The Cruise of the Snowbird: A Story of Arctic Adventure

Next day at breakfast, “How is your whale, Rory?” said Ralph.

“Oh!” said Rory, “he is in fine form this morning; I’m not sure he isn’t going to give us the slip; he is right away on the weather bow.”

“Give us the slip!” said McBain; “no, that she won’t, unless she alters her course. Steward, tell Mr Stevenson I want him.”

Stevenson was the mate, and a fine stalwart sailor he was, with dark hair and whiskers and a face as red as a brick.

“Do you think,” said McBain, “you can take another knot or two out of her without carrying anything away?”

“I think we can, sir.”

“Very well, Mr Stevenson, shake a few reefs out.”

Ap’s pipe was now heard on deck, then the trampling of feet, and a few minutes afterwards there was a saucy lurch to leeward, and, although the fiddles were across the table, Rory received the contents of a cup of hot coffee in his lap.

“Now the beauty feels it,” said McBain, with a smile of satisfaction.

“So do I,” said Rory, jumping up and shaking himself; “and its parboiled that my poor legs are entirely.”

“Let us go on deck,” said Allan, “and see the whale.”

Before the end of the forenoon watch they had their strange companion once more on the weather quarter.

“It is evident,” said McBain, “we could beat her.”

Racing a whale, reader, seems idle work, but sailors, when far away at sea, do idler things than that. They were leaning over the bulwarks after dinner that day gazing it this lonely monster of the deep, and guessing and speculating about its movements.

“I wonder,” said Ralph, “if he knows where he is going?”

“I’ve no doubt he does,” said Allan; “the same kind Hand directs his movements that makes the wind to blow and the needle to point to the north.”

“But,” said Ralph, “isn’t there something very solemn about the great beast, ploughing on and on in silence like that, and all alone too – no companion near?”

“He has left his wife in Greenland, perhaps,” said Rory, “and is going, like ourselves, to seek his fortune in the far west.”

“I wonder if he’ll find her when he returns.”

“Yes, I wonder that; for she can’t remain in the same place all the time, can she?”

“Now, boys,” said Allan, “you see what a wide, wide world of water is all around us – we must be nearly a thousand miles from land. How, if a Great Power did not guide them, could mighty fishes like that find their way about?”

“Suppose that whale had a wife,” said Ralph, “as Rory imagines, and they were journeying across this great ocean together, and supposing they lost sight of each other for a few minutes only, does it not seem probable they might swim about for forty or fifty years yet never meet again?”

“Oh, how vast the ocean is!” said Rory, almost solemnly. “I never felt it so before.”

“And yet,” said Allan, “there is One who can hold it in the hollow of His hand?”

“Watch, shorten sail.”

McBain had come on deck and given the order.

“The glass is going down,” he said to Allan, “and I don’t half like the look of the sea nor the whistle of the wind. We’ll have a dirty night, depend upon it.”

Chapter Eleven

The Storm – A Fearful Night – The Pirates – A Fight at Sea

“All hands shorten sail.”

The glass had not gone “tumbling down,” as sailors term it, which would have indicated a storm or hurricane in violence equal perhaps to the typhoons of lower latitudes, but it went down in a slow determined manner, as if it did not mean to rise again in a hurry, so McBain resolved to be prepared for a spell of nasty weather. The wind was now about south-west by south, but it did not blow steadily; it was gusty, not to say squally, and heavy seas began to roll in, the tops of which were cut off by the breeze, and dashed in foam and spray over the rigging and decks of the Snowbird.

It increased in force as the sun went down to something over half a gale, and now more sail was taken in and the storm-jib set. McBain was a cautious sailor, and left no more canvas on her than she could carry with comparative safety.

The Snowbird began to grow exceedingly lively. She seemed on good terms with herself, as the captain expressed it. All hands, fore and aft, had found the necessity of rigging out in oilskins and sou’-westers; the latter were bought at Lerwick, and were just the right sort for facing heavy weather in these seas. They were capacious enough, and had flannel-lined side-pieces, which came down over the ears and cheeks.

“I think I’ve made her pretty snug for the night,” said McBain, coming aft to where Allan and Rory stood on the weather side of the quarter-deck, holding on to the bulwarks to prevent themselves from falling. “How do you like it, boys? and where is Ralph?”

“Oh, we like it well enough,” said Rory, “but Ralph has gone below, and is now asleep on the sofa.”

“Sleepy is he?” said McBain, smiling; “well, that is just the nearest approach to sea-sickness. We won’t disturb him, and he’ll be all right and merry again to-morrow.”

“What do you think of the weather, captain?” asked Allan.

McBain gave one glance round at sea and sky, and a look aloft as if to see that everything was still right there, ere he replied, —

“The wind is fair, Allan, that’s all I can say, but we’ll have enough of it before morning; the only danger is meeting ice; it is often as far south as this, at this time of the year.”

The night began to fall even as he spoke, for great grey clouds had rolled up and hidden the sinking sun; sky and sea seemed to meet, and the horizon was everywhere close aboard of them. The motion of the Snowbird was an unpleasant jerky one; she pitched sharply into the hollows and as quickly rose again; she took little water on board, but what little she did ship, made decks and rigging wet and slippery. Presently both Allan and Rory were advised to go below for the night, and feeling the same strange sleepiness stealing over them that had overcome Ralph, they made a bolt for the companion. Allan succeeded in fetching it at once, and when half-way down he stopped to laugh at Rory, who was rolling porpoise-fashion in the lee scuppers. But Rory was more successful in his next attempt. In the saloon they found Ralph sound enough and snoring, and Peter, the steward, staggering in through the doorway with the supper. The lamp was lighted, and both that and the swing-tables were apparently trying to jump out of their gymbals, and go tumbling down upon Ralph’s prostrate form. In fact everything seemed awry, and the table and chairs were jerking about anyhow, and, as Rory said, “making as much creaking as fifty pairs of new boots.”

“Ah! Peter, you’re a jewel,” cried Rory, as the steward placed on the table, between the fiddle bars, a delicious lobster salad and two cups of fragrant coffee. “Yes, Peter,” continued Rory, “it’s a jewel you are entirely; there isn’t a man that ever I knew, Peter, could beat ye at making a salad. And it isn’t blarney either that I’m trying to put upon you.”

With supper the sleepy feeling passed away, and Rory said he felt like a giant refreshed, only not quite so tall.

“Bring my dear old fiddle, Peter,” he cried, “like a good soul. This is just the night for music.”

He played and Allan read for two hours at least, both steadying themselves as best they could at the weather side of the table; then they wakened Ralph, and all three turned in for the night and were soon fast asleep.

It was early summer, and Ralph, so he thought in his dream, was reclining, book in hand, on a sweet wild-thyme-scented green bank in Glentroom. A blue sky was reflected from the broad bosom of the lake, the green was on the birch, the milk-white flowers on the thorn, and the feathery larch-trees were tasselled with crimson; bees went droning from wild flower to wild flower, and the woodlands resounded with the music of a thousand joyous birds.

Ding-dong, ding-dong!

“It is the first dinner-bell from the Castle of Arrandoon,” said Ralph to himself; “Allan and his sister will be waiting, I must hurry home.”

Ding-dong, ding-dong-ding!

Ralph was wide awake now, and sitting up in his little bed. It was all dark; it must be midnight, he thought, or long past.

Ding-dong, ding-dong-ding again, followed by a terrible rush of water and a quivering of the vessel, the like of which he had never known before.

Ding, ding, ding! It was the seas breaking over the Snowbird and ringing her bell.

“What an awakening!” thought poor Ralph, and he shivered as he listened, partly with cold and partly, it must be confessed, with an undefinable feeling of alarm. And no wonder!

It was, indeed, a fearful night!

The gale had burst upon them in all its fury, and, well prepared though she was aloft to contend with it, it would require all the vessel’s powers of endurance and all the skill of the manly hearts on board of her, to bring her safely through it. Every time a sea struck her it sounded below like a dull, heavy thud; it stopped her way for a moment or two. It was then she quivered from stem to stern, like some creature in agony, and Ralph could hear the water washing about the decks overhead and pouring down below. The seas, striking the ship, gave him the idea of blows from something soft but terribly strong, and, ridiculous though it may seem, for the life of him Ralph could not help thinking of the bolster fights of the days of his boyhood. What other sounds did he hear? The constant and incessant creaking of the yacht’s timbers, the rattle of the rudder chains, and, high over all, the roar of the tempest in the rigging aloft. In the lull of the gale every now and then, he could hear the trampling of feet and voices – voices giving and voices answering words of command.

“Starboard a little! Steady?”

“Starboard it is, sir. Steady!”

“Hard down!”

“Hurrsh-sh!” A terrible sea seemed here to have struck her; the din below was increased to a fearful extent by the smashing of crockery and rattling of furniture and fittings.

“Another man to the wheel! Steady as you go. Steady.”

Then there was a sound like a dreadful explosion, with a kind of grating noise, followed by a rattling as if a thousand men were volley-firing overhead; meanwhile the good ship heeled over as if she never would right again. It was a sail rent into ribbons!

“I can’t stand this!” said Ralph, aloud. “Up I must get, and see if Allan and Rory be awake. They must be.”

Getting out of bed he discovered was a very simple proceeding, for he had no sooner begun the operation than he found himself sprawling on the deck. The floor was flooded, and everything was chaos. Feeling for his clothes, he could distinguish books by the dozen, a drawer, a camp-stool, and a broken glass. At last he managed to find a dressing-gown, and also his way along to the saloon. Here a lamp was burning, and here were Allan and Rory both, and the steward as well.

All three were somewhat pale. They were simply waiting – but waiting for what? They themselves could hardly have told you, but at that time something told everyone in the saloon the danger was very great indeed.

On deck McBain and his men were fighting the seas; two hands were at the wheel, and it needed all their strength at times to keep the vessel’s head in the right direction, and save her from broaching-to. In the pale glimmer of the sheet lightning every rope and block and stay could at one moment be seen, and the wet, shining decks, and the men clustering in twos and threes, lashed to masts or clinging to ropes to save themselves from destruction. Next moment the decks would be one mass of seething foam. It was by the lightning’s flash, however, or the pale gleam of the breaking waves, and by these alone, that McBain could guide his vessel safely through this awful tempest.

So speedily had the gale increased to almost a hurricane, that there was no time to batten down; but with the first glimpse of dawn the wind seemed to abate, and no time was lost in getting tarpaulins nailed down, and only the fore companion was left partially unprotected for communication between decks.

Soon after the captain came below, looking, in his wet and shining oilskins, like some curious sea-monster, for there was hardly a bit of his face to be seen. “What!” he cried, “you boys all up?”

“Indeed,” said Rory, who was nearly always the first to speak, “we thought it was down we soon would all be instead of up?”

The captain laughed, and applied himself with rare zest to the coffee and sandwiches the steward placed before him. “Don’t give us cups at breakfast to-morrow, Peter,” he said, “but the tin mugs; we’re going to have some days of this weather. And now, boys, I’m going to have a caulk for an hour. You had better follow my example; you will be drier in bed, and, I believe, warmer too.”

Breakfast next day was far from a comfortable meal. The gale still continued, though to a far less extent, and the fire in the galley had been drowned out the night before, and was not yet re-lit. But every one was cheerful.

“Better,” said McBain, “is a cold sardine and a bit of ship biscuit where love is, than roast beef and – ”

“Roast beef and botheration!” said Rory, helping him out.

“That’s it! Thank ye,” said McBain. “And now, who is going on deck to have a look at the sea?”

“Ha! what a scene is here!” said Allan, looking around him, as he clung to the weather rail.

Well might he quote Walter Scott. The green seas were higher than the maintop, their foaming, curling tops threatening to engulf the yacht every minute.

“I may tell you, my boys,” said McBain, grasping a stay and swaying to and fro like a drunken man, “that if the Snowbird weren’t the best little ship that ever floated, she couldn’t have stood the storm of last night. And look yonder, that is all the damage.”

From near her bows, aft as far as the mizen-mast, the bulwarks were smashed and torn by the force of the waves.

“We have two men hurt, but not severely, and the pump’s at work, but only to clear her of the drop of water she shipped; and we’ll soon mend the bulwarks.”

All that day and all the next night the gale continued to blow, and it was anything but comfortable or pleasant below; but the morning of the third day broke brightly enough, albeit the wind had forged round and was now coming from the west; but McBain did not mind that.

“We made such a roaring spin during the gale,” he said, “although scudding under nearly bare poles, that we can afford to slacken speed a little now.”

The sea was still angry and choppy, but all things considered the Snowbird made goodly way.

The forenoon was spent in making good repairs and in getting up the crow’s-nest, a barrel of large dimensions, which in all Greenland-going ships is hoisted and made fast, as high as high can be, namely, alongside the main truck. A comfortable place enough is this crow’s-nest when you get there, but you need a sailor’s head to reach it, for at the main-top-gallant crosstrees the rattlins leave you, and you have a nasty corner to turn, round to a Jacob’s-ladder, up which you must scramble, spider fashion, and enter the nest from under. You need a sailor’s head to reach it and a sailor’s heart to remain there, for if there is any sea on at all, the swinging and swaying about is enough to turn any landsman sick and giddy.

Hardly was the crow’s-nest in position when the look-out man hailed the deck below.

“A vessel in sight, sir.”

Here was some excitement, anyhow.

“Where away?” bawled the captain.

“On the weather quarter, sir; I can just raise her topmasts; she is holding the same course as ourselves.”

Shortly after, Mr Stevenson, who had gone aloft, came below to report.

“She is no whaler, sir, whatever she is,” he said.

“But what else can she be?” said Captain McBain. “She might have been blown out of her course, to be sure, but with this wind she could make up her leeway. Keep our yacht a bit nearer the wind, Mr Stevenson, we’ll give her a chance of showing her bunting anyhow.”

Dinner-hour in the saloon was one o’clock, and it was barely over when Mr Stevenson entered, and with him a being that made our heroes start and stare in astonishment. What or who was he? They had never seen him before, and knew not he was on board – a very little, thin, wiry, weazened old man, all grey hairs, parchment skin, and wrinkles. Was he the little old man of the sea?

McBain saw their bewilderment and hastened to explain.

“My worthy friend Magnus Green,” he said, “the passenger I took on board at Lerwick.”

“There is precious little green about him,” thought Rory.

“The ship is not far off, she is flying a flag of distress, but Magnus says he knows her, and bids us keep clear of her.”

“Well, Magnus, what do you know about her?” asked McBain.

The little old man talked fast, almost wildly, – it was a way he had, – and gesticulated much.

“What do I know?” he cried; “why, this, – she is a Spaniard, and a thief. She came into Lerwick two weeks before you, took stores on board, sailed in the night, and paid nobody. She is armed to the teeth, and in my opinion is after you. Keep away from her, keep away, keep away.”

“But how could she be after us?” asked McBain, incredulous.

“How? ha! ha!” laughed Magnus; “you speak like a child. She herself sailed from Inverness to Lerwick: she’d heard of you, a gentleman’s yacht, with everything good on board. She couldn’t tackle you near shore, but out here on the high sea, ha! ha! the case in different.”

“There is something in what Magnus says,” said McBain. “Let us go on deck. Hoist the flag, Mr Stevenson.”

Up went the roll of bunting, one touch to the lanyard, and out on the breeze floated the red ensign of England.

(The white ensign is flown by the Royal Navy only, the blue by the Naval Reserve, the red by merchantmen and others.)

The Spaniard was hardly a mile to windward, a long, low, rakish craft, as black as a Mother Carey’s chicken. She had ports as if for guns; and though there was no answering signal, she was seen to alter her course and bear down on the Snowbird.

“She’s too like a hawk to be honest,” said McBain, “and too big for us to fight. We’ll try how she can sail; keep her away, Stevenson.”

The Snowbird began to pay off, but not before a white puff of smoke was seen rising from the stranger’s bows. Next moment down the wind came a cannon’s roar, and a shot ricocheted past the bows of the yacht.

“Ha! ha! ha!” shrieked little Magnus, “yon’s the answering signal – ha! ha! ha!”

At the same moment down went the flag of distress, and up went the black flag that pirates like to display when they really mean mischief. Something else went up at the same time, namely, Captain McBain’s Highland blood. This is no figure of speech; you could have seen pride and anger mantling in his cheek and glancing like fire from his eye.

“The black flag, indeed!” he growled; “only cowards hoist it; they think it startles their would-be prey, like the hiss a cat or a goose emits, or the images and figures idiot savages carry in their battle-van. They will not frighten us. Stevenson, load the six-pounder Armstrong. Lucky we took that little tool with us. Tell Ap to see to the small arms. We’ll show them the metal we’re made of ere we surrender the Snowbird. Stand by tacks and sheets, we’ll put her before the wind. A stern chase is a long chase; we may give her the slip after nightfall.”

There was a cheeriness in McBain’s voice as he spoke, that communicated itself to all hands fore and aft. There was no bombast about the captain, mind you, no vulgar jingoism. He merely meant to hold his own, even if he had to fight for it.

All sail was set that the Snowbird could carry, both below and aloft, an example that was speedily followed by the pirate, for pirate she seemed, from her bunting, to even brag in being, and so the chase began in earnest. The stranger fired once or twice only, but the shots falling short she gave it up, and concentrated all her attention in endeavouring to get within reach.

For the next hour there was silence on board the Snowbird, except for some brief words of command given in quiet quick tones, and just as speedily obeyed. Rory, Ralph, and Allan were clustered astern, watching the pirate. This was a kind of danger to which they had never dreamed they would be exposed; yet still the confidence they had in brave, cool McBain banished all fear from their hearts.

But the captain’s anxiety was extreme, and his eyes roved incessantly from the Snowbird to the vessel in chase, not without many a glance at the fast-declining sun.

“Are we quite prepared?” he asked Stevenson.

“All ready, sir,” was the reply, with an uneasy glance astern, “but I think she is coming up, sir, hand over hand and now she is actually setting stunsails.”

“Then God help us, Stevenson, for that chap is bound to win the battle if he can only win the race.”

The stunsails set by the stranger, however, were no sooner set than they were blown away, booms and all.

“Hullo?” cried the captain, “that is providential. Now Stevenson, get the Armstrong aft.”

This was soon accomplished.

“Here, Magnus Green,” cried McBain, “come on you’re the best shot in the ship. Many a harpoon gun I’ve seen you fire. Pepper away at that pirate till you’re tired. Cripple her if you can. It’s our only chance.”

The fire was briskly returned from the bows of the pirate, and it was soon evident that she was getting nearer and nearer to them, for the shots went over the Snowbird, and some even pierced the sails, proof positive that it was not her intention to sink but to capture the beautiful yacht.

The captain whistled low to himself.

“This is awkward,” he muttered, gloomily. He was gazing aloft, wondering if he could do nothing else to keep clear of the pirate until nightfall, when a shout behind him, followed by a ringing cheer from all hands, made him turn hastily round. Old man Magnus was capering around the quarter-deck wild with glee, rushing hither and thither, only returning every moment to pat the little Armstrong, as though it were a living thing.

“He! he! he!” he cried, “I’ve done it, I’ve done it.”

He had indeed done it. The stranger’s foremast had gone by the board, mast and sails and rigging lay about her forepart in dire confusion, burying guns and gunners.

“Glorious old Magnus!” shouted McBain, rubbing his hands with glee. “Now, Stevenson, ready about.”

The yacht came round like a bird, and sailing wonderfully close to the wind, began rapidly to near the smitten pirate. Presently it was “ready about” again on the other tack, and all the while never a shot came from the foe, but the dastardly flag still floated sullenly aloft.

Ten men were stationed in the weather bow of the Snowbird with rifles, their orders being to fire wherever they saw a head.

“Now then, Magnus,” cried McBain, “fifty guineas are yours if you’ll splinter the enemy’s mainmast. I want to let her have two jury masts to rig instead of one.” McBain carried the Snowbird cruelly near to the pirate, dangerously near too, for presently there was an answering fire of small arms, and two men fell wounded.

Crang! went the Armstrong. Faithfully and well had Magnus done his work, and down went the pirate’s other mast.

“We’ll leave her the mizen,” said McBain; “down with the helm.”

His voice was almost drowned in that deafening shout of victory. Even Oscar the Saint Bernard and the wiry wee Skye felt bound to join it, and Peter the steward rushed below for his bagpipes.

And when the moon rose that night and shone quietly down on the waters, the Snowbird was bravely holding on her course, and the discomfited pirate was far away.

Chapter Twelve

Containing a Strange, Strange Story, Told by the Snuggery Fire

“It never rains but it pours,” said McBain, entering the saloon rubbing his hands, and smiling as he seated himself at the breakfast-table. “Steward, I hope it is beefsteak this morning, with boiled eggs to follow, for I declare to you honestly I don’t think I ever felt half so hungry in my born days before! Bravo, steward! bravo, Peter! Be thankful, boys, for all His mercies, and fall to!”

“One would think, captain,” said Ralph, “that you had got good news this morning.”