Wild Adventures round the Pole

Ralph, Allan, and Rory, none of whom, as providence so willed it, are wounded, and who had been silent spectators of the duel, now crowd around their captain, and shake his willing hand.

“Heaven,” says McBain, “has given the enemy into our hands, boys, but there is now much to be done. Let us buckle to it without a moment’s delay. The wounded are to be seen to, both our own and the pirate’s, the decks cleared, and everything made shipshape, and, if all goes well, we’ll anchor with our prize to-morrow at Reikjavik.”

“And the clergyman, captain, the clergyman, the poor girl’s father?” exclaimed Rory.

“Ay, ay, boy Rory,” said McBain; “he is doubtless on the vessel. We will proceed at once to search for him.”

If fiends ever laugh, reader, it must be with some such sound as that which now proceeded from the larynx of the pirate captain; if fiends ever smile, it must be with the same sardonic expression that now spread itself over his features. All eyes were instantly turned towards him. He had raised himself to the sitting position.

“Ha! ha! ha!” he chuckled, while, manacled though his wrists were, he drew his right forefinger rapidly across his throat, uttering, as he did so, these words, “Your padre; ha! ha! dead – dead – dead.”

His listeners were horrified. What McBain’s reply would have been none can say. It was not needed, for at that very moment, ere the exultant grin had vanished from the wretch’s face, there sprang on deck from the companion a figure, tall and gaunt, clad from top to toe in skins. He knelt on the deck in front of the pirate, the better to confront him.

With forefinger raised, “he held him with his glittering eye,” while he addressed him as follows:

“Look here, Mister Pirate, I was going to use strong language, but I won’t, though I guess and calculate mild words are wasted on sich as you. The parson ain’t dead; ne’er a hair on his reverend head. Ye thought I’d scupper him, didn’t you, soon’s the ship was taken? Ye thought this child was your slave, didn’t ye? Ha! ha! though, he has rounded on ye at last, and if that bit of black rag weren’t enough to hang you and your wretched crew of cutthroats, here in front o’ ye kneels one witness o’ your dirty deeds, and the other will be on deck in a minute in the person o’ the parson you thought dead. How d’ye like it, eh?” and the speaker once more stood erect, and confronted our heroes.

“Seth!” they ejaculated, in one voice.

“Seth! by all that is marvellous!” said McBain, clutching the old man by the right hand, while Rory seized his left, and Allan and Ralph got hold of an arm each.

“Ah! gentlemen,” said honest Seth – and there was positively a tear in his eye as he spoke – “it’s on occasions like these that one wishes he had four hands, – a hand for every friend. Yes, I reckon it is Seth himself, and nary a one else. You may well say wonders will never cease. You may well ask me how on earth I came here. It war Providence, gentlemen, and nuthin’ else, that I knows on. It war Providence sent that cut-throat skipper to the land where you left me on the Snowbird, though I didn’t think so at the time, when they burned and pillaged my hut and killed poor old Plunkett, nor when they carried me a prisoner on board the Maelsturm. They meant to scupper old Seth. They did talk o’ bilin’ his old bones in whale oil, but they soon found out he could heal a hole in a hide as well as make one, and so, gentlemen, I’ve been surgeon-in-chief to this craft for nine months and over. Yes, it war Providence and nuthin’ else, and I knew it war as soon as I saw your ship heave in sight, the day they guessed they’d wreck ye. The parson’s daughter, poor little Dunette, war on board then. I sent her to save ye; and when I heard your voice, Captain McBain, on the reef, I felt sure it war Providence then, and I kind o’ prayed in my rough way that He might spare ye. Shake hands, gentlemen, again. Bother these old eyes o’ mine; they will keep watering.”

And Seth drew his sleeve rapidly across his face as he spoke.

Rory was a proud – boy, ahem! well, man, then, if you will have it so, when that same afternoon he was put on board the Maelsturm, as captain of her, with a picked crew from the Arrandoon, and with orders to make all sail for Reikjavik. McBain’s last words to him were these, —

“Keep your weather eye lifting, Captain Roderick Elphinston. Clap two sentries on those ruffianly prisoners of yours, and let your men sleep with their cutlasses by their sides and their revolvers under their heads.”

“Ay, ay, sir!” said Rory.

Rory allowed his crew to sleep, but he himself paced the deck all the livelong night. Occasionally he could see the lights of the Arrandoon far on ahead; but towards morning the weather got thick and somewhat squally, and at daylight the Maelsturm seemed alone on the ocean. Sail was taken in, but the ship kept her course, and just in the even-glome Rory ran into the Bay of Reikjavik, and dropped anchor, and shortly after a boat came off from the Arrandoon with both Allan and Ralph in it, to congratulate the boy-captain on the success of his, first voyage as skipper-commandant.

Next day both the pirate vessel and her captor were show-ships for the people – all the élite and beauty of Reikjavik crowded off from the shore in dozens to see them. The dilapidated condition of the Maelsturm, her broken bulwarks, rent rigging, and shivered spars, showed how fierce the fight had been. Nor were evidences of the struggle wanting on board the Arrandoon, albeit the men had been hard at work all the day making good repairs.

The dead were buried at sea; the wounded were mostly sent on shore. Five poor fellows belonging to McBain’s ship would never fight again, and many more were placed for a time hors de combat.

As to the prisoners, they were transferred to a French ship that lay at Reikjavik, and that in the course of a week sailed with them for Denmark. Seth and the officers of the Arrandoon made and signed depositions; and in addition to this, as evidence against the pirates, the old clergyman and his daughter Dunette, now joyfully reunited, went along with the Frenchman, while, with a crew from shore, the Maelsturm left some days after. The black flag had never been lowered, nor was it until the day the pirate captain and many of his crew expiated their long list of crimes on the scaffold at the Holms of Copenhagen.

Poor Dunette, the tears fell unheeded from her sad blue eyes as she bade farewell to our heroes on the deck of the Arrandoon. She did not say good-bye to the surgeon, however – at least not there. He had begged for a boat, and accompanied her on board the vessel in which she was to sail. Have they a secret, we wonder? Is it possible that our quiet surgeon has won the heart of this beautiful fair-haired Danish maiden? These are questions we must not seek answer to now, but time may tell.

Not until the pirate ship had left the bay, and the wounded were so far convalescent as to be brought once more on board, did the old peace and quiet settle down upon the good ship Arrandoon. And now once more all was bustle and stir; in a day or two they would start for the far north, and bid adieu to civilisation – a long but not, they hoped, a last adieu.

The very evening before they sailed, a farewell party was given on board the Arrandoon. The decks were tented over with canvas lined with flags, and the whole scene was gay and festive in the extreme. Poetic Rory could not have believed that there was so much female youth and loveliness in this primitive little town of Reikjavik. No wonder that day was dawning in the east ere the last boat of laughing and merry guests left for the shore.

Many and many a time afterwards, when surrounded by dangers innumerable, when beset in ice, when engulfed in darkness and storm, in the mysterious regions of the Pole, did they look back with pleasure to that last happy night spent in the bay of Reikjavik.

But see, it is twelve o’clock by the sun. Flags are floating gaily on the fort, on the little church tower, and on every eminence in or near the town, and the beach and snow-clad rocks are lined with an excited crowd. Hands and handkerchiefs are waved, and with the farewell cheers the far-off hills resound. Then our brave fellows man the rigging and waft them back cheer for cheer, as the noble vessel cleaves the waters of the bay, and stands away for the Northern Ocean.

Chapter Eleven.

The Voyage Resumed – A Pleasant Evening – “Those Rushing Winds” – The “Arrandoon” Grows Saucy – The Doctor Spread-Eagled – A School of Whales

Ere the day had worn to a close, before the sun went down in a golden haze, leaving one long line of crimson cloud, as earnest of a bright to-morrow, the Arrandoon, steaming twelve knots to the hour, was once more far away at sea, and the rugged mountains of Iceland could hardly be descried. As night fell a breeze sprang up, and as there was little doubt it would freshen ere long – for it blew from the east-south-east, and the glass had slightly gone down, with the mercury still concave at top – Captain McBain gave orders for the fires to be banked, and as much canvas spread as she could comfortably carry.

“Just make her snug, you know, Mr Stevenson,” said McBain, “for the night will be dark, and we may have more wind before the middle watch.”

“And troth,” said Rory to his companions, “if the ship is to be made snug, I don’t see why we shouldn’t make ourselves snug for the night too.”

Ralph was gazing down through the skylight at the brilliantly-lighted saloon, where Peter, with the aid of the assistant-steward and Freezing Powders, was busy laying the cloth for dinner.

“I’ve just come from forward,” replied Ralph, in raptures, “where I’ve been sniffing the roast beef and the boiled potatoes; and now just look below, Rory, – look how Peter’s face beams with intelligent delight; see how radiant Freezing Powders is; behold how merrily the flames dance on that fire of fires in the stove, and how the coloured crystal shimmers, and the bright silver shines on that cloth of spotless snow! Yes, Rory, you’re right, boy – let us make ourselves snug for the night. So down we go, and dress our smartest – for, mind, boys, there is going to be company to-night.”

Yes, there was going to be company; five were all that as a rule sat down to table in the grand saloon, but to-night the covers were laid for five more, namely Stevenson, Seth, old Magnus, and Ap, and last, though not least, De Vere, the French aeronaut.

The cook of the Arrandoon had been chosen specially by Ralph himself. Need I say, then, that he was an artist? and to-night he had done his best to outshine himself, and, I think, succeeded. I think, too, that when Peter went forward, some time after the great joints had been put on the table, and told him that everything was going on “as merrily as marriage bells,” and that the gentlemen were loud in their praises of Ralph’s cook, that that cook was about the happiest man in the ship. Peter had not exaggerated a bit either, for everything did go off well at this little dinner-party. It would have done your heart good to have seen the beaming countenances of little Ap, old man Magnus, and honest trapper Seth; and to have noticed how often they passed their plates for another help would have made you open your eyes with wonder – that is, if you never had been to Greenland; but had you made the voyage North Polewards even once, you would have known that of all countries in the world that is just the place to give man or boy a healthy appetite.

When the cloth was removed and dessert placed upon the table they seemed happier than ever, if that were possible, and smiles and jokes and jocund yarns ere the order of the evening. After every good story the cockatoo helped himself to an immense mouthful of hemp-seed, and cried, —

“Dea-ah me! Well, well, but go on, go on– next.”

And as to Freezing Powders, he was so amazed at many things he heard, that more than a dozen times in one hour he had to refresh himself by standing on his head in a corner of the saloon.

“Well, well, well!” said McBain, taking the advantage of a mere momentary lull in this feast of reason and flow of soul, “and what a strange mixture of nationalities we are, to be sure! Here is our bold, quiet Ralph, English to the spine – ”

“And I,” said Rory, “I’m Oirish to the chine.”

“That you are,” assented McBain; “and Allan and myself here are Scotch; and if you look farther along the table there is Wales represented in the form of cool, calculating, mathematical Ap; Shetland in the shape of our brave gunner Magnus; France in the form of friend De Vere; and the mightiest republic in the world in Seth’s six feet and odd inches; to say nothing of Africa standing on its head beside Polly’s cage. Freezing Powders, you young rascal, drop on to your other end; don’t you see you’re making Polly believe the world is upside down? look at her hanging by the feet with her head down!”

“Dat cockatoo not a fool, sah,” said Freezing Powders; “he know putty well what he am about, sah!”

“D’ye know,” said Ralph, looking smilingly towards Seth, “it is quite like old times to see Seth once more in the midst of us?”

“And oh!” said Seth, rubbing his hands, while a modest smile stole over his wiry face, “mebbe this old trapper ain’t a bit pleased to meet ye all again. Gentlemen, Seth and civilisation hain’t been ’cquaintances very long; skins seem to suit this child better’n the fine toggery ye’ve rigged him out in. But ye’ve made him feel a deal younger, and he guesses and calculates he may die ’pectable yet.”

I fear it was pretty far into the middle watch ere our friends parted and betook themselves to their berths. Two bells had gone – “the wee short hoor ayont the twal” – when McBain rose from the table, this being a signal for general good-nights.

“I’m going part of the way home with you, old man,” he said to Magnus, and with his arm placed kindly over his shoulder he left the saloon with the brave wee Shetlander. “Two turns on the deck, Magnus,” he continued, “and then you can turn in. And so, you say, in all your experience – and it has been very vast, hasn’t it, my friend?”

“That it has, sir,” replied Magnus. “I may say I was born in these seas, for the first thing I remember – when our ship went down under us in the pack north of Jan Mayen – is my father, bless him! putting me in a carpetbag for safety, to carry me on to the ice with him. Yes, sir, yes.”

“And in all your experience,” McBain went on, “you don’t remember a season likely to have been more favourable for our expedition to the North Pole than the present?”

“I don’t, sir – I don’t,” said little Magnus, “Look, see, sir, the frost has been extreme all over the north. In the Arctic regions the ice has been all of a heap like. It isn’t yet loosened. We haven’t met a berg yet. Funny, ain’t it, sir? – queer, isn’t it, cap’n?”

“It is strange,” said McBain; “and from this what do you anticipate?”

“Anticipate isn’t the word, cap’n,” cried Magnus, fixing McBain by the right arm, stopping his way, and emphasising his words with wildfire glints from his warlock eyes. “Anticipate? – bah! cap’n – bah! I’m old enough to be your grandfather. Ask me rather what I augur? And I answer this, I augur a glorious summer. Ice loosened before May-Day. Fierce heat south of England, and consequently rarefaction of the atmosphere, and rushing winds from the far north to fill up the heated vacuum – rushing winds to trundle the icebergs south before them – rushing winds to split the packs, and rend the floes, and open up a passage for this brave ship to the far-off Isle of Alba.”

“Bless you, Magnus! Give us your hand, my old sea-dad. You always gave me comfort, even when I was a boy in the wilds of Spitzbergen. You taught me to splice, and reef, and steer. Bless you, Magnus! I couldn’t have sailed without you.”

“But stay, my son, stay,” continued this weird little man, holding up a warning finger; “those rushing winds – ”

“Yes, Magnus?”

“They will bring danger on their wings.”

“I’ll welcome it, Magnus,” laughed McBain.

“Those rushing winds will tear down on us, hurricane-high, tempest-strong. The great bergs, impelled by force of wind and might of wave, will dash each other to atoms.”

“All the better for us, Daddy Magnus,” said the captain.

“Were your voice as loud as cannon’s roar you will be as one dumb amid the turmoil.”

“Then I’ll steer by signs,” said McBain.

“Should our ship escape destruction, we will be enveloped by fogs, encircled by a darkness that will be felt.”

“Then we’ll heave-to and wait till they evaporate. But there, my good Magnus, you see I’m not afraid of anything. I’d be unworthy of such a sea-dad as you if I were; so no more tragic airs, please. Thou mindest me, old Magnus, of the scene between Lochiel and the Wizard.

“‘Lochiel, Lochiel, beware of the dayWhen the Lowlands shall meet you in battle array,’

“says the Wizard, and so on and so forth.

“‘False wizard, avaunt!’ replies Lochiel, and all the rest of it, you know. But, beloved Magnus, I don’t say ‘avaunt!’ to you. But just see how the cold spray is dashing inboard. So, not to put too poetic a point on it, I simply say, ‘Go down below, old man, and don’t get wet, else your joints will ache in the morning with the rheumatiz.’”

The morning broke beautifully fine and clear, the reefs were shaken out of the topsails, topgallant-sails and royals were set, and, indeed, all the square cloth she could carry, and away went the Arrandoon before the wind, as happy, to all appearance, as the malleys and gulls that seemed to play at hide-and-seek with her, behind the comb-crested seas of olive-green.

Ralph and Allan, arm-in-arm, were marching rapidly up and down one side of the quarter-deck, Rory and McFlail on the other, and ever and anon a merry laugh from some one of them rang out bright and joyously on the fresh frosty air.

Towards noon stunsails were set, and the Arrandoon looked more like a sea-bird than ever; she even seemed to sing to herself – so thought Rory and so thought the doctor – as she went nodding and curtseying along over the waves, with now a bend to starboard, and now a lean to port; now lowering her bows till the seas ahead looked mountains high, and anon giving a dip waterwards till her waist was wet with the seething spray, and her lower stunsail-booms seemed to tickle the very breast of old mother ocean.

The wind was increasing, and there were times when our boys had to pause in their walk and grapple the mizzen rigging, laughing at each other as they did so.

“Wo ho, my beauty?” said McBain. “Mr Mitchell, I daresay we must take in sail.”

“I’m afraid so, sir,” replies Mitchell; “but – ” and here he eyes the bellowing canvas – “it do seem a pity, sir, don’t it?”

But here “my beauty” gives a vicious plunge forwards, elevating herself aft like a kicking mare, and shipping tons of water over her bows.

“I don’t want to be wicked,” the ship seems to say, “and I don’t want to lose a spar, though I could kick one off as easy as a daddy-longlegs gets rid of a limb; but if you don’t ease me a bit I’ll – ”

A bigger and more decided plunge into the sea, followed by a rising of her jibboom zenithwards, and the water comes roaring aft in one great bore, which seeks exit by the quarter-deck scupper-holes, and goes tumbling down the companion ladder, to the indignation of Peter and the disgust of Freezing Powders, who is standing on his head in an attitude of contemplation, and ships a green sea down his nostrils. Our heroes leap in time on to the top of the skylight, and there sit grinning delightedly as the waters go roaring past them, and floating thereon evidence enough that the men had been preparing dinner when Neptune boarded them, for yonder float potatoes and turnips and cabbages, to say nothing of a leg of Highland mutton and a six-pound piece of bacon.

“Hands, shorten sail!”

But next day – so changeable is a sailor’s life – the wind had all got bottled up again or gone back to its cave; the sea was smooth as glass, and steam was up, but the sky was still clear, and the sun undimmed by the slightest haze.

Just before lunch came the first signs that ice was not far ahead. The Arrandoon encountered a great “stream,” as it is called, of deep, snowy slush – I do not know what else to call it. It stretched away eastwards to westwards, as far as the eye from the crow’s-nest could reach, and it was probably nine or ten miles wide. It lessened the good ship’s way considerably, you may be sure. Her bows clove through it with a brushing sound; her screw revolved in it with a noise like dead leaves stirred by autumn winds.

“Losh!” cried Sandy, the surgeon, looking curiously overboard, “what’s this noo? Wonders will never cease!”

“Och, sure!” replied Rory, mischievously, “you know well enough what it is; it’s only speaking for speaking’s sake you are.”

“The ne’er a bone o’ ma knows, I do assure ye,” said Sandy.

“Well, doctor dear,” said Rory, “it is simply the belt, or zone, that geographers call the ‘Arctic circle.’”

But Sandy looked at him with a pitying smile. “Man – Rory?” he said, “I’m no’ so sea-green as you tak me to be. I’ve a right good mind to pu’ your lugs. Young men, sir, dinna enter Aberdeen University stirks and come out cuddies?”

“Mon!” cried Rory, imitating Sandy’s brogue, “if ye want to pu’ my lugs you’ll hae to catch me first;” and off he went round the deck, with the doctor after him. But Ralph caught him, if Sandy couldn’t, and handed him over to justice.

“Now,” cried the surgeon, catching him by the ear, “whistle, and I’ll let you free.”

It is no easy matter to whistle when you want to laugh, but when Rory at long last did manage to emit a labial note that passed muster as a whistle, the doctor was as good as his word, and Rory was free.

Luncheon was barely finished, when down from the crow’s-nest rang the welcome hail, “Ice ahead!”

Our heroes rushed on deck, McBain was there before them, and when they stepped on to the “lid” of the ship, as Sandy once called the deck, they found the captain half-way up to the nest.

There wasn’t a bit of ice to be seen from the deck.

“Hurrah for the foretop?” cried Rory, laying hold of a stay. “Who’s coming?”

“I will!” cried Allan.

“I’m going below to finish lunch,” said Ralph.

“I’ll be safer on deck, I think,” said the canny doctor.

But when Rory on the foretop struck an attitude of wonderment, and pointing away ahead, exclaimed, in rapture, “Oh, boys, what a scene is here!” the doctor thought he would give anything for a peep, so he summoned up his courage and began to ascend the rigging, slowly, and with about as much grace in his actions as a mud turtle would exhibit under the like circumstances.

Allan roared, “Good doctor! good! Bravo, old man! Heave round like a brick! Don’t look down.”

Rory was in a fit of merriment, and trying to stifle himself with his handkerchief. Suddenly down dropped that handkerchief; and this was just the signal four active lads were waiting for. Up they sprang like monkeys behind the surgeon, who had hardly reached the lubber-hole. Alas! the good medico didn’t reach it that day, for before you could have said “cutlass” he was seized, hand and foot, and lashed to the rigging, Saint Andrew’s-cross fashion.

The surgeon of the Arrandoon was spread-eagled, and Rory, the wicked boy! had his revenge.

“My conscience!” cried Sandy; “what next, I wonder?”

“It’s a vera judeecious arrangement,” sung Rory from the top.

But the men were not hard on the worthy doctor, and the promise of several ounces of nigger-head procured him his freedom, and he soon regained the deck, a sadder and a wiser man.

They were quickly among the ice – not bergs, mind you, only a stream of bits and pieces, of every shape and form, some like sheep and some like swans, and some like great white oxen. Here was a piece like a milking-pail; here was a lump like a hay-cock; yonder a gondola; yonder a boat; and yonder a couch on which the Naiades might recline and float, or Ino slumber.

It was Rory who made the last remark.

“And by this and by that!” he exclaimed, “there is a Naiad on it now! or it’s Ino herself, by all that’s amusing!”