Chapter Seven.New characters introduced—An Old Game under Novel Circumstances—Remarkable Appearances in the Sky—O’Riley meets with a Mishap.Dumps was a remarkably grave and sly character, and Poker was a wag—an incorrigible wag—in every sense of the term. Moreover, although they had an occasional fight, Dumps and Poker were excellent friends, and great favourites with the crew.We have not yet introduced these individuals to our reader; but as they will act a conspicuous part in the history of theDolphin’sadventurous career in the Arctic regions, we think it right now to present them.While at Uppernavik, Captain Guy had purchased a team of six good, tough Esquimaux dogs, being desirous of taking them to England, and there presenting them to several of his friends who were anxious to possess specimens of those animals. Two of these dogs stood out conspicuous from their fellows, not only in regard to personal appearance, but also in reference to peculiarities of character. One was pure white, with a lively expression of countenance, a large shaggy body, two erect, sharp-pointed ears, and a short projection that once had been a tail. Owing to some cause unknown, however, his tail had been cut or bitten off, and nothing save the stump remained. But this stump did as much duty as if it had been fifty tails in one. It was never at rest for a moment, and its owner evidently believed that wagging it was the true and only way to touch the heart of man; therefore the dog wagged it, so to speak, doggedly. In consequence of this animal’s thieving propensities, which led him to be constantlypokinginto every hole and corner of the ship in search of something to steal, he was namedPoker. Poker had three jet-black spots in his white visage—one was the point of his nose, the other two were his eyes.Poker’s bosom friend, Dumps, was so named because he had the sulkiest expression of countenance that ever fell to the lot of a dog. Hopelessly incurable melancholy seemed to have taken possession of his mind, for he never by any chance smiled—and dogs do smile, you know, just as evidently as human beings do, although not exactly with their mouths. Dumps never romped either, being old, but he sat and allowed his friend Poker to romp round him with a sort of sulky satisfaction, as if he experienced the greatest enjoyment his nature was capable of in witnessing the antics of his youthful companion—for Poker was young. The prevailing colour of Dumps’s shaggy hide was a dirty brown, with black spots, two of which had fixed themselves rather awkwardly round his eyes, like a pair of spectacles. Dumps, also, was a thief, and, indeed, so were all his brethren. Dumps and Poker were both of them larger and stronger, and in every way better, than their comrades; and they afterwards were the sturdy, steady, unflinching leaders of the team during many a toilsome journey over the frozen sea.One magnificent afternoon, a few days after the escape of theDolphinjust related, Dumps and Poker lay side by side in the lee-scuppers, calmly sleeping off the effects of a surfeit produced by the eating of a large piece of pork, for which the cook had searched in vain for three-quarters of an hour, and of which he at last found the bare bone sticking in the hole of the larboard pump.“Bad luck to them dogs!” exclaimed David Mizzle, stroking his chin as he surveyed the bone. “If I could only find out, now, which of ye it was, I’d have ye slaughtered right off, and cooked for the mess, I would.”“It was Dumps as did it, I’ll bet you a month’s pay,” said Peter Grim, as he sat on the end of the windlass refilling his pipe, which he had just smoked out.“Not a bit of it,” remarked Amos Parr, who was squatted on the deck busily engaged in constructing a rope mat, while several of the men sat round him engaged in mending sails, or stitching canvas slippers, etcetera. “Not a bit of it, Grim; Dumps is too honest by half to do sich a thing. ’Twas Poker as did it, I can see by the roll of his eye below the skin. The blackguard’s only shammin’ sleep.”On hearing his name mentioned, Poker gently opened his right eye, but did not move. Dumps, on the contrary, lay as if he heard not the base aspersion on his character.“What’ll ye bet it was Dumps as did it?” cried Davie Summers, who passed at the moment with a dish of some sort of edible towards the galley or cooking-house on deck.“I’llbetyou over the ’ead, I will, if you don’t mind your business,” said Mivins.“You’dbetter not,” retorted Davie with a grin. “It’s as much as your situation’s worth to lay a finger on me.”“That’s it, youngster, give it ’im,” cried several of the men, while the boy confronted his superior, taking good care, however, to keep the fore-mast between them.“What do you mean, you young rascal?” cried Mivins with a frown.“Mean!” said Davie, “why, I mean that if you touch me I’ll resign office; and if I do that, you’ll have to go out, for everyone knows you can’t get on without me.”“I say, Mivins,” cried Tom Green, the carpenter’s mate, “if you were asked to say: ‘Hold on hard to this handspike here, my hearties,’ how would ye go about it?”“He’d ’it you a pretty ’ard crack hover the ’ead with it, ’e would,” remarked one of the men, throwing a ball of yarn at Davie, who stood listening to the conversation with a broad grin.In stepping back to avoid the blow the lad trod on Dumps’s paw, and instantly there came from the throat of that excellent dog a roar of anguish that caused Poker to leap, as the cook expressed it, nearly out of his own skin. Dogs are by nature extremely sympathetic and remarkably inquisitive; and no sooner was Dumps’s yell heard than it was vigorously responded to by every dog in the ship, as the whole pack rushed each from his respective sleeping-place, and looked round in amazement.“Hallo! what’s wrong there for’ard?” enquired Saunders, who had been pacing the quarter-deck with slow giant strides, arguing mentally with himself in default of a better adversary.“Only trod on Dumps’s paw, sir,” said Mivins as he hurried aft; “the men are sky-larking.”“Sky-larking, are you?” said Saunders, going forward; “weel, lads, you’ve had a lot o’ hard work of late, ye may go and take a run on the ice.”Instantly the men, like boys set free from school, sprang up, tumbled over the side, and were scampering over the ice like madmen.“Pitch over the ball!—the football!” they cried. In a second the ball was tossed over the ship’s side, and a vigorous game was begun.For two days past theDolphinhad been sailing with difficulty through large fields of ice, sometimes driving against narrow necks and tongues that interrupted her passage from one lead, or canal, to another; at other times boring with difficulty through compact masses of sludge, or, occasionally, when unable to advance farther, making fast to a large berg or field. They were compelled to proceed north, however, in consequence of the pack having become fixed towards the south, and thus rendering retreat impossible in that direction until the ice should be again set in motion. Captain Guy, however, saw, by the steady advance of the larger bergs, that the current of the ocean in that place flowed southward, and trusted that in a short time the ice which had been forced into the strait by the gales, would be released, and open up a passage. Meanwhile he pushed along the coast, examining every bay and inlet in the hope of discovering some trace of thePole Staror her crew.On the day about which we are writing, the ship was beset by large fields, the snow-white surfaces of which extended north and south to the horizon, while on the east the cliffs rose in dark, frowning precipices from the midst of the glaciers that encumber them all the year round.It was a lovely Arctic day. The sun shone with unclouded splendour, and the bright air, which trembled with that liquidity of appearance that one occasionally sees in very hot weather under peculiar circumstances, was vocal with the wild music of thousands of gulls, and auks, and other sea-birds, which clustered on the neighbouring cliffs, and flew overhead in clouds. All round, the pure surfaces of the ice-fields were broken by the shadows which the hummocks and bergs cast over them, and by the pools of clear water which shone like crystals in their hollows, while the beautiful beryl blue of the larger bergs gave a delicate colouring to the dazzling scene. Words cannot describe the intenseglitterthat characterised everything. Every point seemed a diamond; every edge sent forth a gleam of light, and many of the masses reflected the rich prismatic colours of the rainbow. It seemed as if the sun himself had been multiplied in order to add to the excessive brilliancy, for he was surrounded byparhelia, orsun-dogsas the men called them. This peculiarity in the sun’s appearance was very striking. The great orb of day was about ten degrees above the horizon, and a horizontal line of white passed completely through it extending to a considerable distance on either hand, while around it were two distinct halos, or circles of light. On the inner halo were situated the mock-suns, which were four in number—one above and one below the sun, and one on each side of him.Not a breath of wind stirred the little flag that drooped from the mizzen-peak, and the clamorous ceaseless cries of sea-birds, added to the merry shouts and laughter of the men, as they followed the restless football, rendered the whole a scene of life, as it was emphatically one of beauty.“Ain’t it glorious?” panted Davie Summers vehemently, as he stopped exhausted in a headlong race beside one of his comrades, while the ball was kicked hopelessly beyond his reach by a comparatively fresh member of the party.“Ah! then, it bates the owld country intirely, it does,” replied O’Riley, wiping the perspiration from his forehead.It is needless to say that O’Riley was an Irishman. We have not mentioned him until now, because up to this time he had not done anything to distinguish himself beyond his messmates; but on this particular day O’Riley’s star was in the ascendant, and Fortune seemed to have singled him out as an object of her special attention. He was a short man, and a broad man, and a particularlyruggedman—so to speak. He was all angles and corners. His hair stuck about his head in violently rigid and entangled tufts, rendering it a matter of wonder how anything in the shape of a hat could stick on. His brow was a countless mass of ever-varying wrinkles, which gave to his sly visage an aspect of humorous anxiety that was highly diverting—and all the more diverting when you came to know that the man had not a spark of anxiety in his composition, though he often said he had. His dress, like that of most Jack-tars, was naturally rugged, and he contrived to make it more so than usual.“An’ it’s hot, too, it is,” he continued, applying his kerchief again to his pate. “If it warn’t for the ice we stand on, we’d be melted down, I do belave, like bits o’ whale blubber.”“Wot a jolly game football is, ain’t it?” said Davie, seating himself on a hummock, and still panting hard.“Ay, boy, that’s jist what it is. The only objiction I have agin it is that it makes ye a’most kick the left leg clane off yer body.”“Why don’t you kick with your right leg, then, stupid, like other people?” enquired Summers.“Why don’t I, is it? Troth, then, I don’t know for sartin. Me father lost his left leg at the great battle o’ the Nile, and I’ve sometimes thought that had somethin’ to do wid it; but then me mother was lame o’ therightleg intirely, and wint about wid a crutch, so I can’t make out how it was, d’ye see?”“Look out, Pat,” exclaimed Summers, starting up, “here comes the ball.”As he spoke, the football came skimming over the ice towards the spot on which they stood, with about thirty of the men running at full speed and shouting like maniacs after it.“That’s your sort, my hearties! another like that and it’s home! Pitch into it, Mivins. You’re the boy for me. Now, then, Grim, trip him up! Hallo, Buzzby, you bluff-bowed Dutchman, luff! luff! or I’ll stave in your ribs! Mind your eye, Mizzle, there’s Green, he’ll be into your larboard quarter in no time. Hurrah! Mivins, up in the air with it. Kick, boy, kick like a spanker boom in a hurricane!”Such were a few of the expressions that showered like hail round the men as they rushed hither and thither after the ball. And here we may remark that the crew of theDolphinplayed football in a somewhat different style from the way in which that noble game is played by boys in England. Sides, indeed, were chosen, and boundaries were marked out, but very little if any attention was paid to such secondary matters! To kick the ball, and keep on kicking it in front of his companions, was the ambition of each man; and so long as he could get a kick at it that caused it to fly from the ground like a cannon-shot, little regard was had by anyone to the direction in which it was propelled. But, of course, in this effort to get a kick, the men soon became scattered over the field, and ever and anon the ball would fall between two men, who rushed at it simultaneously from opposite directions. The inevitable result was a collision, by which both men were suddenly and violently arrested in their career. But generally the shock resulted in one of the men being sent staggering backwards, and the other getting thekick. When the two were pretty equally matched, both were usually, as they expressed it, “brought up all standing”, in which case a short scuffle ensued, as each endeavoured to trip up the heels of his adversary. To prevent undue violence in such struggles, a rule was laid down that hands were not to be used on any account. They might use their feet, legs, shoulders, and elbows, but not their hands.In such rough play the men were more equally matched than might have been expected, for the want of weight among the smaller men was often more than counterbalanced by their activity; and frequently a sturdy little fellow launched himself so vigorously against a heavy tar as to send him rolling head over heels on the ice. This was not always the case, however, and few ventured to come into collision with Peter Grim, whose activity was on a par with his immense size. Buzzby contented himself with galloping on the outskirts of the fight, and putting in a kick when fortune sent the ball in his way. In this species of warfare he was supported by the fat cook, whose oily carcass could neither stand the shocks nor keep up with the pace of his messmates. Mizzle was a particularly energetic man in his way, however, and frequently kicked with such good-will that he missed the ball altogether, and the tremendous swing of his leg lifted him from the ice, and laid him sprawling on his back.“Look out ahead!” shouted Green, the carpenter’s mate; “there’s a sail bearing down on your larboard bow.”Mivins, who had the ball before him at the moment, saw his own satellite, Davie, coming down towards him with vicious intentions. He quietly pushed the ball before him for a few yards, then kicked it far over the boy’s head, and followed it up like an antelope. Mivins depended for success on his almost superhuman activity. His tall, slight frame could not stand the shocks of his comrades, but no one could equal or come near to him in speed, and he was quite an adept at dodging acharge, and allowing his opponent to rush far past the ball by the force of his own momentum. Such a charge did Peter Grim make at him at this moment.“Starboard hard!” yelled Davie Summers, as he observed his master’s danger.“Starboard it is!” replied Mivins, and, leaping aside to avoid the shock, he allowed Grim to pass. Grim knew his man, however, and had held himself in hand, so that in a moment he pulled up and was following close on his heels.“It’s an ill wind that blows no good,” cried one of the crew, towards whose foot the ball rolled, as he quietly kicked it into the centre of the mass of men. Grim and Mivins turned back, and for a time looked on at the general make that ensued. It seemed as though the ball must inevitably be crushed among them as they struggled and kicked hither and thither for five minutes, in their vain efforts to get a kick; and during those few exciting moments many tremendous kicks, aimed at the ball, took effect upon shins, and many shouts of glee terminated in yells of anguish.“It can’t last much longer!” screamed the cook, his face streaming with perspiration, and beaming with glee, as he danced round the outside of the circle. “There it goes!”As he spoke, the ball flew out of the circle, like a shell from a mortar. Unfortunately it went directly over Mizzle’s head. Before he could wink he went down before them, and the rushing mass of men passed over him like a mountain torrent over a blade of grass.Meanwhile Mivins ran ahead of the others, and gave the ball a kick that nearly burst it and down it came exactly between O’Riley and Grim, who chanced to be far ahead of the others. Grim dashed at it. “Och! ye big villain,” muttered the Irishman to himself, as he put down his head and rushed against the carpenter like a battering-ram.Big though he was, Grim staggered back from the impetuous shock, and O’Riley, following up his advantage, kicked the ball in a side direction, away from everyone except Buzzby, who happened to have been steering rather wildly over the field of ice. Buzzby, on being brought thus unexpectedly within reach of the ball, braced up his energies for a kick, but seeing O’Riley coming down towards him like a runaway locomotive, he pulled up, saying quietly to himself: “Ye may take it all yer own way, lad; I’m too old a bird to go for to make my carcass a buffer for a mad-cap like you to run agin.”Jack Mivins, however, was troubled by no such qualms. He happened to be about the same distance from the ball as O’Riley, and ran like a deer to reach it first. A pool of water lay in his path, however, and the necessity of going round it enabled the Irishman to gain on him a little, so that it became evident that both would come up at the same moment and a collision be inevitable.“Hold yer wind, Paddy,” shouted the men, who paused for a moment to watch the result of the race. “Mind your timbers, Mivins! Back your top-sails, O’Riley; mind how he yaws!”Then there was a momentary silence of breathless expectation. The two men seemed about to meet with a shock that would annihilate both, when Mivins bounded to one side like an india-rubber ball. O’Riley shot past him like a rocket, and the next instant went head-foremost into the pool of water.This unexpected termination to the affair converted the intended huzzah of the men into a yell of mingled laughter and consternation as they hastened in a body to the spot; but before they reached it O’Riley’s head and shoulders reappeared, and when they came up, he was standing on the margin of the pool blowing like a walrus.“Oh, then, but it is cowld!” he exclaimed, wringing the water from his garments. “Och, where’s the ball? give me a kick or I’ll freeze, so I will.”As he spoke, the drenched Irishman seized the ball from Mivins’ hands and gave it a kick that sent it high into the air. He was too wet and heavy to follow it up, however, so he ambled off towards the ship as vigorously as his clothes would allow him, followed by the whole crew.
Dumps was a remarkably grave and sly character, and Poker was a wag—an incorrigible wag—in every sense of the term. Moreover, although they had an occasional fight, Dumps and Poker were excellent friends, and great favourites with the crew.
We have not yet introduced these individuals to our reader; but as they will act a conspicuous part in the history of theDolphin’sadventurous career in the Arctic regions, we think it right now to present them.
While at Uppernavik, Captain Guy had purchased a team of six good, tough Esquimaux dogs, being desirous of taking them to England, and there presenting them to several of his friends who were anxious to possess specimens of those animals. Two of these dogs stood out conspicuous from their fellows, not only in regard to personal appearance, but also in reference to peculiarities of character. One was pure white, with a lively expression of countenance, a large shaggy body, two erect, sharp-pointed ears, and a short projection that once had been a tail. Owing to some cause unknown, however, his tail had been cut or bitten off, and nothing save the stump remained. But this stump did as much duty as if it had been fifty tails in one. It was never at rest for a moment, and its owner evidently believed that wagging it was the true and only way to touch the heart of man; therefore the dog wagged it, so to speak, doggedly. In consequence of this animal’s thieving propensities, which led him to be constantlypokinginto every hole and corner of the ship in search of something to steal, he was namedPoker. Poker had three jet-black spots in his white visage—one was the point of his nose, the other two were his eyes.
Poker’s bosom friend, Dumps, was so named because he had the sulkiest expression of countenance that ever fell to the lot of a dog. Hopelessly incurable melancholy seemed to have taken possession of his mind, for he never by any chance smiled—and dogs do smile, you know, just as evidently as human beings do, although not exactly with their mouths. Dumps never romped either, being old, but he sat and allowed his friend Poker to romp round him with a sort of sulky satisfaction, as if he experienced the greatest enjoyment his nature was capable of in witnessing the antics of his youthful companion—for Poker was young. The prevailing colour of Dumps’s shaggy hide was a dirty brown, with black spots, two of which had fixed themselves rather awkwardly round his eyes, like a pair of spectacles. Dumps, also, was a thief, and, indeed, so were all his brethren. Dumps and Poker were both of them larger and stronger, and in every way better, than their comrades; and they afterwards were the sturdy, steady, unflinching leaders of the team during many a toilsome journey over the frozen sea.
One magnificent afternoon, a few days after the escape of theDolphinjust related, Dumps and Poker lay side by side in the lee-scuppers, calmly sleeping off the effects of a surfeit produced by the eating of a large piece of pork, for which the cook had searched in vain for three-quarters of an hour, and of which he at last found the bare bone sticking in the hole of the larboard pump.
“Bad luck to them dogs!” exclaimed David Mizzle, stroking his chin as he surveyed the bone. “If I could only find out, now, which of ye it was, I’d have ye slaughtered right off, and cooked for the mess, I would.”
“It was Dumps as did it, I’ll bet you a month’s pay,” said Peter Grim, as he sat on the end of the windlass refilling his pipe, which he had just smoked out.
“Not a bit of it,” remarked Amos Parr, who was squatted on the deck busily engaged in constructing a rope mat, while several of the men sat round him engaged in mending sails, or stitching canvas slippers, etcetera. “Not a bit of it, Grim; Dumps is too honest by half to do sich a thing. ’Twas Poker as did it, I can see by the roll of his eye below the skin. The blackguard’s only shammin’ sleep.”
On hearing his name mentioned, Poker gently opened his right eye, but did not move. Dumps, on the contrary, lay as if he heard not the base aspersion on his character.
“What’ll ye bet it was Dumps as did it?” cried Davie Summers, who passed at the moment with a dish of some sort of edible towards the galley or cooking-house on deck.
“I’llbetyou over the ’ead, I will, if you don’t mind your business,” said Mivins.
“You’dbetter not,” retorted Davie with a grin. “It’s as much as your situation’s worth to lay a finger on me.”
“That’s it, youngster, give it ’im,” cried several of the men, while the boy confronted his superior, taking good care, however, to keep the fore-mast between them.
“What do you mean, you young rascal?” cried Mivins with a frown.
“Mean!” said Davie, “why, I mean that if you touch me I’ll resign office; and if I do that, you’ll have to go out, for everyone knows you can’t get on without me.”
“I say, Mivins,” cried Tom Green, the carpenter’s mate, “if you were asked to say: ‘Hold on hard to this handspike here, my hearties,’ how would ye go about it?”
“He’d ’it you a pretty ’ard crack hover the ’ead with it, ’e would,” remarked one of the men, throwing a ball of yarn at Davie, who stood listening to the conversation with a broad grin.
In stepping back to avoid the blow the lad trod on Dumps’s paw, and instantly there came from the throat of that excellent dog a roar of anguish that caused Poker to leap, as the cook expressed it, nearly out of his own skin. Dogs are by nature extremely sympathetic and remarkably inquisitive; and no sooner was Dumps’s yell heard than it was vigorously responded to by every dog in the ship, as the whole pack rushed each from his respective sleeping-place, and looked round in amazement.
“Hallo! what’s wrong there for’ard?” enquired Saunders, who had been pacing the quarter-deck with slow giant strides, arguing mentally with himself in default of a better adversary.
“Only trod on Dumps’s paw, sir,” said Mivins as he hurried aft; “the men are sky-larking.”
“Sky-larking, are you?” said Saunders, going forward; “weel, lads, you’ve had a lot o’ hard work of late, ye may go and take a run on the ice.”
Instantly the men, like boys set free from school, sprang up, tumbled over the side, and were scampering over the ice like madmen.
“Pitch over the ball!—the football!” they cried. In a second the ball was tossed over the ship’s side, and a vigorous game was begun.
For two days past theDolphinhad been sailing with difficulty through large fields of ice, sometimes driving against narrow necks and tongues that interrupted her passage from one lead, or canal, to another; at other times boring with difficulty through compact masses of sludge, or, occasionally, when unable to advance farther, making fast to a large berg or field. They were compelled to proceed north, however, in consequence of the pack having become fixed towards the south, and thus rendering retreat impossible in that direction until the ice should be again set in motion. Captain Guy, however, saw, by the steady advance of the larger bergs, that the current of the ocean in that place flowed southward, and trusted that in a short time the ice which had been forced into the strait by the gales, would be released, and open up a passage. Meanwhile he pushed along the coast, examining every bay and inlet in the hope of discovering some trace of thePole Staror her crew.
On the day about which we are writing, the ship was beset by large fields, the snow-white surfaces of which extended north and south to the horizon, while on the east the cliffs rose in dark, frowning precipices from the midst of the glaciers that encumber them all the year round.
It was a lovely Arctic day. The sun shone with unclouded splendour, and the bright air, which trembled with that liquidity of appearance that one occasionally sees in very hot weather under peculiar circumstances, was vocal with the wild music of thousands of gulls, and auks, and other sea-birds, which clustered on the neighbouring cliffs, and flew overhead in clouds. All round, the pure surfaces of the ice-fields were broken by the shadows which the hummocks and bergs cast over them, and by the pools of clear water which shone like crystals in their hollows, while the beautiful beryl blue of the larger bergs gave a delicate colouring to the dazzling scene. Words cannot describe the intenseglitterthat characterised everything. Every point seemed a diamond; every edge sent forth a gleam of light, and many of the masses reflected the rich prismatic colours of the rainbow. It seemed as if the sun himself had been multiplied in order to add to the excessive brilliancy, for he was surrounded byparhelia, orsun-dogsas the men called them. This peculiarity in the sun’s appearance was very striking. The great orb of day was about ten degrees above the horizon, and a horizontal line of white passed completely through it extending to a considerable distance on either hand, while around it were two distinct halos, or circles of light. On the inner halo were situated the mock-suns, which were four in number—one above and one below the sun, and one on each side of him.
Not a breath of wind stirred the little flag that drooped from the mizzen-peak, and the clamorous ceaseless cries of sea-birds, added to the merry shouts and laughter of the men, as they followed the restless football, rendered the whole a scene of life, as it was emphatically one of beauty.
“Ain’t it glorious?” panted Davie Summers vehemently, as he stopped exhausted in a headlong race beside one of his comrades, while the ball was kicked hopelessly beyond his reach by a comparatively fresh member of the party.
“Ah! then, it bates the owld country intirely, it does,” replied O’Riley, wiping the perspiration from his forehead.
It is needless to say that O’Riley was an Irishman. We have not mentioned him until now, because up to this time he had not done anything to distinguish himself beyond his messmates; but on this particular day O’Riley’s star was in the ascendant, and Fortune seemed to have singled him out as an object of her special attention. He was a short man, and a broad man, and a particularlyruggedman—so to speak. He was all angles and corners. His hair stuck about his head in violently rigid and entangled tufts, rendering it a matter of wonder how anything in the shape of a hat could stick on. His brow was a countless mass of ever-varying wrinkles, which gave to his sly visage an aspect of humorous anxiety that was highly diverting—and all the more diverting when you came to know that the man had not a spark of anxiety in his composition, though he often said he had. His dress, like that of most Jack-tars, was naturally rugged, and he contrived to make it more so than usual.
“An’ it’s hot, too, it is,” he continued, applying his kerchief again to his pate. “If it warn’t for the ice we stand on, we’d be melted down, I do belave, like bits o’ whale blubber.”
“Wot a jolly game football is, ain’t it?” said Davie, seating himself on a hummock, and still panting hard.
“Ay, boy, that’s jist what it is. The only objiction I have agin it is that it makes ye a’most kick the left leg clane off yer body.”
“Why don’t you kick with your right leg, then, stupid, like other people?” enquired Summers.
“Why don’t I, is it? Troth, then, I don’t know for sartin. Me father lost his left leg at the great battle o’ the Nile, and I’ve sometimes thought that had somethin’ to do wid it; but then me mother was lame o’ therightleg intirely, and wint about wid a crutch, so I can’t make out how it was, d’ye see?”
“Look out, Pat,” exclaimed Summers, starting up, “here comes the ball.”
As he spoke, the football came skimming over the ice towards the spot on which they stood, with about thirty of the men running at full speed and shouting like maniacs after it.
“That’s your sort, my hearties! another like that and it’s home! Pitch into it, Mivins. You’re the boy for me. Now, then, Grim, trip him up! Hallo, Buzzby, you bluff-bowed Dutchman, luff! luff! or I’ll stave in your ribs! Mind your eye, Mizzle, there’s Green, he’ll be into your larboard quarter in no time. Hurrah! Mivins, up in the air with it. Kick, boy, kick like a spanker boom in a hurricane!”
Such were a few of the expressions that showered like hail round the men as they rushed hither and thither after the ball. And here we may remark that the crew of theDolphinplayed football in a somewhat different style from the way in which that noble game is played by boys in England. Sides, indeed, were chosen, and boundaries were marked out, but very little if any attention was paid to such secondary matters! To kick the ball, and keep on kicking it in front of his companions, was the ambition of each man; and so long as he could get a kick at it that caused it to fly from the ground like a cannon-shot, little regard was had by anyone to the direction in which it was propelled. But, of course, in this effort to get a kick, the men soon became scattered over the field, and ever and anon the ball would fall between two men, who rushed at it simultaneously from opposite directions. The inevitable result was a collision, by which both men were suddenly and violently arrested in their career. But generally the shock resulted in one of the men being sent staggering backwards, and the other getting thekick. When the two were pretty equally matched, both were usually, as they expressed it, “brought up all standing”, in which case a short scuffle ensued, as each endeavoured to trip up the heels of his adversary. To prevent undue violence in such struggles, a rule was laid down that hands were not to be used on any account. They might use their feet, legs, shoulders, and elbows, but not their hands.
In such rough play the men were more equally matched than might have been expected, for the want of weight among the smaller men was often more than counterbalanced by their activity; and frequently a sturdy little fellow launched himself so vigorously against a heavy tar as to send him rolling head over heels on the ice. This was not always the case, however, and few ventured to come into collision with Peter Grim, whose activity was on a par with his immense size. Buzzby contented himself with galloping on the outskirts of the fight, and putting in a kick when fortune sent the ball in his way. In this species of warfare he was supported by the fat cook, whose oily carcass could neither stand the shocks nor keep up with the pace of his messmates. Mizzle was a particularly energetic man in his way, however, and frequently kicked with such good-will that he missed the ball altogether, and the tremendous swing of his leg lifted him from the ice, and laid him sprawling on his back.
“Look out ahead!” shouted Green, the carpenter’s mate; “there’s a sail bearing down on your larboard bow.”
Mivins, who had the ball before him at the moment, saw his own satellite, Davie, coming down towards him with vicious intentions. He quietly pushed the ball before him for a few yards, then kicked it far over the boy’s head, and followed it up like an antelope. Mivins depended for success on his almost superhuman activity. His tall, slight frame could not stand the shocks of his comrades, but no one could equal or come near to him in speed, and he was quite an adept at dodging acharge, and allowing his opponent to rush far past the ball by the force of his own momentum. Such a charge did Peter Grim make at him at this moment.
“Starboard hard!” yelled Davie Summers, as he observed his master’s danger.
“Starboard it is!” replied Mivins, and, leaping aside to avoid the shock, he allowed Grim to pass. Grim knew his man, however, and had held himself in hand, so that in a moment he pulled up and was following close on his heels.
“It’s an ill wind that blows no good,” cried one of the crew, towards whose foot the ball rolled, as he quietly kicked it into the centre of the mass of men. Grim and Mivins turned back, and for a time looked on at the general make that ensued. It seemed as though the ball must inevitably be crushed among them as they struggled and kicked hither and thither for five minutes, in their vain efforts to get a kick; and during those few exciting moments many tremendous kicks, aimed at the ball, took effect upon shins, and many shouts of glee terminated in yells of anguish.
“It can’t last much longer!” screamed the cook, his face streaming with perspiration, and beaming with glee, as he danced round the outside of the circle. “There it goes!”
As he spoke, the ball flew out of the circle, like a shell from a mortar. Unfortunately it went directly over Mizzle’s head. Before he could wink he went down before them, and the rushing mass of men passed over him like a mountain torrent over a blade of grass.
Meanwhile Mivins ran ahead of the others, and gave the ball a kick that nearly burst it and down it came exactly between O’Riley and Grim, who chanced to be far ahead of the others. Grim dashed at it. “Och! ye big villain,” muttered the Irishman to himself, as he put down his head and rushed against the carpenter like a battering-ram.
Big though he was, Grim staggered back from the impetuous shock, and O’Riley, following up his advantage, kicked the ball in a side direction, away from everyone except Buzzby, who happened to have been steering rather wildly over the field of ice. Buzzby, on being brought thus unexpectedly within reach of the ball, braced up his energies for a kick, but seeing O’Riley coming down towards him like a runaway locomotive, he pulled up, saying quietly to himself: “Ye may take it all yer own way, lad; I’m too old a bird to go for to make my carcass a buffer for a mad-cap like you to run agin.”
Jack Mivins, however, was troubled by no such qualms. He happened to be about the same distance from the ball as O’Riley, and ran like a deer to reach it first. A pool of water lay in his path, however, and the necessity of going round it enabled the Irishman to gain on him a little, so that it became evident that both would come up at the same moment and a collision be inevitable.
“Hold yer wind, Paddy,” shouted the men, who paused for a moment to watch the result of the race. “Mind your timbers, Mivins! Back your top-sails, O’Riley; mind how he yaws!”
Then there was a momentary silence of breathless expectation. The two men seemed about to meet with a shock that would annihilate both, when Mivins bounded to one side like an india-rubber ball. O’Riley shot past him like a rocket, and the next instant went head-foremost into the pool of water.
This unexpected termination to the affair converted the intended huzzah of the men into a yell of mingled laughter and consternation as they hastened in a body to the spot; but before they reached it O’Riley’s head and shoulders reappeared, and when they came up, he was standing on the margin of the pool blowing like a walrus.
“Oh, then, but it is cowld!” he exclaimed, wringing the water from his garments. “Och, where’s the ball? give me a kick or I’ll freeze, so I will.”
As he spoke, the drenched Irishman seized the ball from Mivins’ hands and gave it a kick that sent it high into the air. He was too wet and heavy to follow it up, however, so he ambled off towards the ship as vigorously as his clothes would allow him, followed by the whole crew.
Chapter Eight.Fred and the doctor go on an excursion, in which, among other strange things, they meet with red snow and a white bear, and Fred makes his first essay as a sportsman.But where were Fred Ellice and Tom Singleton all this time? the reader will probably ask.Long before the game at football was suggested, they had obtained leave of absence from the captain, and, loaded with game-bags, a botanical box, and geological hammer, and a musket, were off along the coast on a semi-scientific cruise. Young Singleton carried the botanical box and hammer, being an enthusiastic geologist and botanist, while Fred carried the game-bag and musket.“You see, Tom,” he said, as they stumbled along over the loose ice towards the ice-belt that lined the cliffs,—“you see, I’m a great dab at ornithology, especially when I’ve got a gun on my shoulder. When I haven’t a gun, strange to say, I don’t feel half so enthusiastic about birds!”“That’s a very peculiar style of regarding the science. Don’t you think it would be worth while communicating your views on the subject to one of the scientific bodies when we get home again? They might elect you a member, Fred.”“Well, perhaps I shall,” replied Fred gravely; “but I say, to be serious, I’m really going to screw up my energies as much as possible, and make coloured drawings of all the birds I can get hold of in the Arctic regions. At least I would like to try.”Fred finished his remark with a sigh, for just then the object for which he had gone out to those regions occurred to him, and although the natural buoyancy and hopefulness of his feelings enabled him generally to throw off anxiety in regard to his father’s fate, and join in the laugh, and jest, and game as heartily as anyone on board, there were times when his heart failed him, and he almost despaired of ever seeing his father again; and these feelings of despondency had been more frequent since the day on which he witnessed the sudden and utter destruction of the strange brig.“Don’t let your spirits down, Fred,” said Tom, whose hopeful and earnest disposition often reanimated his friend’s drooping spirits. “It will only unfit you for doing any good service; besides, I think we have no cause yet to despair. We know that your father came up this inlet, or strait, or whatever it is, and that he had a good stock of provisions with him, according to the account we got at Uppernavik, and it is not more than a year since he was there. Many and many a whaler and discovery ship has wintered more than a year in these regions. And then, consider the immense amount of animal life all around us. They might have laid up provisions for many months long before winter set in.”“I know all that,” replied Fred, with a shake of his head; “but think of yon brig that we saw go down in about ten minutes.”“Well, so I do think of it. No doubt the brig was lost very suddenly, but there was ample time, had there been anyone on board, to have leaped upon the ice, and they might have got to land by jumping from one piece to another. Such things have happened before, frequently. To say truth, at every point of land we turn, I feel a sort of expectation, amounting almost to certainty, that we shall find your father and his party travelling southward on their way to the Danish settlements.”“Perhaps you are right. God grant that it may be so!”As he spoke they reached the fixed ice which ran along the foot of the precipices for some distance, like a road of hard white marble. Many large rocks lay scattered over it, some of them several tons in weight, and one or two balanced in a very remarkable way on the edge of the cliffs.“There’s a curious-looking gull I should like to shoot,” exclaimed Fred, pointing to a bird that hovered over his head, and throwing forward the muzzle of his gun.“Fire away, then,” said his friend, stepping back a pace.Fred, being unaccustomed to the use of firearms, took a wavering aim and fired.“What a bother! I’ve missed it!”“Try again,” remarked Tom with a quiet smile, as the whole cliff vomited forth an innumerable host of birds, whose cries were perfectly deafening.“It’s my opinion,” said Fred with a comical grin, “that if I shut my eyes and point upwards I can’t help hitting something; but I particularly want yon fellow, because he’s beautifully marked. Ah! I see him sitting on a rock yonder, so here goes once more.”Fred now proceeded towards the coveted bird in the fashion that is known by the name ofstalking—that is, creeping as close up to your game as possible, so as to get a good shot; and it said much for his patience and his future success the careful manner in which, on this occasion, he wound himself in and out among the rocks and blocks of ice on the shore in the hope of obtaining that sea-gull. At last he succeeded in getting to within about fifteen yards of it, and then, resting his musket on a lump of ice, and taking an aim so long and steadily that his companion began to fancy he must have gone to sleep, he fired, and blew the gull to atoms! There was scarcely so much as a shred of it to be found.Fred bore his disappointment and discomfiture manfully. He formed a resolution then and there to become a good shot, and although he did not succeed exactly in becoming so that day, he nevertheless managed to put several fine specimens of gulls and an auk into his bag. The last bird amused him much, being a creature with a dumpy little body and a beak of preposterously large size and comical aspect. There were also a great number of eider ducks flying about but they failed to procure a specimen.Singleton was equally successful in his scientific researches. He found several beautifully green mosses, one species of which was studded with pale-yellow flowers, and, in one place, where a stream trickled down the steep sides of the cliffs, he discovered a flower-growth which was rich in variety of colouring. Amid several kinds of tufted grasses were seen growing a small purple flower and the white star of the chickweed. The sight of all this richness of vegetation growing in a little spot close beside the snow, and amid such cold Arctic scenery, would have delighted a much less enthusiastic spirit than that of our young surgeon. He went quite into raptures with it and stuffed his botanical box with mosses and rocks until it could hold no more, and became a burden that cost him a few sighs before he got back to the ship.The rocks were found to consist chiefly of red sandstone. There was also a good deal of greenstone and gneiss, and some of the spires of these that shot up to a considerable height were particularly striking and picturesque objects.But the great sight of the day’s excursion was that which unexpectedly greeted their eyes on rounding a cape towards which they had been walking for several hours. On passing this point they stopped with an exclamation of amazement. Before them lay a scene such as the Arctic regions alone can produce.In front lay a vast reach of the strait, which at this place opened up abruptly and stretched away northward laden with floes, and fields, and hummocks, and bergs of every shade and size, to the horizon, where the appearance of the sky indicated open water. Ponds of various sizes, and sheets of water whose dimensions entitled them to be styled lakes, spangled the white surface of the floes, and around these were sporting innumerable flocks of wild fowl, many of which, being pure white, glanced like snow-flakes in the sunshine. Far off to the west the ice came down with heavy uniformity to the water’s edge. On the right there was an array of cliffs whose frowning grandeur filled them with awe. They varied from twelve to fifteen hundred feet in height, and some of the precipices descended sheer down seven or eight hundred feet into the sea, over which they cast a dark shadow.Just at the feet of our young discoverers, for such we may truly call them, a deep bay or valley trended away to the right, a large portion of which was filled with the spur of a glacier, whose surface was covered withpink snow! One can imagine with what feelings the two youths gazed on this beautiful sight. It seemed as if that valley, instead of forming a portion of the sterile region beyond the Arctic Circle, were one of the sunniest regions of the south, for a warm glow rested on the bosom of the snow, as if the sun were shedding upon it his rosiest hues. A little farther to the north the red snow ceased, or only occurred here and there in patches, and beyond it there appeared another gorge in the cliffs within which rose a tall column of rock, so straight and cylindrical that it seemed to be a production of art. The whole of the back country was one great rolling distance of glacier, and, wherever a crevice or gorge in the riven cliffs afforded an opportunity, this ocean of land-ice sent down spurs into the sea, the extremities of which were constantly shedding off huge bergs into the water.“What a scene!” exclaimed Tom Singleton, when he found words to express his admiration. “I did not think that our world contained so grand a sight. It surpasses my wildest dreams of fairy-land.”“Fairy-land!” ejaculated Fred, with a slight look of contempt; “do you know, since I came to this part of the world I’ve come to the conclusion that fairy tales are all stuff, and very inferior stuff too! Why, this reality is a thousand million times grander than anything that was ever invented. But what surprises me most is the red snow. What can be the cause of it?”“I don’t know,” replied Singleton; “it has long been a matter of dispute among learned men; but we must examine it for ourselves, so come along.”The remarkable colour of the snow referred to, although a matter of dispute at the period of theDolphin’svisit to the Arctic Seas, is generally admitted now to be the result of a curious and extremely minute vegetable growth, which spreads not only over its surface, but penetrates into it sometimes to a depth of several feet. The earlier navigators who discovered it, and first told the astonished world that the substance which they had been accustomed to associate with the idea of the purest and most radiant whiteness had been seen by them lyingredupon the ground, attributed the phenomenon to innumerable multitudes of minute creatures belonging to the orderRadiata, but the discovery of red snow among the central Alps of Europe, and in the Pyrenees, and on the mountains of Norway, wheremarineanimalcules could not exist, effectually overturned this idea. The colouring matter has now been ascertained to result from plants belonging to the order calledAlgae, which have a remarkable degree of vitality, and possess the power, to an amazing extent, of growing and spreading with rapidity even over such an ungenial soil as the Arctic snow.While Singleton was examining the red snow, and vainly endeavouring to ascertain the nature of the minute specks of matter by which it was coloured, Fred continued to gaze with a look of increasing earnestness towards the tall column, around which a bank of fog was spreading, and partially concealing it from view. At length he attracted the attention of his companion towards it.“I say, I’m half inclined to believe that yon is no work of nature, but a monument set up to attract the attention of ships. Don’t you think so?”Singleton regarded the object in question for some time. “I don’t think so, Fred; it is larger than you suppose, for the fog-bank deceives us; but let us go and see—it cannot be far off.”As they drew near to the tall rock, Fred’s hopes began to fade, and soon were utterly quenched by the fog clearing away and showing that the column was indeed of nature’s own constructing. It was a single, solitary shaft of green limestone, which stood on the brink of a deep ravine, and was marked by the slaty limestone that once encased it. The length of the column was apparently about five hundred feet, and the pedestal of sandstone on which it stood was itself upwards of two hundred feet high.This magnificent column seemed the flag-staff of a gigantic crystal fortress, which was suddenly revealing by the clearing away of the fog-bank to the north. It was the face of the great glacier of the interior, which here presented an unbroken perpendicular front—a sweep of solid glassy wall, which rose three hundred feet above the water-level, with an unknown depth below it. The sun glittered on the crags, and peaks, and battlements of this ice fortress as if the mysterious inhabitants of the far north had lit up their fires, and planted their artillery to resist further invasion.The effect upon the minds of the two youths, who were probably the first to gaze upon those wondrous visions of the icy regions, was tremendous. For a long time neither of them could utter a word, and it would be idle to attempt to transcribe the language in which, at length, their excited feelings sought to escape. It was not until their backs had been for some time turned on the scene, and the cape near the valley of red snow had completely shut it out from view, that they could condescend to converse again in their ordinary tones on ordinary subjects.As they hastened back over the ice-belt at the foot of the cliffs, a loud boom rang out in the distance, and rolled in solemn echoes along the shore.“There goes a gun,” exclaimed Tom Singleton, hastily pulling out his watch. “Hallo! do you know what time it is?”“Pretty late, I suppose; it was afternoon, I know, when we started, and we must have been out a good while now. What time is it?”“Just two o’clock in the morning!”“What! do you mean to say it wasyesterdaywhen we started, and that we’ve been walking all night, and got intoto-morrow morningwithout knowing it?”“Even so, Fred. We have overshot our time, and the captain is signalling us to make haste. He said that he would not fire unless there seemed some prospect of the ice moving, so we had better run, unless we wish to be left behind; come along.”They had not proceeded more than half a mile when a Polar bear walked leisurely out from behind a lump of ice, where it had been regaling itself on a dead seal, and sauntered slowly out towards the icebergs seaward, not a hundred yards in advance of them.“Hallo! look there! what a monster!” shouted Fred, as he cocked his musket and sprang forward. “What’ll you do, Tom, you’ve no gun?”“Never mind, I’ll do what I can with the hammer. Only make sure you don’t miss. Don’t fire till you are quite close to him.”They were running after the bear at top speed while they thus conversed in hasty and broken sentences, when suddenly they came to a yawning crack in the ice, about thirty feet wide, and a mile long on either hand, with the rising tide boiling at the bottom of it. Bruin’s pursuers came to an abrupt halt.“Now, isn’t that disgusting!”Probably it was, and the expression of chagrin on Fred’s countenance as he said so evidently showed that he meant it, but there is no doubt that this interruption to their hunt was extremely fortunate; for to attack a polar bear with a musket charged only with small shot, and a geological hammer, would have been about as safe and successful an operation as trying to stop a locomotive with one’s hand. Neither of them had yet had experience of the enormous strength of this white monarch of the frozen regions and his tenacity of life, although both were reckless enough to rush at him with any arms they chanced to have.“Give him a long shot quick!” cried Singleton.Fred fired instantly, and the bear stopped, and looked round, as much as to say: “Did you speak, gentlemen?” Then, not receiving a reply, he walked away with dignified indifference, and disappeared among the ice-hummocks.An hour afterwards the two wanderers were seated at a comfortable breakfast in the cabin of theDolphin, relating their adventures to the captain and mates, and, although unwittingly, to Mivins, who generally managed so to place himself, while engaged in the mysterious operations of his little pantry, that most of the cabin-talk reached his ear, and travelled thence through his mouth to the forecastle. The captain was fully aware of this fact, but he winked at it, for there was nothing but friendly feeling on board the ship, and no secrets. When, however, matters of serious import had to be discussed, the cabin door was closed, and Mivins turned to expend himself on Davie Summers, who, in the capacity of a listener, was absolutely necessary to the comfortable existence of the worthy steward.Having exhausted their appetites and their information, Fred and Tom were told that, during their absence, a bear and two seals had been shot by Meetuck, the Esquimaux interpreter, whom they had taken on board at Uppernavik; and they were further informed that the ice was in motion to the westward, and that there was every probability of their being released by the falling tide. Having duly and silently weighed these facts for a few minutes, they simultaneously, and as if by a common impulse, yawned and retired to bed.
But where were Fred Ellice and Tom Singleton all this time? the reader will probably ask.
Long before the game at football was suggested, they had obtained leave of absence from the captain, and, loaded with game-bags, a botanical box, and geological hammer, and a musket, were off along the coast on a semi-scientific cruise. Young Singleton carried the botanical box and hammer, being an enthusiastic geologist and botanist, while Fred carried the game-bag and musket.
“You see, Tom,” he said, as they stumbled along over the loose ice towards the ice-belt that lined the cliffs,—“you see, I’m a great dab at ornithology, especially when I’ve got a gun on my shoulder. When I haven’t a gun, strange to say, I don’t feel half so enthusiastic about birds!”
“That’s a very peculiar style of regarding the science. Don’t you think it would be worth while communicating your views on the subject to one of the scientific bodies when we get home again? They might elect you a member, Fred.”
“Well, perhaps I shall,” replied Fred gravely; “but I say, to be serious, I’m really going to screw up my energies as much as possible, and make coloured drawings of all the birds I can get hold of in the Arctic regions. At least I would like to try.”
Fred finished his remark with a sigh, for just then the object for which he had gone out to those regions occurred to him, and although the natural buoyancy and hopefulness of his feelings enabled him generally to throw off anxiety in regard to his father’s fate, and join in the laugh, and jest, and game as heartily as anyone on board, there were times when his heart failed him, and he almost despaired of ever seeing his father again; and these feelings of despondency had been more frequent since the day on which he witnessed the sudden and utter destruction of the strange brig.
“Don’t let your spirits down, Fred,” said Tom, whose hopeful and earnest disposition often reanimated his friend’s drooping spirits. “It will only unfit you for doing any good service; besides, I think we have no cause yet to despair. We know that your father came up this inlet, or strait, or whatever it is, and that he had a good stock of provisions with him, according to the account we got at Uppernavik, and it is not more than a year since he was there. Many and many a whaler and discovery ship has wintered more than a year in these regions. And then, consider the immense amount of animal life all around us. They might have laid up provisions for many months long before winter set in.”
“I know all that,” replied Fred, with a shake of his head; “but think of yon brig that we saw go down in about ten minutes.”
“Well, so I do think of it. No doubt the brig was lost very suddenly, but there was ample time, had there been anyone on board, to have leaped upon the ice, and they might have got to land by jumping from one piece to another. Such things have happened before, frequently. To say truth, at every point of land we turn, I feel a sort of expectation, amounting almost to certainty, that we shall find your father and his party travelling southward on their way to the Danish settlements.”
“Perhaps you are right. God grant that it may be so!”
As he spoke they reached the fixed ice which ran along the foot of the precipices for some distance, like a road of hard white marble. Many large rocks lay scattered over it, some of them several tons in weight, and one or two balanced in a very remarkable way on the edge of the cliffs.
“There’s a curious-looking gull I should like to shoot,” exclaimed Fred, pointing to a bird that hovered over his head, and throwing forward the muzzle of his gun.
“Fire away, then,” said his friend, stepping back a pace.
Fred, being unaccustomed to the use of firearms, took a wavering aim and fired.
“What a bother! I’ve missed it!”
“Try again,” remarked Tom with a quiet smile, as the whole cliff vomited forth an innumerable host of birds, whose cries were perfectly deafening.
“It’s my opinion,” said Fred with a comical grin, “that if I shut my eyes and point upwards I can’t help hitting something; but I particularly want yon fellow, because he’s beautifully marked. Ah! I see him sitting on a rock yonder, so here goes once more.”
Fred now proceeded towards the coveted bird in the fashion that is known by the name ofstalking—that is, creeping as close up to your game as possible, so as to get a good shot; and it said much for his patience and his future success the careful manner in which, on this occasion, he wound himself in and out among the rocks and blocks of ice on the shore in the hope of obtaining that sea-gull. At last he succeeded in getting to within about fifteen yards of it, and then, resting his musket on a lump of ice, and taking an aim so long and steadily that his companion began to fancy he must have gone to sleep, he fired, and blew the gull to atoms! There was scarcely so much as a shred of it to be found.
Fred bore his disappointment and discomfiture manfully. He formed a resolution then and there to become a good shot, and although he did not succeed exactly in becoming so that day, he nevertheless managed to put several fine specimens of gulls and an auk into his bag. The last bird amused him much, being a creature with a dumpy little body and a beak of preposterously large size and comical aspect. There were also a great number of eider ducks flying about but they failed to procure a specimen.
Singleton was equally successful in his scientific researches. He found several beautifully green mosses, one species of which was studded with pale-yellow flowers, and, in one place, where a stream trickled down the steep sides of the cliffs, he discovered a flower-growth which was rich in variety of colouring. Amid several kinds of tufted grasses were seen growing a small purple flower and the white star of the chickweed. The sight of all this richness of vegetation growing in a little spot close beside the snow, and amid such cold Arctic scenery, would have delighted a much less enthusiastic spirit than that of our young surgeon. He went quite into raptures with it and stuffed his botanical box with mosses and rocks until it could hold no more, and became a burden that cost him a few sighs before he got back to the ship.
The rocks were found to consist chiefly of red sandstone. There was also a good deal of greenstone and gneiss, and some of the spires of these that shot up to a considerable height were particularly striking and picturesque objects.
But the great sight of the day’s excursion was that which unexpectedly greeted their eyes on rounding a cape towards which they had been walking for several hours. On passing this point they stopped with an exclamation of amazement. Before them lay a scene such as the Arctic regions alone can produce.
In front lay a vast reach of the strait, which at this place opened up abruptly and stretched away northward laden with floes, and fields, and hummocks, and bergs of every shade and size, to the horizon, where the appearance of the sky indicated open water. Ponds of various sizes, and sheets of water whose dimensions entitled them to be styled lakes, spangled the white surface of the floes, and around these were sporting innumerable flocks of wild fowl, many of which, being pure white, glanced like snow-flakes in the sunshine. Far off to the west the ice came down with heavy uniformity to the water’s edge. On the right there was an array of cliffs whose frowning grandeur filled them with awe. They varied from twelve to fifteen hundred feet in height, and some of the precipices descended sheer down seven or eight hundred feet into the sea, over which they cast a dark shadow.
Just at the feet of our young discoverers, for such we may truly call them, a deep bay or valley trended away to the right, a large portion of which was filled with the spur of a glacier, whose surface was covered withpink snow! One can imagine with what feelings the two youths gazed on this beautiful sight. It seemed as if that valley, instead of forming a portion of the sterile region beyond the Arctic Circle, were one of the sunniest regions of the south, for a warm glow rested on the bosom of the snow, as if the sun were shedding upon it his rosiest hues. A little farther to the north the red snow ceased, or only occurred here and there in patches, and beyond it there appeared another gorge in the cliffs within which rose a tall column of rock, so straight and cylindrical that it seemed to be a production of art. The whole of the back country was one great rolling distance of glacier, and, wherever a crevice or gorge in the riven cliffs afforded an opportunity, this ocean of land-ice sent down spurs into the sea, the extremities of which were constantly shedding off huge bergs into the water.
“What a scene!” exclaimed Tom Singleton, when he found words to express his admiration. “I did not think that our world contained so grand a sight. It surpasses my wildest dreams of fairy-land.”
“Fairy-land!” ejaculated Fred, with a slight look of contempt; “do you know, since I came to this part of the world I’ve come to the conclusion that fairy tales are all stuff, and very inferior stuff too! Why, this reality is a thousand million times grander than anything that was ever invented. But what surprises me most is the red snow. What can be the cause of it?”
“I don’t know,” replied Singleton; “it has long been a matter of dispute among learned men; but we must examine it for ourselves, so come along.”
The remarkable colour of the snow referred to, although a matter of dispute at the period of theDolphin’svisit to the Arctic Seas, is generally admitted now to be the result of a curious and extremely minute vegetable growth, which spreads not only over its surface, but penetrates into it sometimes to a depth of several feet. The earlier navigators who discovered it, and first told the astonished world that the substance which they had been accustomed to associate with the idea of the purest and most radiant whiteness had been seen by them lyingredupon the ground, attributed the phenomenon to innumerable multitudes of minute creatures belonging to the orderRadiata, but the discovery of red snow among the central Alps of Europe, and in the Pyrenees, and on the mountains of Norway, wheremarineanimalcules could not exist, effectually overturned this idea. The colouring matter has now been ascertained to result from plants belonging to the order calledAlgae, which have a remarkable degree of vitality, and possess the power, to an amazing extent, of growing and spreading with rapidity even over such an ungenial soil as the Arctic snow.
While Singleton was examining the red snow, and vainly endeavouring to ascertain the nature of the minute specks of matter by which it was coloured, Fred continued to gaze with a look of increasing earnestness towards the tall column, around which a bank of fog was spreading, and partially concealing it from view. At length he attracted the attention of his companion towards it.
“I say, I’m half inclined to believe that yon is no work of nature, but a monument set up to attract the attention of ships. Don’t you think so?”
Singleton regarded the object in question for some time. “I don’t think so, Fred; it is larger than you suppose, for the fog-bank deceives us; but let us go and see—it cannot be far off.”
As they drew near to the tall rock, Fred’s hopes began to fade, and soon were utterly quenched by the fog clearing away and showing that the column was indeed of nature’s own constructing. It was a single, solitary shaft of green limestone, which stood on the brink of a deep ravine, and was marked by the slaty limestone that once encased it. The length of the column was apparently about five hundred feet, and the pedestal of sandstone on which it stood was itself upwards of two hundred feet high.
This magnificent column seemed the flag-staff of a gigantic crystal fortress, which was suddenly revealing by the clearing away of the fog-bank to the north. It was the face of the great glacier of the interior, which here presented an unbroken perpendicular front—a sweep of solid glassy wall, which rose three hundred feet above the water-level, with an unknown depth below it. The sun glittered on the crags, and peaks, and battlements of this ice fortress as if the mysterious inhabitants of the far north had lit up their fires, and planted their artillery to resist further invasion.
The effect upon the minds of the two youths, who were probably the first to gaze upon those wondrous visions of the icy regions, was tremendous. For a long time neither of them could utter a word, and it would be idle to attempt to transcribe the language in which, at length, their excited feelings sought to escape. It was not until their backs had been for some time turned on the scene, and the cape near the valley of red snow had completely shut it out from view, that they could condescend to converse again in their ordinary tones on ordinary subjects.
As they hastened back over the ice-belt at the foot of the cliffs, a loud boom rang out in the distance, and rolled in solemn echoes along the shore.
“There goes a gun,” exclaimed Tom Singleton, hastily pulling out his watch. “Hallo! do you know what time it is?”
“Pretty late, I suppose; it was afternoon, I know, when we started, and we must have been out a good while now. What time is it?”
“Just two o’clock in the morning!”
“What! do you mean to say it wasyesterdaywhen we started, and that we’ve been walking all night, and got intoto-morrow morningwithout knowing it?”
“Even so, Fred. We have overshot our time, and the captain is signalling us to make haste. He said that he would not fire unless there seemed some prospect of the ice moving, so we had better run, unless we wish to be left behind; come along.”
They had not proceeded more than half a mile when a Polar bear walked leisurely out from behind a lump of ice, where it had been regaling itself on a dead seal, and sauntered slowly out towards the icebergs seaward, not a hundred yards in advance of them.
“Hallo! look there! what a monster!” shouted Fred, as he cocked his musket and sprang forward. “What’ll you do, Tom, you’ve no gun?”
“Never mind, I’ll do what I can with the hammer. Only make sure you don’t miss. Don’t fire till you are quite close to him.”
They were running after the bear at top speed while they thus conversed in hasty and broken sentences, when suddenly they came to a yawning crack in the ice, about thirty feet wide, and a mile long on either hand, with the rising tide boiling at the bottom of it. Bruin’s pursuers came to an abrupt halt.
“Now, isn’t that disgusting!”
Probably it was, and the expression of chagrin on Fred’s countenance as he said so evidently showed that he meant it, but there is no doubt that this interruption to their hunt was extremely fortunate; for to attack a polar bear with a musket charged only with small shot, and a geological hammer, would have been about as safe and successful an operation as trying to stop a locomotive with one’s hand. Neither of them had yet had experience of the enormous strength of this white monarch of the frozen regions and his tenacity of life, although both were reckless enough to rush at him with any arms they chanced to have.
“Give him a long shot quick!” cried Singleton.
Fred fired instantly, and the bear stopped, and looked round, as much as to say: “Did you speak, gentlemen?” Then, not receiving a reply, he walked away with dignified indifference, and disappeared among the ice-hummocks.
An hour afterwards the two wanderers were seated at a comfortable breakfast in the cabin of theDolphin, relating their adventures to the captain and mates, and, although unwittingly, to Mivins, who generally managed so to place himself, while engaged in the mysterious operations of his little pantry, that most of the cabin-talk reached his ear, and travelled thence through his mouth to the forecastle. The captain was fully aware of this fact, but he winked at it, for there was nothing but friendly feeling on board the ship, and no secrets. When, however, matters of serious import had to be discussed, the cabin door was closed, and Mivins turned to expend himself on Davie Summers, who, in the capacity of a listener, was absolutely necessary to the comfortable existence of the worthy steward.
Having exhausted their appetites and their information, Fred and Tom were told that, during their absence, a bear and two seals had been shot by Meetuck, the Esquimaux interpreter, whom they had taken on board at Uppernavik; and they were further informed that the ice was in motion to the westward, and that there was every probability of their being released by the falling tide. Having duly and silently weighed these facts for a few minutes, they simultaneously, and as if by a common impulse, yawned and retired to bed.
Chapter Nine.The Dolphin gets beset in the Ice—Preparations for Wintering in the Ice—Captain Guy’s Code of Laws.An accident now befell theDolphinwhich effectually decided the fate of the ship and her crew, at least for that winter. This was her getting aground near the ravine of the giant flagstaff before mentioned, and being finally beset by ice from which all efforts on the part of the men to extricate her proved abortive, and in which she was ultimately frozen in—hard and fast.The first sight the crew obtained of the red snow filled them with unbounded amazement, and a few of the more superstitious amongst them with awe approaching to fear. But soon their attention was attracted from this by the wonderful column.“Och, then! may I niver!” exclaimed O’Riley, the moment he caught sight of it, “if there ben’t the north pole at long last—sure enough!”The laugh that greeted this remark was almost immediately checked, partly from the feelings of solemnity inspired by the magnificent view which opened up to them, and partly from a suspicion on the part of the more ignorant among the men that there might be some truth in O’Riley’s statement after all.But their attention and energies were speedily called to the dangerous position of the ship, which unexpectedly took the ground in a bay where the water proved to be unusually shallow, and before they could warp her off, the ice closed round her in compact, immovable masses. At first Captain Guy was not seriously alarmed by this untoward event, although he felt a little chagrin in consequence of the detention, for the summer was rapidly advancing, and it behoved him to return to Baffin’s Bay, and prosecute the whale-fishing as energetically as possible; but when day after day passed, and the ice round the ship still remained immovable, he became alarmed, and sought by every means in his power to extricate himself.His position was rendered all the more aggravating by the fact that, a week after he was beset, the main body of the ice in the strait opened up and drifted to the southward, leaving a comparatively clear sea through which he could have pushed his way without much difficulty in any direction, but the solid masses in which they lay embedded were fast to the ground for about fifty yards beyond the vessel, seaward, and until these should be floated away there was no chance of escape.“Get up some powder and canisters, Mr Bolton,” he exclaimed, one morning after breakfast; “I’ll try what can be done by blasting the ice. The highest spring tide will occur to-morrow, and if the ship don’t move then we shall—”He did not finish the sentence, but turned on his heel, and walked forward, where he found Buzzby and some of the men preparing the ice-saws.“Ay, ay,” muttered the mate, as he went below to give the necessary directions, “you don’t need to conclude your speech, Captain. If we don’t get out to-morrow, we’re locked up for one winter at least if not more.”“Ay, and ye’ll no get oot to-morrow,” remarked Saunders with a shake of his head as he looked up from the log-book in which he was making an entry. “We’re hard and fast, so we’ll just have to make the best o’t.”Saunders was right as the efforts of the next day proved. The ice lay around the vessel in solid masses, as we have said, and with each of the last three tides these masses had been slightly moved. Saws and ice chisels, therefore, had been in constant operation, and the men worked with the utmost energy, night and day, taking it by turns, and having double allowance of hot coffee served out to them. We may mention here that theDolphincarried no spirits, except what was needed for medicinal purposes, and for fuel to several small cooking-lamps that had been recently invented. It had now been proved by many voyagers of experience that in cold countries, as well as hot, men work harder, and endure the extremity of hardship better, without strong drink than with it, and theDolphin’screw were engaged on the distinct understanding that coffee, and tea, and chocolate were to be substituted for rum, and that spirits were never to be given to anyone on board, except in cases of extreme necessity.But, to return—although the men worked as only those can who toil for liberation from long imprisonment, no impression worth mentioning could be made on the ice. At length the attempt to rend it by means of gunpowder was made.A jar containing about thirty pounds of powder was sunk in a hole in an immense block of ice which lay close against the stern of the ship. Mivins, being light of foot, was set to fire the train. He did so, and ran—ran so fast that he missed his footing in leaping over a chasm, and had well-nigh fallen into the water below. There was a whiz and a loud report, and the enormous mass of ice heaved upwards in the centre, and fell back in huge fragments. So far the result was satisfactory, and the men were immediately set to sink several charges in various directions around the vessel, to be in readiness for the highest tide, which was soon expected. Warps and hawsers were also got out and fixed to the seaward masses, ready to heave on them at a moment’s notice; the ship was lightened as much as possible, by lifting her stores upon the ice, and the whole crew—captain, mates, and all—worked and heaved like horses, until the perspiration streamed from their faces, while Mizzle kept supplying them with a constant deluge of hot coffee. Fred and the young surgeon, too, worked like the rest, with their coats off, handkerchiefs bound round their heads, and shirt-sleeves tucked up to their shoulders.At last the tide rose—inch by inch, and slowly, as if it grudged to give them even a chance of escape.Mivins grew impatient and unbelieving under it. “I don’t think it’ll rise another hinch,” he remarked to O’Riley, who stood near him.“Niver fear, boy. The capting knows a sight better than you do, andhesays it’ll rise a fut yit.”“Does he?” asked Grim, who was also beginning to despond.“Ov coorse he does. Sure he towld me in a confidential way, just before he wint to turn in last night—if it wasn’t yisturday forenoon, for it’s meself as niver knows an hour o’ the day since the sun became dissipated, and tuck to sittin’ up all night in this fashion.”“Shut up yer tatie trap and open yer weather eye,” muttered Buzzby, who had charge of the gang, “there’ll be time enough to speak after we’re off.”Gradually, as the tide rose, the ice and the ship moved, and it became evident that the latter was almost afloat though the former seemed to be only partly raised from the ground. The men were at their several posts ready for instant action, and gazing in anxious expectation at the captain, who stood, watch in hand, ready to give the word.“Now, then, fire!” he said in a low voice.In a moment the ice round the ship was rent and upheaved, as if some leviathan of the deep were rising from beneath it and the vessel swung slowly round. A loud cheer burst from the men.“Now, lads, heave with a will!” roared the captain.Round went the capstan, the windlass clanked, and the ship forged slowly ahead as the warps and hawsers became rigid. At that moment a heavy block of ice, which had been overbalanced by the motion of the vessel, fell with a crash on the rudder, splitting off a large portion of it, and drawing the iron bolts that held it completely out of the stern-post.“Never mind; heave away—for your lives!” cried the captain. “Jump on board all of you!”The few men who had until now remained on the ice scrambled up the side. There was a sheet of ice right ahead which the ship could not clear, but which she was pushing out to sea in advance of her. Suddenly this took the ground and remained motionless.“Out there with ice-chisels. Sink a hole like lightning. Prepare a canister, Mr Bolton; quick!” shouted the captain in desperation, as he sprang over the side and assisted to cut into the unwieldy obstruction. The charge was soon fixed and fired, but it only split the block in two, and left it motionless as before. A few minutes after, the ship again grounded; the ice settled round her; the spring tide was lost, and they were not delivered.Those who know the bitterness of repeated disappointment, and of hope deferred, may judge of the feelings with which the crew of theDolphinnow regarded their position. Little, indeed, was said, but the grave looks of most of the men, and the absence of the usual laugh, and jest, and disposition to skylark, which on almost all other occasions characterised them, showed too plainly how heavily the prospect of a winter in the Arctic regions weighed upon their spirits. They continued their exertions to free the ship, however, for several days after the high tide, and did not finally give in until all reasonable hope of moving her was utterly annihilated. Before this, however, a reaction began to take place; the prospects of the coming winter were discussed, and some of the more sanguine looked even beyond the winter, and began to consider how they would contrive to get the ship out of her position into deep water again.Fred Ellice, too, thought of his father, and this abrupt check to the search, and his spirits sank again as his hopes decayed. But poor Fred, like the others, at last discovered that it was of no use to repine, and that it was best to face his sorrows and difficulties “like a man!”Among so many men there were all shades of character, and the fact that they were doomed to a year’s imprisonment in the frozen regions was received in very different ways. Some looked grave and thought of it seriously; others laughed and treated it lightly; a few grumbled and spoke profanely, but most of them became quickly reconciled, and in a week or two nearly all forgot the past and the future in the duties, and cares, and amusements of the present. Captain Guy and his officers, however, and a few of the more sedate men, among whom were Buzzby and Peter Grim, looked forward with much anxiety, knowing full well the dangers and trials that lay before them.It is true the ship was provisioned for more than a year, but most of the provisions were salt, and Tom Singleton could have told them, had they required to be told, that without fresh provisions they stood a poor chance of escaping that dire disease, scurvy, before which have fallen so many gallant tars whom nothing in the shape of dangers or difficulties could subdue. There were, indeed, myriads of wild fowl flying about the ship, on which the men feasted and grew fat every day; and the muskets of Meetuck, and those who accompanied him, seldom failed to supply the ship with an abundance of the flesh of seals, walrus, and polar bears, portions of all of which creatures were considered very good indeed by the men, and particularly by the dogs, which grew so fat that they began to acquire a very disreputable waddle in their gait as they walked the deck for exercise, which they seldom did, by the way, being passionately fond of sleep! But birds and, perchance, beasts might be expected to take themselves off when the winter arrived, and leave the crew without fresh food.Then, although theDolphinwas supplied with every necessary for a whaling expedition, and with many luxuries besides, she was ill-provided with the supplies that men deem absolutely indispensable for a winter in the Arctic regions, where the cold is so bitterly intense that, after a prolonged sojourn, men’s minds become almost entirely engrossed by two clamant demands of nature—food and heat. They had only a small quantity of coal on board, and nothing except a few extra spars that could be used as a substitute, while the bleak shores afforded neither shrub nor tree of any kind. Meanwhile they had a sufficiency of everything they required for at least two or three months to come, and for the rest as Grim said, they had “stout hearts and strong arms.”As soon as it became apparent that they were to winter in the bay, which the captain named the Bay of Mercy, all further attempt to extricate the ship was abandoned, and every preparation for spending the winter was begun and carried out vigorously. It was now that Captain Guy’s qualities as a leader began to be displayed. He knew, from long experience and observation, that in order to keep up themoraleof any body of men it was absolutely necessary to maintain the strictest discipline. Indeed this rule is so universal in its application that many men find it advantageous to impose strict rules on themselves in the regulation of their time and affairs, in order to keep their own spirits under command. One of the captain’s first resolves, therefore, was to call the men together and address them on this subject, and he seized the occasion of the first Sabbath morning they spent in the Bay of Mercy, when the crew were assembled on the quarterdeck, to speak to them.It was an exceedingly bright day. Captain Guy stood up, and, in an earnest, firm tone, said:—“My lads, I consider it my duty to say a few plain words to you in reference to our present situation and prospects. I feel that the responsibility of having brought you here rests very much upon myself, and I deem it my solemn duty, in more than the ordinary sense, to do all I can to get you out of the ice again. You know as well as I do that this is impossible at the present time, and that we are compelled to spend a winter here. Some of you know what that means, but the most of you know it only by hearsay, and that’s much the same as knowing nothing about it at all. Before the winter is done your energies and endurance will probably be taxed to the uttermost. I think it right to be candid with you. The life before you will not be child’s-play, but I assure you that it may be mingled with much that will be pleasant and hearty if you choose to set about it in the right way. Well, then, to be short about it. There is no chance whatever of our getting through the winter in this ship comfortably, or even safely, unless the strictest discipline is maintained aboard. I know, for I’ve been in similar circumstances before, that when cold and hunger, and, it may be, sickness, press upon us—should it please the Almighty to send these on us in great severity—you will feel duty to be irksome, and you’ll think it useless, and perhaps be tempted to mutiny. Now I ask you solemnly, while your minds are clear from all prejudices, each individually to sign a written code of laws, and a written promise that you will obey the same, and help me to enforce them even with the punishment ofdeath, if need be. Now, lads, will you agree to that?”“Agreed, agreed!” cried the men at once, and in a tone of prompt decision that convinced their leader he had their entire confidence—a matter of the highest importance in the critical circumstances in which they were placed.“Well, then, I’ll read the rules; they are few, but sufficiently comprehensive.“First. Prayers shall be read every morning before breakfast, unless circumstances render it impossible to do so.”The captain laid down the paper, and looked earnestly at the men.“My lads, I have never felt so strongly as I now do the absolute need we have of the blessing and guidance of the Almighty, and I am persuaded that it is our duty as well as our interest to begin, not only the Sabbath, buteveryday with prayer.“Second. The ordinary duties of the ship shall be carried on, the watches regularly set and relieved, regular hours observed, and the details of duty attended to in the usual way, as when in harbour.“Third. The officers shall take watch and watch about as heretofore, except when required to do otherwise; the log-books, and meteorological observations, etcetera, shall be carried on as usual.“Fourth. The captain shall have supreme and absolute command as when at sea, but he, on his part, promises that, should any peculiar circumstance arise, in which the safety of the crew or ship shall be implicated, he will, if the men are so disposed, call a council of the whole crew, in which case the decision of the majority shall become law, but the minority in that event shall have it in their option to separate from the majority and carry along with them their share of the general provisions.“Fifth. Disobedience to orders shall be punishable according to the decision of a council, to be appointed specially for the purpose of framing a criminal code, hereafter to be submitted for the approval of the crew.”The rules above laid down were signed by every man in the ship. Several of them could not write, but these affixed a cross (x) at the foot of the page, against which their names were written by the captain in presence of witnesses, which answered the same purpose. And from that time, until events occurred which rendered all such rules unnecessary, the work of the ship went on pleasantly and well.
An accident now befell theDolphinwhich effectually decided the fate of the ship and her crew, at least for that winter. This was her getting aground near the ravine of the giant flagstaff before mentioned, and being finally beset by ice from which all efforts on the part of the men to extricate her proved abortive, and in which she was ultimately frozen in—hard and fast.
The first sight the crew obtained of the red snow filled them with unbounded amazement, and a few of the more superstitious amongst them with awe approaching to fear. But soon their attention was attracted from this by the wonderful column.
“Och, then! may I niver!” exclaimed O’Riley, the moment he caught sight of it, “if there ben’t the north pole at long last—sure enough!”
The laugh that greeted this remark was almost immediately checked, partly from the feelings of solemnity inspired by the magnificent view which opened up to them, and partly from a suspicion on the part of the more ignorant among the men that there might be some truth in O’Riley’s statement after all.
But their attention and energies were speedily called to the dangerous position of the ship, which unexpectedly took the ground in a bay where the water proved to be unusually shallow, and before they could warp her off, the ice closed round her in compact, immovable masses. At first Captain Guy was not seriously alarmed by this untoward event, although he felt a little chagrin in consequence of the detention, for the summer was rapidly advancing, and it behoved him to return to Baffin’s Bay, and prosecute the whale-fishing as energetically as possible; but when day after day passed, and the ice round the ship still remained immovable, he became alarmed, and sought by every means in his power to extricate himself.
His position was rendered all the more aggravating by the fact that, a week after he was beset, the main body of the ice in the strait opened up and drifted to the southward, leaving a comparatively clear sea through which he could have pushed his way without much difficulty in any direction, but the solid masses in which they lay embedded were fast to the ground for about fifty yards beyond the vessel, seaward, and until these should be floated away there was no chance of escape.
“Get up some powder and canisters, Mr Bolton,” he exclaimed, one morning after breakfast; “I’ll try what can be done by blasting the ice. The highest spring tide will occur to-morrow, and if the ship don’t move then we shall—”
He did not finish the sentence, but turned on his heel, and walked forward, where he found Buzzby and some of the men preparing the ice-saws.
“Ay, ay,” muttered the mate, as he went below to give the necessary directions, “you don’t need to conclude your speech, Captain. If we don’t get out to-morrow, we’re locked up for one winter at least if not more.”
“Ay, and ye’ll no get oot to-morrow,” remarked Saunders with a shake of his head as he looked up from the log-book in which he was making an entry. “We’re hard and fast, so we’ll just have to make the best o’t.”
Saunders was right as the efforts of the next day proved. The ice lay around the vessel in solid masses, as we have said, and with each of the last three tides these masses had been slightly moved. Saws and ice chisels, therefore, had been in constant operation, and the men worked with the utmost energy, night and day, taking it by turns, and having double allowance of hot coffee served out to them. We may mention here that theDolphincarried no spirits, except what was needed for medicinal purposes, and for fuel to several small cooking-lamps that had been recently invented. It had now been proved by many voyagers of experience that in cold countries, as well as hot, men work harder, and endure the extremity of hardship better, without strong drink than with it, and theDolphin’screw were engaged on the distinct understanding that coffee, and tea, and chocolate were to be substituted for rum, and that spirits were never to be given to anyone on board, except in cases of extreme necessity.
But, to return—although the men worked as only those can who toil for liberation from long imprisonment, no impression worth mentioning could be made on the ice. At length the attempt to rend it by means of gunpowder was made.
A jar containing about thirty pounds of powder was sunk in a hole in an immense block of ice which lay close against the stern of the ship. Mivins, being light of foot, was set to fire the train. He did so, and ran—ran so fast that he missed his footing in leaping over a chasm, and had well-nigh fallen into the water below. There was a whiz and a loud report, and the enormous mass of ice heaved upwards in the centre, and fell back in huge fragments. So far the result was satisfactory, and the men were immediately set to sink several charges in various directions around the vessel, to be in readiness for the highest tide, which was soon expected. Warps and hawsers were also got out and fixed to the seaward masses, ready to heave on them at a moment’s notice; the ship was lightened as much as possible, by lifting her stores upon the ice, and the whole crew—captain, mates, and all—worked and heaved like horses, until the perspiration streamed from their faces, while Mizzle kept supplying them with a constant deluge of hot coffee. Fred and the young surgeon, too, worked like the rest, with their coats off, handkerchiefs bound round their heads, and shirt-sleeves tucked up to their shoulders.
At last the tide rose—inch by inch, and slowly, as if it grudged to give them even a chance of escape.
Mivins grew impatient and unbelieving under it. “I don’t think it’ll rise another hinch,” he remarked to O’Riley, who stood near him.
“Niver fear, boy. The capting knows a sight better than you do, andhesays it’ll rise a fut yit.”
“Does he?” asked Grim, who was also beginning to despond.
“Ov coorse he does. Sure he towld me in a confidential way, just before he wint to turn in last night—if it wasn’t yisturday forenoon, for it’s meself as niver knows an hour o’ the day since the sun became dissipated, and tuck to sittin’ up all night in this fashion.”
“Shut up yer tatie trap and open yer weather eye,” muttered Buzzby, who had charge of the gang, “there’ll be time enough to speak after we’re off.”
Gradually, as the tide rose, the ice and the ship moved, and it became evident that the latter was almost afloat though the former seemed to be only partly raised from the ground. The men were at their several posts ready for instant action, and gazing in anxious expectation at the captain, who stood, watch in hand, ready to give the word.
“Now, then, fire!” he said in a low voice.
In a moment the ice round the ship was rent and upheaved, as if some leviathan of the deep were rising from beneath it and the vessel swung slowly round. A loud cheer burst from the men.
“Now, lads, heave with a will!” roared the captain.
Round went the capstan, the windlass clanked, and the ship forged slowly ahead as the warps and hawsers became rigid. At that moment a heavy block of ice, which had been overbalanced by the motion of the vessel, fell with a crash on the rudder, splitting off a large portion of it, and drawing the iron bolts that held it completely out of the stern-post.
“Never mind; heave away—for your lives!” cried the captain. “Jump on board all of you!”
The few men who had until now remained on the ice scrambled up the side. There was a sheet of ice right ahead which the ship could not clear, but which she was pushing out to sea in advance of her. Suddenly this took the ground and remained motionless.
“Out there with ice-chisels. Sink a hole like lightning. Prepare a canister, Mr Bolton; quick!” shouted the captain in desperation, as he sprang over the side and assisted to cut into the unwieldy obstruction. The charge was soon fixed and fired, but it only split the block in two, and left it motionless as before. A few minutes after, the ship again grounded; the ice settled round her; the spring tide was lost, and they were not delivered.
Those who know the bitterness of repeated disappointment, and of hope deferred, may judge of the feelings with which the crew of theDolphinnow regarded their position. Little, indeed, was said, but the grave looks of most of the men, and the absence of the usual laugh, and jest, and disposition to skylark, which on almost all other occasions characterised them, showed too plainly how heavily the prospect of a winter in the Arctic regions weighed upon their spirits. They continued their exertions to free the ship, however, for several days after the high tide, and did not finally give in until all reasonable hope of moving her was utterly annihilated. Before this, however, a reaction began to take place; the prospects of the coming winter were discussed, and some of the more sanguine looked even beyond the winter, and began to consider how they would contrive to get the ship out of her position into deep water again.
Fred Ellice, too, thought of his father, and this abrupt check to the search, and his spirits sank again as his hopes decayed. But poor Fred, like the others, at last discovered that it was of no use to repine, and that it was best to face his sorrows and difficulties “like a man!”
Among so many men there were all shades of character, and the fact that they were doomed to a year’s imprisonment in the frozen regions was received in very different ways. Some looked grave and thought of it seriously; others laughed and treated it lightly; a few grumbled and spoke profanely, but most of them became quickly reconciled, and in a week or two nearly all forgot the past and the future in the duties, and cares, and amusements of the present. Captain Guy and his officers, however, and a few of the more sedate men, among whom were Buzzby and Peter Grim, looked forward with much anxiety, knowing full well the dangers and trials that lay before them.
It is true the ship was provisioned for more than a year, but most of the provisions were salt, and Tom Singleton could have told them, had they required to be told, that without fresh provisions they stood a poor chance of escaping that dire disease, scurvy, before which have fallen so many gallant tars whom nothing in the shape of dangers or difficulties could subdue. There were, indeed, myriads of wild fowl flying about the ship, on which the men feasted and grew fat every day; and the muskets of Meetuck, and those who accompanied him, seldom failed to supply the ship with an abundance of the flesh of seals, walrus, and polar bears, portions of all of which creatures were considered very good indeed by the men, and particularly by the dogs, which grew so fat that they began to acquire a very disreputable waddle in their gait as they walked the deck for exercise, which they seldom did, by the way, being passionately fond of sleep! But birds and, perchance, beasts might be expected to take themselves off when the winter arrived, and leave the crew without fresh food.
Then, although theDolphinwas supplied with every necessary for a whaling expedition, and with many luxuries besides, she was ill-provided with the supplies that men deem absolutely indispensable for a winter in the Arctic regions, where the cold is so bitterly intense that, after a prolonged sojourn, men’s minds become almost entirely engrossed by two clamant demands of nature—food and heat. They had only a small quantity of coal on board, and nothing except a few extra spars that could be used as a substitute, while the bleak shores afforded neither shrub nor tree of any kind. Meanwhile they had a sufficiency of everything they required for at least two or three months to come, and for the rest as Grim said, they had “stout hearts and strong arms.”
As soon as it became apparent that they were to winter in the bay, which the captain named the Bay of Mercy, all further attempt to extricate the ship was abandoned, and every preparation for spending the winter was begun and carried out vigorously. It was now that Captain Guy’s qualities as a leader began to be displayed. He knew, from long experience and observation, that in order to keep up themoraleof any body of men it was absolutely necessary to maintain the strictest discipline. Indeed this rule is so universal in its application that many men find it advantageous to impose strict rules on themselves in the regulation of their time and affairs, in order to keep their own spirits under command. One of the captain’s first resolves, therefore, was to call the men together and address them on this subject, and he seized the occasion of the first Sabbath morning they spent in the Bay of Mercy, when the crew were assembled on the quarterdeck, to speak to them.
It was an exceedingly bright day. Captain Guy stood up, and, in an earnest, firm tone, said:—
“My lads, I consider it my duty to say a few plain words to you in reference to our present situation and prospects. I feel that the responsibility of having brought you here rests very much upon myself, and I deem it my solemn duty, in more than the ordinary sense, to do all I can to get you out of the ice again. You know as well as I do that this is impossible at the present time, and that we are compelled to spend a winter here. Some of you know what that means, but the most of you know it only by hearsay, and that’s much the same as knowing nothing about it at all. Before the winter is done your energies and endurance will probably be taxed to the uttermost. I think it right to be candid with you. The life before you will not be child’s-play, but I assure you that it may be mingled with much that will be pleasant and hearty if you choose to set about it in the right way. Well, then, to be short about it. There is no chance whatever of our getting through the winter in this ship comfortably, or even safely, unless the strictest discipline is maintained aboard. I know, for I’ve been in similar circumstances before, that when cold and hunger, and, it may be, sickness, press upon us—should it please the Almighty to send these on us in great severity—you will feel duty to be irksome, and you’ll think it useless, and perhaps be tempted to mutiny. Now I ask you solemnly, while your minds are clear from all prejudices, each individually to sign a written code of laws, and a written promise that you will obey the same, and help me to enforce them even with the punishment ofdeath, if need be. Now, lads, will you agree to that?”
“Agreed, agreed!” cried the men at once, and in a tone of prompt decision that convinced their leader he had their entire confidence—a matter of the highest importance in the critical circumstances in which they were placed.
“Well, then, I’ll read the rules; they are few, but sufficiently comprehensive.
“First. Prayers shall be read every morning before breakfast, unless circumstances render it impossible to do so.”
The captain laid down the paper, and looked earnestly at the men.
“My lads, I have never felt so strongly as I now do the absolute need we have of the blessing and guidance of the Almighty, and I am persuaded that it is our duty as well as our interest to begin, not only the Sabbath, buteveryday with prayer.
“Second. The ordinary duties of the ship shall be carried on, the watches regularly set and relieved, regular hours observed, and the details of duty attended to in the usual way, as when in harbour.
“Third. The officers shall take watch and watch about as heretofore, except when required to do otherwise; the log-books, and meteorological observations, etcetera, shall be carried on as usual.
“Fourth. The captain shall have supreme and absolute command as when at sea, but he, on his part, promises that, should any peculiar circumstance arise, in which the safety of the crew or ship shall be implicated, he will, if the men are so disposed, call a council of the whole crew, in which case the decision of the majority shall become law, but the minority in that event shall have it in their option to separate from the majority and carry along with them their share of the general provisions.
“Fifth. Disobedience to orders shall be punishable according to the decision of a council, to be appointed specially for the purpose of framing a criminal code, hereafter to be submitted for the approval of the crew.”
The rules above laid down were signed by every man in the ship. Several of them could not write, but these affixed a cross (x) at the foot of the page, against which their names were written by the captain in presence of witnesses, which answered the same purpose. And from that time, until events occurred which rendered all such rules unnecessary, the work of the ship went on pleasantly and well.