churned into froth and _meerschaum_, is a sight thatonce seen can never be forgotten. The boldest harpooner that ever drewbreath would not venture near those gambolling whales, and I verilybelieve that the biggest line-of-battle ships that ever floated would bestaved and sunk in the midst of that funny but fearful _maelstrom_.
This gives you, reader, but the very faintest notion of a whale's gardenparty. It is one of the wonders of the world, and one which few haveever seen and lived to tell of, for there is no surety of the hugemonsters not shifting ground at any moment, and sweeping down like awhirlwind on some devoted ship.
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The _Fairy Queen_ sailed on, and in due time sighted and passed CapeFarewell, then northward ho! through Davis Straits to Baffin's Sea, andhere they had the great good luck to fall in with the vessels they hadcome to succour.
Some delay was caused in unloading, and as the summer was now faradvanced, and Captain Blunt had no desire to winter in these dismalregions, he was naturally anxious to get away south as soon as possible.
They were cleared at last, however, and bidding the research vesselsfarewell, with three-times-three ringing cheers, all sail was set thatthe ship could stagger under, and on she rushed through an open sea,although there were plenty of icebergs about.
For a whole week everything went favourably and well. Then, alas! thetide turned with a vengeance. One of those dense fogs so common inthese regions came down upon them like a wall, and so enveloped the shipthat it was impossible, standing at the windlass, to see the jibboomend; and at the same time.
"Down dropt the wind, the sails dropt down, 'Twas sad as sad could be; And we did speak only to break The silence of the sea."
But worse was to come.
For now, up-looming through the dismal fog, came great green-ribbedicebergs, the waves lapping at their feet and the spray washing theirdripping sides.
In the midst of so great a danger Captain Blunt felt powerless. Therewas absolutely nothing to be done but wait and wait, and pray the goodFather to send a breeze.
When we pray earnestly for anything we should never forget to add thewords of Him Who spake as never man spake, and say, "Thy will be done."No prayer is complete without that beautiful line; and yet, though easyto _say_ it, it is--oh! so hard sometimes to _pray_ it. But then wepoor mortals do not know what is best for us.
In the present instance our heroes' prayers were not heard, and days andweeks flew by; then the sky cleared, and they saw the sun once more, butonly to find themselves so surrounded by ice on all quarters that escapewas impossible. Besides, the season was now far gone, autumn waswearing through, the sun was far south, and the nights getting long andcold and dreary.
Frost now set in, and snow began to fall.
They were safe from all dangers for six months to come, at the least.
"Never mind," said Blunt cheerily to Leonard, "we have provisions enoughto last us for a year at the very least. So we must do the best to makeourselves comfortable."
"That we will," replied Leonard, "though I fear our friends at home willthink we are lost."
"That is the only drawback--my dear wife and child, and your parents,boys. Well, we are in the hands of Providence. God is here in thesesolitudes, and just as easily found as if we were in the cathedral ofold St. Giles'."
It was indeed a dreary winter they passed in the midst of that frozensea. No sun, no light save moon or stars and the lovely aurora.Silence deep as the grave, except--which was rare--when a storm camehowling over the pack, raising the snow in whirlwinds, and often hurlingoff the peaked and jagged tops of the weird-looking icebergs.
But the sun appeared at last, and in due time. With a noise andconfusion that is indescribable the ice broke up, and the _Fairy Queen_began to move slowly--oh, so slowly!--through the ice on her waysouthwards, with danger on every quarter, danger ahead, and dangerastern. She sailed for many, many miles without a rudder; for lest itshould get smashed it had been unshipped, the men steering ahead bymeans of boat and hawser, and the ship often being so close to aniceberg that the tips of the yard arms touched, and when the berg movedover with a wave it threw the vessel upwards from the bottom. On theseoccasions poles were used to edge her off.
It was tedious work all this, but it came to an end at last, and thewater being now more open, the rudder was re-shipped, and more sailclapped on, so that much better way was made.
Another week passed by. They were well south now in Davis Straits,albeit the wind had been somewhat fickle.
They had high hopes of soon seeing the last of the ice, and both Douglasand Leonard began to think of home, and talk of it also.
It was spring time once more. The larches, at all events, would begreen and tasselled with crimson in the woods around Glen Lyle,primroses would be peeping out in cosy corners in moss-bedded copses,and birds would be busy building, and the trees alive with the voice ofsong.
"In three weeks more," said Douglas, "we ought to be stretching awayacross the blue Atlantic, and within a measurable distance of dear oldScotland."
"Ay, lad!" replied Leonard, "my heart jumps to my mouth with very joy tothink of it."
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In this great chart that lies before me, a chart of the Polar regions, Ican point out the very place, or near it, where the _Fairy Queen_ wascrushed in the ice as a strong man might crush a walnut, and sank like astone in the water, dragging down with her, so quickly did she go atlast, more than one of her brave crew, whose bones may lie in the blackdepths of that inhospitable ocean,--
"Till the sea gives up its dead."
Midway 'twixt Nipzet Sound and Cape Mercy, just a little to the nor'ardof Cumberland Gulf, I mark the point with a plus.
It was in a gale of wind, and at the dead of night, when she wassurrounded by an immense shoal of flat bergs, of giant proportions, andstaved irremediably. The water came roaring in below. Pumping was ofno avail. She must founder, and that very soon. So every effortconsonant with safety was made to embark upon the very icebergs that hadcaused the grief. Stores and water were speedily got out, therefore,and long ere the break of day the end came, the ship was engulphed.There was no longer any _Fairy Queen_ to glide over the seas like athing of life--only two wave-washed bergs, each with a huddled crew ofhopeless shipwrecked mariners.
And these were already separating. They had bade each other adieu.
They were gliding away, or south or north or east or west, they knew notwhither.
Book 2--CHAPTER FIVE.
AFLOAT ON AN ICEBERG.
"Midnight soft and fair above, Midnight fierce and dark beneath, All on high the smile of love, All below the frown of death:
"Waves that whirl in angry spite With a phosphorescent light, Gleaming ghastly in the night, Like the pallid sneer of Doom."
Tupper.
Scene: In Baffin's Sea. Shipwrecked mariners afloat on an iceberg,which rises and falls on the smooth-rolling waves.
Morning broke grey and hazily; the wind, as if it had done its worst andspent its fury, went down, but the sea still ran very high, dashing incold spray over the bergs on which the shipwrecked mariners were huddledtogether for warmth, and leaving a thick coating of ice on top of thesail that covered them.
Captain Blunt had gone on board one berg with half the crew, about tenall told, and Leonard, with Douglas, on board the other, along with theremainder, the two friends determining to be together to the bitter end,if indeed the end were to come.
The sea itself went down at last, as far as broken water was concerned;only a big round heaving swell continued, on which the icebergs rose andfell with a strange kind of motion that made all on board them drowsy.
When Leonard looked about him in the morning sunlight never a sign couldbe seen of the other berg. Nor all that day was it seen or on anyother. It was gone. Other icebergs there were in dozens,
but none withmen on them.
Leonard heaved a sigh, and wished that he only had the wings of one ofthose happy sea-birds, that went wheeling and screaming round in theair, sometimes coming nearer and nearer, tack and half-tack, so close,out of mere curiosity, that they could have been knocked down with aboat-hook. All that day and all the next and next the berg floatedsilently on,--
"As idle as a painted ship Upon a painted ocean."
Almost every day strange, wondering creatures came up out of the waterto gaze at them. The tusked walrus, the gazelle-eyed seal--yes, eventhe narwhal must have spied them, and felt curiosity, for he shifted hiscourse, and ploughed down towards the berg to have a look; then, as ifsatisfied that his mind could not fathom so great a mystery, went on hissilent, solitary way once more.
Happily for the poor sailors, they had provisions. Had the ship gonedown at once when struck, as vessels do sometimes go, they would nowhave been in a pitiful plight indeed.
But