Wild Adventures round the Pole
Page 46
sailor which was very taking.
"I declare," he said, "I feel just like a schoolboy home for a holiday?"
Rory and Silas were specially friendly.
"Rory, lad," he remarked, after a pause, "we won't be long togethernow."
"No," replied Rory; "and it isn't sorry I am, but really downright _sad_at the thoughts of your going away and leaving us. I say, though--happythought!--send Stevenson home with your ship and you stay with us inplace of him."
Silas laughed. "What _would_ my owners say, boy? and what about mylittle wife, eh?"
"Ah! true," said Rory; "I had forgotten." Then, after a pause, headded, more heartily, "But we'll meet again, won't we?"
"Please God!" said Silas, reverently. "I think," Rory added, "I wouldknow your house among a thousand, you have told me so much about it--theblue-grey walls, the bay windows, the garden, with its roses and--and--"
"The green paling," Silas put in. "Ah, yes! the green paling, to besure; how could I have forgotten that? Well, I'll come and see you; andwon't you bring out the green ginger that day, Silas!"
"_And_ the bun," added Silas. "_And_ the bun," repeated Rory after him."And won't my little wife make you welcome, too! you may bet yourfiddle on that!"
Then these two sworn friends grasped hands over the table, and theconversation dropped for a time.
But there perhaps never was a much happier Greenland skipper than SilasGrig, when he found his ship lying secure among the ice, with thousandson thousands of old seals all around him. The weather continuedextremely fine for a whole week. The little wind there had been, diedall away, and the sun shone more warmly and brightly than it had donesince the _Arrandoon_ came to the country. The seals were so cosy thatthey really did not seem to mind being shot, and those that were scaredoff one piece of ice almost immediately scrambled on to another. "Fireaway!" they seemed to say; "we are so numerous that we really won't missa few of us. Only don't disturb us more than you can help."
So the seals hugged the ice, basking in the bright sunshine, eithersleeping soundly or gazing dreamily around them with their splendideyes, or scratching their woolly ribs with their flippers for want ofsomething to do.
And bang, bang, bang! went the rifles; they never seemed to cease fromthe noon of night until mid-day, nor from mid-day until the noon ofnight again.
The draggers of skins went in pairs for safety, and thus many a poorfellow who tumbled into the sea between the bergs, escaped with aducking when otherwise he would have lost his life.
Ralph--long-legged, brawny-chested Saxon Ralph--was among "the ducked,"as Rory called the unfortunates. He came to a space of water which wastoo wide even for him. He would not be beaten, though, so he pitchedhis rifle over first by way of beginning the battle. Then he thought,by swinging his heavy cartridge-bag by its shoulder-strap the weightwould help to carry him over. He called this jumping from a tangent.It was a miserable failure. But the best of the fun--so Rory said,though it could not have been fun to Ralph--was this: when he foundhimself floundering in the water he let go the bag of cartridges, whichat once began to sink, but in sinking caught his heel, and pulled himfor the moment under water. Poor Ralph! his feelings may be betterimagined than described.
"I made sure a shark had me!" he said, quietly, when by the help of hisfriend Rory, he had been brought safely to bank.
It was not very often that Ralph had a mishap of any kind, but, havingcome to grief in this way, it was not likely that Rory would throw awayso good a chance of chaffing him.
He suddenly burst out laughing at luncheon that day, at a time whennobody was speaking, and when apparently there was nothing at all tolaugh about.
"What now, Rory? what now, boy?" said McBain, with a smile ofanticipation.
"Oh!" cried Rory, "if you had only seen my big English brother's facewhen he thought the shark had him!"
"Was it funny?" said Allan, egging him on.
"Funny!" said Rory. "Och I now, funny is no name for it. You shouldhave seen the eyes of him!--and his jaw fall!--and that big chin of his.You know, Englishmen have a lot of chin, and--"
"And Irishmen have a lot of cheek," cried Ralph. "Just wait till I getyou on deck, Row boy."
"I'd make him whustle," suggested the doctor.
"Troth," Rory went on, "it was very nearly the death o' me. And to seehim kick and flounder! Sure I'd pity the shark that got one between theeyes from your foot, baby Ralph."
"Well," said Ralph, "it was nearly the death of me, anyhow, having totake off all my clothes and wring them on top of the snow."
"Oh! but," continued Rory, assuming seriousness, and addressing McBain,"you ought to have seen Ralph just then, sir. That was the time to seemy baby brother to advantage. Neptune is nobody to him. Troth, Ray, ifyou'd lived in the good old times, it's a gladiator they'd have made ofyou entirely."
Here came a low derisive laugh from Cockie's cage, and Ralph pitched acrust of bread at the bird, and shook his fingers at Rory.
But Rory kept out of Ralph's way for a whole hour after this, and bythat time the storm had blown clean away, so Rory was safe.
Allan had his turn next day. The danger in walking on the ice waschiefly owing to the fact that the edges of many of the bergs had beenundermined by the waves and the recent swell, so that they were apt tobreak off and precipitate the unwary pedestrian into the water.
Here is Allan's little adventure, and it makes one shudder to think hownearly it led him to being an actor in a terrible tragedy. He wastrudging on after the seals with rifle at full cock, for he expected ashot almost immediately, when, as he was about to leap, the snowy edgeof the berg gave way, and down he went. Instinctively he held his rifleout to his friend, who grasped it with both hands, the muzzle againsthis breast, and thus pulled him out. It seemed marvellous that therifle did not go off.
[Both these adventures are sketched from the life.]
When safe to bank, and when he noticed the manner in which he had beenhelped out, poor Allan felt sick, there is no other name for it.
"Oh, Ralph, Ralph!" he said, clutching his friend by the shoulder tokeep himself from falling, "what if I had killed you?"
When told of the incident that evening after dinner, McBain, after amomentary silence, said quietly,--
"I'm not sorry such a thing should have happened, boys; it ought toteach you caution; and it teaches us all that there is Some One in whosehands we are; Some One to look after us even in moments of extremestperil."
But I think Allan loved Ralph even better after this.
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Two weeks' constant sealing; two weeks during which the crews of the_Arrandoon_ and _Canny Scotia_ never sat down to a regular meal, andnever lay down for two consecutive hours of repose, only eating whenhungry and sleeping when they could no longer keep moving; two weeksduring which nobody knew what o'clock it was at any particular time, orwhich was east or west, or whether it were day or night. Two weeks,then the seals on the ice disappeared as if by magic, for the frost wascoming.
"Let them go," said Silas, shaking McBain warmly by the hand. "Thanksto you, sir, I'm a bumper ship. Why, man, I'm full to the hatches. Lowfreeboard and all that sort of thing. Plimsoll wouldn't pass us out ofany British harbour. But, with fair weather and God's help, sir, we'llget safely home."
"And now," McBain replied, "there isn't a moment to lose. We must getout of here, Captain Grig, or the frost will serve us a trick as it didbefore."
With some difficulty the ships were got about and headed once more forthe open sea.
None too soon, though, for there came again that strange, ethereal blueinto the sky, which, from their experiences of the last black frost,they had learned to dread. The thermometer sank, and sank, and sank,till far down below zero.
The _Arrandoon_ took her "chummy ship" in tow.
"Go ahead at full speed," was the order.
No, none too soon, for in two hours' time the
great steam-hammer had tobe set to work to break the newly-formed bay ice at the bows of the_Arrandoon_, and fifty men were sent over the side to help her on. Withiron-shod pikes they smashed the ice, with long poles they pushed thebergs, singing merrily as they worked, working merrily as they sang,laughing, joking, stamping, shouting, and cheering as ever and anon thegreat ship made another spurt, and tore along for fifty or a hundredyards. Handicapped though she was by having the _Scotia_ in tow, the_Arrandoon_ fought the ice as if she had been some mighty giant, andevery minute the distance between her and the open water became less,till at last it could be