by Don Wilcox
“But I insist that he tell me—”
“Later,” the captain growled. “We’ll have him talkin’ in due time.”
The captain flipped a hand at Steve, who understood. He and Shorty led Gandl into a room to help him into warm clothing.
“Back to your work, the rest of you,” the captain ordered.
I went back to my drawing board but did no work. Out of the window I could see small blocks of ice passing us; or after the echoes of particularly violent cursing on the part of the Frabbel brothers I would see a sizable bit of iceberg float by, dangerously close. But we were safely through the narrows, and it might be expected that our normal routine of living would return.
I might mention that Captain French was irked by many details of his own job. So much so that he never missed a chance to turn work over to Steve Pound.
The first thing I heard, on awaking from a long night’s sleep, was the captain’s voice.
“Steve, I’m givin’ you the responsibility of questioning Gandl.”
“Gladly,” said Steve.
“Find out all you can. Lady Lucille is upset bad. Couldn’t eat her food last night. Swore she wouldn’t sleep till she learned who that tiger woman was. She figures those furs were hers, and there ought to be a few hundred more like ‘em.”
“I’ll see what I can learn.”
A little later Steve Pound rapped at my door. I invited him in and closed the door after him. He began casually.
“Well Jim, you saw?”
“Of course.”
“And you’re convinced?”
“I was never more mystified in my life. What does it mean, Steve?”
“I haven’t had a talk with Gandl yet,” said Steve. He lighted a pipe. “We won’t get anywhere playing enemies with him. But he’s well placed in Shorty’s room. Shorty won’t stand for it if anyone tries to harm him. He’s a god to Shorty.”
“And rightly so,” I said, “considering how he can climb over ice, and considering that Shorty can’t even walk through a door without bumping. Did the captain want to chain Gandl up?”
“I talked him out of it,” said Steve. “I figure that if we give the fellow decent treatment he’ll come through with the information we want. Don’t you think so, Jim?”
“Maybe. He doesn’t talk much.”
Somehow I have a feeling, he may know aplenty, if you could get him to unwind in his own language. Did you ever find out what nationality his name is?”
“It’s a funny thing,” said Steve. “He didn’t know what to say when I asked him whether it was a first name or last name. His only name is Gandl, he said.”
Steve gathered up a few of my pencils and some paper and told me to come along. We went back to Shorty’s room, listened at the door, heard nothing. Steve knocked.
The door opened. Gandl was smiling. We walked in and closed the door behind us.
For an hour we talked, and I began to catch the drift of Steve’s conversation. It was a subtle probe to find out how much Gandl knew of the arctic.
We were on the right trail. When it came to knowledge of seals, polar bears, the life of Eskimos, even the varieties of stunted trees and arctic vegetation, Gandl knew it all. Often he lacked the words to express his ideas, but our pencil sketches helped.
“How far do you want to go with us?” Steve finally asked,
Gandl, still smiling, answered, “As far north as you go.”
Steve nodded. “I think it will be all right. Don’t be frightened by the Captain or Lady Lucille. We want to be your friends, Gandl. Jim, here, is your friend. So is Shorty. And there’s Professor Peterson—he’s a square fellow. Let us know if you ever feel like talking with someone.”
With that we went out.
Down the deck we met the captain, pacing back and forth in great agitation.
“Well, what did you find out? Did he open up?”
“Not much today,” said Steve. “There’ll be more later.”
The captain snarled and muttered an oath.
“I told you to get those answers. Lady Lucille is threatenin’ to have a nervous breakdown. She wants us to find out about her furs even if we have to torture that damned stowaway with hot irons.”
“You’d never find out anything that way,” said Steve. “You leave it to me. There’ll be plenty of days before we reach our destination.”
“What makes you so sure we’ve got any destination?” said the captain sarcastically. “Lady Lucille can change her plans overnight if she’s a-mind to. We may be headed south tomorrow.”
“We won’t be,” said Steve. His manner was sharp and I suddenly realized that he was playing a trump that he had held back. He pointed out to the vast line of snow-covered mountains. “There are too many valuable furs out there for us to turn back, Captain. You know Lord Lorruth’s success as well as I. He didn’t come up here prepared to spend three years for nothing.”
“What do you mean?” said the captain.
“I mean that there are probably a few million dollars’ worth of furs stored in some cache. Lady Lucille knows it. So do you. We’re not a rescue party. What we’ve come after is those furs.”
The captain’s lips drew back tight and cold. His eyes would not meet Steve’s or mine. He looked out across the land as if lost in thought. Finally he said, “If Lord Lorruth left furs, Lady Lucille deserves to have them.”
“I agree with you completely,” said Steve. “If Lady Lucille had just admitted it, instead of pretending, she might have saved herself some trouble.”
“Are you thinkin’ of that suicide?” the captain blurted.
“What made you think of that?” Steve asked.
“That damned stowaway has been talkin’ too much,” Captain French grumbled. “I found out that he could hear the talk from Lady Lucille’s’ room from down in the hold.”
“He hasn’t said any more about it,” Steve declared. “But I figure Inez Dorster was pretty badly disillusioned.”
The captain shrugged off this matter as a minor irritation. He returned to the subject of furs.
“I’ll talk with her right away,” he said. “Maybe she’ll see the sense of going on.”
“I’m sure of it,” said Steve. “What’s more, she knows as well as the rest of us that we’ll never find Lord Lorruth alive.”
It was difficult to tell how the captain was going to take these challenging statements from his mate. He stomped up and down the deck a few times before he said anything more. Then he came back and offered his hand to Steve.
“Well,” the captain said, “I’m glad we’ve got this straight. Now I can say a few things to you in confidence. They’ve been on my mind for, quite a while, and now I can tell them to you.”
“And to Jim, too?” Steve asked, to make sure I got in on it.
“Of course,” the captain smiled bigheartedly. “I’ve confided with Jim from the first. He’s harmless. But this particular secret—well, I haven’t confided it to no one until now. Boys, I’m the happiest man on the whole wide ocean. I’m plannin’ to marry Lady Lucille.”
I responded with a half-choked, “Huh?”
“I figure it’s the best thing for her,” said the captain magnanimously, “seeing as how she’s all cut up over realizing her husband must be gone for good. So one of these days when the ice closes in on us again we’ll get out the weddin’ bells.”
CHAPTER VII
Slippery Slide
I’ve probably mentioned already that our geographer and “Professor,” Cedric Peterson, was an earnest old student who carried the only supply of books on board. There was one dingy little volume bound in black and white stripes entitled, The Great Maledictions of History.
The little book had passed from one, to another of us. Considerable controversy had grown out of it, and considerable fun.
Out of courtesy, we turned our most interesting reading matter over to Lady Lorruth. She had kept this particular volume for several weeks.
Now a new whisp
ered rumor made the rounds: Lady Lucille was getting a hunch that our expedition was under a curse.
I didn’t know whether there was any foundation for this rumor. But I did know that Lady Lucille was afflicted by a few common superstitions; and now that a general state of bewilderment and confusion had seized all of us, it was natural that she should grasp at straws of magic and sorcery.
As a matter of fact, our very conditions of privation and isolation made it difficult for any of us to keep our balance.
We would overemphasize trifles. We would quarrel over slight privileges, and if the Frabbel brothers were in on it the quarrels would turn into fights. Enmities would flare up, sudden and intense.
Or on the other hand, friendships would become magnified—perhaps all out of proportion to their value.
At any rate, all of us were a little less confident of ourselves and our knowledge and our reasoning powers after our shocking contact with the impossible—the girl and her tiger.
“Maybe Lady Lucille is right,” some of the sailors would say. “Maybe there is a curse on this ship.”
And so the ideas set forth in the little volume of “Great Maledictions” began to spread among us to be taken seriously and to do damage.
When discussions grew serious I discovered that many of the sailors believed there were such things as spiritual curses. All of us became exceptionally sensitive to every troublesome event that occurred.
“Have you noticed,” Steve said to me one day, “that Lady Lucille has quit asking about the girl and the white tiger? At first she wanted to know whether Gandl knew anything. But now her mind is settled.”
“What’s her answer?”
“She’s decided the girl and the tiger are impersonating an evil spirit.”
“Why evil?” I asked.
“You know Lady Lucille as well as I do,” said Steve. “That girl was terribly beautiful. What woman could help feeling an instinctive jealousy? But the important thing is that matter of lost furs. If they’re not found, Lady Lucille’s suspicions will conjure up curses for a long time to come.”
“Did you ever see her letter from, Lord Lorruth?” I asked.
“No. In fact, I think she destroyed it. But she claims there was a map describing his regular hunting circuit and locating the caches where he was storing the furs.”
We should do some exploring as soon as possible. If we could find one rich cache she might be willing to turn back. There’s too much trouble gathering, Steve. It isn’t healthy. If I’d known what she was like before I signed up—”
“Don’t say it, Jim. Look at the bright side. As an artist, what was it worth to you to catch a glimpse of that tiger girl?”
The very thought gave my spirits a lift.
“What I wouldn’t give to see her again.”
“You and I,” said Steve, “are going to make an expedition to that shore. We’re going to find that girl. If Gandl will go with us, all the better. Are you game, Jim?”
“What do you think we can accomplish?”
I think,” said Steve, “that we can find out about Lord Lorruth—when he died, and where. The girl may even know where his body is. What’s more, she may be able to lead us to the furs.”
I shook my head. “That’s a long shot in the dark, Steve.”
“But it’s worth a try. It’s stupid of the captain and Lady Lucille not to make friends, if possible, and play their friendships to an advantage.”
“People don’t go out making friends with evil spirits.”
“Great guns, I hope you’re not swallowing all this curse talk. Heaven knows she’s a mystery, but I’m damned if I’ll doubt that she’s a sure-enough living human being. I’d like to talk with her.”
“Have you suggested this to the captain?”
“He hasn’t been taking kindly to my suggestions,” said Steve. “He hates me for my friendship with Gandl. That’s why I’m ready to take a chance.”
“When do we go?”
Steve looked at the sun lying low along the southern horizon.
“In a few days the winter darkness will be on us. How much warning will you need?”
“An hour.”
The hour’s warning came late in September. We struck out in the dory. Our ship had lain almost motionless for a week, but the winter’s ice hadn’t gathered in on us as yet.
A few of our crew had talked of excursions to the mainland to try their luck at hunting bear or seal. Steve had managed to rig up this party as a scouting trip preliminary to a series of bear hunts. On this pretext he limited the group to Gandl, himself, and me.
On the shore we crawled along the icy terrain with the aid of ice hooks and ropes until we reached the temporary safety on the top surface of a snow-covered glacier.
Steve had brought his pocket telescope and he kept peering off toward every mountain of ice expectantly.
“She’s probably watching us this very minute,” he said. “More than a dozen times during the past week I’ve caught sight of her off here in the distance.”
“I can’t understand why she should be following us.”
Steve couldn’t offer any satisfactory explanation. But I knew he had a theory that there was some mysterious connection between the girl and Gandl. That’s why he had made it a point to bring Gandl along.
As for Gandl, he trudged along in his customary silence, but he frequently regarded his ragged clothing and seemed a bit uncomfortable over his appearance. That was a good sign.
“It’s practically a proof,” Steve whispered to me, as our mysterious third partner marched ahead, “that he expects to meet her.”
A flurry of snow came sweeping down on us from the left. It was like a fantastic symbol of a coming blizzard. It flew past us at an almost unbelievable speed. It was the same breathtaking spectacle of fierce beauty—girl and tiger—riding like the wind.
In their wake a puff of icy air blasted against our cheeks. I stopped in my tracks, feeling that a stroke of paralysis had got me. Gandl, too, had halted. Only Steve had the presence of mind to beckon and call out a welcome.
“Hello-o-o-o!”
The girl raced her tiger to the top of the mountainous ridge before she stopped. Then she turned and looked down at us. Her beauty was full of boldness and ferocity and the appeal of youth. She laughed, and her rippling voice carried down to us like the most eerie, the most tantalizing music.
“Hello-o-o-o, up there!” Steve repeated. “Where are you going?”
“I’m not going any place. I live here,” the girl retorted. “Where do you think you are going?”
There was a richness about her voice that seemed to fill the whole outdoors. It was a voice that rang with a high spirit that was at once merry and robust and daring; more than that, it contained a mysterious eternal quality—something I could not understand.
The girl had the advantage of us in every way. We tried to hurry toward her. But it was all that Steve and I could do to keep our balance and keep moving along this icy surface. It was hard for us to talk against the blasting winter gale. Our lips and cheeks were too nearly frozen.
As for Gandl, he had apparently decided to remain paralyzed.
But the girl was right in her element. Mounted on this remarkable beast, she could cavort about this treacherous landscape without the slightest thought of danger. She could ride into the icy winds like a phantom all the while laughing and shouting.
“Come on up,” she cried.
Steve and I both began looking around for a suitable path. Gandl came to our rescue, now, and led us up through the valley of ice and rocks, picking his step as cunningly as a mountain goat. We followed him.
Even so, we were likely to take half an hour to the task of ascending. This was much too slow for the girl. With an emphatic gesture she called to us.
“Never mind, I’ll come down.”
And down she came, bounding at a full gallop.
I’ll never forget that sight, of the flying cloud of snow, the beautiful g
irl laughing, the snow-white tiger’s ferocious face growing larger and larger and larger with every jump of the swift approach.
Suddenly my terror of the beast went to my throat. I probably cried out. I don’t remember. I know that my blood went frozen.
Gandl shouted, “Flatten!” and he dropped to the ice.
But Steve and I each darted off in different directions. The next thing I knew I had lost my footing and was sliding down a long slippery pathway. I didn’t know where it would end. I swerved and spun and kept on sliding.
“Where are you going?” the girl’s voice called. I managed to catch a glimpse of her as she leaped off the beast. She had reached the point where a moment before the three of us had stood. Now there was only Gandl to greet her, and he was peering down at me, shouting at me to stop.
What had happened to Steve I could only wonder. He had fallen out of sight on the other side and I was still sliding.
The best I could do was to hurl myself clear of the rocks and sharp projections of ice, one after another. My long slide was a rapid-fire exercise in dodging death, for most of the time I was caroming helplessly.
At last I found myself stranded on a heap of glaciated boulders near the ocean’s edge. I looked up. No longer could I see any of my original party. As my eyes took in the new scene, the only familiar sight was the brig lying two miles out at sea, and it was fast disappearing in a blanket of opaque mist.
I lay there, rubbing my arms and legs to make sure I was still all together, and pulled my torn, ruffled clothes into shape. I felt pretty angry at myself for my clumsiness. I tried to feel angry toward the girl, too. But that emotion wouldn’t work. Instead, the dominant emotion that surged through me was a maddening passion.
Instantly I was determined to clamber back to the top of the ridge. She would be up there. Steve and Gandl would be talking with her. And I—I would be out of the picture.
I tried to get up.
But with a painful groan I dropped back to my bed of ice for a moment’s rest.
A few deep breaths—another moment or two of resting . . . How dark and thick that mist was growing . . . Surely I wasn’t falling asleep . . . That would be unwise, just now . . . very unwise . . . but so very comfortable . . .