The World of Ice

by R. M. Ballantyne

  CHAPTER TWELVE.

  A DANGEROUS SLEEP INTERRUPTED--A NIGHT IN A SNOW-HUT, AND AN UNPLEASANTVISITOR--SNOWED UP.

  "Now then," cried Fred, as they drew up on a level portion of theice-floe, where the snow on its surface was so hard that the runners ofthe sledge scarce made an impression on it, "let us to work, lads, andget the tarpaulins spread; we shall have to sleep to-night understar-spangled bed-curtains."

  "Troth," said O'Riley, gazing round towards the land, where the distantcliffs loomed black and heavy in the fading light, and out upon thefloes and hummocks, where the frost smoke from pools of open water onthe horizon circled round the pinnacles of the icebergs,--"troth, it's acowld place intirely to go to wan's bed in, but that fat-faced Exqueemawseems to be settin' about it quite coolly; so here goes!"

  "It would be difficult to set about it otherwise than coolly with thethermometer thirty-five below zero," remarked Fred, beating his handstogether, and stamping his feet, while the breath issued from his mouthlike dense clouds of steam, and fringed the edges of his hood and thebreast of his jumper with hoar-frost.

  "It's quite purty, it is," remarked O'Riley, in reference to this wreathof hoar-frost, which covered the upper parts of each of them; "it's jistlike the ermine that kings and queens wear, so I'm towld, and it'schaper a long way."

  "I don't know that," said Joseph West. "It has cost us a rough voyageand a winter in the Arctic regions, if it doesn't cost us more yet, toput that ermine fringe on our jumpers. I can make nothing of this knot;try what you can do with it, messmate, will you?"

  "Sorra wan o' me 'll try it," cried O'Riley, suddenly leaping up andswinging both arms violently against his shoulders; "I've got two hands,I have, but niver a finger on them--leastwise I feel none, though it_is_ some small degrae o' comfort to see them."

  "My toes are much in the same condition," said West, stamping vigorouslyuntil he brought back the circulation.

  "Dance, then, wid me," cried the Irishman, suiting his action to theword. "I've a mortial fear o' bein' bit wid the frost for it's no joke,let me tell you. Didn't I see a whole ship's crew wance that woswrecked in the Gulf o' Saint Lawrence about the beginnin' o' winter, andbefore they got to a part o' the coast where there was a house belongin'to the fur-traders, ivery man-jack o' them was frost-bit more or less,they wor. Wan lost a thumb, and another the jint of a finger or two,and most o' them had two or three toes off, an' there wos wan poorfellow who lost the front half o' wan fut, an' the heel o' the other,an' two inches o' the bone was stickin' out. Sure, it's truth I'mtellin' ye, for I seed it wid me own two eyes, I did."

  The earnest tones in which the last words were spoken convinced hiscomrades that O'Riley was telling the truth, so, having a decidedobjection to be placed in similar circumstances, they danced and beateach other until they were quite in a glow.

  "Why, what are you at there, Meetuck?" exclaimed Fred, pausing.

  "Igloe, make," replied the Esquimaux.

  "Ig--what?" enquired O'Riley.

  "Oh, I see!" shouted Fred, "he's going to make a snow-hut,--igloes theycall them here. Capital!--I never thought of that! Come along; let'shelp him!"

  Meetuck was indeed about to erect one of those curious dwellings ofsnow, in which, for the greater part of the year, his primitivecountrymen dwell. He had no taste for star-spangled bed-curtains, whensolid walls, whiter than the purest dimity, were to be had for nothing.His first operation in the erection of this hut was to mark out a circleof about seven feet diameter. From the inside of this circle the snowwas cut by means of a long knife in the form of slabs nearly a footthick, and from two to three feet long, having a slight convexity on theoutside. These slabs were then so cut and arranged that, when they werepiled upon each other round the margin of the circle, they formed adome-shaped structure like a bee-hive, which was six feet high inside,and remarkably solid. The slabs were cemented together with loose snow,and every accidental chink or crevice filled up with the same material.The natives sometimes insert a block of clear ice in the roof for awindow, but this was dispensed with on the present occasion--firstly,because there was no light to let in; and, secondly, because if therehad been, they didn't want it.

  The building of the hut occupied only an hour, for the hunters were coldand hungry, and in their case the old proverb might have beenparaphrased: "No _work_, no supper." A hole, just large enough topermit a man to creep through on his hands and knees, formed the door ofthis bee-hive. Attached to this hole, and cemented to it, was a lowtunnel of about four feet in length. When finished, both ends of thetunnel were closed up with slabs of hard snow, which served the purposeof double doors, and effectually kept out the cold.

  While this tunnel was approaching completion, Fred retired to a shortdistance, and sat down to rest a few minutes on a block of ice.

  A great change had come over the scene during the time they were at workon the snow-hut. The night had settled down, and now the whole sky waslit up with the vivid and beautiful coruscations of the AuroraBorealis--that magnificent meteor of the north which, in some measure,makes up to the inhabitants for the absence of the sun. It spread overthe whole extent of the sky in the form of an irregular arch, and wasintensely brilliant. But the brilliancy varied, as the green etherealfire waved mysteriously to and fro, or shot up long streamers toward thezenith. These streamers, or "merry dancers" as they are sometimestermed, were at times peculiarly bright. Their colour was mostfrequently yellowish white, sometimes greenish, and once or twice of alilac tinge. The strength of the light was something greater than thatof the moon in her quarter, and the stars were dimmed when the Aurorapassed over them as if they had been covered with a delicate gauze veil.

  But that which struck our hero as being most remarkable was themagnitude and dazzling brightness of the host of stars that covered theblack firmament. It seemed as if they were magnified in glory, andtwinkled so much that the sky seemed, as it were, to tremble with light.A feeling of deep solemnity filled Fred's heart as he gazed upwards;and as he thought upon the Creator of these mysterious worlds--andremembered that He came to this little planet of ours to work out themiracle of our redemption, the words that he had often read in theBible: "Lord, what is man that thou art mindful of him?" came forciblyto his remembrance, and he felt the appropriateness of that sentimentwhich the sweet singer of Israel has expressed in the words: "Praise yehim, sun and moon; praise him, all ye stars of light."

  There was a deep, solemn stillness all around--a stillness widelydifferent from that peaceful composure which characterises a calm day inan inhabited land. It was the death-like stillness of that mostpeculiar and dreary desolation which results from the total absence ofanimal existence. The silence was so oppressive that it was with afeeling of relief he listened to the low, distant voices of the men asthey paused ever and anon in their busy task to note and remark on theprogress of their work. In the intense cold of an Arctic night thesound of voices can be heard at a much greater distance than usual, andalthough the men were far off, and hummocks of ice intervened betweenthem and Fred, their tones broke distinctly, though gently, on his ear.Yet these sounds did not interrupt the unusual stillness. They servedrather to impress him more forcibly with the vastness of that tremendoussolitude in the midst of which he stood.

  Gradually his thoughts turned homeward, and he thought of the dear oneswho circled round his own fireside, and, perchance, talked of him; ofthe various companions he had left behind, and the scenes of life andbeauty where he used to wander; but such memories led him irresistiblyto the far north again, for in all home-scenes the figure of his fatherstarted up, and he was back again in an instant, searching toilsomelyamong the floes and icebergs of the Polar Seas. It _was_ the invariableending of poor Fred's meditations, and, however successful he might bein entering, for a time, into the spirit of fun that characterised mostof the doings of his shipmates, and in following the bent of his ownjoyous nature, in the hours of solitude, and in the dark night, when noone saw him, his mind ever
reverted to the one engrossing subject, likethe oscillating needle to the pole.

  As he continued to gaze up, long and earnestly, into the starry sky, histhoughts began to wander over the past and the present at random, and acold shudder warned him that it was time to return to the hut; but thewandering thoughts and fancies seemed to chain him to the spot, so thathe could not tear himself away. Then a dreamy feeling of rest andcomfort began to steal over his senses, and he thought how pleasant itwould be to lie down and slumber; but he knew that would be dangerous,so he determined not to do it.

  Suddenly he felt himself touched, and heard a voice whispering in hisear. Then it sounded loud. "Hallo, sir! Mr Ellice! Wake up, sir,d'ye hear me?" and he felt himself shaken so violently that his teethrattled together. Opening his eyes reluctantly, he found that he wasstretched at full length on the snow, and Joseph West was shaking him bythe shoulder as if he meant to dislocate his arm.

  "Hallo, West! is that you? Let me alone, man, I want to sleep." Fredsank down again instantly--that deadly sleep, produced by cold, and fromwhich those who indulge in it never awaken, was upon him.

  "Sleep!" cried West frantically, "you'll die, sir, if you don't rouseup. Hallo! Meetuck! O'Riley! help here!"

  "I tell you," murmured Fred faintly, "I want to sleep--only a moment ortwo--ah! I see; is the hut finished? Well, well, go, leave me. I'llfollow--in--a--"

  His voice died away again, just as Meetuck and O'Riley came running up.The instant the former saw how matters stood, he raised Fred in hispowerful arms, set him on his feet, and shook him with such vigour thatit seemed as if every bone in his body must be forced out of joint.

  "What mane ye by that, ye blubber-bag?" cried the Irishman wrathfully,doubling his mittened fists and advancing in a threatening mannertowards the Esquimaux; but, seeing that the savage paid not the leastattention to him, and kept on shaking Fred violently with agood-humoured smile on his countenance, he wisely desisted frominterfering.

  In a few minutes Fred was able to stand and look about him with a stupidexpression, and immediately the Esquimaux dragged, and pushed, and shookhim along towards the snow-hut, into which he was finally thrust, thoughwith some trouble, in consequence of the lowness of the tunnel. Here,by means of rubbing and chafing, with a little more buffeting, he wasrestored to some degree of heat; on seeing which Meetuck uttered a quietgrunt, and immediately set about preparing supper.

  "I do believe I've been asleep," said Fred, rising and stretchinghimself vigorously as the bright flame of a tin lamp shot forth and sheda yellow lustre on the white walls.

  "Aslape is it! be me conscience an' ye have just. Oh then, may I neverindulge in the same sort o' slumber!"

  "Why so?" asked Fred in some surprise.

  "You fell asleep on the ice, sir," answered West, while he busiedhimself in spreading the tarpaulin and blanket-bags on the floor of thehut, "and you were very near frozen to death."

  "Frozen, musha! I'm not too shure that he's melted yit!" said O'Riley,taking him by the arm and looking at him dubiously.

  Fred laughed. "Oh yes; I'm melted now! But let's have supper, else Ishall faint for hunger. Did I sleep many hours?"

  "You slept only five minutes," said West, in some surprise at thequestion. "You were only gone about ten minutes altogether."

  This was indeed the case. The intense desire for sleep which isproduced in Arctic countries when the frost seizes hold of the framesoon confuses the faculties of those who come under its influence. Aslong as Fred had continued to walk and work, he felt quite warm, but theinstant he sat down on the lump of ice to rest, the frost acted on him.Being much exhausted, too, by labour and long fasting, he was moresusceptible than he would otherwise have been to the influence of cold,so that it chilled him at once, and produced that deadly lethargy fromwhich, but for the timely aid of his companions, he would never haverecovered.

  The arrangements for supping and spending the night made rapid progress,and under the influence of fire and animal heat--for the dogs were takenin beside them--the igloe became comfortably warm; yet the snow-wallsdid not melt, or become moist, the intense cold without being sufficientto counteract and protect them from the heat within. The fair roof,however, soon became very dingy, and the odour of melted fat ratherpowerful. But Arctic travellers are proof against such trifles.

  The tarpaulin was spread over the floor, and a tin lamp, into whichseveral fat portions of the walrus were put, was suspended from a stickthrust into the wall. Round this lamp the hunters circled, each seatedon his blanket-bag, and each attended to the duty which devolved uponhim. Meetuck held a tin kettle over the flame, till the snow, withwhich it was filled, melted and became cold water, and then graduallyheated until it boiled; and all the while he employed himself inmasticating a lump of raw walrus flesh, much to the amusement of Fred,and to the disgust, real or pretended, of O'Riley. But the Irishman,and Fred too, and every man on board the _Dolphin_, came at last to_relish_ raw meat, and to long for it. The Esquimaux prefer it raw inthese parts of the world (although some travellers assert that in moresouthern latitudes they prefer cooked meat), and with good reason, forit is much more nourishing than cooked flesh; and learned, scientificmen, who have wintered in the Arctic regions, have distinctly statedthat in those cold countries they found raw meat to be better for themthan cooked meat, and they assure us that they at last came to _prefer_it! We would not have our readers to begin forthwith to dispense withthe art of cookery, and cast Soyer to the dogs; but we would have themhenceforth refuse to accept that common opinion, and vulgar error, thatEsquimaux eat their food raw _because they are savages_. They do itbecause nature teaches them that, under the circumstances, it is best.

  The duty that devolved upon O'Riley was to roast small steaks of thewalrus, in which operation he was assisted by West, while Fred undertookto get out the biscuit-bag and pewter plates, and to infuse the coffeewhen the water should boil. It was a strange feast in a strange place,but it proved to be a delightful one; for hunger requires not to betempted, and is not fastidious.

  "Oh, but it's good, isn't it?" remarked O'Riley, smacking his lips, ashe swallowed a savoury morsel of the walrus and tossed the remnant--asinewy bit--to Dumps, who sat gazing sulkily at the flame of the lamp,having gorged himself long before the bipeds began supper.

  "Arrah! ye won't take it, won't ye? Here, Poker!"

  Poker sprang forward, wagging the stump of his tail, and turned his headto one side, as if to say: "Well, what's up? Any fun going?"

  "Here, take that, old boy; Dumps is sulky."

  Poker took it at once, and a single snap caused it to vanish. He, too,had finished supper, and evidently ate the morsel to please theIrishman.

  "Hand me the coffee, Meetuck," said Fred. "The biscuit lies beside you,don't give in so soon, man."

  "Thank you, sir, I have about done."

  "Meetuck, ye haythen, try a bit o' the roast; do now, av it was only toplaaze me."

  Meetuck shook his head quietly, and, cutting a _fifteenth_ lump off themass of raw walrus that lay beside him, proceeded leisurely to devourit.

  "The dogs is nothin' to him," muttered O'Riley. "Isn't it a curiousthing, now, to think that we're all at _sea_ a eatin', and drinkin', andslaapin'--or goin' to slaape--jist as if we wor on the land, and thegreat ocean away down below us there, wid whales, and seals, andwalrusses, and mermaids, for what I know, a swimmin' about jist underwhare we sit, and maybe lookin' through the ice at us this very minute.Isn't it quare?"

  "It is odd," said Fred, laughing, "and not a very pleasant idea.However, as there is at least twelve feet of solid ice between us andthe company you mention, we don't need to care much."

  "Ov coorse not," replied O'Riley, nodding his head approvingly as helighted his pipe; "that's my mind intirely, in all cases o' danger, whenye don't need to be afeared, ye needn't much care. It's a good chart tosteer by, that same."

  This last remark seemed to afford so much food for thought to thecompany that not
hing further was said by anyone until Fred rose andproposed to turn in. West had already crawled into his blanket-bag, andwas stretched out like a mummy on the floor, and the sound of Meetuck'sjaws still continued as he winked sleepily over the walrus meat, when ascraping was heard outside the hut.

  "Sure, it's the foxes; I'll go and look," whispered O'Riley, laying downhis pipe and creeping to the mouth of the tunnel.

  He came back, however, faster than he went, with a look ofconsternation, for the first object that confronted him on looking outwas the enormous head of a Polar bear. To glance round for theirfirearms was the first impulse, but these had unfortunately been left onthe sledge outside. What was to be done? They had nothing but theirclasp-knives in the igloe. In this extremity Meetuck cut a large holein the back of the hut intending to creep out and procure one of themuskets, but the instant the opening was made the bear's head filled itup. With a savage yell O'Riley seized the lamp and dashed the flamingfat in the creature's face. It was a reckless deed, for it left themall in the dark, but the bear seemed to think himself insulted, for heinstantly retreated, and when Meetuck emerged and laid hold of a gun hehad disappeared.

  They found, on issuing into the open air, that a stiff breeze wasblowing, which, from the threatening appearance of the sky, promised tobecome a gale; but as there was no apprehension to be entertained inregard to the stability of the floe, they returned to the hut, takingcare to carry in their arms along with them. Having patched up thehole, closed the doors, rekindled the lamp, and crept into theirrespective bags, they went to sleep, for, however much they might dreadthe return of Bruin, slumber was a necessity of nature that would not bedenied.

  Meanwhile the gale freshened into a hurricane, and was accompanied withheavy snow, and when they attempted to move next morning they found itimpossible to face it for a single moment. There was no alternative,therefore, but to await the termination of the gale, which lasted twodays, and kept them close prisoners all the time. It was verywearisome, doubtless, but they had to submit, and sought to consolethemselves and pass the time as pleasantly as possible by sleeping, andeating, and drinking coffee.