Fridtjof Nansen Part 9

"Just as the bear was about to bite him on the head, he uttered those memorable words, 'Look sharp!' The bear kept watching me intently, wondering no doubt what I was up to, when all at once it happily caught sight of one of the dogs, and immediately turned toward it. Johansen now let go his hold of the brute's throat, and wriggled himself away, while the bear gave poor Suggen a smack with his paw that made him howl as he used to do when he got a thrashing. Kaifas, too, got a smack on the nose. Meanwhile Johansen had got on his feet, and just as I fired had got hold of his gun, which was sticking up out of the hole in the kayak. The only damage done was that the bear had sc.r.a.ped a little of the grime and dirt off Johansen's right cheek, so that he goes with a white stripe on it now, besides a scratch on one hand. Kaifas, too, had his nose scratched."

On reaching land they had to shoot Kaifas and Suggen, the sole survivors of their twenty-six faithful companions. It was a hard task. Johansen took Nansen's dog Kaifas in a leash behind a hummock, while Nansen did the same with Johansen's Suggen. Their two guns went off simultaneously, and the two men stood friendless, alone in the desert of ice. They did not say many words to each other on meeting.

Along the coast of the land they discovered there was open water, of which they availed themselves, first lashing their kayaks together so that they formed in fact a double kayak.

They rowed for several days, and were fortunate enough to shoot a walrus; but they had no idea what land it was, or where they were.

One evening, however, the channel closed up, and no more open water was to be found. But on Aug. 13 it opened up again, and they were able to push on. After twenty-four hours it closed once more, and they had to drag the kayaks on the sleigh overland. On the evening of Aug. 18 they reached one of the islands they had been steering for, and for the first time for two years had bare earth under their feet. Here they revelled in "the joys of country life,"--now jumping over the rocks, or gathering moss and specimens of the flora, etc.,--and hoisted the Norwegian flag.

In its summer dress this northern land seemed to them to be a perfect paradise; plenty of seals, sea-birds, flowers, and mud--and in front the blue sea.

They were, therefore, loath to leave it, but onward they must proceed, if they wished to reach home that autumn. But fate willed it otherwise.

They soon encountered ice again--nothing but ice--bare ice as far as the eye could reach. After waiting a considerable time, they once more had open water, of which they took advantage by hoisting a sail; but at the end of twenty-four hours their course was again blocked--a block that decided their future movements materially; for they were compelled to winter there!

It may readily be supposed that this was not only a terrible disappointment, but a severe trial to our two arctic navigators. After all their labor and exertion, after reaching open water, and buoying themselves up, with the hope that their struggles would soon be over, to find that hope shattered, and their plans rendered abortive, and that they must perforce be imprisoned in the ice for months, was enough to make them lose heart altogether. But when once they realized their position, they acted like men, and set to work to build a stone hut, on the roof and floor of which they stretched bear hides. They succeeded in shooting several walruses, the blubber of which provided them with fuel, so that they might have been in a worse plight than they were. Still, it was not altogether pleasant to have to lie in a stone hut during a polar winter, with the thermometer down to -40 Fahrenheit, without any other food than bears' flesh and blubber. Indeed, it required the const.i.tution of a giant to endure it, and unyielding determination not to lose heart altogether.

By working for a week, they finished the walls of their abode, and after getting the roof on, moved into it. They made a great heap of blubber of the walruses they shot outside the hut, covering it over with walrus hides. This was their fuel store. It served of course to attract bears, which was an advantage; and many a one paid the penalty of his appet.i.te by being shot. At first they found it very uncomfortable at night, so they both slept in one sleeping-bag, and thus kept tolerably warm. But the climax of their joy was building in the roof a chimney of ice to let out the smoke of their fire. They had no other materials to make it out of. It answered capitally, however, having only one drawback; viz., that it readily melted. But there was no lack of ice for making another.

Their cuisine was simple in the extreme, and strangely enough they never got tired of their food. Whatever came to hand, flesh or blubber, they ate readily, and sometimes, when a longing for fatty food, as was often the case, came over them, they would fish pieces of blubber out of the lamps, and eat them with great relish. They called these burnt pieces biscuits; and "if there had only been a little sugar sprinkled on them, they would have tasted deliciously," they said.

During the course of this winter the foxes proved very troublesome. They gnawed holes in the roof, stole instruments, wire, harpoons, and a thermometer. Luckily they had a spare one, so that the register of the temperature did not suffer. They were princ.i.p.ally white foxes that visited them; but occasionally they saw the blue fox, and would dearly have liked to shoot some specimens of that beautiful animal, only that they feared their ammunition would not hold out. They shot their last bear on Oct. 21, after which they saw no more till the following spring.

It was a long, tedious winter; the weather generally very boisterous, with drifting snowstorms. But every now and then fine weather would set in, when the stars would shine with great brilliancy, and wondrously beautiful displays of the aurora borealis would lighten up the whole scene.

Another Christmas Eve arrived, the third they had spent in the polar regions; but this was the dreariest and gloomiest of them all. However, they determined to celebrate it, which they did by reversing their shirts. Then they ate fish-meal with train-oil instead of b.u.t.ter, and for a second course toasted bread and blubber. On Christmas morning they treated themselves to chocolate and bread.

On New Year's Day, 1896, there were -41 of cold (Fahrenheit), and all Nansen's finger-tips were frost-bitten. Out there on that dreary headland their thoughts wandered away to their home, where they pictured to themselves all the Christmas joy and festivity that would be taking place, the flakes of snow falling gently out-of-doors, and the happy faces of their dear ones within.

"The road to the stars is long and heavy!"

Nansen and Johansen slept during the greater part of that long winter. Sometimes, like bears in their winter quarters, they would sleep for twenty-four hours at a stretch, when there was nothing particular to be done. Spring, however, returned at last, and the birds began to reappear on their northerly flight. The polar bears, too, revisited their hut, so they got plenty of fresh meat. The first bear they killed acted very daringly. Johansen was on the point of going out of the hut one day, when he started back, crying out, "There's a bear just outside!" s.n.a.t.c.hing up his gun, he put his head out of the door of the hut, but instantly withdrew it. "It is close by, and means coming in." Then he put his gun out again, and fired. The shot took effect, and the wounded beast made off for some rocky ground. After a long pursuit Nansen came up with it, and shot it in a snowdrift. It rolled over and over like a ball, and fell dead close to his feet. Its flesh lasted them six weeks.

On May 19 they broke up their winter camp, and proceeded over the ice in a southerly direction, meeting with long stretches of level young ice, making also good use of their sail, and finally reached open water on Friday, June 12. They now lashed the two kayaks together, forming a double kayak, and set out to sea with a favorable breeze, feeling not a little elated; and in the evening lay to at the edge of the ice to rest, having first moored the kayaks with a rope, and then got up on a hummock to reconnoitre. Presently Johansen was heard to shout out, "The kayaks are adrift!" Down they both of them rushed as fast as they could.

"Here, take my watch!" cried Nansen, handing it to Johansen, while he divested himself of his outer garments, and jumped into the water.

Meanwhile the kayaks had drifted a considerable distance. It was absolutely necessary to overtake them, for their loss meant--death.

But we will let Nansen tell the story:--

"When I got tired, I turned over on my back, and then I could see Johansen walking incessantly to and fro on the ice. Poor fellow! he could not stand still; he felt it was so dreadful to be unable to do anything. Moreover, he did not entertain, he told me, much hope of my being able to reach them. However, it would not have mended matters had he jumped in after me. They were the worst minutes, he said, he had ever pa.s.sed in all his life.

"But when I turned over again and began swimming once more, I saw that I was perceptibly gaining on the kayaks, and this made me redouble my exertions. My limbs, however, were now becoming so numb and stiff that I felt I couldn't go on much longer. But I wasn't far off the kayaks now; if I could only manage to hold out a little longer, we were saved--and on I went. My strokes kept getting shorter and feebler every instant, but still I was gaining, and hoped to be able to come up with them. At last I got hold of a ski that lay athwart the bows, and clutched onto the kayaks. We were saved! but when I tried to get aboard, my limbs were so cold and stiff that I couldn't manage it. For a moment I feared it was too late after all, and that although I had got thus far, I should never be able to get on board. So I waited a moment to rest, and after a great deal of difficulty, succeeded in getting one leg up on the edge of the sleigh that was lying on the deck, and so got on board, but so exhausted that I found it hard work to use the paddle."

When Nansen at last got the kayaks back to the edge of the ice, he changed his wet clothes, and was put to bed on the ice, that is to say, in the sleeping-bag, by Johansen, who threw a sail over him, and made him some warm drink, which soon restored the circulation. But when he told Johansen to go and fetch the two auks he had shot as he was rowing the kayaks back, the latter burst out laughing, and said, "I thought you had gone clean mad when you shot."

On Monday, June 15, Nansen's life was a second time in jeopardy. They were rowing after walruses, when one of the creatures bobbed up close by Nansen's kayak, and stuck its tusks through the side. Nansen hit it over the head with the paddle, whereon the brute let go his hold and disappeared.

But the kayak very nearly foundered, and was only hauled up on the ice as it was on the point of sinking.

This was the last perilous adventure on this marvellous expedition.

CHAPTER X.

Meeting with Jackson.--Return to Norway on the Windward.--Fram Returns to Norway.--Royal Welcome Home.

It was June 17, Henrik Wergeland's [41] birthday. Nansen had been down to the edge of the ice to fetch some salt water, and had got up on a hummock in order to have a good look about. A brisk breeze was blowing off land, bearing with it the confused sound of bird-cries from the distant rocks. As he stood listening to these sounds of life in that wild desert, which he thought no human eye had ever seen, or human foot trodden before, a noise like the bark of a dog fell on his ear. He started with amazement.

Could there be dogs here? Impossible! He must have been mistaken. It must have been the bird-cries! But no--there it was again! First a single bark, then the full cry of a whole pack. There was a deep bark, succeeded by a sharper one. There could be no doubt about it! Then he remembered that only the day before he had heard a couple of reports resembling gunshots, but had thought it was only the ice splitting and cracking. He now called to Johansen, who was in the tent.

"I can hear dogs over yonder!" he said.

Johansen, who was lying asleep, jumped up and bundled out of the tent. "Dogs?" No! he could not take that in; but all the same went up and stood beside Nansen to listen. "It must be your imagination!" he said. He certainly had on one or two occasions, he said, heard sounds like the barking of a dog, but they had been so drowned in the bird-cries that he did not think much of it. To which Nansen replied that he might think what he liked, but that for his part he intended to set out as soon as they had had breakfast.

So it was arranged that Johansen should stay there to see to the kayaks, while Nansen set out on this expedition.

Before finally starting, Nansen once more got up on the hummock and listened, but could hear nothing. However, off he started, though he felt some doubts in his own mind. What if it were a delusion after all?

After proceeding some distance he came on the tracks of an animal. They were too large to be those of a fox, and too small for a wolf. They must be dog tracks, then! A distant bark at that moment fell on his ear, more distinct than ever, and off he set at full speed in the direction of the sound, so that the snow dust whirled up in clouds behind him, every nerve and muscle of his body quivering with excitement. He pa.s.sed a great many tracks, with foxes' tracks interspersed among them. A long time now elapsed during which he could hear nothing, as he went zigzagging in among the hummocks, and his heart began to sink at every step he took. Suddenly, however, he thought he could hear the sound of a human voice--a strange voice--the first for three years! His heart beat, the blood flew to his brain, and springing up on the top of a hummock, he hallooed with all the strength of his lungs. Behind that human voice in the midst of this desert of ice stood home, and she who was waiting there!

An answering shout came back far, far off, dying away in the distance, and before long he discerned some dark form among the hummocks farther ahead. It was a dog! But behind it another form was visible--a man's form!

Nansen remained where he was, rooted to the spot, straining eyes and ears as the form gradually drew near, and then set off once more to meet it, as if it were a matter of life and death.

They approached each other. Nansen waved his hat; the stranger did the same.

They met.

That stranger was the English arctic traveller, Mr. Jackson.

They shook hands; and Jackson said,--

"I am delighted to meet you!"

N. "Thanks; so am I."

J. "Is your ship here?"

N. "No."