Wild Adventures round the Pole

“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 usYonder 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.

A Council – Preparing for Winter Quarters – The Isle of Alba and its Mammoth Caves – Magnus’s Tale – At his Boy’s Grave

The word “canny” is often applied to Scotchmen in a somewhat disparaging sense by those who do not know the meaning of the word, nor the true character of the people on whom they choose to fix the epithet. The word is derived from “can,” signifying knowledge, ability, skill, etc, and probably a corruption of the Gaelic “caen” (head). The Scotch are pre-eminently a thinking nation, and, as a rule, they are individually skilful in their undertakings; they like to look before they leap, they like to know what they have to do before they begin, but having begun, they work or fight with all their life and power. It was “canniness” that won for Robert Bruce the Battle of Bannockburn, it was the canniness of Prince Charles Stuart that enabled him to defeat Sir John Cope at the Battle of Dunbar. There is no nation in the world possesses more “can” than the Scotch, although they are pretty well matched by the Germans. Prince Bismarck is the canniest man of the century.

”À Berlin! À Berlin!” was the somewhat childish cry of the volatile Gaul, when war broke out betwixt his sturdy neighbour and him.

Yes, fair France, go to Berlin if you choose, only first and foremost you have to overthrow – what? Oh! only one man. A very old one, too. Yonder he is, in that tent in the corner of a field, seated at a table, quietly solving, one would almost think, a chess problem. And so it is, but he is playing the game with living men, and every move he makes is carefully studied. That old man in the tent, to which the wires converge from the field of battle, is General von Moltke, the best soldier that the world has ever known since the days of Bonaparte and Wellington, and the canniest.

But the word “canny” never implies over-frugality or meanness, and I believe my readers will go a long way through the world, without meeting a Scotchman who would not gladly share the last sixpence he had in the world to benefit a friend.

Our Captain McBain was canny in the true sense of the word, and it was this canniness of his that induced him to call his officers, and every one who could think and give an opinion, into the saloon two days after the events described in the last chapter.

After making a short speech, in which he stated his own ideas freely, he called upon them to express theirs.

“If,” he concluded, “you think we have gone far enough north with the ship, here, or near here, we will anchor; if you think we ought to push on, I will take that barrier of ice to the north-east, and push and bore and forge and blast my way for many miles farther, and it may be we will strike the open water around the Pole, if such open water exists.”

“We are now,” said Stevenson, after consulting for a short time with the second mate, with Magnus, and De Vere the aeronaut – “we are now nearly 88 degrees north and 76 degrees west from the meridian; the season has been a wonderful one, but will we have an open summer to find our way back again if we push on farther?”

“No,” cried old Magnus, with some vehemence; “no, such seasons as these come but once in ten years.”

“I see how the land lies,” said McBain, smiling, “and I am glad that we are all of the same way of thinking. Well, gentlemen, this decides me; we shall winter where we are.”

“Hurrah!” cried Stevenson; “we wouldn’t have gone contrary to your wishes for the world, captain, but I’m sure we will be all delighted to go into winter quarters.”

After this the Arrandoon was kept away more to the west, where the water was clearer of bergs, and where mountainous land was seen to lie.

They steamed along this land or shore for many miles, although lighted only by the bright silvery stars and the gleaming Aurora. They came at length to a small landlocked bay or gulf, entirely filled with flat ice. The ship was stopped, and all hands ordered away to a clear a passage by means of ice-saws and torpedoes. After many hours of hard work this was successfully accomplished, and the vessel was warped in till she lay close under the lee of the braeland, that rose steeply up from the surface of the sea. Those braes were to the north and west of them, and would help to shelter the ship from at least one of the coldest winds.

“Well, boys,” said McBain that day as they sat down to dinner, and he spoke more cheerfully than he had done since the departure of the Scotia, – “well, boys, here we are safe and snug in winter quarters. How do you like the prospect of living here for three months without ever catching a blink of the sun?”

“I for one don’t mind it a bit,” said Allan. “It’ll do us all good; but won’t we be glad to see the jolly visage of old Sol again, when he peeps over the hills to see whether we are dead or alive!”

“I’m sure,” said Rory, “that I will enjoy the fun immensely.”

“What fun?” asked Ralph.

“Why, the new sensation,” replied Rory; “a winter at the Pole.”

“You’re not quite there yet,” said Ralph; “but as for me, I think I’ll enjoy it too, though of course winter in London would be more lively. Why, what is that green-looking stuff in those glasses, doctor?”

“That’s your dram,” said Sandy.

“Why it’s lime-juice,” cried Rory, tasting his glass and making a face.

“So it is,” said Ralph. “Where are the sugar-plums, doctor?”

“Yes,” cried Rory; “where are the plums? Oh!” he continued, “I have it – a drop of Silas Grig’s green ginger, steward, quick.”

And every day throughout the winter, when our heroes swallowed their dose of lime-juice, they were allowed a tiny drop of green ginger to put away the taste, and as they sipped it, they never failed to think and talk of honest Silas.

And lime-juice was served out by the surgeon to all hands. They knew well it was to keep scurvy at bay, so they quietly took their dose and said nothing.

The sea remained open for about a week longer, and scores of bears were bagged. (These animals are said to bury themselves in the snow during winter, and sleep soundly for two or three months. This, however, is doubtful.) This seemed, indeed, to be the autumn home of the King of the Ice. Then the winter began to close in in earnest, and all saving the noonday twilight deserted them. The sky, however, remained clear and starry, and many wonderful meteors were seen almost nightly shooting across the firmament, and for a time lighting up the strange and desolate scene with a brightness like the noon of day. The Aurora was clearer and more dazzling after the frost came, so that as far as light was concerned the sun was not so much missed.

On going on deck one morning our heroes were astonished to find a light gleaming down upon them from the maintop, of such dazzling whiteness that they were fain, for the moment, to press their hands against their eyes.

It was an electric candle, means for erecting which McBain had provided himself with before leaving the Clyde. So successful was he with his experiment that the sea of ice on the one hand, and the braeland on the other, seemed enshrouded in gloom. Rory gazed in ecstasy, then he must needs walk up to McBain and shake him enthusiastically by the hand, laughing as he remarked, —

“’Deed, indeed, captain, you’re a wonderful man. Whatever made you think of this? What a glorious surprise. Have you any more in store for us? Really! sir, I don’t know what your boys would do without you at all at all.”

Thus spoke impulsive young Rory, as McBain laughingly returned his hand-shake, while high overhead the new light eclipsed the radiance of the brightest stars. But what is that strange, mournful cry that is heard among the hills far up above them? It comes nearer and still more near, and then out from the gloom swoops a gigantic bird. Attracted by the light, it has come from afar, and now keeps wheeling round and round it. Previously there had not been a bird visible for many days, but now, curious to relate, they come in hundreds, and even alight close by the ship to feed on the refuse that has been thrown overboard.

“It is strange, isn’t it, sir?” said Rory.

“It is, indeed,” replied McBain, adding, after a pause, “Rory, boy, I’ve got an idea.”

“Well,” said Rory, “I know before you mention it that it is a good one.”

“Ah! but,” said McBain, “I’m not going to mention it yet awhile.”

“I vill vager,” said the aeronaut, who stood beside them, gazing upwards at the bright light and the circling birds – “I vill vager my big balloon dat de same idea has struck me myself.”

“Whisper,” said the captain.

The aeronaut did so, and McBain burst out laughing.

“How funny!” he remarked; “but you are perfectly right, De Vere; only keep it dark for a bit.”

“Oh yes,” said De Vere, laughing in turn; “very dark; as dark as – ”

“Hush?” cried McBain, clapping a hand on his mouth.

“How tantalising!” said Rory.

“You’ll know all about it in good time,” McBain said; “and now, boys, we’ve got to prepare for winter in right good earnest. Duty before pleasure, you know. Now here is what I propose.”

What he did propose was set about without loss of time. Little Ap was summoned aft.

“Can you build barrows?” asked McBain.

Little Ap took an immense pinch of snuff before he replied.

“I have built many a boat,” he said, “but never a barrow. But look, you see, with the help of the cooper and the carpenters I can build barrows by the dozen. Yes, yes, sir.”

“Bravo, Ap!” cried McBain; “then set about it at once, for we are all going to turn navvies. We are going,” he added, “to excavate a cave half-way up that brae yonder on the starboard quarter. It will be big enough, Ap, to hold the whole ship’s crew, officers and all. It will be a glorious shelter from the cold, and it will – ”

“Stop,” cried Sandy McFlail. “Beg your pardon, sir, but let me finish the sentence: it will give the men employment and keep sickness away.”

“That’s it, my worthy surgeon,” said McBain.

“Bravo!” said Sandy. “I look upon that now as – ”

Sandy paused and reddened a little.

“As a vera judeecious arrangement,” said Rory, laughing. “Out with it, Sandy, man.”

Rory edged off towards the door of the saloon as he spoke; the doctor kicked over his chair and made a dart after him, but Rory had fled. Hardly, however, was the surgeon re-seated ere his tormentor keeked in again.

“Eh! mon, Sandy McFlail,” he cried; “you’ll want to take a lot more salt in your porridge, mon, before ye can catch Rory Elphinston.”

On the hillside, fifty feet above the sea level, they commenced operations, and in a fortnight’s time the cave was almost completed; and not only that, but a beautiful staircase leading up to it. The soil was not hard after the outer crust was tapped, although some veins of quartz were alighted upon which required to be blasted. Several times they came across the trunks of huge trees that seemed to have been scorched by fire, the remains, doubtless, of the primeval forest that had once clad these hills with a sea of living green. Nor were bones wanting; some of immense size were turned up and carefully preserved.

Rory made a careful study of the remains of the animal and vegetable life which were found, and the result of this was his painting two pictures representing the Past and Present of the strange land where their vessel now lay. The one represented the Arrandoon lying under bare poles and yards in the ice-locked bay, with the wild mountainous land beyond, peak rising o’er peak, and crag o’er crag, all clad in the garments of eternal winter, and asleep in the uncertain light of the countless stars and the radiant Aurora. But the other picture! Who but Rory – who but an artist-poet could have painted that? There are the same formations of hill and dale, the same towering peaks and bold bluffs, but neither ice nor snow is there; the glens and valleys are clad in waving forests; flowers and ferns are there; lichens, crimson and white, creep and hang over the brown rocks; happy birds are in the sky; bright-winged butterflies seem flitting in the noonday sunshine, and strange animals of monstrous size are basking on the sea-shore.

Rory’s pictures were admired by all hands, but the artist had his private view to begin with, and, among others like privileged, aft came weird old Magnus. First he was shown the picture of the Past.

He gazed at it long and earnestly, muttering to himself, “Strange, strange, strange.”

But no sooner was the companion picture placed before him, than he started from the chair on which he had been sitting.

“I was right! I was right?” he cried. “Oh! bless you, boy Rory; bless you, Captain McBain. This – this is the Isle of Alba. Yonder are the dear hills. I thought I could not be mistaken, and not far off are the mammoth caves. I can guide you, gentlemen, to the place where lies wealth untold. This is the happiest day of old Magnus’s life.”

“Sit down, Magnus,” said McBain, kindly; “sit down, my old sea-dad. Gentlemen, gather round us; Magnus has something to tell us I know. Magnus,” he continued, taking the old man’s thin and withered hand in his, “I have often thought you knew more about this Isle of Alba than you cared to tell. What is the mystery? You have spoken so often about these mammoth caves. How know you there is wealth of ivory lying there?”

“I have no story to relate,” said Magnus, talking apparently to himself; “only a sad reminiscence of a voyage I took years and years ago to these same dreary latitudes. I had a son with me, a son I loved for his dead mother’s sake and his own. I commanded a sloop – ’twas but a sloop – and we sailed away from Norwegian shores in search of the ivory mines. We reached this very island. The year was an open one, just like this; myself and my brave fellows found ivory in abundance; in such abundance that our sloop would not carry a thousandth part of it, for, gentlemen, in ages long gone by, this island and those around it were the homes of the mammoth and the mastodon. We collected all the ivory and placed it in one cave. How I used to gloat over my treasure! It was all for my boy. He would be the richest man in Northern Europe. My boy, my dear boy, with his mother’s eyes! I had only to go back to Norway with my sloop and charter a large vessel, and return to the Isle of Alba for my buried treasure.”

Here poor old Magnus threw his body forward and covered his face with his skinny hands, and the tears welled through his fingers, while his whole form was convulsed with sobs.

“My boy – died!” was all he could utter. “He sleeps yonder – yonder at the cave’s mouth. Yonder – yonder. To-morrow I will guide you to the cave, and we will see my boy.”

The old man seemed wandering a little.

“I would sleep now,” he added. “To-morrow – to-morrow.”

There was a strange light in Magnus’s eye next day when he joined the search party on deck, and a strange flush on his cheek that seemed to bode no good.

“I’ll see my boy,” he kept repeating to himself, as he led the way on shore. “I’ll see my boy.”

He walked so fast that his younger companions could hardly keep pace with him.

Along the shore and upwards through a glen, round hills and rocks, by many a devious path, he led them on and on, till they stood at last at the foot of a tall perpendicular cliff, with, close beside it, a spar or flagstaff.

They knew now that Magnus had not been raving, that they were no old man’s dream, these mammoth caves, but a glorious reality.

“Quick, quick,” cried Magnus, pointing to a spot at the foot of the spar. “Clear away the snow.”

Our heroes were hardly prepared for the sight that met their eyes, as soon as Magnus had been obeyed, for there, encased in a block of crystal ice, lay the form of a youth of probably sixteen summers, dressed in the blue uniform of a Norwegian sailor, with long fair hair floating over his shoulders. Time had wrought no change on the face; this lad, though buried for twenty years, seemed even now only in a gentle slumber, from which a word or touch might awake him.

“My boy! my boy!” was the cry of the old man, as he knelt beside the grave, kissed the cold ice, and bedewed it with his tears. “Look up, look up; ’tis your father that is bending over you. But no, no, no; he’ll never speak nor smile again. Oh! my boy, my boy!”

Rory was in tears, and not he alone, for the roughest sailor that stood beside the grave could not witness the grief of that old man unmoved.

McBain stepped forward and placed his hand kindly on his shoulder.

Magnus turned his streaming eyes just once upwards to his captain’s face, then he gave vent to one long, sobbing sigh, threw out his arms, and dropped.

Magnus was no more.

They made his grave close to that of his boy’s, and there, side by side, these twain will sleep till the sea gives up its dead.

Chapter Thirty Two.

The Terrible Snowstorm – Something Like an Aquarium – The Mammoth Caves and their Startling Treasures – The Journey Polewards – Collapse of the Balloon – “God Save The Queen.”

Four long months have passed away since poor old Magnus dropped dead on the grave of his son. The sun has once more appeared above the horizon, bringing joy to the hearts of the officers and crew of the Arrandoon. Despite every effort to keep their spirits up, the past winter has been a weary one. Had the stars always shone, had the glorious Aurora always flickered above them, it might have been different; but shortly after the cave was finished and furnished, divided into compartments, and made comfortable with chairs and sofas, and carpets and skins, a terrible storm came on them from the north-west. Never had our young heroes, never had McBain himself, known such cold, or such fierce winds and depth of snow. For three whole weeks did this Arctic storm rage, and during this time it would have been certain death for any one to have ventured ten yards from the mouth of the cavern.

But the wind fell at last, the clouds dispersed, and once more the goodly stars shone forth, and the bright Aurora. Then they ventured to creep out from their friendly shelter. The Arctic night seemed now as bright as day; they could hardly believe that the sun was not hidden behind some of those quartz-like clouds, that were still banked up on the south-eastern horizon. But where was the ship? where was their lordly Arrandoon? For a moment it seemed as if the ice had opened and swallowed her up. They rubbed their wondering eyes and looked again. Three silver streaks glimmering against the dark blue of the sky represented her topmasts; all the rest of her was buried beneath the snow.

And as far as they could see seaward it was all a waste of smooth dazzling white, with here and there only the points and peaks of the icebergs appearing above it.

As soon as the snow had sunk, which it soon did many feet, McBain had got his crew ready to start for the mammoth mines. The weather had continued fine, only there were whole weeks during which the wind blew so cuttingly fierce that no work or walking either could be attempted.

The troglodytes – an expression of Rory’s – were, therefore, a good deal confined to their cave, and it was well for them then that they had books to read and the wherewithal to amuse themselves in many other ways. The following is a remark that Rory had made to Ralph and Allan one day, after nearly three months of the winter had passed away.

“Which of you troglodytes is going with me to-morrow to see the sun rise?”

“Not I, thanks,” said Ralph. “Pass the ham, old man; that bit of bear-steak was a treat.”

“I’ll go,” said Allan.

“Hurrah!” cried Rory. “It is you that’s the brave boy after all. We’ll have friend Seth, too, and the dogs. It’s the first time they’ve been out; it will do us all good.”

This sledging-party had been a merry one, but they were obliged to leave the dogs at the foot of the mountain, and climb, as best they could, to the top, where, sure enough, they were soon rewarded by a glimpse, just one thrilling glimpse, of the king of day. They could not refrain from shouting aloud with joy. They shouted and cheered, and though, well-nigh three miles from the cave, the troglodytes there heard it, so intense was the silence, and gave them back shout for shout and cheer for cheer.