they entered just as the sun was setting among clouds all fringed with gold and crimson above the western hills.“What a smiling, peaceful valley it seemed. The purple mist of distance hung like a gauzy veil over the mountain tops, a blue haze half hid the greenery of the woods, there were parks of verdure dotted over with flowering trees and bushes, in which bright-winged birds flitted or sang. Deer roamed quietly about, or stood drowsily chewing the cud, and up through the trees on the banks of a broad, placid river, rose the smoke from the village fires.“The whole scene was almost home-like in its gentle beauty. Who could have believed that it had been and would be the scene of a torture so refined and terrible that one shudders even to think of it?”

“Meanwhile some rude Arion’s restless handWakes the brisk harmony that sailors love;A circle there of merry listeners stand,Or to some well-known measure featly move,Thoughtless as if on shore they still were free to rove.”

Scene: The upper deck of a barque in mid-Atlantic, homeward bound. Sailors dancing amidships to the music of flute and fiddle. Aft, under an awning, a table is spread, at which sit Leonard, Douglas, Captain Blunt, with the skipper of the vessel, and one of his officers.

Skipper James, of the timber barqueBlack-eyed Susan, was a sailor of the good old school. He was homeward bound, and happening to call at a village on the west shore of Newfoundland, he heard that a shipwrecked crew of his countrymen were residing at a small fishing station on the Labrador coast. He did not hesitate a moment. He put about, and sailed back right away to the nor’ard and west and took every soul on board. Men like Skipper James, I fear, are, nowadays, like angels’ visits, few and far between. Ah! and they are angels, too, when you find them; rough enough to all outward appearance, perhaps, but good in the main, and men, too, who carry their hearts upon their sleeves.

Skipper James and our heroes got friendly at once. And before they were three days on board they felt as if they had known this kindly skipper all their lives.

“My ship’s only a rough one,” he had told them frankly; “and your fare may not be first-class; but by my song, gentlemen, you are right welcome to the best I have.”

It was a Saturday night. They had been three weeks at sea, with fine weather nearly all the time, so no wonder all hands were happy, fore and aft.

Now I have said that this skipper was an old-fashioned sailor, and so he was; and this being Saturday night, he determined, as he always did, that his men should enjoy themselves forward as much as the officers aft. There was singing, therefore, and dancing, and sea-pie. A glorious sea-pie steamed on the table of the quarter-deck, and a dozen of the same sort aft.

Rory O’Reilly was the mate’s name; the life and soul of the mess he was. He could sing a song or tell a story with any one.

“Dear Captain James,” he said to-night, “do tell us a story. Do you believe in the sarpint, sorr?”

Captain James quietly finished his second plate of sea-pie, and put the plate in a corner so stayed up that the ship’s motion could not displace it. For this skipper was a most methodical man. Then he took his old brown clay with its tin lid, and proceeded to fill it. He shook out the “dottle,” as the unburned portion of tobacco in the bottom was called, and put it carefully on Rory O’Reilly’s open palm, held out in a friendly and obliging way for James’s benefit. Then he loaded up to near the top with fresh cut, broke up the dottle and put that above, then pinched up the dust and put that over all, then slowly and solemnly lit up. When he had blown a few blasts of such density of volume that further proofs of the pipe’s being well lit up were needless, the skipper cleared his throat and commenced—

“Rory asked me,” he said, “if I believed in the great sea-serpent. He asked me with a kind of incredulous smile on his face, which spoke volumes as to his own disbelief. Well, I am not sitting here to-night to lay proof before you as to the actual existence of sea-serpents of a monstrous size, but I beg to remind my friend here, that not only one or two officers of the mercantile and fighting navies of the world, but dozens have come forward, and given their oath, that such monsters were seen by them, or by their whole crew, at certain times and in certain latitudes and longitudes. And these men, both at the times of the awful visitations, and at the times of their swearing to what they considered facts, were neither intoxicated nor otherwise out of their minds.

“But my story is not about sea-serpents altogether, though it may throw a new light on those submarine monsters.

“It is a strange, strange story—one told me years and years ago by my gallant old grandfather. I remember, as though it were but yester evening, the first time I heard him tell it.

“Grandfather, mates, had at this time retired from the army. He was of an old Scottish family, that had been crushed at Culloden, so that with the exception of the half-pay a stingy government granted him, he had little else to live upon. He resided in a pretty little cottage about a quarter of a mile from our house, and it used to be my delight to visit him in the gloaming. I would go quietly in, and seat myself on a stool in a corner, and wait to be recognised. By-and-bye I would lead him to speak of the olden times, and of the battles and sieges by sea and land he had taken part in.

“But this story I am going to tell you he has repeated to me again and again, in different words maybe, but the facts were always the same.

“It was in the days of the American war, the war of freedom and independence, which, to my way of thinking, are the birthrights of every man born, and of every nation as well. England, mates, did not fight in an over-gentlemanly fashion in those days, and I think it is a stain on our country’s escutcheon that the Indians of the Far West were armed and employed at all.

“But this is not what I am sitting here to discuss, only my grandfather and Tom Turner, a junior of his, both belonged in those days to Pontius Pilate’s guards (the 1st, or Royal Scots Regiment), and were stationed at the same place.

“Though Tom was a few years younger than grand-dad, they were inseparables, so to speak, and always in the same ’ploy, whatever that ’ploy might be. To say that they were both Highlanders is equivalent to telling you they were both fond of field sports; and when one day Wild Eye, Chief of the Cheebuk Indians, promised them some first-rate hunting if they could get leave for a few days, you may be sure they were not long in applying for it—ay, and obtaining it, too; for young Tom Turner had a wonderful tongue for getting round his colonel, and, as the troops were in garrison, the services of these officers wouldn’t be much missed.

“It was a lovely morning when they set out on their journey west, mounted on three half-bred horses, as fleet as the wind, and just as independent.

“Now it would seem that hiring Indians was a game that in those days two could play at; and though the honour of the idea should be awarded to the British, as having been the inventors, as it were, still tit-for-tat, you know, and everything is fair in war, so the Yankees were not far behind.

“There were, in reality, two different sets of Indians on the warpath, both bent upon getting as many scalps as possible for the decoration of their wigwams, for the Christmas season, as one might say.

“This fact made travelling a very risky kind of a business.

“The first day passed over without almost any kind of adventure, only it was summer on the prairie they were passing over, and there was no shade of bush nor tree, and the insects were almost as much of a torture as the sun’s rays.

“Old Wild Eye, the chief, must have been a clever fellow, indeed, for on this rolling plain there was neither road nor track, except the trails of wild animals; to have followed those would have led my grand-dad a queer dance.

“When the sun went down at last, glaring red through the haze of blue, it got almost cold, but they dared not think of lighting a fire, because of the hostile Indians, so they hobbled their nags, ate their supper, and sat huddled up in their blankets beneath the stars till long past twelve. They were listening to Wild Eye’s adventures on the warpath.

“Wild Eye was a border chief, and friendly with the British; in fact, he had been once to Quebec, and so considered himself about half a Christian. Wild Eye was as bald as the back of my watch, and had no more teeth than a tin whistle. He had scars innumerable, only one ear, and about half a nose, for he had been twice put to the torture, and saved as if by a miracle.

“His scalp, he told my grand-dad, hung in many wigwams. The fact is, Wild Eye wore a wig, and when he lost one in warfare, he wore a morsel of buffalo hide until he was able to negotiate with his barber in Ontario. Each wig was paid for not in coin but in land. Each wig cost Wild Eye twenty acres of territory, and they say that the descendants of his barber are millionaires to-day.

“But my grand-dad and his friend fell sound asleep at last, and not even the presence of a grizzly bear, who came round to snuff after the remains of the supper, awoke them until the sun was so high that it nearly hardened the whites of their eyes, as heat does the white of an egg.

“‘I say, John,’ said Tom Turner to my grand-dad, ‘we’ve got five days’ leave. I feel so happy, that I think we ought to make it a fortnight.’

“But grand-dad laughed. ‘No,’ he said, ‘that wouldn’t be fair, Tom. Let us stick to our furlough, and be back in five days if we can.’

“About evening on the second day they bade farewell to the rolling prairie, and plunged into a deep ravine, and bivouacked in a pine-clad gorge near the banks of a stream. This river was teeming with fish of the most delicate flavour. They caught enough for supper, and once more settled themselves to listen to the tales of the Indian chief.

“There were strange, unearthly noises in the forest that night which my grand-dad could not Understand—shrieks and yells and awful howlings, but he dozed off at last and dreamt he was head keeper in a kind of pandemonium.

“Next morning sport began in earnest, for they found they were near the head-quarters of the grizzly and wilder cinnamon bear.

“Next to our friend the Arctic Bruin, there is no creature in the world with which a man has less chance in a fair stand-up fight than with the cinnamon. I don’t say, mates, but that any bear will prefer shuffling off to coming to close quarters, but don’t you catch a grizzly or cinnamon unawares behind a rock or a bush. I tell you that the only comfort you can have at that awful moment is the memory that you’ve made your will, and don’t owe your tailor anything to signify.

“Tom Turner was following up a grizzly, who was well on ahead, so he had eyes for nothing else; but on rounding a point on the hill-top, he was startled with a roar that went through him like a rip-saw, and found himself face to jowl with a cinnamon bear. Tom sprang back so suddenly that he burst his waistcoat buttons. His musket went off at the same moment, and Bruin made a spring to hug Tom Turner. The bullet found a billet in the beast’s neck, but didn’t stop his way, and next moment the bear and Tom both were tumbling down, down, down over a precipice. The bear fell on the top of a rock, and was killed. Tom alighted on the top of a juniper tree, and wasn’t a bit the worse, for Tom was a tough lad.

“There were three or four bears altogether killed that forenoon, and I daresay a good many more frightened. However, about one o’clock the three friends were seated on the top of a breezy eminence overlooking the bonnie glen, and in sight of their horses, while they enjoyed their lunch or tiffin.

“‘What a lovely day!’ said Tom, as he lay at full length on the greensward. ‘How wildly sublime those hills are! Wooded almost to the summits everyone of them; and look, John, at that river far beneath yonder, like a silver thread winding away through the greenery of the forest. You’re not looking, John.’

“‘I’m looking at something else,’ said my grand-dad.

“Ugh!” cried the Indian chief, springing to his feet, seizing his gun, and pointing with it to a hill-top beyond the ravine.

“There were figures there—dark, creeping figures, no bigger apparently than coyotes.

“They were Indians.”

“They were Indians sure enough, and doubtless only scouts of a bigger party.

“There was no time to lose. Sport and all was forgotten; they must mount their horses, and be off back to the prairie land. There they would be clear, at least, of an ambush, and could trust to the fleetness of their horses.

“They hurried madly down hill, reaching and mounting their mustangs just as a volley was fired from both sides of the stream, the bullets peppering the trees about, and splashing on the rocks and stones. They were off like the wind next minute. Rough though the path was, round rocks, over fallen trees, and slippery, mossy banks, the good nags kept their feet, and soon the prairie was gained.

“Once fairly in it, they ventured to look behind. To their surprise they found themselves followed by several mounted Indians—a dozen in all, at the very least.

“Out on the open prairie, the half-bred mustangs seemed to fly over the ground, but they were not so fresh as the horses of the pursuers, and the pace soon began to tell, and three out of the four savages came rattling on abreast.

“A bullet or two flew over them. It was evident they must fight. At a given signal, then, they wheeled their horses, and took deadly aim, and next moment there were two empty saddles; again they fired, and the bewildered third Indian came tumbling down over a dead horse.

“But the others came thundering on behind with yells for revenge, yells for blood and scalps.

Away went our gallant trio once again, but now, alas! Tom’s horse tripped and fell, and at the same moment the chief’s steed was shot.

“They must fight on foot now, and with terrible odds. But they were all determined to sell their lives dearly.

“Now, whatever old chroniclers may say to the contrary, American Indians never did fight fairly if they could do the reverse. So in this case, instead of coming on with a wild rush or a warlike shout, they paused, and quietly waited till their companions swarmed up. Meanwhile, Wild Eye had killed his horse, and also Tom’s fallen one. Why leave the poor brutes to fall into the hands of the enemy? Then the three entrenched themselves as well as they could behind them, and waited events.

“They had not very long to wait, either. A volley was fired by the savages who had guns. It was returned with interest, and as they were crowded together it must have had terrible effect.

“The yelling and buzzing was now frightful. It was as threatening as that which proceeds from a hollow tree with a hornet’s nest in it when you kick the trunk.

“And just as hornets rush out from their hive, so rushed those Indians now on, spreading out, and entirely surrounding the three brave men, shrieking and brandishing their tomahawks.

“My grand-dad said he never understood what put it into Wild Eye’s head to sing out ‘Surrender!’ but he did, and at once there was peace and a parley. The two Britishers would have preferred fighting to the bitter end, and having it over; but as most of the attacking savages had laid down their weapons, they felt in duty bound to cease firing, and submit to the fortune of war—to the inevitable.

“Tom and my grand-dad were bound with withes and tied together. Wild Eye was tied to an Indian, then without further palaver the march westward was commenced.

“My grandfather forgot how long they were on that terrible journey into the fastnesses of the far west. It must have been, he thought, fully a fortnight.

“They were fatigued beyond measure, footsore, heartsick, and weary. If they had entertained any hopes at first of being treated as prisoners of war, and in due time exchanged, every day’s journey served to dispel the illusion.

“Poor Wild Eye fell sick, and was slain. His wig was hung at the girdle of one of his captors, his body left to swelter in the sun, till birds and beasts should eat his flesh and ants pick his bones.

“Grand-dad was sufficiently conversant with the language of this tribe to know what the doom was that he and Tom had to look forward to. They were being hurried away to the wigwam village of their captors, to be tortured at the hands of squaws. The chief of the party even condescended to enliven the last few miles of the journey, by telling his prisoners such tales of the torture, that, brave though they were, made the blood run cold along their spines.

“At last they reached the Indian village, which they entered just as the sun was setting among clouds all fringed with gold and crimson above the western hills.

“What a smiling, peaceful valley it seemed. The purple mist of distance hung like a gauzy veil over the mountain tops, a blue haze half hid the greenery of the woods, there were parks of verdure dotted over with flowering trees and bushes, in which bright-winged birds flitted or sang. Deer roamed quietly about, or stood drowsily chewing the cud, and up through the trees on the banks of a broad, placid river, rose the smoke from the village fires.

“The whole scene was almost home-like in its gentle beauty. Who could have believed that it had been and would be the scene of a torture so refined and terrible that one shudders even to think of it?”

Book Two—Chapter Eight.Captain James Continues his Story—On the Subterranean River.“Forth from the dark recesses of the caveThe serpent cameWith searching eye, and lifted jaw and tongue,Quivering and hissing as a heavy showerUpon the summer woods.”Scene: The quarter-deck of the barque. Officers at the table. Men crowded with eager faces, respectfully listening to their captain’s story.The preparations for the torture were finished ere the village sunk to slumber that night. Tied hand and foot, my grandfather and Tom lay beneath a tree. They could not sleep, and they cared not to talk; all hope had fled, and the gloom and terror of death were in their hearts.“The night was clear and beautiful, and the stars never looked brighter or more impressive, but cold and heartless, as indeed seemed everything. Sometimes a dog would come round and snuff at them, then start back in alarm, and sit for long minutes and howl. When the dogs were silent there were wild, unearthly shrieks heard in the distant woods, doubtless the voices of birds and beasts of prey.“Towards morning both prisoners fell into an uneasy doze, and were awakened at last by the joyful shouts of a band of Indians from a neighbouring village, who had come to share in the festival in which Tom and my grandfather were to play so prominent a part.” Skipper James paused a minute here to relight his pipe.“Ah, mates!” he continued, “I’ve often wondered what my grandfather’s feelings and poor Tom Turner’s must have been when they were dragged out, and tied to trees on the torture ground, with the female executioners all ready, and pining to see the white men’s blood, the knives sharpened, the torture irons heated to redness, and that awful circle of upturned faces, in which they must have looked in vain for one pitying glance.“‘Good-bye, John,’ cried Tom.“‘Good-bye, Tom,’ cried my grandfather, as two vicious-looking squaws approached him, one carrying a knife, the other a white-hot iron rod.“‘Hold!’ cried an old white-haired chief, stalking into the circle.“Every one looked impatiently towards him.“Why, they asked, should even a chief of chiefs attempt to spoil the sport?“But this was none other than Red Bull himself, one whose word had been law for years.“He quickly gathered around him a dozen of the head warriors of the tribe.“‘Your father would speak,’ said Red Bull, when they had seated themselves around him, and close to the stakes or trees to which the prisoners were tied. ‘Your father would speak. To torture a white man is no pleasure. The white man screams like a squaw. Then he faints, soon he dies. Then gone for ever is the sport, for he feels no more. Send them rather beneath the earth to the silent spirit. The great river rolls through our valley. Soon it disappears. Every year our young men are drawn beneath. Send the white men to seek them in the caves of darkness. If they come not back the great serpent has devoured them.’“The awful truth was soon revealed more plainly to the prisoners. They were to be placed in separate canoes, and sent adrift upon the river that flowed through this romantic valley, and which a few miles nearer the mountains entered a yawning cave, and was never seen again.“Such a fate would have been enough to make the bravest hearts that ever beat stand still with fear. The torture itself seemed pleasure in comparison to it.“But the old chief’s speech was hailed with shouts of acclamation, while those fiendish squaws brandishing their knives danced in a yelling circle around the prisoners.“A certain amount of liberty was now granted them, but they were so well guarded that thoughts of escape never entered their minds. They were even fed on milk and fruit, though they couldn’t have had much heart to eat.“Next morning all preparations for this terrible voyage were completed. There were three canoes in all—one for grand-dad, one for Tom, and one loaded with meat and grain as provisions. The three canoes were lashed together, and both prisoners were supplied with paddles.“They had been told the story of the great serpent the evening before, in order to add, if possible, to the torture of their terror.“The tradition about this frightful snake was, my grandfather said, common among a great many tribes, so you know there must have been some little truth in it. Whether it ever left its subterranean abode in summer or not no one was able to say; but when frost was hard and winter’s snow lay thick on the ground, it used to emerge at night from the black waters and caves of such rivers as that which flowed through this lovely fertile valley, and which suddenly disappeared. It used to emerge, I say, and travel far inward in search of prey, killing and swallowing whole buffaloes and even grizzly bears, which latter it would follow to their dens, and devour them there. The trail it always left behind it told the beholder its size. It was as if a wide-beamed boat had been dragged along, with here and there at each side the imprint of gigantic claws.“One white man is said to have seen the monster on a bright moonlight night, and its appearance was dreadful to behold. It was hurrying back towards the river at its point of disappearance, with something in its jaws; it was snorting, and the breath from its nostrils rose like steam-clouds on the clear night air, its eyes glanced like green stars in a frosty sky. Arrived at the river, it sprang in, going out of sight at once with a booming plash.“Amidst the yells and shouts of the savages the canoes were started, the Indians following down the banks on both sides, brandishing knives and tomahawks. Just before its disappearance, the river narrows considerably, and goes swirling through a gorge with great rapidity.“My grandfather says that at this point Tom Turner started singing ‘Rule Britannia!’ and that his manly young voice could be heard high over the shouts of the savages. But grand-dad’s heart was too full to join him.“He cast one wild, despairing glance around him at the rocks with their wild flowers, at the greenery of the hanging trees, the blue sky, the fleecy cloudlets, at the great sun itself; then everything was blotted out of sight in a moment, the canoes were swallowed up in the inky darkness.“There were a few minutes of silence deep as death itself, for my grand-dad and Tom both were praying.“‘Tom,’ cried grandfather at last.“‘John,’ said Tom.“And their voices sounded ringing-hollow, awful.“‘Speak low, Tom.’“‘Yes,’ whispered Tom, ‘but the suspense is terrible.’“‘Where are we hurrying to? How I wish it were all over! I think I’m going mad, John. I believe I shall leap out of the canoe and meet my fate.’“‘No, Tom, no; be brave, man, for my sake. A minute or two ago you were singing.’“‘It was but to keep up my sinking heart.’“‘Well, sing again.’“‘Nay, nay; I dare not.’“‘Well, Tom, stretch your hand out here, and let me grasp it. Thanks. This seems a little comfort, anyhow.’“‘Shall we talk, Tom?’“‘No, I feel more inclined to sleep. I feel a strange, unaccountable drowsiness steal—steal—’“Tom said no more. He was fast asleep.“So was grand-dad.“How long they slept or how far the canoes had drifted on through the subterranean darkness they never could tell, but they awoke at last, and found that the boats had grounded at the side.“Tom struck a light, and lit a torch.“Nothing around them but black wet rocks, and the black water rippling past.“‘Tom,’ said my grand-dad, ‘it is possible enough, you know, that this river may run but a few more miles, then emerge into the light.’“‘Oh, wouldn’t that be glorious!’ cried Tom.“‘Well, let us push off again, and try to keep awake.’“Tom extinguished the torch, and the boats were once more shoved into the stream.“‘John,’ said Tom after a time.“‘Yes, Tom.’“‘Don’t you remember when we were at school reading in heathen books of the awful river Styx, that flows nine times round the abode of the dead.’“‘Ay, Tom, and we seem on it now. It would hardly surprise me to see a door open in the rock, and the three-headed dog Cerberus appear, or the fearful ferryman.’“The boats rushed on now for hours, without ever grounding, though at times they touched at either side; and all this time those poor despairing souls sat hand in hand, for the silence was as saddening as even the darkness.“Gradually, however, a sound began to grow upon their ears, and increase and increase momentarily. It was the roar of a cataract far ahead.“Tom speedily lit his torch, and they paddled in towards the side, and grounding, leapt on shore, and drew up the boats.“If they could have been surprised at anything the warmth of the shore would have caused them to wonder, but they felt, in a measure, already dead, and their senses were benumbed. One sense, however, was left—that of hunger. They extracted provisions, and, strange to say, both ate heartily, then almost immediately sank to sleep.“‘Tom,’ said grand-dad, awaking at last.“‘John,’ said Tom.“‘I think, Tom, we had better end this at once. Down yonder is the cataract. We have but to push off into the stream, and in a minute more all will be over.’“‘Nonsense,’ replied Tom. ‘Come, John, old man, I’m getting hopeful; and I do think, if we can drag the boats along this gloomy shore, we may avoid that waterfall, and launch again below it. Let us try.’ So Tom lit the torch again, and away they went, dragging the light canoes behind them.“It was rough work, but they succeeded at last.“Once more the boats were launched, once more the same irrepressible drowsiness stole over them, and they slept for what seemed to them, when they awoke, a wondrously long time.“Again they grounded, ate, and slept.“And so they kept on and on and on, rushing down the mysterious subterranean river, but they came to no more cataracts.“On and on, for days perhaps; for aught they knew for weeks.“The regions in which they now found themselves were oppressively hot, but they only slept the sounder. Awakening one night, if one may so speak of a time that was all night, they were surprised in the extreme to find themselves in the midst of a strange glimmering light. It was a light by which they could see each other’s faces, and blue and ghastly they looked, but a light that cast no shadow, at which they marvelled much, till they found out that the river here had broadened out into a kind of lake, that the rocks all round them were covered with fungi or toadstools, all emitting a phosphorescent glimmer, and that the water itself contained thousands of strange fishes, and that these all gave light.“There was but little current here, so paddles were got out, and the boats helped onwards, though, to tell the truth, both my grand-dad and Tom Turner were more frightened at the strange spectral light that now glared round them, than they had been of the darkness.“The fishes, too, looked like things uncanny, and indeed they were wholly uncouth and quite dissimilar in shape and actions from anything they had ever seen in the world above.“They had reached a part of the river when it began once more to narrow and the current to become stronger, while at the same time it began to get darker, and the spectral-like fishes fewer. But suddenly Tom clutched my grand-dad by the wrist with his disengaged hand, and with a visage distorted by terror he drew his attention to something that lay half curled up at the bottom of a deep slimy pool.“However dark it had been they would have seen that awful creature, for its body from stem to stern was lit up with a phosphorescent gleam. It was in the shape of a gigantic snake, full twenty fathoms long, with two terrible alligator-like arms and claws in front. It had green glaring eyes, that never closed or winked. Its whole appearance was fearsome enough, my grand-dad said, to almost turn a beholder into stone.“Whether it was asleep or awake they could not tell, but it seemed to glide astern as the boat swept over it, and gradually to lose shape and disappear. In a few minutes more they were plunged once more in Cimmerian darkness.“For many days the boats plunged on and on over the subterranean river, till their very life became a burden and a weariness to them, that they would gladly have laid down for ever.“But one time, on awaking from a deep sleep, they found that something very strange and unusual had occurred. They were still in darkness, but not altogether in silence; the water made a lapping sound on the rocky river bank, and the boat was no longer in motion.“Moreover, it was less warm around them than usual.“Tom lit a torch, and they landed. Yes, there was the water lapping up and receding again.“‘Can you give us more light?’ said my grand-dad.“‘We may burn the centre canoe,’ replied Tom, undoing it as he spoke, while his companion held the torch on high. There are no more provisions except enough for once and a few pounds of tallow.“The canoe was broken up and set fire to. The flames leapt up, and lo! in front of them was the end of the mysterious river, a black and solid rock, beneath which no man or boat could penetrate.“Tom looked at my grand-dad, and grand-dad looked at him.“‘Lost! Imprisoned! The end has come!’“These were the words they uttered.“‘Let us eat our last meal, then,’ said Tom.“‘Yes,’ said my grand-dad.“When it was finished, they lay down with their feet towards the grateful blaze, and in a moment or two were once more sound asleep.“When they awoke what a change! All was light and beauty. They were in a cave with a river rolling silently at their feet away out and joining the blue sea. Yonder it was, and the sky, too, and white fleecy clouds, and screaming sea-birds, and the glorious sun itself.“They understood all now. They had come to the end of the river while the tide was up; it was now ebb, and they were free.“They rushed out wild with delight, and wandered away along the sea-beach. It was weeks and weeks before they managed to attract the notice of a passing vessel, and their adventures on shore were many and strange, but I must not tell them now, for it is time to turn in.“But I believe you know, and so did my grand-dad, that they had been actually in the home of the great sea-serpent, that he dwells in mysterious subterranean rivers like these, venturing out to sea but seldom, and hardly ever appearing on the surface.”“Are you done?” said one sailor.“I’m done.”“Well,” said Rory O’Reilly, “it’s a quare story, a very quare story, deed and indeed. But I can’t be after swallowing the big sarpint.”“I can believe the first half of the yarn,” quoth Captain Blunt.“You can, can you?” quoth Rory. “Well, sure, it’s all roight after all; you belave thefirsthalf, and he belaves the second half himself; what more can you wish? Faith, it’s as roight as the rainbow.”“Well, Rory,” said the skipper, laughing, “can’t you tell us a story yourself every word of which we can all believe?”Rory scratched his head, with a comical look twinkling in his eyes and puckering his face.“Deed and indeed,” he said, “if it be my turn, I won’t be after spoiling the fun.”

“Forth from the dark recesses of the caveThe serpent cameWith searching eye, and lifted jaw and tongue,Quivering and hissing as a heavy showerUpon the summer woods.”

Scene: The quarter-deck of the barque. Officers at the table. Men crowded with eager faces, respectfully listening to their captain’s story.

The preparations for the torture were finished ere the village sunk to slumber that night. Tied hand and foot, my grandfather and Tom lay beneath a tree. They could not sleep, and they cared not to talk; all hope had fled, and the gloom and terror of death were in their hearts.

“The night was clear and beautiful, and the stars never looked brighter or more impressive, but cold and heartless, as indeed seemed everything. Sometimes a dog would come round and snuff at them, then start back in alarm, and sit for long minutes and howl. When the dogs were silent there were wild, unearthly shrieks heard in the distant woods, doubtless the voices of birds and beasts of prey.

“Towards morning both prisoners fell into an uneasy doze, and were awakened at last by the joyful shouts of a band of Indians from a neighbouring village, who had come to share in the festival in which Tom and my grandfather were to play so prominent a part.” Skipper James paused a minute here to relight his pipe.

“Ah, mates!” he continued, “I’ve often wondered what my grandfather’s feelings and poor Tom Turner’s must have been when they were dragged out, and tied to trees on the torture ground, with the female executioners all ready, and pining to see the white men’s blood, the knives sharpened, the torture irons heated to redness, and that awful circle of upturned faces, in which they must have looked in vain for one pitying glance.

“‘Good-bye, John,’ cried Tom.

“‘Good-bye, Tom,’ cried my grandfather, as two vicious-looking squaws approached him, one carrying a knife, the other a white-hot iron rod.

“‘Hold!’ cried an old white-haired chief, stalking into the circle.

“Every one looked impatiently towards him.

“Why, they asked, should even a chief of chiefs attempt to spoil the sport?

“But this was none other than Red Bull himself, one whose word had been law for years.

“He quickly gathered around him a dozen of the head warriors of the tribe.

“‘Your father would speak,’ said Red Bull, when they had seated themselves around him, and close to the stakes or trees to which the prisoners were tied. ‘Your father would speak. To torture a white man is no pleasure. The white man screams like a squaw. Then he faints, soon he dies. Then gone for ever is the sport, for he feels no more. Send them rather beneath the earth to the silent spirit. The great river rolls through our valley. Soon it disappears. Every year our young men are drawn beneath. Send the white men to seek them in the caves of darkness. If they come not back the great serpent has devoured them.’

“The awful truth was soon revealed more plainly to the prisoners. They were to be placed in separate canoes, and sent adrift upon the river that flowed through this romantic valley, and which a few miles nearer the mountains entered a yawning cave, and was never seen again.

“Such a fate would have been enough to make the bravest hearts that ever beat stand still with fear. The torture itself seemed pleasure in comparison to it.

“But the old chief’s speech was hailed with shouts of acclamation, while those fiendish squaws brandishing their knives danced in a yelling circle around the prisoners.

“A certain amount of liberty was now granted them, but they were so well guarded that thoughts of escape never entered their minds. They were even fed on milk and fruit, though they couldn’t have had much heart to eat.

“Next morning all preparations for this terrible voyage were completed. There were three canoes in all—one for grand-dad, one for Tom, and one loaded with meat and grain as provisions. The three canoes were lashed together, and both prisoners were supplied with paddles.

“They had been told the story of the great serpent the evening before, in order to add, if possible, to the torture of their terror.

“The tradition about this frightful snake was, my grandfather said, common among a great many tribes, so you know there must have been some little truth in it. Whether it ever left its subterranean abode in summer or not no one was able to say; but when frost was hard and winter’s snow lay thick on the ground, it used to emerge at night from the black waters and caves of such rivers as that which flowed through this lovely fertile valley, and which suddenly disappeared. It used to emerge, I say, and travel far inward in search of prey, killing and swallowing whole buffaloes and even grizzly bears, which latter it would follow to their dens, and devour them there. The trail it always left behind it told the beholder its size. It was as if a wide-beamed boat had been dragged along, with here and there at each side the imprint of gigantic claws.

“One white man is said to have seen the monster on a bright moonlight night, and its appearance was dreadful to behold. It was hurrying back towards the river at its point of disappearance, with something in its jaws; it was snorting, and the breath from its nostrils rose like steam-clouds on the clear night air, its eyes glanced like green stars in a frosty sky. Arrived at the river, it sprang in, going out of sight at once with a booming plash.

“Amidst the yells and shouts of the savages the canoes were started, the Indians following down the banks on both sides, brandishing knives and tomahawks. Just before its disappearance, the river narrows considerably, and goes swirling through a gorge with great rapidity.

“My grandfather says that at this point Tom Turner started singing ‘Rule Britannia!’ and that his manly young voice could be heard high over the shouts of the savages. But grand-dad’s heart was too full to join him.

“He cast one wild, despairing glance around him at the rocks with their wild flowers, at the greenery of the hanging trees, the blue sky, the fleecy cloudlets, at the great sun itself; then everything was blotted out of sight in a moment, the canoes were swallowed up in the inky darkness.

“There were a few minutes of silence deep as death itself, for my grand-dad and Tom both were praying.

“‘Tom,’ cried grandfather at last.

“‘John,’ said Tom.

“And their voices sounded ringing-hollow, awful.

“‘Speak low, Tom.’

“‘Yes,’ whispered Tom, ‘but the suspense is terrible.’

“‘Where are we hurrying to? How I wish it were all over! I think I’m going mad, John. I believe I shall leap out of the canoe and meet my fate.’

“‘No, Tom, no; be brave, man, for my sake. A minute or two ago you were singing.’

“‘It was but to keep up my sinking heart.’

“‘Well, sing again.’

“‘Nay, nay; I dare not.’

“‘Well, Tom, stretch your hand out here, and let me grasp it. Thanks. This seems a little comfort, anyhow.’

“‘Shall we talk, Tom?’

“‘No, I feel more inclined to sleep. I feel a strange, unaccountable drowsiness steal—steal—’

“Tom said no more. He was fast asleep.

“So was grand-dad.

“How long they slept or how far the canoes had drifted on through the subterranean darkness they never could tell, but they awoke at last, and found that the boats had grounded at the side.

“Tom struck a light, and lit a torch.

“Nothing around them but black wet rocks, and the black water rippling past.

“‘Tom,’ said my grand-dad, ‘it is possible enough, you know, that this river may run but a few more miles, then emerge into the light.’

“‘Oh, wouldn’t that be glorious!’ cried Tom.

“‘Well, let us push off again, and try to keep awake.’

“Tom extinguished the torch, and the boats were once more shoved into the stream.

“‘John,’ said Tom after a time.

“‘Yes, Tom.’

“‘Don’t you remember when we were at school reading in heathen books of the awful river Styx, that flows nine times round the abode of the dead.’

“‘Ay, Tom, and we seem on it now. It would hardly surprise me to see a door open in the rock, and the three-headed dog Cerberus appear, or the fearful ferryman.’

“The boats rushed on now for hours, without ever grounding, though at times they touched at either side; and all this time those poor despairing souls sat hand in hand, for the silence was as saddening as even the darkness.

“Gradually, however, a sound began to grow upon their ears, and increase and increase momentarily. It was the roar of a cataract far ahead.

“Tom speedily lit his torch, and they paddled in towards the side, and grounding, leapt on shore, and drew up the boats.

“If they could have been surprised at anything the warmth of the shore would have caused them to wonder, but they felt, in a measure, already dead, and their senses were benumbed. One sense, however, was left—that of hunger. They extracted provisions, and, strange to say, both ate heartily, then almost immediately sank to sleep.

“‘Tom,’ said grand-dad, awaking at last.

“‘John,’ said Tom.

“‘I think, Tom, we had better end this at once. Down yonder is the cataract. We have but to push off into the stream, and in a minute more all will be over.’

“‘Nonsense,’ replied Tom. ‘Come, John, old man, I’m getting hopeful; and I do think, if we can drag the boats along this gloomy shore, we may avoid that waterfall, and launch again below it. Let us try.’ So Tom lit the torch again, and away they went, dragging the light canoes behind them.

“It was rough work, but they succeeded at last.

“Once more the boats were launched, once more the same irrepressible drowsiness stole over them, and they slept for what seemed to them, when they awoke, a wondrously long time.

“Again they grounded, ate, and slept.

“And so they kept on and on and on, rushing down the mysterious subterranean river, but they came to no more cataracts.

“On and on, for days perhaps; for aught they knew for weeks.

“The regions in which they now found themselves were oppressively hot, but they only slept the sounder. Awakening one night, if one may so speak of a time that was all night, they were surprised in the extreme to find themselves in the midst of a strange glimmering light. It was a light by which they could see each other’s faces, and blue and ghastly they looked, but a light that cast no shadow, at which they marvelled much, till they found out that the river here had broadened out into a kind of lake, that the rocks all round them were covered with fungi or toadstools, all emitting a phosphorescent glimmer, and that the water itself contained thousands of strange fishes, and that these all gave light.

“There was but little current here, so paddles were got out, and the boats helped onwards, though, to tell the truth, both my grand-dad and Tom Turner were more frightened at the strange spectral light that now glared round them, than they had been of the darkness.

“The fishes, too, looked like things uncanny, and indeed they were wholly uncouth and quite dissimilar in shape and actions from anything they had ever seen in the world above.

“They had reached a part of the river when it began once more to narrow and the current to become stronger, while at the same time it began to get darker, and the spectral-like fishes fewer. But suddenly Tom clutched my grand-dad by the wrist with his disengaged hand, and with a visage distorted by terror he drew his attention to something that lay half curled up at the bottom of a deep slimy pool.

“However dark it had been they would have seen that awful creature, for its body from stem to stern was lit up with a phosphorescent gleam. It was in the shape of a gigantic snake, full twenty fathoms long, with two terrible alligator-like arms and claws in front. It had green glaring eyes, that never closed or winked. Its whole appearance was fearsome enough, my grand-dad said, to almost turn a beholder into stone.

“Whether it was asleep or awake they could not tell, but it seemed to glide astern as the boat swept over it, and gradually to lose shape and disappear. In a few minutes more they were plunged once more in Cimmerian darkness.

“For many days the boats plunged on and on over the subterranean river, till their very life became a burden and a weariness to them, that they would gladly have laid down for ever.

“But one time, on awaking from a deep sleep, they found that something very strange and unusual had occurred. They were still in darkness, but not altogether in silence; the water made a lapping sound on the rocky river bank, and the boat was no longer in motion.

“Moreover, it was less warm around them than usual.

“Tom lit a torch, and they landed. Yes, there was the water lapping up and receding again.

“‘Can you give us more light?’ said my grand-dad.

“‘We may burn the centre canoe,’ replied Tom, undoing it as he spoke, while his companion held the torch on high. There are no more provisions except enough for once and a few pounds of tallow.

“The canoe was broken up and set fire to. The flames leapt up, and lo! in front of them was the end of the mysterious river, a black and solid rock, beneath which no man or boat could penetrate.

“Tom looked at my grand-dad, and grand-dad looked at him.

“‘Lost! Imprisoned! The end has come!’

“These were the words they uttered.

“‘Let us eat our last meal, then,’ said Tom.

“‘Yes,’ said my grand-dad.

“When it was finished, they lay down with their feet towards the grateful blaze, and in a moment or two were once more sound asleep.

“When they awoke what a change! All was light and beauty. They were in a cave with a river rolling silently at their feet away out and joining the blue sea. Yonder it was, and the sky, too, and white fleecy clouds, and screaming sea-birds, and the glorious sun itself.

“They understood all now. They had come to the end of the river while the tide was up; it was now ebb, and they were free.

“They rushed out wild with delight, and wandered away along the sea-beach. It was weeks and weeks before they managed to attract the notice of a passing vessel, and their adventures on shore were many and strange, but I must not tell them now, for it is time to turn in.

“But I believe you know, and so did my grand-dad, that they had been actually in the home of the great sea-serpent, that he dwells in mysterious subterranean rivers like these, venturing out to sea but seldom, and hardly ever appearing on the surface.”

“Are you done?” said one sailor.

“I’m done.”

“Well,” said Rory O’Reilly, “it’s a quare story, a very quare story, deed and indeed. But I can’t be after swallowing the big sarpint.”

“I can believe the first half of the yarn,” quoth Captain Blunt.

“You can, can you?” quoth Rory. “Well, sure, it’s all roight after all; you belave thefirsthalf, and he belaves the second half himself; what more can you wish? Faith, it’s as roight as the rainbow.”

“Well, Rory,” said the skipper, laughing, “can’t you tell us a story yourself every word of which we can all believe?”

Rory scratched his head, with a comical look twinkling in his eyes and puckering his face.

“Deed and indeed,” he said, “if it be my turn, I won’t be after spoiling the fun.”

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