The World of Ice

by R. M. Ballantyne

  CHAPTER EIGHT.

  FRED AND THE DOCTOR GO ON AN EXCURSION, IN WHICH, AMONG OTHER STRANGETHINGS, THEY MEET WITH RED SNOW AND A WHITE BEAR, AND FRED MAKES HISFIRST ESSAY AS A SPORTSMAN.

  But where were Fred Ellice and Tom Singleton all this time? the readerwill probably ask.

  Long before the game at football was suggested, they had obtained leaveof absence from the captain, and, loaded with game-bags, a botanicalbox, and geological hammer, and a musket, were off along the coast on asemi-scientific cruise. Young Singleton carried the botanical box andhammer, being an enthusiastic geologist and botanist, while Fred carriedthe game-bag and musket.

  "You see, Tom," he said, as they stumbled along over the loose icetowards the ice-belt that lined the cliffs,--"you see, I'm a great dabat ornithology, especially when I've got a gun on my shoulder. When Ihaven't a gun, strange to say, I don't feel half so enthusiastic aboutbirds!"

  "That's a very peculiar style of regarding the science. Don't you thinkit would be worth while communicating your views on the subject to oneof the scientific bodies when we get home again? They might elect you amember, Fred."

  "Well, perhaps I shall," replied Fred gravely; "but I say, to beserious, I'm really going to screw up my energies as much as possible,and make coloured drawings of all the birds I can get hold of in theArctic regions. At least I would like to try."

  Fred finished his remark with a sigh, for just then the object for whichhe had gone out to those regions occurred to him, and although thenatural buoyancy and hopefulness of his feelings enabled him generallyto throw off anxiety in regard to his father's fate, and join in thelaugh, and jest, and game as heartily as anyone on board, there weretimes when his heart failed him, and he almost despaired of ever seeinghis father again; and these feelings of despondency had been morefrequent, since the day on which he witnessed the sudden and utterdestruction of the strange brig.

  "Don't let your spirits down, Fred," said Tom, whose hopeful and earnestdisposition often reanimated his friend's drooping spirits. "It willonly unfit you for doing any good service; besides, I think we have nocause yet to despair. We know that your father came up this inlet, orstrait, or whatever it is, and that he had a good stock of provisionswith him, according to the account we got at Uppernavik, and it is notmore than a year since he was there. Many and many a whaler anddiscovery ship has wintered more than a year in these regions. Andthen, consider the immense amount of animal life all around us. Theymight have laid up provisions for many months long before winter setin."

  "I know all that," replied Fred, with a shake of his head; "but think ofyon brig that we saw go down in about ten minutes."

  "Well, so I do think of it. No doubt the brig was lost very suddenly,but there was ample time, had there been anyone on board, to have leapedupon the ice, and they might have got to land by jumping from one pieceto another. Such things have happened before, frequently. To saytruth, at every point of land we turn, I feel a sort of expectation,amounting almost to certainty, that we shall find your father and hisparty travelling southward on their way to the Danish settlements."

  "Perhaps you are right. God grant that it may be so!"

  As he spoke they reached the fixed ice which ran along the foot of theprecipices for some distance, like a road of hard white marble. Manylarge rocks lay scattered over it, some of them several tons in weight,and one or two balanced in a very remarkable way on the edge of thecliffs.

  "There's a curious-looking gull I should like to shoot," exclaimed Fred,pointing to a bird that hovered over his head, and throwing forward themuzzle of his gun.

  "Fire away, then," said his friend, stepping back a pace.

  Fred, being unaccustomed to the use of firearms, took a wavering aim andfired.

  "What a bother! I've missed it!"

  "Try again," remarked Tom with a quiet smile, as the whole cliff vomitedforth an innumerable host of birds, whose cries were perfectlydeafening.

  "It's my opinion," said Fred with a comical grin, "that if I shut myeyes and point upwards I can't help hitting something; but Iparticularly want yon fellow, because he's beautifully marked. Ah! Isee him sitting on a rock yonder, so here goes once more."

  Fred now proceeded towards the coveted bird in the fashion that is knownby the name of _stalking_--that is, creeping as close up to your game aspossible, so as to get a good shot; and it said much for his patienceand his future success, the careful manner in which, on this occasion,he wound himself in and out among the rocks and blocks of ice on theshore in the hope of obtaining that sea-gull. At last he succeeded ingetting to within about fifteen yards of it, and then, resting hismusket on a lump of ice, and taking an aim so long and steadily that hiscompanion began to fancy he must have gone to sleep, he fired, and blewthe gull to atoms! There was scarcely so much as a shred of it to befound.

  Fred bore his disappointment and discomfiture manfully. He formed aresolution then and there to become a good shot, and although he did notsucceed exactly in becoming so that day, he nevertheless managed to putseveral fine specimens of gulls and an auk into his bag. The last birdamused him much, being a creature with a dumpy little body and a beak ofpreposterously large size and comical aspect. There were also a greatnumber of eider ducks flying about but they failed to procure aspecimen.

  Singleton was equally successful in his scientific researches. He foundseveral beautifully green mosses, one species of which was studded withpale-yellow flowers, and, in one place, where a stream trickled down thesteep sides of the cliffs, he discovered a flower-growth which was richin variety of colouring. Amid several kinds of tufted grasses were seengrowing a small purple flower and the white star of the chickweed. Thesight of all this richness of vegetation growing in a little spot closebeside the snow, and amid such cold Arctic scenery, would have delighteda much less enthusiastic spirit than that of our young surgeon. He wentquite into raptures with it and stuffed his botanical box with mossesand rocks until it could hold no more, and became a burden that cost hima few sighs before he got back to the ship.

  The rocks were found to consist chiefly of red sandstone. There wasalso a good deal of greenstone and gneiss, and some of the spires ofthese that shot up to a considerable height were particularly strikingand picturesque objects.

  But the great sight of the day's excursion was that which unexpectedlygreeted their eyes on rounding a cape towards which they had beenwalking for several hours. On passing this point they stopped with anexclamation of amazement. Before them lay a scene such as the Arcticregions alone can produce.

  In front lay a vast reach of the strait, which at this place opened upabruptly and stretched away northward laden with floes, and fields, andhummocks, and bergs of every shade and size, to the horizon, where theappearance of the sky indicated open water. Ponds of various sizes, andsheets of water whose dimensions entitled them to be styled lakes,spangled the white surface of the floes, and around these were sportinginnumerable flocks of wild fowl, many of which, being pure white,glanced like snow-flakes in the sunshine. Far off to the west the icecame down with heavy uniformity to the water's edge. On the right therewas an array of cliffs whose frowning grandeur filled them with awe.They varied from twelve to fifteen hundred feet in height, and some ofthe precipices descended sheer down seven or eight hundred feet into thesea, over which they cast a dark shadow.

  Just at the feet of our young discoverers, for such we may truly callthem, a deep bay or valley trended away to the right, a large portion ofwhich was filled with the spur of a glacier, whose surface was coveredwith _pink snow_! One can imagine with what feelings the two youthsgazed on this beautiful sight. It seemed as if that valley, instead offorming a portion of the sterile region beyond the Arctic Circle, wereone of the sunniest regions of the south, for a warm glow rested on thebosom of the snow, as if the sun were shedding upon it his rosiest hues.A little farther to the north the red snow ceased, or only occurredhere and there in patches, and beyond it there appeared another gorge
inthe cliffs within which rose a tall column of rock, so straight andcylindrical that it seemed to be a production of art. The whole of theback country was one great rolling distance of glacier, and, wherever acrevice or gorge in the riven cliffs afforded an opportunity, this oceanof land-ice sent down spurs into the sea, the extremities of which wereconstantly shedding off huge bergs into the water.

  "What a scene!" exclaimed Tom Singleton, when he found words to expresshis admiration. "I did not think that our world contained so grand asight. It surpasses my wildest dreams of fairy-land."

  "Fairy-land!" ejaculated Fred, with a slight look of contempt; "do youknow, since I came to this part of the world I've come to the conclusionthat fairy tales are all stuff, and very inferior stuff too! Why, thisreality is a thousand million times grander than anything that was everinvented. But what surprises me most is the red snow. What can be thecause of it?"

  "I don't know," replied Singleton; "it has long been a matter of disputeamong learned men; but we must examine it for ourselves, so come along."

  The remarkable colour of the snow referred to, although a matter ofdispute at the period of the _Dolphin's_ visit to the Arctic Seas, isgenerally admitted now to be the result of a curious and extremelyminute vegetable growth, which spreads not only over its surface, butpenetrates into it sometimes to a depth of several feet. The earliernavigators who discovered it, and first told the astonished world thatthe substance which they had been accustomed to associate with the ideaof the purest and most radiant whiteness had been seen by them lying_red_ upon the ground, attributed the phenomenon to innumerablemultitudes of minute creatures belonging to the order _Radiata_, but thediscovery of red snow among the central Alps of Europe, and in thePyrenees, and on the mountains of Norway, where _marine_ animalculescould not exist, effectually overturned this idea. The colouring matterhas now been ascertained to result from plants belonging to the ordercalled _Algae_, which have a remarkable degree of vitality, and possessthe power, to an amazing extent, of growing and spreading with rapidityeven over such an ungenial soil as the Arctic snow.

  While Singleton was examining the red snow, and vainly endeavouring toascertain the nature of the minute specks of matter, by which it wascoloured, Fred continued to gaze with a look of increasing earnestnesstowards the tall column, around which a bank of fog was spreading, andpartially concealing it from view. At length he attracted the attentionof his companion towards it.

  "I say, I'm half inclined to believe that yon is no work of nature, buta monument set up to attract the attention of ships. Don't you thinkso?"

  Singleton regarded the object in question for some time. "I don't thinkso, Fred; it is larger than you suppose, for the fog-bank deceives us;but let us go and see--it cannot be far off."

  As they drew near to the tall rock, Fred's hopes began to fade, and soonwere utterly quenched by the fog clearing away and showing that thecolumn was indeed of nature's own constructing. It was a single,solitary shaft of green limestone, which stood on the brink of a deepravine, and was marked by the slaty limestone that once encased it. Thelength of the column was apparently about five hundred feet, and thepedestal of sandstone on which it stood was itself upwards of twohundred feet high.

  This magnificent column seemed the flag-staff of a gigantic crystalfortress, which was suddenly revealing by the clearing away of thefog-bank to the north. It was the face of the great glacier of theinterior, which here presented an unbroken perpendicular front--a sweepof solid glassy wall, which rose three hundred feet above thewater-level, with an unknown depth below it. The sun glittered on thecrags, and peaks, and battlements of this ice fortress as if themysterious inhabitants of the far north had lit up their fires, andplanted their artillery to resist further invasion.

  The effect upon the minds of the two youths, who were probably the firstto gaze upon those wondrous visions of the icy regions, was tremendous.For a long time neither of them could utter a word, and it would be idleto attempt to transcribe the language, in which, at length, theirexcited feelings sought to escape. It was not until their backs hadbeen for some time turned on the scene, and the cape near the valley ofred snow had completely shut it out from view, that they couldcondescend to converse again in their ordinary tones on ordinarysubjects.

  As they hastened back over the ice-belt at the foot of the cliffs, aloud boom rang out in the distance, and rolled in solemn echoes alongthe shore.

  "There goes a gun," exclaimed Tom Singleton, hastily pulling out hiswatch. "Hallo! do you know what time it is?"

  "Pretty late, I suppose; it was afternoon, I know, when we started, andwe must have been out a good while now. What time is it?"

  "Just two o'clock in the morning!"

  "What! do you mean to say it was _yesterday_ when we started, and thatwe've been walking all night, and got into _to-morrow morning_ withoutknowing it?"

  "Even so, Fred. We have overshot our time, and the captain issignalling us to make haste. He said that he would not fire unlessthere seemed some prospect of the ice moving, so we had better run,unless we wish to be left behind; come along."

  They had not proceeded more than half a mile when a Polar bear walkedleisurely out from behind a lump of ice, where it had been regalingitself on a dead seal, and sauntered slowly out towards the icebergsseaward, not a hundred yards in advance of them.

  "Hallo! look there! what a monster!" shouted Fred, as he cocked hismusket and sprang forward. "What'll you do, Tom, you've no gun?"

  "Never mind, I'll do what I can with the hammer. Only make sure youdon't miss. Don't fire till you are quite close to him."

  They were running after the bear at top speed while they thus conversedin hasty and broken sentences, when suddenly they came to a yawningcrack in the ice, about thirty feet wide, and a mile long on eitherhand, with the rising tide boiling at the bottom of it. Bruin'spursuers came to an abrupt halt.

  "Now, isn't that disgusting!"

  Probably it was, and the expression of chagrin on Fred's countenance ashe said so evidently showed that he meant it, but there is no doubt thatthis interruption to their hunt was extremely fortunate; for to attack apolar bear with a musket charged only with small shot, and a geologicalhammer, would have been about as safe and successful an operation astrying to stop a locomotive with one's hand. Neither of them had yethad experience of the enormous strength of this white monarch of thefrozen regions and his tenacity of life, although both were recklessenough to rush at him with any arms they chanced to have.

  "Give him a long shot quick!" cried Singleton.

  Fred fired instantly, and the bear stopped, and looked round, as much asto say: "Did you speak, gentlemen?" Then, not receiving a reply, hewalked away with dignified indifference, and disappeared among theice-hummocks.

  An hour afterwards the two wanderers were seated at a comfortablebreakfast in the cabin of the _Dolphin_, relating their adventures tothe captain and mates, and, although unwittingly, to Mivins, whogenerally managed so to place himself, while engaged in the mysteriousoperations of his little pantry, that most of the cabin-talk reached hisear, and travelled thence through his mouth to the forecastle. Thecaptain was fully aware of this fact, but he winked at it, for there wasnothing but friendly feeling on board the ship, and no secrets. When,however, matters of serious import had to be discussed, the cabin doorwas closed, and Mivins turned to expend himself on Davie Summers, who,in the capacity of a listener, was absolutely necessary to thecomfortable existence of the worthy steward.

  Having exhausted their appetites and their information, Fred and Tomwere told that, during their absence, a bear and two seals had been shotby Meetuck, the Esquimaux interpreter, whom they had taken on board atUppernavik; and they were further informed that the ice was in motion tothe westward, and that there was every probability of their beingreleased by the falling tide. Having duly and silently weighed thesefacts for a few minutes, they simultaneously, and as if by a commonimpulse, yawned and retired to bed.