CHAPTER TWENTY NINE.
NORTHWARD HO!--HOISTING BEACONS--THE WHITE FOG--THE GREAT SEA-SERPENT.
"Good-bye, and G.o.d be with you."
It was a prayer as heartfelt and fervent as ever fell from the lips of an honest sailor.
The _Arrandoon_ steamed away, and soon was hidden from view behind a lofty iceberg, and all that Silas Grig, as he stood on his own quarter-deck, could now hear, was the sad and mournful wail of Peter"s bagpipes. Peter was playing that wild and plaintive melody which has drawn tears from so many eyes when our brave Highland regiments were departing for some far-off seat of wax, to be--
"Borne on rough seas to a far-distant sh.o.r.e, Maybe to return to Lochaber no more."
"Heigho! matie," sighed Silas, talking to his chief officer and giving orders all in one breath, "I don"t think we"ll--haul aft the jib-sheet-- ever see them again. I don"t think they can--take a pull on the main-brace--ever get back from among that fearful--luff a little, lad, luff--ice, matie. And the poor boys, if any one had told Silas he could have loved them as much as he does in so short a time, he would have laughed in his face. Come below, matie, and we"ll have a drop o" green ginger. Keep her close, Mortimer, but don"t let her shiver."
"Ay, ay, sir," said the man at the wheel.
In a few hours the wind got more aft, and so, heading now for more southern climes, away went the _Canny Scotia_, with stun"sails up. I cannot say that she bounded over the waters like a thing of life. No; but she looked as happy and frisky as a plough-horse on a gala day, that has just been taken home from the miry fields, fed and groomed, and dressed with ribbons and started off in a light spring-van with a load of laughing children.
But eastwards and north steamed the _Arrandoon_. Indeed, she tried to do all the northing she could, with just as little easting as possible.
She pa.s.sed islands innumerable; islands that we fail to see in the chart, owing, no doubt, to the fact that they are usually covered entirely with ice and snow, and would be taken for immense icebergs.
But this was a singularly open year, and there was no mistaking solid rocky land for floating ice.
The bearings of all these were carefully put down in the charts--I say charts, because not only the captain and mate, but our young heroes as well, took the daily reckoning, and kept a log, though I am bound in the interests of truth to say that Ralph very often did not write up his log for days and days, and then he impudently "fudged" it from Rory"s.
"Are you done with my log?" Rory would sometimes modestly inquire of Ralph as he sat at the table busily "fudging."
"Not yet, youngster," Ralph would reply; "there, you go away and amuse yourself with your fiddle till I"m done with it, unless you specially want your ears pulled."
McBain landed at many of these islands, and hoisted beacons on them.
These beacons were simply spare spars, with bunches of light wood lashed to their top ends, so that at some little distance they looked like tall brooms. He hoisted one on the highest peak of every island that lay in his route.
They came at length to what seemed the very northernmost and most easterly of these islands, and on this McBain determined to land provisions and store them. It would tend to lighten the ship; and "on the return voyage," said the captain, "if so be that Providence shall protect and spare us, they will be a welcome sight."
This done, the voyage was continued, and the sea becoming clearer of ice towards the west, the course was altered to almost due north.
The wind drawing round more to the south, the fires were banked, and the vessel put under easy sail. The water all round looked black and deep; but, with all the caution of your true sailor, McBain had two men constantly in the chains to heave the lead, with a watch continually in the crow"s-nest to give warning of any sudden change in the colour of the water. More than once such a change was observed, the surface becoming of a yellowish ashen hue away ahead of them. Then the main or fore yard was hauled aback, and a boat despatched to investigate, and it was found that the strange appearance was caused by myriads of tiny shrimplets, what the northern sailor calls "whale"s food." Whether this be whale food or not I cannot say for certain, but several times our heroes fell in with a shoal of bottle-noses, disporting themselves among these curious ashen-hued streams.
This formed a temptation too great to resist, for the oil would do instead of fuel when they wintered away up in the extreme north. So boats were lowered--not two but four, for these brutes are as wild as the winds and more wily than any old fox. No less than four were "bagged," as Rory called it. They were not large, but the blubber obtained from them was quite sufficient to fill one large tank. The best of it was, that Ralph--big, "plethoric" (another of Rory"s pretty words), Saxon Ralph, made quite a hero of himself by manfully guiding his boat towards a floundering monster that was threatening destruction to the third whaler, which was fast to her, and skilfully spearing her at the very nick of time.
Rory was in the same boat, and drenched in blood from head to heels though both of them were, he must needs get up and shake his "baby brother" by the hand.
"Oh, sure!" said Rory, with tears in his eyes, "it"s myself that is proud of the English race, after all. They haven"t the fire of the Gael; but only just awaken them!--Dear Ray, you"re a broth of a boy, entirely."
"What do you think," said McBain, one morning just after breakfast--"what do you think, Rory, I"m going to make to-day?"
"Sure, I don"t know," said Rory, all interest.
"Why, fenders," said McBain.
"Fenders?" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Rory, with wider eyes. "Fenders? troth it"ll be fire-irons you"ll be making next, sir; but what do you want with fenders?"
"You don"t take," said Ralph. "It is fenders to throw overboard when the ice is too obtrusive, isn"t it, sir?"
"That"s it," said the captain, laughing. "Sometimes the bergs may be a bit too pressing with their attentions, and then I"ll hang these over.
That"s it."
It took nearly a fortnight to complete the manufacture of these fenders or trusses, for each of them was some twelve feet long by three in diameter composed of compressed straw and shielded by knitted ropework.
To the captain"s foresight in making these fenders, they several times owed the safety of their gallant ship during the winter that followed.
A whole month pa.s.sed away. The sun now set every night, and the still, long day began to get sensibly shorter.
The progress northward was hindered by dense white fogs, which at times hugged the ship so closely that, standing by the bowsprit, you could not see the jibboom-end. The vessel, as Sandy McFlail expressed it, seemed enveloped in huge sheets of wet lint. Then the fog would lift partially off and away--in other words, it seemed to retire and station itself at some distance, with the ice looming through it in the most magical way.
At these times the ship would be stopped, and our heroes were allowed to take boat exercise around the _Arrandoon_, with strict injunctions not to go beyond a certain distance of the vessel. Their laughing and talking and singing never failed to bring up a seal or two, or a round-eyed wondering walrus, or an inquisitive bladder-nose, but the appearance of these animals, as they loomed gigantic through the fog, was sometimes awful in the extreme. When a malley or gull came sweeping down towards them it looked as big as the fabulous Roc that carried away Sinbad the Sailor, and Rory would throw himself in the bottom of the boat and pretend to be in a terrible fright.
[The optical illusions caused among the ice by these fogs are well and humorously described in a book just to hand called "The Voyage of the _Vega_" (Macmillan and Co). I myself wrote on the same subject _thirteen years ago_, in a series of articles on Greenland North.]
"Oh! Ray, boy, look at the Roc," he would cry. "I"m come for, sure enough. Do catch hold of me, big brother. Don"t let the great baste carry me off. Sure, he"ll fly up to the moon with me, as the eagle did with Daniel O"Rourke."
I think the fog must have caused delusions in sound as well as sight, else why the following.
They were pulling gently about, one day, in the first whaler, when, borne along on the slight breeze that was blowing, came a sound as of happy children engaged at play. The merry laughter and the occasional excited scream or shout were most distinctly audible.
"Whatever can it be?" cried Allan, looking very serious, his somewhat superst.i.tious nature for a moment gaining the ascendency.
"Sure," said Rory, "you needn"t pull so long a face, old man; it"s only the childer just got out of school."
The "childer" in this instance were birds.
"It"s much clearer to-day," said Stevenson, one morning, as he made his usual report. "We can see the clouds, and they"re all on the scud. I expect we"ll have wind soon, sir."
"Very well, Mr Stevenson," was the reply, "be ready for it, you know; have the fires lit and banked, and then stand by to get the ice-anchors and fenders on board," (the ship was fast to a berg).
"There is a line of ice to the westward, sir, about a quarter of a mile off, and clear water all between."
"Thank you, Mr Stevenson."
But Stevenson did not retire. He stopped, hesitatingly.
"You"ve something to ask me, I think?" said McBain.
"I"ve something to tell you," replied the mate, with a kind of a forced laugh. "I dare say you will think me a fool for my pains, but as sure as you gentlemen are sitting there at breakfast this morning, about five bells in the middle watch I saw--and every man Jack of us saw--"
"Saw what?" said McBain. "Sit down, man; you are looking positively scared."
"We saw--_the great Sea-Serpent_!"
[What is herein related really occurred as described. I myself was a witness to the event, being then in medical charge of the barque _Xanthus_, recently burned at sea.]