sledge-hammer, so he took that to break the icewith. Then he tried one foot in, and quickly drew it out again andshook it. The water felt like molten lead.
"I wonder now," he said to himself, "if brother Ralph will venture on acold plunge on such a morning as this."
And, wondering thus, he rolled his shoulders up in his door-curtain,and, poking his head into the passage, hailed Ralph.
"Hullo, there!" he cried; "Ralph! Porpy!"
"Hullo!" cried Ralph; "I'll Porpy you if I come into your den!"
"Well, but tell me this, old man," said Rory; "I want to know if you'regoing to do a flounder this morning?"
"To be sure!" said Ralph. "Listen!"
Rory listened, and could hear him plashing.
McBain passed along at the moment, and, hearing the conversation, hetook part in it to this extent,--
"Boys that don't have their baths don't have their breakfasts."
"In that case," said Rory, "I'm in too!" And next moment he wasplashing away like a live dolphin. But hardly was he dressed than therecame all over him such a glorious warm glow, that he would have gonethrough the same ordeal again had there been any occasion. At the sametime he felt so exhilarated in spirits that nothing would serve him buthe must burst into song.
The frost held, they could tell that when they met in the saloon andglanced at the windows; the tracery thereon was so beautiful, that evenat the risk of letting his breakfast get cold, Rory must needs run forhis sketch-book and make two pictures at least. Meanwhile, Ralph hadsettled down to serious eating. You see, there was very little poetryabout honest Ralph, he was more solid than imaginative.
After breakfast our trio took to the ice again. They soon had evidencethat some one had been there before them, for about a mile along theshore, and a little way out to sea, they saw that several poles had beenplanted, and on each pole fluttered a red flag. They looked inquiringlyat McBain.
"You wonder what the meaning of that is?" said McBain; "and I myselfcannot altogether explain it."
"But you had the flags placed there?"
"True," said McBain; "and they are placed around a pool of open water."
"Open water!" exclaimed Rory, "and the sea frozen everywhere allaround!"
"Ah, yes!" replied McBain; "that is the mystery. But we are in the landof mysteries. This pool of open water may be situated over a warmspring, or it may be there is some kind of a whirlpool there whichprevents the formation of the ice, only there it is, sure enough, andhowsoever hard the frost should become, or howsoever long it may last, Ithink that that pool will never, never close and freeze.
"The ice," he continued, "was thin at the edge, but I have had it brokenoff, and will try to keep it so, and thus you will be enabled to goquite close to the water's edge; and if my experience is anything to goby, you'll see many a startling apparition there before the winter ispast and gone."
"You astonish _me_," said Rory.
"And _me_," said Allan.
"But what," persisted Rory, "will the apparitions be like?"
"Nothing that can harm us, I think," said McBain. "But as the iceextends farther seaward, sea-monsters will come to the pool to breatheand to disport themselves in the sunshine."
"Perhaps the sea-serpent, for instance?" said Rory.
"Perhaps," said McBain.
"Och! sure then," cried Rory, losing all his seriousness at once, "we'llhave a shot at the old boy, that's all?"
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.
THE GREAT BLACK FROST--FUNNY JACK FROST--THE COLD HALF-HOUR--A TERRIBLEAPPARITION UNDER THE ICE--BLOWING SOAP-BUBBLES--STRANGE EFFECT--SNOW ANDSNOW-SHOES.
For week after week the great black frost continued, seeming only to waxmore and more intense as the time went on. With the exception of themysterious pool, mentioned in last chapter, and the small hole kept openalongside the yacht, there was no water to be met with anywhere. Thesea, as far as the eye could reach, was a smooth unbroken sheet ofglass, two feet in thickness if a single inch. If there was any rippleor swell in the now far-off blue water, it did not affect the ice formiles around the _Snowbird_ in the slightest. There was never a crackand never a flaw in it. It was hard, solid, and black, adamantine onemight almost say in its extreme hardness. The chips broken off from theedge of the ice-hole looked like pieces of greenish rock crystal. Theice-hole itself required to be broken every time a bucket was dipped init.
Meanwhile the days grew shorter and shorter, but there was never abreath of wind, and never a cloud in the sky. And the sun looked coldand rayless, yet at night the stars shone out with extraordinarybrilliancy.
Breakfast was now a meal to be partaken of by lamplight, and so too wasdinner, but they both passed off none the less pleasantly for that.
"It seems to me," said Allan one morning, "that one of these days thesun won't trouble to get up at all."
"We are just in the latitude," remarked McBain, "where even at midsummerthere is a little night, and at mid-winter a little day."
"But we will never be positively in the dark, I should think, while thestars are so brilliant?" Allan asked.
"We'll have the glorious aurora borealis by-and-bye," said McBain, "tosay nothing of long spells of moonlight; but we are, as I said before,in the very centre of a land of wonders, and there will doubtless benights when the storm spirit will be abroad in all his might andmajesty, clothed in clouds and darkness, a darkness more intense andterrible than any we have ever experienced in our own country."
"It is a good thing," said Rory, "that you thought of taking such anarray of beautiful lamps."
Yes, Rory was right, it was a beautiful array. As Ralph remarked, "the_Snowbird_ was strong in lamps."
They hung in the passage, they hung in the snuggery, and four of themlit up the saloon, with a brightness almost equal to that of day itself.
And those lamps gave heat as well as light, but large fires were keptconstantly roaring in the stoves. The stove that stood in the snuggerywas a very large one, and to make the place all the more comfortable thedeck was almost buried in skins--trophies of the prowess of our heroesin the hunting-field. And yet with all this it must be confessed thatat times the cold was felt to be very severe; indeed, the thermometerkept steadily down many degrees below zero. There was one way ofdefying it during the day, however, and that way lay in action.
"Keep moving is my motto," said Rory one day on the ice.
"Indeed, Rory boy," said McBain, "you act well up to it; if I were askedto define you now, do you know the words I would use?"
"No," said Rory.
"Perpetual motion personified," said McBain.
"Thank you," Rory said, lifting his cap.
There was an excellent way of keeping out the cold after dinner, andthat was to make a circle round the snuggery stove, reclining on theskins with cups of warm fragrant coffee, and engaging in pleasantconversation. There was another way of keeping out the cold in the longevenings, and that was to retire to the new hall and give a dance. Thiswas the favourite plan with the crew at all events, and McBain, wellknowing the value of healthful happy exercise, was always delighted whenRory professed himself ready and willing to discourse sweet music to themen tripping it on the light fantastic toe.
But the time of all others when our heroes really did feel the effectsof the excessively low temperature, was the cold half-hour immediatelyafter turning into bed. Of course the curtains would be carefully andclosely drawn, ay, and heads carefully covered with bedclothes, but forall that, shiver they must for the cold half-hour. But gradually thefeeling wore away, warmth stole over them, then noses could be protrudedover the quilts, and by-and-by sleep sealed up their senses.
When they awoke in the morning, lo and behold they were lying in cavesof snow! Top and bottom of the bed, back and roof, were covered withsnow to the depth of half an inch; and so were the curtains, and so werethe quilts. Where in the name of mystery had the snow come from? Theexplanation is easy enough. The snow was nothing more nor less thantheir
frozen breath.
I do not think a single day passed that Rory did not, during this blackfrost, make a sketch from a frozen pane of glass. The frost effects onthe frozen glass were simply magical, and it was very curious to noticethat some of the panes had been but lightly touched with the frost; theywere unfinished sketches, so to speak, while others represented wholelandscapes, mountain and forest and sky as well.
"Look at this pane," said Rory, one morning. "Now I wonder what JackFrost meant to have filled that picture in with?"
"Jack seems to have been having a frolic," said Allan. "Why, there isonly one long white thread down the centre of