CHAPTER XXVI.THE LAST PIECE OF COAL.
The bears, it seemed, could not be caught; a few seals were killed onthe 4th, 5th, and 6th of November, and the wind shifted and theweather grew much milder; but the snow-drifts began again withincomparable severity. It became impossible to leave the ship, and itwas hard to subdue the dampness. At the end of the week the condenserscontained several bushels of ice.
The weather changed again November 15th, and the thermometer, underthe influence of certain atmospheric conditions, sank to -24 degrees.That was the lowest temperature they had yet observed. This cold wouldhave been endurable in calm weather; but the wind was blowing at thattime, and it seemed as if the air was filled with sharp needles.
The doctor regretted his captivity, for the snow was hardened by thewind, so as to make good walking, and he might have gone very far fromthe ship.
Still, it should be said that the slightest exercise in so low atemperature is very exhausting. A man can perform hardly more than aquarter of his usual work; iron utensils cannot be touched; if thehand seizes them, it feels as if it were burned, and shreds of skincleave to the object which had been incautiously seized.
The crew, being confined to the ship, were obliged to walk on thecovered deck for two hours a day, where they had leave to smoke, whichwas forbidden in the common-room.
There, when the fire got low, the ice used to cover the walls and theintervals between the planks; every nail and bolt and piece of metalwas immediately covered with a film of ice.
The celerity of its formation astonished the doctor. The breath of themen condensed in the air, and, changing from a fluid to a solid form,it fell about them in the form of snow. A few feet from the stove itwas very cold, and the men stood grouped around the fire.
Still, the doctor advised them to harden themselves, and to accustomthemselves to the cold, which was not so severe as what yet awaitedthem; he advised them to expose their skin gradually to this intensetemperature, and he himself set the example; but idleness or numbnessnailed most of them to their place; they refused to stir, andpreferred sleeping in that unhealthy heat.
Yet, according to the doctor, there was no danger in exposing one'sself to great cold after leaving a heated room; these sudden changesonly inconvenience those who are in a perspiration; the doctor quotedexamples in support of his opinion, but his lessons were for the mostpart thrown away.
As for John Hatteras, he did not seem to mind the inclement cold. Hewalked to and fro silently, never faster or slower. Did not the coldaffect his powerful frame? Did he possess to a very great degree theprinciple of natural heat which he wanted his men to possess? Was heso bound up in his meditations that he was indifferent to outsideimpressions? His men saw him with great astonishment braving atemperature of -24 degrees; he would leave the ship for hours, andcome back without appearing to suffer from the cold.
"He's a singular man," said the doctor to Johnson; "he astonishes me!He carries a glowing furnace within him! He is one of the strongestnatures I ever saw!"
"The fact is," answered Johnson, "he goes and comes and circulates inthe open air, without dressing any more thickly than in the month ofJune."
"O, it doesn't make much difference what one wears!" answered thedoctor; "what is the use of dressing warmly if one can't produce heatwithin himself? It's like trying to heat ice by wrapping it up inwool! But Hatteras doesn't need it; he's built that way, and I shouldnot be surprised if his side was as warm as the neighborhood of aglowing coal."
Johnson, who was charged with clearing away the water-hole everymorning, noticed that the ice was ten feet thick.
Almost every night the doctor could observe the magnificent auroras;from four o'clock till eight of the evening, the sky in the north wasslightly lighted up; then this took a regular shape, with a rim oflight yellow, the ends of which seemed to touch the field of ice.Gradually the brilliancy arose in the heavens, following the magneticmeridian, and appeared striped with black bands; jets of luminosityshot with varying brightness here and there; when it reached thezenith it was often composed of several arcs bathed in waves of red,yellow, or green light. It was a dazzling sight. Soon the differentcurves met in a single point, and formed crowns of celestial richness.Finally the arcs all crowded together, the splendid aurora grew dim,the intense colors faded away into pale, vague, uncertain tints, andthis wonderful phenomenon vanished gradually, insensibly, in the darkclouds of the south.
"Almost every night the doctor could observe themagnificent auroras."]
It is difficult to realize the wonderful, magical beauty of such aspectacle in high latitudes, less than eight degrees from the pole;the auroras which are seen in the temperate zone give no idea of it;it seems as if Providence wished to reserve the greatest wonders forthese regions.
Numerous mock-moons appeared also while the moon was shining, and agreat many would appear in the sky, adding to the general brilliancy;often, too, simple lunar halos surrounded the moon with a circle ofsplendid lustre.
November 26th the tide rose very high, and the water came through thehole with great violence; the thick crust of ice seemed pushed up bythe force of the sea, and the frequent cracking of the ice proclaimedthe conflict that was going on beneath; fortunately the ship remainedfirm in her bed, but her chains worked noisily; it was as a precautionagainst just such an event, that Hatteras had made the brig fast.
The following days were still colder; a dense fog hid the sky; thewind tossed the snow about; it was hard to determine whether it camefrom the clouds or from the ice-fields; everything was in confusion.
The crew kept busy with various interior occupations, the principalone being the preparation of the grease and oil from the seal; it wasfrozen into blocks of ice, which had to be cut with a hatchet; it wasbroken into small fragments, which were as hard as marble; ten barrelsfull were collected. As may be seen, every vessel became nearlyuseless, besides the risk of its breaking when the contents froze.
The 28th the thermometer fell to -32 degrees; there was only ten days'coal on board, and every one awaited with horror the moment when itshould come to an end.
Hatteras, for the sake of economy, had the fire in the stove in theafter-room put out; and from that time Shandon, the doctor, and hewere compelled to betake themselves to the common-room of the crew.Hatteras was hence brought into constant communication with his men,who gazed at him with surly, dejected glances. He heard theirfault-finding, their reproaches, even their threats, without beingable to punish them. However, he seemed deaf to every remark. He neverwent near the fire. He remained in a corner, with folded arms, withoutsaying a word.
In spite of the doctor's recommendations, Pen and his friends refusedto take the slightest exercise; they passed whole days crouching aboutthe stove or under their bedclothes; hence their health began tosuffer; they could not react against the rigor of the climate, andscurvy soon made its appearance on board.
The doctor had long since begun to distribute, every morning,lemon-juice and lime pastilles; but these precautions, which weregenerally so efficacious, did very little good to the sick; and thedisease, following its usual course, soon showed its most horriblesymptoms.
Terrible indeed it was to see those wretches with their nerves andmuscles contracted with pain! Their legs were fearfully swollen, andwere covered with large bluish-black patches; their bleeding gums,their swollen lips, permitted them to utter only inarticulate sounds;their blood was poisoned, deprived of fibrine, and no longer carriedlife to the extremities.
Clifton was the first to be attacked by this cruel malady; soonGripper, Brunton, and Strong had to keep to their hammocks. Those whomthe illness spared could not avoid the sight of the sufferings oftheir friends; the common-room was the only place where they couldstay; so it was soon transformed into a hospital, for of the eighteensailors of the _Forward_, thirteen were soon down with scurvy. Itseemed as if Pen would escape the contagion; his strong constitutionpreserved him; Shandon felt the first symptoms, but it went no furtherwith him
, and plenty of exercise soon restored him to good health.
The doctor tended his patients with the greatest devotion, and hisheart would bleed at the sight of the sufferings he could not assuage.Still, he inspired as much cheerfulness as he could in the lonelycrew; his words, his consolations, his philosophical reflections, hisfortunate inventions, broke the monotony of those long days ofsuffering; he would read aloud to them; his wonderful memory kept himsupplied with amusing anecdotes, while the men who were well stoodpressing closely around the stove; but the groans of the sick, theircomplaints, and their cries of despair would continually interrupthim, and, breaking off in the middle of a story, he would become thedevoted and attentive physician.
Besides, his health remained good; he did not grow thin; hiscorpulence stood him in better stead than the thickest raiment, and heused to say he was as well clad as a seal or a whale, who, thanks totheir thick layers of fat, easily support the rigors of the winter.
Hatteras did not suffer physically or morally. The sufferings of thecrew did not seem to depress him. Perhaps he would not let hisemotions appear on his face, while an acute observer would havedetected the heart of a man beneath this mask of iron.
The doctor analyzed him, studied him, and could not classify thisstrange organization, this unnatural temperament.
The thermometer fell still lower; the deck was entirely deserted; theEsquimaux dogs alone walked up and down it, barking dismally.
There was always a man on guard near the stove, who superintendedputting on the coal; it was important not to let it go out; when thefire got low the cold crept into the room, formed on the walls, andthe moisture suddenly condensed and fell in the form of snow on theunfortunate occupants of the brig.
It was among these terrible sufferings that they reached December 8th;that morning the doctor went as usual to look at the thermometer. Hefound the mercury entirely frozen in the bulb.
"Forty-four degrees below zero!" he said with terror.
And on that day the last piece of coal on board was thrown into thestove.