The Cruise of the Snowbird: A Story of Arctic Adventure
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was carried unanimously. It was to scuttle the lowerdeck, and fasten into the hole so made, the end of the long copperventilator which stood between the fore and the main masts, and was usedfor giving access to air into the men's living and sleeping rooms.
Ralph determined to go down again, and could not be restrained fromdoing so. His work, he averred, was but half finished; the mate and hebetween them could scuttle the deck with adzes and axes, and fix thefunnel-shaped ventilator, in a quarter of an hour. They were tooanxious to stop long for refreshment. Only a draught of water, andseizing their implements, down they went once more.
So perfect were the simple face-guards they wore, that they might havestopped below until the work was completed, had it not been necessary tocome on deck to have them removed and re-rinsed in clean water. Happilythe fire was not raging immediately beneath the spot where they cut thehole, or the flames might have defied all their efforts to fix thecopper funnel. It was no easy task to do so as it was, for the smokerolled up in blinding volumes, and the heat was intense. But theyfinished the work nevertheless, and finished it well, carefullysurrounding the end of the ventilator with wet swabs.
With pumps and with buckets the water was now poured down thecommunication thus effected with the hold, and surely men never workedharder for dear life itself than did the crew of the _Trefoil_ and the_Snowbird_ volunteers, to save that burning ship. The danger was veryurgent, for if the water were not constantly kept pouring down involumes the heat must soon melt the end of the ventilator, and the firegain access to the 'tween decks.
At first volumes of sparks flew upwards, and it was feared this mightfire the sails. Hands were told off, therefore, to clew them. Thencame volumes of dense smoke only, and this for a whole hour withoutabatement; but gradually the smoke grew less and the steam more.
Gradually the 'tween decks cleared of smoke; and ere long steam alone,and but little of that, came up the ventilator. Then they knew the firewas mastered, that the danger was past.
McBain parted that evening from the mate, now master of the _Trefoil_,with the promise that the _Snowbird_ would keep near his barque for aday or two at least, until the chance of the fire once more breaking outwas no longer to be dreaded. Although the sun sets every night, even atmidsummer time, in the latitude in which the yacht was now sailing,there is very little darkness, only just a few hours of what might becalled a deepened twilight, then day again.
The breeze had freshened. Just before turning in for good, our heroesnoticed they were approaching a stream of somewhat heavy ice. They werebut little alarmed at this, however; they were used to the sight of iceby this time, and could sleep through the din of "boring" through fieldsof it.
"I'm glad the wind keeps strong, Stevenson," McBain said, previously togoing below. "Keep her stem-on to the big pieces, and don't bump heramidships, if possible. Call me if anything unusual occurs."
It was precisely three bells in the middle watch when the mate enteredCaptain McBain's room.
"Well, Stevenson," said McBain, sitting up in bed, for he was a lightsleeper; "we're clear of the ice, I suppose?"
"Yes, sir," said Stevenson. "We're in open water. We're dodging, sir.I've hauled the foreyard aback, to wait for the _Trefoil_."
"She's in sight, then, of course?" asked McBain.
"No, sir, that is the curious part of it. I can't see a sign of her;not a vestige, even from the crow's-nest."
"What?" cried McBain.
"It is true, sir," continued the mate. "We were both working throughthe ice-stream just before darkling. I was too busy to look much aboutme till we got outside; then I missed her. There are two or three largebergs among the smaller. She may be hidden by one of these. If sheisn't I greatly fear, sir, something has happened to her."
The captain was on deck in a few minutes, and found the mate's wordswere sadly true.
He tacked up and down for hours, so as to see both sides of every largeberg in the stream, but no _Trefoil_ was there. She was gone. Nevermore would this goodly barque sail the northern seas.
Towards noon that day one solitary boat was seen to emerge from thebergs of the ice-stream, and begin advancing towards the _Snowbird_.One boat--eleven men and the first mate--were all the survivors of theill-fated ship. She had been struck amidships. A three-cornered pieceof ice had gone half-way through her, then receded, and in threeminutes' time she had filled and gone down, the mate and the watch ondeck having barely time to cut a boat away.
[The same fate befell the _Innuit_, of Peterhead, some fifteen yearsago; she went down in the short darkling of a summer's night, a very fewminutes after being struck. She had been lying beset, with my own shipand several others, in an ice-pack, to the south-west of Jan Mayen. Thehands, however, were saved.--_The Author_.]
That day, after dinner, the mate told the short but sad history of the_Trefoil's_ cruise.
"The same captain was in her," he said, "for three years, and never yetsucceeded in getting a paying voyage. His owners weren't pleased, youmay be well sure. Unscrupulous men they are, every one of them. Theytold him, and they told me and our second mate, before we left Englandlast, that if we were a clean ship this voyage they would rather _neversee the `Trefoil' again_! We knew what that meant. We knew the_Trefoil_ was heavily insured. But the captain was a gentleman; hewould have died sooner than harm a timber of the dear old _Trefoil_.But the second mate--ah! it is wrong, I know, to speak ill of the dead,but I have reasons, strong reasons, for believing that it was he whofired the ship.
"We had bad luck last summer; we never struck a fish. Then we got besetamong such terrible ice as I had never seen before, and there we had towinter. There was another ship not far off in the same predicament,though she lay on an evener keel.
"It was because our poor captain was so unhappy that, during the winter,he began to acquire sadly intemperate habits. We could not see himdying by inches before our faces; we loved the man, and tried to savehim. We mutinied--ay! it was mutiny, but if ever mutiny was excusableit was in this case. We marched aft and seized the keys of the roomwhere the grog was stored, and, with the exception of a few gallons,which we kept for the spring fishing, we poured every drop down theice-hole. Two weeks after that the captain sent for me and thanked mebefore the men for what I had done. You know the rest of our story,gentlemen."
Next morning it had fallen calm again; the sky was of a deeply azureblue, the sea a sea of glass, with one or two beautiful Arctic birdsfloating lazily on its surface. And thus lazily floated the good yacht_Snowbird_, rising and falling on the gentle swell. All hands were aftat an early hour listening to the solemn words of the Burial Service.The bodies had been sewn in hammocks and weighted with portions of iron,and at the words, "Earth to earth, dust to dust," the flag was quietlywithdrawn, the grating on which they lay was tilted, and, one by one,they were allowed to drop into the depths of that dark mysterious ocean,where shall repose the bodies of so many of England's bravest sons, tillthe sea gives up its dead.
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By noon the glassy surface of the water was touched here and there bywhat sailors term "cat's-paws." Half-an-hour later the sea was all of aripple; then the _Snowbird's_ sails filled again, and she bore away tothe west. And so west and west she went for several weeks, onlyaltering her course at times to avoid the heavier ice, or when compelledto do so by a change of wind. Then for days and days they kept nearlysouth and by west, till one morning there was a shout from the mast-headthat thrilled every heart with joy,--
"Land ho!"
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.
ON SHORE FOR A RUN--NOONTIDE ON THE SEASHORE--A NATURAL HARBOUR--THELAND OF ADVENTURE AND SPORT--AFTER THE ANTELOPE--FACE TO FACE WITH AGRIZZLY.
Yes, yonder lay the land. A mere cloud-land as yet, though; a longstreak of darkish blue, higher at some places than at others, andrunning all along one half of the southern horizon. There was muchspeculation on board as to what the
country they were approaching wouldturn out to be, whether or not they would find inhabitants in it, andwhat their reception would be, what their adventures, and what theirchance of sport. Judging from his latitude and longitude McBain put itdown as some portion of the northern shores of British America, and oldSeth "guessed" and "calculated" that if there were any inhabitants theywould be "blueskin Injuns," and they would have to make a welcome forthemselves if they wanted one.
Before many hours were over, however, they had sailed near enough toscan the coast with their glasses. The foreshore was low and rocky;beyond that was a wilderness of wood and forest as far as the eye couldreach, but no signs of smoke, no signs of human life. Everything seemedas peaceful and still as though it were a world newly evolved from thehands of