CHAPTER IX
"Come along, Professor! Come along, Mate! The children are theresomewhere, over in that strange island. Ha! here is a bridge of rocks!Thank goodness for that! And look! here, too, are tracks!"
It was Uncle Staysail who spoke, and behind him was 'Fessor Pete himself,and at least a dozen well-armed sailors.
"Listen!" cried the captain. "What is that?"
"Wolves, I think," said the professor. "And hark! surely that was arifle-shot. Pray Heaven we may be in time, Staysail!"
"Hurry up, men! Hurry up!" cried the captain; and the men dashed onwards.
* * * * *
Tom had revived a little, and he and Frank were fighting harder than everto hold the gate, as bold
"Horatius kept the bridge In the brave days of old".
But it was already giving way, and the beasts without seemed to know it.
Briton was on his legs ready, and all seemed to be lost, when suddenly arattling volley of rifle fire was heard from beneath, with shouts of men.
Volley followed volley, and in less time than it takes me to tell it, thewild wolf-foxes were seeking safety in flight.
* * * * *
"Tell us all your story again," said Tom to his uncle, as the childrensat round the stove that same evening in the cosy cabin of the_Valhalla_.
They were all washed and clean by this time, and the girls werebeautifully dressed.
"Ah! well, you see," said Uncle as he relit his pipe, "the professor heremade a dart for the vessel when the storm came on. He wanted a strongercrew.
"He caught us just in time, for though the gale was a furious one wecould steam up to it, and were doing so, when suddenly there was a loudexplosion; one of the boilers had burst, and the engines were smashed anduseless.
"We were now at the mercy of the sea, the waves, and the icebergs too,and before another day we were blown far away to sea.
"Even then we had hope. But in a week's time we were frozen into the mainpack, and there we have had to winter, and it is hardly a week since wegot clear by cutting a canal with our great ice-saws. Oh! it has been adreary time for us, but must have been more so to you, poor darlings! andwell and bravely you have borne it all!
"I am sure," he added, "that even Pansy has grown, and her mother willhardly know her again when we all get home."
"We are going now, aren't we, 'Fessor Pete?" said Pansy, who was sittingon his knee.
"Yes, my dear, yes. It is no use staying here when we have no steam, sothe ship is now making for England's sunny shores. And we'll get there inthe rosy month of June. Won't it be nice?"
Pansy was jumping with joy.
Aralia clapped her hands and cried: "Just too jolly for anything!"
By and by Aralia sat down to the piano, and Pete brought out his fiddle,and a very happy evening indeed was spent in the _Valhalla_.
The men were keeping it up forward too, around the galley fire, singingsongs and spinning yarns, for the ship was "homeward bound".
* * * * *
"Oh, by the by," said Tom one day to the professor, "I forgot to tell youthat in the cave where poor Veevee got lost I picked up this curiousstone!"
The professor put his spectacles on his nose and gazed at it for amoment.
"Why, my dear Tom, this is solid gold, in the centre of a coating ofquartz! You're in luck, lad; and it is just as I said; that is the Islandof Gold. We shall return another year, and you will be one of the richestmen in the kingdom."
* * * * *
My story is finished, or almost.
'Fessor Pete and Tom, with Uncle Staysail, to say nothing of the mastiffBriton, are out there in the Frozen North this very summer, and I do hopethey will have luck.
But Aralia and Pansy, with sometimes Frank and always Veevee, may be seenany day playing on the sands not far from their mother's home, and Flossytoo.
Flossy is wondrously tame, and spends an hour or two almost every day inthe sea, or on the beach, to the great delight of all who see her. ButAralia has a whistle, and no matter how far away in the water thisstrange pet may be, whenever the call is sounded she comes ploughing backto the beach, and after she has shaken her bonny coat in the sunshine,goes waddling home with her little friend Veevee and the Crusoes of theFrozen North.
Crusoes of the Frozen North Page 9