Peter the Whaler Part 16

I can scarcely picture the horrors of that night. I would fain, indeed, forget them, but that is impossible. We had preserved our lives for the present moment; but what could we expect beyond, but starvation in its worst form? We had also read and heard enough of icebergs to know that, as they are driven to the southern lat.i.tudes, their bases, immersed in water much above the freezing-point, rapidly melt, and huge fragments being dislodged, they are suddenly reversed, creating a tumult as if a huge mountain were plunged into the ocean.

"If we have to stay here long, we shall be frozen to death," said poor Stokes, his teeth chattering with cold and fear. He was the only one of us who had got wet. "Trust in Providence, lad," said Andrew solemnly.

"He has wonderfully preserved us thus far. He will not desert us, unless it be His good pleasure that we should die; and then we must: meet our fate like reasoning men, thanking Him for His especial mercy that He has given us time to repent of our sins, and has not hurried us, as He has our shipmates, into eternity without a moment's warning."

"Should I never have another opportunity, I thank you now, Andrew, for making me think of such things in the way you have done," exclaimed Terence, from the fulness of his heart. "Had it not been for you, shipmate, I should not have seen the finger of G.o.d in the various ways in which He has been pleased to preserve me, and I should have died the ungrateful, unthinking wretch I had hitherto lived."

"I have been but an humble instrument in His hand, Terence," answered Andrew, in his usual calm, humble tone. "You see, I should be very wrong, and very wicked indeed, if, knowing what is right, I did not take every opportunity, when there was no fear of discrediting religion, to teach my shipmates."

"You spoke to me at a proper time, Andrew; and your words had, I hope, a right effect," I observed.

"And to me also," said Tom; "and I thank you."

"Well, shipmates, bad as we are off, and worse as we may be, I don't feel unhappy when I hear you say those words; that I can tell you,"

exclaimed Andrew. "It's a joyful thing for a man, when he has seen the sun rise for the last time, to feel that there is a chance of some few things being scored in his favour in the world to which he's bound. But mind you, I don't say it's what I would pride myself on, for I know that the most one can do may count as nothing; but still it's pleasant, and nothing can make it otherwise."

Strange as it may seem, thus we talked on. Indeed, what other subject could we talk on but religion? for every moment we felt that we might be in the presence of our Maker. As Andrew warned us, the shock the iceberg had received by the ship striking against it might have detached what are called calves, great lumps from the bottom, and, should the gale increase, it might capsize in an instant.

We had many hours to wait for daylight. We were so well clothed, from its having been our watch on deck, that we did not feel the cold particularly; but poor Tom continued to suffer. Fortunately Andrew discovered in his pocket his pipe with some tobacco, and a flint and steel. He lighted the pipe, and let Tom have a smoke, which revived and warmed him, and we then all took a few whiffs round. This little luxury seemed to do us much good. We sheltered Tom as much as we could from the wind with our bodies; and we wrung out his wet jacket, and chafed his hands and feet till the circulation was restored. The night, however, seemed interminable. To favour us still further, the wind fell, and shifted further to the south, which made it much warmer. The sea also went down, for it did not seem to lash with such fury as before our floating resting-place.

"What chance have we of escaping?" I asked of Andrew, after a lengthened silence.

"There may be some of the wreck cast up on the berg, and with it we may make a raft, and reach the coast of Newfoundland or Labrador; or the berg itself may be driven ash.o.r.e, but that I do not think at all likely; or we may be seen by some ship and taken off. I know of no other possible chance of escape."

"Then I trust we may be seen by some ship," I e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "There must be many whalers in these parts."

"They keep farther to the eastward, generally," replied Andrew. "They are also not fond of icebergs, and try to avoid them."

I own that, seeing him so calm and collected, I fancied he must have some hopes of deliverance, by means of which we were ignorant; so I asked him whether he thought we should find any food to support us.

"I have often heard of people finding means of subsistence when in as bad a condition as we are," he replied. "Providence has decreed that man should require food to support life; and therefore the air and the sea, as well as the earth, afford him food. Even in the cold regions of the north there is an abundance; and the very food which we could scarcely manage to digest in the south is there wholesome and palatable.

In the plains of Asia, for instance, where the earth affords the greatest produce, the people care to eat little besides fruit and corn; while in the land of the Esquimaux, where neither fruit nor corn can grow, they thrive on whale's blubber, the flesh of bears and wild-fowl."

"Perhaps we may catch some wild-fowl in the morning," I observed.

"Perhaps we may; but I think we should hear them if there were any perched about the berg, and I have been listening for some time for them without hearing a sound."

By this remark of Andrew's I knew that he had been considering how we should support life, though he was prepared for the worst; and also, probably, how we had best act under all the circ.u.mstances which might occur. I might have sailed with Andrew for a long time, in calm weather, without discovering the real heroic qualities which, under his rough exterior, he possessed.

Morning at last dawned; and what a change from the previous day! Then, all had been storm and gloom; now, all around was calm, beautiful, and bright. Before the sun rose, the whole eastern sky was glowing with an orange tinge; while every fleecy cloud around was tinted with gold and red, orange, or pink, and every conceivable intermediate hue; while the clear portions of the sky itself were of the purest and most ethereal blue--the whole sea glowing with the same varied and beautiful colours.

But still more beautiful and wonderful seemed the vast mountain of ice on which we floated, as in every fantastic form it appeared, towering above us. The pinnacles and turrets of the summit were tinted with the glowing hues of the east; while, lower down, the columns and arches which supported them seemed formed of the purest alabaster of almost a cerulean tint; and a round us, on either side, appeared vast caverns and grottoes, carved, one might almost suppose, by the hands of fairies, for their summer abode, out of Parian marble, their entrances fringed with dropping icicles, glittering brilliantly.

It is not to be wondered at, if we did not admire the enchanting spectacle as much as it deserved, for we could not forget that we were floating on an iceberg, in the middle of the North Sea; but still the scene made an impression on my mind which I shall not forget. We had struck on the lowest and least precipitous side of the iceberg, there being a wide flat s.p.a.ce some distance above the water, with one ledge rising above the other, for some way up,--so that we had ample room to walk about; nor was the ice so slippery as to cause us much fear of tumbling into the water. I had heard a rippling noise during the night, and could not conceive whence it came; but now, on looking around, I perceived that it was caused by a small cascade, which, from the ice at the top continually melting, came trickling down the side.

"We shall have fresh water, at all events, in abundance," I observed to Andrew, who had awoke from a sleep into which he, with our other companions, had fallen.

"Yes, Peter; and from what I see not far off, if I mistake not, we shall have food also," he added, pointing to a dark object which lay on a ledge below us, a little way to the left.

"If looks like an animal of some sort," I exclaimed. "But I am afraid it will be off before we can catch it. Shall we run down and secure it?"

"I have no fear on that score," he replied; "it is a seal, and from the way it is lying, it is, I suspect, dead. Indeed, a live animal would not have got on the ice so early in the morning. They are now feeding, and love to come out of the water to bask at noon in the sun. We will wake up Terence and Tom, and get them to help to drag it up out of the reach of the sea. It will probably not be very palatable, though it will doubtless serve to keep us alive. But before we commence the work of the day, let us return thanks to Heaven for having preserved us through the great perils of the past night."

We roused up our companions; and I believe did most sincerely offer up our thanksgiving for the mercy which had been shown us in saving us out of so many from destruction. We then, with care to avoid falling into the sea, descended to where the body of the seal had been thrown. The animal was dead, but it was quite fresh, and had probably been cast up that very night; at all events, it could not have been there long.

"I doubted not that G.o.d would send us food. This did not happen by chance," said Andrew. We found that we could not drag the entire body of the seal up to the higher ledge, so we cut thin slices out of it, hoping by drying them in the sun to preserve them longer. We first skinned it carefully, as Andrew showed us that by stretching out the skin it would afford us some little shelter at night. Having collected a supply of food to last us for many days, we dragged the remainder of the carcase out of the reach of the waves, and carried the meat to the upper ledge.

"Now, my lads," said Andrew, who took the lead in everything, we willingly obeying him, "it is very right to secure some food for ourselves in the first place; but as we shall none of us have a fancy for spending the rest of our days here, we'll look out to see if there's a ship in the offing, and if so, to make some signal to attract her notice."

We all agreed; and before attempting to eat some of the seal, for which, indeed, we had little fancy, we set to work to climb to one of the highest pinnacles of the berg. We found it impossible to reach the highest, but we got some way up; and not a sail was to be seen as far as the eye could reach on the part of the horizon visible to us. Our climb had shown us, however, a considerable portion of the lower part of the berg, and we observed several things lying about, evidently cast there by the waves. We immediately descended to secure them.

There was a hen-coop with some chickens in it, and though they were drowned, they were very acceptable; there were two boarding-pikes, a boat-sail, and several spars and bits of rope, which had been lying in the boats or on the booms. These were all treasures, and, collecting them, we carried them up to our ledge. There were also fragments of wood and chips washed from the cook's galley, and bits of quarter-boat which had gone to pieces with the first sea. These latter we dried in the sun, and afterwards kindled with them a small fire, over which we cooked two of our fowls, and dried the seal's flesh for future use. We without difficulty ate the fowls, but had not yet got up an appet.i.te for seal-flesh.

"We might be worse off, there's no doubt about it," observed Terence; "and it strikes me, Andrew, that what with the hen-coop and the spars, we might build a sort of a raft which would keep us afloat a short time, should the berg take to making a somerset?"

"I was thinking of the same thing," was Andrew's reply. "They will form but a small raft; but if the berg drives anywhere near sh.o.r.e, it will, at least, enable us to reach it. The sooner we set about making it the better. It will keep us off the cold ice in the meantime, and by rigging the boat's sails on the pikes, we shall be sheltered from the wind; and, my lads, let me tell you, we might be much worse off, so let us be thankful."

This conversation took place while we were making our breakfast.

Instead of tea, we knocked off, with the boarding-pikes, lumps of ice, which we ate, and found perfectly fresh. This, Andrew explained, arose either from the iceberg having been formed of the acc.u.mulation of the snow of many winters on the coast of Greenland, and thus having been always fresh; or if formed out of salt water, from the ice, when freezing, having ejected the saline particles. He told us that water, when freezing, has the property of purifying itself, and of squeezing out, as it were, all extraneous or coa.r.s.e matter.

Our not over-luxurious repast being finished, Andrew proposed our attempting again to ascend the berg to plant a signal-post and flag to attract the notice of any pa.s.sing ship. Terence was for spreading out the boat's sail; but Andrew reminded him that on the white iceberg that would not be readily seen, and advised our fastening our coloured handkerchiefs together instead.

"We must first, however, get to the top of the berg," said Terence; "and, to my mind, these boarding-pikes will serve us a good turn."

No sooner thought of than tried. With the boarding-pikes we chopped steps out of the side, where it was too precipitous to surmount without such aid; and by fixing the pikes below us, we shoved ourselves up with them. In this manner, after considerable labour, we reached a high pinnacle of the berg. It was not broad enough for us to stand on without fear of falling off, so we sat astride on it while we chopped a hole deep enough to fix one of the spars in, which we had hauled up for the purpose. At the top we secured four red cotton handkerchiefs, which, as they blew out, might be seen at a considerable distance. We beat the ice tightly round the heel of the spar, and it appeared to stand firmly and well.

"Now, on whatever side of the berg a ship approaches, it will be seen that some human beings are on it," observed Andrew, as we prepared to descend, having first carefully surveyed the horizon on every side.

At this juncture we had a loss, which caused us great dismay, and, we thought, would prove a very serious inconvenience. After lighting the fire, Andrew had put the flint and steel into his jacket pocket, along with his handkerchief, on drawing out which they were jerked out also, and before we could catch them, they had fallen over the steep side of the berg. Away they bounded, from ledge to ledge, till they fell into the sea. Had they lodged in any crevice, one of us might probably have attempted to recover them, and should very likely have fallen into the sea in so doing; so, as Andrew observed, all was for the best. It was fortunate, we observed, that we had dried some of our seal's flesh, or we should have had to eat it quite raw.

We now descended, and commenced at once to form our raft. We had few materials, and our only tools were the knives and the heads of the boarding-pikes. We first made a framework of the spars; and then, knocking the hen-coop to pieces, we nailed the planks on to the top, securing the whole fabric more firmly with ropes. When completed, as we looked at it, we agreed that it was a very small ark to support four people on the stormy ocean.

"I don't think it will have to float me, shipmates," said poor Tom, who had not recovered his hurt. "I feel as if I could not weather out another night like the last."

"On you'll do well enough, lad," answered Andrew, in a kind voice.

"Your clothes will be dry, you'll have a dry plank to lie on, and a roof over your head. You'll do yet, trust to me." These encouraging words had an immediate effect on Tom's spirits, and we heard no more of his complaints.

We had observed, as we sat on the top of the berg, several articles floating round the base, and some lodged in crevices which we had not before discovered. Our raft being completed as far as our materials would go, I volunteered to try and get hold of some of the things. To do this with safety, I begged my shipmates to hold one end of a line, which we had formed out of the various pieces collected, while the other I secured round my body. By keeping the line always tight, I was able to lean over the edge and pick up several things in the water. The first was a bucket, in sound condition. This was valuable, as it would contain fresh water, and prevent the necessity of our chewing the cold ice, which chilled us extremely. Then I found some more spars, and the fragments of one of the boats, which must have been stove in and got adrift before the ship went down. These enabled us to increase our raft to a size which afforded us hope that it might support us in our necessity.

When I was tired, Terence followed my example, and also added to our store of valuables. As he was hunting about, almost out of sight, among the rougher parts of the berg, we heard him sing out, "A prize! a prize!" and, standing up, he held aloft an iron pot with the cover on.

The cover had been jammed tightly down, so that it had floated like a buoy.

"There is something in it, though," he observed, shaking it; and, on getting off the cover, we discovered a piece of beef ready for cooking.

It had evidently floated out of the cook's galley.

"I quite forgot, though, that we had no means of lighting a fire; so, after all, it won't be of any use," sighed Terence, after we had all four collected again on our raft.

"Don't be so sure of that," said Andrew. "I have seen a fire kindled by means which few people would think of, but I am not quite certain that I can manage it; however, I'll try. It's worth the experiment; for if we can light a fire, we may make some soup, which will do us all good."

Saying this, he climbed some way up the berg, where he knocked off a pure piece of ice from one of its sparkling pinnacles. We all sat round, wondering what he was going to do. With the boarding-pike he carefully chopped the lump, till he had made it into a thick circular cake; then he pared away the edges, and afterwards commenced operations with his knife, sc.r.a.ping away, till he had formed both sides into a perfect convex shape. Lastly, he took it between his mittens, and rubbed it round and round till he turned it out with a fine polish.