Ingenuity is rewarded, and "Old Crumply" distinguished.Ingenuity is rewarded, and "Old Crumply" distinguished.
“At last I was successful, and the seal was fast in the hole, and with all his struggling he could not get away. With the aid of ‘Old Crumply,’ I now quickly made an end of him. As soon as he was dead, we drew him out on the ice, and rejoiced over him. Such shouting never was before known, at least in that part of the world. If anybody could have heard and seen us, we should have surely been taken up for insane people, especially the Dean, whose joy knew no bounds.
“Having no sledge, we had to drag the dead seal over the ice and snow, for which purpose we made the line fast through his nose. It was no easy task to get him to the hut; and, when we did at last succeed, we found that the seal was partly frozen, so that we were obliged to draw it inside the hut, and then thaw it, before we could get the skin off, which made the hut very disagreeable. After the skin and blubber were removed, we cut off some of the flesh, and made for ourselves a good hot supper,—first cooking a stew in our soapstone pot, and then frying some steaks on a flat stone; and if anything was before wanting to make us perfectly happy over the capture of so great a prize, we had it now, when we discovered what excellent food it was, and what a quantity there was of it.
“When we had finished butchering the seal, we prepared the skin for making boots; and we put the blubber and flesh away in our storehouses for future use,—the flesh for food, and the blubber for our fire and lamp. Then we slept, and the very next day we set out to catch more seals, without, however, the same success, for we were unfortunate in every attempt; and it was, indeed, almost a week, I think, before wemade a second capture. Some time afterward we caught a third, and then a fourth, and by great good fortune on the very same day a fifth; and not long after that we caught another, which made the sixth.
“But it would have been well had we been content with five, without coveting a sixth, as this last had like to have been the ruin of us; for as we were going slowly back to the hut, dragging the seal after us, and all unsuspicious of harm, we were set upon by a great white beast, the like of which we had never seen before, but which we knew must be one of those savage animals called polar bears. He was not coming rapidly, but was rather crawling along cautiously, with mouth wide open, looking very fierce. As soon as we discovered him, we dropped the line with which we were dragging the seal, and ran as fast as our legs would carry us, never stopping until we had reached the hut and crawled into it,—not once having had the courage to look back, for at every step we expected that the bear would be atop of us.
“We had left ‘Old Crumply’ and ‘Dean’s Delight’ where we captured the seal, intending to go for them the next day; and, having no weapon of any kind, we were in the greatest terror, expecting every moment to hear the bear coming to tear the hut down, and drag us out, and eat us up.
“But, finding that we were not disturbed, we at length fell asleep. Upon awaking the next day, and finding that we had been suffered to go undisturbed thus long, we began to wonder whether we had not been needlessly alarmed, and finally we set to wondering whether we had really seen a bear after all, and at length we grew to feel quite ashamed of ourselves. So we put on a little bravado, like the boy that whistled in the dark to keep his courage up, and went out, cautiously approachingthe spot where we had left the seal. Arriving there, we had positive proof enough, if any were wanting, that we had certainly seen a bear. The bones of the seal were all strewn about over the snow, picked as clean as could be. Some foxes were gnawing at them, as we came up; but they all scampered off when they saw us coming.
“Hurrying on, we picked up ‘Old Crumply’ and ‘Dean’s Delight,’ and then hastened back to the hut, which we reached without any further adventure; but on the day following, upon going out to visit our fox-traps, we came across the bear’s tracks, from which it was evident to us that the wild beast was prowling round the island, where he had already obtained one good meal, and was in hopes, no doubt, of getting another; and, as we did not know how soon he might feel disposed to begin upon us, we ran back to the hut with all speed, imagining, as we went along, that every rock and snow-drift that we passed was a bear.
“We had now even greater fears than before that we should be attacked and eaten up by the wild beast. It did not once occur to us that the bear would be much more likely to prefer the contents of our storehouses to ourselves, if he came that way, but we thought only of our own safety; and this was perhaps not unnatural, for boys and men alike are everywhere liable to magnify their own importance, even in the eyes of a bear.
“We had not been in the hut more than a couple of hours, I should say, before we heard the tramp of our enemy. We knew it must be the footsteps of the bear, because it could be nothing else. Our fears were now even greater than ever.
“The bear appeared from the sound of his footsteps, crunching in the snow, to be making directly for us, sniffing the airas he came along, apparently enjoying in advance a supper that he felt quite sure of. He seemed to halt at every step or so, as if greatly relishing the prospect.
“At last he came very near, and we expected at every instant to see his head appear at the window. Resolved to sell our lives as dearly as possible, we grasped our weapons firmly, the Dean his ‘Delight’ and I ‘Old Crumply,’ to the end of which I had firmly lashed the jack-knife, after grinding it very sharp on a stone, and giving it a good point. As the knife-blade was quite long, I had strong hopes of giving the bear such a wound, when he appeared at the window, as might be the death of him, or, at any rate, frighten him so badly that he would be glad to run away, and not come back any more.
“Nearer and nearer came the bear, and greater grew our alarm. Our hearts beat violently in our breasts; our faces were pale as death; we held our breath, as if fearful of making the least noise to give the bear encouragement. At length our enemy gave a sudden start. It seemed to us as if he had now made a dash at the window, so we both rose to our feet, with our weapons ready to meet him; but, to our great joy and relief, the sound of his footsteps showed that the beast was retreating, rather than advancing, and was moving more rapidly. A moment afterward we heard the rattle of stones, and now, from fear for ourselves, we passed instantly to fear for our stores; for we knew that it was our stores, and not us, that he was after, and that he must be tearing down one of our principal storehouses. And now, what if he should tear them all down, and eat up all our food and fuel? It was a fearful thought.
“How often do we pass almost insensibly from the greatest terror to the greatest courage! Relieved now from all immediatepersonal apprehension, we felt at once inspired to protect our property, on the safety of which our lives depended. We ceased at once to feel like standing passively on the defensive, but immediately crawled out of the hut to do something,—exactly what, we did not know. Our thoughts had, indeed, hardly time to take shape in our minds, so quickly had the change come in the situation and in our feelings.
“The bear was plainly in sight as soon as we got outside, tearing down our storehouse; but he appeared not to be thinking of us at all. Without reflecting in the least what I was about, but filled only with alarm at the prospect of losing our food and fuel, I set up a loud shout, in which the Dean joined; and, to our great surprise, the huge beast, that had caused us so much terror, took fright himself, and without looking round, or stopping a moment, he made a great bound, and tore away over the rocks, plunging through the snowdrifts, and rolling down the hill into the valley, where we had dug the turf, in a most ridiculous manner.
“We passed now from a state of terror to a feeling of perfect safety, and in such an unexpected manner, too, that we laughed outright, and we thought that we had been very foolish to be so frightened, and looked upon our enemy as a great coward. So we concluded that an animal who was so easily scared as that would never attack us, and therefore, getting our weapons, we followed after him, hoping to drive him from the island. The jumps that he had made were quite immense, showing clearly the state of his mind.
“Following the tracks of the bear, we came very soon in full view of the beach where the carcass of the narwhal was lying, half buried in ice and snow. The tracks led in that direction, and finally pointed straight to the spot. He had inhis flight evidently smelled the old narwhal, and, remembering only that he was hungry, had stopped there; for presently we caught sight of him, tearing away at the narwhal with as much energy as he had before wasted upon our storehouse.
“We had come quite near to the bear before we saw him; and now our spirits underwent another sudden change, and our minds were once more filled with such feelings of respect for the bear, that we turned about immediately, and beat a hasty retreat; and, when once more under the shelter of the hut, prepared again to stand on the defensive.
“All we could now do was to watch the bear closely. So long as the old narwhal lasted, we felt that we were safe enough, even after he had apparently satisfied himself with a good meal, and had gone away, as seemed likely, to sleep. He would certainly, however, come back to the narwhal again when he got hungry; but now, worse than ever, when he did come back, there were two other bears with him, and all three of them were making a meal off the carcass of the dead narwhal. These last two were quite small ones,—the smaller not being larger than a big Newfoundland dog.
“With this discovery all our newly found courage took rapid flight, and we were overtaken with even greater alarm than before. That the narwhal would soon all be gone seemed plain enough, with three bears feeding upon it; and then, when this feeding was over, this first bear, knowing where our storehouse was, and forgetting his fright, and having two bears, and perhaps by that time even more, to help him, we were sure he would soon come back again. It seemed as if a great crisis had now come in our fortunes, and what to do we did not know, and what was to become of us we could not imagine. We were in great trouble.”
“I don’t wonder,” exclaimed William,—“the horrid brutes!”
“I should have been scared to death,” cried Fred; while little Alice thought it was too dreadful to think of; but, “The poor bears, how cold and hungry they must have been!” said she.
CHAPTER XV.Shows, Among Other Curious Matters, That Two Boys Are Better Than One, and That Pluck Is a Good Thing, Especially When Polar Bears Are Around.
The next record we have of the doings of the ancient mariner and his little friends reads thus:—
“You will tell us to-day what you did with the bears,—won’t you, Captain Hardy?” inquired William.
“Well,” replied the Captain, laughing in his free-and-easy way, like a jolly old sailor as he was, taking his long pipe out of his mouth that he might do it all the better, “I think it was pretty near being what the bears did with us, my hearties! yes, that would be quite as near the mark, I’m thinking.”
“No matter, then,” said William,—“no matter, Captain Hardy; we ain’t particular,—any way you like. I’ll put the question t’ other way, then,—what did the bears do with you?”
The Captain was in great good-humor to-day, and he kept on laughing till his pipe went out; and, while he laughed, he said, “Why, to be sure, they frightened us!”
“Tit for tat,” exclaimed William; “you frightened them,—that’s fair.”
“That’s so,” replied the Captain,—“that’s so, sure enough; only they wouldn’t stay frightened, while we did, you see.”
“What! did they find you out?”
“That they did, my lad, just as soon as they had finishedthe old narwhal. We were sound asleep when they came; and they soon woke us up with the great noise they made close to the hut.
“But stop a bit!” exclaimed the Captain, reflectively; “my story’s got ahead of me, or I’ve got ahead of the story,—one or the other; so I must go back a little,”—and he paused, not with his finger to his nose this time, as usual, but to his forehead, as if feeling in his brain for the end of the “yarn,” as he always called the story.
In a moment the old man appeared to have quite satisfied himself about the matter, for he started off as fast as he could go:—
“I didn’t tell you anything about the fort we built, nor the time we had provisioning it,—did I?” said he.
“No,” answered William, “nothing about a fort.”
“Then there’s the broken end of the yarn at last,” and the old man took his finger from his forehead and stopped feeling for it.
“Well, it was a good long time,” continued the Captain, “before the bears finished the old narwhal; but, finding how much they were occupied in that quarter, we went to our storehouses, and brought all our stores away, and stowed them close to the mouth of the hut, thinking that, if they were discovered, we should there be better able to protect them.
“First of all, however, we built up two solid snow-walls, about three feet apart, and as high as our heads, directly on a line with the entrance to our hut, so that when we went outside we walked right between them. Then, behind these walls, we piled all the birds, seal-flesh and eggs that we had for food, and all the blubber (now frozen quite hard) that we had forfuel,—the former on the right-hand side (going out), and the latter on the left. Having done this, we covered the whole over with snow several feet deep; and, as a still further protection against our enemies the bears, we built up a great wall all around in front of the hut where there were no high rocks. Through this wall we left only one small hole to crawl through when we went out; and, when we came inside, we carefully closed it up with some large blocks of snow. But we did not go outside much, being afraid; and at length, when one of the bears was discovered prowling about very near the hut, we drew within our fortification, closed the opening in the wall as tightly as possible, and were prepared for a siege.
“At first we did not sleep much, being all the time fearful of attack; but gaining courage as we found, day after day, that the bears did not come to molest us, we at length fell asleep both together; and it was while we were thus asleep that the bears discovered us. Before either of us awoke, they had actually scaled the wall of our snow-fort, and advanced to where our food and fuel were stowed, close to the mouth of the hut, and were tearing through the snow to get at it.
“We were, naturally enough, much alarmed, not so much on our own immediate account, as on account of our stores, for the bears would, we knew very well, not be likely to trouble us so long as there was anything else to eat; but then they might just as well eat us first, and the stores afterward, as to eat the stores first; for then we must surely starve and freeze, which would be quite as bad.
“Fully sensible of our unhappy condition, and the first feeling of alarm having passed over, we began seriously to speculate upon what we should do; for something had to be done, and that very quickly.
“I looked out through the window, and there were the bears all crowded together in the narrow passage; and one of them had already got among the frozen ducks, which were tumbling in the snow about his feet, and he had one in his mouth, crunching away at it in such a manner as to leave no doubt that he was either very hungry or was in a violent hurry; growling all the while,—‘Ung, ung, ung,’—with each crunch he gave, to keep away the other two bears. This bear was much the largest of the three; the smallest one was not, as I said before, larger than a Newfoundland dog,—not larger than Port or Starboard. Thus you see not only what a destructive, but what a selfish, beast he was.
“From alarm we now got to be angry, as we observed the liberties these bears were taking with our food, and the little ceremony they made of eating up, in this wholesale manner, what had cost us so much hard labor to get, and upon which our very lives now depended.
“I seized ‘Old Crumply’ in very desperation, and asked the Dean if he would follow me. ‘What!’ exclaimed he, ‘you don’t mean to attack them?’ ‘That’s just what I am going to do,’ said I; ‘and, if you can do anything with “The Delight,” now’s your chance.’ ‘I’ll stand by you,’ said the Dean, grasping his weapon; ‘better to be killed outright by the bears than to let them starve us to death, and then very likely kill us afterwards.’
“Desperate as was our condition, I could not help being amused by the Dean’s way of putting the matter,—‘first starved to death, and then killed’; and I think this little speech, turned in that happy way, did a great deal to stiffen up my courage.
“I crawled out through the doorway of the hut (which Ihave told you was not high enough for us to stand upright in), and, upon coming near the end of it, there was the bear within three feet of me. His head was turned away, and his nose was all buried up in the snow; for he had just swallowed a duck, and was getting a fresh one, so that he did not see me. My heart seemed to be in my mouth,—so close to the dreadful monster,—so ferocious and fearful did he appear as I looked up at him. Had I been alone, I think I should have retreated; but here was the Dean behind me, and I was ashamed to back out, having gone thus far. Summoning all my courage, therefore, I brought forward my spear, grasped it with both hands, and plunged it with all my force into the animal’s neck, just behind the lower jaw and below the ear.
“It was a fortunate stroke. I had evidently, by chance, cut some great blood-vessel, for the blood spouted from the wound in a regular stream. The bear dropped his duck very quickly, I can tell you. He was probably never so much astonished in all his life before. I had come upon him so stealthily, and he was so absorbed in what he was about, that he had never once suspected the presence of an enemy, but thought himself, no doubt, a very lucky bear to find such a dinner ready caught for him, and was quite as little concerned about who the owner might be as most people would be if they found a bag of gold.
“But I caused him to sing another tune than to be constantly going ‘Ung, ung, ung,’ to frighten off the little bears, for he roared with terror, so that you might have heard him half a mile; and, finding that he could not wheel around as quickly as he wanted to, he roared again, louder than before, which sounded so dreadful that I drew back into the hut quite instinctively, and thus lost the opportunity to give him another thrust, which I might very well have done, in the side. Whenhe had got wheeled round, he rolled over the other two bears, and the three together, all roaring in a dreadful way, rolled against the snow-wall of our fort, and broke it down; and now, as soon as they could scramble to their legs again, they hurried away through the snow down into the valley,—the smallest one trying hard to keep up, and whining piteously all the while, as if he were afraid something terrible was coming to catch him; and now, just as we had done before, when we had, with our shouts, frightened the bears away when they had first come to disturb us, we ran after them, little thinking of danger, in the excitement of the moment.
“We found that the bear I had wounded held straight down the valley, as was easily told by the red streak he left behind him on the snow. The other two turned to the right, and ran over in the direction of the old narwhal.
“Following the red streak, we came soon down to the beach; and then climbing over the rough ice which the tide had piled up, we were quickly upon the frozen sea, hurrying on as fast as we could go. Indeed, no feeling of fear ever crossed our minds; for the great quantity of blood that the bear left behind him somehow or other went to convince us, without much reflection, that the bear must be dead, and that we should presently come upon him.
“While hurrying on at this rate, our spirits received as sudden a check as they had on a previous occasion; for we did at length come upon the bear, sure enough, and, forgetting all our courage immediately, we wheeled about in great alarm, and ran back towards the hut as fast as we could go.
“Finding, however, that we were not pursued, we turned about again; and, proceeding more cautiously this time, we came, in a little while, in sight of the bear again, very nearwhere he was before; but now he was clearly by no means a formidable enemy; for he was going along very slowly, and making a crooked track, as if he was drunk. Directly he fell over; and, in a little while afterwards, we went up to him, and found him dead,—having bled to death from the wound I had given him.
“You may easily imagine how rejoiced we were; for now we had an enormous supply of food, and a fine bear-skin besides; so I lost no time in unlashing the knife-blade from the end of ‘Old Crumply,’ and with this we began to butcher him. It was a very cold and tedious operation; but we got through with it at last, and then, burying all of the flesh in the snow except a small piece that we wanted for supper, we returned to the hut, dragging the skin after us, the Dean whistling, all the way, ‘Bonaparte crossing the Alps,’ which he had picked up, as he told me, from a Frenchman in Havana.
“While we were coming up the valley towards the hut, in this lively state of mind, the Dean stopped suddenly, and said: ‘Suppose, Hardy, the other two bears have taken a notion to come back’; and he was right; for we came presently in sight of one of them, very near the hut, and making directly for it. As soon as he saw us, however, he ran away. So we took a good laugh at his expense, and, thinking the other one must be near him, though not in sight, we proceeded on our way. Fortunately, however, before seeing the bear, we halted long enough to secure the knife-blade again on the end of ‘Old Crumply’; and it was well that we did this, for, when we arrived at the broken wall where the bears had made their way out, much to our surprise, we came right upon the other bear, close up to the mouth of the hut, busy swallowing a duck. This was the smallest of the three bears, and he couldnot have been more than a year or so old. No sooner did he hear us than he, like the other one, became alarmed; but, seeing us in the road by which he had entered, he did not try to escape in that way, nor did he appear to have the least idea that he had only to charge upon us to see how quickly he would clear the passage; for, instead of doing this, he instantly rushed forward, and plunged into our hut, no doubt thinking that would lead to a place of safety.
“I do not exactly know by what motive I was impelled, but I suppose the same that governed me on several other occasions; that is, a general one belonging to almost all human beings, and, indeed, to most animals, that is, to chase whatever runs away, and to run away from whatever chases.
“At any rate, I rushed up to the doorway of the hut, I believe without any idea at all in my head, and without giving much thought about it, and had like to have got into a great scrape; for the bear, having found that the hut gave him no chance of escape, had turned about, and was coming out again. I was wholly unprepared for him, so hasty had I been. I could not run, and therefore, quite mechanically, I hit him in the face with the sharp point of ‘Old Crumply,’ which sent him back into the hut again, and made him roar in an awful manner, as if he were half killed. I knew I must have hit him on some tender spot,—the eye, it proved to be afterwards, so he was half blind as well as half dead.
“It was very unfortunate that I had not let him go, or killed him outright; for we could now hear him tearing everything to pieces in our hut, trying to find a place of escape. The wall between our sleeping-place and our closet was first knocked over, as he scrambled about; and there was no doubt that our pots and lamps were all broken to pieces. It waslike a great roaring bull in a china shop, and we wished many times that he was only out and off; and, if he had only known, our minds upon the subject, a compromise would have been speedily made, and the beast might have gone scot-free on condition of his doing no further mischief.
“The bear was not long in discovering the window. Now, the window being very small, it was evident that, if he attempted it, he would do us a great damage, for he could only pass through by knocking down some part of the wall. No sooner, therefore, had his head appeared in that quarter, than the Dean charged him most gallantly with the ‘Delight,’ and gave him such a tremendous blow on the nose that he was glad enough to draw his head in again, which he did with a great cry. Then he became quiet for a while, as if meditating what course it was best for him now to pursue.
“Availing myself of this little pause, I exchanged weapons with the Dean, and, fixing the harpoon-head on the end of the ‘Delight,’ I tied the other end of the line which was fast to it around a large stone that lay across the doorway of the hut. This I did because I thought there might be a possible chance of catching the bear; and that, if we could only get him to run out, I might harpoon him as he passed, and the stone would hold him until we could find some way of despatching him.
“No sooner had these preparations been made than the bear was again in motion; and now he gave a roar that seemed loud enough to have rattled the whole hut down about his ears. This time he had clearly tried the chimney, and had not only scattered the burning moss and fat all about the hut, but had set himself on fire into the bargain; for a great volume of smoke came out through the window, which smelled of burning hair.
“The screams of the bear were now pitiful to hear, and in very desperation he once more tried the window, when the Dean quickly gave him a crack with ‘Old Crumply,’ which sent him back again.
“Grown now utterly reckless, he bolted right through the door. I was ready for him, standing on the top of the passageway and on the stone to which the harpoon line was made fast. As the bear came under me, I let drive with the harpoon, and stuck him in the back. And then away he dashed like a fiery demon, plunging through the snow, smoking and blazing all over. He had evidently rolled all about in our burning fat and moss, as bits of burning moss were sticking to him, setting his hair all on fire, and no doubt scorching his skin to a degree that must have made a dive into the snow very comfortable indeed.
“As soon as he had run out all the line, the stone under my feet, instead of holding fast, gave way, pitching me after the bear, and turning me quite upside down. I landed head-foremost in a snow-bank. The burning bear went rushing and roaring away, dragging the big stone after him; but not far, however, for he fell over and died directly,—no doubt partly from fright, but chiefly, perhaps, from his wounds and his severe burns.
“Having got rid of the bear, we gave him no further thought for the present, but rushed into the hut to see what mischief he had done there. The smoke was at first so thick that we were almost smothered by it. Our cloth coats and part of our fur bedding were all mixed up with the burning moss upon the floor, and were being rapidly destroyed. As we had feared, the pots and lamps were all broken; and, in short, the inside of the hut was in a most sorry state.
“It was a long time before we fully repaired all the damage the bear had done, and we suffered much inconvenience and discomfort before we replaced our pots, cups, and lamps. When we had, however, at last done all this, we were not sorry that the bears had come to disturb us, but on the other hand were rather rejoiced; for we were now in all respects just as comfortable as ever, and had besides a great warm bear-skin to sleep on, and one more variety of food added to our list, and that, too, in such large quantity that there was no fear of our coming to want very soon.”
Seeing that the ancient mariner showed signs of breaking off at this stage of the story, Fred spoke up, and wanted to know more about the bear that had set fire to himself.
“O, it don’t much matter about him,” replied the Captain. “When we had looked after the hut, and had got the fire put out, and found leisure then to go after the bear, he was dead enough, as I said before; but much of the hair was singed off him as nicely almost, in some places, as if he had been shaved, so that the skin was of little use to us, and we only used the flesh, which we soon grew very fond of; for this bear, as I have said before, was a young one, and his flesh was tender.”
“What became of the other bear?” asked William, curious to reach the end of the bear story.
“We never saw anything more of him, nor heard anything more of him either,” answered the Captain; “and indeed we were never troubled any more with bears at all in that way, but thereafter lived in peace.
“That is to say, we lived in peace so far as the bears were concerned; but the cold and the darkness were now at theirgreatest, and the winds blew sometimes with such violence that we were often greatly terrified. Indeed, the storms at one time were so constant and so fearful that we could scarcely stir out of doors. Up to this period the weather had been mostly calm and very favorable to our course of life; but, as the winter began to turn towards the spring, all this was changed.
“Yet we could not but feel thankful for the great privilege of good weather with which Providence had so far blessed us. Had the storms raged in the autumn and early winter as they did now, we should have been quite unable to provide for our wants, and we must have starved. But now our needs were abundantly supplied, and we had little occasion for going abroad unless we wanted to and the weather was favorable. Once only did we experience any serious danger from the weather; and this, like most evils that befall all human beings, was due to our own imprudence.
“There being a bright moon, and the air being nearly calm and not unusually cold, we were tempted to take a long walk; and, attracted by one object after another that was upon the frozen sea over which we were walking,—here an iceberg of peculiar formation or remarkable size, there a snow-drift of singular form,—we found ourselves at last several miles away from our hut.
“When we turned about at length to retrace our steps, we discovered that the northern sky, which we now faced (for we had walked out in a southerly direction), showed stormy symptoms, and very quickly afterward a severe gale of wind broke over the island and the desolate sea, and we found ourselves overwhelmed with drifting snow.
“The sky was for the most part cloudless, and no snow fellfrom the heavens, but the light snow that lay upon the ice was picked up, as it were, by the wind, and whirled through the air in a manner as beautiful as it was terrible; for the drift coming in streams, with the rushing wind, lashed our faces, torturing us in a terrible manner, chilling us through and through, and almost overpowering us. Then an aurora borealis burst out before us, as if the heavens were on fire,—and from the top of our little island the snow came whirling above our heads in constant streams, that went circling about in a most fantastic way.
“You cannot imagine how grand this storm scene was,—the wind howling around us, the snowdrifts whirling about and spinning over the icy plain, the moon gleaming brightly upon the snow and the icebergs and the island, and every now and then a great blaze of many colors that were reflected on everything about us, would start up from the auroral arch, until the light became almost as great for a few moments as if it were broad day. It was very fearful, and you may be sure that we hastened on to the hut as fast as we could, though we were not in such a great hurry as to be wholly insensible to the magnificence of the scene.
“After we had reached the hut, the Dean repeated some verses which he had picked up somewhere; and when I recite them for you, you will see how appropriate they were to what I have been describing, and how strange seemed to us our situation when we found ourselves in the very place where the poet had imagined the Northwest wind to have a beginning.
“The Nor’west wind is a spirit brave,And he cometh from afar;He is cradled far down in the depths that yawnBeneath the polar star.“Where no mortal foot hath been, he makethHis track o’er the snowy plain;And listens the tread of phantoms dread,With banner and spear and flame.“Where the billows are booming on frozen shore,O there right kingly is he!His pinnacled throne the iceberg lone,His empire the boundless sea.“He rideth aloft on the mountain-tops,—Rare sport doth he meet with there;He spinneth the snow in lightning flow,Till it gleams like a witch’s hair.”“O the Nor’west wind is a spirit brave,A conquering hero is he;And his fierce battle song, as he marcheth along,Is the shout of victory.”
“The Nor’west wind is a spirit brave,And he cometh from afar;He is cradled far down in the depths that yawnBeneath the polar star.
“O, how beautiful and appropriate!” exclaimed the children.
“But,” said William, “how did you get to the island?”
“Without any other accident,” replied the Captain, “than with two frozen noses, which were sore for a long time afterwards. But, after it was all over, we would not have missed the sight for anything, it was so grand; yet, had we been caught out on the sea a little farther from the hut, we should never have got back, but both of us must have perished.
“Thus you see how Providence continued to watch over the two poor castaways.”
CHAPTER XVI.Covers a Long Period of Time, and shows, among other Things, how a Race may be lost at Both Ends.
“I must now tell you,” continued the Captain, “that, while all these adventures were happening, the winter was passing steadily away; and, from what I have before told you about the Arctic seasons, you will know that when the winter came finally to an end the darkness came to an end too,—that is, to be more particular, first there was a little flush of light at noon, to see which made us very glad, you may be sure; after this, from day to day, the light grew brighter and brighter, until it was almost broad daylight, as it is here just before the sun has risen in the morning; then the sun came up a few days afterward only a little way above the horizon (of course right in the south); and then, next day, it was a little higher, and the next day a little higher still; and then, by and by, it was (as it had been in the summer-time before) circling round and round us, shining all the while; and now our hut was at midnight in the shadow of the cliff; at noon the sun was blazing down upon us, softening the snow, and making our hearts, O, how happy and thankful!—more so than I can tell you.
“I thought that never in all my life had I seen anything sosplendid as the sun’s bright face when he appeared for the first time after this long dark winter. For you must know we were about one hundred and twenty days without once setting eyes upon the sun at all; and now, when he did rise, after this long interval, what could we do but take off our caps and whirl them round and round our heads, in very joy and gladness? and this I can assure you we did with many a good round cheer.
“The summer now came on steadily, and the temperature became warmer every day. The spring glided into summer, and early in the month of June the snow began to melt in good earnest, and by July great streams were dashing and roaring over the cliffs, and through the gorges, to the sea. Then the sea soon began to show the influence of the summer heat. The ice grew rotten, and, from being white, it got to be quite dark; and we could no longer go out upon it with any safety, except in one particular direction, towards the east, where it was much thicker than in any other place. Then strong winds came, and the rotten ice was broken up, and after that it went drifting here and there to right and left, up and down upon the sea, whichever way the winds were blowing.
“And now once more we kept a sharp lookout for ships, hoping all the time that ‘this day will be the day of our deliverance.’ But we lived on as we had done before,—every day adding one more disappointment to the list,—for no ship came. Thus watching, waiting, hoping on, we grew restless with anxiety, and were more unhappy than we had ever been in the gloomy winter that had passed away.
“But the summer brought some pleasure to us. As soon as the snow had gone, the grass grew green upon the hillside, and the tiny little plants put out their leaves, and then the tiny littleflowers were blooming brightly, and turning up their pleasant faces to the ever-smiling sun.
“And then the birds came back,—the eider-ducks, and the little auks, that I have told you of, and great flocks of geese and gulls, all looking out for places in which to make their nests; and they fairly kept the air alive with the flutter of their wings, and their ‘quack, quack, quack,’ and their gladsome screams, as they hurried to and fro.
“And then bright yellow butterflies and little bees came fluttering and buzzing about the little flowers, and all was life and happiness and brightness in the air about us; but there was no one there to look at us and see how heavy were our hearts at times,—no one but God.
“But not on our desert island alone was nature full of life and gayety. The seals, as if glad that summer had once more returned, crawled out upon the ice, and lay there on it, where it floated in the water, basking in the sun. There were hundreds and hundreds of them to be seen almost every day; and, besides the seals, the walruses, with their great long hideous-looking tusks and ugly and ungraceful bodies, came up too; and the narwhals, also, with their long ivory horns, and the white whales, were to be seen at almost any time, ‘spouting’ round about us in the sea. And besides all this life in the sea, and in the air, and on the land, we now and then saw a great white bear prowling about upon the floating ice-fields, seeking seals to feed upon; and, when tired of one ice-field, he would jump into the water, and swim away and crawl up on another.
“Thus you observe that, if we were upon a desert island in the Arctic Sea, it was not so barren as one would think who had never seen anything of such a place.
“It is not worth while for me to tell you how we lived through this second summer. Of course we had a much easier time of it than we had had the summer previous, for there was no hut to build, and we had now leisure to make ourselves more comfortable; and indeed we used our time so well that we accumulated, in good season, everything we needed in the way of food and fuel,—catching the birds and other animals as before, which we stowed away in so many different places that we felt quite sure the bears would not be likely to discover all of them; and then we made fresh suits of fine fur clothes, and fresh fur bedding, and carved new lamps and pots and cups out of soapstone, that we might be safe against all accidents.
“While we were thus working, and watching all the time for ships, without the hoped-for ship ever coming, the summer passed away, the birds flew off once more with the setting sun, the sea froze up all around the island, and we were left again alone,—all, all alone, in the cold and snow and darkness of another winter.
“O how heavy were our hearts now! Bright had been our hopes of rescue; great was our disappointment, and unhappy the prospect before us. For a time we were very despondent; but the darkest hour, you know, is just before the break of day, and we were experiencing now only one more of our many periods of gloom with daybreak following; for when the winter fairly sealed up the sea around us, and covered everything with snow, we felt the same spirit of resignation in our lives that had before carried us through so many trials and difficulties. And in this we were a great support to each other. If our hearts were more than commonly heavy at any time, we tried all we could to disguise it from each other, and tried alwaysto be as cheerful as possible. If we had each always carried a gloomy face about with him, I am sure both of us must have died. Thus you see how important is the spirit of cheerfulness; and, to tell the truth, I haven’t much opinion of long-faced people anyway, whether they live on rocky islands or in big houses or in little huts,—whether they are old or young, rich or poor, civilized or savage, Christian or pagan. That’s my opinion.
“Well, this winter passed over just as the other had done;—the same routine of work and hunting, the same cold and darkness, the same constant bearing up against our unhappy fortunes. It did not in any particular differ from the other in a manner worthy of mention, except that no bears came this time to disturb us. But there was the same aurora borealis, the same bright starlight and brighter moonlight, the same fierce snows and howling gales. We caught foxes and seals as we had done before, and wanted not for food or fuel. Our health was still always good.
“So you see there is no occasion for our halting over this period. I can tell you nothing new about it. The winter came to an end, as everything must, in time; the sun came back; the summer followed the winter; and this, our third summer on the Rock of Good Hope, passed away like the others, with its bright sunshine, and its pretty butterflies and flowers, and myriads of birds, but still no ship, and still no rescue.”
After the Captain had thus spoken, he paused as if to consider whether he had omitted anything, in connection with the long period they had passed on the island, that wouldmake it worth his while to dwell longer upon any portion of his story up to this time. Satisfied always of the deep interest and close attention of his young auditors, he thought only of selecting such points of the narrative as seemed to him likely to convey most pleasure and instruction to the little people, who, ever eager to listen, were yet always curious to have something cleared up which the Captain had hastily passed over, thinking little of it. But still they had the good sense to see (to say nothing of the requirements of politeness) that they were not likely to be much benefited by interrupting the Captain; for if they asked questions in the midst of his story he would, in all probability, be put out, and lose the even thread of his narration. But a question, or perhaps a volley of them, was always sure to come if the Captain made a pause, or as he, in mariner phrase, expressed it, lay “hove to,” for a little while.
So it was now. No sooner had the Captain stopped his speech, and got into the reflective mood, than William’s tongue was loosened.
“O Captain Hardy!” said he, “don’t go on until you have told us something more about those curious little flowers you have been speaking of. It is so odd to think of flowers growing in such a desert place!”
“O, do!” exclaimed little Alice, “O, do, do, Captain Hardy! they must be such pretty little things! But I don’t see how they ever get any chance to grow, when it is so cold and dreary. How do they?”
“Pretty they are indeed, my dear,” replied the kind-hearted Captain, pleased to have the question asked, as was evident, “and very wonderful. How they managed to grow is more than I can tell, and is just as astonishing to me as to yourselves.The snow, however, in the spring went pretty quickly; and as soon as the earth was free in any place, then we saw the tiniest flowers you ever saw coming up, seemingly right out of the frozen earth, and almost underneath the very snow,—at least within a few inches of it. The Dean and I one day came across one of these little flowers, looking just like a buttercup, only the whole plant was—well, the littlest thing you ever did see. Why, it was so little that little Alice’s little thimble, with which she is learning to sew so prettily, would have been quite large enough for a flower-pot to put the whole of it in! and it would have grown there, too,—and glad enough, no doubt. There was a great snow-bank hanging right over it, and there was ice all around it. But still it looked spunky, and happy, and well contented, and seemed quite able to take care of itself.
“As we walked on towards the hut, I noticed that the Dean grew very thoughtful.
“‘What’s the matter, Dean?’ said I; ‘what are you thinking about?’
“‘About that little flower,’ replied the Dean.
“At this I laughed, asking the Dean what there was in the little flower to think about.
“‘A great deal,’ said he.
“I laughed again, and asked him what it was.
“‘Why,’ said he, very soberly, ‘it is a lesson to us not to get the blues any more. If that poor flower can live and fight its way against such odds, I think we ought to!’
“Now there was more in that observation of the thoughtful little Dean than you would think for; and we talked a great deal about the little flower,—indeed, it came up between us very often; we went back many times to it, and watched it closely.Once there came a snow-storm and buried it up; but next day the snow was all melted, and the leaves came out as green, and the flower as yellow, and the whole plant as plucky, as ever. I should say the flower was about as large round as a very small pea, and it was just as yellow as gold; and the whole wee thing was not taller than a common-sized pin.
“We talked so much about this little flower that we got to making rhymes about it; and, every time we made a new rhyme, we were much delighted, you may be sure. How we wished we had some way to write down what we thought! It would have been much easier, and a great satisfaction. But, for all that, we finally got quite a song of it, which I have not forgotten, even to this time. To be sure we did not know much about making verses, and nothing at all about what they call ‘feet’ in poetry; yet we got some pretty good rhymes for all, though they might be called a little worm-fency, or like as if they hadn’t got their sea-legs on, you know. Now, would you like to hear this little song that the Dean and I made about the little Arctic flower?”
“O yes, yes, dear Captain Hardy!—yes, yes, indeed!” said the children, in such a loud and universal chorus that nobody could have told who “deared” the Captain, or who said “O,” or who, “indeed”; but you may be sure they all said “yes!” and so the Captain, being thus encouraged, cleared his throat, and said he would repeat it.
“My impression is,” he continued, “that it isn’t exactly a song; in fact, I don’t know what it is. I should hardly venture on calling it a ‘poem,’ you see; but still, for all that, we must give it a name, you know, and ‘song,’ ‘poem,’ or what not, its right title anyhow is:—
O tiny, tiny Arctic flowerWhere have you kept yourself so long?Deep buried in a snowy bower?And did the winter treat you wrong?You little, smiling, gladsome thing!You pretty, pretty flower of spring!You little, little, wee, wee thing!So bright, so cheery in the sun,So everything that every oneWould wish a flower to bring.You tiny, tiny little thing!I’m so afraid the frosts will nipYour little feet, you tenderling,You crazy, crazy little thing!What e’er possessed you to come upAnd nestle there beside the snow,As if you’d warm it with a glowOf golden light from your bright face,On which there is no single traceOf anything like sorrow?Cheery, cheery, always cheery,Always cheery, never weary,E’en with frozen sod close bound,E’en with snow all piled around,E’en with the frosts upon the ground,Your little tender roots to chill!O, what a royal little willYou have, you little gladsome thing,You pretty, pretty flower of spring,You little, little weesome mite,You tiny, tiny little sprite!E’en now the snows are at your feet,And piled a hundred times your height,Close, close beside your face so sweet!And yet you smile, you pretty thing,You pretty, pretty flower of spring,
“There, now you have it!” exclaimed the Captain, drawing a very long breath, and looking around, no doubt to see the impression he had produced,—“there you have it, my dears!”
The children all expressed themselves highly delighted with this effort of the Captain’s in the poetical way, and they all declared if that wasn’t a song they “would like to see one.”
Thus greatly flattered by the pleasure the children received from his recitation of what had become old to him, and deeply rooted in his memory, the Captain resumed once more the thread of his narrative, or, rather, “once more picked up the broken yarn, and spun away,” as he would have more graphically expressed it.
“Well, well,” continued the Captain, “you see our little flower died after a while, and all the other little flowers died; and this brought us to the end of our third summer on the island and into the third winter.
“This winter passed away as the previous ones had done, and we felt still greater resignation.
“‘Here we are forever,’ said the Dean, ‘and that we must make up our minds to. It is God’s will, and we must bow before it and be reconciled.’
“‘I fear, Dean, that is so,’ I answered, solemnly.
“This was in the month of February, and the sunlight was coming back, and, to see if we could not catch a glimpse of the god of day, we had gone out together, wading through the snow.
“The Dean felt it when he said ‘we must be reconciled’; but he had hardly spoken when our attention was quickly called away from such reflections (and from the sun too) by seeing something dark upon the frozen sea, not far away from us. It was moving.
“We were not long in doubt as to what it was, for we had seen too many polar bears to be cheated this time,—a bear, without any doubt at all.
“He was running very fast, and was making directly towards the island. He soon ran behind a large iceberg, and for a little while was out of sight; but he appeared again soon afterwards, and held on in the same course. Then we lost him once more among rough ice, and then again he came in view. He appeared so dark at first, that less-experienced persons might have been uncertain about what it was; for although the polar bear is usually called the white bear, yet in truth he has a yellowish hue, and is quite dark, at least in comparison with the pure white snow.
“‘It’s another bear, I do believe!’ exclaimed the Dean, and at once we made for the hut. But the bear was running much faster than we were, and was moreover coming in right towardsthe place for which we were bound. So we grew much alarmed, and quickened our speed, not however without difficulty; for the snow was, in places, very deep.
“By and by the bear, which proved to be a very large one, caught sight of us; and, as you know already that the polar bear is rather a cowardly beast than otherwise, you will not be much surprised to learn that, when he saw us, he altered his course, and turned off from the island as fast as he could go. Seeing him do this (as you may be sure to our great delight), we halted to watch him; and now we perceived, for the first time, that the animal was pursued. By what we could not imagine, but, clearly enough, by something; for in the distance, and from the quarter whence the bear had come, there was plainly to be seen, winding among the bergs and rough masses of ice, something dark following on the very track which the bear had taken, sometimes lost to sight and sometimes in full view, and growing larger every moment, just as the bear had done.
“Nearer and nearer came this object, and our wonder increased. Presently we heard a cry.
“‘Hark!’ said the Dean.
“The cry was repeated.
“‘A dog!’ exclaimed the Dean.
“‘A dog!’ said I, in answer, for I heard it distinctly.
“‘Hark!’ said the Dean again, for there was another sound.
“‘A man,’ said I.
“‘A man!’ repeated the Dean, excitedly.
“And a man it was.
“Dogs and men! what could they be doing there? was the question that ran through both our minds at once.
“But dogs and a man (not men) there were, and whatever they might be doing there, or whence they might have come, it was certain that dogs and a man made the dark spot which we saw upon the white sea; and it was, moreover, clear that they were pursuing the bear which had passed us and was now pretty far away.
“Nearer and nearer came the dogs and man, and the sounds became more and more distinct; the dogs were upon the bear’s tracks, the man was upon a sledge to which the dogs were fastened. At length they came so near that the dogs could be easily counted. They were seven, and all of different colors, and were fastened with long lines to the sledge, so that they were a great way in front of it, and they were running all abreast. They were straining and pressing into their collars, all the while crying impatiently, as they bounded over the snow at a rapid gallop. The man was encouraging them along all he could with a long whip, which he threw out with a lively snap, exclaiming, ‘Ka-ka! ka-ka!’ over and over again; and then, ‘Nen-ook, nen-ook, nen-ook!’—many times repeated; for he was now so near that we could distinguish every word he said.
“It was a wild chase, and the Dean and I became much excited over it, running all the time to get nearer to the passing sledge and man and dogs.
“Very soon we should have met, but suddenly the bear came in full view of the dogs, evidently for the first time. Up to this moment the dogs had only been following the track.
“The dogs, now leaving the track, gave a wild, concerted howl, and dashed off after the bear in a straight line. Man, sledge, dogs, and all passed us quickly by,—the man shouting more excitedly than ever to his dogs, sometimes calling them by name, as it seemed to us, and sometimes crying ‘Nen-ook,nen-ook!’ and sometimes, ‘Ka-ka! ka-ka!’ and so away they went, rushing like the wind,—the whole scene more strange than strangest dream,—the dogs and man like spectral things, so quickly had they come and so unexpectedly; or, at the least, the dogs seemed like howling wolves, and the man a wild man of the frozen ocean, clothed in wild beasts’ skins.