seals," then Rory jumped up.
"Will you go, Allan," he cried, "and bag a bear? Ralph hasn't donebreakfast."
"Bide a wee, young gentleman," said McBain, smiling. "I really imaginedI was master of the ship."
"I beg your pardon, Captain McBain," said Rory, at once; and with allbecoming gravity he saluted, and continued, "Please, sir, may I go onshore?"
"Certainly not," was the reply; and the captain added, "No, boy, no. Wevalue even Rory, for all the trouble he gives us, more than many bears."
Rory got hold of his fiddle, and his feelings found vent in music. Butno sooner had McBain retired to his cabin than Rory threw down his muchbeloved instrument and jumped up.
"Bide a wee; I'll manage," he cried.
"Doctor," he added, disarranging all the medico's hair with his hand--Sandy's legs were under the mahogany, so he could not speedilyretaliate--"Sandy, mon, I'll manage. It'll be a vera judeeciousarrangement."
Then he was off, and presently back, all smiles and rejoicing:
"Come on, Allan, dear boy," he cried. "We're going, both of us, andSeth and one man, and we're going to carry a plank to help us across theice. Finish your breakfast, baby Ralph. I wouldn't disturb myself forthe world if I were you."
"I don't mean to," said Ralph, helping himself to more toast andmarmalade.
"What are you grinning at now?" asked Rory of the surgeon.
"To think," said Sandy, laughing outright, "that our poor little boyRory couldn't be trusted on the ice without Seth and a plank. Ha, ha,ha! my conscience!"
"Doctor," said Rory.
"Well?" said the doctor.
"Whustle," cried Rory, making a face.
"I'll whustle ye," said Sandy, springing up. But Rory was off.
On the wiry shoulders of Seth the plank was borne as easily as if it hadbeen only an oar; the man carried the rope and sealing clubs. The plankdid them good service, for whenever the space between two bergs was toowide for a safe leap it was laid down, and over they went. They thusmade good progress.
There was a little motion among the ice, but nothing to signify. Thepieces approached each other gradually until within a certain distance.Then was the time to leap, and at once, too, without fear andhesitation. If you did hesitate, and made up your mind to leap a momentafter, you might fail to reach the next berg, and this meant a duckingat the very least. But a ducking of this kind is no joke, as the writerof these lines knows from experience. You strip off your clothes towring out the superabundance of water, and by the time you put them onagain, your upper garments, at all events, are frozen harder thanparchment. You have to construe the verb _salto_ [_Salto_--I leap, orjump] from beginning to end before you feel on good terms with yourselfagain. But falling into the sea between two bergs may not end with amere ducking. A man may be sucked by the current under the ice, or hemay instantly fall a prey to that great greedy monster, the Greenlandshark. Well the brute loves to devour a half-dead seal, but a man iscaviare to his maw. Again, if you are not speedily rescued, the bergsmay come slowly together and grind you to pulp. But our heroes escapedscot-free. So did the bears which they had come to shoot.
"It is provoking!" said Rory. "Let us follow them a mile or so, at allevents."
They did, and came in sight of one--an immensely great brute of aBruin--who, after stopping about a minute to study them, set off againshambling over the bergs. Then he paused, and then started off oncemore; and this he did many times, but he never permitted them to getwithin shot.
All this time the signal of recall was floating at the masthead of the_Arrandoon_, but they never saw it. They began to notice at last,though, that the bergs were wider apart, so they wisely determined togive up the chase and return.
Return? Yes, it is only a little word--hardly a simpler one to be foundin the whole English vocabulary, whether to speak or to spell; and yetit is a word that has baffled thousands. It is a word that we shouldnever forget when entering upon any undertaking in which there is dangerto either ourselves or others. It is a word great generals keep well inview; probably it was just that word "return" which prevented the greatNapoleon from landing half a million of men on our shores with the viewof conquering the country. The man of ambition was afraid he might finda difficulty in getting his Frenchmen back, and that Englishmen wouldnot be over kind to them.
Rory and his party could see the flag of recall now, and they could seealso the broad black fan being waved from the crow's-nest to expeditetheir movements. So they made all the haste in their power. There wasno leaping now, the plank had to be laid across the chasms constantly.But at last they succeeded in getting just half-way to the ship, when,to their horror, they discovered that all further advance was a sheerimpossibility! A lane of open water effectually barred their progress.It was already a hundred yards wide at least, and it was broadeningevery minute. South and by west, as far as eye could reach, stretchedthis canal, and north-west as well. They were drifting away on a looseportion of the pack, leaving their ship behind them.
Their feelings were certainly not to be envied. They knew the wholeextent of their danger, and dared not depreciate it. It was coming onto blow; already the face of that black lane of water was covered withangry little ripples. If the wind increased to a gale, the chances ofregaining their vessel were small indeed; more likely they would beblown out to sea, as men have often been under similar circumstances,and so perish miserably on the berg on which they stood. To be sure,they were to leeward, and the _Arrandoon_ was a steamer; there was someconsolation in that, but it was damped, on the other hand, by therecollection that, though a steamer, she was a partially disabled one.It would take hours before she could readjust her ballast andtemporarily make good her leak, and hours longer ere she could force andforge her way to the lane of water, through the mile of heavy bergs thatintervened. Meanwhile, what might not happen?
Both Rory and Allan were by this time good ice-men, and had there beenbut a piece of ice big enough to bear their weight, and nothing more,they could have embarked thereon and ferried themselves across, using aspaddles the butt-ends of their rifles. But there was nothing of thesort; the bay ice had all been ground up; there was nothing save thegreat green-sided, snow-topped bergs. And so they could only wait andhope for the best.
"It'll all come right in the end," said Rory.
He said this many times; but as the weary hours went by, and the lanewidened and widened, till, from being a lane, it looked a Jake, thelittle sentence that had always brought him comfort before seemed triteto even Rory himself.
The increasing motion of the berg on which they stood did not serve toreassure them, and the cold they had, from their forced inactivity, toendure, would have damped the boldest spirits. For a time they managedto keep warm by walking or running about the berg, but afterwardsmovement itself became painful, so that they had but little heart totake exercise.
The whole hull of the _Arrandoon_ was hidden from their view behind thehummocky ice, and thus they could not tell what was going on on deck,but they could see no smoke arising from the funnel, and this but servedfurther to dishearten them.
Even gazing at those lanes of water that so often open up in the verymidst of a field of ice, is apt to stir up strange thoughts in one'smind, especially if one be, like Rory, of a somewhat poetical andromantic disposition. The very blackness of the water impresses you;its depth causes a feeling akin to awe; you know, as if by instinct,that it is deep--terribly, eeriesomely deep. It lies smiling in thesunshine as to surface, but all is the blackness of darkness below. Uphere it is all day; down there, all night. The surface of the waterseems to divide two worlds--a seen and an unseen, a known and an unknownand mysterious--life and death!
Tired at last of roaming like caged bears up and down the berg, one byone they seated themselves on the sunny side of a small hummock. Theyhuddled together for warmth, but they did not care to talk much. Theirvery souls seemed heavy, their bodies seemed numbed and frozen, buttheir heads were
hot, and they felt very drowsy, yet bit their lips andtongues lest they might fall into that strange slumber from which it issaid men wake no more.
They talked not at all. The last words were spoken by Seth. Roryremembered them.
"I'm old," he was muttering; "my time's a kind o' up; but it do seemhard on these younkers. Guess I'd give the best puma's skin ever Ikilled, just to see Rory safe. Guess I'd--"
Rory's eyes were closed, he heard no more. He was dreaming. Dreamingof what? you ask me. I answer, in the words of Lover,--
"Ask of the sailor youth, when far His light barque bounds o'er ocean's foam What charms him most when evening star Smiles o'er the wave? To dream of home."
Yes, Rory