"It isn"t a ship," said Rory, smiling; "it is a great black seal, with a thing like a kettle-pot over his head."
"Oho!" cried Silas; "now I know. You mean the bladder-nose. Ay, lad!
and a dangerous monster he is. A Greenland sailor would almost as soon face a bear as fight one of those brutes single-handed."
"But the books tell us," said Rory, "that, when surprised by the hunter, they weep copiously."
"Bother such books!" said Silas. "What? a bladder-nose weep!
Crocodile"s tears, then, lad! Why, gentlemen, this monstrous seal is more fierce than any other I know. When once he gets his back up and erects that kettle-pot o" his, and turns round to see who is coming, stand clear, that"s what Silas says, for he means mischief, and he"s as willing to take his death as any terrier dog that ever barked. I would like to see some o" those cyclopaedia-building chaps face to face with a healthy bladder-nose on a bit o" bay ice. I think I know which o" them would do the weeping part of the business."
"Down south here," said McBain--"if we can call it south--the seals have their young on the ice, don"t they?"
"You"re right, sir," said Silas.
"And where do they go after that?"
"Away back to the far, far north," said Silas. "We follow them up as far as we can. They live at the Pole."
"Ah!" said McBain; "and that, Captain Grig, is in itself a proof that there must be open water around the Pole."
"I haven"t a doubt about it!" cried Silas; "and if you succeed in getting there you"ll see land and water too, mountains and streams, and maybe a milder climate. Seals were never made to live down in the dark water; they have eyes and lungs, even, if they are amphibious. But look! look! look, men, look!"
Silas started up from the table as he spoke, excitement expressed in every lineament of his face. He pointed to the port from which at present the _Canny Scotia_ was plainly visible, about half a mile off, on the weather quarter. The men could be seen crowding up the rattlings, and even manning the yards, and wildly waving their caps and arms in the air.
Silas threw the port open wide. "Listen!" he cried.
Our heroes held their breath, while over the water from the distant barque came the sound of many voices cheering. Then the _Arrandoon"s_ rigging is manned, and glad shout after glad shout is sent them back.
Next moment Stevenson rushed into the cabin. "The seals! the seals!"
was all he could say, or rather gasp.
"Are there many?" inquired several voices at once.--"Millions on millions!" cried the mate; "the whole pack is black with them as far as ever we can see from the mainmast head."
CHAPTER TWENTY.
SEAL-STALKING--A GLORIOUS DAY"S SPORT--PIPER PETER AND THE BEAR--A STRANGE DUET--THE SEAL-STALKERS" RETURN.
It was about midnight on the 24th of April when the seals were sighted.
Midnight, and the sun was low down on the horizon, but, for three long months, never more would it set or sink behind the sea of ice. The weather was bright, bracing, beautiful. Not a cloud in the sky, and hardly wind enough to let the ships get well in through the pack, towards the place where the seals lay as thick as bees, and all unconscious of their approaching fate. But the _Arrandoon_ got steam up, and commenced forcing her way through the closely packed yet loosely floating bergs, leaving behind her a wake of clear water, which made it easy work for the _Scotia_ and the saucy little "two-stick yacht" to follow her example.
My young reader must dismiss from his mind the idea of tall, mountainous, pinnacled icebergs, like those he sees in common engravings. The ice was in heavy pieces, it is true, from forty to sixty or seventy feet square, and probably six feet out of water, with hummocks here and there, and piles of bay ice that looked like packs of gigantic cards, but so flat and low upon the whole, that from the masthead a stretch of snow-clad ice could be seen, spreading westwards and north for many and many a mile.
When even the power of steam failed to force the _Arrandoon_ farther into the pack, the ships were stopped, fires were banked and sails were clewed, and all hands prepared for instant action. The men girt their knives and steels around them, and threw their "Jowrie-tows" across their broad shoulders, and the officers, dressed in their sealing costume, seized their rifles and shot-belts.
Next moment the bo"s"n"s shrill pipe sounded out in the still air, and the order was shouted,--
"All hands over the side."
In five minutes more the ships were apparently deserted. You wouldn"t have heard a sound on board, for few were left but stewards and cooks; while little boy Freezing Powders and his wonderful c.o.c.katoo had it all to themselves down in the saloon of the great steamship. The boy was bending down beside his favourite in the corner.
"What"s the row? What"s the row? What"s the row?" the bird was saying.
"I don"t know nuffin" more nor you do, c.o.c.kie," was the boy"s reply; "but it strikes dis chile dat dey have all taken leave of der senses, ebery moder"s son of dem. And de captain he have gone up into de crow"s-nest, which looks for all de world like a big barrel of treacle, c.o.c.kie, and he have shut hisself in der, and nuffin" does he do but wave a long stick wid a black ball at de end of it. [The fan with which Greenland captains guide their men in the direction of the seals.] Dat is all de knows; but oh! c.o.c.kie, don"t you take such drefful big mouf-fuls o" hemp. Supposin" anyting happen to you, c.o.c.kie, den I hab n.o.body to talk to dat fully understand dis chile."
The _Canny Scotia_ was moored to the ice so close to the _Arrandoon_ that the captains of the respective ships could maintain a conversation without stressing their lungs to any very great extent. Talking thus, each in his own crow"s-nest, they looked for all the world like a couple of chimney-sweeps conversing together from rival chimneys. The cooks were not idle in the galleys, they were busy boiling hams and huge joints of beef, and these, when cooked, were taken on deck; for sealing is hungry work, and every time a man brings a drag to the vessel"s side he helps himself to a lordly slice and a biscuit.
By-and-by the draggers began to drop in fast enough, each one hauling an immense skin with the fat or blubber attached; and these skins were all hoisted on board the _Scotia_, for all hands were working for Silas.
But our heroes had the sport, and, taking it all in all, I do not think there is any sport in the world to compare to that of seal-stalking.
Without any of the cowardliness of battue shooting, in which the poor surrounded animals are helpless, and cruelly and mercilessly slain, you have far more excitement, and the sport is not unattended with danger.
To be a good seal-stalker you need the limbs of an athlete, the eye of an excellent marksman, and all the stealth and cunning of a tabby cat or a Coromanche Indian. If your nerves are not well strung, or your muscles not like iron, you may fail to leap across the lane of dark water that separates piece from piece; if you do fail and are not speedily helped out, the current may drag you beneath the bergs, or those dreadful sharks, that seldom are absent where blood is being spilled on the sea of ice, may seize and pull you down to a fearful death; if you are not a good shot, your seals will get away, for your bullet _must_ pierce either neck or head; and, lastly, if you are not cunning, if you do not stalk with stealth, your seals will escape with the speed of lightning.
On warm, sunny days the seals lie close and sleep soundly, but they always have their sentries set. Kill the sentry, and many others are at your mercy; miss him, or merely wound him, and he gives the alarm _instanter_, and all the rest jump helter-skelter into the sea, according you a beautiful view of their tail-ends, which you don"t find very advantageous in the way of making a bag.
A good sealer, like a good skirmisher, takes advantage of every bit of cover, and many a death-blow is dealt from the shelter of a lump of loose ice.
The gunners to-day, as they usually do, went on after the seals in skirmishing order, in one long line, each taking a breadth of about seventy or one hundred yards.
It was an hour past midnight before they left the ships. When it was nine in the morning there was a kind of general a.s.sembly of the riflemen to breakfast, behind a large square hummock of packed bay ice, and only the very oldest among them could believe that it was so late. [These strange hummocks, which resemble, as already stated, huge packs of cards, are formed of pieces of bay ice about a foot thick, which has been broken up between two bergs, and finally thrown up out of the water altogether. They form quite a characteristic feature of a North Greenland icescape.] Why, to our own particular heroes it seemed scarcely an hour since they had left their ship, so great is the excitement of seal-stalking. But Ralph and Rory and Allan had done so well, and had managed to lay so many splendid seals dead on every piece of ice, that they earned high encomiums from the mate of the _Canny Scotia_; and even the doctor hadn"t shot amiss, and proud was he to be told so.
"But, my dear sirs," said Sandy, "I"d like to know why a good surgeon shouldn"t be a good sportsman. Don"t you know that the great Liston himself was sometimes summoned to an operation at the hospital, just as he was mounting his horse to ride off to the hunt, arrayed in scarlet and cords?"
"And what did he do?" asked Rory.
"Pa.s.s the pie," said Ralph.
"Why," continued the doctor, enthusiastically, "doffed his scarlet coat and donned an old gown, whipped off a leg in one minute ten and a half seconds, and was in the saddle again five minutes after that."
"Brayvo!" cried Captain Cobb, "doctor, you"re a brick, and if ever you come out to New Jersey, come and see Cobb, and I guess he"ll give you a good time of it."
"Ray," said Rory.
"Well, Row," said Ray.
"Your face and hands are begrimed with powder, and there is a kind of wolfish look about you that is worth studying. You look like a frozen-out blacksmith who hasn"t a penny to buy a bit of peas-pudding or a morsel of soap."
"I"m hungry, anyhow," said Ray. "How good of McBain to send such a jolly breakfast! But I say, Row, d"ye remember the proverb about Claudius? Well, don"t you call my face and hands black till you"ve washed your own. You look like a chimney-sweep who has been out of work for a week, and got no food since the day before yesterday."
"Well, well," says Row, "but "deed in troth, my dear big boy, n.o.body can wonder at your being successful as a seal-stalker, for what with the colour of your face, and the urgency, so to speak, of the two eyes of you, and that big fur cap, why the seals take you for one o" themselves, a big bladder-nose."
"Pa.s.s the ham," said Ray; "Allan, some more coffee, I begin to feel like a giant refreshed."
"I do declare upon mine honour," said De Vere, "dat dis is de most glorious pignig [picnic] I ever have de pleasure to attend. But just you look at mine friend Seth, how funnily he do dress."
"It may be a funny way," said Allan, "but it is a most effectual one; dear old trapper Seth has killed more seals this morning than any two of us."
Seth was dressed from top to toe in young seals" skins, the hair outwards, with the exception of the cap, which was of darker fur, and a black patch on his back. They were not loose garments, they were almost as tight as a harlequin"s; but when Seth drew his fur cap over his face and threw himself on the ice, and began wriggling along, his resemblance to a saddle-seal was so preposterous that everybody burst into a hearty laugh.
"That"s the way I gets so near them," said Seth, standing once more erect.
"Look, look!" cried Rory, and every eye was turned in the direction in which he pointed; and there, in a pool of dark water not twenty yards away, a dozen beautiful heads, with round, wondering eyes, had popped up to gaze at them.