But there was something else on board which I should draw especial attention to, and this was nothing less than a huge balloon. It was not filled, of course, but the means to inflate it were all on board, and having reached the great Antarctic ice-wall or barrier, the captain meant to make an aerial voyage of discovery, farther to the south than any traveller had ever been before.
There is nothing I love better than acts of daring and wild adventure, and Talbot was certainly to be commended on this score.
His balloon was certainly not anything like the size of Andree"s, yet it was capable of rising and floating for an indefinite period with three men, and provisions for as many months.
A special house had been built for this great uninflated balloon between the fore and main masts, and on each side, bottom upwards, lay the whalers, or boats with bows at each end, and steered by an oar only.
These were to be used in the fishery.
The ship"s ballast was water-filled tanks, and tanks laden with coals.
But Talbot hoped to return to Scottish or English sh.o.r.es with ballast of quite a different sort, and better paying--oil, to wit.
The _Flora M"Vayne_ was to touch nowhere on her voyage out until she reached the Cape. That at least was the good skipper"s intention, but circ.u.mstances alter cases, as will presently be seen.
They had fine weather all the way till far past the dreaded Bay of Biscay. On this occasion two boys in a dinghy might have crossed it.
But it is not to be supposed that they could go on for a very long time without encountering what Jack calls dirty weather. And so when, in about the lat.i.tude of Lisbon, and to the east of the Azores, it came on to blow, no one was a bit surprised.
"We"ll have a gale, mate," said the captain; "but though abeam, or rather on the bow, we have plenty of sea-room; and on the whole I sha"n"t be sorry, for I really want to see how the _Flora_ behaves."
The wind, even as he spoke, began to roar more wildly through the rigging, but in gusts or squalls, that at times rose for a few minutes to almost hurricane pitch.
Before the storm had come on many beautiful gulls had been screaming around the barque and diving for morsels of food that Frank was throwing to them, but now they disappeared. Back they flew to the rocks that frown over the waters of their sea-girt homes. Little dark chips of stormy petrels, however, continued to dash from wave-top to wave-top, and for once in a way, they brought tempest.
But the ship was now eased, for the lurid sun was setting, and a dark and moonless night must follow. The men were hardly down from aloft when the storm seemed to increase, but it blew more steadily, so she was kept away a point or two, and now went dancing over the heavy seas as if she imagined she was the best clipper ever built.
A little heavy-headed she proved, however, so that she shipped a good deal of water over the bows, otherwise the thumping, thudding, buffeting waves seemed to make not the slightest impression on her.
The chief cabin or dining-saloon was down below, there being no p.o.o.p, but a flush-deck all along. Both Frank and Duncan were off duty, and, seated in this small but comfortable saloon, the former could not help remarking on the strange feeling and sound of each heavy wave that struck the ship abeam. She appeared to be hit by a huge, soft boxing-glove, about a thousand times as large as any we ever use.
Immediately after there was the whishing sound of water on the deck, but although the vessel was heeled over somewhat by every awful blow, she took no other notice.
"Batter away, old Neptune," the barque seemed to say; "it amuses you, and it doesn"t hurt me in the slightest."
About two bells in the first watch, Talbot came below, and supper was ordered.
His face was radiant, but shining with wet. The steward, however, a.s.sisted him out of his oil-skins and sou"wester, then, having wiped his face with his pocket-handkerchief, he sat down.
"Well," said Duncan, "Frank and I are waiting to hear the verdict."
"Why, it is this," said the skipper. "The barque is a duck, and well deserves the name of _Flora M"Vayne_. I don"t believe a hurricane could hurt her, and she"ll chuck the small icebergs on one side of her as I should chuck a cricket-ball. And ain"t I hungry just. Sit in, boys.
It"s all night in with you lads, isn"t it?"
"Not quite," said Duncan. "I kept the last dog-watch, and don"t go on again till four."
Viking got up and seated himself by his well-beloved master"s side.
He licked Duncan"s hand, as much as to say, "When you go on deck so shall I."
But his master seemed to divine his thoughts.
"No, my good dog," he said, "you must stay below to-night, else the seas would sweep you off, and what should I do then?"
After supper Frank got out his fiddle and played for fully half an hour, then he and Duncan, who both occupied the same state-room, retired.
As a sailor always sleeps most soundly when the wind blows high, and he is really "rock"d in the cradle of the deep", it is almost unnecessary to say that these lads dropped soundly off almost as soon as their heads touched the pillows.
Nor did they awake until eight bells at the end of the darksome middle watch, when Conal came down to call them.
"Oil-skins, Conal?"
"Ay, Duncan, and you"ll need them too. Better lock Vike in your cabin."
"That is what I mean to do."
Poor Viking did not half like it though. There is no dog in the world makes a better sailor"s companion when far away at sea than a Newfoundland, and I speak from experience. But such dogs do not appreciate danger sufficiently high, nor have they good enough sea-legs to face a storm and walk the deck of a heaving ship. Therefore they often get washed into the lee scuppers.
On the present occasion Vike made up his mind to be as naughty a dog as he could.
"I shall wake the skipper," he told Duncan, speaking through the key-hole as it were. "Wowff!" he barked. "Wowff! wowff! What do you think of that?"
Well, the sound could certainly be heard high over the roaring of the wind and the dash of angry waves.
The captain heard it in his dreams; but it takes more than the barking of a dog to awake a sailor born. So Talbot just hitched himself round, and went off to sleep on the other tack.
By breakfast time both wind and sea had gone down, and there was every expectation of fine weather once again.
"No damage done is there, mate?" said Talbot to Morgan.
"No, sir, nothing worth speaking about. Some of the coal tanks got a drop o" water in them, that"s all."
"Well, that will make them last the longer. But, mind you, Morgan, I"m rather pleased than otherwise that we"ve had that blow."
"So am I."
"It just shows what the barque can do."
"That"s it. If she is as good against the ice as she is against a sea-way, then, by my song, sir, she"ll take us safely to the Antarctic, and just as safely back home again. Pa.s.s the sugar, sir."
CHAPTER IV.--ON THE WINGS OF THE WIND.
"Tramp, tramp, tramp, the boys are marching." So runs a line of the old Yankee war-song.
Tramp, tramp, tramp, the boys (Duncan and Frank) were treading the deck that forenoon, talking, as sailors do, about anything or everything that suggested itself. And two subjects that always came to the front on such occasions were home life and their life on the ocean wave.
"So you thoroughly like the sea?" said Duncan.