Chapter Nineteen.“Silas Grig, His Yarn”—The White Whale—Afloat on an Iceberg—A Dreary Journey—Bear Adventures—“The Seals! The Seals!”There was only one subject in the whole world that Silas Grig was thoroughly conversant with, and that was the manners and customs of his friends the seals. Had you started talking upon either politics or science, or the state of Europe or Ireland, Silas would have become silent at once. He would have retired within himself; his soul, so to speak, would have gone indoors, and not come out again until you had done. Such was Silas; and he confessed frankly that he had never sung a song nor made a speech in his lifetime. He was a perfect enthusiast while talking about the natural familyPhocidae. No naturalist in the world knew half so much about them as Silas. On the evening of the day in which he had chosen his men from the crew of theArrandoon, he was pronounced by both Ralph and Rory to be in fine form. He was full of anecdote, and even tales of adventure, so our heroes allowed him to talk, and indeed encouraged him to do so.“What!” he cried, his honest, fear-nothing face lighting up with smiles as he eyed Rory across the table after dinner. “Spin you a yarn, d’ye say? ah! boy, and you’ll excuse me calling ye a boy. Silas never could tell a story, and I don’t suppose he ever had an adventure as signified much to you in his life.”“Never mind,” insisted Rory, “you tell us something, and I’ll play you that old tune you so dearly love.”“Ah! but,” said Silas, “if my matie were only here; now you wouldn’t think, gentlemen,”—here he glanced round the table as seriously as if contradiction were most unlikely—“you wouldn’t think that a fellow like that, with such an ugly chunk of a head, had any sentiment; but he has, though, and he owns the prettiest wife and the smartest family in all Peterhead.”“Look here,” cried Rory, “be quiet about your matie. Sure this is what we’re waiting for.”He exhibited the doctor’s slate as he spoke, and on the back thereof, behold! in large letters, the words,—“Silas Grig, His Yarn.”Silas laughed till his sides ached, his eyes watered, the chair creaked, and the rafters rang. It was a pleasant sight to see. After this he lit up a huge meerschaum pipe, “hoping there was no offence,” cleared his throat, turning his face upwards at the pendent compass, as if seeking help there. Then he began,—“Of the earlier days of Silas Grig little need be said. I daresay he was no better and no worse than other boys. He nearly plagued the life out of his grandmother, and drove three maiden aunts to the verge of distraction, and made any amount of work for the tailor and the shoemaker; and when they couldn’t stand him any longer at home they sent him to school, reminding the teacher ere they left him there, that to spare the rod was to spoil the child. The teacher didn’t forget that; he whipped me three times a day, drilled me through the English grammar and Grey’s arithmetic, then flogged me into Caesar; and when I translated the passage, ‘Caesar triduas vias fecit’ (Caesar made three days’ journey.) into ‘Caesar made three roads,’ the dominie gave me such a dressing that I followed Caesar’s example—I made three days’ journey due north, and never returned to my maiden aunts, nor the dominie either.“I found myself now in the heart of what I then took to be a big town, for I wasn’t very big myself, you know. It was only Peterhead, after all. I marched boldly down to the docks, and on board a great raking-masted Greenlandman.“‘What use would you be?’ inquired the skipper when I told him what I wanted. ‘Bless me!’ he added, ‘you ain’t any size at all; the bears would eat you up.’“‘I’ll have him,’ said the doctor, ‘if you’ll let me, captain. He can be my lob-lolly-boy and body-guard.’“And so, gentlemen, from that day to this I’ve been a sailor o’ the northern seas; and there isn’t much to be seen in these regions that old Silas hasn’t come across, from Baffin’s Bay to Kamschatka, from lonely Spitzbergen in the north to Iceland in the south.”“And so you’ve been in Spitzbergen, have you?” said McBain.“Why, bless you, yes,” replied Silas. “It was there I was in at the death of the great white whale, and a sad day it was for us, I can tell you. He was white with age. (Very old whales are sometimes found in the far northern seas covered with a kind of parasite, which gives them a white or light-grey appearance.) I should think he couldn’t have been much under a hundred years old, and just as sly and wary as a hundred and forty foxes all rolled in to one. Many and many a boat had tried to catch him, but he had a way of diving and doubling to avoid the harpoons that some believed was rather more than natural; then when you thought he was miles and miles away, pop! up he would come among the very midst of the boats, and a funny thing it would be if he didn’t knock one o’ them to smithereens with that tail o’ his. We killed him though. Our skipper himself speared him, but it was hours after that before he died. And before he died terrible was the revenge he took on his destroyers. Gentlemen, Silas Grig has no language in his vocabulary to describe the vicious wrath of that sea-demon. I think I see him now as he rose to the surface, blowing blood and spray, snorting with fury, with fire seeming to flash out of his little evil eyes. We in the boats thought our last hour had come, as he ploughed down through us. But our hearts stood still with fear and dread when he dashed past us and made for the ship itself. Onward with lightning speed went the brute, leaving a wake astern such as a man-o’-war might have left.“Our craft—a small brig—was lying with her foreyard aback. She looked as if sleeping on the gently rippling water. No one spoke in the boats, every eye was fixed on our ship—our home, and on the fearful monster advancing to attack her. We could see that the people left on the brig knew the whole extent of their danger, for they seemed all on deck. There were wild shouts, and guns were fired, but nothing availed to avert the catastrophe. Then, oh! the sad, despairing cry that rose to heaven from that doomed ship! It seems to ring in my ears whenever I think of it. The whale struck her right amidships, and she went over and down at once. No soul was saved; and when we rode up to the spot, there was nothing to be seen, and nothing to be heard, save the body of the great white whale, dead, on his side, with the waves lap-lapping against it as it slowly rose and fell.“For six long, cold, weary days we lived in the open boats, feeding on the flesh of the seals we happened to kill, and quenching our thirst with the snow we gathered from the ice. When we had almost despaired of being saved, for we were far to the nor’ard and east of the usual fishing-grounds, a Norwegian walrus-hunter picked us up, and landed us at last, in midwinter, on a dreary shore in Lapland. But, gentlemen, that is nothing to what we, the survivors of the ill-fatedJonathan Grey, suffered some years afterwards. The ship got ‘in the nips’ coming out o’ the pack. We were crushed just as you might crash an egg-shell between your fingers. Thirty of us embarked upon the very iceberg that had caused our ruin, with two casks of biscuit, and hardly clothes enough to cover us. Then it came on to blow, and, huddled together in the centre of the berg, we were blown out to sea, trying in vain to keep each other warm, and defend ourselves from the cruel cold seas that dashed over us, heavier than lead, more remorseless than the grave. Fifteen days were we on the berg, and every day some one dropped off, ay, and the living seemed to envy the quiet, calm sleep of the dead. A sail in sight at last; and how many of us, think you, were alive to see it? Three I only three! It was a year after this before I was fit to brave the Arctic seas again, and meanwhile I had met my Peggy—my little wife that is. Some difference, you will allow, gentlemen, between Silas Grig afloat on a solitary iceberg in a troubled northern sea, and Silas strolling on the top of a breezy cliff in the bright moonlight of midsummer, with Peggy on his arm, and just as happy as the sea-birds.“Were these the only times that I was cast away? No—for I lost my ship by fire once in the northern ice of Western Greenland, and it was two whole years before either myself or my messmates placed foot again on British soil. There wasn’t a ship anywhere near us, and the nearest settlement was a colony of transported Danes, that lived about three hundred miles south of us. We saved all we could from the burning barque, and that was little enough; then we constructed rough sledges, and tied our food and chattels thereon, and set out upon our long, dreary march. It took us well-nigh two months to accomplish our journey, for the way was a rough one, and the region was wild and desolate in the extreme. It was late in autumn, and the sun shone by day, but his beams were sadly shorn by the falling snow. Five suns in all we could count at times, though four, you know, were merely mirages. We did not all reach the colony; indeed, many succumbed to the fatigue of the march, to frost-bites, and to scurvy; and we laid them to rest in hastily-dug graves, and the snow was their only winding-sheet. It was more than a year before we found a passage back to our own country, and kind though the poor people all were to us, the governor included, we had to rough it, I can tell you. But you see, sailors who choose the Arctic Seas as their cruising-grounds must expect to suffer at times.“Bears, did you say? Thousands! I’ve counted as many as fifty at one time on the ice, and I’ve had a few encounters with them too, myself, though I’ve known those that have had more. I’ve known men fight them single-handed, and come off scot-free, leaving Bruin dead on the ice. Dickie McInlay fought a bear with a seal-club. You may be sure the duel wasn’t of his own proposing; but coming across the ice one day all alone, he rounded the corner of a hummock, and lo! and behold! there was a monstrous bear washing the blood off his chops after eating a seal.“‘Ho! ho!’ roared the bear. ‘I have dined, but you’ll come in handy for dessert. Oho! Waugh, O! oh!’“Dick was a little bit of a fellow, but his biceps was as big, round, and just as hard as a hawser.“‘If you come an inch nearer me,’ cried Dickie, quite undaunted, ‘it’ll be a dear day’s work for ye, Mr Bruin.’“The bear crouched for a spring. He never did spring, though; but Dickie did; and he will tell you to this day that he never could understand how he managed to clear the space betwixt himself and the bear so speedily. Then there was a dull thud; Bruin never lifted head again, for the iron of Dickie’s club was planted deep into his brain.“The doctor here,” continued Silas, “can tell you what a terribly sharp and deadly weapon of offence a large amputating knife would prove, in the hands of a powerful man, against any animal that ever lived. But the doctor I don’t think would care to attack a bear with one.”“Indeed, no,” said Sandy; “I would rather be excused.”“But the surgeon of theNorth Stardid,” said Silas. “I was witness myself to the awful encounter. But the poor surgeon was mad at the time; he had given way to the rum-fever—rum-fiend it should be called. With his knife in his hand he wandered off and away all by himself over the pack. I saw the fight between the bear and him commence, and sent men at once to assist him. When they reached the scene of action they found the huge bear lying dead, stabbed in fifty places at least. The snow for yards around had been trampled down in the awful struggle, and was yellow and red with blood. The doctor lay beside the bear, apparently asleep. I need not tell you that he slept the sleep that knows no waking. The poor fellow’s body was crushed to pulp.“Charles Manning, a spectioneer of theGood Resolve, was lying on his back on the sunny side of a hummock, snatching a five-minutes’ rest, for it was sealing time, when a bear crept up behind him, more stealthily than any cat could have done. He drew his paw upwards along the poor fellow’s body. Only once, mind you, but he left him a mere empty shell.”(The author is relating facts; names only are concealed.)“Ah! but, gentlemen, you should have seen a two-mile run I had not five years ago from a bear. Silas himself wouldn’t have believed that Silas could have done the distance in double the time. He was coming home all by himself, when he burst his rifle firing at a seal, and just at that moment up popped a bear.“‘All alone, are you, Silas?’ Bruin seemed to say.“‘Yes,’ replied Silas, moving off; ‘and I don’t want your company either. I know my way, thank you.’“‘Oh, I daresay you do!’ says the bear. ‘But it will only be friendly like if I see you home. Wait a bit.’“‘Never a wait!’ said Silas; and so the race began.“Of course they saw it from the ship, and sent men to meet me and settle Bruin. Puffed? I should think I was! I lay on my face for five minutes, with no more breath in my old bellows than there is in a dead badger?”“You’ve seen the sea-lion, I suppose, Captain Grig?” said Allan.“I have that!” replied Silas, “and the sea-bear, too, and I don’t know which of the two I’d rather meet on the top of a berg, for they are vicious brutes both.”“I’ve read some very interesting accounts of them,” said Allan, “in the encyclopaedias.”“So have I,” laughed old Silas, “written by men who had never seen them out of the Brighton Aquarium. Pardon me, but you cannot study nature from books.”“Do you know theStemmatopus cristatus?” inquired Rory.“What ship, my boy?” said Silas, with one hand behind his ear; “I didn’t catch the name o’ the craft.”“It isn’t a ship,” said Rory, smiling; “it is a great black seal, with a thing like a kettle-pot over his head.”“Oho!” cried Silas; “now I know. You mean the bladder-nose. Ay, lad! and a dangerous monster he is. A Greenland sailor would almost as soon face a bear as fight one of those brutes single-handed.”“But the books tell us,” said Rory, “that, when surprised by the hunter, they weep copiously.”“Bother such books!” said Silas. “What? a bladder-nose weep! Crocodile’s tears, then, lad! Why, gentlemen, this monstrous seal is more fierce than any other I know. When once he gets his back up and erects that kettle-pot o’ his, and turns round to see who is coming, stand clear, that’s what Silas says, for he means mischief, and he’s as willing to take his death as any terrier dog that ever barked. I would like to see some o’ those cyclopaedia-building chaps face to face with a healthy bladder-nose on a bit o’ bay ice. I think I know which o’ them would do the weeping part of the business.”“Down south here,” said McBain—“if we can call it south—the seals have their young on the ice, don’t they?”“You’re right, sir,” said Silas.“And where do they go after that?”“Away back to the far, far north,” said Silas. “We follow them up as far as we can. They live at the Pole.”“Ah!” said McBain; “and that, Captain Grig, is in itself a proof that there must be open water around the Pole.”“I haven’t a doubt about it!” cried Silas; “and if you succeed in getting there you’ll see land and water too, mountains and streams, and maybe a milder climate. Seals were never made to live down in the dark water; they have eyes and lungs, even, if they are amphibious. But look! look! look, men, look!”Silas started up from the table as he spoke, excitement expressed in every lineament of his face. He pointed to the port from which at present theCanny Scotiawas plainly visible, about half a mile off, on the weather quarter. The men could be seen crowding up the rattlings, and even manning the yards, and wildly waving their caps and arms in the air.Silas threw the port open wide. “Listen!” he cried.Our heroes held their breath, while over the water from the distant barque came the sound of many voices cheering. Then theArrandoon’srigging is manned, and glad shout after glad shout is sent them back.Next moment Stevenson rushed into the cabin. “The seals! the seals!” was all he could say, or rather gasp.“Are there many?” inquired several voices at once.—“Millions on millions!” cried the mate; “the whole pack is black with them as far as ever we can see from the mainmast head.”
There was only one subject in the whole world that Silas Grig was thoroughly conversant with, and that was the manners and customs of his friends the seals. Had you started talking upon either politics or science, or the state of Europe or Ireland, Silas would have become silent at once. He would have retired within himself; his soul, so to speak, would have gone indoors, and not come out again until you had done. Such was Silas; and he confessed frankly that he had never sung a song nor made a speech in his lifetime. He was a perfect enthusiast while talking about the natural familyPhocidae. No naturalist in the world knew half so much about them as Silas. On the evening of the day in which he had chosen his men from the crew of theArrandoon, he was pronounced by both Ralph and Rory to be in fine form. He was full of anecdote, and even tales of adventure, so our heroes allowed him to talk, and indeed encouraged him to do so.
“What!” he cried, his honest, fear-nothing face lighting up with smiles as he eyed Rory across the table after dinner. “Spin you a yarn, d’ye say? ah! boy, and you’ll excuse me calling ye a boy. Silas never could tell a story, and I don’t suppose he ever had an adventure as signified much to you in his life.”
“Never mind,” insisted Rory, “you tell us something, and I’ll play you that old tune you so dearly love.”
“Ah! but,” said Silas, “if my matie were only here; now you wouldn’t think, gentlemen,”—here he glanced round the table as seriously as if contradiction were most unlikely—“you wouldn’t think that a fellow like that, with such an ugly chunk of a head, had any sentiment; but he has, though, and he owns the prettiest wife and the smartest family in all Peterhead.”
“Look here,” cried Rory, “be quiet about your matie. Sure this is what we’re waiting for.”
He exhibited the doctor’s slate as he spoke, and on the back thereof, behold! in large letters, the words,—
“Silas Grig, His Yarn.”
Silas laughed till his sides ached, his eyes watered, the chair creaked, and the rafters rang. It was a pleasant sight to see. After this he lit up a huge meerschaum pipe, “hoping there was no offence,” cleared his throat, turning his face upwards at the pendent compass, as if seeking help there. Then he began,—
“Of the earlier days of Silas Grig little need be said. I daresay he was no better and no worse than other boys. He nearly plagued the life out of his grandmother, and drove three maiden aunts to the verge of distraction, and made any amount of work for the tailor and the shoemaker; and when they couldn’t stand him any longer at home they sent him to school, reminding the teacher ere they left him there, that to spare the rod was to spoil the child. The teacher didn’t forget that; he whipped me three times a day, drilled me through the English grammar and Grey’s arithmetic, then flogged me into Caesar; and when I translated the passage, ‘Caesar triduas vias fecit’ (Caesar made three days’ journey.) into ‘Caesar made three roads,’ the dominie gave me such a dressing that I followed Caesar’s example—I made three days’ journey due north, and never returned to my maiden aunts, nor the dominie either.
“I found myself now in the heart of what I then took to be a big town, for I wasn’t very big myself, you know. It was only Peterhead, after all. I marched boldly down to the docks, and on board a great raking-masted Greenlandman.
“‘What use would you be?’ inquired the skipper when I told him what I wanted. ‘Bless me!’ he added, ‘you ain’t any size at all; the bears would eat you up.’
“‘I’ll have him,’ said the doctor, ‘if you’ll let me, captain. He can be my lob-lolly-boy and body-guard.’
“And so, gentlemen, from that day to this I’ve been a sailor o’ the northern seas; and there isn’t much to be seen in these regions that old Silas hasn’t come across, from Baffin’s Bay to Kamschatka, from lonely Spitzbergen in the north to Iceland in the south.”
“And so you’ve been in Spitzbergen, have you?” said McBain.
“Why, bless you, yes,” replied Silas. “It was there I was in at the death of the great white whale, and a sad day it was for us, I can tell you. He was white with age. (Very old whales are sometimes found in the far northern seas covered with a kind of parasite, which gives them a white or light-grey appearance.) I should think he couldn’t have been much under a hundred years old, and just as sly and wary as a hundred and forty foxes all rolled in to one. Many and many a boat had tried to catch him, but he had a way of diving and doubling to avoid the harpoons that some believed was rather more than natural; then when you thought he was miles and miles away, pop! up he would come among the very midst of the boats, and a funny thing it would be if he didn’t knock one o’ them to smithereens with that tail o’ his. We killed him though. Our skipper himself speared him, but it was hours after that before he died. And before he died terrible was the revenge he took on his destroyers. Gentlemen, Silas Grig has no language in his vocabulary to describe the vicious wrath of that sea-demon. I think I see him now as he rose to the surface, blowing blood and spray, snorting with fury, with fire seeming to flash out of his little evil eyes. We in the boats thought our last hour had come, as he ploughed down through us. But our hearts stood still with fear and dread when he dashed past us and made for the ship itself. Onward with lightning speed went the brute, leaving a wake astern such as a man-o’-war might have left.
“Our craft—a small brig—was lying with her foreyard aback. She looked as if sleeping on the gently rippling water. No one spoke in the boats, every eye was fixed on our ship—our home, and on the fearful monster advancing to attack her. We could see that the people left on the brig knew the whole extent of their danger, for they seemed all on deck. There were wild shouts, and guns were fired, but nothing availed to avert the catastrophe. Then, oh! the sad, despairing cry that rose to heaven from that doomed ship! It seems to ring in my ears whenever I think of it. The whale struck her right amidships, and she went over and down at once. No soul was saved; and when we rode up to the spot, there was nothing to be seen, and nothing to be heard, save the body of the great white whale, dead, on his side, with the waves lap-lapping against it as it slowly rose and fell.
“For six long, cold, weary days we lived in the open boats, feeding on the flesh of the seals we happened to kill, and quenching our thirst with the snow we gathered from the ice. When we had almost despaired of being saved, for we were far to the nor’ard and east of the usual fishing-grounds, a Norwegian walrus-hunter picked us up, and landed us at last, in midwinter, on a dreary shore in Lapland. But, gentlemen, that is nothing to what we, the survivors of the ill-fatedJonathan Grey, suffered some years afterwards. The ship got ‘in the nips’ coming out o’ the pack. We were crushed just as you might crash an egg-shell between your fingers. Thirty of us embarked upon the very iceberg that had caused our ruin, with two casks of biscuit, and hardly clothes enough to cover us. Then it came on to blow, and, huddled together in the centre of the berg, we were blown out to sea, trying in vain to keep each other warm, and defend ourselves from the cruel cold seas that dashed over us, heavier than lead, more remorseless than the grave. Fifteen days were we on the berg, and every day some one dropped off, ay, and the living seemed to envy the quiet, calm sleep of the dead. A sail in sight at last; and how many of us, think you, were alive to see it? Three I only three! It was a year after this before I was fit to brave the Arctic seas again, and meanwhile I had met my Peggy—my little wife that is. Some difference, you will allow, gentlemen, between Silas Grig afloat on a solitary iceberg in a troubled northern sea, and Silas strolling on the top of a breezy cliff in the bright moonlight of midsummer, with Peggy on his arm, and just as happy as the sea-birds.
“Were these the only times that I was cast away? No—for I lost my ship by fire once in the northern ice of Western Greenland, and it was two whole years before either myself or my messmates placed foot again on British soil. There wasn’t a ship anywhere near us, and the nearest settlement was a colony of transported Danes, that lived about three hundred miles south of us. We saved all we could from the burning barque, and that was little enough; then we constructed rough sledges, and tied our food and chattels thereon, and set out upon our long, dreary march. It took us well-nigh two months to accomplish our journey, for the way was a rough one, and the region was wild and desolate in the extreme. It was late in autumn, and the sun shone by day, but his beams were sadly shorn by the falling snow. Five suns in all we could count at times, though four, you know, were merely mirages. We did not all reach the colony; indeed, many succumbed to the fatigue of the march, to frost-bites, and to scurvy; and we laid them to rest in hastily-dug graves, and the snow was their only winding-sheet. It was more than a year before we found a passage back to our own country, and kind though the poor people all were to us, the governor included, we had to rough it, I can tell you. But you see, sailors who choose the Arctic Seas as their cruising-grounds must expect to suffer at times.
“Bears, did you say? Thousands! I’ve counted as many as fifty at one time on the ice, and I’ve had a few encounters with them too, myself, though I’ve known those that have had more. I’ve known men fight them single-handed, and come off scot-free, leaving Bruin dead on the ice. Dickie McInlay fought a bear with a seal-club. You may be sure the duel wasn’t of his own proposing; but coming across the ice one day all alone, he rounded the corner of a hummock, and lo! and behold! there was a monstrous bear washing the blood off his chops after eating a seal.
“‘Ho! ho!’ roared the bear. ‘I have dined, but you’ll come in handy for dessert. Oho! Waugh, O! oh!’
“Dick was a little bit of a fellow, but his biceps was as big, round, and just as hard as a hawser.
“‘If you come an inch nearer me,’ cried Dickie, quite undaunted, ‘it’ll be a dear day’s work for ye, Mr Bruin.’
“The bear crouched for a spring. He never did spring, though; but Dickie did; and he will tell you to this day that he never could understand how he managed to clear the space betwixt himself and the bear so speedily. Then there was a dull thud; Bruin never lifted head again, for the iron of Dickie’s club was planted deep into his brain.
“The doctor here,” continued Silas, “can tell you what a terribly sharp and deadly weapon of offence a large amputating knife would prove, in the hands of a powerful man, against any animal that ever lived. But the doctor I don’t think would care to attack a bear with one.”
“Indeed, no,” said Sandy; “I would rather be excused.”
“But the surgeon of theNorth Stardid,” said Silas. “I was witness myself to the awful encounter. But the poor surgeon was mad at the time; he had given way to the rum-fever—rum-fiend it should be called. With his knife in his hand he wandered off and away all by himself over the pack. I saw the fight between the bear and him commence, and sent men at once to assist him. When they reached the scene of action they found the huge bear lying dead, stabbed in fifty places at least. The snow for yards around had been trampled down in the awful struggle, and was yellow and red with blood. The doctor lay beside the bear, apparently asleep. I need not tell you that he slept the sleep that knows no waking. The poor fellow’s body was crushed to pulp.
“Charles Manning, a spectioneer of theGood Resolve, was lying on his back on the sunny side of a hummock, snatching a five-minutes’ rest, for it was sealing time, when a bear crept up behind him, more stealthily than any cat could have done. He drew his paw upwards along the poor fellow’s body. Only once, mind you, but he left him a mere empty shell.”
(The author is relating facts; names only are concealed.)
“Ah! but, gentlemen, you should have seen a two-mile run I had not five years ago from a bear. Silas himself wouldn’t have believed that Silas could have done the distance in double the time. He was coming home all by himself, when he burst his rifle firing at a seal, and just at that moment up popped a bear.
“‘All alone, are you, Silas?’ Bruin seemed to say.
“‘Yes,’ replied Silas, moving off; ‘and I don’t want your company either. I know my way, thank you.’
“‘Oh, I daresay you do!’ says the bear. ‘But it will only be friendly like if I see you home. Wait a bit.’
“‘Never a wait!’ said Silas; and so the race began.
“Of course they saw it from the ship, and sent men to meet me and settle Bruin. Puffed? I should think I was! I lay on my face for five minutes, with no more breath in my old bellows than there is in a dead badger?”
“You’ve seen the sea-lion, I suppose, Captain Grig?” said Allan.
“I have that!” replied Silas, “and the sea-bear, too, and I don’t know which of the two I’d rather meet on the top of a berg, for they are vicious brutes both.”
“I’ve read some very interesting accounts of them,” said Allan, “in the encyclopaedias.”
“So have I,” laughed old Silas, “written by men who had never seen them out of the Brighton Aquarium. Pardon me, but you cannot study nature from books.”
“Do you know theStemmatopus cristatus?” inquired Rory.
“What ship, my boy?” said Silas, with one hand behind his ear; “I didn’t catch the name o’ the craft.”
“It isn’t a ship,” said Rory, smiling; “it is a great black seal, with a thing like a kettle-pot over his head.”
“Oho!” cried Silas; “now I know. You mean the bladder-nose. Ay, lad! and a dangerous monster he is. A Greenland sailor would almost as soon face a bear as fight one of those brutes single-handed.”
“But the books tell us,” said Rory, “that, when surprised by the hunter, they weep copiously.”
“Bother such books!” said Silas. “What? a bladder-nose weep! Crocodile’s tears, then, lad! Why, gentlemen, this monstrous seal is more fierce than any other I know. When once he gets his back up and erects that kettle-pot o’ his, and turns round to see who is coming, stand clear, that’s what Silas says, for he means mischief, and he’s as willing to take his death as any terrier dog that ever barked. I would like to see some o’ those cyclopaedia-building chaps face to face with a healthy bladder-nose on a bit o’ bay ice. I think I know which o’ them would do the weeping part of the business.”
“Down south here,” said McBain—“if we can call it south—the seals have their young on the ice, don’t they?”
“You’re right, sir,” said Silas.
“And where do they go after that?”
“Away back to the far, far north,” said Silas. “We follow them up as far as we can. They live at the Pole.”
“Ah!” said McBain; “and that, Captain Grig, is in itself a proof that there must be open water around the Pole.”
“I haven’t a doubt about it!” cried Silas; “and if you succeed in getting there you’ll see land and water too, mountains and streams, and maybe a milder climate. Seals were never made to live down in the dark water; they have eyes and lungs, even, if they are amphibious. But look! look! look, men, look!”
Silas started up from the table as he spoke, excitement expressed in every lineament of his face. He pointed to the port from which at present theCanny Scotiawas plainly visible, about half a mile off, on the weather quarter. The men could be seen crowding up the rattlings, and even manning the yards, and wildly waving their caps and arms in the air.
Silas threw the port open wide. “Listen!” he cried.
Our heroes held their breath, while over the water from the distant barque came the sound of many voices cheering. Then theArrandoon’srigging is manned, and glad shout after glad shout is sent them back.
Next moment Stevenson rushed into the cabin. “The seals! the seals!” was all he could say, or rather gasp.
“Are there many?” inquired several voices at once.—“Millions on millions!” cried the mate; “the whole pack is black with them as far as ever we can see from the mainmast head.”
Chapter Twenty.Seal-Stalking—A Glorious Day’s Sport—Piper Peter and the Bear—A Strange Duet—The Seal-Stalkers’ Return.It was about midnight on the 24th of April when the seals were sighted. Midnight, and the sun was low down on the horizon, but, for three long months, never more would it set or sink behind the sea of ice. The weather was bright, bracing, beautiful. Not a cloud in the sky, and hardly wind enough to let the ships get well in through the pack, towards the place where the seals lay as thick as bees, and all unconscious of their approaching fate. But theArrandoongot steam up, and commenced forcing her way through the closely packed yet loosely floating bergs, leaving behind her a wake of clear water, which made it easy work for theScotiaand the saucy little “two-stick yacht” to follow her example.My young reader must dismiss from his mind the idea of tall, mountainous, pinnacled icebergs, like those he sees in common engravings. The ice was in heavy pieces, it is true, from forty to sixty or seventy feet square, and probably six feet out of water, with hummocks here and there, and piles of bay ice that looked like packs of gigantic cards, but so flat and low upon the whole, that from the masthead a stretch of snow-clad ice could be seen, spreading westwards and north for many and many a mile.When even the power of steam failed to force theArrandoonfarther into the pack, the ships were stopped, fires were banked and sails were clewed, and all hands prepared for instant action. The men girt their knives and steels around them, and threw their “Jowrie-tows” across their broad shoulders, and the officers, dressed in their sealing costume, seized their rifles and shot-belts.Next moment the bo’s’n’s shrill pipe sounded out in the still air, and the order was shouted,—“All hands over the side.”In five minutes more the ships were apparently deserted. You wouldn’t have heard a sound on board, for few were left but stewards and cooks; while little boy Freezing Powders and his wonderful cockatoo had it all to themselves down in the saloon of the great steamship. The boy was bending down beside his favourite in the corner.“What’s the row? What’s the row? What’s the row?” the bird was saying.“I don’t know nuffin’ more nor you do, Cockie,” was the boy’s reply; “but it strikes dis chile dat dey have all taken leave of der senses, ebery moder’s son of dem. And de captain he have gone up into de crow’s-nest, which looks for all de world like a big barrel of treacle, Cockie, and he have shut hisself in der, and nuffin’ does he do but wave a long stick wid a black ball at de end of it. (The fan with which Greenland captains guide their men in the direction of the seals.) Dat is all de knows; but oh! Cockie, don’t you take such drefful big mouf-fuls o’ hemp. Supposin’ anyting happen to you, Cockie, den I hab nobody to talk to dat fully understand dis chile.”TheCanny Scotiawas moored to the ice so close to theArrandoonthat the captains of the respective ships could maintain a conversation without stressing their lungs to any very great extent. Talking thus, each in his own crow’s-nest, they looked for all the world like a couple of chimney-sweeps conversing together from rival chimneys. The cooks were not idle in the galleys, they were busy boiling hams and huge joints of beef, and these, when cooked, were taken on deck; for sealing is hungry work, and every time a man brings a drag to the vessel’s side he helps himself to a lordly slice and a biscuit.By-and-by the draggers began to drop in fast enough, each one hauling an immense skin with the fat or blubber attached; and these skins were all hoisted on board theScotia, for all hands were working for Silas. But our heroes had the sport, and, taking it all in all, I do not think there is any sport in the world to compare to that of seal-stalking. Without any of the cowardliness of battue shooting, in which the poor surrounded animals are helpless, and cruelly and mercilessly slain, you have far more excitement, and the sport is not unattended with danger. To be a good seal-stalker you need the limbs of an athlete, the eye of an excellent marksman, and all the stealth and cunning of a tabby cat or a Coromanche Indian. If your nerves are not well strung, or your muscles not like iron, you may fail to leap across the lane of dark water that separates piece from piece; if you do fail and are not speedily helped out, the current may drag you beneath the bergs, or those dreadful sharks, that seldom are absent where blood is being spilled on the sea of ice, may seize and pull you down to a fearful death; if you are not a good shot, your seals will get away, for your bulletmustpierce either neck or head; and, lastly, if you are not cunning, if you do not stalk with stealth, your seals will escape with the speed of lightning.On warm, sunny days the seals lie close and sleep soundly, but they always have their sentries set. Kill the sentry, and many others are at your mercy; miss him, or merely wound him, and he gives the alarminstanter, and all the rest jump helter-skelter into the sea, according you a beautiful view of their tail-ends, which you don’t find very advantageous in the way of making a bag.A good sealer, like a good skirmisher, takes advantage of every bit of cover, and many a death-blow is dealt from the shelter of a lump of loose ice.The gunners to-day, as they usually do, went on after the seals in skirmishing order, in one long line, each taking a breadth of about seventy or one hundred yards.It was an hour past midnight before they left the ships. When it was nine in the morning there was a kind of general assembly of the riflemen to breakfast, behind a large square hummock of packed bay ice, and only the very oldest among them could believe that it was so late. (These strange hummocks, which resemble, as already stated, huge packs of cards, are formed of pieces of bay ice about a foot thick, which has been broken up between two bergs, and finally thrown up out of the water altogether. They form quite a characteristic feature of a North Greenland icescape.) Why, to our own particular heroes it seemed scarcely an hour since they had left their ship, so great is the excitement of seal-stalking. But Ralph and Rory and Allan had done so well, and had managed to lay so many splendid seals dead on every piece of ice, that they earned high encomiums from the mate of theCanny Scotia; and even the doctor hadn’t shot amiss, and proud was he to be told so.“But, my dear sirs,” said Sandy, “I’d like to know why a good surgeon shouldn’t be a good sportsman. Don’t you know that the great Liston himself was sometimes summoned to an operation at the hospital, just as he was mounting his horse to ride off to the hunt, arrayed in scarlet and cords?”“And what did he do?” asked Rory.“Pass the pie,” said Ralph.“Why,” continued the doctor, enthusiastically, “doffed his scarlet coat and donned an old gown, whipped off a leg in one minute ten and a half seconds, and was in the saddle again five minutes after that.”“Brayvo!” cried Captain Cobb, “doctor, you’re a brick, and if ever you come out to New Jersey, come and see Cobb, and I guess he’ll give you a good time of it.”“Ray,” said Rory.“Well, Row,” said Ray.“Your face and hands are begrimed with powder, and there is a kind of wolfish look about you that is worth studying. You look like a frozen-out blacksmith who hasn’t a penny to buy a bit of peas-pudding or a morsel of soap.”“I’m hungry, anyhow,” said Ray. “How good of McBain to send such a jolly breakfast! But I say, Row, d’ye remember the proverb about Claudius? Well, don’t you call my face and hands black till you’ve washed your own. You look like a chimney-sweep who has been out of work for a week, and got no food since the day before yesterday.”“Well, well,” says Row, “but ’deed in troth, my dear big boy, nobody can wonder at your being successful as a seal-stalker, for what with the colour of your face, and the urgency, so to speak, of the two eyes of you, and that big fur cap, why the seals take you for one o’ themselves, a big bladder-nose.”“Pass the ham,” said Ray; “Allan, some more coffee, I begin to feel like a giant refreshed.”“I do declare upon mine honour,” said De Vere, “dat dis is de most glorious pignig (picnic) I ever have de pleasure to attend. But just you look at mine friend Seth, how funnily he do dress.”“It may be a funny way,” said Allan, “but it is a most effectual one; dear old trapper Seth has killed more seals this morning than any two of us.”Seth was dressed from top to toe in young seals’ skins, the hair outwards, with the exception of the cap, which was of darker fur, and a black patch on his back. They were not loose garments, they were almost as tight as a harlequin’s; but when Seth drew his fur cap over his face and threw himself on the ice, and began wriggling along, his resemblance to a saddle-seal was so preposterous that everybody burst into a hearty laugh.“That’s the way I gets so near them,” said Seth, standing once more erect.“Look, look!” cried Rory, and every eye was turned in the direction in which he pointed; and there, in a pool of dark water not twenty yards away, a dozen beautiful heads, with round, wondering eyes, had popped up to gaze at them.It was a lovely sight, and never a rifle was lifted to shoot. Presently they disappeared, but on the mate of theScotiagiving vent to a loud whistle, up came the heads again, and there they remained as long as the mate whistled, for of all wild creatures in the world that I have ever come across, the Greenland seal is the most inquisitive; and no doubt the experience of some of my old-boy readers who have been to the country is the same as my own.Onwards, steadily onwards, all that day went our sportsmen; they did not even assemble again for another meal, and at five of the clock they found themselves fully four miles from the place where the ships lay. The field of seals which they had attacked was some ten miles square, and although they had worked their way into it for miles, nevertheless when the flags were hoisted to recall them, at two bells in the first dog-watch, the field of seals still remained about ten miles square. This may seem strange, but is thus accounted for. Out of say twenty seals on each berg, fifteen at least would escape, and these swam away under the pack, and again took the ice on the far-off edge of the field of seals.It being somewhat too far to drag the skins to the ship, bings had been made on the ice during the latter part of the day, so that no dead seals should be left unflensed upon the ice. When they wended their way homewards at the end of this glorious day’s shooting a broom was stuck besom-side up, on each bing, with the name of the ship on the handles. This is done with the view of preventing other ships from appropriating the skins. This is the custom of the country—one of the unwritten laws of the sea of ice.While the gunners and their merry men were yet a long way off from the ships, there came a hail from the crow’s-nest of theArrandoon, which, by the way, McBain had hardly left all the time. Peter had brought him up coffee and food, and he had danced in the interval to keep himself warm.“On deck there?”“Ay, ay, sir,” roared Peter, looking up.“Is dinner all laid?”“Ay, sir, and the cook is waiting.”“Well, on with the kilt, Peter, if you’re not afraid of getting your hocks frozen, get the bagpipes, and go and meet the hunters.”Down below dived Peter, and he was up again in what sailors call “a brace of shakes,” arrayed in full Highland costume, with the bagpipes over his arm. No wonder the cockatoo cried,—“De-ah me?” when he saw Peter, and added, “Such a to-do! such a to-do! such a to-do!”Now the bears had been rather numerous on the pack that day, just as the sharks were in the water. Doubtless the sharks found many a poor wounded seal to close their vengeful jaws upon, for they are either too cowardly or not swift enough to catch a healthy phoca; but the bears had behaved themselves unusually well. They had had plenty to eat, at all events, and seemed to know that the men at work on the ice were laying up a store of provisions for them that would last them all the summer, so they had made no attempt to attack them. But on their way back to the ship the doctor, who was striding on a little way in advance of the rest, startled a huge monster who was sunning himself behind a hummock. It would be difficult to say whether the bear or the doctor was the more startled; at all events the latter fired and missed, and the former made off, running in the direction of the ships. But he hadn’t gone above half a mile when who should Bruin meet but Peter, coming swinging along with his bagpipes under his arm. Never a gun had Peter, and never a club—only the pipes. As soon as they saw each other they both stopped short.“I do declare,” Bruin seemed to say to himself, “here is a man or something all alone. But what a strange dress! I never saw anybody dressed like that before. Never mind, he looks sweet and nice; I’ll have a bit.”“I do declare,” said Peter to himself, “if that isn’t a big lump of a bear coming along, and I haven’t even a stone to throw at him. Whatever shall I do at all, at all? Och! and och! this is the end of me now, at last. Sure enough it is marching to my own funeral I’ve been all the time, instead of going to meet the sportsmen. Oh! Peter, Peter! you’ll never see your old mother in this world again, nor Scotland either. Yonder big bear is licking his chops to devour you. Yonder is the big hairy sarcophagus that’ll soon contain your mangled remains. Who would have thought that Peter of Arrandoon would have lived to play his own coronach?” (Coronach—a funeral hymn or wail for the departed.)Hardly knowing what he did, poor Peter shouldered his pipes, and began to play a dreary, droning, yelling, squealing lament.At the same moment Bruin commenced to perform some of the queerest antics ever a bear tried before. He stretched first one leg, then another, and he stretched his neck and described circles in the air with his nose, keeping time with the music. Then he sat up entirely on one end.“Oh!” he seemed to say, “flesh and blood couldn’t stand that; I must, yes, I must give vent to a Ho—o—o—o—o—“And likewise to a Hoo—oo—oo—oo—oo!!”Reader, the voice of an asthmatical steam-engine, heard at midnight as it enters a tunnel, is a melancholy sound, so is the Welsh hooter, and the fog-horn of a Newcastle coal brig; but all combined, and sounding together, would be but a feeble imitation of the agonising notes of that great white bear as he sat on his haunches listening to Peter’s pipes. Peter himself saw the effect his music had produced, and, like the “towsy tike” inTam o’ Shanter,—“He hotched and blew wi’ might and main.”And, as if Peter had been a great magician, Bruin felt impelled to try to follow the notes, though I am bound to say he did not always keep even in the key-note. Surely such a duet was never heard before in this world. There was a small open space of water not far from the hummock on which the piper of theArrandoonhad stationed himself; it was soon alive with the heads of hundreds of seals who had come up to listen; so, upon the whole, Peter had a most appreciative audience. But see yonder, is that a seal on the ice that is creeping closer and closer up behind the bear? Nay, for seals don’t carry rifles; and now the newcomer levels his gun just for a moment, there is a puff of blue-white smoke, the bear springs high in the air, then falls prostrate on the snow. His ululations are over for ever and ay; the piper plays a merrier air, and advances with speed to meet old Seth and the rest of the sportsmen, who, glad as they are to see him alive, greet him with uproarious cheers and laughter. Then a procession is formed, and with Peter and his pipes striding on in front, thus do the seal-stalkers return to theArrandoon.
It was about midnight on the 24th of April when the seals were sighted. Midnight, and the sun was low down on the horizon, but, for three long months, never more would it set or sink behind the sea of ice. The weather was bright, bracing, beautiful. Not a cloud in the sky, and hardly wind enough to let the ships get well in through the pack, towards the place where the seals lay as thick as bees, and all unconscious of their approaching fate. But theArrandoongot steam up, and commenced forcing her way through the closely packed yet loosely floating bergs, leaving behind her a wake of clear water, which made it easy work for theScotiaand the saucy little “two-stick yacht” to follow her example.
My young reader must dismiss from his mind the idea of tall, mountainous, pinnacled icebergs, like those he sees in common engravings. The ice was in heavy pieces, it is true, from forty to sixty or seventy feet square, and probably six feet out of water, with hummocks here and there, and piles of bay ice that looked like packs of gigantic cards, but so flat and low upon the whole, that from the masthead a stretch of snow-clad ice could be seen, spreading westwards and north for many and many a mile.
When even the power of steam failed to force theArrandoonfarther into the pack, the ships were stopped, fires were banked and sails were clewed, and all hands prepared for instant action. The men girt their knives and steels around them, and threw their “Jowrie-tows” across their broad shoulders, and the officers, dressed in their sealing costume, seized their rifles and shot-belts.
Next moment the bo’s’n’s shrill pipe sounded out in the still air, and the order was shouted,—
“All hands over the side.”
In five minutes more the ships were apparently deserted. You wouldn’t have heard a sound on board, for few were left but stewards and cooks; while little boy Freezing Powders and his wonderful cockatoo had it all to themselves down in the saloon of the great steamship. The boy was bending down beside his favourite in the corner.
“What’s the row? What’s the row? What’s the row?” the bird was saying.
“I don’t know nuffin’ more nor you do, Cockie,” was the boy’s reply; “but it strikes dis chile dat dey have all taken leave of der senses, ebery moder’s son of dem. And de captain he have gone up into de crow’s-nest, which looks for all de world like a big barrel of treacle, Cockie, and he have shut hisself in der, and nuffin’ does he do but wave a long stick wid a black ball at de end of it. (The fan with which Greenland captains guide their men in the direction of the seals.) Dat is all de knows; but oh! Cockie, don’t you take such drefful big mouf-fuls o’ hemp. Supposin’ anyting happen to you, Cockie, den I hab nobody to talk to dat fully understand dis chile.”
TheCanny Scotiawas moored to the ice so close to theArrandoonthat the captains of the respective ships could maintain a conversation without stressing their lungs to any very great extent. Talking thus, each in his own crow’s-nest, they looked for all the world like a couple of chimney-sweeps conversing together from rival chimneys. The cooks were not idle in the galleys, they were busy boiling hams and huge joints of beef, and these, when cooked, were taken on deck; for sealing is hungry work, and every time a man brings a drag to the vessel’s side he helps himself to a lordly slice and a biscuit.
By-and-by the draggers began to drop in fast enough, each one hauling an immense skin with the fat or blubber attached; and these skins were all hoisted on board theScotia, for all hands were working for Silas. But our heroes had the sport, and, taking it all in all, I do not think there is any sport in the world to compare to that of seal-stalking. Without any of the cowardliness of battue shooting, in which the poor surrounded animals are helpless, and cruelly and mercilessly slain, you have far more excitement, and the sport is not unattended with danger. To be a good seal-stalker you need the limbs of an athlete, the eye of an excellent marksman, and all the stealth and cunning of a tabby cat or a Coromanche Indian. If your nerves are not well strung, or your muscles not like iron, you may fail to leap across the lane of dark water that separates piece from piece; if you do fail and are not speedily helped out, the current may drag you beneath the bergs, or those dreadful sharks, that seldom are absent where blood is being spilled on the sea of ice, may seize and pull you down to a fearful death; if you are not a good shot, your seals will get away, for your bulletmustpierce either neck or head; and, lastly, if you are not cunning, if you do not stalk with stealth, your seals will escape with the speed of lightning.
On warm, sunny days the seals lie close and sleep soundly, but they always have their sentries set. Kill the sentry, and many others are at your mercy; miss him, or merely wound him, and he gives the alarminstanter, and all the rest jump helter-skelter into the sea, according you a beautiful view of their tail-ends, which you don’t find very advantageous in the way of making a bag.
A good sealer, like a good skirmisher, takes advantage of every bit of cover, and many a death-blow is dealt from the shelter of a lump of loose ice.
The gunners to-day, as they usually do, went on after the seals in skirmishing order, in one long line, each taking a breadth of about seventy or one hundred yards.
It was an hour past midnight before they left the ships. When it was nine in the morning there was a kind of general assembly of the riflemen to breakfast, behind a large square hummock of packed bay ice, and only the very oldest among them could believe that it was so late. (These strange hummocks, which resemble, as already stated, huge packs of cards, are formed of pieces of bay ice about a foot thick, which has been broken up between two bergs, and finally thrown up out of the water altogether. They form quite a characteristic feature of a North Greenland icescape.) Why, to our own particular heroes it seemed scarcely an hour since they had left their ship, so great is the excitement of seal-stalking. But Ralph and Rory and Allan had done so well, and had managed to lay so many splendid seals dead on every piece of ice, that they earned high encomiums from the mate of theCanny Scotia; and even the doctor hadn’t shot amiss, and proud was he to be told so.
“But, my dear sirs,” said Sandy, “I’d like to know why a good surgeon shouldn’t be a good sportsman. Don’t you know that the great Liston himself was sometimes summoned to an operation at the hospital, just as he was mounting his horse to ride off to the hunt, arrayed in scarlet and cords?”
“And what did he do?” asked Rory.
“Pass the pie,” said Ralph.
“Why,” continued the doctor, enthusiastically, “doffed his scarlet coat and donned an old gown, whipped off a leg in one minute ten and a half seconds, and was in the saddle again five minutes after that.”
“Brayvo!” cried Captain Cobb, “doctor, you’re a brick, and if ever you come out to New Jersey, come and see Cobb, and I guess he’ll give you a good time of it.”
“Ray,” said Rory.
“Well, Row,” said Ray.
“Your face and hands are begrimed with powder, and there is a kind of wolfish look about you that is worth studying. You look like a frozen-out blacksmith who hasn’t a penny to buy a bit of peas-pudding or a morsel of soap.”
“I’m hungry, anyhow,” said Ray. “How good of McBain to send such a jolly breakfast! But I say, Row, d’ye remember the proverb about Claudius? Well, don’t you call my face and hands black till you’ve washed your own. You look like a chimney-sweep who has been out of work for a week, and got no food since the day before yesterday.”
“Well, well,” says Row, “but ’deed in troth, my dear big boy, nobody can wonder at your being successful as a seal-stalker, for what with the colour of your face, and the urgency, so to speak, of the two eyes of you, and that big fur cap, why the seals take you for one o’ themselves, a big bladder-nose.”
“Pass the ham,” said Ray; “Allan, some more coffee, I begin to feel like a giant refreshed.”
“I do declare upon mine honour,” said De Vere, “dat dis is de most glorious pignig (picnic) I ever have de pleasure to attend. But just you look at mine friend Seth, how funnily he do dress.”
“It may be a funny way,” said Allan, “but it is a most effectual one; dear old trapper Seth has killed more seals this morning than any two of us.”
Seth was dressed from top to toe in young seals’ skins, the hair outwards, with the exception of the cap, which was of darker fur, and a black patch on his back. They were not loose garments, they were almost as tight as a harlequin’s; but when Seth drew his fur cap over his face and threw himself on the ice, and began wriggling along, his resemblance to a saddle-seal was so preposterous that everybody burst into a hearty laugh.
“That’s the way I gets so near them,” said Seth, standing once more erect.
“Look, look!” cried Rory, and every eye was turned in the direction in which he pointed; and there, in a pool of dark water not twenty yards away, a dozen beautiful heads, with round, wondering eyes, had popped up to gaze at them.
It was a lovely sight, and never a rifle was lifted to shoot. Presently they disappeared, but on the mate of theScotiagiving vent to a loud whistle, up came the heads again, and there they remained as long as the mate whistled, for of all wild creatures in the world that I have ever come across, the Greenland seal is the most inquisitive; and no doubt the experience of some of my old-boy readers who have been to the country is the same as my own.
Onwards, steadily onwards, all that day went our sportsmen; they did not even assemble again for another meal, and at five of the clock they found themselves fully four miles from the place where the ships lay. The field of seals which they had attacked was some ten miles square, and although they had worked their way into it for miles, nevertheless when the flags were hoisted to recall them, at two bells in the first dog-watch, the field of seals still remained about ten miles square. This may seem strange, but is thus accounted for. Out of say twenty seals on each berg, fifteen at least would escape, and these swam away under the pack, and again took the ice on the far-off edge of the field of seals.
It being somewhat too far to drag the skins to the ship, bings had been made on the ice during the latter part of the day, so that no dead seals should be left unflensed upon the ice. When they wended their way homewards at the end of this glorious day’s shooting a broom was stuck besom-side up, on each bing, with the name of the ship on the handles. This is done with the view of preventing other ships from appropriating the skins. This is the custom of the country—one of the unwritten laws of the sea of ice.
While the gunners and their merry men were yet a long way off from the ships, there came a hail from the crow’s-nest of theArrandoon, which, by the way, McBain had hardly left all the time. Peter had brought him up coffee and food, and he had danced in the interval to keep himself warm.
“On deck there?”
“Ay, ay, sir,” roared Peter, looking up.
“Is dinner all laid?”
“Ay, sir, and the cook is waiting.”
“Well, on with the kilt, Peter, if you’re not afraid of getting your hocks frozen, get the bagpipes, and go and meet the hunters.”
Down below dived Peter, and he was up again in what sailors call “a brace of shakes,” arrayed in full Highland costume, with the bagpipes over his arm. No wonder the cockatoo cried,—
“De-ah me?” when he saw Peter, and added, “Such a to-do! such a to-do! such a to-do!”
Now the bears had been rather numerous on the pack that day, just as the sharks were in the water. Doubtless the sharks found many a poor wounded seal to close their vengeful jaws upon, for they are either too cowardly or not swift enough to catch a healthy phoca; but the bears had behaved themselves unusually well. They had had plenty to eat, at all events, and seemed to know that the men at work on the ice were laying up a store of provisions for them that would last them all the summer, so they had made no attempt to attack them. But on their way back to the ship the doctor, who was striding on a little way in advance of the rest, startled a huge monster who was sunning himself behind a hummock. It would be difficult to say whether the bear or the doctor was the more startled; at all events the latter fired and missed, and the former made off, running in the direction of the ships. But he hadn’t gone above half a mile when who should Bruin meet but Peter, coming swinging along with his bagpipes under his arm. Never a gun had Peter, and never a club—only the pipes. As soon as they saw each other they both stopped short.
“I do declare,” Bruin seemed to say to himself, “here is a man or something all alone. But what a strange dress! I never saw anybody dressed like that before. Never mind, he looks sweet and nice; I’ll have a bit.”
“I do declare,” said Peter to himself, “if that isn’t a big lump of a bear coming along, and I haven’t even a stone to throw at him. Whatever shall I do at all, at all? Och! and och! this is the end of me now, at last. Sure enough it is marching to my own funeral I’ve been all the time, instead of going to meet the sportsmen. Oh! Peter, Peter! you’ll never see your old mother in this world again, nor Scotland either. Yonder big bear is licking his chops to devour you. Yonder is the big hairy sarcophagus that’ll soon contain your mangled remains. Who would have thought that Peter of Arrandoon would have lived to play his own coronach?” (Coronach—a funeral hymn or wail for the departed.)
Hardly knowing what he did, poor Peter shouldered his pipes, and began to play a dreary, droning, yelling, squealing lament.
At the same moment Bruin commenced to perform some of the queerest antics ever a bear tried before. He stretched first one leg, then another, and he stretched his neck and described circles in the air with his nose, keeping time with the music. Then he sat up entirely on one end.
“Oh!” he seemed to say, “flesh and blood couldn’t stand that; I must, yes, I must give vent to a Ho—o—o—o—o—
“And likewise to a Hoo—oo—oo—oo—oo!!”
Reader, the voice of an asthmatical steam-engine, heard at midnight as it enters a tunnel, is a melancholy sound, so is the Welsh hooter, and the fog-horn of a Newcastle coal brig; but all combined, and sounding together, would be but a feeble imitation of the agonising notes of that great white bear as he sat on his haunches listening to Peter’s pipes. Peter himself saw the effect his music had produced, and, like the “towsy tike” inTam o’ Shanter,—
“He hotched and blew wi’ might and main.”
“He hotched and blew wi’ might and main.”
And, as if Peter had been a great magician, Bruin felt impelled to try to follow the notes, though I am bound to say he did not always keep even in the key-note. Surely such a duet was never heard before in this world. There was a small open space of water not far from the hummock on which the piper of theArrandoonhad stationed himself; it was soon alive with the heads of hundreds of seals who had come up to listen; so, upon the whole, Peter had a most appreciative audience. But see yonder, is that a seal on the ice that is creeping closer and closer up behind the bear? Nay, for seals don’t carry rifles; and now the newcomer levels his gun just for a moment, there is a puff of blue-white smoke, the bear springs high in the air, then falls prostrate on the snow. His ululations are over for ever and ay; the piper plays a merrier air, and advances with speed to meet old Seth and the rest of the sportsmen, who, glad as they are to see him alive, greet him with uproarious cheers and laughter. Then a procession is formed, and with Peter and his pipes striding on in front, thus do the seal-stalkers return to theArrandoon.
Chapter Twenty One.The Coming Frost—Silas Warns the “Arrandoon” of Danger—Forging Through the Ice—Beset—A Strange and Alarming Accident.So willingly and merrily worked all hands on the ice, that in less than three days theCanny Scotiawas almost a full, though by no means a bumper ship, and poor Silas began to see visions of future happiness in his mind’s eye, when he should return to his native land and complete the joy of his family. Unfortunately, however, his good fortune did not last for the present. How seldom, indeed, good luck does last in this world of ours! One day, towards midnight, the sky apparently assumed a brighter blue. This seemed to concern Silas considerably. The good man was walking the deck at the time with his inseparable companion the first mate, neither of whom ever appeared now to court sleep or rest.“Matie,” said Silas, pointing skywards, “do you see any difference in the colour yonder?”“That do I!” replied the mate.“And hasn’t it got much colder?”“Well, both of us have been walking,” the chief officer returned, “at the rate of several knots, just to keep the dear life in us, and I never saw you, sir, with your hands so deep in your pockets before.”Down rushed the captain to consult his glass; he was speedily up again, however. “It is just as I thought,” he said. “Now come up into the nest with me; there’s room for both of us. Look!” he added, as soon as they had reached their barrel of observation, “the rascals know what is coming. They are taking the water, and before ten minutes there won’t be a seal with his nose on that bit of pack. Heigho, matie! heigho! that is just like my luck. If I’d been born a tailor, every man would have been born a Highlander, and made his own kilts. But hi! up, matie, Silas doesn’t mean to let his heart down yet for a bit. A black frost is on the wing. There is no help for that, but theArrandoon’speople don’t seem to know it. I must off over and tell them;” and even as he spoke Silas began descending the Jacob’s ladder. “Call all hands!” he cried, as he disappeared over the side; “we must work her round as long as the pieces are anything loose-like.”It was not a long journey to the big sister ship, and the sturdy legs of this ancient mariner would soon get him there. But he would not wait till alongside; he needs must hail her while still many yards from her dark and stately sides.“What ho, there!” he bawled. “Arrandoonahoy!”That voice of his was a wonderful one. It might have awakened the dead; it was like a ten-horse power speaking-trumpet lined with the roughest emery-paper. Seals heard it far down beneath the ice, and came to the surface to listen and to marvel. A great bear was sitting not twenty yards from Silas. He thought he should like to eat Silas, but he could not swallow that voice, so he went across the ice instead. Then the voice rolled in over the vessel’s bulwarks, startled the officer on duty, and went ringing down below through the state-rooms, causing our sleeping heroes to tumble out of their bunks with double-quick speed, even the usually late and lazy Ralph evincing more celerity than ever he had done in his life before.They met, rubbing their eyes and looking cold and foolish, all in a knot in the saloon. Cold and foolish, and a little bit frightened as well, for the words of Silas sounded terribly like “theArrandoonon fire!”Not a bit of it, for there came the hail again, and distinct enough this time.“Arrandoonahoy! Is everybody dead on board?”“Whatisthe matter?” cried McBain, as soon as he got on deck, dressed as he was in the garments of night.“Black frost, Captain McBain,” answered Silas, springing up the side, “and you’ll soon find that matter enough, or my name ain’t Grig, nor my luck like a bad wind, always veering in the wrong direction. The seals are gone, sir—every mother’s son o’ them! My advice is—but, dear me, gentlemen! go below and rig out. Why, here’s four more of you! That ain’t the raiment for a black frost! You look like five candidates for a choking good influenza!” This first bit of advice being taken in good part, “Now,” continued Silas, “your next best holt, Captain McBain, will be to get up steam, and get her head pointed away for the blue water, else there is no saying we may not leave our bones here.”“Ah!” exclaimed McBain, “we’ve no wish to do that. And here comes our worthy engineer. The old question, chief—How soon can you get us under way?”“With the American hams, sir,” was the quiet reply, “in about twenty minutes; with a morsel of nice blubber that I laid in especially for the purpose of emergencies, in far less time than that.”“Thanks!” said McBain, smiling; “use anything, but don’t lose time.”The ships lay far from the open sea. They had been “rove” a long way in through the pack, to get close to the seals, but, independently of that, floating streams of ice, one after another, had joined the outer edge of this immense field of bergs, placing them at a greater distance from the welcome water.Steam was speedily roaring, and ready for its work. Then, not without considerable difficulty, the vessel was put about, and the voyage seaward was commenced. Slow and tedious this voyage was bound to be, for there was so little wind it was useless to shake the sails loose, so the duty of towing her consorts devolved upon theArrandoon. Instead of remaining on his own ship, Silas Grig came on board the steamer, where his services as iceman were fully appreciated.As yet the frost had made no appreciable difference to the solidity of the pack; a very gentle swell was moving the pieces—a swell that rolled in from seaward, causing the whole scene around to look like a tract of snow-clad land, acted on by the giant force of an earthquake. Forging ahead through such ice, even by the aid of steam, is hard, slow work; and, assisted as theArrandoonwas by men walking in front of her and pushing on the bergs with long poles, hardly could she make a headway of half a mile an hour, and there were twenty good miles to traverse! It was a weary task, but the men bent their backs cheerfully to it, as British sailors ever do to a duty that has to be performed.(Light lie the earth on the breast of the gallant Captain Brownrigg, R.N., and green be the grass on his grave. My young readers know the story; it is such stories as his they ought to read; such men as he ought to be enshrined in their memory. Betrayed by treacherous Arabs, with a mere handful of men he fought their powerful dhow and guns; and even when hope itself had fled he made no attempt to escape, but fought on and fought on, till he fell pierced with twenty wounds. He was a heroic sailor, andhe was doing his duty!)Even had it been possible to keep up the men’s strength, forty hours must have elapsed ere theArrandoonwould be rising and falling on blue water. But many hours had not gone by ere the men got a rest they little cared for—for down went the swell, the motion among the bergs was stilled, and frost began its work of welding them together.“Just like my luck, now, isn’t it?” said Silas, when he found the ship could not be budged another inch, and was quite surrounded by heavy ice.“I don’t believe in luck,” said Captain McBain; “and, after all, things might have turned out even worse than they have.”“Oh!” said Silas, “I’m not the man to grumble or growl. We are comfortable and jolly, and we have plenty to eat.”“We won’t have much sport, though,” said Rory, with a sigh, “if we have to remain here long, for the bears will follow the seals, won’t they?”“That they will,” replied Silas, “and small blame to them; it is exactly what I should like to do myself.”“Well, you can, you know,” said McBain, laughing. “We have a splendid balloon. De Vere will take you for a fly I’m sure, if you’ll ask him.”“What! trust myself up in the clouds!” cried Silas; “thank you very much for the offer, but if ill-luck has kept following my footsteps all my life, ill-luck would be sure to follow me if I attempted any aerial flights, and I’d come down by the run.”“Well, we’re fairly beset, anyhow,” said Rory, “and I daresay we’ll have to try to make the best of it.”So guns were placed disconsolately ill the racks, as soon as the terrible black frost had quite set in, or if they were taken out when a walk was determined on, it was only for fashion’s sake, and for the fear that an occasional bear might be met with. But it was good fun breaking bottles with rifle bullets, and good practice as well. As the days went on, and there were no signs of the pack breaking up, a number of books were taken down to be perused, much time was spent in playing piano or violin, or both together, while after dinner the hours were devoted to talking. Many a racy yarn was told by Cobb, many an adventure by Seth, and many a queer experience by Silas Grig, and duly appreciated, too. So the evenings did not seem long, whatever the days did.Said Silas one morning to McBain, as they stood together leaning on the bulwarks.“I don’t quite like the look of that ice, captain; it is precious big, and if it came on to press a bit, why, it would go clean through the ribs of us, strong though our good ships are. And that cockle-shell of Cobb’s would be the very first to go down to the bottom.”“Or up to the top,” suggested McBain.“What?” laughed Silas; “would you clap your balloon top of her, and lift her out like?”“No, not that; but we could hoist her high and dry on top of the ice easily enough.”“Well, I declare,” cried Silas, clapping one brawny hand on his knee, “that is a glorious idea. And an old iceman like me to never think of it!”Then Silas’s face fell, as he said,—“Ah! but you couldn’t hoist me up too. TheCanny Scotiawould go down; that would be more of my luck.”“Well, but I’ve thought of a plan. I have torpedoes on board. I’ll have a go at this ice, anyhow.”“Make a kind of harbour, you mean?” inquired Silas.“That’s it,” was the reply.“But,” said Silas, still somewhat dubious, “you know the currents run like mill-streams in under the ice. Well, suppose your torpedoes were to be floated in under my ship, and went bursting off there?”“Well, your ship would be hoisted,” replied McBain; “that would be all.”“Ay!” said Silas, “that would be all; that would end all the luck, good or bad.”“But there is no fear of any such accident. And now let us just have a try at it.”Blowing up icebergs with torpedoes is by no means difficult, when you know how to do it, but sometimes the current will shift the guiding-pole or rope, and were it to get under the stern of the ship itself, it would make it awkward for the Arctic explorers. In the present instance everything went well, and berg after berg succumbed to the force of the gun-cotton, until the last, when, by some mismanagement, one torpedo was shifted right under a piece of ice on which stood, tools in hand, about ten men, besides Silas, Rory, and Captain McBain himself. Of course it was not likely that boy Rory was going to be far away when any fun was going on, so that is why he happened to be on top of this identical berg when the blowing-up took place. And here is precisely what was seen by disinterested bystanders—a smother of snow and water and ice, mixed, rising in shape of a rounded column over ten feet high, and, dimly visible in the misty midst thereof, a minglement of hands and heads and arms and legs. The sound accompanying the columnar rising was something between a puff and a thud; I cannot better describe it. Then there was a sudden collapse, and next moment the arms and the legs and the hands and the heads were all seen sprawling and struggling in the frothy, seething water below. It simply and purely looked as if they were all being boiled alive in a huge cauldron. But the strangest part of the story is to come. With the exception of a few trifling braises, not one of those who were thus surprised by so sudden a rise in the world was a bit the worse. The ducking in the cold sea was certainly far from pleasant, but dry clothes and hot coffee soon put that to rights, and they came up smiling again.Freezing Powders, who was on deck at the time of the accident, was dreadfully frightened, and ran down below instantly to report matters to his favourite.“What’s the row? What’s the row? What’s the row?” cried the bird as the boy entered the saloon.“Don’t talk so fast, Cockie, and I’ll tell you,” said Freezing Powders, sinking down on the deck with one arm on the cage. “I tink I’se all right at present, though my breaf is all frightened out of my body, and I must look ’bout as pale as you, Cockie.”“De-ah me!” said Cockie.“But don’t hang by de legs, Cockie. When you wants a mouf-ful of hemp just hop down for it, else de blood all run to your poor head, den you die in a fit?”“Poor de-ah Cockie! Pretty old Cockie!” said the bird, in mournful tones.“And now I got my breaf again, I try to ’splain to you what am de row. De drefful world round de ship is all white, Cockie, and to-day dey has commenced blowing it up, and jus’ now, Cockie, dey has commenced to blow derselves up?”“De-ah me!” from Cockie.“Dat am quite true, Cockie, and de heads and de legs am flying about in all directions! It is too drefful to behold!”“Now then, young Roley Poley!” cried Peter, entering at that moment, “toddle away forward for some boiling-hot coffee, and run quicker than ever you ran in your life.”“I’se off like a bird!” said Freezing Powders, darting out of the cabin as if there had been a boot after him.
So willingly and merrily worked all hands on the ice, that in less than three days theCanny Scotiawas almost a full, though by no means a bumper ship, and poor Silas began to see visions of future happiness in his mind’s eye, when he should return to his native land and complete the joy of his family. Unfortunately, however, his good fortune did not last for the present. How seldom, indeed, good luck does last in this world of ours! One day, towards midnight, the sky apparently assumed a brighter blue. This seemed to concern Silas considerably. The good man was walking the deck at the time with his inseparable companion the first mate, neither of whom ever appeared now to court sleep or rest.
“Matie,” said Silas, pointing skywards, “do you see any difference in the colour yonder?”
“That do I!” replied the mate.
“And hasn’t it got much colder?”
“Well, both of us have been walking,” the chief officer returned, “at the rate of several knots, just to keep the dear life in us, and I never saw you, sir, with your hands so deep in your pockets before.”
Down rushed the captain to consult his glass; he was speedily up again, however. “It is just as I thought,” he said. “Now come up into the nest with me; there’s room for both of us. Look!” he added, as soon as they had reached their barrel of observation, “the rascals know what is coming. They are taking the water, and before ten minutes there won’t be a seal with his nose on that bit of pack. Heigho, matie! heigho! that is just like my luck. If I’d been born a tailor, every man would have been born a Highlander, and made his own kilts. But hi! up, matie, Silas doesn’t mean to let his heart down yet for a bit. A black frost is on the wing. There is no help for that, but theArrandoon’speople don’t seem to know it. I must off over and tell them;” and even as he spoke Silas began descending the Jacob’s ladder. “Call all hands!” he cried, as he disappeared over the side; “we must work her round as long as the pieces are anything loose-like.”
It was not a long journey to the big sister ship, and the sturdy legs of this ancient mariner would soon get him there. But he would not wait till alongside; he needs must hail her while still many yards from her dark and stately sides.
“What ho, there!” he bawled. “Arrandoonahoy!”
That voice of his was a wonderful one. It might have awakened the dead; it was like a ten-horse power speaking-trumpet lined with the roughest emery-paper. Seals heard it far down beneath the ice, and came to the surface to listen and to marvel. A great bear was sitting not twenty yards from Silas. He thought he should like to eat Silas, but he could not swallow that voice, so he went across the ice instead. Then the voice rolled in over the vessel’s bulwarks, startled the officer on duty, and went ringing down below through the state-rooms, causing our sleeping heroes to tumble out of their bunks with double-quick speed, even the usually late and lazy Ralph evincing more celerity than ever he had done in his life before.
They met, rubbing their eyes and looking cold and foolish, all in a knot in the saloon. Cold and foolish, and a little bit frightened as well, for the words of Silas sounded terribly like “theArrandoonon fire!”
Not a bit of it, for there came the hail again, and distinct enough this time.
“Arrandoonahoy! Is everybody dead on board?”
“Whatisthe matter?” cried McBain, as soon as he got on deck, dressed as he was in the garments of night.
“Black frost, Captain McBain,” answered Silas, springing up the side, “and you’ll soon find that matter enough, or my name ain’t Grig, nor my luck like a bad wind, always veering in the wrong direction. The seals are gone, sir—every mother’s son o’ them! My advice is—but, dear me, gentlemen! go below and rig out. Why, here’s four more of you! That ain’t the raiment for a black frost! You look like five candidates for a choking good influenza!” This first bit of advice being taken in good part, “Now,” continued Silas, “your next best holt, Captain McBain, will be to get up steam, and get her head pointed away for the blue water, else there is no saying we may not leave our bones here.”
“Ah!” exclaimed McBain, “we’ve no wish to do that. And here comes our worthy engineer. The old question, chief—How soon can you get us under way?”
“With the American hams, sir,” was the quiet reply, “in about twenty minutes; with a morsel of nice blubber that I laid in especially for the purpose of emergencies, in far less time than that.”
“Thanks!” said McBain, smiling; “use anything, but don’t lose time.”
The ships lay far from the open sea. They had been “rove” a long way in through the pack, to get close to the seals, but, independently of that, floating streams of ice, one after another, had joined the outer edge of this immense field of bergs, placing them at a greater distance from the welcome water.
Steam was speedily roaring, and ready for its work. Then, not without considerable difficulty, the vessel was put about, and the voyage seaward was commenced. Slow and tedious this voyage was bound to be, for there was so little wind it was useless to shake the sails loose, so the duty of towing her consorts devolved upon theArrandoon. Instead of remaining on his own ship, Silas Grig came on board the steamer, where his services as iceman were fully appreciated.
As yet the frost had made no appreciable difference to the solidity of the pack; a very gentle swell was moving the pieces—a swell that rolled in from seaward, causing the whole scene around to look like a tract of snow-clad land, acted on by the giant force of an earthquake. Forging ahead through such ice, even by the aid of steam, is hard, slow work; and, assisted as theArrandoonwas by men walking in front of her and pushing on the bergs with long poles, hardly could she make a headway of half a mile an hour, and there were twenty good miles to traverse! It was a weary task, but the men bent their backs cheerfully to it, as British sailors ever do to a duty that has to be performed.
(Light lie the earth on the breast of the gallant Captain Brownrigg, R.N., and green be the grass on his grave. My young readers know the story; it is such stories as his they ought to read; such men as he ought to be enshrined in their memory. Betrayed by treacherous Arabs, with a mere handful of men he fought their powerful dhow and guns; and even when hope itself had fled he made no attempt to escape, but fought on and fought on, till he fell pierced with twenty wounds. He was a heroic sailor, andhe was doing his duty!)
Even had it been possible to keep up the men’s strength, forty hours must have elapsed ere theArrandoonwould be rising and falling on blue water. But many hours had not gone by ere the men got a rest they little cared for—for down went the swell, the motion among the bergs was stilled, and frost began its work of welding them together.
“Just like my luck, now, isn’t it?” said Silas, when he found the ship could not be budged another inch, and was quite surrounded by heavy ice.
“I don’t believe in luck,” said Captain McBain; “and, after all, things might have turned out even worse than they have.”
“Oh!” said Silas, “I’m not the man to grumble or growl. We are comfortable and jolly, and we have plenty to eat.”
“We won’t have much sport, though,” said Rory, with a sigh, “if we have to remain here long, for the bears will follow the seals, won’t they?”
“That they will,” replied Silas, “and small blame to them; it is exactly what I should like to do myself.”
“Well, you can, you know,” said McBain, laughing. “We have a splendid balloon. De Vere will take you for a fly I’m sure, if you’ll ask him.”
“What! trust myself up in the clouds!” cried Silas; “thank you very much for the offer, but if ill-luck has kept following my footsteps all my life, ill-luck would be sure to follow me if I attempted any aerial flights, and I’d come down by the run.”
“Well, we’re fairly beset, anyhow,” said Rory, “and I daresay we’ll have to try to make the best of it.”
So guns were placed disconsolately ill the racks, as soon as the terrible black frost had quite set in, or if they were taken out when a walk was determined on, it was only for fashion’s sake, and for the fear that an occasional bear might be met with. But it was good fun breaking bottles with rifle bullets, and good practice as well. As the days went on, and there were no signs of the pack breaking up, a number of books were taken down to be perused, much time was spent in playing piano or violin, or both together, while after dinner the hours were devoted to talking. Many a racy yarn was told by Cobb, many an adventure by Seth, and many a queer experience by Silas Grig, and duly appreciated, too. So the evenings did not seem long, whatever the days did.
Said Silas one morning to McBain, as they stood together leaning on the bulwarks.
“I don’t quite like the look of that ice, captain; it is precious big, and if it came on to press a bit, why, it would go clean through the ribs of us, strong though our good ships are. And that cockle-shell of Cobb’s would be the very first to go down to the bottom.”
“Or up to the top,” suggested McBain.
“What?” laughed Silas; “would you clap your balloon top of her, and lift her out like?”
“No, not that; but we could hoist her high and dry on top of the ice easily enough.”
“Well, I declare,” cried Silas, clapping one brawny hand on his knee, “that is a glorious idea. And an old iceman like me to never think of it!”
Then Silas’s face fell, as he said,—
“Ah! but you couldn’t hoist me up too. TheCanny Scotiawould go down; that would be more of my luck.”
“Well, but I’ve thought of a plan. I have torpedoes on board. I’ll have a go at this ice, anyhow.”
“Make a kind of harbour, you mean?” inquired Silas.
“That’s it,” was the reply.
“But,” said Silas, still somewhat dubious, “you know the currents run like mill-streams in under the ice. Well, suppose your torpedoes were to be floated in under my ship, and went bursting off there?”
“Well, your ship would be hoisted,” replied McBain; “that would be all.”
“Ay!” said Silas, “that would be all; that would end all the luck, good or bad.”
“But there is no fear of any such accident. And now let us just have a try at it.”
Blowing up icebergs with torpedoes is by no means difficult, when you know how to do it, but sometimes the current will shift the guiding-pole or rope, and were it to get under the stern of the ship itself, it would make it awkward for the Arctic explorers. In the present instance everything went well, and berg after berg succumbed to the force of the gun-cotton, until the last, when, by some mismanagement, one torpedo was shifted right under a piece of ice on which stood, tools in hand, about ten men, besides Silas, Rory, and Captain McBain himself. Of course it was not likely that boy Rory was going to be far away when any fun was going on, so that is why he happened to be on top of this identical berg when the blowing-up took place. And here is precisely what was seen by disinterested bystanders—a smother of snow and water and ice, mixed, rising in shape of a rounded column over ten feet high, and, dimly visible in the misty midst thereof, a minglement of hands and heads and arms and legs. The sound accompanying the columnar rising was something between a puff and a thud; I cannot better describe it. Then there was a sudden collapse, and next moment the arms and the legs and the hands and the heads were all seen sprawling and struggling in the frothy, seething water below. It simply and purely looked as if they were all being boiled alive in a huge cauldron. But the strangest part of the story is to come. With the exception of a few trifling braises, not one of those who were thus surprised by so sudden a rise in the world was a bit the worse. The ducking in the cold sea was certainly far from pleasant, but dry clothes and hot coffee soon put that to rights, and they came up smiling again.
Freezing Powders, who was on deck at the time of the accident, was dreadfully frightened, and ran down below instantly to report matters to his favourite.
“What’s the row? What’s the row? What’s the row?” cried the bird as the boy entered the saloon.
“Don’t talk so fast, Cockie, and I’ll tell you,” said Freezing Powders, sinking down on the deck with one arm on the cage. “I tink I’se all right at present, though my breaf is all frightened out of my body, and I must look ’bout as pale as you, Cockie.”
“De-ah me!” said Cockie.
“But don’t hang by de legs, Cockie. When you wants a mouf-ful of hemp just hop down for it, else de blood all run to your poor head, den you die in a fit?”
“Poor de-ah Cockie! Pretty old Cockie!” said the bird, in mournful tones.
“And now I got my breaf again, I try to ’splain to you what am de row. De drefful world round de ship is all white, Cockie, and to-day dey has commenced blowing it up, and jus’ now, Cockie, dey has commenced to blow derselves up?”
“De-ah me!” from Cockie.
“Dat am quite true, Cockie, and de heads and de legs am flying about in all directions! It is too drefful to behold!”
“Now then, young Roley Poley!” cried Peter, entering at that moment, “toddle away forward for some boiling-hot coffee, and run quicker than ever you ran in your life.”
“I’se off like a bird!” said Freezing Powders, darting out of the cabin as if there had been a boot after him.