CHAPTER VIII
_In the Offshore Gale: In Which Billy Topsail Goes Seal Hunting and is Swept to Sea With the Floe_
WHAT befell old Tom Topsail and his crew came in the course of theday's work. Fishermen and seal-hunters, such as the folk of Ruddy Cove,may not wait for favourable weather; when the fish are running, theymust fish; when the seals are on the drift-ice offshore in the spring,they must hunt.
So on that lowering day, when the seals were sighted by the watch onLookout Head, it was a mere matter of course that the men of the placeshould set out to the hunt.
"I s'pose," Tom Topsail drawled, "that we'd best get under way."
Bill Watt, his mate, scanned the sky in the northeast. It was heavy,cold and leaden; fluffy gray towards the zenith, and black where theclouds met the barren hills.
"I s'pose," said he, catching Topsail's drawl, "that 'twill snow aforelong."
"Oh, aye," was the slow reply, "I s'pose 'twill."
Again Bill Watt faced the sullen sky. He felt that the supreme dangerthreatened--snow with wind.
"I s'pose," he said, "that 'twill blow, too."
"Oh, aye," Topsail replied, indifferently, "snow 'n' blow. We'll knowwhat 'twill do when it begins," he added. "Billy, b'y!" he shouted.
In response Billy Topsail came bounding down the rocky path from thecottage. He was stout for his age, with broad shoulders, long thickarms and large hands. There was a boy's flush of expectation on hisface, and the flash of a boy's delight in his eyes. He was willing foradventure.
"Bill an' me'll take the rodney," Topsail drawled. "I s'pose youmight's well fetch the punt, an' we'll send you back with the firsthaul."
"Hooray!" cried Billy; and with that he waved his cap and sped back upthe hill.
"Fetch your gaff, lad!" Topsail called after him. "Make haste! There'sJoshua Rideout with his sail up. 'Tis time we was off."
"Looks more'n ever like snow," Bill Watt observed, while they waited."I'm thinkin' _'twill_ snow."
"Oh, maybe 'twon't," said Topsail, optimistic in a lazy way.
The ice-floe was two miles or more off the coast; thence it stretchedto the horizon--a vast, rough, blinding white field, formed of detachedfragments. Some of the "pans" were acres in size; others were not bigenough to bear the weight of a man; all were floating free, rising andfalling with the ground swell.
The wind was light, the sea quiet, the sky thinly overcast. Had it notbeen for the threat of heavy weather in the northeast, it would havebeen an ideal day for the hunt. The punt and the rodney, the latterfar in the lead, ran quietly out from the harbour, with their littlesails all spread. From the punt Billy Topsail could soon see the small,scattered pack of seals--black dots against the white of the ice.
When the rodney made the field, the punts of the harbour fleet haddisappeared in the winding lanes of open water that led throughthe floe. Tom Topsail was late. The nearer seals were all markedby the hunters who had already landed. The rodney would have to betaken farther in than the most venturesome hunter had yet dared togo--perilously far into the midst of the shifting pans.
The risk of sudden wind--the risk that the heavy fragments would "pack"and "nip" the boat--had to be taken if seals were to be killed.
"We got to go right in, Bill," said Topsail, as he furled the rodney'ssails.
"I s'pose," was Watt's reply, with a backward glance to the northeast."An' Billy?"
"'Tis not wise to take un in," Topsail answered, hastily. "We'll haveun bide here."
Billy was hailed, and, to his great disappointment, warned to keepbeyond the edge of the floe. Then the rodney shot into the lane, withTopsail and Bill Watt rowing like mad. She was soon lost to sight.Billy shipped his sail and paddled to the edge of the ice, to wait, aspatiently as might be, for the reappearance of the rodney.
Patience soon gave way to impatience, impatience to anxiety, anxiety togreat fear for the lives of his father and the mate, for the offshoregale was driving up; the blue-black clouds were already high and risingswiftly.
At last there came an ominous puff of wind. It swept over the sea fromthe coast, whipping up little waves in its course--frothy little waves,that hissed. Heavy flakes of snow began to fall. As the wind rose theyfell faster, and came driving, swirling with it.
With the fall of the first flakes the harbour fleet came pell-mell fromthe floe. Not a man among them but wished himself in a sheltered place.Sails were raised in haste, warnings were shouted; then off went theboats, beating up to harbour with all sail set.
"Make sail, lad!" old Elisha Bull shouted to Billy, as his punt swungpast.
Billy shook his head. "I'll beat back with father!" he cried.
"You'll lose yourself!" Elisha screamed, as a last warning, before hispunt carried him out of hail.
But Billy still hung at the edge of the ice. His father had said, "Bidehere till we come out," and "bide" there he would.
He kept watch for the rodney, but no rodney came. Minute after minuteflew by. He hesitated. Was it not his duty to beat home? There wasstill the fair chance that he might be able to make the harbour. Didhe not owe a duty to his mother--to himself?
But a crashing noise from the floe brought him instantly to a decision.He knew what that noise meant. The ice was feeling the force of thewind. It would pack and move out to sea. The lane by which the rodneyhad entered then slowly closed.
In horror Billy watched the great pans swing together. There was nowno escape for the boat. The strong probability was that she would becrushed to splinters by the crowding of the ice; that indeed she hadalready been crushed; that the men were either drowned or cast away onthe floe.
At once the lad's duty was plain to him. He must stay where he was. Ifhis father and Bill Watt managed to get to the edge of the ice afoot,who else was to take them off?
The ice was moving out to sea, Billy knew. The pans were crunching,grinding, ever more noisily. But he let the punt drift as near as hedared, and so followed the pack towards the open, keeping watch, evermore hopelessly, for the black forms of the two men.
Soon, so fast did the sea rise, so wild was the wind, his own dangerwas very great. The ice was like a rocky shore to leeward. He began tofear that he would be wrecked.
Time and again the punt was nearly swamped, but Billy dared not dropthe oars to bail. There was something more. His arms, stout andseasoned though they were, were giving out. It would not long bepossible to keep the boat off the ice. He determined to land on thefloe.
But the sea was breaking on the ice dead to leeward. It was impossibleto make a landing there, so with great caution he paddled to the right,seeking a projecting point, behind which he might find shelter. At lasthe came to a cove. It narrowed to a long, winding arm, which apparentlyextended some distance into the floe.
There he found quiet water. He landed without difficulty at a pointwhere the arm was no more than a few yards wide. Dusk was thenapproaching. The wind was bitterly cold, and the snow was thick andblinding.
It would not be safe, he knew, to leave the boat in the water, for atany moment the shifting pans might close and crush it. He tried to liftit out of the water, but his strength was not sufficient. He managedto get the bow on the ice; that was all.
"I'll just have to leave it," he thought. "I'll just have to trust that'twill not be nipped."
Near by there was a hummock of ice. He sought the lee of it, and there,protected from the wind, he sat down to wait.
Often, when the men were spinning yarns in the cottages of Ruddy Coveof a winter night, he had listened, open-mouthed, to the tales ofseal-hunters who had been cast away. Now he was himself drifting out tosea. He had no fire, no food, no shelter but a hummock of ice. He hadthe bitterness of the night to pass through--the hunger of to-morrow toface.
"But sure," he muttered, with characteristic hopefulness, "I've a boat,an' many a man has been cast away without one."
He thought he had better make another effort to haul the boat on theice. Some movement of the pack might cl
ose the arm where it floated. Sohe stumbled towards the place.
He stared round in amazement and alarm; then he uttered a cry ofterror. The open water had disappeared.
"She's been nipped!" he sobbed. "She's been nipped--nipped tosplinters! I've lost meself!"
Night came fast. An hour before, so dense was the storm, nothing hadbeen visible sixty paces away; now nothing was to be seen anywhere.Where was the rodney? Had his father and Bill Watt escaped from thefloe by some new opening? Were they safe at home? Were they still onthe floe? He called their names. The swish of the storm, the crackingand crunching of the ice as the wind swept it on--that was all that heheard.
For a long time he sat in dull despair. He hoped no longer.
By and by, when it was deep night, something occurred to distract him.He caught sight of a crimson glow, flaring and fading. It seemed to bein the sky, now far off, now near at hand. He started up.
"What's that?" he muttered.
The Adventures of Billy Topsail Page 11
