Wild Adventures round the Pole
Page 20
from the davits, Rory in the bows; the next momentshe was off, and tearing through the glazed water as fast as sturdy armscould row. The seal took one look up to see what was coming. Rory'srifle rang out sharp and clear in the frosty air, and the poor sealnever lifted head again.
The ship was by this time a goodly mile ahead, but there she stopped;then she went ahead again, rounded, and came back full speed to meet theboat, for they on board could see a danger that Rory couldn't--couldn't,did I say? Ah! but he soon did, and, with the roar of a maelstrom, downthey came upon him--an enormous school of whales!
The men lay on their oars thunderstruck. The sea around them seemedalive with the mighty monsters. How they plunged and ploughed andsnorted and blew! The sea became roughened, as if a fierce wind wasblowing over it; pieces of ice as large as boats were caught on thebacks or tails of these brutes and pitched aside as one might afootball.
It occurred to Rory to fire at some of them.
"Stay, stay!" roared the coxswain; "if you love your life, sir, and carefor ours, fire not. _You_ may never have seen a whale angry--I have.Fire not, I beseech you!"
It was a strange danger to have encountered, and Rory and his boat-mateswere not sorry when it passed, and they once more stood in safety on thedeck of the _Arrandoon_.
But Rory soon regained his equanimity.
"Five hundred whales!" he cried; "and they were all mine, Ralph, 'causeI found them! Sure, they were worth a million of money?"
"So you've been a millionaire, Rory?" said McBain. "Yes, worse luck!"said Rory, in a voice of comic sadness, "a millionaire for a minute!"
CHAPTER TWELVE.
THE ISLE OF JAN MAYEN--RETROSPECTION--THE SEA OF ICE--THE DESERTEDVILLAGE--CARRIED OFF BY A BEAR--DANCING FOR DEAR LIFE.
What a tiny speck it looks in the map, that island of Jan Mayen, all byitself, right in the centre of the great Arctic Ocean. Of volcanicorigin it undoubtedly is--every mountain, rock, and hill in it--andthere is ample evidence that from yonder gigantic cone, that rises, likea mighty sugar-loaf or the Tower of Babel itself, to a height of 6,000feet sheer into the blue and cloudless sky, at one time smoke and flamesmust oftentimes have burst, and showers of stones and ashes, and streamsof molten lava.
I have gazed on it by night, and my imagination has carried me back, andback, and back, through the long-distant past, and I have tried to fancythe sublimity of the scene during an eruption.
The time is early spring. The long, dark winter has passed away; thecold-looking, rayless sun rises now, but skirts hurriedly across a smalldisc of southern sky, then speedily sinks to rest again, as though heshuddered to gaze upon scenery so bleak and desolate. The island of JanMayen, with its ridgy hills and its one mighty mountain, is clad indazzling robes of virgin snow. Its rocky and precipitous shores risenot up, as yet, from the dark waters that in summer time wash roundthem, but from the sea of ice itself. As far as eye can reach, or northor south, or east or west, stretches this immeasurable ocean of ice.All flat and all snow-clad is it, like the wildest and loneliest ofHighland moorlands in winter, and its very flatness gives it an air ofgreater lonesomeness, which the solitary hummocks here and there buttend to heighten. And through the short and dreary day one solitarycloud has rested like a pall on the summit of the mountain. But it ismidnight now: in the deep blue of the sky big, bright stars are shining,that look like moons of molten silver, and seem far nearer than they doin southern climes. In the north the radiant bow of the Aurora isspread out, its transverse beams glancing and glistering, spears oflight, that dance and glide and shimmer, changing their colours everymoment from green to blue or red, from pale-yellow to the brightest ofcrimson.
And the silence that reigns over all this field of ice is one thattravellers have often experienced, often been impressed and awed by, butnever yet found words to describe.
Silence did I say? Yes! but listen! Subterranean thunders suddenlybreak it--thunders coming evidently from the bosom of the great mountainyonder, thunders that shake and crack and rend the very ice on which youstand, causing the bergs to grind and shriek like monsters in agony.The great cloud pall has risen higher and spread itself out, and nowhangs horizontally over half the island, black and threatening, itsblackness lit up ever and anon with flashes of lightning, sheet andforked, while, peal after peal, the thunder now rolls almost withoutintermission.
And onward and onward rolls the cloud athwart the sky, blotting out thestarlight--blotting out the beautiful Aurora--till the sea of ice forleagues around is canopied in darkness. But behold, over themountain-top the cloud gets lighter in colour, for immense volumes ofsteam, solid sheets of water, and pieces of ice tons in weight, arebeing belched forth, or hurtled into the air with a continued noise thatdrowns the awful rhythm of the thunder itself. Then flames follow,shooting up into the sky many hundreds of feet, lighting up the scenewith a lurid glare, while down the snow-clad sides of the great conestreams of fiery lava rush in fury, crimson, blue, or green. Andgigantic rocks are precipitated into the air--rocks so large that, asthey fall upon the ice miles distant from the burning crater, they smashthe heaviest floes, and sink through into the sea. Great stones, too,are incessantly emitted, like balls of fire, that burst in the air, andkeep up a sound like that of the loudest artillery.
The sun will rise in due course, but his beams cannot penetrate the veilof saturnine darkness that envelops the sea of ice. And the fire willrage, the thunders will roll, and showers of stones and ashes fall fordays, ay, mayhap for weeks or months, ere the mighty convulsion ceases,and silence once more reigns in and around this island of Jan Mayen.
Towards this lonely isle of the ocean the _Arrandoon_ had been beatingand pushing her way for days; and she now lay, with clewed sails andbanked fires, among the flat but heavy bergs not five miles from it.There was no water in sight, for the iceless ocean had been left far,far astern, and the ship was now to all intents and purposes beset. Yetthe ice was loose; it was not welded together by the fingers of KingFrost, and if it remained so, the difficulty of getting out into theclear water again would be by no means insurmountable.
Our heroes, the doctor included, were all on deck, dressed to kill, incaps of fur with ear lapels, coats of frieze with pockets innumerable,with boots that reached over the knees, and each was armed with a rifleand seal-club, with revolver in belt and short sheath-knife danglingfrom the left side.
"And so," said the doctor, "this is the mighty sea of ice that I'veheard so much about! Man! boys! I'm no so vera muckle struck with it.It is not unlike my father's peat moss in the dreary depths of winter.Where are the lofty pinnacled bergs I expected to see, the rocks andtowers of ice, the green glistening gables, and the tall spires, like ahundred cathedrals dang into one?"
"Ah!" said McBain, laughing, "just bide a wee, doctor lad, till we gofarther north, and if you don't see ice that will outdo your every dreamof romance, I'm neither Scot nor sailor.
"But what is this?" continued the captain. "Who in the name of all thatis marvellous have we here?"
"I 'spects I'se Freezin' Powders, sah," was the reply of the littlenegro boy. "Leastways I hopes I is." Here the urchin touched his cap."Freezin' Powders, at your service, sah--your under-steward and butler,sah?"
"Well, my under-steward and butler," said McBain; "but whoever couldhave expected to see you rigged out in this fashion--pilot suit, furcap, boots, and all complete? Why, who dressed you, my little Freezin'Powders?"
"De minor ole gem'lam," replied the boy; "but don't dey fit, sah?Don't dey become dis chile? Look heah, sah!" and Freezing Powders wentstrutting up and down the quarter-deck, as proud as a pouter pigeon; andfinished off by presenting arms with his seal-club in front of hisgood-natured captain.
"Well," said McBain, much amused, "you are a comical customer. By `theminor ole gem'lam' I suppose you mean honest Magnus? But your Englishis peculiar, youngster."
"My English is puffuk, sah!" replied the boy; "but lo! sah! suppose Inot have dis suit of close, I freeze, sah! I
no longer be Freezin'Powders, 'cause I freeze all up into one lump, sah! Now, sah, I can goon shoh wid de oder officers."
"Ho! ho!" laughed McBain; "the _other_ officers. It's come to that, hasit? But," he added, turning to Allan and Rory, "you'll look after thelad, won't you?"
"That will we," said both in a breath.
Here are the names of those who went on shore in Jan Mayen on thismemorable day--Allan, Ralph, Rory, Seth, and the doctor, with threeclub-armed retainers, and lastly, Freezing Powders himself.
They were a merry band. You could have heard them laughing and talkingwhen they were miles away from the ship. They had to leap from onepiece of ice to another; but as the bergs were from forty