Wild Adventures round the Pole

“You think, then, that that end is inevitable?”

“Inevitable,” said Stevenson, solemnly but emphatically. “We are doomed to perish here among this ice. There can be no rescue for us but through the grave.”

“We are in the hands of a merciful and an all-powerful Providence, Mr Stevenson,” said McBain; “we must trust, and wait, and hope, and do our duty.”

“That we will, sir, at all events,” said the mate; “but see, sir, what is that yonder?”

He pointed, as he spoke, skywards, and there, just a little way above the highest mountain-tops, was a cloud. It kept increasing almost momentarily, and got darker and darker. Both watched it until the sun itself was overcast, then the mate ran below to look at the glass. It was “tumbling” down.

For three days a gale and storm, accompanied with soft, half-wet snow, raged. Then terrible noises and reports were heard all over the pack of ice seaward, and the grinding and din that never fails to announce the break-up of the sea of ice.

“Heaven has not forgotten us,” cried McBain, hopefully; “this change will assuredly check the sickness, and perhaps in a week’s time we will be sailing southwards through the blue, open sea, bound for our native shores.”

McBain was right; the hopes raised in the hearts of the men did check the progress of the sickness. When at last the wind fell, they were glad to see that the clouds still remained, and that there were no signs of the frost coming on again.

The pieces of ice, too, were loose, and all hands were set to work to warp the ship southwards through the bergs. The work was hard, and the progress made scarcely a mile a day at first. But they were men working for their lives, with new-born hope in their hearts, so they heeded not the fatigue, and after a fortnight’s toil they found the water so much more open that by going ahead at full speed in every clear space, a fair day’s distance was got over. For a week more they strove and struggled onwards; the men, however, were getting weaker and weaker for want of sufficient food. How great was their joy, then, when one morning the island was sighted on which McBain had left the store of provisions!

Boats were sent away as soon as they came within a mile of the place.

Sad, indeed, was the news with which Stevenson, who was in charge, returned. The bears had made an attack on the buried stores. They had clawed the great cask open, and had devoured or destroyed everything.

Hope itself now seemed for a time to fly from all on board. With a crew weak from want, and with fearful ice to work their way through, what chance was there that they would ever succeed in reaching the open water, or in proceeding on their homeward voyage even as far as the island of Jan Mayen, or until they should fall in with and obtain relief from some friendly ship? They were far to the northward of the sealing grounds, and just as far to the east. McBain, however, determined still to do his utmost, and, though on short allowance, to try to forge ahead. For one week more they toiled and struggled onwards, then came the frost again and all chance of proceeding was at an end.

It was no wonder that sickness returned. No wonder that McBain himself, and Allan and Rory, began to feel dejected, listless, weary, and ill.

Then came a day when the doctor and Ralph sat down alone to eat their meagre and hurried breakfast.

“What prospects?” said Ralph.

“Moribund!” was all the doctor said just then.

Presently he added —

“There, in the corner, lies poor wee Freezing Powders, and, my dear Ralph, one hour will see it all over with him. The captain and Allan and Rory can hardly last much longer.”

“God help us, then,” said Ralph, wringing his hands, and giving way to a momentary anguish.

The unhappy negro boy was stretched, to all appearance lifeless, close by the side of his favourite’s cage.

Despite his own grief, Ralph could not help feeling for that poor bird. His distress was painful to witness. If his great round eyes could have run over with tears, I am sure they would have done so. I have said before that Cockie was not a pretty bird, but somehow his very ugliness made Ralph pity him now all the more. Nor was the grief of the bird any the less sad to see because it was exhibited in a kind of half ludicrous way. He was not a moment at rest, but he seemed really not to know what he was doing, and his anxious eye was hardly ever withdrawn from the face of the dying boy: – jumping up and down from his perch to his seed-tin and back again, grabbing great mouthfuls of hemp, which he never even broke or tried to swallow, and blowing great sighs over his thick blue tongue. And the occasional sentence, too, the bird every now and then began but never finished, —

“Here’s a – ”

“Did you – ”

“Come – ”

All spoke of the anguish in poor Cockie’s breast.

A faint moaning was heard in the adjoining cabin, and Ralph hurried away from the table, and Sandy was left alone.

Chapter Thirty Four.

A Sailor’s Cottage – The Telegram – “Something’s in the Wind” – The Good Yacht “Polar Star” – Hope for the Wanderers

A cottage on a cliff. A cliff whose black, beetling sides rose sheer up out of the water three hundred feet and over; a cliff around which sea-birds whirled in dizzy flight; a cliff in which the cormorant had her home; a cliff against which all the might of the German Ocean had dashed and chafed and foamed for ages. Some fifty yards back from the edge of this cliff the cottage was built, of hard blue granite, with sturdy bay windows – a cottage that seemed as independent of any storm that could blow as the cliff itself was. In front was a neat wee garden, with nicely gravelled walks and edging of box, and all round it a natty railing painted an emerald green. At the back of the cottage were more gravelled walks and more flower garden, with a summer-house and a smooth lawn, from the centre of which rose a tall ship’s mast by way of flagstaff, with ratlines and rigging and stays and top complete.

Not far off was a pigeon-house on a pole, and not far from that still another pole surmounted by a weather-vane, and two little wooden blue-jackets, that whenever the wind blew, went whirling round and round, clashing swords and engaging in a kind of fanatic duel, which seemed terribly real and terribly deadly for the time being.

It was a morning in early spring, and up and down the walk behind the cottage stepped a sturdy, weather-beaten old sailor, with hair and beard of iron-grey, and a face as red as the newest brick that ever was fashioned.

He stood for a moment gazing upwards at the strutting fantails.

“Curr-a-coo – curr-a-coo,” said the pigeons.

“Curr-a-coo – curr-a-coo,” replied the sailor. “I dare say you’re very happy, and I’m sure you think the sun was made for you and you only. Ah! my bonnie birdies, you don’t know what the world is doing. You don’t – hullo?”

“Yes, my dear, you may say hullo,” said a cheerful little woman, with a bright, pleasant face, walking up to him, and placing an arm in his. “Didn’t you hear me tapping on the pane for you?”

“Not I, little wife, not I,” said Silas Grig. “I’ve been thinking, lass, thinking – ”

“Well, then,” interrupted his wife, “don’t you think any more; you’ve made your hair all white with thinking. Just come in and have breakfast. That haddock smells delicious, and I’ve made some nice toast, and tried the new tea. Come, Silas, come.”

Away went the two together, he with his arm around her waist, looking as happy, the pair of them, as though their united ages didn’t make a deal over a hundred.

“Come next month,” said Silas, as soon as he had finished his first cup of tea – “come next month, little wife, it will just be two years since I first met the Arrandoon. Heigho?”

“You needn’t sigh, Silas,” his wife remarked. “They may return. Wonders never cease.”

“Return?” repeated Silas, with a broken-hearted kind of a laugh, “Nay, nay, nay, we’ll meet them no more in this world. Poor Rory! He was my favourite. Dear boy, I think I see him yet, with his fair, laughing face, and that rogue of an eye of his.”

Rat-tat.

Silas started.

“The postman?” he said; “no, it can’t be. That’s right, little woman, run to the door and see. What! a telegram for me!”

Silas took the missive, and turned it over and over in his hand half a dozen times at least.

“Why, my dear, who can it be from?” he asked with a puzzled look, “and what can it be about? Can you guess, little wife? Eh? can you?”

“If I were you, Silas,” said his wife, quietly, “I’d open it and see.”

“Dear me! to be sure,” cried Silas. “I didn’t think of that. Why, I declare,” he continued, as soon as he had read it, “it is from Arrandoon Castle, and the poor widow, Allan’s mother, wants to see me at once. I’m off, little woman, at once. Get out my best things. The blue pilots, you know. Quick, little woman – quick! Bear a hand! Hurrah!”

Silas Grig didn’t finish that second cup of tea. He was dressed in less than ten minutes, had kissed his wife, and was hurrying away to the station. Indeed, Silas had never in his life felt in such a hurry before.

“It’ll be like my luck,” he muttered, “if I miss this train.”