[Ill.u.s.tration: "The news spread immediately throughout the city, and a great concourse of spectators thronged the piers."]
A great many people came on board the brig,--some to bid a friend good by, or to urge him to leave the ship, or to gaze at this strange vessel; others to ascertain the object of the voyage; and there were many murmurs at the unusual silence of the commander.
For that he had his reasons.
Ten o"clock struck. Eleven. The tide was to turn at half past twelve.
Shandon, from the upper deck, gazed with anxious eyes at the crowd, trying in vain to read on some one"s face the secret of his fate. But in vain. The sailors of the _Forward_ obeyed his orders in silence, keeping their eyes fixed upon him, ever awaiting some information which he did not give.
Johnson was finishing the preparations for setting sail. The day was overcast, and the sea, outside of the docks, rather high; a stiff southwest breeze was blowing, but they could easily leave the Mersey.
At twelve o"clock still nothing. Dr. Clawbonny walked up and down uneasily, looking about, gesticulating, and "impatient for the sea,"
as he said. In spite of all he could do, he felt excited. Shandon bit his lips till the blood came.
At this moment Johnson came up to him and said,--
"Commander, if we are going to take this tide, we must lose no time; it will be a good hour before we can get off from the docks."
Shandon cast one last glance about him, and looked at his watch. It was after the time of the midday distribution of letters.
"Cast off!" he said to his boatswain.
"All ash.o.r.e who are going!" cried the latter, ordering the spectators to leave the deck of the _Forward_.
Thereupon the crowd, began to move toward the gangway and make its way on to the quay, while the crew began to cast off the last moorings.
At once the inevitable confusion of the crowd, which was pushed about without much ceremony by the sailors, was increased by the barking of the dog. He suddenly sprang from the forecastle right through the ma.s.s of visitors, barking sullenly.
All made way for him. He sprang on the p.o.o.p-deck, and, incredible as it may seem, yet, as a thousand witnesses can testify, this dog-captain carried a letter in his mouth.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
"A letter!" cried Shandon; "but is _he_ on board?"
"_He_ was, without doubt, but he"s not now," answered Johnson, showing the deck cleared of the crowd.
"Here, Captain! Captain!" shouted the doctor, trying to take the letter from the dog, who kept springing away from him. He seemed to want to give the letter to Shandon himself.
"Here, Captain!" he said.
The dog went up to him; Shandon took the letter without difficulty, and then Captain barked sharply three times, amid the profound silence which prevailed on board the ship and along the quay.
Shandon held the letter in his hand, without opening it.
"Read it, read it!" cried the doctor. Shandon looked at it. The address, without date or place, ran simply,--"Commander Richard Shandon, on board the brig _Forward_."
Shandon opened the letter and read:--
You will sail towards Cape Farewell. You will reach it April 20. If the captain does not appear on board, you will pa.s.s through Davis Strait and go up Baffin"s Bay as far as Melville Sound.
K. Z., _Captain of the Forward_.
Shandon folded carefully this brief letter, put it in his pocket, and gave the order to cast off. His voice, which arose alone above the roaring of the wind, sounded very solemn.
Soon the _Forward_ had left the docks, and under the care of a pilot, whose boat followed at a distance, put out into the stream. The crowd hastened to the outer quay by the Victoria Docks to get a last look at the strange vessel. The two topsails, the foresail, and staysail were soon set, and under this canvas the _Forward_, which well deserved its name, after rounding Birkenhead Point, sailed away into the Irish Sea.
CHAPTER V.
AT SEA.
The wind, which was uncertain, although in general favorable, was blowing in genuine April squalls. The _Forward_ sailed rapidly, and its screw, as yet unused, did not delay its progress. Towards three o"clock they met the steamer which plies between Liverpool and the Isle of Man, and which carries the three legs of Sicily on its paddle-boxes. Her captain hailed them, and this was the last good-by to the crew of the _Forward_.
At five o"clock the pilot resigned the charge of the ship to Richard Shandon, and sailed away in his boat, which soon disappeared from sight in the southwest.
Towards evening the brig doubled the Calf of Man, at the southern extremity of the island of that name. During the night the sea was very high; the _Forward_ rode the waves very well, however, and leaving the Point of Ayr on the northwest, she ran towards the North Channel.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "Towards evening the brig doubled the Calf of Man."]
Johnson was right; once at sea the sailors readily adapted themselves instinctively to the situation. They saw the excellence of their vessel and forgot the strangeness of their situation. The ship"s routine was soon regularly established.
The doctor inhaled with pleasure the sea-air; he paced up and down the deck in spite of the fresh wind, and showed that for a student he had very good sea-legs.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
"The sea is a fine thing," he said to Johnson, as he went upon the bridge after breakfast; "I am a little late in making its acquaintance, but I shall make up for my delay."
"You are right, Dr. Clawbonny; I would give all the land in the world for a bit of ocean. People say that sailors soon get tired of their business; but I"ve been sailing for forty years, and I like it as well as I did the first day."
"What a pleasure it is to feel a stanch ship under one"s feet! and, if I"m not mistaken, the _Forward_ is a capital sea-boat."
"You are right, Doctor," answered Shandon, who had joined the two speakers; "she"s a good ship, and I must say that there was never a ship so well equipped for a voyage in the polar regions. That reminds me that, thirty years ago, Captain James Ross, going to seek the Northwest Pa.s.sage--"
"Commanded the _Victory_," said the doctor, quickly, "a brig of about the tonnage of this one, and also carrying machinery."
"What! did you know that?"
"Say for yourself," retorted the doctor. "Steamers were then new inventions, and the machinery of the _Victory_ was continually delaying him. Captain Ross, after in vain trying to patch up every piece, at last took it all out and left it at the first place he wintered at."
"The deuce!" said Shandon. "You know all about it, I see."
"More or less," answered the doctor. "In my reading I have come across the works of Parry, Ross, Franklin; the reports of MacClure, Kennedy, Kane, MacClintock; and some of it has stuck in my memory. I might add that MacClintock, on board of the _Fox_, a propeller like ours, succeeded in making his way more easily and more directly than all his successors."
"That"s perfectly true," answered Shandon; "that MacClintock is a good sailor; I have seen him at sea. You might also say that we shall be, like him, in Davis Strait in the month of April; and if we can get through the ice our voyage will be very much advanced."