Chapter Thirteen.More about Freezing Powders—“Perseverando”—Dining in the Sky—The Descent of the Crater.A black man in a barrel of treacle is said by some to be emblematical of happiness. So situated, a black man without doubt enjoys a deal of bliss, but I question very much if it equals the joy poor Freezing Powders felt when he found himself once more safe on board theArrandoon, and cuddled down in a corner with his old cockatoo. (It may be as well to state here that neither the negro boy nor the cockatoo is a character drawn at random; both had their counterparts in real life.) What a long story he had to tell the bird, to be sure!—what a “terrible tale,” I might call it!As usual, when greatly engrossed in listening, the bird was busily engaged helping himself to enormous mouthfuls of hemp-seed, spilling more than he swallowed, cocking his head, and gazing at his little black master, with many an interjectional and wondering “Oh!” and many a long-drawn “De-ah me!” just as if he understood every word the boy said, and fully appreciated the dangers he had come through.“Well, duckie?” said the bird, fondly, when Freezing Powders had concluded.“Oh! der ain’t no moh to tell, cockie,” said the boy; “but I ’ssure you, when I see dat big yellow bear wid his big red mouf, I tink I not hab much longer to lib in dis world, cockie—I ’ssure you I tink so.”Freezing Powders was the hero for one evening at all events. McBain made him recite his story and sing his daft, wild songs more than once, and the very innocence of the poor boy heightened the general effect. He was a favourite all over the ship from that day forth. Everybody in a manner petted him, and yet it was impossible to spoil him, for he took the petting as a matter of course, but always kept his place. His duties were multifarious, though light—he cleaned the silver and shined the boots, and helped to lay the cloth and wait at table. He went by different names in different parts of the ship. Ralph called him his cup-bearer, because he brought that young gentleman’s matutinal coffee, without which our English hero would not have left his cabin for the world. Freezing Powders was message-boy betwixt steward and cook, and bore the viands triumphantly along the deck, so the steward called him “Mustard and Cress,” and the cook “Young Shallots,” while Ted Wilson dubbed him “Boss of the Soup Tureen;” but the boy was entirely indifferent as to what he was called.“Make your games, gem’lams,” he would say; “don’t be afraid to ’ffend dis chile. He nebber get angry I ’ssure you.”When Freezing Powders had nothing in his hand his method of progression forward was at times somewhat peculiar. He went cart-wheel fashion, rolling over and over so quickly that you could hardly see him, he seemed a mist of legs, or something like the figure you see on a Manx penny.At other times “the doctor,” as the cook was invariably called by the crew, would pop up his head out of the fore-hatch and bawl out,—“Pass young Shallots forward here.”“Ay, ay, doctor,” the men would answer. “Shalots! Shalots! Shalots!”Then Freezing Powder’s curly head would beam up out of the saloon companion.“Stand by, men!” the sailor who captured him would cry; and the men would form themselves into a line along the deck about three yards apart, and Freezing Powders would be pitched from one to the other as if he had been a ball of spun-yarn, until he finally fell into the friendly arms of the cook.About a week after the bear adventure De Vere, the aeronaut, was breakfasting in the saloon, as he always did when there was anything “grand in the wind,” as Rory styled the situation.“Dat is von thing I admire very mooch,” said the Frenchman, pointing to a beautifully-framed design that hung in a conspicuous part of the saloon bulkhead.“Ah,” said Allan, laughing, “that was an idea of dear foolish boy Rory. He brought it as a gift to me last Christmas. The coral comes from the Indian Ocean; Rory gathered it himself; the whole design is his.”“It’s a vera judeecious arrangement,” said Sandy McFlail, admiringly.The arrangement, as the doctor called it, was simple enough. Three pieces of coral, in the shape of a rose, a thistle, and shamrock, encased—nay, I may say enshrined—in a beautiful casket of crystal and gilded ebony. There was the milk-white rose of England and the blood-red thistle of Scotland side by side, and fondly twining around them the shamrock of old Ireland—all in black.Here was the motto underneath them—“Perseverando.”“There is nothing like perseverance,” said Allan. “The little coral insect thereby builds islands, ay, and founds continents, destined to be stages on which will be worked out or fought out the histories of nations yet unborn. ‘Perseverando!’ it is a grand and bold motto, and I love it.”The Frenchman had been standing before the casket; he now turned quickly round to Allan and held out his hand.“You are a bold man,” he said; “you will come with me to-day in de balloon?”“I will,” said Allan.“We vill soar far above yonder mountain,” continued De Vere; “we vill descend into the crater. We vill do vat mortal man has neever done before. Perseverando! Do you fear?”“Fear?” said Allan; “no! I fear nothing under the sun. Whate’er a man dares he can do.”“Bravely spoken,” cried the Frenchman. “Perseverando! I have room for two more.”“Perseverando!” says Rory. “Perseverando for ever! Hoorah! I’m one of you, boys.”Ralph was lying on the sofa, reading a book. But he doubled down a leaf, got up, and stretched himself.“Here,” he said, quietly, “you fellows mustn’t have all the fun; I’ll go toe, just to see fair play. But, I say,” he added, after a moment’s pause, “I don’t suppose there will be any refreshment-stalls down there—eh?”“No, that there won’t,” cried Allan. “Hi! Peter, pack a basket for four.”“Ay, ay, sir?” said Peter.“And, I say, Peter—” This from Ralph.“Yes, sir,” said the steward, pausing in the doorway.“Enough for twenty,” said Ralph. “That’s all, Peter.”“Thank’ee, sir,” said Peter, laughing; “I’ll see to that, sir.”It was some time before De Vere succeeded in gaining Captain McBain’s consent to the embarkation of his boys on this wild and strange adventure, but he was talked over at last.“It is all for the good of science, I suppose,” he said, half doubtfully, as he shook hands with our heroes before they took their places in the car. “God keep you, boys. I’m not at all sure I’ll ever see one of you again.”The ropes were let go, and upwards into the clear air rose the mighty balloon.“Here’s a lark,” said Allan.“A skylark,” said Rory. “Let us sing, boys—let us sing as we soar, ‘Rule Britannia, Britannia rules the waves.’”Standing on the quarter-deck, and gazing upwards, McBain heard the voices growing fainter and fainter, and saw the balloon lessening and lessening, till the song could no longer be heard, and the balloon itself was but a tiny speck in the heaven’s blue. Then he went down below, and busied himself all day with calculations. He didn’t want to think.Meanwhile, how fared it with our boys? Here they were, all together, embarked upon as strange an expedition as it has ever probably been the lot of any youth or youths to try the chance of. Yet I do not think that anything approaching to fear found place in the hearts of one of them. The situation was novel in the extreme. With a slow and steady but imperceptible motion—for she was weightily ballasted—the “Perseverando,” as they had named the balloon, was mounting skywards. There was not the slightest air or wind, nor the tiniest of clouds to be seen anywhere, and down beneath and around them was spread out a panorama, which but to gaze upon held them spell-bound.There was the island itself, with its rugged hills looking now so strangely flattened and so grotesquely contorted; to the west and to the north lay the white and boundless sea of ice, but far to the eastward and south was the ocean itself, looking dark as night in contrast with the solid ice.But see, yonder, where the ice joins the water, and just a little way from its edge, lie stately ships—two, three, five in all can be counted, and their sails are all clewed; and those innumerable black ticks on the snow, what can they be but seals, and men sealing?“Don’t you long to join them?” said Allan, addressing his companions.“I don’t,” replied Rory; “in spite of the cold I feel a strange, dreamy kind of happiness all over heart and brain. Troth! I feel as if I had breakfasted on lotus-leaves.”“And I,” said Ralph, “feel as I hadn’t breakfasted on anything in particular. Let us see what Peter has done up for us.”And he stretched out his hand as he spoke towards a basket.“Ah?” cried the Frenchman, “not dat basket; dat is my Bagdads—my pigeons, my letter-carriers! You see, gentlemen, I have come prepared to combat eevery deeficulty.”“So I see,” said Ralph, coolly undoing the other basket; “what an appetite the fresh air gives a fellow, to be sure!”“Indeed,” says Rory, archly, “it is never very far from home you’ve got to go for that same, big brother Ralph. But it’s hardly fair, after all, to try to eat the Bagdads.”“Remember one thing, though,” replied Ralph; “if it should occur to me suddenly that you want your ears pulled you cannot run away to save yourself.”“Indeed,” said Rory, “I don’t think that the frost has left any ears at all on me worth pulling, or worth speaking about either.”“Ha?” cried Allan, “that reminds me; I’ve got those face mufflers. There! I’ll show you how to put one on. The fur side goes inside—thus; now I have a hole to breathe through, and a couple of holes for vision.”“And a pretty guy you look!”“Oh! bother the looks,” responded Ralph, “let us all be guys. Give us a mask, old man.”They did feel more comfortable now that they had the masks on, and could gaze about them without the risk of being frozen.The cold was intense; it was bitter.“I’d beat my feet to keep them warm,” said Rory, “if I didn’t think I’d beat the bottom of the car out. Then we’d all go fluttering down like so many kittywakes, and it’s Captain McBain himself that would be astounded to see us back so soon.”“Gentlemen,” said the Frenchman, “we are right over the mouth of the crater. I shall now make descent, with your permission. Then it vill not be so cold.”“And is it inside the volcano,” cries Rory, “you’d be taking us to warm us? Down into the crater, to toast our toes at Vulcan’s own fireside? Sure, Captain De Vere, it is splicing the main-brace you’re after, for you want to give us all a drop of the craytur.”“Oh!—oh!” this from Ralph. “Oh! Rory—oh! how can you make so vile a pun? In such a situation, too!”The gentlest of breezes was carrying the balloon almost imperceptibly towards the north and west; meanwhile De Vere was permitting a gradual escape of gas, and thePerseverandosunk gradually towards the mountain-top, the mouth of which seemed to yawn to swallow them up. There was a terrible earnestness about this daring aeronaut’s face that awed even Rory into silence.“Stand by,” he whispered; for in the dread silence even a whisper could be heard,—“stand by, Allan, to throw that bag of ballast over the moment I say the word.”Viewing it from the sea of ice, no one could calculate how large is the extent of the crater on the top of that mighty mountain cone. It is perfectly circular, and five hundred yards at least in circumference, but it is deeper, far and away, than any volcanic crater into which it has ever been my fortune to peer. Even when the great balloon began to alight in its centre the gulf below seemed bottomless. ThePerseverandoappeared to be sinking down—down—down into the blackness of darkness. To the perceptions of our heroes, who peered fearfully over the car and gazed below, the gulf was rising towards them and swallowing them up.I do not think I am detracting in the slightest from their character for bravery, when I say that the hearts of Ralph, Rory, and Allan, at all events, felt as if standing still, so terrible was the feeling of dread of some unknown danger that crept over them. As for De Vere, he was a fatalist of the newest French school, and a man that carried his life in his hand. He never attempted, it is true, any feat which he deemed all but impossible to perform; but, having embarked on an enterprise, he would go through with it, or he cared not to live.Strange though it may appear, it is just men like this that fortune favours. Probably because the wish to continue to exist is not uppermost in their minds, the wish and the hope to achieve success is the paramount feeling.Still slowly, very slowly, sunk the balloon, as if unwilling to leave her aerial home. And now a faint shade of light begins to mingle with the darkness beneath them; they are near the bottom of the crater at last.“Stand by once again,” whispers De Vere, “to throw that anchor over as soon as I tell you.”A moment of awful suspense.“Now! now!” hisses De Vere.Two anchors quit the car at the same time—one thrown by the aeronaut himself, one by Allan, and the ropes are speedily made fast. The balloon gives an upward plunge, the cables tighten, then all is still!“Ha! ha! she is fast!” cried De Vere, now for the first time showing a little excitement. “Oh, she is a beauty! she has behave most lofely! Look up, gentlemen!—look up!—behold the mighty walls of blue ice that surround us!—behold the circle of blue sky dat over-canopies us!—look, the stars are shining!”“Can it be night so soon?” exclaimed Allan, in alarm.“Nay, nay, gentlemen,” said the enthusiastic Frenchman, “be easy of your minds. It is not night in the vorld outside, but here it is alvays night; up yonder the stars shine alvays, alvays, when de clouds are absent. And shine dey vill until de crack of doom. Now gaze around you. See, the darkness already begins to vanish, and you can see the vast and mighty cavern into which I have brought you. If my judgment serves me, it extends for miles around beneath de mountain. There!—you begin to perceive the gigantic stalactites that seem to support the roof!”“Ralph,” cried Rory, seizing his friend by the hand, “do you remember, years and years ago, while we all sat round the fire in the tartan parlour of Arrandoon Castle, wishing we might be able to do something that no one, man or boy, had ever done before?”“I do—I do,” answered Ralph.“Descend with me here, then,” continued Rory, “and let us explore the cavern. Only a little,littleway, captain,” he pleaded, seeing that De Vere shook his head in strong dissent.“You know not vat you do ask,” said De Vere, solemnly. “Here are caves within caves, one cavern but hides a thousand more; besides, there are, maybe, and doubtless are, crevasses in de floor of dis awful crater, into which you may tumble, neever, neever to be seen again. Pray do not think of risking a danger so vast.”The day wore slowly to a close; many and many an anxious look did McBain take skywards, in hopes of seeing the returning balloon. But the sun set, tipping the distant hills with brightest crimson, twilight died away in the west, and one by one shone out the stars, till night and darkness and silence reigned over all the sea of ice.He went below at last. His feelings may be better imagined then described. He tried to make himself believe that nothing had occurred, and that the balloon had safely descended in some snow-clad valley, and that morning would bring good tidings. But for all this he could not for the life of him banish a dread, cold feeling that something terrible had occurred, the very novelty of which made it all the more appalling to think of. Presently the mate entered the saloon.“What cheer, Stevenson! Any tidings?”“A pigeon, sir,” replied the mate, handing the bird into the captain’s grasp.McBain’s hands shook as he had never remembered them shake before, as he undid the tiny missive from the pigeon’s leg.It ran briefly thus:—“We are detained here in the crater all night. Do not be alarmed. To-morrow will, please Providence, see us safely home.”
A black man in a barrel of treacle is said by some to be emblematical of happiness. So situated, a black man without doubt enjoys a deal of bliss, but I question very much if it equals the joy poor Freezing Powders felt when he found himself once more safe on board theArrandoon, and cuddled down in a corner with his old cockatoo. (It may be as well to state here that neither the negro boy nor the cockatoo is a character drawn at random; both had their counterparts in real life.) What a long story he had to tell the bird, to be sure!—what a “terrible tale,” I might call it!
As usual, when greatly engrossed in listening, the bird was busily engaged helping himself to enormous mouthfuls of hemp-seed, spilling more than he swallowed, cocking his head, and gazing at his little black master, with many an interjectional and wondering “Oh!” and many a long-drawn “De-ah me!” just as if he understood every word the boy said, and fully appreciated the dangers he had come through.
“Well, duckie?” said the bird, fondly, when Freezing Powders had concluded.
“Oh! der ain’t no moh to tell, cockie,” said the boy; “but I ’ssure you, when I see dat big yellow bear wid his big red mouf, I tink I not hab much longer to lib in dis world, cockie—I ’ssure you I tink so.”
Freezing Powders was the hero for one evening at all events. McBain made him recite his story and sing his daft, wild songs more than once, and the very innocence of the poor boy heightened the general effect. He was a favourite all over the ship from that day forth. Everybody in a manner petted him, and yet it was impossible to spoil him, for he took the petting as a matter of course, but always kept his place. His duties were multifarious, though light—he cleaned the silver and shined the boots, and helped to lay the cloth and wait at table. He went by different names in different parts of the ship. Ralph called him his cup-bearer, because he brought that young gentleman’s matutinal coffee, without which our English hero would not have left his cabin for the world. Freezing Powders was message-boy betwixt steward and cook, and bore the viands triumphantly along the deck, so the steward called him “Mustard and Cress,” and the cook “Young Shallots,” while Ted Wilson dubbed him “Boss of the Soup Tureen;” but the boy was entirely indifferent as to what he was called.
“Make your games, gem’lams,” he would say; “don’t be afraid to ’ffend dis chile. He nebber get angry I ’ssure you.”
When Freezing Powders had nothing in his hand his method of progression forward was at times somewhat peculiar. He went cart-wheel fashion, rolling over and over so quickly that you could hardly see him, he seemed a mist of legs, or something like the figure you see on a Manx penny.
At other times “the doctor,” as the cook was invariably called by the crew, would pop up his head out of the fore-hatch and bawl out,—
“Pass young Shallots forward here.”
“Ay, ay, doctor,” the men would answer. “Shalots! Shalots! Shalots!”
Then Freezing Powder’s curly head would beam up out of the saloon companion.
“Stand by, men!” the sailor who captured him would cry; and the men would form themselves into a line along the deck about three yards apart, and Freezing Powders would be pitched from one to the other as if he had been a ball of spun-yarn, until he finally fell into the friendly arms of the cook.
About a week after the bear adventure De Vere, the aeronaut, was breakfasting in the saloon, as he always did when there was anything “grand in the wind,” as Rory styled the situation.
“Dat is von thing I admire very mooch,” said the Frenchman, pointing to a beautifully-framed design that hung in a conspicuous part of the saloon bulkhead.
“Ah,” said Allan, laughing, “that was an idea of dear foolish boy Rory. He brought it as a gift to me last Christmas. The coral comes from the Indian Ocean; Rory gathered it himself; the whole design is his.”
“It’s a vera judeecious arrangement,” said Sandy McFlail, admiringly.
The arrangement, as the doctor called it, was simple enough. Three pieces of coral, in the shape of a rose, a thistle, and shamrock, encased—nay, I may say enshrined—in a beautiful casket of crystal and gilded ebony. There was the milk-white rose of England and the blood-red thistle of Scotland side by side, and fondly twining around them the shamrock of old Ireland—all in black.
Here was the motto underneath them—
“Perseverando.”
“There is nothing like perseverance,” said Allan. “The little coral insect thereby builds islands, ay, and founds continents, destined to be stages on which will be worked out or fought out the histories of nations yet unborn. ‘Perseverando!’ it is a grand and bold motto, and I love it.”
The Frenchman had been standing before the casket; he now turned quickly round to Allan and held out his hand.
“You are a bold man,” he said; “you will come with me to-day in de balloon?”
“I will,” said Allan.
“We vill soar far above yonder mountain,” continued De Vere; “we vill descend into the crater. We vill do vat mortal man has neever done before. Perseverando! Do you fear?”
“Fear?” said Allan; “no! I fear nothing under the sun. Whate’er a man dares he can do.”
“Bravely spoken,” cried the Frenchman. “Perseverando! I have room for two more.”
“Perseverando!” says Rory. “Perseverando for ever! Hoorah! I’m one of you, boys.”
Ralph was lying on the sofa, reading a book. But he doubled down a leaf, got up, and stretched himself.
“Here,” he said, quietly, “you fellows mustn’t have all the fun; I’ll go toe, just to see fair play. But, I say,” he added, after a moment’s pause, “I don’t suppose there will be any refreshment-stalls down there—eh?”
“No, that there won’t,” cried Allan. “Hi! Peter, pack a basket for four.”
“Ay, ay, sir?” said Peter.
“And, I say, Peter—” This from Ralph.
“Yes, sir,” said the steward, pausing in the doorway.
“Enough for twenty,” said Ralph. “That’s all, Peter.”
“Thank’ee, sir,” said Peter, laughing; “I’ll see to that, sir.”
It was some time before De Vere succeeded in gaining Captain McBain’s consent to the embarkation of his boys on this wild and strange adventure, but he was talked over at last.
“It is all for the good of science, I suppose,” he said, half doubtfully, as he shook hands with our heroes before they took their places in the car. “God keep you, boys. I’m not at all sure I’ll ever see one of you again.”
The ropes were let go, and upwards into the clear air rose the mighty balloon.
“Here’s a lark,” said Allan.
“A skylark,” said Rory. “Let us sing, boys—let us sing as we soar, ‘Rule Britannia, Britannia rules the waves.’”
Standing on the quarter-deck, and gazing upwards, McBain heard the voices growing fainter and fainter, and saw the balloon lessening and lessening, till the song could no longer be heard, and the balloon itself was but a tiny speck in the heaven’s blue. Then he went down below, and busied himself all day with calculations. He didn’t want to think.
Meanwhile, how fared it with our boys? Here they were, all together, embarked upon as strange an expedition as it has ever probably been the lot of any youth or youths to try the chance of. Yet I do not think that anything approaching to fear found place in the hearts of one of them. The situation was novel in the extreme. With a slow and steady but imperceptible motion—for she was weightily ballasted—the “Perseverando,” as they had named the balloon, was mounting skywards. There was not the slightest air or wind, nor the tiniest of clouds to be seen anywhere, and down beneath and around them was spread out a panorama, which but to gaze upon held them spell-bound.
There was the island itself, with its rugged hills looking now so strangely flattened and so grotesquely contorted; to the west and to the north lay the white and boundless sea of ice, but far to the eastward and south was the ocean itself, looking dark as night in contrast with the solid ice.
But see, yonder, where the ice joins the water, and just a little way from its edge, lie stately ships—two, three, five in all can be counted, and their sails are all clewed; and those innumerable black ticks on the snow, what can they be but seals, and men sealing?
“Don’t you long to join them?” said Allan, addressing his companions.
“I don’t,” replied Rory; “in spite of the cold I feel a strange, dreamy kind of happiness all over heart and brain. Troth! I feel as if I had breakfasted on lotus-leaves.”
“And I,” said Ralph, “feel as I hadn’t breakfasted on anything in particular. Let us see what Peter has done up for us.”
And he stretched out his hand as he spoke towards a basket.
“Ah?” cried the Frenchman, “not dat basket; dat is my Bagdads—my pigeons, my letter-carriers! You see, gentlemen, I have come prepared to combat eevery deeficulty.”
“So I see,” said Ralph, coolly undoing the other basket; “what an appetite the fresh air gives a fellow, to be sure!”
“Indeed,” says Rory, archly, “it is never very far from home you’ve got to go for that same, big brother Ralph. But it’s hardly fair, after all, to try to eat the Bagdads.”
“Remember one thing, though,” replied Ralph; “if it should occur to me suddenly that you want your ears pulled you cannot run away to save yourself.”
“Indeed,” said Rory, “I don’t think that the frost has left any ears at all on me worth pulling, or worth speaking about either.”
“Ha?” cried Allan, “that reminds me; I’ve got those face mufflers. There! I’ll show you how to put one on. The fur side goes inside—thus; now I have a hole to breathe through, and a couple of holes for vision.”
“And a pretty guy you look!”
“Oh! bother the looks,” responded Ralph, “let us all be guys. Give us a mask, old man.”
They did feel more comfortable now that they had the masks on, and could gaze about them without the risk of being frozen.
The cold was intense; it was bitter.
“I’d beat my feet to keep them warm,” said Rory, “if I didn’t think I’d beat the bottom of the car out. Then we’d all go fluttering down like so many kittywakes, and it’s Captain McBain himself that would be astounded to see us back so soon.”
“Gentlemen,” said the Frenchman, “we are right over the mouth of the crater. I shall now make descent, with your permission. Then it vill not be so cold.”
“And is it inside the volcano,” cries Rory, “you’d be taking us to warm us? Down into the crater, to toast our toes at Vulcan’s own fireside? Sure, Captain De Vere, it is splicing the main-brace you’re after, for you want to give us all a drop of the craytur.”
“Oh!—oh!” this from Ralph. “Oh! Rory—oh! how can you make so vile a pun? In such a situation, too!”
The gentlest of breezes was carrying the balloon almost imperceptibly towards the north and west; meanwhile De Vere was permitting a gradual escape of gas, and thePerseverandosunk gradually towards the mountain-top, the mouth of which seemed to yawn to swallow them up. There was a terrible earnestness about this daring aeronaut’s face that awed even Rory into silence.
“Stand by,” he whispered; for in the dread silence even a whisper could be heard,—“stand by, Allan, to throw that bag of ballast over the moment I say the word.”
Viewing it from the sea of ice, no one could calculate how large is the extent of the crater on the top of that mighty mountain cone. It is perfectly circular, and five hundred yards at least in circumference, but it is deeper, far and away, than any volcanic crater into which it has ever been my fortune to peer. Even when the great balloon began to alight in its centre the gulf below seemed bottomless. ThePerseverandoappeared to be sinking down—down—down into the blackness of darkness. To the perceptions of our heroes, who peered fearfully over the car and gazed below, the gulf was rising towards them and swallowing them up.
I do not think I am detracting in the slightest from their character for bravery, when I say that the hearts of Ralph, Rory, and Allan, at all events, felt as if standing still, so terrible was the feeling of dread of some unknown danger that crept over them. As for De Vere, he was a fatalist of the newest French school, and a man that carried his life in his hand. He never attempted, it is true, any feat which he deemed all but impossible to perform; but, having embarked on an enterprise, he would go through with it, or he cared not to live.
Strange though it may appear, it is just men like this that fortune favours. Probably because the wish to continue to exist is not uppermost in their minds, the wish and the hope to achieve success is the paramount feeling.
Still slowly, very slowly, sunk the balloon, as if unwilling to leave her aerial home. And now a faint shade of light begins to mingle with the darkness beneath them; they are near the bottom of the crater at last.
“Stand by once again,” whispers De Vere, “to throw that anchor over as soon as I tell you.”
A moment of awful suspense.
“Now! now!” hisses De Vere.
Two anchors quit the car at the same time—one thrown by the aeronaut himself, one by Allan, and the ropes are speedily made fast. The balloon gives an upward plunge, the cables tighten, then all is still!
“Ha! ha! she is fast!” cried De Vere, now for the first time showing a little excitement. “Oh, she is a beauty! she has behave most lofely! Look up, gentlemen!—look up!—behold the mighty walls of blue ice that surround us!—behold the circle of blue sky dat over-canopies us!—look, the stars are shining!”
“Can it be night so soon?” exclaimed Allan, in alarm.
“Nay, nay, gentlemen,” said the enthusiastic Frenchman, “be easy of your minds. It is not night in the vorld outside, but here it is alvays night; up yonder the stars shine alvays, alvays, when de clouds are absent. And shine dey vill until de crack of doom. Now gaze around you. See, the darkness already begins to vanish, and you can see the vast and mighty cavern into which I have brought you. If my judgment serves me, it extends for miles around beneath de mountain. There!—you begin to perceive the gigantic stalactites that seem to support the roof!”
“Ralph,” cried Rory, seizing his friend by the hand, “do you remember, years and years ago, while we all sat round the fire in the tartan parlour of Arrandoon Castle, wishing we might be able to do something that no one, man or boy, had ever done before?”
“I do—I do,” answered Ralph.
“Descend with me here, then,” continued Rory, “and let us explore the cavern. Only a little,littleway, captain,” he pleaded, seeing that De Vere shook his head in strong dissent.
“You know not vat you do ask,” said De Vere, solemnly. “Here are caves within caves, one cavern but hides a thousand more; besides, there are, maybe, and doubtless are, crevasses in de floor of dis awful crater, into which you may tumble, neever, neever to be seen again. Pray do not think of risking a danger so vast.”
The day wore slowly to a close; many and many an anxious look did McBain take skywards, in hopes of seeing the returning balloon. But the sun set, tipping the distant hills with brightest crimson, twilight died away in the west, and one by one shone out the stars, till night and darkness and silence reigned over all the sea of ice.
He went below at last. His feelings may be better imagined then described. He tried to make himself believe that nothing had occurred, and that the balloon had safely descended in some snow-clad valley, and that morning would bring good tidings. But for all this he could not for the life of him banish a dread, cold feeling that something terrible had occurred, the very novelty of which made it all the more appalling to think of. Presently the mate entered the saloon.
“What cheer, Stevenson! Any tidings?”
“A pigeon, sir,” replied the mate, handing the bird into the captain’s grasp.
McBain’s hands shook as he had never remembered them shake before, as he undid the tiny missive from the pigeon’s leg.
It ran briefly thus:—
“We are detained here in the crater all night. Do not be alarmed. To-morrow will, please Providence, see us safely home.”
Chapter Fourteen.Anxious Hours—Exploration of the Mountain Cavern—The Cave of the King of Ice, and Ghouls of a Thousand Winters—Transformation Scenes—Snowblind—Lost.It would be difficult to say which was most to be pitied, McBain on board theArrandoon, passing long hours of inconceivable anxiety, or our other heroes, left to spend the drear, cold night in the awful depths of that Arctic crater.It was with light hearts that Ralph and Rory descended from the car of thePerseverandoand commenced their perilous exploration of the vast and dimly-lighted cavern; but heavy hearts were left behind them, and hardly had they disappeared in the gloom ere the Frenchman exclaimed to Allan, “I greatly fear dat I have done wrong. Your two friends are big wid impulse; if anydings happen to them dere vill be for me no more peace in dis world.”Allan was silent.But when hours passed away and there were no signs of their returning, when gloaming itself began to fall around them, and the stars at the crater’s mouth assumed a brighter hue, Allan’s anxiety knew no bounds, and he proposed to De Vere to go in search of his friends.“Ah! if dat vere indeed possible!” was the reply.“And why not?” said Allan.“For many reasons: de balloon vill even now hardly bear de strain on her anchors; de loss of even your veight vould require such delicate manipulation on my part, dat I fear I could not successfully vork in such small space. Alas! ve must vait. But there yet is hope.”Meanwhile it behoves us to follow Ralph and Rory. They had faithfully promised De Vere they would go but a short distance from the car, and that promise they had meant to redeem. They found that the ground sloped downwards from the mouth of the crater, but there was no want of light, as yet at least, and thus not the slightest danger of being unable to find their way back, for were there not their footsteps in the snow to guide them? So onward they strolled, cheerfully enough, arm-in-arm, like brothers, and that was precisely how they felt towards each other.The road—if I may say “road” where there was no road—was rough enough in all conscience, and at times it was difficult for them to prevent stumbling over a boulder.“I wonder,” said Rory, “how long these boulders have lain here, and I wonder what is beneath us principally, and what those vast stalactite pillars are formed of.”“‘Bide a wee,’ as the doctor says,” replied Ralph; “don’t hurry me with too many questions, and don’t forget that though I am ever so much bigger and stronger than you, I don’t think I am half so wise. But the boulders may have lain here for ages: those ghostly-looking pillars are doubtless ice-clad rocks, partly formed through the agency of fire, partly by water. I think we stand principally on rocks and on ice, with, far, far down beneath us, fire.”“Dear, dear!” said Rory, talking very seriously, and with the perfect English he always used when speaking earnestly; “what a strange, mysterious place we are in! Do you know, Ralph, I am half afraid to go much farther.”“Silly boy!” said his companion, “how thoroughly Irish you are at heart—joy, tears, sunshine and fun, but, deep under all, a smouldering superstition.”“Just like the fires,” added Rory, “that roll so far beneath us. But you know, Ray,”—in their most affectionate and friendly moods Ralph had come to be “Ray” to Rory, and Rory “Row” to Ralph—“you know, Ray, that the silence and gloom of this eerie place are enough to make any one superstitious—any one, that is, whose soul isn’t solid matter-of-fact.”“Well, itissilent. But I say, Row—”“Well, Ray?”“Suppose we try to break it with a song? I daresay they have never heard much singing down here.”“Who?” cried Rory, staring fearfully into the darkness.“Oh!” said Ralph, carelessly, “I didn’t mean any one in particular. Come, what shall we sing—‘The wearing o’ the green’?”“No, Ray, no; that were far too melancholic, though I grant it is a lovely melody.”“Well, something Scotch, and stirring. The echoes of this cavern must be wonderful.”They were, indeed; and when Rory started off into that world-known but ever-popular song, “Auld lang syne,” and Ralph chimed with deep and sonorous bass, the effect was really grand and beautiful, for a thousand voices seemed to fill the cavern. They heard the song even in the car of the balloon, and it caused Allan to remark, smilingly, for they had not yet been long gone, “Ralph and boy Rory seem to be enjoying themselves; but I trust they won’t be long away.”Rory was quite lively again ere he reached the words—“And we’ll tak’ a richt good-willy waughtFor auld lang syne.”He burst out laughing. “Indeed, indeed! there is no wonder I laugh,” he said; “fancy the notion of taking a ‘good-willy waught’ in a place like this! And now,” he added, “for a bit of a sketch.”“Don’t be long in nibbing it in, then.”Rory was seated on a boulder now, tracing on his page the outlines of those strange, weird pillars that hands of man had never raised nor human eyes gazed upon before. So the silence once more became irksome, and the time seemed long to Ralph, but Rory had finished at last.Then the two companions, after journeying on somewhat farther, began to awaken the echoes by various shouts; and voices, some coming from a long distance, repeated clearly the last words.“Let us frighten those ghouls down there by rolling down boulders,” said Rory.“Come on, then,” said Ralph; “I’ve often played at that game.”They had ten minutes of this work. It was evident this hill within a hill, this crater’s point, was of depth illimitable from the distant hissing noises which the broken boulders finally emitted.“It’s a regular whispering gallery,” said Rory.“It is, Row. But do let us get back. See, there is already barely light enough to reveal our footsteps.”“Ah! but, my boy,” said Rory, “the nearer the car we walk the more light we’ll have. And I have just one more surprise for you. You see this little bag?”“Yes. What is in it—sandwiches?”“Nay, my Saxon friend! but Bengal fires. Now witness the effects of the grand illumination of the Cave of the King of Ice by us, his two ghouls of a thousand winters!”The scene, under weird blue lights, pale green or crimson, was really magical. All the transformation scenes ever they had witnessed dwindled into insignificance compared to it.“I shall remember this to my dying day?” Rory exclaimed.“And I too!” cried Ralph, entranced.“Now the finale?” said the artist; “it’ll beat all the others! This white light of mine will eclipse the glory of the rest as the morning sun does that of moonlight! It will burn quite a long time, too; I made it last night on purpose.”It was a Bengal fire of dazzling splendour that now was lit, and our heroes themselves were astonished.“It beats the ‘Arabian Nights’!” cried Rory. “Look, look!” he continued, waving it gently to and fro, “the stalactites seem to dance and move towards us from out the gloom arrayed in robes of transplendent white. Yonder comes the King of Ice himself to bid us welcome.”“Put it out! put it out!” murmured Ralph, with his hand on his brow.It presently burned out, but lo! the change!—total darkness!Rory and Ralph were snowblind!“Oh, boy Rory!” said Ralph, “that brilliant of yours has sealed our fate. It will be hours ere our eyes can be restored, and long before then the darkness of night will have enshrouded us. We are lost!”“Let us not lose each other, at all events,” said Rory, feeling for his friend’s arm, and linking it in his own.“You think we are lost; dear Ralph, I have more hopes. Something within me tells me that we were never meant to end our days in the awful darkness of this terrible cavern. Pass the night here it is certain we must, but to-morrow will bring daylight, and daylight safety, for be assured Allan and De Vere will not leave us, unless—”Here the hope-giver paused.“Unless,” added Ralph—“for I know what you would say—an accident should be imminent—unless theymustleave. A balloon needs strange management.”“Even then they will return to seek us by morning light. Do you know what, Ray?” he continued, “our adventures have been too foolhardy. Providence has punished us, but He will not utterly desert us.”“Hope springs eternal in the human breast.”The lamp of hope was flickering—had, indeed, burned out—in Ralph’s heart, but his friend’s words rekindled it. Perhaps Rory’s true character never shone more clearly out than it did now, for, while trying to cheer his more than friend, he fully appreciated the desperateness of the situation, and had but little hope left in him, except his extreme trust in the goodness of a higher Power.“Could we not,” said Ralph, “all snowblind as we are, try to grope our way upwards?”“No, no, no!” cried Rory; “success in that way is all but impossible; and, remember, we have but the trail of our footprints to guide us even by day.”Something of the ludicrous invariably mixes itself up with the most tragic affairs of this world. I have seen the truth of this in the chamber of death itself, in storms at sea, and in scenes where men grappled each other in deadly strife. And it is well it should be so, else would the troubles of this world oftentimes swamp reason itself. The attempts of Rory to keep his companion in cheer, partook of the nature of the ludicrous, as did the attempts of both of them to keep warm.So hours elapsed, and sometimes sitting, sometimes standing and beating feet and hands for circulation’s sake, and doing much talking, but never daring to leave the spot, at last says Rory, “Hullo, Ray! joy of joys! I’ve found a lucifer!”Almost at the same moment he lit it. They could see each other’s faces—see a watch, and notice it was nearly midnight. They had regained sight! Joy and hope were at once restored.“Troth!” said Rory, resuming his brogue, “it’s myself could be a baby for once and cry. Now what do ye say to try to sleep? We’ll lie close together, you know, and it’s warm we’ll be in a jiffey?”So down they lay, and, after ten long shivering minutes, heat came back to their frozen bodies. They had not been talking all this time; it is but right to say they were better engaged.With warmth camele gaiété—to Rory, at least.“Have you wound your watch, Ray?”“No, Row? and I wouldn’t move for the world!”After a pause, “Ray,” says Row.“Yes, Row?” says Ray.“You always said you liked a big bed-room, Ray, and, troth, you’ve got one for once!”“How I envy you your spirits,” answers Ray.“Don’t talk about spirits,” says Row, “and frighten a poor boy. I’ve covered up my head, and I wouldn’t look up for the world. I’m going to repeat myself to sleep. Good night.”“Good night,” asks Ray, “but how do you do it?”“Psalms, Ray,” Row replies. “I know them all. I’ll be out of here in a moment.“‘He makes me down to lie by pastures green,He leadeth me the quiet waters by.’“Isn’t that pretty, Ray?”“Very, Row, but ‘pastures green’ and ‘quiet waters’ aren’t much in my way. Repeatmeto sleep, Rory boy, and I promise you I won’t pull your ears again for a month.”“Well, I’ll try,” says Row. “Are your eyes shut?”“To be sure. A likely thing I’d have them open, isn’t it?”“Then we’re both going to a ball in old England.”“Glorious,” says Ray. “I’m there already.”Then in slow, monotonous, but pleasing tones, Row goes on. He describes the brilliant festive scene, the warmth, the light, the beauty and the music, and the dances, and last but not least the supper table. It is at this point that our Saxon hero gives sundry nasal indications that this strange species of mesmerism had taken due effect, so Row leaves him at the supper table, and goes back to his “pastures green” and “quiet waters,” and soon they both are sound enough. Let us leave them there; no need to watch them. Remember what Lover says in his beautiful song,—“O! watch ye well by daylight,For angels watch at night.”Poor McBain! Worn out with watching, he had sunk at last to sleep in his chair.And day broke slowly on the sea of ice. The snow-clad crater’s peak was the first to welcome glorious aurora with a rosy blush, which stole gradually downwards till it settled on the jagged mountain tips. Then bears began to yawn and stretch themselves, the sly Arctic foxes crept forth from snow-banks, and birds in their thousands—brightest of all the snowbird—came wheeling around theArrandoonto snatch an early breakfast ere they wended their way westward to fields of blood and phocal carnage.And their screaming awoke McBain.He was speedily on deck.Yonder was thePerseverandoslowly descending.During all the long cruise of theArrandoonnobody referred to the adventure at the crater of Jan Mayen without a feeling akin to sadness and contrition, for all felt that something had been done which ought not to have been done—there had been, as McBain called it, “a tempting of Providence.”“Well, well, well,” cried the skipper of theCanny Scotia—and he seemed to be in anything but a sweet temper. “Just like my luck. I do declare, mate, if I’d been born a hatter everybody else would have been born without heads. Here have I been struggling away for years against fortune, always trying to get a good voyage to support a small wife and a big family, and now that luck seems to have all turned in our favour, two glorious patches of seals on the ice yonder, a hard frost, and the ice beautifully red with blood, and no ship near us, then you, mate, come down from the crow’s-nest with that confoundedly long face of yours, for which you ought to have been smothered at birth—”“I can’t help my face, sir,” cried the mate, bristling up like a bantam cock.“Silence!” roared the burly skipper. “Silence! when you talk to your captain. You, I say,youcome and report a big steamer in sight to help us at the banquet.”The mate scratched his head, taking his hat off for the purpose.“Did I make the ship?” he asked with naïve innocence.“Pooh!” the skipper cried; and next moment he was scrambling up the rigging with all the elegance, grace, and speed of a mud turtle.He was in a better humour when he returned.“I say, matie,” he said, “yonder chap ain’t a sealer; too dandy, and not boats enough. No, she is one of they spectioneering kind o’ chaps as goes a prowling around lookin’ for the North Pole. Ha! ha! ha! Come below, matie, and we’ll have a glass together. She ain’t the kind o’ lady to interfere with our blubber-hunting.”The mate was mollified. His face was soaped, and he shone.
It would be difficult to say which was most to be pitied, McBain on board theArrandoon, passing long hours of inconceivable anxiety, or our other heroes, left to spend the drear, cold night in the awful depths of that Arctic crater.
It was with light hearts that Ralph and Rory descended from the car of thePerseverandoand commenced their perilous exploration of the vast and dimly-lighted cavern; but heavy hearts were left behind them, and hardly had they disappeared in the gloom ere the Frenchman exclaimed to Allan, “I greatly fear dat I have done wrong. Your two friends are big wid impulse; if anydings happen to them dere vill be for me no more peace in dis world.”
Allan was silent.
But when hours passed away and there were no signs of their returning, when gloaming itself began to fall around them, and the stars at the crater’s mouth assumed a brighter hue, Allan’s anxiety knew no bounds, and he proposed to De Vere to go in search of his friends.
“Ah! if dat vere indeed possible!” was the reply.
“And why not?” said Allan.
“For many reasons: de balloon vill even now hardly bear de strain on her anchors; de loss of even your veight vould require such delicate manipulation on my part, dat I fear I could not successfully vork in such small space. Alas! ve must vait. But there yet is hope.”
Meanwhile it behoves us to follow Ralph and Rory. They had faithfully promised De Vere they would go but a short distance from the car, and that promise they had meant to redeem. They found that the ground sloped downwards from the mouth of the crater, but there was no want of light, as yet at least, and thus not the slightest danger of being unable to find their way back, for were there not their footsteps in the snow to guide them? So onward they strolled, cheerfully enough, arm-in-arm, like brothers, and that was precisely how they felt towards each other.
The road—if I may say “road” where there was no road—was rough enough in all conscience, and at times it was difficult for them to prevent stumbling over a boulder.
“I wonder,” said Rory, “how long these boulders have lain here, and I wonder what is beneath us principally, and what those vast stalactite pillars are formed of.”
“‘Bide a wee,’ as the doctor says,” replied Ralph; “don’t hurry me with too many questions, and don’t forget that though I am ever so much bigger and stronger than you, I don’t think I am half so wise. But the boulders may have lain here for ages: those ghostly-looking pillars are doubtless ice-clad rocks, partly formed through the agency of fire, partly by water. I think we stand principally on rocks and on ice, with, far, far down beneath us, fire.”
“Dear, dear!” said Rory, talking very seriously, and with the perfect English he always used when speaking earnestly; “what a strange, mysterious place we are in! Do you know, Ralph, I am half afraid to go much farther.”
“Silly boy!” said his companion, “how thoroughly Irish you are at heart—joy, tears, sunshine and fun, but, deep under all, a smouldering superstition.”
“Just like the fires,” added Rory, “that roll so far beneath us. But you know, Ray,”—in their most affectionate and friendly moods Ralph had come to be “Ray” to Rory, and Rory “Row” to Ralph—“you know, Ray, that the silence and gloom of this eerie place are enough to make any one superstitious—any one, that is, whose soul isn’t solid matter-of-fact.”
“Well, itissilent. But I say, Row—”
“Well, Ray?”
“Suppose we try to break it with a song? I daresay they have never heard much singing down here.”
“Who?” cried Rory, staring fearfully into the darkness.
“Oh!” said Ralph, carelessly, “I didn’t mean any one in particular. Come, what shall we sing—‘The wearing o’ the green’?”
“No, Ray, no; that were far too melancholic, though I grant it is a lovely melody.”
“Well, something Scotch, and stirring. The echoes of this cavern must be wonderful.”
They were, indeed; and when Rory started off into that world-known but ever-popular song, “Auld lang syne,” and Ralph chimed with deep and sonorous bass, the effect was really grand and beautiful, for a thousand voices seemed to fill the cavern. They heard the song even in the car of the balloon, and it caused Allan to remark, smilingly, for they had not yet been long gone, “Ralph and boy Rory seem to be enjoying themselves; but I trust they won’t be long away.”
Rory was quite lively again ere he reached the words—
“And we’ll tak’ a richt good-willy waughtFor auld lang syne.”
“And we’ll tak’ a richt good-willy waughtFor auld lang syne.”
He burst out laughing. “Indeed, indeed! there is no wonder I laugh,” he said; “fancy the notion of taking a ‘good-willy waught’ in a place like this! And now,” he added, “for a bit of a sketch.”
“Don’t be long in nibbing it in, then.”
Rory was seated on a boulder now, tracing on his page the outlines of those strange, weird pillars that hands of man had never raised nor human eyes gazed upon before. So the silence once more became irksome, and the time seemed long to Ralph, but Rory had finished at last.
Then the two companions, after journeying on somewhat farther, began to awaken the echoes by various shouts; and voices, some coming from a long distance, repeated clearly the last words.
“Let us frighten those ghouls down there by rolling down boulders,” said Rory.
“Come on, then,” said Ralph; “I’ve often played at that game.”
They had ten minutes of this work. It was evident this hill within a hill, this crater’s point, was of depth illimitable from the distant hissing noises which the broken boulders finally emitted.
“It’s a regular whispering gallery,” said Rory.
“It is, Row. But do let us get back. See, there is already barely light enough to reveal our footsteps.”
“Ah! but, my boy,” said Rory, “the nearer the car we walk the more light we’ll have. And I have just one more surprise for you. You see this little bag?”
“Yes. What is in it—sandwiches?”
“Nay, my Saxon friend! but Bengal fires. Now witness the effects of the grand illumination of the Cave of the King of Ice by us, his two ghouls of a thousand winters!”
The scene, under weird blue lights, pale green or crimson, was really magical. All the transformation scenes ever they had witnessed dwindled into insignificance compared to it.
“I shall remember this to my dying day?” Rory exclaimed.
“And I too!” cried Ralph, entranced.
“Now the finale?” said the artist; “it’ll beat all the others! This white light of mine will eclipse the glory of the rest as the morning sun does that of moonlight! It will burn quite a long time, too; I made it last night on purpose.”
It was a Bengal fire of dazzling splendour that now was lit, and our heroes themselves were astonished.
“It beats the ‘Arabian Nights’!” cried Rory. “Look, look!” he continued, waving it gently to and fro, “the stalactites seem to dance and move towards us from out the gloom arrayed in robes of transplendent white. Yonder comes the King of Ice himself to bid us welcome.”
“Put it out! put it out!” murmured Ralph, with his hand on his brow.
It presently burned out, but lo! the change!—total darkness!
Rory and Ralph were snowblind!
“Oh, boy Rory!” said Ralph, “that brilliant of yours has sealed our fate. It will be hours ere our eyes can be restored, and long before then the darkness of night will have enshrouded us. We are lost!”
“Let us not lose each other, at all events,” said Rory, feeling for his friend’s arm, and linking it in his own.
“You think we are lost; dear Ralph, I have more hopes. Something within me tells me that we were never meant to end our days in the awful darkness of this terrible cavern. Pass the night here it is certain we must, but to-morrow will bring daylight, and daylight safety, for be assured Allan and De Vere will not leave us, unless—”
Here the hope-giver paused.
“Unless,” added Ralph—“for I know what you would say—an accident should be imminent—unless theymustleave. A balloon needs strange management.”
“Even then they will return to seek us by morning light. Do you know what, Ray?” he continued, “our adventures have been too foolhardy. Providence has punished us, but He will not utterly desert us.”
“Hope springs eternal in the human breast.”
The lamp of hope was flickering—had, indeed, burned out—in Ralph’s heart, but his friend’s words rekindled it. Perhaps Rory’s true character never shone more clearly out than it did now, for, while trying to cheer his more than friend, he fully appreciated the desperateness of the situation, and had but little hope left in him, except his extreme trust in the goodness of a higher Power.
“Could we not,” said Ralph, “all snowblind as we are, try to grope our way upwards?”
“No, no, no!” cried Rory; “success in that way is all but impossible; and, remember, we have but the trail of our footprints to guide us even by day.”
Something of the ludicrous invariably mixes itself up with the most tragic affairs of this world. I have seen the truth of this in the chamber of death itself, in storms at sea, and in scenes where men grappled each other in deadly strife. And it is well it should be so, else would the troubles of this world oftentimes swamp reason itself. The attempts of Rory to keep his companion in cheer, partook of the nature of the ludicrous, as did the attempts of both of them to keep warm.
So hours elapsed, and sometimes sitting, sometimes standing and beating feet and hands for circulation’s sake, and doing much talking, but never daring to leave the spot, at last says Rory, “Hullo, Ray! joy of joys! I’ve found a lucifer!”
Almost at the same moment he lit it. They could see each other’s faces—see a watch, and notice it was nearly midnight. They had regained sight! Joy and hope were at once restored.
“Troth!” said Rory, resuming his brogue, “it’s myself could be a baby for once and cry. Now what do ye say to try to sleep? We’ll lie close together, you know, and it’s warm we’ll be in a jiffey?”
So down they lay, and, after ten long shivering minutes, heat came back to their frozen bodies. They had not been talking all this time; it is but right to say they were better engaged.
With warmth camele gaiété—to Rory, at least.
“Have you wound your watch, Ray?”
“No, Row? and I wouldn’t move for the world!”
After a pause, “Ray,” says Row.
“Yes, Row?” says Ray.
“You always said you liked a big bed-room, Ray, and, troth, you’ve got one for once!”
“How I envy you your spirits,” answers Ray.
“Don’t talk about spirits,” says Row, “and frighten a poor boy. I’ve covered up my head, and I wouldn’t look up for the world. I’m going to repeat myself to sleep. Good night.”
“Good night,” asks Ray, “but how do you do it?”
“Psalms, Ray,” Row replies. “I know them all. I’ll be out of here in a moment.
“‘He makes me down to lie by pastures green,He leadeth me the quiet waters by.’
“‘He makes me down to lie by pastures green,He leadeth me the quiet waters by.’
“Isn’t that pretty, Ray?”
“Very, Row, but ‘pastures green’ and ‘quiet waters’ aren’t much in my way. Repeatmeto sleep, Rory boy, and I promise you I won’t pull your ears again for a month.”
“Well, I’ll try,” says Row. “Are your eyes shut?”
“To be sure. A likely thing I’d have them open, isn’t it?”
“Then we’re both going to a ball in old England.”
“Glorious,” says Ray. “I’m there already.”
Then in slow, monotonous, but pleasing tones, Row goes on. He describes the brilliant festive scene, the warmth, the light, the beauty and the music, and the dances, and last but not least the supper table. It is at this point that our Saxon hero gives sundry nasal indications that this strange species of mesmerism had taken due effect, so Row leaves him at the supper table, and goes back to his “pastures green” and “quiet waters,” and soon they both are sound enough. Let us leave them there; no need to watch them. Remember what Lover says in his beautiful song,—
“O! watch ye well by daylight,For angels watch at night.”
“O! watch ye well by daylight,For angels watch at night.”
Poor McBain! Worn out with watching, he had sunk at last to sleep in his chair.
And day broke slowly on the sea of ice. The snow-clad crater’s peak was the first to welcome glorious aurora with a rosy blush, which stole gradually downwards till it settled on the jagged mountain tips. Then bears began to yawn and stretch themselves, the sly Arctic foxes crept forth from snow-banks, and birds in their thousands—brightest of all the snowbird—came wheeling around theArrandoonto snatch an early breakfast ere they wended their way westward to fields of blood and phocal carnage.
And their screaming awoke McBain.
He was speedily on deck.
Yonder was thePerseverandoslowly descending.
During all the long cruise of theArrandoonnobody referred to the adventure at the crater of Jan Mayen without a feeling akin to sadness and contrition, for all felt that something had been done which ought not to have been done—there had been, as McBain called it, “a tempting of Providence.”
“Well, well, well,” cried the skipper of theCanny Scotia—and he seemed to be in anything but a sweet temper. “Just like my luck. I do declare, mate, if I’d been born a hatter everybody else would have been born without heads. Here have I been struggling away for years against fortune, always trying to get a good voyage to support a small wife and a big family, and now that luck seems to have all turned in our favour, two glorious patches of seals on the ice yonder, a hard frost, and the ice beautifully red with blood, and no ship near us, then you, mate, come down from the crow’s-nest with that confoundedly long face of yours, for which you ought to have been smothered at birth—”
“I can’t help my face, sir,” cried the mate, bristling up like a bantam cock.
“Silence!” roared the burly skipper. “Silence! when you talk to your captain. You, I say,youcome and report a big steamer in sight to help us at the banquet.”
The mate scratched his head, taking his hat off for the purpose.
“Did I make the ship?” he asked with naïve innocence.
“Pooh!” the skipper cried; and next moment he was scrambling up the rigging with all the elegance, grace, and speed of a mud turtle.
He was in a better humour when he returned.
“I say, matie,” he said, “yonder chap ain’t a sealer; too dandy, and not boats enough. No, she is one of they spectioneering kind o’ chaps as goes a prowling around lookin’ for the North Pole. Ha! ha! ha! Come below, matie, and we’ll have a glass together. She ain’t the kind o’ lady to interfere with our blubber-hunting.”
The mate was mollified. His face was soaped, and he shone.
Chapter Fifteen.The “Arrandoon” Anchors to the “Floe”—The Visit to the “Canny Scotia”—Silas Grig—A Sad Scene—Rory Relieves His Feelings—Strangers Coming from the Far West.Seeing the skipper of theCanny Scotiaand his mate come below together smiling, the steward readily guessed what they wanted, so he was not dilatory in producing the rum-bottle and two tumblers. Then the skipper pushed the former towards the mate, and said,—“Help yourself, matie.”And the mate dutifully and respectfully pushed it back again, saying,—“After you, sir.”This palaver finished, they both half-filled their tumblers with the ruby intoxicant, added thereto a modicum of boiling coffee from the urn that simmered on top of the stove, then, with a preliminary nod towards each other, emptied their glasses at a gulp. After this, gasping for breath, they beamed on each other with a newly-found friendliness.“Have another,” said the skipper.They had another, then went on deck.After ten minutes of attentive gazing at theArrandoon, “Well,” said the skipper, “I do call that a bit o’ pretty steering; if it ain’t, my name isn’t Silas Grig.”“But there’s a deal o’ palaver about it, don’t you think so, sir?” remarked the mate.“Granted, granted,” assented Silas; “granted, matie.”The cause of their admiration was the way in which theArrandoonwas brought alongside the great ice-floe. She didn’t come stem on—as if she meant to flatten, her bows—and then swing round. Not she. She approached the ice with a beautiful sweep, describing nearly half a circle, then, broadside on to the ice, she neared it and neared it. Next over went the fenders; the steam roared from the pipe upwards into the blue air, like driven snow, then dissolved itself like the ghost of the white lady; the ship was stopped, away went the ice-anchors, the vessel was fast.And no noise about it either. There may not be much seamanship now-a-days, but I tell you, boys, it takes a clever man to manage a big steamer prettily and well.TheArrandoonwas not two hundred yards from theCanny Scotia. Now round go the davits on the port quarter, outward swings the boat, men and officers spring nimbly into her, blocks rattle, and down goes the first whaler, reaching the water with a flop, but not a plash, and with keel as even and straight as a ruled line.“I say, matie,” said Silas Grig, in some surprise, “if that boat ain’t coming straight away here, I hope I may never chew cheese again.”So far as that was concerned, if Silas chose, he would at least have the chance of chewing cheese again, for theArrandoon’sboat came rippling along towards them with a steady cluck-el-tee cluck-el-tee, which spoke well for the men at the oars.“Well,” continued Silas, who, rough nut though he was, always meant well enough, “let us do the civil, matie; tell the steward to fill the rum-bottle, and pitch ’em a rope.”The rope came in very handy; but there was no need for the rum; even in Greenland men can live without it—the officers of theArrandoonhad found that out.McBain, with Allan and Rory,—the latter, by the way, seemed to have registered a vow to go everywhere and see everything,—stood on the quarter-deck of theCanny Scotia, the skipper of which craft was in front of him, a comical look of admiration on his round brick-coloured countenance, and his two hands deep in the pockets of his powerful pilot coat.“Ay, sir! ay!” he was saying; “well, I must say ye do surpriseme.”He put such an emphasis on the “me” that one would have thought that to surprise Silas Grig was something to be quite boastful of ever after.“All the way to the North Pole? Well, well; but d’ye think you’ll find it?”“We mean to,” said Rory, boldly.“Perseverando!” said Allan.“ThePerseverance!” cried the skipper. “I know the ship, a Peterheader. Last time I saw her she had got in the nips, and was lying keel up on the ice, yards and rigging all awry of course; and, bother her, I hope she’ll lie there till Silas Grig gets a voyage (a cargo), then when theScotiais full ship, thePerseverancecan get down off the shelf, and cabbage all the rest. Them’s my sentiments. But come below, gentlemen, come below; there is room enough in the cabin of the oldScotiafor every man Jack o’ ye. Come below.”Silas was right. There was room, but not much to spare, and, squeezed in between Allan and McBain, poor Rory was hardly visible, and could only reach the table with one hand.The cabin of this Greenlandman can be described with a stroke of the pen, so to speak. It was square and not very lofty—a tall man required to duck when under a beam; the beams were painted white, the bulkheads and cabin doors—four in number—were grey picked out with green. One-half at least of the available space was occupied by the table; close around it were cushioned lockers; the only other furniture was the captain’s big chair and a few camp-stools, a big square stove with a roaring fire, and a big square urn fixed on top thereof, which contained coffee, had never been empty all the voyage, and would not be till the end thereof. I suppose a bucket of water could hardly be called furniture, but there it stood close to the side of the stove, and the concentric rings of ice inside it showed the difficulty everybody must experience who chose to quench his thirst in the most natural way possible.Above, in the hollow of the skylight, hung a big compass, and several enormously long sealer’s telescopes.“No rum, gentlemen?” said Silas; “well, you do astonishme; but you’ll taste my wife’s green ginger wine, and drink her health?”“That we will,” replied McBain, “and maybe finish a bottle.”“And welcome to ten,” said Silas; “and the bun, steward, bring the bun. That’s the style! My wife isn’t much to look at, gentlemen, but, for a bun or o’ drop o’ green ginger, I’ll back her against the whole world.”After our heroes had done justice to the bun, and pledged the skipper’s good lady in the green ginger, that gentleman must needs eye them again and again, with as much curiosity as if they had been some new and wonderful zoological specimens, that he had by chance captured.“All the way to the North Pole!” he muttered. “Well, well, but thatdoesget over Silas.”Rory could not help laughing.“Funny old stick,” said Silas, joining in his merriment, “ain’t I?”He did look all that and more, with his two elbows on the table, and his knuckles supporting his chin, for his face was as round as a full moon orient, and just the colour of a new flower-pot; then he laughed more with one side of his face than the other, his eyes were nowhere in the folds of his face, and his nose hardly worth mentioning.After the laugh, beginning with Rory, had spread fairly round the table, everybody felt relieved.“I’m only a plain, honest blubber-hunter, gentlemen,” said Silas Grig, apologetically, “with a large family and—and a small wife—but—but you do surpriseme. There?”(It is but fair to say that, as a rule, captains of Greenlandmen are far more refined in manner than poor Silas.)But when McBain informed him that theArrandoonwould lay alongside him for a week or more, and help him to secure a voyage, and wouldn’t ship a single skin herself, Silas was more surprised than ever. Indeed, until this day I could not tell you what would have happened to Silas, had the mate not been providentially beside him to vent his feelings upon. On that unfortunate officer’s back he brought down his great shoulder-of-mutton fist with a force that made him jump, and his breath to come and go as if he had just been popped under a shower-bath.“Luck’s come,” he cried. “Hey? hey?”And every “hey?” represented a dig in the mate’s ribs with the skipper’s thumb of iron.“Told ye it would, hey? Didn’t I? hey?”“What’ll the old woman say, hey? Hey, boys? Hey, matie? Hey? Hey?”“You gentlemen,” said Silas, alter his feelings had calmed down a trifle, “are all for sport, and Silas has to make a voyage. But you’ll have sport, gentlemen, that ye will. My men are sealing now. They’re among the young seals. It has been nothing but flay, flay, flay, for the last two rounds of the sun, and there isn’t such a very long night now, is there? And you saw the blood?”Saw the blood, reader! Indeed, our heroes had. Where was it that that blood was not? All the beautiful snow was encrimsoned with it on the distant field of ice, where the men were carrying on their ghastly work. It was as if a great battle had been fought there, and the dead crangs lay in dozens and hundreds. A crang means a carcass. Is the adjective “dead,” then, not unnecessary? What else can a carcass or crang be but “dead”? Nay, but listen: let me whisper a truth in your ear, and I know your brave young blood will boil when I tell you: I’ve known our men, Englishmen and Scotchmen, flense the lambs while still alive.From the field of slaughter the skins were being dragged to the ship by men with ropes, so there were streaks of red all the way to the ship, and all the vessel’s starboard side was smeared with blood. Indeed, I do not wish to harrow the feelings of my readers, and I shall but describe a few of the cruelties of sealing—no, on second thoughts, I will not even do that, because I know well you will believe me when I tell you these cruelties are very great, and believing this, if ever you have an opportunity of voting for a bill or signing a petition to get poor Greenland seals fair play, I know you will.Silas Grig and our heroes took a walk to the field of unequal strife, and Rory and Allan, to whom all they saw was very new, were not a little horrified as well as disgusted.“This,” said McBain, “is the young-sealing. We are not going to assist you in this; we are sportsmen, not butchers, Captain Grig?”Silas grasped McBain’s hand. “Your feelings do you credit, sir,” he said—“they do. But I have feelings, too. Yes, a weather-beaten old stick like me has feelings! But I’m sent out here to make a voyage, and what can I do? I’ve a small wife and a large family; and my owners, too, would sack me if I didn’t bring the skins. I say,” he added, after a pause, “you know my mate?”“Yes,” said McBain.“Well,” said Silas, “you wouldn’t, imagine that a fellow with such an ugly chunk o’ a figure-head as that had feelings, eh? But he has, though; and during all this young-sealing business we both of us just drowns our feelings in the rum-bottle. Fact, sir! and old Silas scorns a lie. But, gentlemen, when all this wicked work is over, when we are away north from here, among the old seals, and when we can look at that sun again without seeing blood, then my matie and I banishes Black-Jack (the gallon measure from which rum is served is so called) and sticks to coffee and arrowroot; that we do!”They had turned their backs on the by no means inviting scene, and were walking towards theCanny Scotiaas Silas spoke.“But,” said the Greenland mariner, “come and dine with the old man to-morrow. The last of the young seals will be on board by then, and we’ll have had a wash down; we’ll be clean and tidy like. Then hurrah for the old seals! That’s sport, if you like!—that’s fair play.”“Ah!” said McBain, “your heart is in the right place, I can see that. I wish there were more like you. Doyouseal on Sunday? Many do.”Silas looked solemn. “I knows they do,” he said, “but Silas hasn’t done so yet, and he prays he never may be tempted to.”“Captain Grig, we’ll come and dine with you, and we expect you to pay us the same compliment another day.”“I daresay you fellows are glad to get home?” said Ralph, rising from the sofa and throwing down the volume he had been dreaming over.“Not a bit of it!” said Rory and Allan, both in one breath; and Rory added, “You don’t know what a funny ship a real Greenlandman is! I declare you’ve lost a treat!”“Does it smell badly?” asked Ralph, with a slight curl of his upper lip.“Never a taste!” says Rory; “she’s as sweet as cowslips or clover, or newly-made hay; and the bun was beautiful!”“The what?” said Ralph.“Don’t tell him?” cried Allan; “don’t tell him!”“And the green ginger!” said Rory, smacking his lips. “Ah, yes! the green ginger,” said Allan; “I never tasted anything like that in all my born days!”“Hi, you, Freezing Powders!” cried Rory, “take my coat and out-o’-doors gear. D’ye hear? Look sharp?”“I’m coming, sah; and coming plenty quick!”“De-ah me!” from Cockie.“Now bring my fiddle, you young rascal, into my cabin;” for Rory, reader, had that young-sealing scene on his brain, and he would not be happy till he had played it away. And a wild, weird lilt it was, too, that he did bring forth. Extempore, did you ask? Certainly, for he played as he thought and felt; all his soul seemed to enter the cremona, and to well forth again from the beautiful instrument, now in tones of plaintive sorrow, now in notes of wrath; and then it stopped all at once abruptly. That was Rory’s way; he had pitched fiddle and bow on the bed, and presently he returned to the saloon.“Are you better?” inquired Allan. Rory only gave a little laugh, and sat down to read. It had taken McBain nearly a fortnight to get clear away from the Isle of Jan Mayen, for the frost had set in sharp and hard, and the great ice-saws had to be worked, and the aid of dynamite called in to blast the pieces. They were now some ten miles to the north and east of the island, but, so far as he knew on the day of his visit to theScotia, he had bidden it farewell for ever.It had not been for the mere sake of sport or adventure he had called in there, he had another reason. Old Magnus, before the sailing—ay, or even the building—of theArrandoon, had heard that the island was inhabited by a party of wandering Eskimos. Wherever Eskimos were McBain had thought there must be dogs, and that was just what was wanting to complete the expedition—a kennel of sleigh-dogs. But, as we have seen, the Eskimo encampment was deserted, so McBain had to leave it disappointed. But, as it turned out, it was only temporarily deserted after all, and on the very day on which they had arranged to dine with Skipper Grig, two daring men, chiefs of a tribe of Eskimos, drawn in a rude sledge, were making their way towards the island. Their team consisted of over a dozen half-wild dogs, harnessed with ropes of skin and untanned leather. They seemed to fly across the sea of ice. Hardly could you see the dogs for the powdery snow that rose in clouds around them. Well might they hurry, for clouds were banking up in the west, a low wind came moaning over the dreary plain, and a storm was brewing, and if it burst upon them ere they reached the still distant island, then—
Seeing the skipper of theCanny Scotiaand his mate come below together smiling, the steward readily guessed what they wanted, so he was not dilatory in producing the rum-bottle and two tumblers. Then the skipper pushed the former towards the mate, and said,—
“Help yourself, matie.”
And the mate dutifully and respectfully pushed it back again, saying,—
“After you, sir.”
This palaver finished, they both half-filled their tumblers with the ruby intoxicant, added thereto a modicum of boiling coffee from the urn that simmered on top of the stove, then, with a preliminary nod towards each other, emptied their glasses at a gulp. After this, gasping for breath, they beamed on each other with a newly-found friendliness.
“Have another,” said the skipper.
They had another, then went on deck.
After ten minutes of attentive gazing at theArrandoon, “Well,” said the skipper, “I do call that a bit o’ pretty steering; if it ain’t, my name isn’t Silas Grig.”
“But there’s a deal o’ palaver about it, don’t you think so, sir?” remarked the mate.
“Granted, granted,” assented Silas; “granted, matie.”
The cause of their admiration was the way in which theArrandoonwas brought alongside the great ice-floe. She didn’t come stem on—as if she meant to flatten, her bows—and then swing round. Not she. She approached the ice with a beautiful sweep, describing nearly half a circle, then, broadside on to the ice, she neared it and neared it. Next over went the fenders; the steam roared from the pipe upwards into the blue air, like driven snow, then dissolved itself like the ghost of the white lady; the ship was stopped, away went the ice-anchors, the vessel was fast.
And no noise about it either. There may not be much seamanship now-a-days, but I tell you, boys, it takes a clever man to manage a big steamer prettily and well.
TheArrandoonwas not two hundred yards from theCanny Scotia. Now round go the davits on the port quarter, outward swings the boat, men and officers spring nimbly into her, blocks rattle, and down goes the first whaler, reaching the water with a flop, but not a plash, and with keel as even and straight as a ruled line.
“I say, matie,” said Silas Grig, in some surprise, “if that boat ain’t coming straight away here, I hope I may never chew cheese again.”
So far as that was concerned, if Silas chose, he would at least have the chance of chewing cheese again, for theArrandoon’sboat came rippling along towards them with a steady cluck-el-tee cluck-el-tee, which spoke well for the men at the oars.
“Well,” continued Silas, who, rough nut though he was, always meant well enough, “let us do the civil, matie; tell the steward to fill the rum-bottle, and pitch ’em a rope.”
The rope came in very handy; but there was no need for the rum; even in Greenland men can live without it—the officers of theArrandoonhad found that out.
McBain, with Allan and Rory,—the latter, by the way, seemed to have registered a vow to go everywhere and see everything,—stood on the quarter-deck of theCanny Scotia, the skipper of which craft was in front of him, a comical look of admiration on his round brick-coloured countenance, and his two hands deep in the pockets of his powerful pilot coat.
“Ay, sir! ay!” he was saying; “well, I must say ye do surpriseme.”
He put such an emphasis on the “me” that one would have thought that to surprise Silas Grig was something to be quite boastful of ever after.
“All the way to the North Pole? Well, well; but d’ye think you’ll find it?”
“We mean to,” said Rory, boldly.
“Perseverando!” said Allan.
“ThePerseverance!” cried the skipper. “I know the ship, a Peterheader. Last time I saw her she had got in the nips, and was lying keel up on the ice, yards and rigging all awry of course; and, bother her, I hope she’ll lie there till Silas Grig gets a voyage (a cargo), then when theScotiais full ship, thePerseverancecan get down off the shelf, and cabbage all the rest. Them’s my sentiments. But come below, gentlemen, come below; there is room enough in the cabin of the oldScotiafor every man Jack o’ ye. Come below.”
Silas was right. There was room, but not much to spare, and, squeezed in between Allan and McBain, poor Rory was hardly visible, and could only reach the table with one hand.
The cabin of this Greenlandman can be described with a stroke of the pen, so to speak. It was square and not very lofty—a tall man required to duck when under a beam; the beams were painted white, the bulkheads and cabin doors—four in number—were grey picked out with green. One-half at least of the available space was occupied by the table; close around it were cushioned lockers; the only other furniture was the captain’s big chair and a few camp-stools, a big square stove with a roaring fire, and a big square urn fixed on top thereof, which contained coffee, had never been empty all the voyage, and would not be till the end thereof. I suppose a bucket of water could hardly be called furniture, but there it stood close to the side of the stove, and the concentric rings of ice inside it showed the difficulty everybody must experience who chose to quench his thirst in the most natural way possible.
Above, in the hollow of the skylight, hung a big compass, and several enormously long sealer’s telescopes.
“No rum, gentlemen?” said Silas; “well, you do astonishme; but you’ll taste my wife’s green ginger wine, and drink her health?”
“That we will,” replied McBain, “and maybe finish a bottle.”
“And welcome to ten,” said Silas; “and the bun, steward, bring the bun. That’s the style! My wife isn’t much to look at, gentlemen, but, for a bun or o’ drop o’ green ginger, I’ll back her against the whole world.”
After our heroes had done justice to the bun, and pledged the skipper’s good lady in the green ginger, that gentleman must needs eye them again and again, with as much curiosity as if they had been some new and wonderful zoological specimens, that he had by chance captured.
“All the way to the North Pole!” he muttered. “Well, well, but thatdoesget over Silas.”
Rory could not help laughing.
“Funny old stick,” said Silas, joining in his merriment, “ain’t I?”
He did look all that and more, with his two elbows on the table, and his knuckles supporting his chin, for his face was as round as a full moon orient, and just the colour of a new flower-pot; then he laughed more with one side of his face than the other, his eyes were nowhere in the folds of his face, and his nose hardly worth mentioning.
After the laugh, beginning with Rory, had spread fairly round the table, everybody felt relieved.
“I’m only a plain, honest blubber-hunter, gentlemen,” said Silas Grig, apologetically, “with a large family and—and a small wife—but—but you do surpriseme. There?”
(It is but fair to say that, as a rule, captains of Greenlandmen are far more refined in manner than poor Silas.)
But when McBain informed him that theArrandoonwould lay alongside him for a week or more, and help him to secure a voyage, and wouldn’t ship a single skin herself, Silas was more surprised than ever. Indeed, until this day I could not tell you what would have happened to Silas, had the mate not been providentially beside him to vent his feelings upon. On that unfortunate officer’s back he brought down his great shoulder-of-mutton fist with a force that made him jump, and his breath to come and go as if he had just been popped under a shower-bath.
“Luck’s come,” he cried. “Hey? hey?”
And every “hey?” represented a dig in the mate’s ribs with the skipper’s thumb of iron.
“Told ye it would, hey? Didn’t I? hey?”
“What’ll the old woman say, hey? Hey, boys? Hey, matie? Hey? Hey?”
“You gentlemen,” said Silas, alter his feelings had calmed down a trifle, “are all for sport, and Silas has to make a voyage. But you’ll have sport, gentlemen, that ye will. My men are sealing now. They’re among the young seals. It has been nothing but flay, flay, flay, for the last two rounds of the sun, and there isn’t such a very long night now, is there? And you saw the blood?”
Saw the blood, reader! Indeed, our heroes had. Where was it that that blood was not? All the beautiful snow was encrimsoned with it on the distant field of ice, where the men were carrying on their ghastly work. It was as if a great battle had been fought there, and the dead crangs lay in dozens and hundreds. A crang means a carcass. Is the adjective “dead,” then, not unnecessary? What else can a carcass or crang be but “dead”? Nay, but listen: let me whisper a truth in your ear, and I know your brave young blood will boil when I tell you: I’ve known our men, Englishmen and Scotchmen, flense the lambs while still alive.
From the field of slaughter the skins were being dragged to the ship by men with ropes, so there were streaks of red all the way to the ship, and all the vessel’s starboard side was smeared with blood. Indeed, I do not wish to harrow the feelings of my readers, and I shall but describe a few of the cruelties of sealing—no, on second thoughts, I will not even do that, because I know well you will believe me when I tell you these cruelties are very great, and believing this, if ever you have an opportunity of voting for a bill or signing a petition to get poor Greenland seals fair play, I know you will.
Silas Grig and our heroes took a walk to the field of unequal strife, and Rory and Allan, to whom all they saw was very new, were not a little horrified as well as disgusted.
“This,” said McBain, “is the young-sealing. We are not going to assist you in this; we are sportsmen, not butchers, Captain Grig?”
Silas grasped McBain’s hand. “Your feelings do you credit, sir,” he said—“they do. But I have feelings, too. Yes, a weather-beaten old stick like me has feelings! But I’m sent out here to make a voyage, and what can I do? I’ve a small wife and a large family; and my owners, too, would sack me if I didn’t bring the skins. I say,” he added, after a pause, “you know my mate?”
“Yes,” said McBain.
“Well,” said Silas, “you wouldn’t, imagine that a fellow with such an ugly chunk o’ a figure-head as that had feelings, eh? But he has, though; and during all this young-sealing business we both of us just drowns our feelings in the rum-bottle. Fact, sir! and old Silas scorns a lie. But, gentlemen, when all this wicked work is over, when we are away north from here, among the old seals, and when we can look at that sun again without seeing blood, then my matie and I banishes Black-Jack (the gallon measure from which rum is served is so called) and sticks to coffee and arrowroot; that we do!”
They had turned their backs on the by no means inviting scene, and were walking towards theCanny Scotiaas Silas spoke.
“But,” said the Greenland mariner, “come and dine with the old man to-morrow. The last of the young seals will be on board by then, and we’ll have had a wash down; we’ll be clean and tidy like. Then hurrah for the old seals! That’s sport, if you like!—that’s fair play.”
“Ah!” said McBain, “your heart is in the right place, I can see that. I wish there were more like you. Doyouseal on Sunday? Many do.”
Silas looked solemn. “I knows they do,” he said, “but Silas hasn’t done so yet, and he prays he never may be tempted to.”
“Captain Grig, we’ll come and dine with you, and we expect you to pay us the same compliment another day.”
“I daresay you fellows are glad to get home?” said Ralph, rising from the sofa and throwing down the volume he had been dreaming over.
“Not a bit of it!” said Rory and Allan, both in one breath; and Rory added, “You don’t know what a funny ship a real Greenlandman is! I declare you’ve lost a treat!”
“Does it smell badly?” asked Ralph, with a slight curl of his upper lip.
“Never a taste!” says Rory; “she’s as sweet as cowslips or clover, or newly-made hay; and the bun was beautiful!”
“The what?” said Ralph.
“Don’t tell him?” cried Allan; “don’t tell him!”
“And the green ginger!” said Rory, smacking his lips. “Ah, yes! the green ginger,” said Allan; “I never tasted anything like that in all my born days!”
“Hi, you, Freezing Powders!” cried Rory, “take my coat and out-o’-doors gear. D’ye hear? Look sharp?”
“I’m coming, sah; and coming plenty quick!”
“De-ah me!” from Cockie.
“Now bring my fiddle, you young rascal, into my cabin;” for Rory, reader, had that young-sealing scene on his brain, and he would not be happy till he had played it away. And a wild, weird lilt it was, too, that he did bring forth. Extempore, did you ask? Certainly, for he played as he thought and felt; all his soul seemed to enter the cremona, and to well forth again from the beautiful instrument, now in tones of plaintive sorrow, now in notes of wrath; and then it stopped all at once abruptly. That was Rory’s way; he had pitched fiddle and bow on the bed, and presently he returned to the saloon.
“Are you better?” inquired Allan. Rory only gave a little laugh, and sat down to read. It had taken McBain nearly a fortnight to get clear away from the Isle of Jan Mayen, for the frost had set in sharp and hard, and the great ice-saws had to be worked, and the aid of dynamite called in to blast the pieces. They were now some ten miles to the north and east of the island, but, so far as he knew on the day of his visit to theScotia, he had bidden it farewell for ever.
It had not been for the mere sake of sport or adventure he had called in there, he had another reason. Old Magnus, before the sailing—ay, or even the building—of theArrandoon, had heard that the island was inhabited by a party of wandering Eskimos. Wherever Eskimos were McBain had thought there must be dogs, and that was just what was wanting to complete the expedition—a kennel of sleigh-dogs. But, as we have seen, the Eskimo encampment was deserted, so McBain had to leave it disappointed. But, as it turned out, it was only temporarily deserted after all, and on the very day on which they had arranged to dine with Skipper Grig, two daring men, chiefs of a tribe of Eskimos, drawn in a rude sledge, were making their way towards the island. Their team consisted of over a dozen half-wild dogs, harnessed with ropes of skin and untanned leather. They seemed to fly across the sea of ice. Hardly could you see the dogs for the powdery snow that rose in clouds around them. Well might they hurry, for clouds were banking up in the west, a low wind came moaning over the dreary plain, and a storm was brewing, and if it burst upon them ere they reached the still distant island, then—