The same latitude is colder in the southern than in the northern hemisphere; but the temperature of the New World is fifteen degrees beneath that of the other parts of the world; and in America these countries, known under the name of the region of greatest cold, are the most inclement.
The mean temperature for the whole year is two degrees below zero. Physicists have explained this fact in the following way, and Dr. Clawbonny shared their opinion.
According to them, the most constant winds in the northern regions of America are from the southwest; they come from the Pacific Ocean, with an equal and agreeable temperature; but before they reach the arctic seas they are obliged to cross the great American continent, which is covered with snow; the contact chills them, and communicates to these regions their intense cold.
Hatteras found himself at the pole of cold, beyond the countries seen by his predecessors; he consequently expected a terrible winter, on a ship lost amid the ice, with a turbulent crew. He resolved to meet these dangers with his usual energy. He faced what awaited him without flinching.
He began, with Johnson's aid and experience, to take all the measures necessary for going into winter-quarters. According to his calculation theForwardhad been carried two hundred and fifty miles from any known land, that is to say, from North Cornwall; she was firmly fixed in a field of ice, as in a bed of granite, and no human power could extricate her.
There was not a drop of open water in these vast seas chained by the fierce arctic winter. The ice-fields stretched away out of sight, but without presenting a smooth surface. Far from it. Numerous icebergs stood up in the icy plain, and theForwardwas sheltered by the highest of them on three points of the compass; the southeast wind alone reached them. Let one imagine rock instead of ice, verdure instead of snow, and the sea again liquid, and the brig would have quietly cast anchor in a pretty bay, sheltered from the fiercest blasts. But what desolation here! What a gloomy prospect! What a melancholy view!
The brig, although motionless, nevertheless had to be fastened securely by means of anchors; this was a necessary precaution against possible thaws and submarine upheavals. Johnson, on hearing that theForwardwas at the pole of cold, took even greater precautions for securing warmth.
"We shall have it severe enough," he had said to the doctor; "that's just the captain's luck, to go and get caught at the most disagreeable spot on the globe! Bah! you will see that we shall get out of it."
As to the doctor, at the bottom of his heart he was simply delighted. He would not have changed it for any other. Winter at the pole of cold! What good luck!
At first, work on the outside occupied the crew; the sails were kept furled on the yards instead of being placed at the bottom of the hold, as the earlier explorers did; they were merely bound up in a case, and soon the frost covered them with a dense envelope; the topmasts were not unshipped, and the crow's-nest remained in its place. It was a natural observatory; the running-rigging alone was taken down.
It became necessary to cut away the ice from the ship to relieve the pressure. That which had accumulated outside was quite heavy, and the ship did not lie as deep as usual. This was a long and laborious task. At the end of some days the ship's bottom was freed, and could be inspected; it had not suffered, thanks to its solidity; only its copper sheathing was nearly torn away. The ship, having grown lighter, drew about nine inches less than she did earlier; the ice was cut away in a slope, following the make of the hull; in this way the ice formed beneath the brig's keel and so resisted all pressure.
The doctor took part in this work; he managed the ice-cutter well; he encouraged the sailors by his good-humor. He instructed them and himself. He approved of this arrangement of the ice beneath the ship.
"That is a good precaution," he said.
"Without that, Dr. Clawbonny," answered Johnson, "resistance would be impossible. Now we can boldly raise a wall of snow as high as the gunwale; and, if we want to, we can make it ten feet thick, for there is no lack of material."
"A capital idea," resumed the doctor; "the snow is a bad conductor of heat; it reflects instead of absorbing, and the inside temperature cannot escape."
"True," answered Johnson; "we are building a fortification against the cold, and also against the animals, if they care to visit us; when that is finished, it will look well, you may be sure; in this snow we shall cut two staircases, one fore, the other aft; when the steps are cut in the snow, we shall pour water on them; this will freeze as hard as stone, and we shall have a royal staircase."
"Precisely," answered the doctor; "and it must be said it is fortunate that cold produces both snow and ice, by which to protect one's self against it. Without that, one would be very much embarrassed."
In fact, the ship was destined to disappear beneath a thick casing of ice, which was needed to preserve its inside temperature; a roof made of thick tarred canvas and covered with snow was built above the deck over its whole length; the canvas was low enough to cover the sides of the ship. The deck, being protected from all outside impressions, became their walk; it was covered with two and a half feet of snow; this snow was crowded and beaten down so as to become very hard; so it resisted the radiation of the internal heat; above it was placed a layer of sand, which as it solidified became a sort of macadamized cover of great hardness.
"A little more," said the doctor, "and with a few trees I might imagine myself at Hyde Park, or even in the hanging-gardens at Babylon."
A trench was dug tolerably near the brig; this was a circular space in the ice, a real pit, which had to be kept always open. Every morning the ice formed overnight was broken; this was to secure water in case of fire or for the baths which were ordered the crew by the doctor; in order to spare the fuel, the water was drawn from some distance below the ice, where it was less cold. This was done by means of an instrument devised by a French physicist (François Arago); this apparatus, lowered for some distance into the water, brought it up to the surface through a cylinder.
Generally in winter everything which encumbers the ship is removed, and stored on land. But what was practicable near land is impossible for a ship anchored on the ice.
Every preparation was made to fight the two great enemies of this latitude, cold and dampness; the first produces the second, which is far more dangerous. The cold may be resisted by one who succumbs to dampness; hence it was necessary to guard against it.
TheForward, being destined to a journey in arctic seas, contained the best arrangements for winter-quarters: the large room for the crew was well provided for; the corners, where dampness first forms, were shut off; in fact, when the temperature is very low, a film of ice forms on the walls, especially in the corners, and when it melts it keeps up a perpetual dampness. If it had been round, the room would have been more convenient; but, being heated by a large stove, and properly ventilated, it was very comfortable; the walls were lined with deerskins, not with wool, for wool absorbs the condensed moisture and keeps the air full of dampness.
Farther aft the walls of the quarter were taken down, and the officers had a larger common-room, better ventilated, and heated by a stove. This room, like that of the crew, had a sort of antechamber, which cut off all communication with the outside. In this way, the heat could not be lost, and one passed gradually from one temperature to the other. In the anterooms were left the snow-covered clothes; the shoes were cleansed on the scrapers, so as to prevent the introduction of any unwholesomeness with one into the room.
Canvas hose served to introduce air for the draught of the stoves; other pieces of hose permitted the steam to escape. In addition two condensers were placed in the two rooms, and collected this vapor instead of letting it form into water; twice a week they were emptied, and often they contained several bushels of ice. It was so much taken from the enemy.
The fire was perfectly and easily controlled, by means of the canvas hose; by use of merely a small quantity of coal it was easy to keep the temperature of 50°. Still, Hatteras, having examined the bunkers, soon saw that the greatest economy was necessary, for there was not two months' fuel on board.
A drying-room was set apart for the clothes which were to be washed; they could not be dried in the open air, for they would freeze and tear.
The delicate pieces of the machinery were carefully taken down, and the room which contained them was hermetically closed.
The life on board became the object of serious meditation; Hatteras regulated it with the utmost caution, and the order of the day was posted up in the common-room. The men arose at six o'clock in the morning; three times a week the hammocks were aired; every morning the floors were scoured with hot sand; tea was served at every meal, and the bill of fare varied as much as possible for every day of the week; it consisted of bread, farina, suet and raisins for puddings, sugar, cocoa, tea, rice, lemon-juice, potted meats, salt beef and pork, cabbages, and vegetables in vinegar; the kitchen lay outside of the living-rooms; its heat was consequently lost; but cooking is a perpetual source of evaporation and dampness.
The health of the men depends a great deal on the sort of food they get; in high latitudes, the greatest amount of animal food ought to be eaten. The doctor had supervised the sort of food to be given.
"We ought to follow the Esquimaux," he used to say; "they have received their lessons from nature, and are our masters in that; if the Arabs and Africans can content themselves with a few dates and a handful of rice, here it is important to eat, and to eat a good deal. The Esquimaux take from ten to fifteen pounds of oil a day. If that fare does not please you, we must try food rich in sugar and fat. In a word, we need carbon, so let us manufacture carbon! It is well to put coal in the stove, but don't let us forget to fill that precious stove we carry about with us."
With this bill of fare, strict cleanliness was enforced; every other day each man was obliged to bathe in the half-frozen water which the iron pump brought up, and this was an excellent way of preserving their health. The doctor set the example; he did it at first as a thing which ought to be very disagreeable; but this pretext was quickly forgotten, for he soon took real pleasure in this healthy bath.
When work or hunting or distant expeditions took the men off in the severe cold, they had to take special care not to be frost-bitten; if they were, rubbing with snow would restore the circulation. Moreover, the men, who all wore woollen clothes, put on coats of deerskin and trousers of sealskin, which perfectly resist the wind.
The different arrangements of the ship, the getting-to-rights on board, took about three weeks, and they reached October 10th without any special incident.
On that day the thermometer fell to three degrees below zero. The day was calm; the cold was very endurable in the absence of wind. Hatteras took advantage of the clearness of the air to reconnoitre the surrounding plains; he ascended one of the highest icebergs to the north, but even with his glass he could make out nothing but a series of ice-mountains and ice-fields. There was no land in sight, nothing but gloomy confusion. He returned, and tried to calculate the probable length of their imprisonment.
The hunters, and among them the doctor, James Wall, Simpson, Johnson, and Bell, kept them supplied with fresh meat. The birds had disappeared, seeking a milder climate in the south. The ptarmigans alone, a sort of rock-partridge peculiar to this latitude, did not flee the winter; it was easy to kill them, and there were enough to promise a perpetual supply of game.
Hares, foxes, wolves, ermines, and bears were plentiful; a French, English, or Norwegian hunter would have had no right to complain; but they were so shy that it was hard to approach them; besides, it was hard to distinguish them on the white plain, they being white themselves, for in winter they acquire that colored fur. In opposition to the opinions of some naturalists, the doctor held that this change was not due to the lowering of the temperature, since it took place before October; hence it was not due to any physical cause, but rather providential foresight, to secure these animals against the severity of an arctic winter.
Often, too, they saw sea-cows and sea-dogs, animals included under the name of seals; all the hunters were specially recommended to shoot them, as much for their skins as for their fat, which was very good fuel. Besides, their liver made a very good article of food; they could be counted by hundreds, and two or three miles north of the ship the ice was continually perforated by these huge animals; only they avoided the hunter with remarkable instinct, and many were wounded who easily escaped by diving under the ice.
Still, on the 19th, Simpson succeeded in getting one four hundred yards distant from the ship; he had taken the precaution to close its hole in the ice, so that it could not escape from its pursuers. He fought for a long time, and died only after receiving many bullets. He was nine feet long; his bull-dog head, the sixteen teeth in his jaw, his large pectoral fins shaped like little wings, his little tail with another pair of fins, made him an excellent specimen. The doctor wished to preserve his head for his collection of natural history, and his skin for future contingences, hence he prepared both by a rapid and economical process. He plunged the body in the hole, and thousands of little prawns removed the flesh in small pieces; at the end of half a day the work was half finished, and the most skilful of the honorable corporation of tanners at Liverpool could not have done better.
When the sun had passed the autumn equinox, that is to say, September 23d, the winter fairly begins in the arctic regions. The sun, having gradually sunk to the horizon, disappeared at last, October 23d, lighting up merely the tops of the mountains with its oblique rays. The doctor gave it his last farewell. He could not see it again till the month of February.
Still the darkness was not complete during this long absence of the sun; the moon did its best to replace it; the stars were exceedingly brilliant, the auroras were very frequent, and the refractions peculiar to the snowy horizons; besides, the sun at the time of its greatest southern declension, December 21st, approaches within thirteen degrees of the polar horizon; hence, every day there was a certain twilight for a few hours. Only the mist and snow-storms often plunged these regions in the deepest obscurity.
Still, up to this time the weather was very favorable; the partridges and hares alone had reason to complain, for the hunters gave them no rest; a great many traps were set for foxes, but these crafty animals could not be caught; very often they scraped the snow away beneath the trap and took the bait without running any risk; the doctor cursed them, being very averse to making them such a present.
October 25th, the thermometer fell as low as -4°. A violent hurricane raged; the air was filled with thick snow, which permitted no ray of light to reach theForward. For several hours there was some anxiety about the fate of Bell and Simpson, who had gone some distance away hunting; they did not reach the ship till the next day, having rested for a whole day wrapped up in their furs, while the hurricane swept over them and buried them under five feet of snow. They were nearly frozen, and the doctor found it very hard to restore their circulation.
The tempest lasted eight days without interruption. No one could set foot outside. In a single day there were variations in the temperature of fifteen or twenty degrees.
During this enforced leisure every one kept to himself, some sleeping, others smoking, others again talking in a low tone and stopping at the approach of Johnson or the doctor; there was no moral tie between the men of the crew; they only met at evening prayers and at Sunday services.
Clifton knew perfectly well that when the seventy-eighth parallel was passed, his share of the pay would amount to three hundred and seventy-five pounds; he thought it a good round sum, and his ambition did not go any further. His opinion was generally shared, and all looked forward to the day when they should enjoy this hardly-earned fortune.*
Hatteras kept almost entirely out of sight. He never took part in the hunts or the walks from the ship. He took no interest in the meteorological phenomena which kept the doctor in a constant state of admiration. He lived with but a single idea; it consisted of three words,—The North Pole. He only thought of when theForward, free at last, should resume her bold course.
In fact, the general feeling on board was one of gloom. Nothing was so sad as the sight of this captive vessel, no longer resting in its natural element, but with its shape hidden beneath thick layers of ice; it looks like nothing; it cannot stir, though made for motion; it is turned into a wooden storehouse, a sedentary dwelling, this ship which knows how to breast the wind and the storms. This anomaly, this false situation, filled their hearts with an indefinable feeling of disquiet and regret.
During these idle hours the doctor arranged the notes he had taken, from which this book is made up; he was never out of spirits, and never lost his cheerfulness. Yet he was glad to see the end of the storm, and prepared to resume his hunting.
November 3d, at six o'clock in the morning, with a temperature of -5°, he set off in company with Johnson and Bell; the expanse of ice was unbroken; all the snow which had fallen so abundantly during the preceding days was hardened by the frost, and made good walking; the air was keen and piercing; the moon shone with incomparable purity, glistening on the least roughness in the ice; their footprints glowed like an illuminated trail, and their long shadows stood out almost black against the brilliant ice.
The doctor had taken Duke with him; he preferred him to the Greenland dogs to hunt game, and he was right; for they are of very little use under such circumstances, and they did not appear to possess the sacred fire of the race of the temperate zone. Duke ran along with his nose on the ground, and he often stopped on the recent marks of bears. Still, in spite of his skill, the hunters did not find even a hare in two hours' walking.
"Has all the game felt it necessary to go south?" said the doctor, stopping at the foot of a hummock.
"I should fancy it must be so, Doctor," answered the carpenter.
"I don't think so," said Johnson; "the hares, foxes, and bears are accustomed to this climate; I think this last storm must have driven them away; but they will come back with the south-winds. Ah, if you were to talk about reindeer and musk-deer, that might be different!"
"And yet at Melville Island numberless animals of this sort are found," resumed the doctor; "it lies farther south, it is true, and during the winters he spent there Parry always had plenty of this magnificent game."
"We have much poorer luck," answered Bell; "if we could only get enough bear's meat, we would do very well."
"The difficulty is," said the doctor, "the bears seem to me very rare and very wild; they are not civilized enough to come within gun-shot."
"Bell is talking about the flesh of the bear," said Johnson, "but his grease is more useful than his flesh or his fur."
"You are right, Johnson," answered Bell; "you are always thinking of the fuel."
"How can I help it? Even with the strictest economy, we have only enough for three weeks!"
"Yes," resumed the doctor, "that is the real danger, for we are now only at the beginning of November, and February is the coldest month in the frigid zone; still, if we can't get bear's grease, there's no lack of seal's grease."
"But not for a very long time, Doctor," answered Johnson; "they will soon leave us; whether from cold or fright, soon they won't come upon the ice any more."
"Then," continued the doctor, "we shall have to fall back on the bear, and I confess the bear is the most useful animal to be found in these countries, for he furnishes food, clothing, light, and fuel to men. Do you hear, Duke?" he said, patting the dog's head, "we want some bears, my friend, bears! bears!"
Duke, who was sniffing at the ice at that time, aroused by the voices, and caresses of the doctor, started off suddenly with the speed of an arrow. He barked violently and, far off as he was, his loud barks reached the hunters' ears.
The extreme distance to which sound is carried when the temperature is low is an astonishing fact; it is only equalled by the brilliancy of the constellations in the northern skies; the waves of light and sound are transmitted to great distances, especially in the dry cold of the nights.
The hunters, guided by his distant barking, hastened after him; they had to run a mile, and they got there all out of breath, which happens very soon in such an atmosphere. Duke stood pointing about fifty feet from an enormous mass which was rolling about on the top of a small iceberg.
"Just what we wanted!" shouted the doctor, cocking his gun.
"A fine bear!" said Bell, following the doctor's example.
"A curious bear!" said Johnson, who intended to fire after his companions.
Duke barked furiously. Bell advanced about twenty feet, and fired; but the animal seemed untouched, for he continued rolling his head slowly.
Johnson came forward, and, after taking careful aim, he pulled the trigger.
"Good!" said the doctor; "nothing yet! Ah, this cursed refraction! We are too far off; we shall never get used to it! That bear is more than a mile away."
"Come on!" answered Bell.
The three companions hastened toward the animal, which had not been alarmed by the firing; he seemed to be very large, but, without weighing the danger, they gave themselves up already to the joy of victory. Having got within a reasonable distance, they fired; the bear leaped into the air and fell, mortally wounded, on the level ice below.
Duke rushed towards him.
"That's a bear," said the doctor, "which was easily conquered."
"Only three shots," said Bell with some scorn, "and he's down!"
"That's odd," remarked Johnson.
"Unless we got here just as he was going to die of old age," continued the doctor, laughing.
"Well, young or old," added Bell, "he's a good capture."
Talking in this way they reached the small iceberg, and, to their great surprise, they found Duke growling over the body of a white fox.
"Upon my word," said Bell, "that's too much!"
"Well," said the doctor, "we've fired at a bear, and killed a fox!"
Johnson did not know what to say.
"Well," said the doctor with a burst of laughter in which there was a trace of disappointment, "that refraction again! It's always deceiving us."
"What do you mean, Doctor?" asked the carpenter.
"Yes, my friend; it deceived us with respect to its size as well as the distance! It made us see a bear in a fox's skin! Such a mistake is not uncommon under similar circumstances! Well, our imagination alone was wrong!"
"At any rate," answered Johnson, "bear or fox, he's good eating. Let's carry him off."
But as the boatswain was lifting him to his shoulders:—
"That's odd," he said.
"What is it?" asked the doctor.
"See there, Doctor, he's got a collar around his neck."
"A collar?" asked the doctor again, examining the fox.
In fact, a half-worn-out copper collar appeared under his white fur; the doctor thought he saw letters engraved upon it; he unfastened it from the animal's neck, about which it seemed to have been for a long time.
"What does that mean?" asked Johnson.
"That means," said the doctor, "that we have just killed a fox more than twelve years old,—a fox who was caught by James Ross in 1848."
"Is it possible?" said Bell.
"There's no doubt about it. I'm sorry we killed him! While he was in winter-quarters, James Ross thought of trapping a large number of white foxes; he fastened on their necks copper collars on which was engraved the position of his ships, theEnterpriseandInvestigator, as well as where the supplies were left. These animals run over immense distances in search of food, and James Ross hoped that one of them might fall into the hands of one of the men of the Franklin expedition. That's the simple explanation; and this poor beast, who might have saved the life of two crews, has fallen uselessly beneath our guns."
"Well, we won't eat it," said Johnson, "especially if it's twelve years old. But we shall keep the skin as a memento."
Johnson raised it to his shoulders. The hunters made their way to the ship, guiding themselves by the stars; their expedition was not wholly without result; they were able to bring back several ptarmigans.
An hour before reaching theForward, there was a singular phenomenon which greatly interested the doctor. It was a real shower of shooting-stars; they could be counted by thousands, flying over the heavens like rockets; they dimmed the light of the moon. For hours they could have stood gazing at this beautiful sight. A similar phenomenon was observed in Greenland in 1799, by the Moravians. It looked like an exhibition of fireworks. The doctor after his return to the ship spent the whole night gazing at the sight, which lasted till seven o'clock in the morning, while the air was perfectly silent.
The bears, it seemed, could not be caught; a few seals were killed on the 4th, 5th, and 6th of November, and the wind shifted and the weather grew much milder; but the snow-drifts began again with incomparable severity. It became impossible to leave the ship, and it was hard to subdue the dampness. At the end of the week the condensers contained several bushels of ice.
The weather changed again November 15th, and the thermometer, under the influence of certain atmospheric conditions, sank to -24°. That was the lowest temperature they had yet observed. This cold would have been endurable in calm weather; but the wind was blowing at that time, and it seemed as if the air was filled with sharp needles.
The doctor regretted his captivity, for the snow was hardened by the wind, so as to make good walking, and he might have gone very far from the ship.
Still, it should be said that the slightest exercise in so low a temperature is very exhausting. A man can perform hardly more than a quarter of his usual work; iron utensils cannot be touched; if the hand seizes them, it feels as if it were burned, and shreds of skin cleave to the object which had been incautiously seized.
The crew, being confined to the ship, were obliged to walk on the covered deck for two hours a day, where they had leave to smoke, which was forbidden in the common-room.
There, when the fire got low, the ice used to cover the walls and the intervals between the planks; every nail and bolt and piece of metal was immediately covered with a film of ice.
The celerity of its formation astonished the doctor. The breath of the men condensed in the air, and, changing from a fluid to a solid form, it fell about them in the form of snow. A few feet from the stove it was very cold, and the men stood grouped around the fire.
Still, the doctor advised them to harden themselves, and to accustom themselves to the cold, which was not so severe as what yet awaited them; he advised them to expose their skin gradually to this intense temperature, and he himself set the example; but idleness or numbness nailed most of them to their place; they refused to stir, and preferred sleeping in that unhealthy heat.
Yet, according to the doctor, there was no danger in exposing one's self to great cold after leaving a heated room; these sudden changes only inconvenience those who are in a perspiration; the doctor quoted examples in support of his opinion, but his lessons were for the most part thrown away.
As for John Hatteras, he did not seem to mind the inclement cold. He walked to and fro silently, never faster or slower. Did not the cold affect his powerful frame? Did he possess to a very great degree the principle of natural heat which he wanted his men to possess? Was he so bound up in his meditations that he was indifferent to outside impressions? His men saw him with great astonishment braving a temperature of -24°; he would leave the ship for hours, and come back without appearing to suffer from the cold.
"He's a singular man," said the doctor to Johnson; "he astonishes me! He carries a glowing furnace within him! He is one of the strongest natures I ever saw!"
"The fact is," answered Johnson, "he goes and comes and circulates in the open air, without dressing any more thickly than in the month of June."
"O, it doesn't make much difference what one wears!" answered the doctor; "what is the use of dressing warmly if one can't produce heat within himself? It's like trying to heat ice by wrapping it up in wool! But Hatteras doesn't need it; he's built that way, and I should not be surprised if his side was as warm as the neighborhood of a glowing coal."
Johnson, who was charged with clearing away the water-hole every morning, noticed that the ice was ten feet thick.
Almost every night the doctor could observe the magnificent auroras; from four o'clock till eight of the evening, the sky in the north was slightly lighted up; then this took a regular shape, with a rim of light yellow, the ends of which seemed to touch the field of ice. Gradually the brilliancy arose in the heavens, following the magnetic meridian, and appeared striped with black bands; jets of luminosity shot with varying brightness here and there; when it reached the zenith it was often composed of several arcs bathed in waves of red, yellow, or green light. It was a dazzling sight. Soon the different curves met in a single point, and formed crowns of celestial richness. Finally the arcs all crowded together, the splendid aurora grew dim, the intense colors faded away into pale, vague, uncertain tints, and this wonderful phenomenon vanished gradually, insensibly, in the dark clouds of the south.
It is difficult to realize the wonderful, magical beauty of such a spectacle in high latitudes, less than eight degrees from the pole; the auroras which are seen in the temperate zone give no idea of it; it seems as if Providence wished to reserve the greatest wonders for these regions.
Numerous mock-moons appeared also while the moon was shining, and a great many would appear in the sky, adding to the general brilliancy; often, too, simple lunar halos surrounded the moon with a circle of splendid lustre.
November 26th the tide rose very high, and the water came through the hole with great violence; the thick crust of ice seemed pushed up by the force of the sea, and the frequent cracking of the ice proclaimed the conflict that was going on beneath; fortunately the ship remained firm in her bed, but her chains worked noisily; it was as a precaution against just such an event, that Hatteras had made the brig fast.
The following days were still colder; a dense fog hid the sky; the wind tossed the snow about; it was hard to determine whether it came from the clouds or from the ice-fields; everything was in confusion.
The crew kept busy with various interior occupations, the principal one being the preparation of the grease and oil from the seal; it was frozen into blocks of ice, which had to be cut with a hatchet; it was broken into small fragments, which were as hard as marble; ten barrels full were collected. As may be seen, every vessel became nearly useless, besides the risk of its breaking when the contents froze.
The 28th the thermometer fell to -32°; there was only ten days' coal on board, and every one awaited with horror the moment when it should come to an end.
Hatteras, for the sake of economy, had the fire in the stove in the after-room put out; and from that time Shandon, the doctor, and he were compelled to betake themselves to the common-room of the crew. Hatteras was hence brought into constant communication with his men, who gazed at him with surly, dejected glances. He heard their fault-finding, their reproaches, even their threats, without being able to punish them. However, he seemed deaf to every remark. He never went near the fire. He remained in a corner, with folded arms, without saying a word.
In spite of the doctor's recommendations, Pen and his friends refused to take the slightest exercise; they passed whole days crouching about the stove or under their bedclothes; hence their health began to suffer; they could not react against the rigor of the climate, and scurvy soon made its appearance on board.
The doctor had long since begun to distribute, every morning, lemon-juice and lime pastilles; but these precautions, which were generally so efficacious, did very little good to the sick; and the disease, following its usual course, soon showed its most horrible symptoms.
Terrible indeed it was to see those wretches with their nerves and muscles contracted with pain! Their legs were fearfully swollen, and were covered with large bluish-black patches; their bleeding gums, their swollen lips, permitted them to utter only inarticulate sounds; their blood was poisoned, deprived of fibrine, and no longer carried life to the extremities.
Clifton was the first to be attacked by this cruel malady; soon Gripper, Brunton, and Strong had to keep to their hammocks. Those whom the illness spared could not avoid the sight of the sufferings of their friends; the common-room was the only place where they could stay; so it was soon transformed into a hospital, for of the eighteen sailors of theForward, thirteen were soon down with scurvy. It seemed as if Pen would escape the contagion; his strong constitution preserved him; Shandon felt the first symptoms, but it went no further with him, and plenty of exercise soon restored him to good health.
The doctor tended his patients with the greatest devotion, and his heart would bleed at the sight of the sufferings he could not assuage. Still, he inspired as much cheerfulness as he could in the lonely crew; his words, his consolations, his philosophical reflections, his fortunate inventions, broke the monotony of those long days of suffering; he would read aloud to them; his wonderful memory kept him supplied with amusing anecdotes, while the men who were well stood pressing closely around the stove; but the groans of the sick, their complaints, and their cries of despair would continually interrupt him, and, breaking off in the middle of a story, he would become the devoted and attentive physician.
Besides, his health remained good; he did not grow thin; his corpulence stood him in better stead than the thickest raiment, and he used to say he was as well clad as a seal or a whale, who, thanks to their thick layers of fat, easily support the rigors of the winter.
Hatteras did not suffer physically or morally. The sufferings of the crew did not seem to depress him. Perhaps he would not let his emotions appear on his face, while an acute observer would have detected the heart of a man beneath this mask of iron.
The doctor analyzed him, studied him, and could not classify this strange organization, this unnatural temperament.
The thermometer fell still lower; the deck was entirely deserted; the Esquimaux dogs alone walked up and down it, barking dismally.
There was always a man on guard near the stove, who superintended putting on the coal; it was important not to let it go out; when the fire got low the cold crept into the room, formed on the walls, and the moisture suddenly condensed and fell in the form of snow on the unfortunate occupants of the brig.
It was among these terrible sufferings that they reached December 8th; that morning the doctor went as usual to look at the thermometer. He found the mercury entirely frozen in the bulb.
"Forty-four degrees below zero!" he said with terror.
And on that day the last piece of coal on board was thrown into the stove.
For a moment he had a feeling of despair. The thought of death, and death by cold, appeared in all its horror; this last piece of coal burned with an ominous splutter; the fire seemed about to go out, and the temperature of the room fell noticeably. But Johnson went to get some of the new fuel which the marine animals had furnished to them, and with it he filled the stove; he added to it some tow filled with frozen oil, and soon obtained sufficient heat. The odor was almost unendurable; but how get rid of it? They had to get used to it. Johnson agreed that his plan was defective, and that it would not be considered a success in Liverpool.
"And yet," he added, "this unpleasant smell will, perhaps, produce good results."
"What are they?" asked the carpenter.
"It will doubtless attract the bears this way, for they are fond of the smell."
"Well," continued Bell, "what is the need of having bears?"
"Bell," replied Johnson, "we can't count on seals any longer; they're gone away, and for a long time; if bears don't come in their place to supply us with their share of fuel, I don't know what is to become of us."
"True, Johnson, our fate is very uncertain; our position is a most alarming one. And if this sort of fuel gives out, I don't see how—"
"There might be another—"
"Another?" asked Bell.
"Yes, Bell! in despair on account of—but the captain would never—but yet we shall perhaps have to come to it."
And Johnson shook his head sadly, and fell to thinking gloomily. Bell did not interrupt him. He knew that the supply of fat, which it had been so hard to acquire, would only last a week, even with the strictest economy.
The boatswain was right. A great many bears, attracted by the scent, were seen to leeward of theForward;the healthy men gave chase; but these animals are very swift of foot, and crafty enough to escape most stratagems; it was impossible to get near them, and the most skilful gunners could not hit them.
The crew of the brig was in great danger of dying from the cold; it could not withstand, for forty-eight hours, such a temperature as would exist in the common-room. Every one looked forward with terror to getting to the end of the fuel.
Now this happened December 20th, at three o'clock in the afternoon; the fire went out; the sailors, grouped about the empty stove, gazed at one another with haggard eyes. Hatteras remained without moving in his corner; the doctor, as usual, paced up and down excitedly; he did not know what was to be done.
The temperature in the room fell at once to -7°.
But if the doctor was baffled and did not know what they should turn their hands to, others knew very well. So Shandon, cold and resolute, Pen, with wrath in his eyes, and two or three of his companions, such as he could induce to accompany him, walked towards Hatteras.
"Captain!" said Shandon.
Hatteras, absorbed in his thoughts, did not hear him.
"Captain!" repeated Shandon, touching him with his hand.
Hatteras arose.
"Sir," he said.
"Captain, the fire is out."
"Well?" continued Hatteras.
"If you intend that we shall freeze to death," Shandon went on with grim irony, "we should be glad if you would tell us."
"My intention," answered Hatteras with a deep voice, "is that every man shall do his duty to the end."
"There's something superior to duty, Captain," answered his first officer, "and that is the right of self-preservation. I repeat it, we have no fire; and if this goes on, in two days not one of us will be alive."
"I have no wood," answered Hatteras, gloomily.
"Well," shouted Pen, violently, "when the wood gives out, we must go cut it where it grows!"
Hatteras grew pale with anger.
"Where is that?" he asked.
"On board," answered the sailor, insolently.
"On board!" repeated the captain, with clinched fists and sparkling eyes.
"Of course," answered Pen, "when the ship can't carry the crew, the ship ought to be burned."
At the beginning of this sentence Hatteras had grasped an axe; at its end, this axe was raised above Pen's head.
"Wretch!" he cried.
The doctor sprang in front of Pen, and thrust him back; the axe fell on the floor, making a deep gash. Johnson, Bell, and Simpson gathered around Hatteras, and seemed determined to support him. But plaintive, grievous cries arose from the berths, transformed into death-beds.
"Fire, fire!" they cried, shivering beneath their now insufficient covering.
Hatteras by a violent effort controlled himself, and after a few moments of silence, he said calmly,—
"If we destroy the ship, how shall we get back to England?"
"Sir," answered Johnson, "perhaps we can without doing any material damage burn the less important parts, the bulwarks, the nettings—"
"The small boats will be left," said Shandon; "and besides, why might we not make a smaller vessel out of what is left of the old one?"
"Never!" answered Hatteras.
"But—" interposed many of the men, shouting together.
"We have a large quantity of spirits of wine," suggested Hatteras; "burn all of that."
"All right; we'll take the spirits of wine!" answered Johnson, assuming an air of confidence which he was far from feeling.
And with the aid of long wicks, dipped into this liquid of which the pale flame licked the walls of the stove, he was able to raise the temperature of the room a few degrees.
In the following days the wind came from the south again and the thermometer rose; the snow, however, kept falling. Some of the men were able to leave the ship for the driest hours of the day; but ophthalmia and scurvy kept most of them on board; besides, neither hunting nor fishing was possible.
But this was only a respite in the fearful severity of the cold, and on the 25th, after a sudden change of wind, the frozen mercury disappeared again in the bulb of the instrument; then they had to consult the spirit-thermometer, which does not freeze even in the most intense colds.
The doctor, to his great surprise, found it marking -66°. Seldom has man been called upon to endure so low a temperature.
The ice stretched in long, dark lines upon the floor; a dense mist filled the room; the dampness fell in the form of thick snow; the men could not see one another; their extremities grew cold and blue; their heads felt as if they wore an iron band; and their thoughts grew confused and dull, as if they were half delirious. A terrible symptom was that their tongues refused to articulate a sound.
From the day the men threatened to burn the ship, Hatteras would walk for hours upon the deck, keeping watch. This wood was flesh and blood to him. Cutting a piece from it would have been like cutting off a limb. He was armed, and he kept constant guard, without minding the cold, the snow, or the ice, which stiffened his clothing as if it covered it with a granite cuirass. Duke understood him, and followed him, barking and howling.