Wild Adventures round the Pole

To the north and west they saw land and mountains, stretching away and away as far as eye could follow them. To the east and north water studded with ugly icebergs that looked as if they had broken away from the shores of the western land.

“But what is that in the middle of yonder ice-floe to the south and west?” cried Rory.

“As I live,” exclaimed McBain, as he eyed the object through the glass, “it is a ship of some kind, evidently deserted; and it is quite as evident that we are not the only explorers that have reached as far north as this island.”

The mystery was explained next day, and a sad story brought to light. McBain and party landed on the floe and walked towards the derelict. She was sloop-rigged, with sails all clewed, and her hull half hidden in snow. After a deal of difficulty they succeeded in opening one of the companion hatches, and making their way down below.

No less than five unburied corpses lay huddled together in the little cabin. From their surroundings it was plain they had been walrus-hunters, and it was not difficult to perceive that the poor fellows had died from cold and hunger many, many years before.

Frozen in, too far up in this northern sea, they had been unable to regain the open water, and so had miserably perished.

Next day they returned and laid the mortal remains of these unfortunate men in graves in the snow, and even Rory was much more silent and thoughtful than usual as they returned to the ship.

Was it not possible that they might meet with a similar fate? The poor fellows they had just buried had doubtless possessed many home ties; their wives and mothers had waited and wished a weary time, till at long last the heart had grown sick with hope deferred, and maybe the grave had long since closed over them.

Such were some of Rory’s thoughts, but after dinner McBain “brought him up with a round turn,” as he phrased it.

“Rory,” he cried, “go and play to us. Freezing Powders, you young rascal, bring that cockatoo of yours up on the table and make us laugh.”

Rory brightened up and got hold of his fiddle; and “All right, sah,” cried Freezing Powders. “I bring de old cockatoo plenty quick. Come along, Cockie, you catchee my arm and pull yourse’f up. Dat’s it.”

“Come on,” cried Cockie, hopping on the table and at once commencing to waltz and polka round. “Come on; play up, play up.”

A queer bird was Cockie. He cared for nobody except his master and Rory. Rory he loved solely on account of the fiddle, but his affection for Freezing Powders was very genuine. When his master was glad, so was Cockie; when the little nigger boy felt tired, and threw himself down beside the cage to rest, then Cockie would open his cage door and back tail foremost under the boy’s arm, heaving as he did so a deep, delighted sigh, as much as to say, “Oh, what joy it is to nestle in here?”

Cockie was not a pretty bird; his bill was worn and all twisted awry, and his eyes looked terribly old-fashioned, and the blue, wrinkled skin around them gave him quite an antediluvian look. He was white in colour – or, more correctly speaking, he had been white once; but time, that steals the roses from the softest cheeks, had long since toned him down to a kind of yellow lilac, so he did not look a very respectable bird on the whole.

“You ought to wash him,” McBain said, one day. “Wash him, sah?” said Freezing Powders; “is dat de ’xpression you make use of, sah? Bless you, sah! I have tried dat plenty much often; I have tried to wash myself, too. No good in eeder case, sah; I ’ssure you I speak de truf.”

“Come on I come on?” cried Cockie. “Play up! play up! La de lal, de lal, de lal!”

And round spun the bird, keeping time to the merry air, and every now and then giving a “whoop?” such as could only be emitted by Cockie himself, a Connemara Irishman, or a Cuscarora Indian.

But this is a remarkable thing, Cockie danced and whirled in one direction till he found his head getting light, then he reversed the action, and whirled round the other way!

(This description of the wonderful bird is in no way overdrawn.)

It really seemed as if he would tire Rory out. “Lal de dal!” he sung: “our days are short – whoop! – our lives are merry – lal de dal, de dal, de whoop!”

But Rory changed his tactics; he began to play The Last Rose of Summer, leaning down towards the table. Cockie stopped at once, and backed, tail foremost, in under the musician’s hands, crouching down with a sigh to listen.

But Rory went off again into the Sprig of Shillelagh, and off went Cockie, too, dancing more madly than ever with a small flag in his mouth that Freezing Powders had handed him. Then he stopped at last, and walked about gasping, pitching penholders and pencils in all directions.

“Here’s a pretty to-do!” he said; and when somebody laughed, Cockie simply shrieked with laughter till he had everybody joining him and holding their sides, and feeling sore all over. Verily, Cockie was a cure! No wonder his master loved him.

In a few days the Arrandoon left the desolate island, which Rory had named “Walrus Isle.”

Everybody was on deck as the vessel slowly steamed away.

Most of the land was already shrouded in gloom, only in the far distance a tall mountain cone was all ablaze with a crimson glory, borrowed from the last blink of sunshine. Yes, the god of day had sunk to rest, and they would bask no more in his cheering beams for many a long and weary month to come.

“Give us a bass, Ray, old boy!” cried Rory; “and you, doctor, a tenor.”

And he started, —

“Shades of evening, close not o’er us,
Leave our lonely bark awhile,
Morn, alas! will not restore us
Yonder dim and distant isle.”

Ah, reader! what a glorious thing music is; I tell you, honestly and truthfully, that I do not believe I could have come through half the trials and troubles and griefs and worries I have had in life, if I had not at times been able to seek solace and comfort from my old cremona.

Our heroes thought at first they would greatly miss the light of the sun, but they soon got quite used to the strange electric light emitted by the splendid Aurora, combined with that which gleamed more steadily downwards from the brilliant stars. These stars were seen to best advantage in the south; they seemed very large and very near, and whether it was the reflection of the Aurora, or whether it was real, I never could tell, but they seemed to shine with differently coloured lights. There were pure white stars, mostly low on the horizon; there were crimson and green changing stars, and yellow and rose-coloured changing stars, and some of a pale-golden hue, the soft light of which was inexpressibly lovely. But any effort of mine to paint in words the extreme beauty of the heavens on clear nights would prove but a painful failure, so I leave it alone. The chief bow of the Aurora is, I may just mention, composed apparently of spears of ever-changing rainbow-coloured light continually falling back into masses and phalanxes, and anon advancing and clashing, as it were. While walking on the ice-fields, if you listen, you can hear a strange whispering, hissing sound emitted from these clashing, mixing spears. The following letters, whispered rapidly, give some faint idea of this mysterious sound, —

“Ush-sh-sh-sh-sh-sh-sh.”

You can also produce a somewhat similar noise by rubbing your fingers swiftly backwards and forwards on a sheet of paper.

But indeed the whole firmament, when the sky was clear, was precisely as Rory described it – “one beautiful poem.”

Many bears were now seen, and nearly all that were seen were killed. They were enormously large and fierce, foolishly fierce indeed, for they seldom thought of taking to flight.

There were unicorns (narwhals) in the sea in scores, and walruses on the flat ice by the dozen. It was after these latter that Master Bruin came prowling.

A nice juicy walrus-steak a Greenland bear will tell you is the best thing in the world for keeping the cold out.

Old trapper Seth had strange ways of hunting at times. One example must suffice.

Our heroes had been out after a walrus which they had succeeded in killing. A bear or two had been seen an hour or two before that, evidently on the prowl, and probably very hungry. Now, nothing will fetch these kings of the northern ice more surely than the scent of blood.

“Young gentlemen,” said Seth, “there’s a b’ar about somewheres, and I reckon he ain’t far off either. Now, we’ll just whip this old walrus out o’ his skin, and Seth will creep in, and you’ll see what you’ll see.”

He was very busy with his knife as he spoke, and in a few minutes the crang was got out and thrown into the water, the head being left on. Into the skin crept the trapper, lying down at full length with his rifle close by his side, and by his directions away pulled the boat.

It was not two hundred yards off, when up out of the sea scrambled a huge bear.

“Hullo,” says Bruin, shaking himself like a dozen great Newfoundland dogs rolled into one – “hullo! they’ve killed the wallie and left him. Now won’t I have a blow-out just?” and he licked his great chops in anticipation.

“Dear me?” continued Bruin, as the walrus turned right round and confronted him; “why, they haven’t quite killed you! Never mind, wallie, I’ll put you out of pain, and I’ll do it ever so gently. Then I’ll just have one leetle bite out of your loin, you know.”

“I guess you won’t this journey,” said Seth, bringing his rifle into position as the bear prepared to spring. “I reckon it’ll be the other way on, and b’ar’s steak ain’t to be sneezed at when it’s nicely cooked.”

Bang!

It was very soon over with that poor bear; he never even changed the position into which he had thrown himself, but lay there dead, with his great head on his paws like a gigantic dog asleep.

Chapter Thirty One.