Chapter Thirteen.Occupants of the Deep.Saddened faces met the gaze of the occupants of the stern sheets, as the men steadily tugged away at their oars hour after hour, with the heavy beluga hanging from its rope behind. Then all at once, when the mist was most dense, the silence perfect, and a feeling coming over all that it would be impossible to go on rowing much longer, every one loosed his oar and joined in a loud cheer; for from quite close at hand—so near, in fact, that the mist swayed with the concussion—there was the dull, heavy roar of a cannon.“TheHvalross!” cried Steve.“Yes, our signal-gun,” replied the captain.A faint cheer like the distant echo of that from the boat was now heard, the men bent to their oars with renewed vigour, and ten minutes later, guided by shout after shout, the boat suddenly glided under the counter of the vessel.“Why, we thought we had lost you!” cried the doctor, leaning over from the gangway.“Then you got back?”“Yes, hours ago. The ship came right upon us, nearly running us down. But what a fog!”“Yes,” said Captain Marsham drily, “what a fog! You seem to have been more fortunate than we were. Save your fish?”“Oh yes; they’ve got it towing alongside. And you, did you cut yours adrift?”“No; it is alongside, too.”All were too tired to make an attack upon the whales that day, and after a good meal the watch was set, and those at liberty sought relief from their weariness in sleep, leaving the ship lying to and with the fires going sufficiently to enable the engineer to get up steam at a very short notice and take the ship out of danger if any came near.Steve awoke after many hours’ sleep to find that a light breeze had swept away the mist, and that they were lying about ten miles away from the ice, toward which they had partly drifted, partly steamed, during the heavy mist. It was another example of the difficulties of navigation in the north, another of the risks to which sailors are exposed. But now that the trouble had passed it was almost forgotten, the men being eagerly at work cutting up the two whales and transferring their thick blubber to the caldron, from which a clear, sweet oil was soon after being drawn off and emptied into one of the tanks that henceforth would be reserved for this particular kind of oil.The trouble of the past day was forgotten, and the men were ready to make light of it all, save the Norwegian sailors, who shook their heads when the others laughed and bantered them about getting lost; they knew the reality of the danger better, and said nothing either to make much or light of it.The rendering down of the bear’s fat and the boiling of the whale blubber into oil rather disgusted Steve; but he contented himself with making a face when the doctor talked about it.“Must take the rough with the smooth,” he said. “The bear-hunt was very exciting and the whale-fishing grand. I think I shall get Johannes to let me try harpooning.”“You mean,” said the doctor, “that you must take the smooth with the rough.”“Why? I don’t understand you,” replied the boy.“The smooth oil with the rough work of capturing.”“Oh, I see!” cried Steve.“And you mean to try harpooning?”“Why not, sir? I tried shooting.”“Wait till you have some more muscle on your arm, Steve,” said the doctor, laughing; and then, after a look round at the sunlit sea, on which they were gliding easily along with plenty of canvas spread, as there was a favourable wind, he went below.“Wait till I’ve got more muscle,” muttered Steve. “I’ve got as much as most fellows of my age. Yes, as much as you have, Mr Watty Links; and I’ll show you that I have one of these days,” he added, as he caught sight of the boy watching him with a supercilious smile on his face. “No, I won’t,” thought Steve, as the boy disappeared. “Nice blackguard I should look fighting with a fellow like that. Why, he might lick me,” he added after a few moments’ thought. “I’m not afraid of him, but he’s bigger and stronger than I am, and he might. I should never forgive myself,” he said half aloud. “Yes, I should,” he muttered, smiling at his fresh idea, “when I had had another try and licked him. Bother! I didn’t come to sea to fight. Here, Jakobsen, where’s Johannes?”The man smiled and pointed upward.“What do you mean? Oh, I see; in the crow’s-nest.”“Yes, with the captain’s spy-glass.” Steve had not been aloft since the day when the tub was fixed to the main-mast, and without pausing to think of anything that was said upon that occasion he climbed on to the bulwarks, seized hold of the shrouds, and began to mount slowly and steadily, enjoying the soft breeze blowing by him, and noticing how different the sails looked aloft from what they did from the deck. The main-mast was passed, and he rested in the top for a few minutes to have a look round at the glittering sea, so brilliant now in the clear atmosphere. Then he had a look upward, and began to mount again quietly, and in an easy, effortless way, as if he enjoyed the task. He paused again, holding on by the shrouds as he looked up once more, to see that the Norseman was intent upon something in the distance, resting the large telescope he had taken up on the ring or rail of iron raised above the top of the cask, just at a convenient height for the purpose, and in perfect ignorance of the presence of visitors. Steve smiled as he climbed higher, and paused once more as he reached the stout cross-bars which they had placed that day when the crow’s-nest was built.“Ahoy there, Johannes!” he cried.The man gave a violent start, and turned to look over the edge of the cask.“Mr Young!” he cried, “you there?”“Look’s like it. I’ve come to see you. Got any room in your nest?”The Norseman laughed.“Well, I daresay you could creep in. But did the captain give you leave to come aloft?”“No; I only just made up my mind to come. Open the door; I’m coming.”“Take care, my lad!” cried the Norseman warningly. “There’s no one to catch you if you slip.”“I won’t slip this time,” said Steve merrily; and climbing from the shrouds on to the wooden ladder, he went up from bar to bar till his head and shoulders passed into the cask, and the next minute the hinged bottom fell to again, and he had just room to stand in company with the sailor.“I say, rather a tight fit,” said Steve, laughing. “Wouldn’t do for two people to quarrel packed together in a barrel like this.”“But why have you come up, sir? Did the mate send any message?”“No, I tell you,” cried Steve. “I only saw that you were up here, and thought I should like to come up for a chat.”“Very good of you, sir,” said the man quietly. “Got over the scare of the fog?”“Oh yes, now. It’s of no use to worry about things when they’re over. It was dangerous, though, wasn’t it?”“Very, sir,” said the Norseman gravely. “Three poor fellows from our town rowed away from their ship with three Swedish men. They were after walrus. One of those fogs came on, and they were never seen again.”“No? What became of them?”Johannes shook his head.“The great sea is wide, sir,” he replied. “The fog confused them, and they must have rowed in the wrong direction, been caught in one of the strong currents, and then tried to reach home as they could not find their ship. There are terrible losses out here in some summers.”“Was it near here that they were lost?” said Steve, after a few minutes’ silence, during which he pictured the sufferings of the despairing boat’s crew.“No, sir, more to the east, by Novaya-Zemlya.”“How horrible!” said Steve with a shudder. “Tell me about something else.”“Yes, sir; I don’t want to what the English sailors call spin yarns; that seemed to come naturally after our escape.”“Yes, of course; but tell me this, Johannes. Next time we go off after one of those shoals of white whales—”“What, sir! you would go again?” said the great amiable-looking fellow, smiling.“Of course.”“And run risks?”“Oh, I hope there would not be any risk; but you wouldn’t have me play the coward always because we were in danger once?”“No, no, sir, of course not,” said the Norseman, patting the boy on the shoulder. “Well, what if we go after the white whale again? I was trying to make out a school with the glass when you spoke and made me jump. Their oil is so fine and valuable.”“Yes, I know,” said Steve impatiently; “but if we do go after a school again, I want you to let me try and harpoon one.”There was not much room to move, but Johannes, as he smiled in his big, solemn way, managed to take hold of the boy’s arm, and gave the biceps a firm grip.“Shut your hand tight and double up your arm,” he said; and Steve obeyed. “Good; that will do. Now take hold of mine.”He imitated the boy’s action, and Steve imitated his, taking hold of a huge mass of muscle that stood right out like a partially compressed ball.Steve coloured a little at the man’s quiet way of showing him the tremendous difference between them in the point of force.“Well,” said Johannes, smiling, “do you still think that you would like to try?”“Yes. I know I’m only a boy, and can’t pretend to have a man’s strength; but I should like to try. Don’t laugh at me, please.”“No, I was only smiling, my lad. Why should I laugh at one who is young because he wishes to try to be brave and manly and shows a desire to learn?”“Oh, thank you!” cried Steve eagerly; “that is what I do feel, but people are so ready to banter and laugh at me.”“It is foolish of them,” said Johannes, “unless it is when a boy is what you call conceited and self-satisfied, and thinks that he is a man too soon.”“I don’t do that, indeed!” cried Steve.“You need not tell me so,” said Johannes; “I can see that in your eyes, and I know it, my boy, from your words.”“And you don’t think it absurd of me to want to try and use the harpoon?”“Oh no. It is not so much an act of strength to dart a harpoon into a soft thing like a white whale, but of practice and knack. The shaft of the harpoon is so long and heavy, that if it is directed well and with good aim it curves over and falls with its own weight as well.”“Then you will let me try!” cried Steve eagerly.“If the captain is willing, of course you shall. I could sooner teach you to strike a whale than one of your sailors—Hamish or Andra.”“Why?” said Steve eagerly.“Because you are young and pliant, and eager to learn. You would throw it with your head as well as with your arm. They would throw it with the arm, and trust only to their strength.”“Here, give us the telescope!” cried Steve. “I want to find a shoal and begin at once.”“I daresay,” said the Norseman, smiling; “but oil-fishing is not so easy as that, or people would soon make fortunes. I have been on the look-out for hours, but there is nothing in sight.”“But there’ll be plenty of walrus when we get to Spitzbergen?”“Perhaps. I have been there when we could load our boat in a very little while, and I have been there when all through the season we have hardly seen a walrus.”“Oh, but if there are none at Spitzbergen, and we don’t find theIce Blink, we must go somewhere else.”“If,” said the Norseman, smiling. “If? If what?”“If we can. The ice may stop us.”“What, for a day or two?”“For a season or two seasons. One can never tell, sir. The ice is king up here, and has its own way.”“Yes, but kings are conquered sometimes,” said Steve merrily; “perhaps we shall master, find theIce Blink, and go right up to the North Pole, where the open Polar Sea lies.”“No open Polar Sea lies up there, young gentleman,” said Johannes gravely; and as he spoke he gazed northward with a curious far-off look in his eyes. “I have heard all of that before, but after you pass the southern edge of the floe it is all ice, ice right away. I know there is land here and there, for one year, eastward of Spitzbergen, we came upon a rocky piece of coast; but whether it was an island or a great country running for hundreds of miles, no one yet knows.”“Well, but how grand to land there and find out,” said Steve eagerly. “I should like that. Would Captain Marsham sail there?” Johannes smiled.“It does not depend on Captain Marsham,” he replied. “Look,” he said, pointing northward, “there is the edge of the floe. Suppose you knew that there was land two hundred miles northward, how would you sail there?”“Of course you could not for the ice.”“That’s right,” said Johannes; “and so it is year by year. By about August the floe has broken up, and part of it is melted, and one can sail a little way farther north, not very far some years, at others for a long distance; but the time always comes when the ice is solid and the ship cannot pass, and then at nights it begins to freeze again, and you have to hurry back for fear of being frozen up.”“What’s the matter?” cried Steve, for the Norseman suddenly raised his spy-glass and directed it eastward, where the sea looked to be one dazzling sheen of damasked silver.There was no answer for some moments, and then the man turned to the glass.“Look yonder,” he said, “about a couple of points away to the south of the ship’s jib-boom.”Steve seized the glass, and gazed through it, carefully sweeping the sea far and wide.“Can you make it out?”“No.”“Try a little more to the south.”“Can’t see anything. Yes, I can; a ship’s boat bottom upward miles away. It must be a big boat. Why, it’s a small ship capsized.”“Watch it,” said Johannes quietly.“Yes, I’ve got it right now. You can see the copper of the bottom shining in the sun, and—oh, she’s sunk! she’s gone down quickly, head first, and—why, it was a whale!”“Hah! you were a long time getting to it, sir. Yes, a whale, a right whale, and a big one, too.”“Well, quick!” cried Steve excitedly. “Why don’t you hail the deck, and tell them? We must have that.”“How, sir? with a hook and line?”“Nonsense! Do you think I don’t know? Have out the boats and harpoon it, the same as you did the white whale.”The Norseman laughed softly.“No, no,” he said quietly; “you can’t kill right whales like that, sir. You want proper boats with crews, and harpoons with long lines suitable for the work. Why, that fish would run away with all our lines in a minute at the first wounding. We must be satisfied with looking at it. Has it come up again?”“Oh yes, and I can see it swimming about and playing in the water.”“Nice little thing to play, sir. That must be seventy feet long.”“But are you sure that we could not tire it out?”“Quite, sir. I once went for a voyage, and pretty well know what whale-fishing is. Hail the deck now and tell the captain; there he is. He’s using his glass; I fancy he has made it out.”At that moment the captain looked upward.“Who’s aloft there?” he cried.“I am, sir—Johannes!”“There’s something out in the sunshine on the starboard bow; try if you can make it out.”“We have, sir!” cried Steve; “it’s a large whale.”“Hullo! you there?”“Yes, sir. Are you going to try for it?”“Hah! I can’t quite make it out from here. Eh? Try for it? No, my lad. We are not Greenland whale-fishers. Mind how you come down.”“Yes, I’ll take care,” replied Steve; and the captain made no reference to the last ascent, but walked away.“You’ll remember your promise, Johannes?” said Steve after a few minutes.“Oh yes, sir; never fear. Only give me the chance, and you shall harpoon a white whale and catch your fish.”But that chance did not seem as if it would come, as theHvalrosssailed on over a calm sea day after day, the wind serving well, and the coal-bunkers remaining well charged ready for the days when the cold weather was returning—that was, if they had not already achieved their aim.Here and there, as they kept along a mile or so from the floe, it began to show signs of breaking up, for at times loose fields of many acres in extent were passed, and at others detached fragments, imperceptibly gliding southward to dissolve slowly from the combined influence of the sunshine and the warmer sea into which they drifted.“I say, Mr Handscombe,” said Steve one evening, when the sun in the north-west was shining with a softened radiance which turned the distant ice-floe into gold, “isn’t this getting to be a little tame and—and—”“Monotonous?” said the doctor, finishing the boy’s sentence, for he had begun to hesitate.“Yes, I meant something of that kind. I thought we were going to have all kinds of adventures, and it’s always blue sea and the ice away there to the left.”“Oh, I see,” said the doctor; “you want a bear every day, with a bit of whale-fishing, being lost in the mist, and a few wrecks discovered thrown in.”“No, I don’t,” said the lad pettishly; “but I don’t want to be always sailing along like this, doing nothing. If you go up in the crow’s-nest there’s ice and sun, and if you stop on deck it’s always the same. I want to be doing something. Look at Skeny here, growing quite fat.”“Shall I ask Captain Marsham to see if we can’t find the sea-serpent for you?”“There, now you’re laughing at me.”“Then don’t be so impatient. Why, you stupid fellow, isn’t it wonderful enough to be sailing along here in what looks like constant summer save for the floating ice, and with that glorious sun going round and round in the sky without setting? Is not this constant daylight alone worth the journey?”“Ye–es,” replied Steve; “only it does seem a bit wasteful.”“Wasteful?”“Yes. What’s the good of having the sun shining when you are asleep? It would be ever so much better to have some of it in the winter, or else for us to be so that we did not want any sleep for months in summer, and did not want to be awake for months in the winter, when it’s dark.”“I say, Marsham!” cried the doctor, laughing, “come and listen. Here’s our philosopher going to set nature right and improve the whole world.”“Oh, I say, Mr Handscombe, don’t,” whispered Steve, flushing.“What does he propose doing?” said the captain as he joined them.“He wants to keep awake all the summer and sleep all the winter; he says it would be better.”“Well, he has only to take lessons from the bears and practise hibernating. But, like them, he would no doubt be very hungry when he awoke.”“He’s getting out of patience, too; wants something to do. Can’t you rig him up a line, and let him try for a shark?”“No sharks up here,” said Steve promptly.“Plenty,” said the captain, looking at Steve with a peculiar smile, which made the lad wince, for it seemed to say to him, “Don’t be so conceited, my lad; you don’t know everything yet.”“Greenland shark, I think it is called. The Finland people fish for it. I say, Jakobsen, could we catch sharks anywhere hereabouts?”“I don’t know about here, sir,” said the Norseman gravely. “There are plenty near the Greenland shores.”“How do you catch them?”“Oh, easily, sir, with a long line and winch to reel it up quickly. You let down a big hook with plenty of bait on it, right to the bottom, on some bank, about two hundred fathoms down.”“Yes,” said Steve eagerly. “That’s rather deep, though.”“Yes, sir; but that’s where the sharks lie.”“Are they very big?”“Yes, sir, all sizes—eight and ten and twelve or fourteen feet long.”“Well, what then?” said Steve impatiently.“Oh, then, sir, you wait for a bite.”“Of course, I know that! You wait for a bite in all fishing. But do you fish from a small boat?”“Oh no, sir. You go, six or seven of you, in a decent-sized smack, and fish till you’ve loaded her—if you’re lucky.”“But what do you do with the sharks? People don’t eat them.”“Make isinglass of their skins?” suggested the doctor.“Oh no, sir,” continued Jakobsen. “I’ve been out two or three times, and very good trade it is, gentlemen. You sail out to the Greenland banks, and if the weather’s good you’re all right, for the sharks bite very freely, and as the line’s very thin you can soon reel it up on a big winch.”“But don’t they fight desperately?” said Steve eagerly. “Sharks are so strong.”“No, sir; they’re cruel fish, sharks, but a Greenland shark’s about the stupidest, most cowardly fish there is. He could break away easily enough, but when he’s hooked and feels the line tight up he comes as quietly as possible, just as if he came to the top to ask what we wanted by hooking him like that.”“And do you tell him?” said the doctor, laughing.The Norseman shook his head.“No, sir, we don’t play with him. As soon as the bit of chain appears that’s fastened to the bottom of the line on account of the shark’s teeth—because, if it wasn’t for that, he’d bite through the thin line—some of us stand ready with a big hook at the end of a pole like a spar—a good sharp hook with a rope that runs through a block up aloft rigged to the spar; then, as the shark comes to the top—click!—the big hook’s into him, the rope’s tightened, he’s hoisted on board, and before he has time to struggle much he’s whipped up on to the deck, where two of us are ready for him.”“And what do they do?” cried Steve,—“kill the shark?”“Yes, sir, and pretty quickly; for when the sharks are biting there’s no time to spare. One of us gives him a crack on the head with a handspike, and the other cuts open his side with a big knife and drags out his great liver; then we use the pipe.”“Yes, go on,” said Steve.“And blow the dead shark full of wind and throw it overboard.”“To keep it from sinking?”“Yes, sir, that’s quite right; for if we didn’t he’d sink, and all the other sharks would begin feeding on him and wouldn’t bite any more at our bait. Then we get the hook ready, and down it goes again, while the sea-birds get a good feast of shark instead of the fish.”“All that to get only the liver?” said Steve. “Yes, sir; but then the livers are very large, and from some they get quite a barrel of oil, only that’s from the very large sharks.”“What do you bait with?” said Steve. “Pieces of shark blubber, sir.”“And isn’t the flesh good for eating?”“Poor people eat it sometimes, sir, for it’s nice and white; but we sailors never care for it. It’s fine fishing, though, for you get your hold full of the livers, and take them back to port to be boiled down. Barrel of oil’s worth as much as seven pounds, sir.”“What do they use it for, lamps or machinery?”The Norseman stared.“I thought you knew, sir. It’s a very fine, tasteless oil, and supposed to be very good for sick people. They make cod-liver oil of it.”Captain Marsham burst into a hearty fit of laughter at the puzzlement and chagrin in his friend’s countenance.“Stop a moment!” cried the doctor angrily. “Do you mean to tell me that this shark oil is used for—I mean, is sold for cod-liver oil?”“Yes, sir, I believe so,” said the Norwegian.“Disgusting! Shameful!” cried the doctor. “What a miserable piece of trickery! The people who do it ought to be exposed.”“Nonsense!” said the captain. “As Jakobsen says, it is very good for sick people. Why, my dear sir, the good effects of cod-liver oil do not depend upon its being extracted from a cod, but upon its being a rich fish oil, strongly impregnated with the peculiar salts, or whatever you call them, found in sea water. I daresay the oil of any fish liver would be as good.”“And quite as nasty,” suggested Steve. “Right, my lad, quite as nasty, and would do for doctors to trim the wick of the lamp of life when it is burning low.”“Humph! perhaps you are right,” said the doctor thoughtfully.“Can’t we have some shark-fishing, Jakobsen?” cried Steve eagerly.“Why, you don’t want your lamp trimmed, Steve?” said the captain.“No, sir; but Mr Handscombe might like some of the oil,” replied Steve, with a laughing look at the frowning doctor, who was evidently thinking deeply.“Eh? No, my lad, I don’t want any. But I’ve been thinking that perhaps this shark oil may be good.”“Couldn’t catch sharks here, sir, unless we found a bank.”“Wait a little longer, Steve,” said the captain, “and I daresay we shall find you something better than fishing for sharks.”
Saddened faces met the gaze of the occupants of the stern sheets, as the men steadily tugged away at their oars hour after hour, with the heavy beluga hanging from its rope behind. Then all at once, when the mist was most dense, the silence perfect, and a feeling coming over all that it would be impossible to go on rowing much longer, every one loosed his oar and joined in a loud cheer; for from quite close at hand—so near, in fact, that the mist swayed with the concussion—there was the dull, heavy roar of a cannon.
“TheHvalross!” cried Steve.
“Yes, our signal-gun,” replied the captain.
A faint cheer like the distant echo of that from the boat was now heard, the men bent to their oars with renewed vigour, and ten minutes later, guided by shout after shout, the boat suddenly glided under the counter of the vessel.
“Why, we thought we had lost you!” cried the doctor, leaning over from the gangway.
“Then you got back?”
“Yes, hours ago. The ship came right upon us, nearly running us down. But what a fog!”
“Yes,” said Captain Marsham drily, “what a fog! You seem to have been more fortunate than we were. Save your fish?”
“Oh yes; they’ve got it towing alongside. And you, did you cut yours adrift?”
“No; it is alongside, too.”
All were too tired to make an attack upon the whales that day, and after a good meal the watch was set, and those at liberty sought relief from their weariness in sleep, leaving the ship lying to and with the fires going sufficiently to enable the engineer to get up steam at a very short notice and take the ship out of danger if any came near.
Steve awoke after many hours’ sleep to find that a light breeze had swept away the mist, and that they were lying about ten miles away from the ice, toward which they had partly drifted, partly steamed, during the heavy mist. It was another example of the difficulties of navigation in the north, another of the risks to which sailors are exposed. But now that the trouble had passed it was almost forgotten, the men being eagerly at work cutting up the two whales and transferring their thick blubber to the caldron, from which a clear, sweet oil was soon after being drawn off and emptied into one of the tanks that henceforth would be reserved for this particular kind of oil.
The trouble of the past day was forgotten, and the men were ready to make light of it all, save the Norwegian sailors, who shook their heads when the others laughed and bantered them about getting lost; they knew the reality of the danger better, and said nothing either to make much or light of it.
The rendering down of the bear’s fat and the boiling of the whale blubber into oil rather disgusted Steve; but he contented himself with making a face when the doctor talked about it.
“Must take the rough with the smooth,” he said. “The bear-hunt was very exciting and the whale-fishing grand. I think I shall get Johannes to let me try harpooning.”
“You mean,” said the doctor, “that you must take the smooth with the rough.”
“Why? I don’t understand you,” replied the boy.
“The smooth oil with the rough work of capturing.”
“Oh, I see!” cried Steve.
“And you mean to try harpooning?”
“Why not, sir? I tried shooting.”
“Wait till you have some more muscle on your arm, Steve,” said the doctor, laughing; and then, after a look round at the sunlit sea, on which they were gliding easily along with plenty of canvas spread, as there was a favourable wind, he went below.
“Wait till I’ve got more muscle,” muttered Steve. “I’ve got as much as most fellows of my age. Yes, as much as you have, Mr Watty Links; and I’ll show you that I have one of these days,” he added, as he caught sight of the boy watching him with a supercilious smile on his face. “No, I won’t,” thought Steve, as the boy disappeared. “Nice blackguard I should look fighting with a fellow like that. Why, he might lick me,” he added after a few moments’ thought. “I’m not afraid of him, but he’s bigger and stronger than I am, and he might. I should never forgive myself,” he said half aloud. “Yes, I should,” he muttered, smiling at his fresh idea, “when I had had another try and licked him. Bother! I didn’t come to sea to fight. Here, Jakobsen, where’s Johannes?”
The man smiled and pointed upward.
“What do you mean? Oh, I see; in the crow’s-nest.”
“Yes, with the captain’s spy-glass.” Steve had not been aloft since the day when the tub was fixed to the main-mast, and without pausing to think of anything that was said upon that occasion he climbed on to the bulwarks, seized hold of the shrouds, and began to mount slowly and steadily, enjoying the soft breeze blowing by him, and noticing how different the sails looked aloft from what they did from the deck. The main-mast was passed, and he rested in the top for a few minutes to have a look round at the glittering sea, so brilliant now in the clear atmosphere. Then he had a look upward, and began to mount again quietly, and in an easy, effortless way, as if he enjoyed the task. He paused again, holding on by the shrouds as he looked up once more, to see that the Norseman was intent upon something in the distance, resting the large telescope he had taken up on the ring or rail of iron raised above the top of the cask, just at a convenient height for the purpose, and in perfect ignorance of the presence of visitors. Steve smiled as he climbed higher, and paused once more as he reached the stout cross-bars which they had placed that day when the crow’s-nest was built.
“Ahoy there, Johannes!” he cried.
The man gave a violent start, and turned to look over the edge of the cask.
“Mr Young!” he cried, “you there?”
“Look’s like it. I’ve come to see you. Got any room in your nest?”
The Norseman laughed.
“Well, I daresay you could creep in. But did the captain give you leave to come aloft?”
“No; I only just made up my mind to come. Open the door; I’m coming.”
“Take care, my lad!” cried the Norseman warningly. “There’s no one to catch you if you slip.”
“I won’t slip this time,” said Steve merrily; and climbing from the shrouds on to the wooden ladder, he went up from bar to bar till his head and shoulders passed into the cask, and the next minute the hinged bottom fell to again, and he had just room to stand in company with the sailor.
“I say, rather a tight fit,” said Steve, laughing. “Wouldn’t do for two people to quarrel packed together in a barrel like this.”
“But why have you come up, sir? Did the mate send any message?”
“No, I tell you,” cried Steve. “I only saw that you were up here, and thought I should like to come up for a chat.”
“Very good of you, sir,” said the man quietly. “Got over the scare of the fog?”
“Oh yes, now. It’s of no use to worry about things when they’re over. It was dangerous, though, wasn’t it?”
“Very, sir,” said the Norseman gravely. “Three poor fellows from our town rowed away from their ship with three Swedish men. They were after walrus. One of those fogs came on, and they were never seen again.”
“No? What became of them?”
Johannes shook his head.
“The great sea is wide, sir,” he replied. “The fog confused them, and they must have rowed in the wrong direction, been caught in one of the strong currents, and then tried to reach home as they could not find their ship. There are terrible losses out here in some summers.”
“Was it near here that they were lost?” said Steve, after a few minutes’ silence, during which he pictured the sufferings of the despairing boat’s crew.
“No, sir, more to the east, by Novaya-Zemlya.”
“How horrible!” said Steve with a shudder. “Tell me about something else.”
“Yes, sir; I don’t want to what the English sailors call spin yarns; that seemed to come naturally after our escape.”
“Yes, of course; but tell me this, Johannes. Next time we go off after one of those shoals of white whales—”
“What, sir! you would go again?” said the great amiable-looking fellow, smiling.
“Of course.”
“And run risks?”
“Oh, I hope there would not be any risk; but you wouldn’t have me play the coward always because we were in danger once?”
“No, no, sir, of course not,” said the Norseman, patting the boy on the shoulder. “Well, what if we go after the white whale again? I was trying to make out a school with the glass when you spoke and made me jump. Their oil is so fine and valuable.”
“Yes, I know,” said Steve impatiently; “but if we do go after a school again, I want you to let me try and harpoon one.”
There was not much room to move, but Johannes, as he smiled in his big, solemn way, managed to take hold of the boy’s arm, and gave the biceps a firm grip.
“Shut your hand tight and double up your arm,” he said; and Steve obeyed. “Good; that will do. Now take hold of mine.”
He imitated the boy’s action, and Steve imitated his, taking hold of a huge mass of muscle that stood right out like a partially compressed ball.
Steve coloured a little at the man’s quiet way of showing him the tremendous difference between them in the point of force.
“Well,” said Johannes, smiling, “do you still think that you would like to try?”
“Yes. I know I’m only a boy, and can’t pretend to have a man’s strength; but I should like to try. Don’t laugh at me, please.”
“No, I was only smiling, my lad. Why should I laugh at one who is young because he wishes to try to be brave and manly and shows a desire to learn?”
“Oh, thank you!” cried Steve eagerly; “that is what I do feel, but people are so ready to banter and laugh at me.”
“It is foolish of them,” said Johannes, “unless it is when a boy is what you call conceited and self-satisfied, and thinks that he is a man too soon.”
“I don’t do that, indeed!” cried Steve.
“You need not tell me so,” said Johannes; “I can see that in your eyes, and I know it, my boy, from your words.”
“And you don’t think it absurd of me to want to try and use the harpoon?”
“Oh no. It is not so much an act of strength to dart a harpoon into a soft thing like a white whale, but of practice and knack. The shaft of the harpoon is so long and heavy, that if it is directed well and with good aim it curves over and falls with its own weight as well.”
“Then you will let me try!” cried Steve eagerly.
“If the captain is willing, of course you shall. I could sooner teach you to strike a whale than one of your sailors—Hamish or Andra.”
“Why?” said Steve eagerly.
“Because you are young and pliant, and eager to learn. You would throw it with your head as well as with your arm. They would throw it with the arm, and trust only to their strength.”
“Here, give us the telescope!” cried Steve. “I want to find a shoal and begin at once.”
“I daresay,” said the Norseman, smiling; “but oil-fishing is not so easy as that, or people would soon make fortunes. I have been on the look-out for hours, but there is nothing in sight.”
“But there’ll be plenty of walrus when we get to Spitzbergen?”
“Perhaps. I have been there when we could load our boat in a very little while, and I have been there when all through the season we have hardly seen a walrus.”
“Oh, but if there are none at Spitzbergen, and we don’t find theIce Blink, we must go somewhere else.”
“If,” said the Norseman, smiling. “If? If what?”
“If we can. The ice may stop us.”
“What, for a day or two?”
“For a season or two seasons. One can never tell, sir. The ice is king up here, and has its own way.”
“Yes, but kings are conquered sometimes,” said Steve merrily; “perhaps we shall master, find theIce Blink, and go right up to the North Pole, where the open Polar Sea lies.”
“No open Polar Sea lies up there, young gentleman,” said Johannes gravely; and as he spoke he gazed northward with a curious far-off look in his eyes. “I have heard all of that before, but after you pass the southern edge of the floe it is all ice, ice right away. I know there is land here and there, for one year, eastward of Spitzbergen, we came upon a rocky piece of coast; but whether it was an island or a great country running for hundreds of miles, no one yet knows.”
“Well, but how grand to land there and find out,” said Steve eagerly. “I should like that. Would Captain Marsham sail there?” Johannes smiled.
“It does not depend on Captain Marsham,” he replied. “Look,” he said, pointing northward, “there is the edge of the floe. Suppose you knew that there was land two hundred miles northward, how would you sail there?”
“Of course you could not for the ice.”
“That’s right,” said Johannes; “and so it is year by year. By about August the floe has broken up, and part of it is melted, and one can sail a little way farther north, not very far some years, at others for a long distance; but the time always comes when the ice is solid and the ship cannot pass, and then at nights it begins to freeze again, and you have to hurry back for fear of being frozen up.”
“What’s the matter?” cried Steve, for the Norseman suddenly raised his spy-glass and directed it eastward, where the sea looked to be one dazzling sheen of damasked silver.
There was no answer for some moments, and then the man turned to the glass.
“Look yonder,” he said, “about a couple of points away to the south of the ship’s jib-boom.”
Steve seized the glass, and gazed through it, carefully sweeping the sea far and wide.
“Can you make it out?”
“No.”
“Try a little more to the south.”
“Can’t see anything. Yes, I can; a ship’s boat bottom upward miles away. It must be a big boat. Why, it’s a small ship capsized.”
“Watch it,” said Johannes quietly.
“Yes, I’ve got it right now. You can see the copper of the bottom shining in the sun, and—oh, she’s sunk! she’s gone down quickly, head first, and—why, it was a whale!”
“Hah! you were a long time getting to it, sir. Yes, a whale, a right whale, and a big one, too.”
“Well, quick!” cried Steve excitedly. “Why don’t you hail the deck, and tell them? We must have that.”
“How, sir? with a hook and line?”
“Nonsense! Do you think I don’t know? Have out the boats and harpoon it, the same as you did the white whale.”
The Norseman laughed softly.
“No, no,” he said quietly; “you can’t kill right whales like that, sir. You want proper boats with crews, and harpoons with long lines suitable for the work. Why, that fish would run away with all our lines in a minute at the first wounding. We must be satisfied with looking at it. Has it come up again?”
“Oh yes, and I can see it swimming about and playing in the water.”
“Nice little thing to play, sir. That must be seventy feet long.”
“But are you sure that we could not tire it out?”
“Quite, sir. I once went for a voyage, and pretty well know what whale-fishing is. Hail the deck now and tell the captain; there he is. He’s using his glass; I fancy he has made it out.”
At that moment the captain looked upward.
“Who’s aloft there?” he cried.
“I am, sir—Johannes!”
“There’s something out in the sunshine on the starboard bow; try if you can make it out.”
“We have, sir!” cried Steve; “it’s a large whale.”
“Hullo! you there?”
“Yes, sir. Are you going to try for it?”
“Hah! I can’t quite make it out from here. Eh? Try for it? No, my lad. We are not Greenland whale-fishers. Mind how you come down.”
“Yes, I’ll take care,” replied Steve; and the captain made no reference to the last ascent, but walked away.
“You’ll remember your promise, Johannes?” said Steve after a few minutes.
“Oh yes, sir; never fear. Only give me the chance, and you shall harpoon a white whale and catch your fish.”
But that chance did not seem as if it would come, as theHvalrosssailed on over a calm sea day after day, the wind serving well, and the coal-bunkers remaining well charged ready for the days when the cold weather was returning—that was, if they had not already achieved their aim.
Here and there, as they kept along a mile or so from the floe, it began to show signs of breaking up, for at times loose fields of many acres in extent were passed, and at others detached fragments, imperceptibly gliding southward to dissolve slowly from the combined influence of the sunshine and the warmer sea into which they drifted.
“I say, Mr Handscombe,” said Steve one evening, when the sun in the north-west was shining with a softened radiance which turned the distant ice-floe into gold, “isn’t this getting to be a little tame and—and—”
“Monotonous?” said the doctor, finishing the boy’s sentence, for he had begun to hesitate.
“Yes, I meant something of that kind. I thought we were going to have all kinds of adventures, and it’s always blue sea and the ice away there to the left.”
“Oh, I see,” said the doctor; “you want a bear every day, with a bit of whale-fishing, being lost in the mist, and a few wrecks discovered thrown in.”
“No, I don’t,” said the lad pettishly; “but I don’t want to be always sailing along like this, doing nothing. If you go up in the crow’s-nest there’s ice and sun, and if you stop on deck it’s always the same. I want to be doing something. Look at Skeny here, growing quite fat.”
“Shall I ask Captain Marsham to see if we can’t find the sea-serpent for you?”
“There, now you’re laughing at me.”
“Then don’t be so impatient. Why, you stupid fellow, isn’t it wonderful enough to be sailing along here in what looks like constant summer save for the floating ice, and with that glorious sun going round and round in the sky without setting? Is not this constant daylight alone worth the journey?”
“Ye–es,” replied Steve; “only it does seem a bit wasteful.”
“Wasteful?”
“Yes. What’s the good of having the sun shining when you are asleep? It would be ever so much better to have some of it in the winter, or else for us to be so that we did not want any sleep for months in summer, and did not want to be awake for months in the winter, when it’s dark.”
“I say, Marsham!” cried the doctor, laughing, “come and listen. Here’s our philosopher going to set nature right and improve the whole world.”
“Oh, I say, Mr Handscombe, don’t,” whispered Steve, flushing.
“What does he propose doing?” said the captain as he joined them.
“He wants to keep awake all the summer and sleep all the winter; he says it would be better.”
“Well, he has only to take lessons from the bears and practise hibernating. But, like them, he would no doubt be very hungry when he awoke.”
“He’s getting out of patience, too; wants something to do. Can’t you rig him up a line, and let him try for a shark?”
“No sharks up here,” said Steve promptly.
“Plenty,” said the captain, looking at Steve with a peculiar smile, which made the lad wince, for it seemed to say to him, “Don’t be so conceited, my lad; you don’t know everything yet.”
“Greenland shark, I think it is called. The Finland people fish for it. I say, Jakobsen, could we catch sharks anywhere hereabouts?”
“I don’t know about here, sir,” said the Norseman gravely. “There are plenty near the Greenland shores.”
“How do you catch them?”
“Oh, easily, sir, with a long line and winch to reel it up quickly. You let down a big hook with plenty of bait on it, right to the bottom, on some bank, about two hundred fathoms down.”
“Yes,” said Steve eagerly. “That’s rather deep, though.”
“Yes, sir; but that’s where the sharks lie.”
“Are they very big?”
“Yes, sir, all sizes—eight and ten and twelve or fourteen feet long.”
“Well, what then?” said Steve impatiently.
“Oh, then, sir, you wait for a bite.”
“Of course, I know that! You wait for a bite in all fishing. But do you fish from a small boat?”
“Oh no, sir. You go, six or seven of you, in a decent-sized smack, and fish till you’ve loaded her—if you’re lucky.”
“But what do you do with the sharks? People don’t eat them.”
“Make isinglass of their skins?” suggested the doctor.
“Oh no, sir,” continued Jakobsen. “I’ve been out two or three times, and very good trade it is, gentlemen. You sail out to the Greenland banks, and if the weather’s good you’re all right, for the sharks bite very freely, and as the line’s very thin you can soon reel it up on a big winch.”
“But don’t they fight desperately?” said Steve eagerly. “Sharks are so strong.”
“No, sir; they’re cruel fish, sharks, but a Greenland shark’s about the stupidest, most cowardly fish there is. He could break away easily enough, but when he’s hooked and feels the line tight up he comes as quietly as possible, just as if he came to the top to ask what we wanted by hooking him like that.”
“And do you tell him?” said the doctor, laughing.
The Norseman shook his head.
“No, sir, we don’t play with him. As soon as the bit of chain appears that’s fastened to the bottom of the line on account of the shark’s teeth—because, if it wasn’t for that, he’d bite through the thin line—some of us stand ready with a big hook at the end of a pole like a spar—a good sharp hook with a rope that runs through a block up aloft rigged to the spar; then, as the shark comes to the top—click!—the big hook’s into him, the rope’s tightened, he’s hoisted on board, and before he has time to struggle much he’s whipped up on to the deck, where two of us are ready for him.”
“And what do they do?” cried Steve,—“kill the shark?”
“Yes, sir, and pretty quickly; for when the sharks are biting there’s no time to spare. One of us gives him a crack on the head with a handspike, and the other cuts open his side with a big knife and drags out his great liver; then we use the pipe.”
“Yes, go on,” said Steve.
“And blow the dead shark full of wind and throw it overboard.”
“To keep it from sinking?”
“Yes, sir, that’s quite right; for if we didn’t he’d sink, and all the other sharks would begin feeding on him and wouldn’t bite any more at our bait. Then we get the hook ready, and down it goes again, while the sea-birds get a good feast of shark instead of the fish.”
“All that to get only the liver?” said Steve. “Yes, sir; but then the livers are very large, and from some they get quite a barrel of oil, only that’s from the very large sharks.”
“What do you bait with?” said Steve. “Pieces of shark blubber, sir.”
“And isn’t the flesh good for eating?”
“Poor people eat it sometimes, sir, for it’s nice and white; but we sailors never care for it. It’s fine fishing, though, for you get your hold full of the livers, and take them back to port to be boiled down. Barrel of oil’s worth as much as seven pounds, sir.”
“What do they use it for, lamps or machinery?”
The Norseman stared.
“I thought you knew, sir. It’s a very fine, tasteless oil, and supposed to be very good for sick people. They make cod-liver oil of it.”
Captain Marsham burst into a hearty fit of laughter at the puzzlement and chagrin in his friend’s countenance.
“Stop a moment!” cried the doctor angrily. “Do you mean to tell me that this shark oil is used for—I mean, is sold for cod-liver oil?”
“Yes, sir, I believe so,” said the Norwegian.
“Disgusting! Shameful!” cried the doctor. “What a miserable piece of trickery! The people who do it ought to be exposed.”
“Nonsense!” said the captain. “As Jakobsen says, it is very good for sick people. Why, my dear sir, the good effects of cod-liver oil do not depend upon its being extracted from a cod, but upon its being a rich fish oil, strongly impregnated with the peculiar salts, or whatever you call them, found in sea water. I daresay the oil of any fish liver would be as good.”
“And quite as nasty,” suggested Steve. “Right, my lad, quite as nasty, and would do for doctors to trim the wick of the lamp of life when it is burning low.”
“Humph! perhaps you are right,” said the doctor thoughtfully.
“Can’t we have some shark-fishing, Jakobsen?” cried Steve eagerly.
“Why, you don’t want your lamp trimmed, Steve?” said the captain.
“No, sir; but Mr Handscombe might like some of the oil,” replied Steve, with a laughing look at the frowning doctor, who was evidently thinking deeply.
“Eh? No, my lad, I don’t want any. But I’ve been thinking that perhaps this shark oil may be good.”
“Couldn’t catch sharks here, sir, unless we found a bank.”
“Wait a little longer, Steve,” said the captain, “and I daresay we shall find you something better than fishing for sharks.”
Chapter Fourteen.The Land of Peaks.“Here, Steve! Hi, my lad, wake up!”“Eh? Yes! What is it, whales?” cried the boy, hurrying into his clothes.“Come and look. You wanted something fresh.” It was the captain who roused him up the very next morning, and on reaching the deck he was perfectly astounded at the scene before him. There was no more monotony in the view, for there before him and spreading to right and left was as lovely a land as the human mind could conceive. It was twenty or thirty miles away, and as Steve Young gazed it was at peak after peak rising up toward the skies, all dazzling with ice and snow, and dyed by the distance, of the most lovely tints of amethyst and sapphire blue, while the icy pinnacles were fretted with silver and gold. Upon the slopes of the lower hills there were even patches of a dull green, made beautiful by the brilliant sunshine, while the steeper mountains were of rich orange and brown or of a clear, pure grey.“Is this Spitzbergen?” asked Steve. “Yes, and well named,” said the captain, who was using his glass; “the land of mountain points—spitzesas they call them, orpizin North Italy among the mountains there.”The wind still favoured them, and they rapidly glided on toward what seemed for hours to be fairyland, and so lovely that Steve spent nearly all the time upon deck, scarcely allowing himself enough to obtain the necessary meals. At last he came to the conclusion that he must be tired and surfeited with the view, for somehow it did not appear to be so beautiful as at first. The dazzling peaks of glittering ice shrank lower and lower, till they disappeared behind hills which had hardly been seen before, and now rose apparently higher and higher, with every ledge deep in snow, and the steep slopes and perpendicular precipices that in some places ran down to the sea looking grim, grey, or black as they were granite or a dark shaley slate. Not a tree was visible, only in places traces of dry-looking heathery stuff and patches of what looked to be moss. In places the water seemed to be foaming down from a great height inland to the sea; but in a short time, as they neared the land, the cascades proved to be ice, and Steve woke to the fact that the place was far more beautiful at a distance, when its rugged asperities were softened and seen through a medium which tinged everything of a delicious blue. That he was not alone in this way of thinking was soon proved by the doctor’s remark as he joined him.“What a land of desolation, Steve!” he said.“I thought you said it was beautiful?”“Yes, at a distance, my lad. But close in: look at it—ice, snow, rocks, everywhere. I suppose we are too early in the summer for anything green and bright to be seen.”“Here’s Johannes,” said Steve, as the big Norwegian came by. “I say, what shall we find here, Johannes? It looks to be a very bleak spot.”“Not for a visit, sir,” replied the man. “It is a grand place for game.”“Game? What game?”“Reindeer, sir. A good fat buck will be a pleasant addition to the salt and preserved meat.”“Of course; and what else?”“A kind of grouse, sir; abundance of wild ducks. Then, for the use of the ship for cargo, there should be an abundance of seals, and no doubt before long we shall encounter the walrus, if other people have not been before us and scared them away. Lastly, sir, I think it very likely that we shall find your friends in one of the sheltered fiords along the coast.”That was enough. Steve glowed with excitement, and when, later on, the vessel was steered slowly in between a couple of great grim headlands and quitted the heaving sea for still water, his eyes began to search the shore on both sides for a signal-staff or some signs of occupation.But at the end of half a mile sails had to be lowered, for a barrier of ice extended right across the fiord, and any further search would require to be performed on foot. But no one repined at that. It was delightful after being cooped up on shipboard so long. A boat was lowered, guns and ammunition placed therein, the four Norwegians took their places with the walrus lances, and, very much to Andrew’s disgust, he was not selected to act as gunbearer, Hamish being taken instead.“We don’t want to be left in the lurch again, Steve,” said the captain, “if we do happen to meet a bear. What do you say, Johannes? There are bears here, I suppose?”“For certain, sir. You never know where you may meet them. But this is hardly the place. You see, there are not likely to be any seals here. Where there are seals there are pretty sure to be bears.”“What are we likely to get, then?” asked the doctor.“Deer, sir. If we go cautiously up the valley yonder, we shall see the deer where the snow has melted off the slope. There will be moss there.”But a long and tedious tramp over exceedingly tangled ground followed their landing, and they trudged along among stones, over snow, and through swampy patches, where there were wild fowl; but these were left in peace in the hope of a more substantial addition to the larder being found.Snow was all around them, but the sun poured down with so much power that they were all pretty well exhausted when the captain proposed that they should endeavour to make their way back by another valley, separated from the one they were in merely by a lofty hog-back-like range of rocky hill.“I saw wild fowl going in that direction, and we must direct our attention to them now.”Jakobsen gave his opinion that such a course was quite possible, and leading the way he struck along a narrow gulley, which evidently connected the two valleys at the end of the range.The walking was worse than ever there, and Steve was beginning to lag and wish that some one else would carry his heavy gun, when Jakobsen, who had passed out of sight behind a chaotic mass of rocks, suddenly came hurriedly back.“He has seen deer,” whispered Johannes, who was close beside Steve, and seemed to look upon himself as the boy’s bodyguard.Jakobsen held up his hand to make the party stop, and the next minute he was close up.“Reindeer,” he whispered. “Four just round the point yonder feeding on the moss. Come.”“Stay back, the rest of you,” said the captain in a low voice. “You can come, Steve, my lad, and you, Johannes, be cautious.”Then the novel kind of deer-stalking commenced, Jakobsen leading and taking advantage of every block of stone, turning round at times to make sure that his companions were keeping out of sight, and at last coming to a stand at where the defile they were threading opened out into a plain.He was behind a mass of rocks whose hollows were filled up with ice; and when all were together he whispered to them to be ready, and then clambered up till he was high enough to peer over cautiously before descending.“They are very wild and cautious,” he whispered; “but they have not moved. Go forward now, creeping from rock to rock, and you are sure of one or two.”“Come, Steve,” whispered the captain. “Don’t fire unless I tell you. Be ready to hand me your gun if I miss.”He went off to the right of the pile of rocks, and the doctor took the left, all stooping and sheltering themselves till the end of the stones was reached; and upon raising himself a little so as to peer round the last, there, not fifty yards away, and grazing or tearing up the moss with their feet, were four deer, with their peculiarly shaped, branching antlers, and all apparently in perfect ignorance of danger being so near.“Can you see Mr Handscombe?” whispered the captain, drawing back to speak.“No, he is not in sight.”“I’ll wait, then, so as to give him a chance of getting within shot as well. It will steady my hand, too.”“What’s that?” whispered Steve, as a sound like one stone being thrown against another reached his ear.The captain reached forward again, and uttered an exclamation which brought Steve close up just in time to see the four deer bounding away, and to have his ears half deafened by the report of the piece, for the captain fired directly.“Gone! Lost them!” he cried, as the deer tore on.“Fire again.”“With small shot?” said the captain. “No use, my lad. And I should have been so glad to have got a brace of these deer. It would have been such a good change for the men.”“Hooray!” shouted Steve. “One’s down!” For all at once the foremost of the deer stopped short, then staggered on a few yards, stopped again, and fell.At that moment a rifle shot rang out from their left, and the last of the flying deer pitched headlong amongst the stones and lay kicking.“Well done, doctor! and a very long shot, too! Ahoy, Johannes! Jakobsen!” he shouted as he placed a fresh cartridge in his gun. Then, as the men came up, “There you are! We’ll get back to the boat with the fresh provisions. What shall you do, cut them up here?”“No, sir; tie their legs, and carry them on the lance-poles. We are enough to manage them.”In a very short time the two deer were being borne, hanging head downwards, over the rough ground till the ice was reached, and finally the boat, the welcome supply of fresh meat being greeted with a cheer as it was hauled up over the side to the deck of theHvalross; and that evening the cook had a busy time, while, as Steve remarked, the smell of that kind of cooking was far better than that which prevailed when the Norsemen were busy rendering down the oil.
“Here, Steve! Hi, my lad, wake up!”
“Eh? Yes! What is it, whales?” cried the boy, hurrying into his clothes.
“Come and look. You wanted something fresh.” It was the captain who roused him up the very next morning, and on reaching the deck he was perfectly astounded at the scene before him. There was no more monotony in the view, for there before him and spreading to right and left was as lovely a land as the human mind could conceive. It was twenty or thirty miles away, and as Steve Young gazed it was at peak after peak rising up toward the skies, all dazzling with ice and snow, and dyed by the distance, of the most lovely tints of amethyst and sapphire blue, while the icy pinnacles were fretted with silver and gold. Upon the slopes of the lower hills there were even patches of a dull green, made beautiful by the brilliant sunshine, while the steeper mountains were of rich orange and brown or of a clear, pure grey.
“Is this Spitzbergen?” asked Steve. “Yes, and well named,” said the captain, who was using his glass; “the land of mountain points—spitzesas they call them, orpizin North Italy among the mountains there.”
The wind still favoured them, and they rapidly glided on toward what seemed for hours to be fairyland, and so lovely that Steve spent nearly all the time upon deck, scarcely allowing himself enough to obtain the necessary meals. At last he came to the conclusion that he must be tired and surfeited with the view, for somehow it did not appear to be so beautiful as at first. The dazzling peaks of glittering ice shrank lower and lower, till they disappeared behind hills which had hardly been seen before, and now rose apparently higher and higher, with every ledge deep in snow, and the steep slopes and perpendicular precipices that in some places ran down to the sea looking grim, grey, or black as they were granite or a dark shaley slate. Not a tree was visible, only in places traces of dry-looking heathery stuff and patches of what looked to be moss. In places the water seemed to be foaming down from a great height inland to the sea; but in a short time, as they neared the land, the cascades proved to be ice, and Steve woke to the fact that the place was far more beautiful at a distance, when its rugged asperities were softened and seen through a medium which tinged everything of a delicious blue. That he was not alone in this way of thinking was soon proved by the doctor’s remark as he joined him.
“What a land of desolation, Steve!” he said.
“I thought you said it was beautiful?”
“Yes, at a distance, my lad. But close in: look at it—ice, snow, rocks, everywhere. I suppose we are too early in the summer for anything green and bright to be seen.”
“Here’s Johannes,” said Steve, as the big Norwegian came by. “I say, what shall we find here, Johannes? It looks to be a very bleak spot.”
“Not for a visit, sir,” replied the man. “It is a grand place for game.”
“Game? What game?”
“Reindeer, sir. A good fat buck will be a pleasant addition to the salt and preserved meat.”
“Of course; and what else?”
“A kind of grouse, sir; abundance of wild ducks. Then, for the use of the ship for cargo, there should be an abundance of seals, and no doubt before long we shall encounter the walrus, if other people have not been before us and scared them away. Lastly, sir, I think it very likely that we shall find your friends in one of the sheltered fiords along the coast.”
That was enough. Steve glowed with excitement, and when, later on, the vessel was steered slowly in between a couple of great grim headlands and quitted the heaving sea for still water, his eyes began to search the shore on both sides for a signal-staff or some signs of occupation.
But at the end of half a mile sails had to be lowered, for a barrier of ice extended right across the fiord, and any further search would require to be performed on foot. But no one repined at that. It was delightful after being cooped up on shipboard so long. A boat was lowered, guns and ammunition placed therein, the four Norwegians took their places with the walrus lances, and, very much to Andrew’s disgust, he was not selected to act as gunbearer, Hamish being taken instead.
“We don’t want to be left in the lurch again, Steve,” said the captain, “if we do happen to meet a bear. What do you say, Johannes? There are bears here, I suppose?”
“For certain, sir. You never know where you may meet them. But this is hardly the place. You see, there are not likely to be any seals here. Where there are seals there are pretty sure to be bears.”
“What are we likely to get, then?” asked the doctor.
“Deer, sir. If we go cautiously up the valley yonder, we shall see the deer where the snow has melted off the slope. There will be moss there.”
But a long and tedious tramp over exceedingly tangled ground followed their landing, and they trudged along among stones, over snow, and through swampy patches, where there were wild fowl; but these were left in peace in the hope of a more substantial addition to the larder being found.
Snow was all around them, but the sun poured down with so much power that they were all pretty well exhausted when the captain proposed that they should endeavour to make their way back by another valley, separated from the one they were in merely by a lofty hog-back-like range of rocky hill.
“I saw wild fowl going in that direction, and we must direct our attention to them now.”
Jakobsen gave his opinion that such a course was quite possible, and leading the way he struck along a narrow gulley, which evidently connected the two valleys at the end of the range.
The walking was worse than ever there, and Steve was beginning to lag and wish that some one else would carry his heavy gun, when Jakobsen, who had passed out of sight behind a chaotic mass of rocks, suddenly came hurriedly back.
“He has seen deer,” whispered Johannes, who was close beside Steve, and seemed to look upon himself as the boy’s bodyguard.
Jakobsen held up his hand to make the party stop, and the next minute he was close up.
“Reindeer,” he whispered. “Four just round the point yonder feeding on the moss. Come.”
“Stay back, the rest of you,” said the captain in a low voice. “You can come, Steve, my lad, and you, Johannes, be cautious.”
Then the novel kind of deer-stalking commenced, Jakobsen leading and taking advantage of every block of stone, turning round at times to make sure that his companions were keeping out of sight, and at last coming to a stand at where the defile they were threading opened out into a plain.
He was behind a mass of rocks whose hollows were filled up with ice; and when all were together he whispered to them to be ready, and then clambered up till he was high enough to peer over cautiously before descending.
“They are very wild and cautious,” he whispered; “but they have not moved. Go forward now, creeping from rock to rock, and you are sure of one or two.”
“Come, Steve,” whispered the captain. “Don’t fire unless I tell you. Be ready to hand me your gun if I miss.”
He went off to the right of the pile of rocks, and the doctor took the left, all stooping and sheltering themselves till the end of the stones was reached; and upon raising himself a little so as to peer round the last, there, not fifty yards away, and grazing or tearing up the moss with their feet, were four deer, with their peculiarly shaped, branching antlers, and all apparently in perfect ignorance of danger being so near.
“Can you see Mr Handscombe?” whispered the captain, drawing back to speak.
“No, he is not in sight.”
“I’ll wait, then, so as to give him a chance of getting within shot as well. It will steady my hand, too.”
“What’s that?” whispered Steve, as a sound like one stone being thrown against another reached his ear.
The captain reached forward again, and uttered an exclamation which brought Steve close up just in time to see the four deer bounding away, and to have his ears half deafened by the report of the piece, for the captain fired directly.
“Gone! Lost them!” he cried, as the deer tore on.
“Fire again.”
“With small shot?” said the captain. “No use, my lad. And I should have been so glad to have got a brace of these deer. It would have been such a good change for the men.”
“Hooray!” shouted Steve. “One’s down!” For all at once the foremost of the deer stopped short, then staggered on a few yards, stopped again, and fell.
At that moment a rifle shot rang out from their left, and the last of the flying deer pitched headlong amongst the stones and lay kicking.
“Well done, doctor! and a very long shot, too! Ahoy, Johannes! Jakobsen!” he shouted as he placed a fresh cartridge in his gun. Then, as the men came up, “There you are! We’ll get back to the boat with the fresh provisions. What shall you do, cut them up here?”
“No, sir; tie their legs, and carry them on the lance-poles. We are enough to manage them.”
In a very short time the two deer were being borne, hanging head downwards, over the rough ground till the ice was reached, and finally the boat, the welcome supply of fresh meat being greeted with a cheer as it was hauled up over the side to the deck of theHvalross; and that evening the cook had a busy time, while, as Steve remarked, the smell of that kind of cooking was far better than that which prevailed when the Norsemen were busy rendering down the oil.
Chapter Fifteen.A Tale of the Winter Cold.The shore looked more attractive the next morning, probably from the fact that all on board theHvalrosshad had a most enjoyable supper of fresh meat, and afterwards a long—what Steve called day’s—night’s rest; so that every one was on the alert and eager to carry out the captain’s orders.So as not to lose time steam was got up at once, and Captain Marsham explained his intentions, which were to go up the west coast until stopped by the ice, and on the way search the different fiords and bays for signs of the lost party. Failing to find them, he said that they would return to their starting-point, and then proceed in the same way southward, and round to the east coast, and ascend that.“I don’t think it is a question of scouting along the land in the search,” said the captain, “but of being here, for it must be a matter of accident our finding them. We shall of course build up a cairn wherever we touch, with a paper in it telling when we landed and the direction we take, in case they come here after we have gone.”“And you will go on hunting and fishing as we touch at place after place?”“Certainly, until we have filled the tanks. That will enable me to prolong my journey, and, if necessary, repeat it next year.”Steve looked at the captain in horror, but said nothing; and directly after a cairn had been built at the most conspicuous point of the entrance to the fiord, and a letter left in a meat canister inside, theHvalrossslowly steamed out, and advanced northward, entering fiord after fiord, and searching vainly. There were always the same forbidding cliffs capped with snow, masses of ice piled up, and the ravines filled with glaciers, and here and there inlets whose entrances were completely frozen up, and not likely to be open for a month. But there was no sign of cairn or signal-post. No human being had left a trace of landing there, and the journey north was continued.“Why, Johannes,” said the captain on the second evening, after they had spent about a couple of hours in shooting wild fowl to replenish the larder and keep the men in good health with plenty of fresh provisions, “I thought as soon as we reached this wild region we should find deer, bears, and walrus in abundance; and here we have been touching at place after place for two days, and not seen a single animal since we shot the deer.”“No, sir; it is a matter of accident,” replied the Norseman. “There are plenty; but every year they get farther away, for they are hunted so much that they shun the places where vessels come.”Their words came plainly to where Steve was busy with a glass; for, after the shooting was over, and the men in one of the boats had collected all the slain to hand over to the cook, who immediately made Watty Links discontented by setting him to pluck the birds, the lad had ascended to the crow’s-nest to have a look round.It was very wonderful, that outlook to Steve; but it seemed to him awful and depressing. It was so silent and so strange that at times even the continuous daylight caused him to feel a sensation of shrinking, especially when seen through the telescope; for there were moments when he felt as if he were passing into some far-off, weird wonderland, a land of solemn silence, where life could not exist; and at such moments he would take his eye from the glass, and look down at the men on deck and see signs of human creatures being near to carry off the strange sensation.He had just been passing through one of these fits; for it was evening, and though broad daylight, with the sun shining, there was a peculiarity in the sky to northward, a something he could not well have explained, which made him feel that night was at hand. And as he leaned against the side of the crow’s-nest he listened to what was said on deck, and then once more gazed to the northward, following the line of coast, and then giving a start; for a few miles only from where they were gliding onward he saw unmistakably that their journey in that direction was at an end.He carefully adjusted the glass so as to make sure, and found that it was so: the icy barrier was jammed tight on to the land, and on following it to the westward it extended in one solid wall right away till it was lost in the distance.Sweeping back to the coast, he searched carefully to see if there were any opening or fiord by which they could pass onward; but there was not a sign, and he was just about to announce his discovery, when he caught sight of something about a mile away, standing out plainly on a low headland, with the black face of a large cliff behind to throw it up so clearly that he wondered why he had not seen it at the first.Steve Young.“At last!” he said, with his heart beating violently and a curious choking sensation rising to his throat. For there, looking dim now as he glanced through the glass once more, was a wooden cross, evidently set up as a signal, the first trace of human occupation of that solemn, solitary land; and it was some moments before his emotion would let him hail the deck.“Ahoy there!” he shouted; then exultantly, but in a tone of voice which did not sound like his own, “Ice right ahead, and a signal showing about a mile away!”“What!” shouted Captain Marsham. “Stop a minute; I’ll come up.”He ran to the shrouds, and began to climb rapidly and as actively as either of the men till he was close beneath the great cask.“Don’t stir, my boy,” he said; “I’ll find room for both. Now then,” he continued, as the trap beneath their feet was closed, “where’s the signal?”“Follow the coast-line for about a mile,” cried Steve eagerly, as he handed the glass, “and you will see a great black cliff with hardly a scrap of snow upon it. Then, low down on a piece of level ground—”“I have it!” cried the captain; “a large post.” His tone of eager satisfaction changed to one that was very solemn and grave: “It is a cross, Steve,” he said.“Yes, a great wooden cross. Don’t you think they set it up there as a signal?”“I think some one set it up there as a sign, my boy,” said Captain Marsham gravely.“And that some one is living there?” cried Steve.The captain did not answer, but changed the direction of the glass.“Yes,” he said; “there is the pack, fast for another month, unless we have a storm to break it up. We’ll go on a mile or two, and then turn back. Come along down.”He began to descend at once, and Steve followed, wondering at his manner, and feeling sad now; for he concluded that, from his experience and knowledge of such matters, the captain felt that they had reached Spitzbergen too late to save their friends alive.As soon as the deck was reached orders were given to increase the speed a little, Johannes joining the captain on the bridge to keep a careful look-out for danger where there was none, for the water was perfectly clear of rocks and deep right up to the cliffs; so that a quarter of an hour later they were abreast of the cross, a boat was lowered, and Captain Marsham was rowed ashore.Steve was the first to leap upon the rocks, and then the little party made their way up a slope to the level patch on which stood the rough sign, and, in addition, two more, which had not been perceived till they were close up; while of greater interest still, close under the perpendicular black cliff, some four or five hundred feet high, was a low, square, wooden hut, built up of old ship’s timbers. They made at once for this, leaving the singularly shaped wooden crosses; and once more a feeling of awe crept over Steve, and he whispered to the captain asking him if he thought it was their friends.“Oh no,” was the quick reply. “Didn’t you understand? The remains of some Russian party. The crosses told that.”Steve felt relieved, and curiosity had begun to take the place of the shrinking sensation he had felt on seeing that the woodwork was grey and mossy, much of it greatly decayed, and that the rough door had fallen away from its hinges and lay across the opening which it had been used to close. The timbers had been caulked with moss, and no doubt had had snow piled up against them, to keep out the penetrating cold, while the nearly flat roof was covered with stones.All this was seen almost at a glance as they paused by the door, and then the captain stooped his head and entered the low, cabin-like place, followed by the doctor and Steve.The place was fairly extensive inside, and fitted up with a long, low, stone bench, upon which lay quantities of dry sea-weed, the whole having evidently been used for the occupants’ bed. In the middle of the hut was an arrangement of stones, with a roughly contrived flue, which had formed a kind of stove for heating and cooking, and in it still lay a quantity of ashes and some charred fragments of oak that must have been bits of ships’ timber.That was all visible at first; but in the darkest part of the hut, farthest from the door, the low, bench-like erection was piled with sea-weed apparently, till they drew closer and found that there were several mouldy bear-skins, from which the hair had rotted, and which came away in fragments upon being touched.It was Steve who gave a tug at one of the skins, and, throwing the pieces down, he was about to drag another one right off, when the captain checked him.“Let him rest,” he said gravely; and Steve started back as he realised the fact that he was disturbing the resting-place of the dead.He looked at the captain in horror as if to question him with his eyes, and the answer came.“Yes, some unfortunate Russian party, evidently left to winter here, and they died off one by one. Let us go and look at the crosses.”It was with a sensation of relief that they all stood out once more in the soft, bright sunshine, and breathed the clear, cold air, which came fresh from the ice-fields; and soon after they stopped before the crosses, beneath which were the resting-places of five unfortunate men.“There is the history written plainly enough,” said Captain Marsham in a low voice, as if talking to himself. “These were the party of six left here to collect skins during the winter, to be fetched away the next season. One man died, and his kindly-hearted companions laboriously made that rough, wooden coffin, and dug a few inches into this icy rock for its reception. They covered it with these stones to guard it from wild beasts, and put up this elaborate timber with its three cross-pieces, cut in Russian characters as we see. Then another died, and his four companions treated him nearly the same as the first; there was as much care taken to bury him, and the cross is nearly as grand as the first. The third man died, and the survivors were not able to do so much; the grave is more shallow, the coffin rougher, and there is only one cross-piece. Then we have here the fourth man’s resting-place—very shallow, and only an upright post, with his initials, two letters roughly scored by a feeble hand, by one of the two survivors. Then look at this.”He took a few steps to where Steve shrinkingly saw a hollow in which, barely covered by small pieces of rock and ice, lay the remains of a man, from which all turned without a word. For it wanted no words to tell how he had pined and died, and been dragged to his last resting-place by his feeble companion, the last of the party, so helpless now that he could not chip out a grave, but was fain to lay his dead companion in a natural rift, and slowly pile over him little pieces of the stone and ice around; then crawl back into the hut to lie there, covered by the skins, waiting for the dawn to come after the long, long wintry night, and bring with it the hopes of rescue which came too late.The Norseman who had stood by the graves with his cap in his hands went softly away on tip-toe to the boat, and the captain said sadly: “There is something very awful as well as grand up here in these solitudes. Poor fellows! What a history they have left behind! Steve, lad, it is a painful sight for you.”“Yes,” said the boy huskily, and his voice shook as he looked up apologetically at the speaker. “I can’t help it—makes me feel quite ill and weak; for when I think of it all, and of those who must have been hoping they would return like some one we know, I feel as if I could sit down and cry.”“Hah!” ejaculated the doctor; and as the others looked at him he sharply turned away his face.“Yes, it is very sad,” said the captain briskly; “but we will not take that view of the case, my lad. Let’s only be thankful that you were wrong in your ideas. Our friends would be better provided than these poor fellows were, and I have always a strong feeling that we shall find them alive and well.”An hour later they had been right up, pretty close to the barrier of ice which stopped further progress to the north; and as there was a pleasant breeze from the north-east, sail was set, the fires damped, and away they went southward toward the fiord where the deer had been shot in the valley.This was reached late the next evening, and they landed to try for more deer, an adventure attended with so much success that on the following day, when they began to sail southward, they had twelve fine, fat deer lying in the hold in ice, and another in the hands of the cook for present use.“Seems rather wholesale, doesn’t it?” said Steve to the doctor.“Yes, my boy; but meat will keep for years in this climate if once frozen; and,” he added with a laugh, “you must make your hay when the sun shines.”“And freeze it afterwards,” said Steve, smiling.
The shore looked more attractive the next morning, probably from the fact that all on board theHvalrosshad had a most enjoyable supper of fresh meat, and afterwards a long—what Steve called day’s—night’s rest; so that every one was on the alert and eager to carry out the captain’s orders.
So as not to lose time steam was got up at once, and Captain Marsham explained his intentions, which were to go up the west coast until stopped by the ice, and on the way search the different fiords and bays for signs of the lost party. Failing to find them, he said that they would return to their starting-point, and then proceed in the same way southward, and round to the east coast, and ascend that.
“I don’t think it is a question of scouting along the land in the search,” said the captain, “but of being here, for it must be a matter of accident our finding them. We shall of course build up a cairn wherever we touch, with a paper in it telling when we landed and the direction we take, in case they come here after we have gone.”
“And you will go on hunting and fishing as we touch at place after place?”
“Certainly, until we have filled the tanks. That will enable me to prolong my journey, and, if necessary, repeat it next year.”
Steve looked at the captain in horror, but said nothing; and directly after a cairn had been built at the most conspicuous point of the entrance to the fiord, and a letter left in a meat canister inside, theHvalrossslowly steamed out, and advanced northward, entering fiord after fiord, and searching vainly. There were always the same forbidding cliffs capped with snow, masses of ice piled up, and the ravines filled with glaciers, and here and there inlets whose entrances were completely frozen up, and not likely to be open for a month. But there was no sign of cairn or signal-post. No human being had left a trace of landing there, and the journey north was continued.
“Why, Johannes,” said the captain on the second evening, after they had spent about a couple of hours in shooting wild fowl to replenish the larder and keep the men in good health with plenty of fresh provisions, “I thought as soon as we reached this wild region we should find deer, bears, and walrus in abundance; and here we have been touching at place after place for two days, and not seen a single animal since we shot the deer.”
“No, sir; it is a matter of accident,” replied the Norseman. “There are plenty; but every year they get farther away, for they are hunted so much that they shun the places where vessels come.”
Their words came plainly to where Steve was busy with a glass; for, after the shooting was over, and the men in one of the boats had collected all the slain to hand over to the cook, who immediately made Watty Links discontented by setting him to pluck the birds, the lad had ascended to the crow’s-nest to have a look round.
It was very wonderful, that outlook to Steve; but it seemed to him awful and depressing. It was so silent and so strange that at times even the continuous daylight caused him to feel a sensation of shrinking, especially when seen through the telescope; for there were moments when he felt as if he were passing into some far-off, weird wonderland, a land of solemn silence, where life could not exist; and at such moments he would take his eye from the glass, and look down at the men on deck and see signs of human creatures being near to carry off the strange sensation.
He had just been passing through one of these fits; for it was evening, and though broad daylight, with the sun shining, there was a peculiarity in the sky to northward, a something he could not well have explained, which made him feel that night was at hand. And as he leaned against the side of the crow’s-nest he listened to what was said on deck, and then once more gazed to the northward, following the line of coast, and then giving a start; for a few miles only from where they were gliding onward he saw unmistakably that their journey in that direction was at an end.
He carefully adjusted the glass so as to make sure, and found that it was so: the icy barrier was jammed tight on to the land, and on following it to the westward it extended in one solid wall right away till it was lost in the distance.
Sweeping back to the coast, he searched carefully to see if there were any opening or fiord by which they could pass onward; but there was not a sign, and he was just about to announce his discovery, when he caught sight of something about a mile away, standing out plainly on a low headland, with the black face of a large cliff behind to throw it up so clearly that he wondered why he had not seen it at the first.
Steve Young.
“At last!” he said, with his heart beating violently and a curious choking sensation rising to his throat. For there, looking dim now as he glanced through the glass once more, was a wooden cross, evidently set up as a signal, the first trace of human occupation of that solemn, solitary land; and it was some moments before his emotion would let him hail the deck.
“Ahoy there!” he shouted; then exultantly, but in a tone of voice which did not sound like his own, “Ice right ahead, and a signal showing about a mile away!”
“What!” shouted Captain Marsham. “Stop a minute; I’ll come up.”
He ran to the shrouds, and began to climb rapidly and as actively as either of the men till he was close beneath the great cask.
“Don’t stir, my boy,” he said; “I’ll find room for both. Now then,” he continued, as the trap beneath their feet was closed, “where’s the signal?”
“Follow the coast-line for about a mile,” cried Steve eagerly, as he handed the glass, “and you will see a great black cliff with hardly a scrap of snow upon it. Then, low down on a piece of level ground—”
“I have it!” cried the captain; “a large post.” His tone of eager satisfaction changed to one that was very solemn and grave: “It is a cross, Steve,” he said.
“Yes, a great wooden cross. Don’t you think they set it up there as a signal?”
“I think some one set it up there as a sign, my boy,” said Captain Marsham gravely.
“And that some one is living there?” cried Steve.
The captain did not answer, but changed the direction of the glass.
“Yes,” he said; “there is the pack, fast for another month, unless we have a storm to break it up. We’ll go on a mile or two, and then turn back. Come along down.”
He began to descend at once, and Steve followed, wondering at his manner, and feeling sad now; for he concluded that, from his experience and knowledge of such matters, the captain felt that they had reached Spitzbergen too late to save their friends alive.
As soon as the deck was reached orders were given to increase the speed a little, Johannes joining the captain on the bridge to keep a careful look-out for danger where there was none, for the water was perfectly clear of rocks and deep right up to the cliffs; so that a quarter of an hour later they were abreast of the cross, a boat was lowered, and Captain Marsham was rowed ashore.
Steve was the first to leap upon the rocks, and then the little party made their way up a slope to the level patch on which stood the rough sign, and, in addition, two more, which had not been perceived till they were close up; while of greater interest still, close under the perpendicular black cliff, some four or five hundred feet high, was a low, square, wooden hut, built up of old ship’s timbers. They made at once for this, leaving the singularly shaped wooden crosses; and once more a feeling of awe crept over Steve, and he whispered to the captain asking him if he thought it was their friends.
“Oh no,” was the quick reply. “Didn’t you understand? The remains of some Russian party. The crosses told that.”
Steve felt relieved, and curiosity had begun to take the place of the shrinking sensation he had felt on seeing that the woodwork was grey and mossy, much of it greatly decayed, and that the rough door had fallen away from its hinges and lay across the opening which it had been used to close. The timbers had been caulked with moss, and no doubt had had snow piled up against them, to keep out the penetrating cold, while the nearly flat roof was covered with stones.
All this was seen almost at a glance as they paused by the door, and then the captain stooped his head and entered the low, cabin-like place, followed by the doctor and Steve.
The place was fairly extensive inside, and fitted up with a long, low, stone bench, upon which lay quantities of dry sea-weed, the whole having evidently been used for the occupants’ bed. In the middle of the hut was an arrangement of stones, with a roughly contrived flue, which had formed a kind of stove for heating and cooking, and in it still lay a quantity of ashes and some charred fragments of oak that must have been bits of ships’ timber.
That was all visible at first; but in the darkest part of the hut, farthest from the door, the low, bench-like erection was piled with sea-weed apparently, till they drew closer and found that there were several mouldy bear-skins, from which the hair had rotted, and which came away in fragments upon being touched.
It was Steve who gave a tug at one of the skins, and, throwing the pieces down, he was about to drag another one right off, when the captain checked him.
“Let him rest,” he said gravely; and Steve started back as he realised the fact that he was disturbing the resting-place of the dead.
He looked at the captain in horror as if to question him with his eyes, and the answer came.
“Yes, some unfortunate Russian party, evidently left to winter here, and they died off one by one. Let us go and look at the crosses.”
It was with a sensation of relief that they all stood out once more in the soft, bright sunshine, and breathed the clear, cold air, which came fresh from the ice-fields; and soon after they stopped before the crosses, beneath which were the resting-places of five unfortunate men.
“There is the history written plainly enough,” said Captain Marsham in a low voice, as if talking to himself. “These were the party of six left here to collect skins during the winter, to be fetched away the next season. One man died, and his kindly-hearted companions laboriously made that rough, wooden coffin, and dug a few inches into this icy rock for its reception. They covered it with these stones to guard it from wild beasts, and put up this elaborate timber with its three cross-pieces, cut in Russian characters as we see. Then another died, and his four companions treated him nearly the same as the first; there was as much care taken to bury him, and the cross is nearly as grand as the first. The third man died, and the survivors were not able to do so much; the grave is more shallow, the coffin rougher, and there is only one cross-piece. Then we have here the fourth man’s resting-place—very shallow, and only an upright post, with his initials, two letters roughly scored by a feeble hand, by one of the two survivors. Then look at this.”
He took a few steps to where Steve shrinkingly saw a hollow in which, barely covered by small pieces of rock and ice, lay the remains of a man, from which all turned without a word. For it wanted no words to tell how he had pined and died, and been dragged to his last resting-place by his feeble companion, the last of the party, so helpless now that he could not chip out a grave, but was fain to lay his dead companion in a natural rift, and slowly pile over him little pieces of the stone and ice around; then crawl back into the hut to lie there, covered by the skins, waiting for the dawn to come after the long, long wintry night, and bring with it the hopes of rescue which came too late.
The Norseman who had stood by the graves with his cap in his hands went softly away on tip-toe to the boat, and the captain said sadly: “There is something very awful as well as grand up here in these solitudes. Poor fellows! What a history they have left behind! Steve, lad, it is a painful sight for you.”
“Yes,” said the boy huskily, and his voice shook as he looked up apologetically at the speaker. “I can’t help it—makes me feel quite ill and weak; for when I think of it all, and of those who must have been hoping they would return like some one we know, I feel as if I could sit down and cry.”
“Hah!” ejaculated the doctor; and as the others looked at him he sharply turned away his face.
“Yes, it is very sad,” said the captain briskly; “but we will not take that view of the case, my lad. Let’s only be thankful that you were wrong in your ideas. Our friends would be better provided than these poor fellows were, and I have always a strong feeling that we shall find them alive and well.”
An hour later they had been right up, pretty close to the barrier of ice which stopped further progress to the north; and as there was a pleasant breeze from the north-east, sail was set, the fires damped, and away they went southward toward the fiord where the deer had been shot in the valley.
This was reached late the next evening, and they landed to try for more deer, an adventure attended with so much success that on the following day, when they began to sail southward, they had twelve fine, fat deer lying in the hold in ice, and another in the hands of the cook for present use.
“Seems rather wholesale, doesn’t it?” said Steve to the doctor.
“Yes, my boy; but meat will keep for years in this climate if once frozen; and,” he added with a laugh, “you must make your hay when the sun shines.”
“And freeze it afterwards,” said Steve, smiling.
Chapter Sixteen.Battle Royal.Days and days were spent exploring the coast southward, the party landing wherever there was an opportunity offered by a likely spot; but the most southern point of the mountain land was reached without a sign, and several walrus boats were spoken by way of obtaining news, but without result. Then, as the ice was densely packed, preventing any attempt being made to search the eastern shore, a course was laid for the great neighbouring island, theHvalrosssailing steadily north-east a short distance from the pack.They had had a good evening’s shooting the night before, and to the great delight of Andrew, Hamish, and the cook quite a load of fine ducks had been brought on board by the boat; but as Steve was going forward to take a favourite position of his by the bowsprit, he found that another member of the crew was not so highly pleased, for Watty was seated outside the galley door with a goose in his lap and a bucket by his side, busily plucking out the feathers and down, which, partly from the angry energy with which he was working, partly from the breeze, were flying in all directions, and especially all over his blue jersey and into his shock hair, which had been well anointed with the bear’s grease he had carefully saved up from the day when the fat was boiled.When Steve approached Watty seemed to be singing as he plucked, for there was a mumbling, burring noise, and Steve turned to Andrew, who happened to be close at hand seated upon the deck, fastening a line to the edge of a sail.“Why, Andra,” he said, “do you hear that?”“Oh ay, she hears it,” replied the sailor.“Do you know what it puts me in mind of?”“Na, she dinna ken, Meester Stevey. A coo waiting for the lassie with the milk-pail, maype.”“No,” said Steve; “it’s just like the drone of your pipes heard in the cuddy with the hatch on.”“Fwhat? Na, na, she’ll not pe a pit like tat. Ta pipes is music—coot music, Meester Stevey; for there’s na music like ta pagpipes—ta gran’ Hielan’ pagpipes. But she kens she’s chust cracking a choke with me.”“No, I’m not. Listen; it does sound just like it.”“Na, na, laddie,” said Andrew after a pause to listen; “she’s mair like ta collie tog when she sees a cat, or maype it’s mair like ta bummel-bees among ta heather upo’ ta hills in bonnie Scotland.”“Well, it sounds very comic whatever it’s like. Look here’s Skeny coming up to see what’s the matter; look how he’s cocking his ears.”“Oh ay, she thinks it’s a coo wants driving hame.”“No, he knows it’s Watty. Look at him.”“Ay, she can see ta tog. An’ it’s a fine tog, eh, Skene? Come alang, and I’ll gie ye a pinch o’ sneeshin’.”“No, no, don’t tease the dog!” cried Steve, as Andrew took out an old snuff-mull, opened it, and held it out to the dog.“Nay, she’ll na tease the tyke. Skene hasna larnt to tak’ ta sneeshing. But it’s ferra coot for ta nose, Skeny.”And all the while Watty’s peculiar burring sound kept on and increased, the dog looking hard at him with his ears up, and finally giving a short, sharp bark. “Do you hear that, Watty?” said Steve.“Ay; she heart ta tyke.”“Skene wants the second verse of the song.”“Then he’ll ha’e to wait,” said the boy; and he went on again with the monotonous burring sound which had first attracted Steve’s attention.“What’s the matter with him, Andra?”“She’s making up a lang story spout ta cook. She’s been retty to fecht, and ta cook said she’d ding her het again’ ta galley if she tidn’t pick ta goose.”“Ay, but she’ll mak’ my ploot poil pefore she’s tone,” cried Watty fiercely, and scattering a handful of feathers so that some of them and the down flew on to Steve.“Make your ploot poil?” cried Steve, laughing.“Ay; and it poils now!” cried Watty, scattering some more feathers purposely, so that they should adhere to his trousers.“There, I told you he was singing, Andra. His ploot poils, and he was singing like a kettle.”“My mither sent me to sea to learn to pe a sailor, and ta skipper’s made me ta cook’s poy!” cried Watty vehemently.“Then you shouldn’t have been such a coward, Watty. There, don’t be in a temper, and I’ll speak to the captain to let you come back to the other duties.”“Hey, put she’s a puir feckless potie, and dinna ken the when she’s well off. She wishes ta captain wad pit her in ta galley, to get ta fairst wee tasties of all ta gravies and good things ta cook potie mak’s.”“But he’s tired of it now, Andra. I say, Watty, look here; you’re smothering me with that fluff!”“Then she should get ower to ta ither side of ta fessel.”“I’ll knock you to the other side of the vessel if you’re saucy!” cried Steve hotly. “See if I speak to the captain for you now!”“She dinna want ye to speak. She can speak her ainsel’ when she wants, and she ton’t want; for she’ll stop in ta galley the noo till we get pack to Glasgie and goo pefore ta magistrates aboot it. There!”This last word was accompanied by a handful of down thrown in the air so that it might be wafted right over Steve.This was too much for the boy’s equanimity, and, hot with passion, he snatched a handful of the down from the pail and rubbed it in Watty’s shock head, to Andrew’s great delight.“Weel tone, laddie!” he cried; “tat’s ponnie. Gie her anither handfu’ of the saft doon.”Now, for some time past Watty, for reasons best known to himself, had been nursing up feelings of the nature that would, in other conditions, have developed into a regular Highland feud. He was jealous of Steve in every way. It annoyed him that a boy younger than he should be dressed better, work less, and live in the cabin, while he had to share the meals of the men when the cook did not make him eat in the galley. In addition, after long brooding over what he called his “wrangs,” and in his dislike to the lad who had shown himself to be more plucky, and brought him, as he called it, to shame, he had nursed up the idea that Steve was only a coward at heart, that all his acts were put on for show, and that if he could only find a chance he would risk getting into trouble if it should reach the captain’s ears, and give the object of his dislike a good thrashing.And now the opportunity had come, and there was plenty of excuse. Steve had dared to rub all that down into his sacred, well-greased, red locks; and springing up and looking as if his “ploot really tit poil,” he swung round the goose he was plucking, and, using it as if it were an elastic war-club, he brought it with excellent aim bang against Steve’s head.More blood began to boil now, for, with a cry of rage at what, forgetting his own provocation, he looked upon as a daring insult, Steve ran two or three steps—ran away, Watty thought; and exulting in his imaginary triumph, he followed to strike his adversary again with his absurd weapon; but to his utter astonishment, before the blow could fall, Steve, who seemed to be stooping to avoid the attack, sprang up, and, raising both hands, struck downward.The result was curious. As Steve struck downwards Watty, in delivering his blow, leaned forwards, placing his head just in the proper position to receive the weapon and its contents with which the English lad had armed himself. That weapon was the bucket full of feathers, and Steve’s anger went off like a flash, for he had completely extinguished Watty, who staggered back, dropping the bird, blinded, half suffocated by the down, and so confused for a few moments that even when he had thrust off the bucket from his head he stood coughing and sneezing, staggering about in his blind endeavours to escape.“Weel done, laddie; tat’s prave. Gie it ta saucy callant again. She’ll sweep up ta feathers when she’s tone,” cried Andrew in ecstasy.But now Watty’s blood boiled right over, and as soon as his eyes were clear he rushed at Steve with an angry yell, fists doubled, teeth set; and, regardless of the goose hurled in his face, he continued his charge right home and up to his adversary’s guard.The next minute they were fighting hard, blow succeeding blow in the most unscientific way; but the end was not to be then, for Andrew cried in a hoarse whisper:“Rin, laddie, rin! Here’s ta skipper.”Watty heard the terrible words—words awful to him—and he did “rin.”Not far. The galley door was open, and close at hand. Into it he darted like a fox into its hole, and Steve stood alone, covered with feathers, to face the captain and Mr Handscombe, who, hearing the scuffling forward, hurried up to see the cause.“Highly creditable, upon my word!” cried Captain Marsham, frowning. “Could not you find anything more sensible to do than to get into this disgraceful quarrel with the ship’s boy?”Steve stood breathing hard, flushed with anger and mortification.“I’d try a sweep next time, Stephen,” said the doctor sarcastically; “he would not come off worse upon you than this fellow has done.”“He insulted and struck me,” stammered Steve. “You would not have had me stand still and submit to that, sir?”“I don’t want to hear anything about it,” said the captain sternly; “it is disgraceful, and I gave you credit for knowing better.”The captain walked back to the companion hatch and descended to the cabin, leaving Steve, the doctor, Hamish, and Andrew looking at each other.“Well, sir,” said the doctor, “you’ve done it this time. Have you any idea what an object you look?”“No,” said Steve, in a tone of voice which told of his mortification.“Go to your cabin, then, and look in the glass. I should prescribe a little water, too!”“Hadn’t I better jump overboard for it, then?” cried Steve bitterly.“Bah! Rubbish! Don’t talk nonsense!” cried the doctor, catching the lad by the arm.“Why, what’s the matter?” said the mate, coming up hurriedly.“Oh, nothing much. We’ve had an accident, and spilt some feathers about the deck, and it has made the captain angry about the way in which it was done. Have them cleared up, man. Come along, Steve lad; and don’t look like that,” he whispered, as he half dragged the lad away.
Days and days were spent exploring the coast southward, the party landing wherever there was an opportunity offered by a likely spot; but the most southern point of the mountain land was reached without a sign, and several walrus boats were spoken by way of obtaining news, but without result. Then, as the ice was densely packed, preventing any attempt being made to search the eastern shore, a course was laid for the great neighbouring island, theHvalrosssailing steadily north-east a short distance from the pack.
They had had a good evening’s shooting the night before, and to the great delight of Andrew, Hamish, and the cook quite a load of fine ducks had been brought on board by the boat; but as Steve was going forward to take a favourite position of his by the bowsprit, he found that another member of the crew was not so highly pleased, for Watty was seated outside the galley door with a goose in his lap and a bucket by his side, busily plucking out the feathers and down, which, partly from the angry energy with which he was working, partly from the breeze, were flying in all directions, and especially all over his blue jersey and into his shock hair, which had been well anointed with the bear’s grease he had carefully saved up from the day when the fat was boiled.
When Steve approached Watty seemed to be singing as he plucked, for there was a mumbling, burring noise, and Steve turned to Andrew, who happened to be close at hand seated upon the deck, fastening a line to the edge of a sail.
“Why, Andra,” he said, “do you hear that?”
“Oh ay, she hears it,” replied the sailor.
“Do you know what it puts me in mind of?”
“Na, she dinna ken, Meester Stevey. A coo waiting for the lassie with the milk-pail, maype.”
“No,” said Steve; “it’s just like the drone of your pipes heard in the cuddy with the hatch on.”
“Fwhat? Na, na, she’ll not pe a pit like tat. Ta pipes is music—coot music, Meester Stevey; for there’s na music like ta pagpipes—ta gran’ Hielan’ pagpipes. But she kens she’s chust cracking a choke with me.”
“No, I’m not. Listen; it does sound just like it.”
“Na, na, laddie,” said Andrew after a pause to listen; “she’s mair like ta collie tog when she sees a cat, or maype it’s mair like ta bummel-bees among ta heather upo’ ta hills in bonnie Scotland.”
“Well, it sounds very comic whatever it’s like. Look here’s Skeny coming up to see what’s the matter; look how he’s cocking his ears.”
“Oh ay, she thinks it’s a coo wants driving hame.”
“No, he knows it’s Watty. Look at him.”
“Ay, she can see ta tog. An’ it’s a fine tog, eh, Skene? Come alang, and I’ll gie ye a pinch o’ sneeshin’.”
“No, no, don’t tease the dog!” cried Steve, as Andrew took out an old snuff-mull, opened it, and held it out to the dog.
“Nay, she’ll na tease the tyke. Skene hasna larnt to tak’ ta sneeshing. But it’s ferra coot for ta nose, Skeny.”
And all the while Watty’s peculiar burring sound kept on and increased, the dog looking hard at him with his ears up, and finally giving a short, sharp bark. “Do you hear that, Watty?” said Steve.
“Ay; she heart ta tyke.”
“Skene wants the second verse of the song.”
“Then he’ll ha’e to wait,” said the boy; and he went on again with the monotonous burring sound which had first attracted Steve’s attention.
“What’s the matter with him, Andra?”
“She’s making up a lang story spout ta cook. She’s been retty to fecht, and ta cook said she’d ding her het again’ ta galley if she tidn’t pick ta goose.”
“Ay, but she’ll mak’ my ploot poil pefore she’s tone,” cried Watty fiercely, and scattering a handful of feathers so that some of them and the down flew on to Steve.
“Make your ploot poil?” cried Steve, laughing.
“Ay; and it poils now!” cried Watty, scattering some more feathers purposely, so that they should adhere to his trousers.
“There, I told you he was singing, Andra. His ploot poils, and he was singing like a kettle.”
“My mither sent me to sea to learn to pe a sailor, and ta skipper’s made me ta cook’s poy!” cried Watty vehemently.
“Then you shouldn’t have been such a coward, Watty. There, don’t be in a temper, and I’ll speak to the captain to let you come back to the other duties.”
“Hey, put she’s a puir feckless potie, and dinna ken the when she’s well off. She wishes ta captain wad pit her in ta galley, to get ta fairst wee tasties of all ta gravies and good things ta cook potie mak’s.”
“But he’s tired of it now, Andra. I say, Watty, look here; you’re smothering me with that fluff!”
“Then she should get ower to ta ither side of ta fessel.”
“I’ll knock you to the other side of the vessel if you’re saucy!” cried Steve hotly. “See if I speak to the captain for you now!”
“She dinna want ye to speak. She can speak her ainsel’ when she wants, and she ton’t want; for she’ll stop in ta galley the noo till we get pack to Glasgie and goo pefore ta magistrates aboot it. There!”
This last word was accompanied by a handful of down thrown in the air so that it might be wafted right over Steve.
This was too much for the boy’s equanimity, and, hot with passion, he snatched a handful of the down from the pail and rubbed it in Watty’s shock head, to Andrew’s great delight.
“Weel tone, laddie!” he cried; “tat’s ponnie. Gie her anither handfu’ of the saft doon.”
Now, for some time past Watty, for reasons best known to himself, had been nursing up feelings of the nature that would, in other conditions, have developed into a regular Highland feud. He was jealous of Steve in every way. It annoyed him that a boy younger than he should be dressed better, work less, and live in the cabin, while he had to share the meals of the men when the cook did not make him eat in the galley. In addition, after long brooding over what he called his “wrangs,” and in his dislike to the lad who had shown himself to be more plucky, and brought him, as he called it, to shame, he had nursed up the idea that Steve was only a coward at heart, that all his acts were put on for show, and that if he could only find a chance he would risk getting into trouble if it should reach the captain’s ears, and give the object of his dislike a good thrashing.
And now the opportunity had come, and there was plenty of excuse. Steve had dared to rub all that down into his sacred, well-greased, red locks; and springing up and looking as if his “ploot really tit poil,” he swung round the goose he was plucking, and, using it as if it were an elastic war-club, he brought it with excellent aim bang against Steve’s head.
More blood began to boil now, for, with a cry of rage at what, forgetting his own provocation, he looked upon as a daring insult, Steve ran two or three steps—ran away, Watty thought; and exulting in his imaginary triumph, he followed to strike his adversary again with his absurd weapon; but to his utter astonishment, before the blow could fall, Steve, who seemed to be stooping to avoid the attack, sprang up, and, raising both hands, struck downward.
The result was curious. As Steve struck downwards Watty, in delivering his blow, leaned forwards, placing his head just in the proper position to receive the weapon and its contents with which the English lad had armed himself. That weapon was the bucket full of feathers, and Steve’s anger went off like a flash, for he had completely extinguished Watty, who staggered back, dropping the bird, blinded, half suffocated by the down, and so confused for a few moments that even when he had thrust off the bucket from his head he stood coughing and sneezing, staggering about in his blind endeavours to escape.
“Weel done, laddie; tat’s prave. Gie it ta saucy callant again. She’ll sweep up ta feathers when she’s tone,” cried Andrew in ecstasy.
But now Watty’s blood boiled right over, and as soon as his eyes were clear he rushed at Steve with an angry yell, fists doubled, teeth set; and, regardless of the goose hurled in his face, he continued his charge right home and up to his adversary’s guard.
The next minute they were fighting hard, blow succeeding blow in the most unscientific way; but the end was not to be then, for Andrew cried in a hoarse whisper:
“Rin, laddie, rin! Here’s ta skipper.”
Watty heard the terrible words—words awful to him—and he did “rin.”
Not far. The galley door was open, and close at hand. Into it he darted like a fox into its hole, and Steve stood alone, covered with feathers, to face the captain and Mr Handscombe, who, hearing the scuffling forward, hurried up to see the cause.
“Highly creditable, upon my word!” cried Captain Marsham, frowning. “Could not you find anything more sensible to do than to get into this disgraceful quarrel with the ship’s boy?”
Steve stood breathing hard, flushed with anger and mortification.
“I’d try a sweep next time, Stephen,” said the doctor sarcastically; “he would not come off worse upon you than this fellow has done.”
“He insulted and struck me,” stammered Steve. “You would not have had me stand still and submit to that, sir?”
“I don’t want to hear anything about it,” said the captain sternly; “it is disgraceful, and I gave you credit for knowing better.”
The captain walked back to the companion hatch and descended to the cabin, leaving Steve, the doctor, Hamish, and Andrew looking at each other.
“Well, sir,” said the doctor, “you’ve done it this time. Have you any idea what an object you look?”
“No,” said Steve, in a tone of voice which told of his mortification.
“Go to your cabin, then, and look in the glass. I should prescribe a little water, too!”
“Hadn’t I better jump overboard for it, then?” cried Steve bitterly.
“Bah! Rubbish! Don’t talk nonsense!” cried the doctor, catching the lad by the arm.
“Why, what’s the matter?” said the mate, coming up hurriedly.
“Oh, nothing much. We’ve had an accident, and spilt some feathers about the deck, and it has made the captain angry about the way in which it was done. Have them cleared up, man. Come along, Steve lad; and don’t look like that,” he whispered, as he half dragged the lad away.