Cast Away in the Cold Part 18

O tiny, tiny Arctic flower Where have you kept yourself so long?

Deep buried in a snowy bower?

And did the winter treat you wrong?

You little, smiling, gladsome thing!

You pretty, pretty flower of spring!

You little, little, wee, wee thing!

So bright, so cheery in the sun, So everything that every one Would wish a flower to bring.

You tiny, tiny little thing!

I'm so afraid the frosts will nip Your little feet, you tenderling, You crazy, crazy little thing!

What e'er possessed you to come up And nestle there beside the snow, As if you'd warm it with a glow Of golden light from your bright face, On which there is no single trace Of anything like sorrow?

Cheery, cheery, always cheery, Always cheery, never weary, E'en with frozen sod close bound, E'en with snow all piled around, E'en with the frosts upon the ground, Your little tender roots to chill!

O, what a royal little will You have, you little gladsome thing, You pretty, pretty flower of spring, You little, little weesome mite, You tiny, tiny little sprite!

E'en now the snows are at your feet, And piled a hundred times your height, Close, close beside your face so sweet!

And yet you smile, you pretty thing, You pretty, pretty flower of spring, You little, little, wee, wee thing!

And do not seem to care a bit, And look as happy, every whit, As any other flower of spring.

And what a lesson, too, you bring To all of us, you little thing!

You show us how to persevere, You show us how a happy cheer May always on the face appear, If G.o.d we trust and G.o.d we fear; For G.o.d is every, every where, And this the flower doth declare,-- The tiny, tiny little flower, The weesome, weesome little flower, The little, smiling, gladsome thing, The pretty, pretty flower of spring, The little, little, wee, wee thing.

"There, now you have it!" exclaimed the Captain, drawing a very long breath, and looking around, no doubt to see the impression he had produced,--"there you have it, my dears!"

The children all expressed themselves highly delighted with this effort of the Captain's in the poetical way, and they all declared if that wasn't a song they "would like to see one."

Thus greatly flattered by the pleasure the children received from his recitation of what had become old to him, and deeply rooted in his memory, the Captain resumed once more the thread of his narrative, or, rather, "once more picked up the broken yarn, and spun away," as he would have more graphically expressed it.

"Well, well," continued the Captain, "you see our little flower died after a while, and all the other little flowers died; and this brought us to the end of our third summer on the island and into the third winter.

"This winter pa.s.sed away as the previous ones had done, and we felt still greater resignation.

"'Here we are forever,' said the Dean, 'and that we must make up our minds to. It is G.o.d's will, and we must bow before it and be reconciled.'

"'I fear, Dean, that is so,' I answered, solemnly.

"This was in the month of February, and the sunlight was coming back, and, to see if we could not catch a glimpse of the G.o.d of day, we had gone out together, wading through the snow.

"The Dean felt it when he said 'we must be reconciled'; but he had hardly spoken when our attention was quickly called away from such reflections (and from the sun too) by seeing something dark upon the frozen sea, not far away from us. It was moving.

"We were not long in doubt as to what it was, for we had seen too many polar bears to be cheated this time,--a bear, without any doubt at all.

"He was running very fast, and was making directly towards the island.

He soon ran behind a large iceberg, and for a little while was out of sight; but he appeared again soon afterwards, and held on in the same course. Then we lost him once more among rough ice, and then again he came in view. He appeared so dark at first, that less-experienced persons might have been uncertain about what it was; for although the polar bear is usually called the white bear, yet in truth he has a yellowish hue, and is quite dark, at least in comparison with the pure white snow.

"'It's another bear, I do believe!' exclaimed the Dean, and at once we made for the hut. But the bear was running much faster than we were, and was moreover coming in right towards the place for which we were bound.

So we grew much alarmed, and quickened our speed, not however without difficulty; for the snow was, in places, very deep.

"By and by the bear, which proved to be a very large one, caught sight of us; and, as you know already that the polar bear is rather a cowardly beast than otherwise, you will not be much surprised to learn that, when he saw us, he altered his course, and turned off from the island as fast as he could go. Seeing him do this (as you may be sure to our great delight), we halted to watch him; and now we perceived, for the first time, that the animal was pursued. By what we could not imagine, but, clearly enough, by something; for in the distance, and from the quarter whence the bear had come, there was plainly to be seen, winding among the bergs and rough ma.s.ses of ice, something dark following on the very track which the bear had taken, sometimes lost to sight and sometimes in full view, and growing larger every moment, just as the bear had done.

"Nearer and nearer came this object, and our wonder increased. Presently we heard a cry.

"'Hark!' said the Dean.

"The cry was repeated.

"'A dog!' exclaimed the Dean.

"'A dog!' said I, in answer, for I heard it distinctly.

"'Hark!' said the Dean again, for there was another sound.

"'A man,' said I.

"'A man!' repeated the Dean, excitedly.

"And a man it was.

"Dogs and men! what could they be doing there? was the question that ran through both our minds at once.

"But dogs and a man (not men) there were, and whatever they might be doing there, or whence they might have come, it was certain that dogs and a man made the dark spot which we saw upon the white sea; and it was, moreover, clear that they were pursuing the bear which had pa.s.sed us and was now pretty far away.

"Nearer and nearer came the dogs and man, and the sounds became more and more distinct; the dogs were upon the bear's tracks, the man was upon a sledge to which the dogs were fastened. At length they came so near that the dogs could be easily counted. They were seven, and all of different colors, and were fastened with long lines to the sledge, so that they were a great way in front of it, and they were running all abreast. They were straining and pressing into their collars, all the while crying impatiently, as they bounded over the snow at a rapid gallop. The man was encouraging them along all he could with a long whip, which he threw out with a lively snap, exclaiming, 'Ka-ka! ka-ka!' over and over again; and then, 'Nen-ook, nen-ook, nen-ook!'--many times repeated; for he was now so near that we could distinguish every word he said.

"It was a wild chase, and the Dean and I became much excited over it, running all the time to get nearer to the pa.s.sing sledge and man and dogs.

"Very soon we should have met, but suddenly the bear came in full view of the dogs, evidently for the first time. Up to this moment the dogs had only been following the track.

"The dogs, now leaving the track, gave a wild, concerted howl, and dashed off after the bear in a straight line. Man, sledge, dogs, and all pa.s.sed us quickly by,--the man shouting more excitedly than ever to his dogs, sometimes calling them by name, as it seemed to us, and sometimes crying 'Nen-ook, nen-ook!' and sometimes, 'Ka-ka! ka-ka!' and so away they went, rushing like the wind,--the whole scene more strange than strangest dream,--the dogs and man like spectral things, so quickly had they come and so unexpectedly; or, at the least, the dogs seemed like howling wolves, and the man a wild man of the frozen ocean, clothed in wild beasts' skins.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A Race for Life.]

"We called to the man to stop; we shouted, 'Come here, come here!' and then again, 'Come back, come back!' as loud as we could shout, waving our caps, and throwing up our arms, and running in a frantic way; but not the slightest notice would he take of us, not one instant would he stop, but upon his course and purpose he kept right on, pushing after the running bear, without appearing to give us even a single thought. We could not doubt that he had seen us, we were so near to him.

"On went the bear, on after him went the dogs and sledge and man. More impatient grew the dogs, louder called the man to his excited team, and the Dean and I ran after, shouting still, as we had done in the beginning. We came soon upon the sledge track, and followed it at our greatest speed.

"At length the cries of the dogs grew indistinct, and then died away at last entirely, and the man's voice was no longer heard; and that which had come so suddenly soon became but a dark moving speck upon the great white frozen sea, as it had first appeared; but after it we still followed on.

"Then the moving speck faded out of sight, and everything around was still and cold and solemn and desolate as before. Yet still we ran and ran.

"I said as desolate as before. But O, it was a thousand times more desolate now than ever,--as the night is darker for the lightning flash that has died away, or a cloudy noon is colder for a single ray of sunshine that has broken through the vapors.

"Yet on and on we ran and ran, until we could run no more.

"And then we laid us down upon the snow and wept, and bemoaned our hard, hard fate; but no word was spoken. The disappointment was too great for words; and, after a short rest in the chilly air upon the frozen sea, we wandered slowly back to our poor hut; and after many weary hours we reached it, not so much alive as dead,--for through miles and miles of heavy snow we had run after the sledge, and through these same miles we had trudged back again, with the cruel disappointment rankling in our hearts, and with no hope to buoy us up.

"Strange--was it not?--that at no period of our life upon the desert island were we so unhappy as we were that day,--never so utterly cast down, never so broken-spirited, never looking on the future with such hopelessness.

"And in this state of mind we crawled beneath our furs, feeling too lonely and forsaken to have a thought to cook a meal, and so very, very weary with the labor we had done, in running and wading through the heavy snow, that we did not care for food; and in deep sleep we buried up the heaviest sorrow that we had ever known,--the grievous sorrow of a dead, dead hope,--the hope of rescue that had come and gone from us, as the cloud-shadow flies across the summer field."