Chapter Ten.

Chapter Ten.“Down with the Red Flag and up with the Black!”—Victory—An Old Acquaintance—Hie, for the North.If the crew of theArrandoonneeded any stimulus to fight the pirate, beyond the short speech that their captain had made them, it certainly was given them when the order was issued on board the latter craft, “Down with the red flag and up with the black!” and the broad, white-crossed ensign of merchant Denmark gave place to the hideous skull and cross-bones flown by sea marauders of all nations. She had rounded, too, in order to fire her broadside guns, or this would hardly have been visible. Perhaps the pirates imagined it would strike sudden fear into the hearts of those they had elected to consider their foes. Hatred and loathing it certainly inspired, but as to fear—well, in the matter of scaring, British sailors are perhaps the most unsatisfactory class of beings in the world.For the next quarter of an hour the doings on board theArrandoon, as seen from the pirate’s poop, must have considerably astonished—not to say puzzled—the officers of that ship, for in that short space of time what had appeared to be a sadly disabled vessel in distress, had hoisted a funnel, lowered a screw, and, while sail was being taken in, moved slowly away beyond reach of her guns. Not for long was she gone, however. She rounded almost on her own length; then, bows on, back she came, black and grim, athirst for vengeance. But the pirate was no coward, and broadside after broadside was poured into the advancing ship, without eliciting a single shot save one.This was the shot—the second shot—that McBain had promised Magnus. It went roaring through the air, crashed through theMaelsturm’sbulwarks midships, and smashed a boat to flinders.Magnus Bolt, or “Green,” as he was better known, old as he was, was by far the best shot in the ship. He and Mitchell, the mate, a man of eagle eye and firm of nerve, were the gunners proper, and fired every gun in the fight that followed the second shot. If it were a starboard broadside they were there; if a port, they but crossed the deck to take deadly aim and fire it.“Remember, gunners,” cried McBain, “we’ve got to take that ship, and not to sink her; so waste not a shot between wind and water?”On came the vessels, bow to bow, as arrow might meet arrow, and when within two hundred yards of each other, theMaelsturmheading north and west, theArrandoongoing full speed south and east, the pirate delivered her broadside, and immediately luffed up and commenced firing with her bow guns. She could get no nearer the wind, however. To go on the other tack would be but to hasten the inevitable.“Hard a port! Ease her a little! Steady as you go!” were the orders from the quarter-deck of theArrandoon. “Small-arm men to fire wherever head or hand is visible.”Now theArrandoondelivers her broadside as she again comes parallel with theMaelsturm, whose sails are all a-shiver. This just by way of confusing her a little. There is worse to come, for the order is now given to double-shot the port Dalgrens with canister. Away steams theArrandoon, and round goes theMaelsturm. Ah! well he knows what the foe intends, but he will try to outmanoeuvre her if he can. But see! theArrandoonis round again; there will be no escaping her this time. Fire your bow guns, Mr Pirate; fire your broadside, you cannot elicit a reply.“Sta’board!” cries the captain; “starboard?” he signals, with his calm, uplifted arm. “Starboard still! steady now!” Then, in a voice of thunder, as they rounded the port quarter of the pirate, and, in spite of all good handling, got momentarily broadside on to her stem, “Stand to your guns—Fire!”When theArrandoonforged ahead clear of the smoke, it was evident from the confusion on board theMaelsturm, and the dishevelment of running and standing rigging, that the havoc on her decks must have been terrible. She was not beaten, though, as a gun from her broadside soon told.“We’ll end this,” said the captain to Rory, by his side, who had constituted himself clerk, and was coolly taking notes in the very thick of the fight, while shot roared through the ship’s rigging and sides, men fell on all hands, and splinters filled the air. “We’ll end it in the good old fashion, Rory. Stand by to grapple with ice-anchors! Prepare to board!” Now Allan and Ralph, who had been below assisting the surgeon, heard that word of command, and, just as the sides of the two ships had grated together, after firing their last broadsides, they were both, sword in hand, by their captain’s side.McBain and our heroes were the very first to leap on to the blood-slippery decks of the pirate. The crew of that doomed ship fought for a time like furies—for a time, but only for a time. In less than five minutes every pirate on board was either disarmed or driven below, and theMaelsturmwas the prize of the gallantArrandoon, and her captain himself lay bound on the quarter-deck.But the commander of this pirate ship was the very last man on board of her to yield. Even when the battle was virtually ended, as fiercely as a lion at bay he fought on his own quarter-deck, McBain himself being his antagonist. The latter could have shot him down had he been so minded, but he was not the man to take a mean advantage of a foe. The pirate was taller than McBain, but not so well built nor so muscular. They were thus pretty well matched, and as they fought, round and round the quarter-deck, a more beautiful display of swordsmanship was perhaps never witnessed. Once the pirate tripped and fell, McBain lowered his weapon until he had regained his feet, then swords clashed again and sparks flew. But see, the captain of theArrandoonclasps his claymore double-handed; he uses it hatchet fashion almost. He looks in his brawny might as if he could fell trees. The pirate cannot withstand the shock of the terrible onslaught, but he makes up in agility what he lacks in strength. He is borne backward and backward round the companion, McBain “showering his blows like wintry rain;” and now at last victory is his, the pirate’s sword flies into flinders, our captain drops his claymore and springs empty-handed on his adversary, and next moment dashes him to the deck, where he lies stunned and bleeding, and before he can recover consciousness he is bound and helpless.Ralph, Allan, and Rory, none of whom, as providence so willed it, are wounded, and who had been silent spectators of the duel, now crowd around their captain, and shake his willing hand.“Heaven,” says McBain, “has given the enemy into our hands, boys, but there is now much to be done. Let us buckle to it without a moment’s delay. The wounded are to be seen to, both our own and the pirate’s, the decks cleared, and everything made shipshape, and, if all goes well, we’ll anchor with our prize to-morrow at Reikjavik.”“And the clergyman, captain, the clergyman, the poor girl’s father?” exclaimed Rory.“Ay, ay, boy Rory,” said McBain; “he is doubtless on the vessel. We will proceed at once to search for him.”If fiends ever laugh, reader, it must be with some such sound as that which now proceeded from the larynx of the pirate captain; if fiends ever smile, it must be with the same sardonic expression that now spread itself over his features. All eyes were instantly turned towards him. He had raised himself to the sitting position.“Ha! ha! ha!” he chuckled, while, manacled though his wrists were, he drew his right forefinger rapidly across his throat, uttering, as he did so, these words, “Your padre; ha! ha! dead—dead—dead.”His listeners were horrified. What McBain’s reply would have been none can say. It was not needed, for at that very moment, ere the exultant grin had vanished from the wretch’s face, there sprang on deck from the companion a figure, tall and gaunt, clad from top to toe in skins. He knelt on the deck in front of the pirate, the better to confront him.With forefinger raised, “he held him with his glittering eye,” while he addressed him as follows:“Look here, Mister Pirate, I was going to use strong language, but I won’t, though I guess and calculate mild words are wasted on sich as you. The parson ain’t dead; ne’er a hair on his reverend head. Ye thought I’d scupper him, didn’t you, soon’s the ship was taken? Ye thought this child was your slave, didn’t ye? Ha! ha! though, he has rounded on ye at last, and if that bit of black rag weren’t enough to hang you and your wretched crew of cutthroats, here in front o’ ye kneels one witness o’ your dirty deeds, and the other will be on deck in a minute in the person o’ the parson you thought dead. How d’ye like it, eh?” and the speaker once more stood erect, and confronted our heroes.“Seth!” they ejaculated, in one voice.“Seth! by all that is marvellous!” said McBain, clutching the old man by the right hand, while Rory seized his left, and Allan and Ralph got hold of an arm each.“Ah! gentlemen,” said honest Seth—and there was positively a tear in his eye as he spoke—“it’s on occasions like these that one wishes he had four hands,—a hand for every friend. Yes, I reckon it is Seth himself, and nary a one else. You may well say wonders will never cease. You may well ask me how on earth I came here. It war Providence, gentlemen, and nuthin’ else, that I knows on. It war Providence sent that cut-throat skipper to the land where you left me on theSnowbird, though I didn’t think so at the time, when they burned and pillaged my hut and killed poor old Plunkett, nor when they carried me a prisoner on board theMaelsturm. They meant to scupper old Seth. They did talk o’ bilin’ his old bones in whale oil, but they soon found out he could heal a hole in a hide as well as make one, and so, gentlemen, I’ve been surgeon-in-chief to this craft for nine months and over. Yes, it war Providence and nuthin’ else, and I knew it war as soon as I saw your ship heave in sight, the day they guessed they’d wreck ye. The parson’s daughter, poor little Dunette, war on board then. I sent her to save ye; and when I heard your voice, Captain McBain, on the reef, I felt sure it war Providence then, and I kind o’ prayed in my rough way that He might spare ye. Shake hands, gentlemen, again. Bother these old eyes o’ mine; they will keep watering.”And Seth drew his sleeve rapidly across his face as he spoke.Rory was a proud—boy, ahem! well,man, then, if you will have it so, when that same afternoon he was put on board theMaelsturm, as captain of her, with a picked crew from theArrandoon, and with orders to make all sail for Reikjavik. McBain’s last words to him were these,—“Keep your weather eye lifting, Captain Roderick Elphinston. Clap two sentries on those ruffianly prisoners of yours, and let your men sleep with their cutlasses by their sides and their revolvers under their heads.”“Ay, ay, sir!” said Rory.Rory allowed his crew to sleep, but he himself paced the deck all the livelong night. Occasionally he could see the lights of theArrandoonfar on ahead; but towards morning the weather got thick and somewhat squally, and at daylight theMaelsturmseemed alone on the ocean. Sail was taken in, but the ship kept her course, and just in the even-glome Rory ran into the Bay of Reikjavik, and dropped anchor, and shortly after a boat came off from theArrandoonwith both Allan and Ralph in it, to congratulate the boy-captain on the success of his, first voyage as skipper-commandant.Next day both the pirate vessel and her captor were show-ships for the people—all theéliteand beauty of Reikjavik crowded off from the shore in dozens to see them. The dilapidated condition of theMaelsturm, her broken bulwarks, rent rigging, and shivered spars, showed how fierce the fight had been. Nor were evidences of the struggle wanting on board theArrandoon, albeit the men had been hard at work all the day making good repairs.The dead were buried at sea; the wounded were mostly sent on shore. Five poor fellows belonging to McBain’s ship would never fight again, and many more were placed for a timehors de combat.As to the prisoners, they were transferred to a French ship that lay at Reikjavik, and that in the course of a week sailed with them for Denmark. Seth and the officers of theArrandoonmade and signed depositions; and in addition to this, as evidence against the pirates, the old clergyman and his daughter Dunette, now joyfully reunited, went along with the Frenchman, while, with a crew from shore, theMaelsturmleft some days after. The black flag had never been lowered, nor was it until the day the pirate captain and many of his crew expiated their long list of crimes on the scaffold at the Holms of Copenhagen.Poor Dunette, the tears fell unheeded from her sad blue eyes as she bade farewell to our heroes on the deck of theArrandoon. She did not say good-bye to the surgeon, however—at least not there. He had begged for a boat, and accompanied her on board the vessel in which she was to sail. Have they a secret, we wonder? Is it possible that our quiet surgeon has won the heart of this beautiful fair-haired Danish maiden? These are questions we must not seek answer to now, but time may tell.Not until the pirate ship had left the bay, and the wounded were so far convalescent as to be brought once more on board, did the old peace and quiet settle down upon the good shipArrandoon. And now once more all was bustle and stir; in a day or two they would start for the far north, and bid adieu to civilisation—a long but not, they hoped, a last adieu.The very evening before they sailed, a farewell party was given on board theArrandoon. The decks were tented over with canvas lined with flags, and the whole scene was gay and festive in the extreme. Poetic Rory could not have believed that there was so much female youth and loveliness in this primitive little town of Reikjavik. No wonder that day was dawning in the east ere the last boat of laughing and merry guests left for the shore.Many and many a time afterwards, when surrounded by dangers innumerable, when beset in ice, when engulfed in darkness and storm, in the mysterious regions of the Pole, did they look back with pleasure to that last happy night spent in the bay of Reikjavik.But see, it is twelve o’clock by the sun. Flags are floating gaily on the fort, on the little church tower, and on every eminence in or near the town, and the beach and snow-clad rocks are lined with an excited crowd. Hands and handkerchiefs are waved, and with the farewell cheers the far-off hills resound. Then our brave fellows man the rigging and waft them back cheer for cheer, as the noble vessel cleaves the waters of the bay, and stands away for the Northern Ocean.

If the crew of theArrandoonneeded any stimulus to fight the pirate, beyond the short speech that their captain had made them, it certainly was given them when the order was issued on board the latter craft, “Down with the red flag and up with the black!” and the broad, white-crossed ensign of merchant Denmark gave place to the hideous skull and cross-bones flown by sea marauders of all nations. She had rounded, too, in order to fire her broadside guns, or this would hardly have been visible. Perhaps the pirates imagined it would strike sudden fear into the hearts of those they had elected to consider their foes. Hatred and loathing it certainly inspired, but as to fear—well, in the matter of scaring, British sailors are perhaps the most unsatisfactory class of beings in the world.

For the next quarter of an hour the doings on board theArrandoon, as seen from the pirate’s poop, must have considerably astonished—not to say puzzled—the officers of that ship, for in that short space of time what had appeared to be a sadly disabled vessel in distress, had hoisted a funnel, lowered a screw, and, while sail was being taken in, moved slowly away beyond reach of her guns. Not for long was she gone, however. She rounded almost on her own length; then, bows on, back she came, black and grim, athirst for vengeance. But the pirate was no coward, and broadside after broadside was poured into the advancing ship, without eliciting a single shot save one.

This was the shot—the second shot—that McBain had promised Magnus. It went roaring through the air, crashed through theMaelsturm’sbulwarks midships, and smashed a boat to flinders.

Magnus Bolt, or “Green,” as he was better known, old as he was, was by far the best shot in the ship. He and Mitchell, the mate, a man of eagle eye and firm of nerve, were the gunners proper, and fired every gun in the fight that followed the second shot. If it were a starboard broadside they were there; if a port, they but crossed the deck to take deadly aim and fire it.

“Remember, gunners,” cried McBain, “we’ve got to take that ship, and not to sink her; so waste not a shot between wind and water?”

On came the vessels, bow to bow, as arrow might meet arrow, and when within two hundred yards of each other, theMaelsturmheading north and west, theArrandoongoing full speed south and east, the pirate delivered her broadside, and immediately luffed up and commenced firing with her bow guns. She could get no nearer the wind, however. To go on the other tack would be but to hasten the inevitable.

“Hard a port! Ease her a little! Steady as you go!” were the orders from the quarter-deck of theArrandoon. “Small-arm men to fire wherever head or hand is visible.”

Now theArrandoondelivers her broadside as she again comes parallel with theMaelsturm, whose sails are all a-shiver. This just by way of confusing her a little. There is worse to come, for the order is now given to double-shot the port Dalgrens with canister. Away steams theArrandoon, and round goes theMaelsturm. Ah! well he knows what the foe intends, but he will try to outmanoeuvre her if he can. But see! theArrandoonis round again; there will be no escaping her this time. Fire your bow guns, Mr Pirate; fire your broadside, you cannot elicit a reply.

“Sta’board!” cries the captain; “starboard?” he signals, with his calm, uplifted arm. “Starboard still! steady now!” Then, in a voice of thunder, as they rounded the port quarter of the pirate, and, in spite of all good handling, got momentarily broadside on to her stem, “Stand to your guns—Fire!”

When theArrandoonforged ahead clear of the smoke, it was evident from the confusion on board theMaelsturm, and the dishevelment of running and standing rigging, that the havoc on her decks must have been terrible. She was not beaten, though, as a gun from her broadside soon told.

“We’ll end this,” said the captain to Rory, by his side, who had constituted himself clerk, and was coolly taking notes in the very thick of the fight, while shot roared through the ship’s rigging and sides, men fell on all hands, and splinters filled the air. “We’ll end it in the good old fashion, Rory. Stand by to grapple with ice-anchors! Prepare to board!” Now Allan and Ralph, who had been below assisting the surgeon, heard that word of command, and, just as the sides of the two ships had grated together, after firing their last broadsides, they were both, sword in hand, by their captain’s side.

McBain and our heroes were the very first to leap on to the blood-slippery decks of the pirate. The crew of that doomed ship fought for a time like furies—for a time, but only for a time. In less than five minutes every pirate on board was either disarmed or driven below, and theMaelsturmwas the prize of the gallantArrandoon, and her captain himself lay bound on the quarter-deck.

But the commander of this pirate ship was the very last man on board of her to yield. Even when the battle was virtually ended, as fiercely as a lion at bay he fought on his own quarter-deck, McBain himself being his antagonist. The latter could have shot him down had he been so minded, but he was not the man to take a mean advantage of a foe. The pirate was taller than McBain, but not so well built nor so muscular. They were thus pretty well matched, and as they fought, round and round the quarter-deck, a more beautiful display of swordsmanship was perhaps never witnessed. Once the pirate tripped and fell, McBain lowered his weapon until he had regained his feet, then swords clashed again and sparks flew. But see, the captain of theArrandoonclasps his claymore double-handed; he uses it hatchet fashion almost. He looks in his brawny might as if he could fell trees. The pirate cannot withstand the shock of the terrible onslaught, but he makes up in agility what he lacks in strength. He is borne backward and backward round the companion, McBain “showering his blows like wintry rain;” and now at last victory is his, the pirate’s sword flies into flinders, our captain drops his claymore and springs empty-handed on his adversary, and next moment dashes him to the deck, where he lies stunned and bleeding, and before he can recover consciousness he is bound and helpless.

Ralph, Allan, and Rory, none of whom, as providence so willed it, are wounded, and who had been silent spectators of the duel, now crowd around their captain, and shake his willing hand.

“Heaven,” says McBain, “has given the enemy into our hands, boys, but there is now much to be done. Let us buckle to it without a moment’s delay. The wounded are to be seen to, both our own and the pirate’s, the decks cleared, and everything made shipshape, and, if all goes well, we’ll anchor with our prize to-morrow at Reikjavik.”

“And the clergyman, captain, the clergyman, the poor girl’s father?” exclaimed Rory.

“Ay, ay, boy Rory,” said McBain; “he is doubtless on the vessel. We will proceed at once to search for him.”

If fiends ever laugh, reader, it must be with some such sound as that which now proceeded from the larynx of the pirate captain; if fiends ever smile, it must be with the same sardonic expression that now spread itself over his features. All eyes were instantly turned towards him. He had raised himself to the sitting position.

“Ha! ha! ha!” he chuckled, while, manacled though his wrists were, he drew his right forefinger rapidly across his throat, uttering, as he did so, these words, “Your padre; ha! ha! dead—dead—dead.”

His listeners were horrified. What McBain’s reply would have been none can say. It was not needed, for at that very moment, ere the exultant grin had vanished from the wretch’s face, there sprang on deck from the companion a figure, tall and gaunt, clad from top to toe in skins. He knelt on the deck in front of the pirate, the better to confront him.

With forefinger raised, “he held him with his glittering eye,” while he addressed him as follows:

“Look here, Mister Pirate, I was going to use strong language, but I won’t, though I guess and calculate mild words are wasted on sich as you. The parson ain’t dead; ne’er a hair on his reverend head. Ye thought I’d scupper him, didn’t you, soon’s the ship was taken? Ye thought this child was your slave, didn’t ye? Ha! ha! though, he has rounded on ye at last, and if that bit of black rag weren’t enough to hang you and your wretched crew of cutthroats, here in front o’ ye kneels one witness o’ your dirty deeds, and the other will be on deck in a minute in the person o’ the parson you thought dead. How d’ye like it, eh?” and the speaker once more stood erect, and confronted our heroes.

“Seth!” they ejaculated, in one voice.

“Seth! by all that is marvellous!” said McBain, clutching the old man by the right hand, while Rory seized his left, and Allan and Ralph got hold of an arm each.

“Ah! gentlemen,” said honest Seth—and there was positively a tear in his eye as he spoke—“it’s on occasions like these that one wishes he had four hands,—a hand for every friend. Yes, I reckon it is Seth himself, and nary a one else. You may well say wonders will never cease. You may well ask me how on earth I came here. It war Providence, gentlemen, and nuthin’ else, that I knows on. It war Providence sent that cut-throat skipper to the land where you left me on theSnowbird, though I didn’t think so at the time, when they burned and pillaged my hut and killed poor old Plunkett, nor when they carried me a prisoner on board theMaelsturm. They meant to scupper old Seth. They did talk o’ bilin’ his old bones in whale oil, but they soon found out he could heal a hole in a hide as well as make one, and so, gentlemen, I’ve been surgeon-in-chief to this craft for nine months and over. Yes, it war Providence and nuthin’ else, and I knew it war as soon as I saw your ship heave in sight, the day they guessed they’d wreck ye. The parson’s daughter, poor little Dunette, war on board then. I sent her to save ye; and when I heard your voice, Captain McBain, on the reef, I felt sure it war Providence then, and I kind o’ prayed in my rough way that He might spare ye. Shake hands, gentlemen, again. Bother these old eyes o’ mine; they will keep watering.”

And Seth drew his sleeve rapidly across his face as he spoke.

Rory was a proud—boy, ahem! well,man, then, if you will have it so, when that same afternoon he was put on board theMaelsturm, as captain of her, with a picked crew from theArrandoon, and with orders to make all sail for Reikjavik. McBain’s last words to him were these,—

“Keep your weather eye lifting, Captain Roderick Elphinston. Clap two sentries on those ruffianly prisoners of yours, and let your men sleep with their cutlasses by their sides and their revolvers under their heads.”

“Ay, ay, sir!” said Rory.

Rory allowed his crew to sleep, but he himself paced the deck all the livelong night. Occasionally he could see the lights of theArrandoonfar on ahead; but towards morning the weather got thick and somewhat squally, and at daylight theMaelsturmseemed alone on the ocean. Sail was taken in, but the ship kept her course, and just in the even-glome Rory ran into the Bay of Reikjavik, and dropped anchor, and shortly after a boat came off from theArrandoonwith both Allan and Ralph in it, to congratulate the boy-captain on the success of his, first voyage as skipper-commandant.

Next day both the pirate vessel and her captor were show-ships for the people—all theéliteand beauty of Reikjavik crowded off from the shore in dozens to see them. The dilapidated condition of theMaelsturm, her broken bulwarks, rent rigging, and shivered spars, showed how fierce the fight had been. Nor were evidences of the struggle wanting on board theArrandoon, albeit the men had been hard at work all the day making good repairs.

The dead were buried at sea; the wounded were mostly sent on shore. Five poor fellows belonging to McBain’s ship would never fight again, and many more were placed for a timehors de combat.

As to the prisoners, they were transferred to a French ship that lay at Reikjavik, and that in the course of a week sailed with them for Denmark. Seth and the officers of theArrandoonmade and signed depositions; and in addition to this, as evidence against the pirates, the old clergyman and his daughter Dunette, now joyfully reunited, went along with the Frenchman, while, with a crew from shore, theMaelsturmleft some days after. The black flag had never been lowered, nor was it until the day the pirate captain and many of his crew expiated their long list of crimes on the scaffold at the Holms of Copenhagen.

Poor Dunette, the tears fell unheeded from her sad blue eyes as she bade farewell to our heroes on the deck of theArrandoon. She did not say good-bye to the surgeon, however—at least not there. He had begged for a boat, and accompanied her on board the vessel in which she was to sail. Have they a secret, we wonder? Is it possible that our quiet surgeon has won the heart of this beautiful fair-haired Danish maiden? These are questions we must not seek answer to now, but time may tell.

Not until the pirate ship had left the bay, and the wounded were so far convalescent as to be brought once more on board, did the old peace and quiet settle down upon the good shipArrandoon. And now once more all was bustle and stir; in a day or two they would start for the far north, and bid adieu to civilisation—a long but not, they hoped, a last adieu.

The very evening before they sailed, a farewell party was given on board theArrandoon. The decks were tented over with canvas lined with flags, and the whole scene was gay and festive in the extreme. Poetic Rory could not have believed that there was so much female youth and loveliness in this primitive little town of Reikjavik. No wonder that day was dawning in the east ere the last boat of laughing and merry guests left for the shore.

Many and many a time afterwards, when surrounded by dangers innumerable, when beset in ice, when engulfed in darkness and storm, in the mysterious regions of the Pole, did they look back with pleasure to that last happy night spent in the bay of Reikjavik.

But see, it is twelve o’clock by the sun. Flags are floating gaily on the fort, on the little church tower, and on every eminence in or near the town, and the beach and snow-clad rocks are lined with an excited crowd. Hands and handkerchiefs are waved, and with the farewell cheers the far-off hills resound. Then our brave fellows man the rigging and waft them back cheer for cheer, as the noble vessel cleaves the waters of the bay, and stands away for the Northern Ocean.

Chapter Eleven.The Voyage Resumed—A Pleasant Evening—“Those Rushing Winds”—The “Arrandoon” Grows Saucy—The Doctor Spread-Eagled—A School of Whales.Ere the day had worn to a close, before the sun went down in a golden haze, leaving one long line of crimson cloud, as earnest of a bright to-morrow, theArrandoon, steaming twelve knots to the hour, was once more far away at sea, and the rugged mountains of Iceland could hardly be descried. As night fell a breeze sprang up, and as there was little doubt it would freshen ere long—for it blew from the east-south-east, and the glass had slightly gone down, with the mercury still concave at top—Captain McBain gave orders for the fires to be banked, and as much canvas spread as she could comfortably carry.“Just make her snug, you know, Mr Stevenson,” said McBain, “for the night will be dark, and we may have more wind before the middle watch.”“And troth,” said Rory to his companions, “if the ship is to be made snug, I don’t see why we shouldn’t make ourselves snug for the night too.”Ralph was gazing down through the skylight at the brilliantly-lighted saloon, where Peter, with the aid of the assistant-steward and Freezing Powders, was busy laying the cloth for dinner.“I’ve just come from forward,” replied Ralph, in raptures, “where I’ve been sniffing the roast beef and the boiled potatoes; and now just look below, Rory,—look how Peter’s face beams with intelligent delight; see how radiant Freezing Powders is; behold how merrily the flames dance on that fire of fires in the stove, and how the coloured crystal shimmers, and the bright silver shines on that cloth of spotless snow! Yes, Rory, you’re right, boy—let us make ourselves snug for the night. So down we go, and dress our smartest—for, mind, boys, there is going to be company to-night.”Yes, there was going to be company; five were all that as a rule sat down to table in the grand saloon, but to-night the covers were laid for five more, namely Stevenson, Seth, old Magnus, and Ap, and last, though not least, De Vere, the French aeronaut.The cook of theArrandoonhad been chosen specially by Ralph himself. Need I say, then, that he was an artist? and to-night he had done his best to outshine himself, and, I think, succeeded. I think, too, that when Peter went forward, some time after the great joints had been put on the table, and told him that everything was going on “as merrily as marriage bells,” and that the gentlemen were loud in their praises of Ralph’s cook, that that cook was about the happiest man in the ship. Peter had not exaggerated a bit either, for everything did go off well at this little dinner-party. It would have done your heart good to have seen the beaming countenances of little Ap, old man Magnus, and honest trapper Seth; and to have noticed how often they passed their plates for another help would have made you open your eyes with wonder—that is, if you never had been to Greenland; but had you made the voyage North Polewards even once, you would have known that of all countries in the world that is just the place to give man or boy a healthy appetite.When the cloth was removed and dessert placed upon the table they seemed happier than ever, if that were possible, and smiles and jokes and jocund yarns ere the order of the evening. After every good story the cockatoo helped himself to an immense mouthful of hemp-seed, and cried,—“Dea-ah me! Well, well, but go on,go on—next.”And as to Freezing Powders, he was so amazed at many things he heard, that more than a dozen times in one hour he had to refresh himself by standing on his head in a corner of the saloon.“Well, well, well!” said McBain, taking the advantage of a mere momentary lull in this feast of reason and flow of soul, “and what a strange mixture of nationalities we are, to be sure! Here is our bold, quiet Ralph, English to the spine—”“And I,” said Rory, “I’m Oirish to the chine.”“That you are,” assented McBain; “and Allan and myself here are Scotch; and if you look farther along the table there is Wales represented in the form of cool, calculating, mathematical Ap; Shetland in the shape of our brave gunner Magnus; France in the form of friend De Vere; and the mightiest republic in the world in Seth’s six feet and odd inches; to say nothing of Africa standing on its head beside Polly’s cage. Freezing Powders, you young rascal, drop on to your other end; don’t you see you’re making Polly believe the world is upside down? look at her hanging by the feet with her head down!”“Dat cockatoo not a fool, sah,” said Freezing Powders; “he know putty well what he am about, sah!”“D’ye know,” said Ralph, looking smilingly towards Seth, “it is quite like old times to see Seth once more in the midst of us?”“And oh!” said Seth, rubbing his hands, while a modest smile stole over his wiry face, “mebbe this old trapper ain’t a bit pleased to meet ye all again. Gentlemen, Seth and civilisation hain’t been ’cquaintances very long; skins seem to suit this child better’n the fine toggery ye’ve rigged him out in. But ye’ve made him feel a deal younger, and he guesses and calculates he may die ’pectable yet.”I fear it was pretty far into the middle watch ere our friends parted and betook themselves to their berths. Two bells had gone—“the wee short hoor ayont the twal”—when McBain rose from the table, this being a signal for general good-nights.“I’m going part of the way home with you, old man,” he said to Magnus, and with his arm placed kindly over his shoulder he left the saloon with the brave wee Shetlander. “Two turns on the deck, Magnus,” he continued, “and then you can turn in. And so, you say, in all your experience—and it has been very vast, hasn’t it, my friend?”“That it has, sir,” replied Magnus. “I may say I was born in these seas, for the first thing I remember—when our ship went down under us in the pack north of Jan Mayen—is my father, bless him! putting me in a carpetbag for safety, to carry me on to the ice with him. Yes, sir, yes.”“And in all your experience,” McBain went on, “you don’t remember a season likely to have been more favourable for our expedition to the North Pole than the present?”“I don’t, sir—I don’t,” said little Magnus, “Look, see, sir, the frost has been extreme all over the north. In the Arctic regions the ice has been all of a heap like. It isn’t yet loosened. We haven’t met a berg yet. Funny, ain’t it, sir?—queer, isn’t it, cap’n?”“It is strange,” said McBain; “and from this what do you anticipate?”“Anticipate isn’t the word, cap’n,” cried Magnus, fixing McBain by the right arm, stopping his way, and emphasising his words with wildfire glints from his warlock eyes. “Anticipate?—bah! cap’n—bah! I’m old enough to be your grandfather. Ask me rather what Iaugur? And I answer this, I augur a glorious summer. Ice loosened before May-Day. Fierce heat south of England, and consequently rarefaction of the atmosphere, and rushing winds from the far north to fill up the heated vacuum—rushing winds to trundle the icebergs south before them—rushing winds to split the packs, and rend the floes, and open up a passage for this brave ship to the far-off Isle of Alba.”“Bless you, Magnus! Give us your hand, my old sea-dad. You always gave me comfort, even when I was a boy in the wilds of Spitzbergen. You taught me to splice, and reef, and steer. Bless you, Magnus! I couldn’t have sailed without you.”“But stay, my son, stay,” continued this weird little man, holding up a warning finger; “those rushing winds—”“Yes, Magnus?”“They will bring danger on their wings.”“I’ll welcome it, Magnus,” laughed McBain.“Those rushing winds will tear down on us, hurricane-high, tempest-strong. The great bergs, impelled by force of wind and might of wave, will dash each other to atoms.”“All the better for us, Daddy Magnus,” said the captain.“Were your voice as loud as cannon’s roar you will be as one dumb amid the turmoil.”“Then I’ll steer by signs,” said McBain.“Should our ship escape destruction, we will be enveloped by fogs, encircled by a darkness that will be felt.”“Then we’ll heave-to and wait till they evaporate. But there, my good Magnus, you see I’m not afraid of anything. I’d be unworthy of such a sea-dad as you if I were; so no more tragic airs, please. Thou mindest me, old Magnus, of the scene between Lochiel and the Wizard.“‘Lochiel, Lochiel, beware of the dayWhen the Lowlands shall meet you in battle array,’“says the Wizard, and so on and so forth.“‘False wizard, avaunt!’ replies Lochiel, and all the rest of it, you know. But, beloved Magnus, I don’tsay‘avaunt!’ to you. But just see how the cold spray is dashing inboard. So, not to put too poetic a point on it, I simply say, ‘Go down below, old man, and don’t get wet, else your joints will ache in the morning with the rheumatiz.’”The morning broke beautifully fine and clear, the reefs were shaken out of the topsails, topgallant-sails and royals were set, and, indeed, all the square cloth she could carry, and away went theArrandoonbefore the wind, as happy, to all appearance, as the malleys and gulls that seemed to play at hide-and-seek with her, behind the comb-crested seas of olive-green.Ralph and Allan, arm-in-arm, were marching rapidly up and down one side of the quarter-deck, Rory and McFlail on the other, and ever and anon a merry laugh from some one of them rang out bright and joyously on the fresh frosty air.Towards noon stunsails were set, and theArrandoonlooked more like a sea-bird than ever; she even seemed to sing to herself—so thought Rory and so thought the doctor—as she went nodding and curtseying along over the waves, with now a bend to starboard, and now a lean to port; now lowering her bows till the seas ahead looked mountains high, and anon giving a dip waterwards till her waist was wet with the seething spray, and her lower stunsail-booms seemed to tickle the very breast of old mother ocean.The wind was increasing, and there were times when our boys had to pause in their walk and grapple the mizzen rigging, laughing at each other as they did so.“Wo ho, my beauty?” said McBain. “Mr Mitchell, I daresay we must take in sail.”“I’m afraid so, sir,” replies Mitchell; “but—” and here he eyes the bellowing canvas—“it do seem a pity, sir, don’t it?”But here “my beauty” gives a vicious plunge forwards, elevating herself aft like a kicking mare, and shipping tons of water over her bows.“I don’t want to be wicked,” the ship seems to say, “and I don’t want to lose a spar, though Icouldkick one off as easy as a daddy-longlegs gets rid of a limb; but if you don’t ease me a bit I’ll—”A bigger and more decided plunge into the sea, followed by a rising of her jibboom zenithwards, and the water comes roaring aft in one great bore, which seeks exit by the quarter-deck scupper-holes, and goes tumbling down the companion ladder, to the indignation of Peter and the disgust of Freezing Powders, who is standing on his head in an attitude of contemplation, and ships a green sea down his nostrils. Our heroes leap in time on to the top of the skylight, and there sit grinning delightedly as the waters go roaring past them, and floating thereon evidence enough that the men had been preparing dinner when Neptune boarded them, for yonder float potatoes and turnips and cabbages, to say nothing of a leg of Highland mutton and a six-pound piece of bacon.“Hands, shorten sail!”But next day—so changeable is a sailor’s life—the wind had all got bottled up again or gone back to its cave; the sea was smooth as glass, and steam was up, but the sky was still clear, and the sun undimmed by the slightest haze.Just before lunch came the first signs that ice was not far ahead. TheArrandoonencountered a great “stream,” as it is called, of deep, snowy slush—I do not know what else to call it. It stretched away eastwards to westwards, as far as the eye from the crow’s-nest could reach, and it was probably nine or ten miles wide. It lessened the good ship’s way considerably, you may be sure. Her bows clove through it with a brushing sound; her screw revolved in it with a noise like dead leaves stirred by autumn winds.“Losh!” cried Sandy, the surgeon, looking curiously overboard, “what’s this noo? Wonders will never cease!”“Och, sure!” replied Rory, mischievously, “you know well enough what it is; it’s only speaking for speaking’s sake you are.”“The ne’er a bone o’ ma knows, I do assure ye,” said Sandy.“Well, doctor dear,” said Rory, “it is simply the belt, or zone, that geographers call the ‘Arctic circle.’”But Sandy looked at him with a pitying smile. “Man—Rory?” he said, “I’m no’ so sea-green as you tak me to be. I’ve a right good mind to pu’ your lugs. Young men, sir, dinna enter Aberdeen University stirks and come out cuddies?”“Mon!” cried Rory, imitating Sandy’s brogue, “if ye want to pu’ my lugs you’ll hae to catch me first;” and off he went round the deck, with the doctor after him. But Ralph caught him, if Sandy couldn’t, and handed him over to justice.“Now,” cried the surgeon, catching him by the ear, “whistle, and I’ll let you free.”It is no easy matter to whistle when you want to laugh, but when Rory at long last did manage to emit a labial note that passed muster as a whistle, the doctor was as good as his word, and Rory was free.Luncheon was barely finished, when down from the crow’s-nest rang the welcome hail, “Ice ahead!”Our heroes rushed on deck, McBain was there before them, and when they stepped on to the “lid” of the ship, as Sandy once called the deck, they found the captain half-way up to the nest.There wasn’t a bit of ice to be seen from the deck.“Hurrah for the foretop?” cried Rory, laying hold of a stay. “Who’s coming?”“I will!” cried Allan.“I’m going below to finish lunch,” said Ralph.“I’ll be safer on deck, I think,” said the canny doctor.But when Rory on the foretop struck an attitude of wonderment, and pointing away ahead, exclaimed, in rapture, “Oh, boys, what a scene is here!” the doctor thought he would give anything for a peep, so he summoned up his courage and began to ascend the rigging, slowly, and with about as much grace in his actions as a mud turtle would exhibit under the like circumstances.Allan roared, “Good doctor! good! Bravo, old man! Heave round like a brick! Don’t look down.”Rory was in a fit of merriment, and trying to stifle himself with his handkerchief. Suddenly down dropped that handkerchief; and this was just the signal four active lads were waiting for. Up they sprang like monkeys behind the surgeon, who had hardly reached the lubber-hole. Alas! the good medico didn’t reach it that day, for before you could have said “cutlass” he was seized, hand and foot, and lashed to the rigging, Saint Andrew’s-cross fashion.The surgeon of theArrandoonwas spread-eagled, and Rory, the wicked boy! had his revenge.“My conscience!” cried Sandy; “what next, I wonder?”“It’s a vera judeecious arrangement,” sung Rory from the top.But the men were not hard on the worthy doctor, and the promise of several ounces of nigger-head procured him his freedom, and he soon regained the deck, a sadder and a wiser man.They were quickly among the ice—not bergs, mind you, only a stream of bits and pieces, of every shape and form, some like sheep and some like swans, and some like great white oxen. Here was a piece like a milking-pail; here was a lump like a hay-cock; yonder a gondola; yonder a boat; and yonder a couch on which the Naiades might recline and float, or Ino slumber.It was Rory who made the last remark.“And by this and by that!” he exclaimed, “there is a Naiad on it now! or it’s Ino herself, by all that’s amusing!”“Away, second whaler!”—this from McBain. “Get your rifle, boy Rory, and jump on board and fetch that seal!”Down rattled the boat from the davits, Rory in the bows; the next moment she was off, and tearing through the glazed water as fast as sturdy arms could row. The seal took one look up to see what was coming. Rory’s rifle rang out sharp and clear in the frosty air, and the poor seal never lifted head again.The ship was by this time a goodly mile ahead, but there she stopped; then she went ahead again, rounded, and came back full speed to meet the boat, for they on board could see a danger that Rory couldn’t—couldn’t, did I say? Ah! but he soon did, and, with the roar of a maelstrom, down they came upon him—an enormous school of whales!The men lay on their oars thunderstruck. The sea around them seemed alive with the mighty monsters. How they plunged and ploughed and snorted and blew! The sea became roughened, as if a fierce wind was blowing over it; pieces of ice as large as boats were caught on the backs or tails of these brutes and pitched aside as one might a football.It occurred to Rory to fire at some of them.“Stay, stay!” roared the coxswain; “if you love your life, sir, and care for ours, fire not.Youmay never have seen a whale angry—I have. Fire not, I beseech you!”It was a strange danger to have encountered, and Rory and his boat-mates were not sorry when it passed, and they once more stood in safety on the deck of theArrandoon.But Rory soon regained his equanimity.“Five hundred whales!” he cried; “and they were all mine, Ralph, ’cause I found them! Sure, they were worth a million of money?”“So you’ve been a millionaire, Rory?” said McBain. “Yes, worse luck!” said Rory, in a voice of comic sadness, “a millionaire for a minute!”

Ere the day had worn to a close, before the sun went down in a golden haze, leaving one long line of crimson cloud, as earnest of a bright to-morrow, theArrandoon, steaming twelve knots to the hour, was once more far away at sea, and the rugged mountains of Iceland could hardly be descried. As night fell a breeze sprang up, and as there was little doubt it would freshen ere long—for it blew from the east-south-east, and the glass had slightly gone down, with the mercury still concave at top—Captain McBain gave orders for the fires to be banked, and as much canvas spread as she could comfortably carry.

“Just make her snug, you know, Mr Stevenson,” said McBain, “for the night will be dark, and we may have more wind before the middle watch.”

“And troth,” said Rory to his companions, “if the ship is to be made snug, I don’t see why we shouldn’t make ourselves snug for the night too.”

Ralph was gazing down through the skylight at the brilliantly-lighted saloon, where Peter, with the aid of the assistant-steward and Freezing Powders, was busy laying the cloth for dinner.

“I’ve just come from forward,” replied Ralph, in raptures, “where I’ve been sniffing the roast beef and the boiled potatoes; and now just look below, Rory,—look how Peter’s face beams with intelligent delight; see how radiant Freezing Powders is; behold how merrily the flames dance on that fire of fires in the stove, and how the coloured crystal shimmers, and the bright silver shines on that cloth of spotless snow! Yes, Rory, you’re right, boy—let us make ourselves snug for the night. So down we go, and dress our smartest—for, mind, boys, there is going to be company to-night.”

Yes, there was going to be company; five were all that as a rule sat down to table in the grand saloon, but to-night the covers were laid for five more, namely Stevenson, Seth, old Magnus, and Ap, and last, though not least, De Vere, the French aeronaut.

The cook of theArrandoonhad been chosen specially by Ralph himself. Need I say, then, that he was an artist? and to-night he had done his best to outshine himself, and, I think, succeeded. I think, too, that when Peter went forward, some time after the great joints had been put on the table, and told him that everything was going on “as merrily as marriage bells,” and that the gentlemen were loud in their praises of Ralph’s cook, that that cook was about the happiest man in the ship. Peter had not exaggerated a bit either, for everything did go off well at this little dinner-party. It would have done your heart good to have seen the beaming countenances of little Ap, old man Magnus, and honest trapper Seth; and to have noticed how often they passed their plates for another help would have made you open your eyes with wonder—that is, if you never had been to Greenland; but had you made the voyage North Polewards even once, you would have known that of all countries in the world that is just the place to give man or boy a healthy appetite.

When the cloth was removed and dessert placed upon the table they seemed happier than ever, if that were possible, and smiles and jokes and jocund yarns ere the order of the evening. After every good story the cockatoo helped himself to an immense mouthful of hemp-seed, and cried,—

“Dea-ah me! Well, well, but go on,go on—next.”

And as to Freezing Powders, he was so amazed at many things he heard, that more than a dozen times in one hour he had to refresh himself by standing on his head in a corner of the saloon.

“Well, well, well!” said McBain, taking the advantage of a mere momentary lull in this feast of reason and flow of soul, “and what a strange mixture of nationalities we are, to be sure! Here is our bold, quiet Ralph, English to the spine—”

“And I,” said Rory, “I’m Oirish to the chine.”

“That you are,” assented McBain; “and Allan and myself here are Scotch; and if you look farther along the table there is Wales represented in the form of cool, calculating, mathematical Ap; Shetland in the shape of our brave gunner Magnus; France in the form of friend De Vere; and the mightiest republic in the world in Seth’s six feet and odd inches; to say nothing of Africa standing on its head beside Polly’s cage. Freezing Powders, you young rascal, drop on to your other end; don’t you see you’re making Polly believe the world is upside down? look at her hanging by the feet with her head down!”

“Dat cockatoo not a fool, sah,” said Freezing Powders; “he know putty well what he am about, sah!”

“D’ye know,” said Ralph, looking smilingly towards Seth, “it is quite like old times to see Seth once more in the midst of us?”

“And oh!” said Seth, rubbing his hands, while a modest smile stole over his wiry face, “mebbe this old trapper ain’t a bit pleased to meet ye all again. Gentlemen, Seth and civilisation hain’t been ’cquaintances very long; skins seem to suit this child better’n the fine toggery ye’ve rigged him out in. But ye’ve made him feel a deal younger, and he guesses and calculates he may die ’pectable yet.”

I fear it was pretty far into the middle watch ere our friends parted and betook themselves to their berths. Two bells had gone—“the wee short hoor ayont the twal”—when McBain rose from the table, this being a signal for general good-nights.

“I’m going part of the way home with you, old man,” he said to Magnus, and with his arm placed kindly over his shoulder he left the saloon with the brave wee Shetlander. “Two turns on the deck, Magnus,” he continued, “and then you can turn in. And so, you say, in all your experience—and it has been very vast, hasn’t it, my friend?”

“That it has, sir,” replied Magnus. “I may say I was born in these seas, for the first thing I remember—when our ship went down under us in the pack north of Jan Mayen—is my father, bless him! putting me in a carpetbag for safety, to carry me on to the ice with him. Yes, sir, yes.”

“And in all your experience,” McBain went on, “you don’t remember a season likely to have been more favourable for our expedition to the North Pole than the present?”

“I don’t, sir—I don’t,” said little Magnus, “Look, see, sir, the frost has been extreme all over the north. In the Arctic regions the ice has been all of a heap like. It isn’t yet loosened. We haven’t met a berg yet. Funny, ain’t it, sir?—queer, isn’t it, cap’n?”

“It is strange,” said McBain; “and from this what do you anticipate?”

“Anticipate isn’t the word, cap’n,” cried Magnus, fixing McBain by the right arm, stopping his way, and emphasising his words with wildfire glints from his warlock eyes. “Anticipate?—bah! cap’n—bah! I’m old enough to be your grandfather. Ask me rather what Iaugur? And I answer this, I augur a glorious summer. Ice loosened before May-Day. Fierce heat south of England, and consequently rarefaction of the atmosphere, and rushing winds from the far north to fill up the heated vacuum—rushing winds to trundle the icebergs south before them—rushing winds to split the packs, and rend the floes, and open up a passage for this brave ship to the far-off Isle of Alba.”

“Bless you, Magnus! Give us your hand, my old sea-dad. You always gave me comfort, even when I was a boy in the wilds of Spitzbergen. You taught me to splice, and reef, and steer. Bless you, Magnus! I couldn’t have sailed without you.”

“But stay, my son, stay,” continued this weird little man, holding up a warning finger; “those rushing winds—”

“Yes, Magnus?”

“They will bring danger on their wings.”

“I’ll welcome it, Magnus,” laughed McBain.

“Those rushing winds will tear down on us, hurricane-high, tempest-strong. The great bergs, impelled by force of wind and might of wave, will dash each other to atoms.”

“All the better for us, Daddy Magnus,” said the captain.

“Were your voice as loud as cannon’s roar you will be as one dumb amid the turmoil.”

“Then I’ll steer by signs,” said McBain.

“Should our ship escape destruction, we will be enveloped by fogs, encircled by a darkness that will be felt.”

“Then we’ll heave-to and wait till they evaporate. But there, my good Magnus, you see I’m not afraid of anything. I’d be unworthy of such a sea-dad as you if I were; so no more tragic airs, please. Thou mindest me, old Magnus, of the scene between Lochiel and the Wizard.

“‘Lochiel, Lochiel, beware of the dayWhen the Lowlands shall meet you in battle array,’

“‘Lochiel, Lochiel, beware of the dayWhen the Lowlands shall meet you in battle array,’

“says the Wizard, and so on and so forth.

“‘False wizard, avaunt!’ replies Lochiel, and all the rest of it, you know. But, beloved Magnus, I don’tsay‘avaunt!’ to you. But just see how the cold spray is dashing inboard. So, not to put too poetic a point on it, I simply say, ‘Go down below, old man, and don’t get wet, else your joints will ache in the morning with the rheumatiz.’”

The morning broke beautifully fine and clear, the reefs were shaken out of the topsails, topgallant-sails and royals were set, and, indeed, all the square cloth she could carry, and away went theArrandoonbefore the wind, as happy, to all appearance, as the malleys and gulls that seemed to play at hide-and-seek with her, behind the comb-crested seas of olive-green.

Ralph and Allan, arm-in-arm, were marching rapidly up and down one side of the quarter-deck, Rory and McFlail on the other, and ever and anon a merry laugh from some one of them rang out bright and joyously on the fresh frosty air.

Towards noon stunsails were set, and theArrandoonlooked more like a sea-bird than ever; she even seemed to sing to herself—so thought Rory and so thought the doctor—as she went nodding and curtseying along over the waves, with now a bend to starboard, and now a lean to port; now lowering her bows till the seas ahead looked mountains high, and anon giving a dip waterwards till her waist was wet with the seething spray, and her lower stunsail-booms seemed to tickle the very breast of old mother ocean.

The wind was increasing, and there were times when our boys had to pause in their walk and grapple the mizzen rigging, laughing at each other as they did so.

“Wo ho, my beauty?” said McBain. “Mr Mitchell, I daresay we must take in sail.”

“I’m afraid so, sir,” replies Mitchell; “but—” and here he eyes the bellowing canvas—“it do seem a pity, sir, don’t it?”

But here “my beauty” gives a vicious plunge forwards, elevating herself aft like a kicking mare, and shipping tons of water over her bows.

“I don’t want to be wicked,” the ship seems to say, “and I don’t want to lose a spar, though Icouldkick one off as easy as a daddy-longlegs gets rid of a limb; but if you don’t ease me a bit I’ll—”

A bigger and more decided plunge into the sea, followed by a rising of her jibboom zenithwards, and the water comes roaring aft in one great bore, which seeks exit by the quarter-deck scupper-holes, and goes tumbling down the companion ladder, to the indignation of Peter and the disgust of Freezing Powders, who is standing on his head in an attitude of contemplation, and ships a green sea down his nostrils. Our heroes leap in time on to the top of the skylight, and there sit grinning delightedly as the waters go roaring past them, and floating thereon evidence enough that the men had been preparing dinner when Neptune boarded them, for yonder float potatoes and turnips and cabbages, to say nothing of a leg of Highland mutton and a six-pound piece of bacon.

“Hands, shorten sail!”

But next day—so changeable is a sailor’s life—the wind had all got bottled up again or gone back to its cave; the sea was smooth as glass, and steam was up, but the sky was still clear, and the sun undimmed by the slightest haze.

Just before lunch came the first signs that ice was not far ahead. TheArrandoonencountered a great “stream,” as it is called, of deep, snowy slush—I do not know what else to call it. It stretched away eastwards to westwards, as far as the eye from the crow’s-nest could reach, and it was probably nine or ten miles wide. It lessened the good ship’s way considerably, you may be sure. Her bows clove through it with a brushing sound; her screw revolved in it with a noise like dead leaves stirred by autumn winds.

“Losh!” cried Sandy, the surgeon, looking curiously overboard, “what’s this noo? Wonders will never cease!”

“Och, sure!” replied Rory, mischievously, “you know well enough what it is; it’s only speaking for speaking’s sake you are.”

“The ne’er a bone o’ ma knows, I do assure ye,” said Sandy.

“Well, doctor dear,” said Rory, “it is simply the belt, or zone, that geographers call the ‘Arctic circle.’”

But Sandy looked at him with a pitying smile. “Man—Rory?” he said, “I’m no’ so sea-green as you tak me to be. I’ve a right good mind to pu’ your lugs. Young men, sir, dinna enter Aberdeen University stirks and come out cuddies?”

“Mon!” cried Rory, imitating Sandy’s brogue, “if ye want to pu’ my lugs you’ll hae to catch me first;” and off he went round the deck, with the doctor after him. But Ralph caught him, if Sandy couldn’t, and handed him over to justice.

“Now,” cried the surgeon, catching him by the ear, “whistle, and I’ll let you free.”

It is no easy matter to whistle when you want to laugh, but when Rory at long last did manage to emit a labial note that passed muster as a whistle, the doctor was as good as his word, and Rory was free.

Luncheon was barely finished, when down from the crow’s-nest rang the welcome hail, “Ice ahead!”

Our heroes rushed on deck, McBain was there before them, and when they stepped on to the “lid” of the ship, as Sandy once called the deck, they found the captain half-way up to the nest.

There wasn’t a bit of ice to be seen from the deck.

“Hurrah for the foretop?” cried Rory, laying hold of a stay. “Who’s coming?”

“I will!” cried Allan.

“I’m going below to finish lunch,” said Ralph.

“I’ll be safer on deck, I think,” said the canny doctor.

But when Rory on the foretop struck an attitude of wonderment, and pointing away ahead, exclaimed, in rapture, “Oh, boys, what a scene is here!” the doctor thought he would give anything for a peep, so he summoned up his courage and began to ascend the rigging, slowly, and with about as much grace in his actions as a mud turtle would exhibit under the like circumstances.

Allan roared, “Good doctor! good! Bravo, old man! Heave round like a brick! Don’t look down.”

Rory was in a fit of merriment, and trying to stifle himself with his handkerchief. Suddenly down dropped that handkerchief; and this was just the signal four active lads were waiting for. Up they sprang like monkeys behind the surgeon, who had hardly reached the lubber-hole. Alas! the good medico didn’t reach it that day, for before you could have said “cutlass” he was seized, hand and foot, and lashed to the rigging, Saint Andrew’s-cross fashion.

The surgeon of theArrandoonwas spread-eagled, and Rory, the wicked boy! had his revenge.

“My conscience!” cried Sandy; “what next, I wonder?”

“It’s a vera judeecious arrangement,” sung Rory from the top.

But the men were not hard on the worthy doctor, and the promise of several ounces of nigger-head procured him his freedom, and he soon regained the deck, a sadder and a wiser man.

They were quickly among the ice—not bergs, mind you, only a stream of bits and pieces, of every shape and form, some like sheep and some like swans, and some like great white oxen. Here was a piece like a milking-pail; here was a lump like a hay-cock; yonder a gondola; yonder a boat; and yonder a couch on which the Naiades might recline and float, or Ino slumber.

It was Rory who made the last remark.

“And by this and by that!” he exclaimed, “there is a Naiad on it now! or it’s Ino herself, by all that’s amusing!”

“Away, second whaler!”—this from McBain. “Get your rifle, boy Rory, and jump on board and fetch that seal!”

Down rattled the boat from the davits, Rory in the bows; the next moment she was off, and tearing through the glazed water as fast as sturdy arms could row. The seal took one look up to see what was coming. Rory’s rifle rang out sharp and clear in the frosty air, and the poor seal never lifted head again.

The ship was by this time a goodly mile ahead, but there she stopped; then she went ahead again, rounded, and came back full speed to meet the boat, for they on board could see a danger that Rory couldn’t—couldn’t, did I say? Ah! but he soon did, and, with the roar of a maelstrom, down they came upon him—an enormous school of whales!

The men lay on their oars thunderstruck. The sea around them seemed alive with the mighty monsters. How they plunged and ploughed and snorted and blew! The sea became roughened, as if a fierce wind was blowing over it; pieces of ice as large as boats were caught on the backs or tails of these brutes and pitched aside as one might a football.

It occurred to Rory to fire at some of them.

“Stay, stay!” roared the coxswain; “if you love your life, sir, and care for ours, fire not.Youmay never have seen a whale angry—I have. Fire not, I beseech you!”

It was a strange danger to have encountered, and Rory and his boat-mates were not sorry when it passed, and they once more stood in safety on the deck of theArrandoon.

But Rory soon regained his equanimity.

“Five hundred whales!” he cried; “and they were all mine, Ralph, ’cause I found them! Sure, they were worth a million of money?”

“So you’ve been a millionaire, Rory?” said McBain. “Yes, worse luck!” said Rory, in a voice of comic sadness, “a millionaire for a minute!”

Chapter Twelve.The Isle of Jan Mayen—Retrospection—The Sea of Ice—The Deserted Village—Carried off by a Bear—Dancing for Dear Life.What a tiny speck it looks in the map, that island of Jan Mayen, all by itself, right in the centre of the great Arctic Ocean. Of volcanic origin it undoubtedly is—every mountain, rock, and hill in it—and there is ample evidence that from yonder gigantic cone, that rises, like a mighty sugar-loaf or the Tower of Babel itself, to a height of 6,000 feet sheer into the blue and cloudless sky, at one time smoke and flames must oftentimes have burst, and showers of stones and ashes, and streams of molten lava.I have gazed on it by night, and my imagination has carried me back, and back, and back, through the long-distant past, and I have tried to fancy the sublimity of the scene during an eruption.The time is early spring. The long, dark winter has passed away; the cold-looking, rayless sun rises now, but skirts hurriedly across a small disc of southern sky, then speedily sinks to rest again, as though he shuddered to gaze upon scenery so bleak and desolate. The island of Jan Mayen, with its ridgy hills and its one mighty mountain, is clad in dazzling robes of virgin snow. Its rocky and precipitous shores rise not up, as yet, from the dark waters that in summer time wash round them, but from the sea of ice itself. As far as eye can reach, or north or south, or east or west, stretches this immeasurable ocean of ice. All flat and all snow-clad is it, like the wildest and loneliest of Highland moorlands in winter, and its very flatness gives it an air of greater lonesomeness, which the solitary hummocks here and there but tend to heighten. And through the short and dreary day one solitary cloud has rested like a pall on the summit of the mountain. But it is midnight now: in the deep blue of the sky big, bright stars are shining, that look like moons of molten silver, and seem far nearer than they do in southern climes. In the north the radiant bow of the Aurora is spread out, its transverse beams glancing and glistering, spears of light, that dance and glide and shimmer, changing their colours every moment from green to blue or red, from pale-yellow to the brightest of crimson.And the silence that reigns over all this field of ice is one that travellers have often experienced, often been impressed and awed by, but never yet found words to describe.Silence did I say? Yes! but listen! Subterranean thunders suddenly break it—thunders coming evidently from the bosom of the great mountain yonder, thunders that shake and crack and rend the very ice on which you stand, causing the bergs to grind and shriek like monsters in agony. The great cloud pall has risen higher and spread itself out, and now hangs horizontally over half the island, black and threatening, its blackness lit up ever and anon with flashes of lightning, sheet and forked, while, peal after peal, the thunder now rolls almost without intermission.And onward and onward rolls the cloud athwart the sky, blotting out the starlight—blotting out the beautiful Aurora—till the sea of ice for leagues around is canopied in darkness. But behold, over the mountain-top the cloud gets lighter in colour, for immense volumes of steam, solid sheets of water, and pieces of ice tons in weight, are being belched forth, or hurtled into the air with a continued noise that drowns the awful rhythm of the thunder itself. Then flames follow, shooting up into the sky many hundreds of feet, lighting up the scene with a lurid glare, while down the snow-clad sides of the great cone streams of fiery lava rush in fury, crimson, blue, or green. And gigantic rocks are precipitated into the air—rocks so large that, as they fall upon the ice miles distant from the burning crater, they smash the heaviest floes, and sink through into the sea. Great stones, too, are incessantly emitted, like balls of fire, that burst in the air, and keep up a sound like that of the loudest artillery.The sun will rise in due course, but his beams cannot penetrate the veil of saturnine darkness that envelops the sea of ice. And the fire will rage, the thunders will roll, and showers of stones and ashes fall for days, ay, mayhap for weeks or months, ere the mighty convulsion ceases, and silence once more reigns in and around this island of Jan Mayen.Towards this lonely isle of the ocean theArrandoonhad been beating and pushing her way for days; and she now lay, with clewed sails and banked fires, among the flat but heavy bergs not five miles from it. There was no water in sight, for the iceless ocean had been left far, far astern, and the ship was now to all intents and purposes beset. Yet the ice was loose; it was not welded together by the fingers of King Frost, and if it remained so, the difficulty of getting out into the clear water again would be by no means insurmountable.Our heroes, the doctor included, were all on deck, dressed to kill, in caps of fur with ear lapels, coats of frieze with pockets innumerable, with boots that reached over the knees, and each was armed with a rifle and seal-club, with revolver in belt and short sheath-knife dangling from the left side.“And so,” said the doctor, “this is the mighty sea of ice that I’ve heard so much about! Man! boys! I’m no so vera muckle struck with it. It is not unlike my father’s peat moss in the dreary depths of winter. Where are the lofty pinnacled bergs I expected to see, the rocks and towers of ice, the green glistening gables, and the tall spires, like a hundred cathedrals dang into one?”“Ah!” said McBain, laughing, “just bide a wee, doctor lad, till we go farther north, and if you don’t see ice that will outdo your every dream of romance, I’m neither Scot nor sailor.“But what is this?” continued the captain. “Who in the name of all that is marvellous have we here?”“I ’spects I’se Freezin’ Powders, sah,” was the reply of the little negro boy. “Leastways I hopes I is.” Here the urchin touched his cap. “Freezin’ Powders, at your service, sah—your under-steward and butler, sah?”“Well, my under-steward and butler,” said McBain; “but whoever could have expected to see you rigged out in this fashion—pilot suit, fur cap, boots, and all complete? Why, who dressed you, my little Freezin’ Powders?”“De minor ole gem’lam,” replied the boy; “but don’t dey fit, sah? Don’t dey become dis chile? Look heah, sah!” and Freezing Powders went strutting up and down the quarter-deck, as proud as a pouter pigeon; and finished off by presenting arms with his seal-club in front of his good-natured captain.“Well,” said McBain, much amused, “you are a comical customer. By ‘the minor ole gem’lam’ I suppose you mean honest Magnus? But your English is peculiar, youngster.”“My English is puffuk, sah!” replied the boy; “but lo! sah! suppose I not have dis suit of close, I freeze, sah! I no longer be Freezin’ Powders, ’cause I freeze all up into one lump, sah! Now, sah, I can go on shoh wid de oder officers.”“Ho! ho!” laughed McBain; “theotherofficers. It’s come to that, has it? But,” he added, turning to Allan and Rory, “you’ll look after the lad, won’t you?”“That will we,” said both in a breath.Here are the names of those who went on shore in Jan Mayen on this memorable day—Allan, Ralph, Rory, Seth, and the doctor, with three club-armed retainers, and lastly, Freezing Powders himself.They were a merry band. You could have heard them laughing and talking when they were miles away from the ship. They had to leap from one piece of ice to another; but as the bergs were from forty to fifty feet square—thus affording them a good run for their leaps—and as the pieces were pretty closely packed, jumping was no great hardship. When now and then they came to a bit of water that required a tolerable spring to get over, tall Ralph vaulted first, then brawny-chested Allan pitched Freezing Powders after him, whom Ralph caught as easily as if he had been a cricket-ball.They landed on the island in a kind of bay, where the land sloped down to the snow-clad beach. Not far from the sea they were much surprised to find the ruins of huts that had been. No smoke issued therefrom now, but there was ample proof that roaring fires had once burned in each hut. They were partly underground, and though built of wood and sealskins they were thatched and fortified with snow. The largest cot of all was in the centre, and entering this they found a key to the seeming mystery, for here were evidences of civilisation. Pots and pans stood on the empty hearth; a chair or two, a truckle bed, a deal table and a book-cupboard, formed the furniture, and to cap all a written document was found, which informed them that this village had been the encampment for the summer months of a party of American walrus-hunters, the captain of which had aided science by making innumerable observations of a meteorological and scientific nature.“I reckon,” said Seth, “there ain’t many parts o’ the world where my enterprising countrymen hain’t shown their noses.”“All honour to them for that same,” said Rory; “and troth, there isn’t a mightier nation on the face of the earth bar the kingdom of Ireland.”“Now, look here,” said Allan, “this wee chap, Freezing Powders, will be far too tired if he goes with us; and here, by good luck, is a frozen ham in this enterprising Yankee’s cupboard. I move we light a fire, hang it over it, and leave the little black butler as cook till we come back.”“Bravo!” said Ralph. “Allan, you’re a brick. You won’t be afraid, will you, Freezing Powders?”“I stop and do de cookin’, plenty quick,” answered the boy, briskly. “Freezin’ Powders never was afraid of nuffin in his life.”So the fire was lighted—there was fuel enough in the hut to keep it going for a month; then, leaving the boy to watch the ham, away went our explorers, upwards and onwards, through the ruggedest glens imaginable; winding round rocks and hills of ice and snow, they soon lost sight of the primitive village, the distant ship, and the sea of ice itself. They wandered on and on for miles, pausing often to allow Rory to make a sketch of some more than usually wild and fantastic group of ice-clad rocks or charming bit of scenery; but wherever they went, or whichever way they turned, there loomed the great mountain cone of Jan Mayen above them.The scene was everywhere silent and desolate in the extreme, for not a breath of wind was blowing, not a cloud was in the sky, and no sign of life was there to greet them, not even a solitary gull or snowbird.It wanted two good hours to sunset when they once more returned to the deserted village, eager to test the flavour of the Yankee’s ham, for walking on the snow had given them the appetite of healthy hunters.Their astonishment as well as horror may be imagined when, on entering the hut, they found a scene of utter confusion. The fire still burned, it is true, and yonder hung the ham; but the table and chairs were overturned, and the contents of even the rude bookcase scattered about the floor.And Freezing Powders was gone!He had been carried off by a bear. Of this there was plenty of testimony, if only in the huge footprints of the monster, which he had left in the snow. Not very distinct were they, however, for the surface of the snow was crisp and hard. But Seth was equal to the occasion, and at once—walking in a bee line, the trapper leading—they set out to track the bear, if possible, to his lair. The footprints led them southwards and west, through a region far more wild than that which they had already traversed.For a whole hour they walked in silence, until they found themselves at the top of a ravine, the rocks of which joined to form a sort of triangle. Half-roofed over was this triangle with a balcony of frozen snow, from which descended immense icicles, on which the roof leant, forming a kind of verandah.Seth paused, and pointed upwards. “The b’ar is yonder!” he whispered. “Stay here; the old trapper’s feet are moccasined, he won’t be heard. Gentlemen, Seth means to have that b’ar, or he won’t come back alive!”So leaving his companions, onwards, all alone, steals Seth. A bear itself could not have crept more silently, more cautiously along than the trapper does.Those left behind waited in a fever of almost breathless suspense. The doctor stretched out his arm and took gentle hold of Rory’s wrist. His pulse was over a hundred; so was the doctor’s own, and he could easily hear his heart beat.How slowly old Seth seems to move. He is on hands and knees now, and many a listening pause he makes. Now he has reached the edge of the icy verandah, and peers carefully over. The bear is there, undoubtedly, for, see, he gives one anxious glance at his rifle—it is a double-barrelled bone-crusher.Crang-r-r-r! goes the rifle, and every rock in the island seems to re-echo the sound. The reverberation has not ceased, however, when there mingles with it a roar—a blood-curdling roar—that seems to shake the very ground. “Wah-o-ah! waugh! waugh! wah-o?” and a great pale-yellow bear springs from the cave, then falls, quivering and bleeding, on his side in the snow.Our heroes rush up now.“Any more of them?” cries Rory.“Wall, I guess not,” said the old trapper. “Yonder lies the master; I’ve given him a sickener; and the missus ain’t at home. But there is suthin’ black in thar, though!”“Why,” cried Allan, “I declare it is Freezing Powders himself!” and out into the bright light stalked the poor nigger boy, staring wildly round about, and seemingly in a dream.“Ah, gem’lams!” he said, slowly, “so you have come at last! What a drefful,dreffulfright dis poor chile have got! ’Spect I’ll nebber get ober it; nebber no more!”“Come along,” said Ralph. “Get on top of my shoulder. That’s the style! You can tell us all about it when we reach the village.”“Now,” cried Allan, “look alive, lads, and whip old Bruin out of his skin, and bring along his jacket and paws!”When they did get back to the hut, and poor Freezing Powders had warmed himself and discussed a huge slice of broiled ham and a captain’s biscuit, the boy got quite cheery again, and proceeded to relate his terrible adventure.“You see, gem’lams,” he said, “soon as ebber you leave me I begin for to watch de ham, and turn he round and round plenty much, and make de fire blaze like bobbery. Mebbe one whole hour pass away. De flames dey crack, and de ham he frizzle. Den all to once I hear somebody snuff-snuffing like, and I look round plenty quick, and dere was—oh! dat great big awful bear—bigger dan a gator (alligator). Didn’t I scream and run jus’! And de bear he knock down de chairs and de tables, and den he catchee me in his mouf, all de same I one small mouse and he one big cat. You see, gem’lam, he smell de ham. ‘Dat bery nice,’ he tink, ‘but de nigga boy better.’ So he take dis chile. He nebber have take one nigga boy before dis, praps. Den he run off wid me ober de mountains. He no put one tooth in me all de time. When he come to de cave he put me down and snuff me. Den he say to himself, ‘I want some fun; I make play wid dis nigga boy befoh I gobbles ’im up.’ So he make me run wid his big foot, and when I run away den he catchee me again, and he keep me run away plenty time, till I so tired I ready to drop. (Greenland bears have been known to play this cat-and-mouse game with seals before devouring them.) All de same, I not want to be gobble up too soon, gem’lams, so I make all de fun I can. I stand on my head, and I run on my four feet. I jump and I kick, and I dance, and I sing to de tune ob—“‘Plenty quick, nigga boy,Plenty fast you run,De bear will nebber gobble you upSo long’s you make de fun.’“Den de big, ugly yellow bear he berry much tickled, and he tink to hisself, ‘Well,’ he tink, ‘’pon my word and honah! I nebber see nuffin like dis before—not in all my born days! I not eat dis nigga boy up till my mudder come home.’ And all de time I make dance and sing—“‘Quicker, quicker, nigga boy,Faster, faster go,Amoosin’ ob de ole bear,Among de Ahtic snow.“‘Jing-a-ring, a-ring-a-ring,Sich somersaults I frow,In all his life dis nigger chileNe’er danced like dis befoh.’“But now, gem’lams, I notice dat de bear he begin to make winkee-winkee wid both his two eyes. Den I dance all de same, but I begin to sing more slow and plaintive, gem’lams—“‘Oh! I’m dreaming ’bout my mudder dearDat I leave on Afric’s shoh,And de little hut among de woodsDat I ne’er shall see no moh.“‘Sierra-lee-le-ohney,Sierra-lee-leon,Ah! who will feed de cockatooWhen I is dead and gone?’“Dat song fix de yellow bear, gem’lams. He no winkee no more now; he sleep sound and fast, wid his big head on his big paws. Den I sing one oder verse, and I sleep, too, and I not hear nuffin more until de rifles make de bobbery and de yellow bear begin to cough.”“Bravo!” cried Ralph, when Freezing Powders had finished his story. “Now, Allan, lad, cut us all another slice of that glorious ham, and let us be moving.”“Yes,” said Allan. “Here goes, then, for night is falling already, and the captain will be longing to hear of our adventures.”

What a tiny speck it looks in the map, that island of Jan Mayen, all by itself, right in the centre of the great Arctic Ocean. Of volcanic origin it undoubtedly is—every mountain, rock, and hill in it—and there is ample evidence that from yonder gigantic cone, that rises, like a mighty sugar-loaf or the Tower of Babel itself, to a height of 6,000 feet sheer into the blue and cloudless sky, at one time smoke and flames must oftentimes have burst, and showers of stones and ashes, and streams of molten lava.

I have gazed on it by night, and my imagination has carried me back, and back, and back, through the long-distant past, and I have tried to fancy the sublimity of the scene during an eruption.

The time is early spring. The long, dark winter has passed away; the cold-looking, rayless sun rises now, but skirts hurriedly across a small disc of southern sky, then speedily sinks to rest again, as though he shuddered to gaze upon scenery so bleak and desolate. The island of Jan Mayen, with its ridgy hills and its one mighty mountain, is clad in dazzling robes of virgin snow. Its rocky and precipitous shores rise not up, as yet, from the dark waters that in summer time wash round them, but from the sea of ice itself. As far as eye can reach, or north or south, or east or west, stretches this immeasurable ocean of ice. All flat and all snow-clad is it, like the wildest and loneliest of Highland moorlands in winter, and its very flatness gives it an air of greater lonesomeness, which the solitary hummocks here and there but tend to heighten. And through the short and dreary day one solitary cloud has rested like a pall on the summit of the mountain. But it is midnight now: in the deep blue of the sky big, bright stars are shining, that look like moons of molten silver, and seem far nearer than they do in southern climes. In the north the radiant bow of the Aurora is spread out, its transverse beams glancing and glistering, spears of light, that dance and glide and shimmer, changing their colours every moment from green to blue or red, from pale-yellow to the brightest of crimson.

And the silence that reigns over all this field of ice is one that travellers have often experienced, often been impressed and awed by, but never yet found words to describe.

Silence did I say? Yes! but listen! Subterranean thunders suddenly break it—thunders coming evidently from the bosom of the great mountain yonder, thunders that shake and crack and rend the very ice on which you stand, causing the bergs to grind and shriek like monsters in agony. The great cloud pall has risen higher and spread itself out, and now hangs horizontally over half the island, black and threatening, its blackness lit up ever and anon with flashes of lightning, sheet and forked, while, peal after peal, the thunder now rolls almost without intermission.

And onward and onward rolls the cloud athwart the sky, blotting out the starlight—blotting out the beautiful Aurora—till the sea of ice for leagues around is canopied in darkness. But behold, over the mountain-top the cloud gets lighter in colour, for immense volumes of steam, solid sheets of water, and pieces of ice tons in weight, are being belched forth, or hurtled into the air with a continued noise that drowns the awful rhythm of the thunder itself. Then flames follow, shooting up into the sky many hundreds of feet, lighting up the scene with a lurid glare, while down the snow-clad sides of the great cone streams of fiery lava rush in fury, crimson, blue, or green. And gigantic rocks are precipitated into the air—rocks so large that, as they fall upon the ice miles distant from the burning crater, they smash the heaviest floes, and sink through into the sea. Great stones, too, are incessantly emitted, like balls of fire, that burst in the air, and keep up a sound like that of the loudest artillery.

The sun will rise in due course, but his beams cannot penetrate the veil of saturnine darkness that envelops the sea of ice. And the fire will rage, the thunders will roll, and showers of stones and ashes fall for days, ay, mayhap for weeks or months, ere the mighty convulsion ceases, and silence once more reigns in and around this island of Jan Mayen.

Towards this lonely isle of the ocean theArrandoonhad been beating and pushing her way for days; and she now lay, with clewed sails and banked fires, among the flat but heavy bergs not five miles from it. There was no water in sight, for the iceless ocean had been left far, far astern, and the ship was now to all intents and purposes beset. Yet the ice was loose; it was not welded together by the fingers of King Frost, and if it remained so, the difficulty of getting out into the clear water again would be by no means insurmountable.

Our heroes, the doctor included, were all on deck, dressed to kill, in caps of fur with ear lapels, coats of frieze with pockets innumerable, with boots that reached over the knees, and each was armed with a rifle and seal-club, with revolver in belt and short sheath-knife dangling from the left side.

“And so,” said the doctor, “this is the mighty sea of ice that I’ve heard so much about! Man! boys! I’m no so vera muckle struck with it. It is not unlike my father’s peat moss in the dreary depths of winter. Where are the lofty pinnacled bergs I expected to see, the rocks and towers of ice, the green glistening gables, and the tall spires, like a hundred cathedrals dang into one?”

“Ah!” said McBain, laughing, “just bide a wee, doctor lad, till we go farther north, and if you don’t see ice that will outdo your every dream of romance, I’m neither Scot nor sailor.

“But what is this?” continued the captain. “Who in the name of all that is marvellous have we here?”

“I ’spects I’se Freezin’ Powders, sah,” was the reply of the little negro boy. “Leastways I hopes I is.” Here the urchin touched his cap. “Freezin’ Powders, at your service, sah—your under-steward and butler, sah?”

“Well, my under-steward and butler,” said McBain; “but whoever could have expected to see you rigged out in this fashion—pilot suit, fur cap, boots, and all complete? Why, who dressed you, my little Freezin’ Powders?”

“De minor ole gem’lam,” replied the boy; “but don’t dey fit, sah? Don’t dey become dis chile? Look heah, sah!” and Freezing Powders went strutting up and down the quarter-deck, as proud as a pouter pigeon; and finished off by presenting arms with his seal-club in front of his good-natured captain.

“Well,” said McBain, much amused, “you are a comical customer. By ‘the minor ole gem’lam’ I suppose you mean honest Magnus? But your English is peculiar, youngster.”

“My English is puffuk, sah!” replied the boy; “but lo! sah! suppose I not have dis suit of close, I freeze, sah! I no longer be Freezin’ Powders, ’cause I freeze all up into one lump, sah! Now, sah, I can go on shoh wid de oder officers.”

“Ho! ho!” laughed McBain; “theotherofficers. It’s come to that, has it? But,” he added, turning to Allan and Rory, “you’ll look after the lad, won’t you?”

“That will we,” said both in a breath.

Here are the names of those who went on shore in Jan Mayen on this memorable day—Allan, Ralph, Rory, Seth, and the doctor, with three club-armed retainers, and lastly, Freezing Powders himself.

They were a merry band. You could have heard them laughing and talking when they were miles away from the ship. They had to leap from one piece of ice to another; but as the bergs were from forty to fifty feet square—thus affording them a good run for their leaps—and as the pieces were pretty closely packed, jumping was no great hardship. When now and then they came to a bit of water that required a tolerable spring to get over, tall Ralph vaulted first, then brawny-chested Allan pitched Freezing Powders after him, whom Ralph caught as easily as if he had been a cricket-ball.

They landed on the island in a kind of bay, where the land sloped down to the snow-clad beach. Not far from the sea they were much surprised to find the ruins of huts that had been. No smoke issued therefrom now, but there was ample proof that roaring fires had once burned in each hut. They were partly underground, and though built of wood and sealskins they were thatched and fortified with snow. The largest cot of all was in the centre, and entering this they found a key to the seeming mystery, for here were evidences of civilisation. Pots and pans stood on the empty hearth; a chair or two, a truckle bed, a deal table and a book-cupboard, formed the furniture, and to cap all a written document was found, which informed them that this village had been the encampment for the summer months of a party of American walrus-hunters, the captain of which had aided science by making innumerable observations of a meteorological and scientific nature.

“I reckon,” said Seth, “there ain’t many parts o’ the world where my enterprising countrymen hain’t shown their noses.”

“All honour to them for that same,” said Rory; “and troth, there isn’t a mightier nation on the face of the earth bar the kingdom of Ireland.”

“Now, look here,” said Allan, “this wee chap, Freezing Powders, will be far too tired if he goes with us; and here, by good luck, is a frozen ham in this enterprising Yankee’s cupboard. I move we light a fire, hang it over it, and leave the little black butler as cook till we come back.”

“Bravo!” said Ralph. “Allan, you’re a brick. You won’t be afraid, will you, Freezing Powders?”

“I stop and do de cookin’, plenty quick,” answered the boy, briskly. “Freezin’ Powders never was afraid of nuffin in his life.”

So the fire was lighted—there was fuel enough in the hut to keep it going for a month; then, leaving the boy to watch the ham, away went our explorers, upwards and onwards, through the ruggedest glens imaginable; winding round rocks and hills of ice and snow, they soon lost sight of the primitive village, the distant ship, and the sea of ice itself. They wandered on and on for miles, pausing often to allow Rory to make a sketch of some more than usually wild and fantastic group of ice-clad rocks or charming bit of scenery; but wherever they went, or whichever way they turned, there loomed the great mountain cone of Jan Mayen above them.

The scene was everywhere silent and desolate in the extreme, for not a breath of wind was blowing, not a cloud was in the sky, and no sign of life was there to greet them, not even a solitary gull or snowbird.

It wanted two good hours to sunset when they once more returned to the deserted village, eager to test the flavour of the Yankee’s ham, for walking on the snow had given them the appetite of healthy hunters.

Their astonishment as well as horror may be imagined when, on entering the hut, they found a scene of utter confusion. The fire still burned, it is true, and yonder hung the ham; but the table and chairs were overturned, and the contents of even the rude bookcase scattered about the floor.

And Freezing Powders was gone!

He had been carried off by a bear. Of this there was plenty of testimony, if only in the huge footprints of the monster, which he had left in the snow. Not very distinct were they, however, for the surface of the snow was crisp and hard. But Seth was equal to the occasion, and at once—walking in a bee line, the trapper leading—they set out to track the bear, if possible, to his lair. The footprints led them southwards and west, through a region far more wild than that which they had already traversed.

For a whole hour they walked in silence, until they found themselves at the top of a ravine, the rocks of which joined to form a sort of triangle. Half-roofed over was this triangle with a balcony of frozen snow, from which descended immense icicles, on which the roof leant, forming a kind of verandah.

Seth paused, and pointed upwards. “The b’ar is yonder!” he whispered. “Stay here; the old trapper’s feet are moccasined, he won’t be heard. Gentlemen, Seth means to have that b’ar, or he won’t come back alive!”

So leaving his companions, onwards, all alone, steals Seth. A bear itself could not have crept more silently, more cautiously along than the trapper does.

Those left behind waited in a fever of almost breathless suspense. The doctor stretched out his arm and took gentle hold of Rory’s wrist. His pulse was over a hundred; so was the doctor’s own, and he could easily hear his heart beat.

How slowly old Seth seems to move. He is on hands and knees now, and many a listening pause he makes. Now he has reached the edge of the icy verandah, and peers carefully over. The bear is there, undoubtedly, for, see, he gives one anxious glance at his rifle—it is a double-barrelled bone-crusher.

Crang-r-r-r! goes the rifle, and every rock in the island seems to re-echo the sound. The reverberation has not ceased, however, when there mingles with it a roar—a blood-curdling roar—that seems to shake the very ground. “Wah-o-ah! waugh! waugh! wah-o?” and a great pale-yellow bear springs from the cave, then falls, quivering and bleeding, on his side in the snow.

Our heroes rush up now.

“Any more of them?” cries Rory.

“Wall, I guess not,” said the old trapper. “Yonder lies the master; I’ve given him a sickener; and the missus ain’t at home. But there is suthin’ black in thar, though!”

“Why,” cried Allan, “I declare it is Freezing Powders himself!” and out into the bright light stalked the poor nigger boy, staring wildly round about, and seemingly in a dream.

“Ah, gem’lams!” he said, slowly, “so you have come at last! What a drefful,dreffulfright dis poor chile have got! ’Spect I’ll nebber get ober it; nebber no more!”

“Come along,” said Ralph. “Get on top of my shoulder. That’s the style! You can tell us all about it when we reach the village.”

“Now,” cried Allan, “look alive, lads, and whip old Bruin out of his skin, and bring along his jacket and paws!”

When they did get back to the hut, and poor Freezing Powders had warmed himself and discussed a huge slice of broiled ham and a captain’s biscuit, the boy got quite cheery again, and proceeded to relate his terrible adventure.

“You see, gem’lams,” he said, “soon as ebber you leave me I begin for to watch de ham, and turn he round and round plenty much, and make de fire blaze like bobbery. Mebbe one whole hour pass away. De flames dey crack, and de ham he frizzle. Den all to once I hear somebody snuff-snuffing like, and I look round plenty quick, and dere was—oh! dat great big awful bear—bigger dan a gator (alligator). Didn’t I scream and run jus’! And de bear he knock down de chairs and de tables, and den he catchee me in his mouf, all de same I one small mouse and he one big cat. You see, gem’lam, he smell de ham. ‘Dat bery nice,’ he tink, ‘but de nigga boy better.’ So he take dis chile. He nebber have take one nigga boy before dis, praps. Den he run off wid me ober de mountains. He no put one tooth in me all de time. When he come to de cave he put me down and snuff me. Den he say to himself, ‘I want some fun; I make play wid dis nigga boy befoh I gobbles ’im up.’ So he make me run wid his big foot, and when I run away den he catchee me again, and he keep me run away plenty time, till I so tired I ready to drop. (Greenland bears have been known to play this cat-and-mouse game with seals before devouring them.) All de same, I not want to be gobble up too soon, gem’lams, so I make all de fun I can. I stand on my head, and I run on my four feet. I jump and I kick, and I dance, and I sing to de tune ob—

“‘Plenty quick, nigga boy,Plenty fast you run,De bear will nebber gobble you upSo long’s you make de fun.’

“‘Plenty quick, nigga boy,Plenty fast you run,De bear will nebber gobble you upSo long’s you make de fun.’

“Den de big, ugly yellow bear he berry much tickled, and he tink to hisself, ‘Well,’ he tink, ‘’pon my word and honah! I nebber see nuffin like dis before—not in all my born days! I not eat dis nigga boy up till my mudder come home.’ And all de time I make dance and sing—

“‘Quicker, quicker, nigga boy,Faster, faster go,Amoosin’ ob de ole bear,Among de Ahtic snow.“‘Jing-a-ring, a-ring-a-ring,Sich somersaults I frow,In all his life dis nigger chileNe’er danced like dis befoh.’

“‘Quicker, quicker, nigga boy,Faster, faster go,Amoosin’ ob de ole bear,Among de Ahtic snow.“‘Jing-a-ring, a-ring-a-ring,Sich somersaults I frow,In all his life dis nigger chileNe’er danced like dis befoh.’

“But now, gem’lams, I notice dat de bear he begin to make winkee-winkee wid both his two eyes. Den I dance all de same, but I begin to sing more slow and plaintive, gem’lams—

“‘Oh! I’m dreaming ’bout my mudder dearDat I leave on Afric’s shoh,And de little hut among de woodsDat I ne’er shall see no moh.“‘Sierra-lee-le-ohney,Sierra-lee-leon,Ah! who will feed de cockatooWhen I is dead and gone?’

“‘Oh! I’m dreaming ’bout my mudder dearDat I leave on Afric’s shoh,And de little hut among de woodsDat I ne’er shall see no moh.“‘Sierra-lee-le-ohney,Sierra-lee-leon,Ah! who will feed de cockatooWhen I is dead and gone?’

“Dat song fix de yellow bear, gem’lams. He no winkee no more now; he sleep sound and fast, wid his big head on his big paws. Den I sing one oder verse, and I sleep, too, and I not hear nuffin more until de rifles make de bobbery and de yellow bear begin to cough.”

“Bravo!” cried Ralph, when Freezing Powders had finished his story. “Now, Allan, lad, cut us all another slice of that glorious ham, and let us be moving.”

“Yes,” said Allan. “Here goes, then, for night is falling already, and the captain will be longing to hear of our adventures.”

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