Marmaduke Merry Part 11

"After progressing thus for several days, I observed an extraordinary phenomenon. Whenever I took my compa.s.s out in my hand, I felt that the instrument had a tendency to move directly before me. This tendency increased gradually as I proceeded, till, one morning, when I put it down as usual to mark my course before starting, to my infinite surprise, and I may say dismay, away it glided over the snow, increasing in rapidity of motion as it proceeded.

"Horrified at the reflection of what might be the consequence should I lose it, I rushed forward, and, in my eagerness to grasp my treasure, fell prostrate on my face, just, happily, as my fingers clutched it.

"This wonderful occurrence (for I own that it did surprise even me, and I could not have believed it had another man told it me) brought me to a stand-still, and compelled me to form a new plan for my future proceedings. I was unwilling to give up the enterprise, though I saw the full risk I was running; but dangers never daunted me,--I should think not,--and I determined at every hazard to proceed. I accordingly retraced my steps a day's journey, when I found the attractive powers of the Pole of less force; and then erecting a lofty pyramid of snow, I placed my compa.s.s on the summit, and carefully covered it. On the top of all I fastened a red pocket-handkerchief, secured to a walking-stick, in order to make the object still more conspicuous. Having performed this work, I lay down in a snow hut to rest, and the next morning again set forward towards the Pole."

The boatswain stopped to clear his throat.

"That is very interesting, Mr Johnson," said Grey. "Do go on."

"I'll indulge you, young gentlemen--I'll indulge you; and as I look upon what I am going to tell you as the most interesting part of my adventures, no one must interrupt me. The king on his throne mustn't and sha'n't--till I have finished my authentic and veracious narrative."

"Mr Johnson! Mr Johnson! the captain wants you--sharp!" shouted Toby Bluff, running along the deck. Mr Johnson gave a grunt, and, springing from his seat, disappeared up the hatchway.

CHAPTER SIX.

I had a good const.i.tution which had not been impaired by any excess, and as Mr Perigal and the other oldsters of the mess kept strictly to the law by which they had awarded to themselves two-thirds of the youngsters' grog, my blood was not inflamed by having imbibed spirituous liquors. I therefore, under Macquoid's judicious care, very rapidly recovered from the effects of my wound. In a few days I could have got up and run about, but as poor Grey, who was much more hurt than I had been, was too weak to leave his hammock, I promised to remain in mine to keep him company. When Macquoid came to me, therefore, one day and told me that I might dress and go on deck, I replied in a very faint voice, that I had not strength to move, and groaned a great deal when he moved me to dress my wound.

"Some internal injury, I fear," he observed, "I must see to it."

He then turned to Spellman, to dress his cheeks. He groaned exactly in the way I had done, and spoke in the same faint tone, declaring his inability to rise.

"Ah, poor fellow, some internal injury, I fear; I must see to it,"

remarked the a.s.sistant-surgeon in the same tone, as he left us.

Miss Susan, thinking that he had quitted the sick bay, sat up in his hammock, and made a well-known and expressive signal to me with his thumb to his nose, which Macquoid, who happened at that moment to turn his head, could not have failed to observe.

"Miss Susan, you donkey, you have spoilt all. We are found out," I exclaimed. "Macquoid saw your sign to me."

Spellman declared that did not signify; that he would explain how it happened to Macquoid, and a.s.sure him that the gesture was one which he frequently made when suffering from a paroxysm of pain.

I told him that he had better say nothing of the sort, and that he would only make matters worse, but he persisted that he knew better than I did, and told me to hold my tongue. Of course it was very wrong to sham to be worse than I was, but I persuaded myself that it was not like actual malingering, as I had a foundation for my a.s.sertion, and really did not feel as if I could walk. Still I may as well say here, that though I have ever been through life merry by nature, as well as by name, and have loved joking as much as any man, I have learned to hate and detest falsehood. It is un-Christian like in the first place, and thoroughly low and ungentlemanly in the second. I say this, lest in consequence of my having introduced the wonderful adventures of my shipmate, Mr Johnson, it may be considered that I think lightly of the importance of speaking the truth. To do Jonathan justice he took ample care that his yarns should never for a moment deceive the most simple-minded or credulous of his hearers. At that time, however, I did not see things as clearly as I did when I grew older, and I was vexed at having tried to deceive Macquoid, more from the fear of being found out than from any refined sense of shame. He, however, when he came again in the evening, treated us exactly as if we were still very weak, and when Spellman persisted in talking of the odd position into which his hands twisted themselves when he was in pain, he seemed to take it all in, and agreed with him, that such was a very natural and common occurrence. I had my doubts, however, of Macquoid's sincerity, and having had some experience of his mode of treatment on a former occasion, resolved to be very much better the next visit he paid us. I said nothing to Spellman, whose spirits rose immediately.

"I told you so," he exclaimed, when Macquoid was gone. "I told you I should humbug Johnny Sawbones."

"Now if we could but get the boatswain to come to us, and to go on with his yarns, we should be all right and jolly," observed Grey.

I agreed with him, and soon afterwards Toby Bluff coming to see me, which the faithful fellow did as often as he could during the day, I sent him to invite Mr Johnson to pay us a visit, as he would have more leisure then than at any other time of the day. Nothing loth, the boatswain soon made his appearance.

"And so, young gentlemen, you want to hear more of my wonderful, not to say veracious, narratives," he observed, while a pleasant smile irradiated his features. "Well, I hold that the use of a man's legs is to move about the world, the use of his eyes is to see all that is to be seen, as he does move about, and the use of his tongue to describe all that he has seen, and so I'll use mine to good purpose, and indulge you, but, as I've said before, I say again, I will have no one doubt my word.

If there's any cavilling, I'll shut up as close as an oyster when he's had his dinner, and, having made this preliminary observation, here goes. Let me recollect, where had I got to?" Mr Johnson said this while taking his usual seat on a bucket, between our hammocks, his huge legs stretched out along the deck, and his big head sticking up, so that his eagle eyes could glance round above them.

"I remember,--I was taking a walk to the North Pole. I did not think that I could be many days' journey from it. But that did not matter.

The air was so bracing that I could take any amount of exercise without fatigue, and was therefore able to walk all day, sitting down merely for convenience sake when I was enjoying my dinner off the preserved bear.

I of course could not cut the flesh with my knife, as it was frozen as hard as a rock. I was therefore obliged to chop it into mouthfuls with my hatchet, and even when between my teeth it was some time before it would thaw, but then you see, as I had n.o.body to talk to, I had plenty of time for mastication, and it was undoubtedly partly to this circ.u.mstance that I kept my health all the time. There is nothing so bad as bolting one's food, except going without it. By the way, I have had to do that more than once for several weeks together. Once for a whole month I had nothing to eat but some round-shot and bullet moulds, and an old jacka.s.s, which was washed up on the beach, after being well pickled by the salt water, but that has nothing to do with my present story. I wish that I had kept a diary of my proceedings during my northern ramble. It would have proved highly interesting to Sir Joseph Banks, and other scientific people, but, as it happens, I have my memory alone to which I can trust, though that, however, never deceives me.

Well, after leaving my flagstaff I travelled on, neither turning to the right hand nor to the left, and it is wonderful what a straight course I kept, considering the difficulty there is in finding one's way over a trackless plain without a compa.s.s. If I had had too much grog aboard, I could not have done it, and it's a strong argument in favour of keeping sober on all occasions, but more especially when any work is to be done.

I slept at night, as before, in a hole in the snow, but never suffered from cold; this was partly on account of the quant.i.ty of bear's grease I swallowed, which served to keep the lamp of life alive, and also because every mile I advanced I found the atmosphere growing warmer, and the Northern Lights brighter and brighter. There could be no doubt about it; those lights were the cause of the unexpected warmth I encountered; so warm, indeed, did the air become, that I am certain many a man would have turned back for fear of being roasted alive, but I was not to be daunted. Onward I went till I got within less than a mile of one of the biggest fires I ever saw. The effect was grand and beautiful in the extreme. You might suppose yourself looking at a city fifty times as large as London, and every house in it as big as Saint Paul's, and every part of it blazing away at the same time, and even then you would have no conception of the magnificence of the scene which met my view, as I beheld the source of those far-famed Northern Lights, the Aurora Borealis, as the learned people call them.

"The flames, you must know, were not of that bright hot colour which issue from a furnace, but were of a delicate pale red, flickering and playing about in the most curious way imaginable, sometimes blazing up to the height of a mile or so, and then sinking down to a few hundred feet. The heat at the distance I was then from it was rather pleasant than oppressive; it had not even melted the snow on the ground, but of course that was so hard frozen, that it would have required a very warm fire to have made any impression on it. Well, as I advanced I began to lick my chops at the thoughts of the hot dinner I intended to enjoy-- for, after all, however philosophical a man may be, his appet.i.te, if he is hungry, must be satisfied before he is fit for anything--when I beheld a number of moving objects, scarcely distinguishable from the snow, encircling the fire. I could not make out at first what they were, but on approaching still nearer, I discovered the truth, though I could scarcely believe my eyes, for there, sitting up on their hams, were countless thousands of polar bears, warming their paws before the aurora borealis. It is a fact as true as anything I have been telling you, and at once fully accounted to my mind for the disappearance of bears from the arctic regions during the winter months, and fully refutes the popular idea, that they sit moping by themselves in caverns, employing their time in sucking their paws.

"Not liking the idea of losing my hot dinner, not to speak of the disappointment of not being able to say that I had been chock up to the North Pole, I determined to venture among them."

"It wouldn't give you much concern to say you had been there, at all events, even if you hadn't," growled out a voice from one of the hammocks.

"Sir!" exclaimed the boatswain very sternly, "I would have you to know that I scorn to exaggerate the truth, or to make an a.s.sertion which is not in strict accordance with the facts. If you doubt my words, stop your ears or go to sleep, or I'll shut up altogether."

"Oh no, no, do go on, Mr Johnson," exclaimed several voices at the same moment. "We don't doubt a word you're saying."

"Well, that's right and proper," said the boatswain, much appeased. "If I do draw on my imagination at any time, it is because it is the only bank I know of which would not dishonour my drafts, as many a gentleman who lives by his wits would have to confess, if he spoke the truth.

Well, I resolved to venture on, and soon got up near enough to see that the bears were sitting as close as they could pack, in a large circle round the real, veritable North Pole, and that those who were moving were merely stragglers, who could not find room to squat down with the rest. I was standing contemplating the strange scene, when an immensely big fellow, catching sight of me, came waddling up on his hind legs, and growling terrifically with anger. 'This is inhospitable conduct, Mr Bruin, let me observe,' I shouted out, but he did not attend to me. I had my gun loaded in my hands, so, when he came within ten yards of me, I fired, and hit him on the eye. Over he rolled as dead as mutton, so it appeared, and I had just time to cut a steak out of his rump for dinner, when another rushed towards me. I loaded calmly, fired, and knocked him over, but this was a signal for fifty others to make a charge at me. I felt that, ready for a fight as I was, I could not hope to contend against such overwhelming numbers, so I did what any person, however brave, situated as I was would have done--I took to my heels and ran as hard as I could go. I never ran so fast in my life before, and good reason I had to put my best leg forward, for, in the course of a minute, there were a thousand bears at my heels, every one of them licking their jaws with the thoughts of dining off me. I must own that I did not like it. On I ran straight for my signal staff, never once looking behind me, for I could hear the bears growling as they followed full tilt; and so clearly are sounds conveyed over those vast expanses of snow, that they seemed close at my heels.

"By the time I had run for fully ten hours without stopping, I began to get rather out of breath, and almost to fear that I should not hold out much longer, when to my great satisfaction the growling grew less and less distinct, as the bears, dead beat, dropped off one after the other, till at last, turning my head, I found that I was alone. I cannot express how comfortable this made me feel, so I sat down for half an hour to recover my breath, and to eat my dinner, which was a cold instead of the hot one I expected to enjoy.

"When I got up again, what was my surprise to see my flagstaff in the distance, not two miles ahead, and it was only then I discovered how very fast I must have run, for I had come back in a few hours a distance which it had before taken me a week to perform. I have heard of fear giving wings to the feet, but though I won't allow that I was afraid, I must have flown along at a good pace. Well, I got up to my flagstaff, and found my compa.s.s all right, though as soon as it was clear of the snow it had a slight inclination to move northward; and so, to avoid risk, I stowed it away carefully in my pocket. The handkerchief was frozen as stiff as a board, and I had some difficulty in folding it up for other purposes. I was glad also to get back my walking-stick, which helped me wonderfully over the ground. Again I sat down. It was only now the real difficulties of my position burst on me, but difficulties never have and never shall daunt me. After a little consideration I determined to discover the spot where I had commenced making the circuit round the Pole. For several days I was unsuccessful; till at last I beheld a dark object on the snow. I ran towards it, and it proved to be, as I expected, the body of one of my shipmates, the last who had given in--a Shetlander--Murdoc Dew by name, as good a seaman as ever lived. I exchanged boots with him as mine were worn out with so much walking, and then, pushing on, I came upon the bodies of my other companions and the bears we had killed, by which I knew that I was steering a right course for the spot where I had left the ship. I calculated that had I gone south when I first thought of doing so, I should have got on sh.o.r.e somewhere to the eastward of Nova Zembla, and have had to travel right through Siberia and the whole of Europe before I could have got back to old England, which, considering that I had not a purse with me, nor a sixpence to put into it, would not have been pleasant.

"On I went till I got into the lat.i.tudes where icebergs are collected.

They are, as is known, vast mountains of ice and snow, so that when I once got among them it was impossible to see any way ahead, and as the summer was coming on and their bases melted, they began to tumble about in so awful a way, that I fully expected to be crushed by them. My food, too, was almost expended, and Murdoc Dew's boots gave symptoms of over use, so that at last I began to think that there might be a pleasanter situation than the one I was placed in, when one day, having climbed to the summit of the highest iceberg in the neighbourhood, I beheld a light blue smoke ascending in the distance. Taking the exact bearings of the spot, I slid down an almost perpendicular precipice, of three hundred feet at least, at an awful rate, and then ran on as fast as my legs would carry me, for after a solitude of eight months I longed to see my fellow-creatures, and hear again the human voice. On I went, but still to my disappointment no ship appeared in sight, till at last I saw in front of me a low round hut, evidently the habitation of Esquimaux--a people whose habits, manners, and appearance I was never much given to admire. I should observe that what with my bear-skin cloak and my long beard and hair, (I say it without any unbecoming humility) I did, probably, look rather an outlandish character.

"As I understood something of the Esquimaux lingo--indeed, there are few tongues I don't know something about--I shouted loudly to attract their attention. On this, two men, dressed in skins, came out of the hut, and answered me in so extraordinary a dialect, that even I did not comprehend what they said. I then hailed them in Russian, but their answers were perfectly unintelligible. I next tried French, but they shook their heads, as was, I thought, but natural for Esquimaux who were not likely to have been sent to Paris for their education. I then spoke a little Spanish to them, but I was equally at a loss to understand their answers. Portuguese was as great a failure; even several of the languages of the North American Indians did not a.s.sist us in communicating our ideas to each other. I tried Hindostanee, Arabic, and Chinese, with as little effect. This was, indeed, provoking to a man who had not exchanged a word with a fellow-creature for so many months, till at last, losing temper, I exclaimed in English more to myself than to them:--

"'Well, I wonder what language you do speak then?'

"'English, to be sure,' answered both the men in a breath, 'and never spoke any other in our lives.'

"'Are you, indeed, my countrymen?' I cried, rushing forward and throwing myself into their arms, for by the tone of their voices I discovered that not only were they Englishmen, but my own former shipmates.

"They, of course, thinking that I had long been dead, had not recognised me; indeed I had some difficulty, as it was, in convincing them of my ident.i.ty, and of the truth of the account I gave of my adventures since I left the ship. I was certainly an odd object, with a beard of so prodigious a length, that it not only reached the ground, but I had to tie it up as carters do their horses' tails, to keep it out of the snow.

My hair and eyebrows had increased in the same proportion, so that I was more like a wild beast than a man. This extraordinary exuberance I attribute entirely to my having lived so completely on bear's flesh.

When cut off it served to stuff a large sized pillow, which I afterwards gave to the President of the United States, who sleeps every night on it to this day.

"My old shipmates told me that they were the only survivors of the crew--that our ship had been nipped by two floes of ice with such violence that she was sent flying into the air full sixty feet, and that, when she came down again on the ice, she split into a thousand pieces, which went skating over the smooth surface for miles, and that, of course, the bones of every one on board were broken, but that they, having been sent ahead in a boat at the time, escaped.

"Now I do not wish to throw any discredit on my friends' narrative, but remember that I will not and cannot vouch for the accuracy of any man's statements except of my own.

"My friends, having got over their first surprise, invited me to enter their hut, where I must say I enjoyed a comfortable fire and a warm chop--though I burnt my mouth when eating the hot meat, accustomed as I had so long been to iced food. We washed down the flesh with some excellent rum, a few casks-full of which my shipmates had discovered near the scene of the catastrophe, in frozen forms, like jellies turned out of a tin, for the wood had been completely torn off when the ship went to pieces. When our repast was concluded we whiled away the time by narrating our adventures, and though you may have observed that I am not much given in general to talking, I confess I did feel a pleasure in letting my tongue run on. It moved rather stiffly at first for want of practice; but the hot food and spirits soon relaxed the muscles, and then it did move certainly. My only fear was that I should never get it to stop again. We talked on for twelve hours without ceasing, and, after a little sleep, went on again the whole of the next day."

A loud guffaw from the occupant of a distant hammock made the boatswain stop short, and look round with an indignant glance.

"I should like to know, Mr Haugh! Haugh! Haugh! whether you are laughing at me, or at my veracious narrative? If at me, I have to remark that it is over well-bred, whoever you are, officer or man; if at my history, let me observe, all you have to do is to match it before you venture to turn it into fun. It may have been equalled. I don't wish to rob any man of his laurels; but it has not been surpa.s.sed, and so Mr Haugh! Haugh! I've shut you up, and intend to shut up myself, too, for it's time for me to go on deck and see what's become of the ship, and that no one has walked away with her."

Saying this, the boatswain rose from his tub, and with his huge head and shoulders bent down as he pa.s.sed under the beams, he took his departure from among the hammocks. He had not been gone long before Toby Bluff made his appearance; and as he came up to me I fancied, from his countenance, that there must be something wrong with him.

"What is the matter, Bluff?" I asked.

"Why, sir, I thought Mr Johnson was here," said he, without giving an answer to my question.

"But what if he is not?" said I.