CHAPTER XXV
AN OLD FOX
That day the thermometer went down to 3 degrees below zero. The weatherwas pretty calm, and the cold without breeze was bearable. Hatterasprofited by the clearness of the atmosphere to reconnoitre thesurrounding plains; he climbed one of the highest icebergs to thenorth, and could see nothing, as far as his telescope would let him,but ice-fields and icebergs. No land anywhere, but the image of chaosin its saddest aspect. He came back on board trying to calculate theprobable duration of his captivity. The hunters, and amongst themthe doctor, James Wall, Simpson, Johnson, and Bell, did not fail tosupply the ship with fresh meat. Birds had disappeared; they weregone to less rigorous southern climates. The ptarmigans, a sort ofpartridge, alone stay the winter in these latitudes; they are easilykilled, and their great number promised an abundant supply of game.There were plenty of hares, foxes, wolves, ermine, and bears; therewere enough for any sportsman, English, French, or Norwegian; butthey were difficult to get at, and difficult to distinguish on thewhite plains from the whiteness of their fur; when the intense coldcomes their fur changes colour, and white is their winter colour.The doctor found that this change of fur is not caused by the changeof temperature, for it takes place in the month of October, and issimply a precaution of Providence to guard them from the rigour ofa boreal winter.
Seals were abundant in all their varieties, and were particularlysought after by the hunters for the sake, not only of their skins,but their fat, which is very warming; besides which, the liver ofthese animals makes excellent fuel: hundreds of them were to be seen,and two or three miles to the north of the brig the ice was literallyperforated all over with the holes these enormous amphibians make;only they smelt the hunters from afar, and many were wounded thatescaped by plunging under the ice. However, on the 19th, Simpsonmanaged to catch one at about a hundred yards from the ship; he hadtaken the precaution to block up its hole of refuge so that it wasat the mercy of the hunters. It took several bullets to kill the animal,which measured nine feet in length; its bulldog head, the sixteenteeth in its jaws, its large pectoral fins in the shape of pinions,and its little tail, furnished with another pair of fins, made ita good specimen of the family of dog-hound fish. The doctor, wishingto preserve the head for his natural history collection, and its skinfor his future use, had them prepared by a rapid and inexpensiveprocess. He plunged the body of the animal into the hole in the ice,and thousands of little prawns soon ate off all the flesh; in halfa day the work was accomplished, and the most skilful of the honourablecorporation of Liverpool tanners could not have succeeded better.
As soon as the sun had passed the autumnal equinox--that is to say,on the 23rd of September--winter may be said to begin in the Arcticregions. The sun disappears entirely on the 23rd of October, lightingup with its oblique rays the summits of the frozen mountains. Thedoctor wished him a traveller's farewell; he was not going to seehim again till February. But obscurity is not complete during thislong absence of the sun; the moon comes each month to take its placeas well as she can; starlight is very bright, and there is besidesfrequent aurora borealis, and a refraction peculiar to the snowyhorizons; besides, the sun at the very moment of his greatest australdeclination, the 21st of December, is still only 13 degrees from thePolar horizon, so that there is twilight for a few hours; only fogs,mists, and snowstorms often plunge these regions into completeobscurity. However, at this epoch the weather was pretty favourable;the partridges and the hares were the only animals that had a rightto complain, for the sportsmen did not give them a moment's peace;they set several fox-traps, but the suspicious animals did not letthemselves be caught so easily; they would often come and eat thesnare by scratching out the snow from under the trap; the doctor wishedthem at the devil, as he could not get them himself. On the 25th ofOctober the thermometer marked more than 4 degrees below zero. Aviolent tempest set in; the air was thick with snow, which preventeda ray of light reaching the _Forward_. During several hours they werevery uneasy about Bell and Simpson, who had gone too far whilsthunting; they did not reach the ship till the next day, after havinglain for a whole day in their buckskins, whilst the tempest sweptthe air about them, and buried them under five feet of snow. Theywere nearly frozen, and the doctor had some trouble to restore theircirculation.
The tempest lasted a week without interruption. It was impossibleto stir out. In a single day the temperature varied fifteen and twentydegrees. During their forced idleness each one lived to himself; someslept, others smoked, or talked in whispers, stopping when they sawthe doctor or Johnson approach; there was no moral union between themen; they only met for evening prayers, and on Sunday for Divineservice. Clifton had counted that once the 78th parallel cleared,his share in the bounty would amount to 375 pounds; he thought thatenough, and his ambition did not go beyond. The others were of thesame opinion, and only thought of enjoying the fortune acquired atsuch a price. Hatteras was hardly ever seen. He neither took partin the hunting nor other excursions. He felt no interest in themeteorological phenomena which excited the doctor's admiration. Helived for one idea; it was comprehended in three words--the NorthPole. He was constantly looking forward to the moment when the_Forward_, once more free, would begin her adventurous voyage again.
In short, it was a melancholy life; the brig, made for movement, seemedquite out of place as a stationary dwelling; her original form couldnot be distinguished amidst the ice and snow that covered her, andshe was anything but a lively spectacle. During these unoccupied hoursthe doctor put his travelling notes in order--the notes from whichthis history is taken; he was never idle, and the evenness of hishumour remained the same, only he was very glad to see the tempestclearing off so as to allow him to set off hunting once more. On the3rd of November, at six in the morning, with a temperature at 5 degreesbelow zero, he started, accompanied by Johnson and Bell; the plainsof ice were level; the snow, which covered the ground thickly,solidified by the frost, made the ground good for walking; a dry andkeen cold lightened the atmosphere; the moon shone in all hersplendour, and threw an astonishing light on all the asperities ofthe field; their footsteps left marks on the snow, and the moon lightedup their edges, so that they looked like a luminous track behind thehunters whose shadows fell on the ice with astonishing outlines.
The doctor had taken his friend Dick with him; he preferred him tothe Greenland dogs to run down the game for a good reason; the latterdo not seem to have the scent of their brethren of more temperateclimates. Dick ran on and often pointed out the track of a bear, butin spite of his skill the hunters had not even killed a hare aftertwo hours' walking.
"Do you think the game has gone south too?" asked the doctor, haltingat the foot of a hummock.
"It looks like it, Mr. Clawbonny," answered the carpenter.
"I don't think so," answered Johnson; "hares, foxes, and bears areaccustomed to the climate; I believe the late tempest is the causeof their disappearance; but with the south winds they'll soon comeback. Ah! if you said reindeers or musk-oxen it would be a differentthing."
"But it appears those, too, are found in troops in Melville Island,"replied the doctor; "that is much further south, I grant you; whenParry wintered there he always had as much game as he wanted."
"We are not so well off," said Bell; "if we could only get plentyof bear's flesh I should not complain."
"Bears are very difficult to get at," answered the doctor; "it seemsto me they want civilising."
"Bell talks about the bear's flesh, but we want its fat more thanits flesh or its skin," said Johnson.
"You are right, Johnson; you are always thinking about the fuel."
"How can I help thinking about it? I know if we are ever so carefulof it we've only enough left for three weeks."
"Yes," replied the doctor, "that is our greatest danger, for we areonly at the beginning of November, and February is the coldest monthof the year in the Frozen Zone; however, if we can't get bear's greasewe can rely on that of the seals."
"Not for long, Mr. C
lawbonny," answered Johnson. "They'll soon desertus too; either through cold or fright, they'll soon leave off comingon to the surface of the ice."
"Then we must get at the bears," said the doctor; "they are the mostuseful animals in these countries: they furnish food, clothes, light,and fuel. Do you hear, Dick?" continued he, caressing his friend;"we must have a bear, so look out."
Dick, who was smelling the ice as the doctor spoke, started off allat once, quick as an arrow. He barked loudly, and, notwithstandinghis distance, the sportsmen heard him distinctly. The extremedistance to which sound is carried in these low temperatures isastonishing; it is only equalled by the brilliancy of theconstellations in the boreal sky.
The sportsmen, guided by Dick's barking, rushed on his traces; theyhad to run about a mile, and arrived quite out of breath, for thelungs are rapidly suffocated in such an atmosphere. Dick was pointingat about fifty paces from an enormous mass at the top of a mound ofice.
"We've got him," said the doctor, taking aim.
"And a fine one," added Bell, imitating the doctor.
"It's a queer bear," said Johnson, waiting to fire after his twocompanions.
Dick barked furiously. Bell advanced to within twenty feet and fired,but the animal did not seem to be touched. Johnson advanced in histurn, and after taking a careful aim, pulled the trigger.
"What," cried the doctor, "not touched yet? Why, it's that cursedrefraction. The bear is at least a thousand paces off."
The three sportsmen ran rapidly towards the animal, whom the firinghad not disturbed; he seemed to be enormous, and without calculatingthe dangers of the attack, they began to rejoice in their conquest.Arrived within reasonable distance they fired again; the bear,mortally wounded, gave a great jump and fell at the foot of the mound.Dick threw himself upon it.
"That bear wasn't difficult to kill," said the doctor.
"Only three shots," added Bell in a tone of disdain, "and he's down."
"It's very singular," said Johnson.
"Unless we arrived at the very moment when it was dying of old age,"said the doctor, laughing.
So speaking, the sportsmen reached the foot of the mound, and, totheir great stupefaction, they found Dick with his fangs in the bodyof a white fox.
"Well, I never!" cried Bell.
"We kill a bear and a fox falls," added the doctor.
Johnson did not know what to say.
"Why!" said the doctor, with a roar of laughter, "it's the refractionagain!"
"What do you mean, Mr. Clawbonny?" asked the carpenter.
"Why, it deceived us about the size as it did about the distance.It made us see a bear in a fox's skin."
"Well," answered Johnson, "now we've got him, we'll eat him."
Johnson was going to lift the fox on to his shoulders, when he criedlike Bell--"Well, I never!"
"What is it?" asked the doctor.
"Look, Mr. Clawbonny--look what the animal's got on its neck; it'sa collar, sure enough."
"A collar?" echoed the doctor, leaning over the animal. A halfworn-out collar encircled the fox's neck, and the doctor thought hesaw something engraved on it; he took it off and examined it.
"That bear is more than twelve years old, my friends," said the doctor;"it's one of James Ross's foxes, and the collar has been round itsneck ever since 1848."
"Is it possible?" cried Bell.
"There isn't a doubt about it, and I'm sorry we've shot the poor animal.During his wintering James Ross took a lot of white foxes in his traps,and had brass collars put round their necks on which were engravedthe whereabouts of his ships, the _Enterprise_ and the _Investigator_,and the store magazines. He hoped one of them might fall into thehands of some of the men belonging to Franklin's expedition. The pooranimal might have saved the lives of the ship's crews, and it hasfallen under our balls."
"Well, we won't eat him," said Johnson, "especially as he's twelveyears old. Anyway, we'll keep his skin for curiosity sake." So sayinghe lifted the animal on his shoulders, and they made their way tothe ship, guided by the stars; still their expedition was not quitefruitless: they bagged several brace of ptarmigans. An hour beforethey reached the _Forward_, a phenomenon occurred which excited theastonishment of the doctor; it was a very rain of shooting stars;they could be counted by thousands, like rockets in a display offireworks. They paled the light of the moon, and the admirablespectacle lasted several hours. A like meteor was observed atGreenland by the Moravian brothers in 1799. The doctor passed thewhole night watching it, till it ceased, at seven in the morning,amidst the profound silence of the atmosphere.