Steve Young Part 3

"Can you, Lowe?" asked the captain of the mate, who had now joined them after a good morning's sleep.

"No, sir. It's all chance work, this sailing to the north. We must search where we can. It's of no use to say we'll go here or there; we must go where the ice will let us."

"Exactly; and take what walrus and seal we can on the way. Have you ever touched at Jan Mayen?"

"No, and never could get near enough to the island for fog and ice."

"But you've heard a good deal about the place?"

"Yes; I've heard that it's a land of high mountains, and that there's a volcano at one end. Let's see, there's a kind of seal there, too, that is very abundant; but the place is rarely touched at, being famous for fogs, currents, and ice--all enemies to navigation."

"Well, we will see if we cannot have better luck, and try to get there in fine weather," said Captain Marsham. "What do you say, doctor?"

"That it will be a treat to land there. Besides, we may find our friends."

The doctor walked forward, and Steve followed, with the idea of landing upon an unexplored coast growing in its fascination; and as the naturalist leaned over the bows to peer down into the clear water, the lad edged up alongside.

"Hullo, Steve! what are you thinking about?" saluted him.

"Volcanoes."

"Warm subject. Well, what about them?"

"I was wondering why it was that these burning mountains are always found up in very cold regions among the ice and snow."

"But are they?"

"Oh yes," said Steve confidently. "There's Hecla in Iceland, and this one Mr Lowe talked about, and Captain Marsham says he saw a tremendous one amongst the ice toward the South Pole."

"Indeed!" said the doctor sarcastically. "That makes three. What about the scores of others dotted about the earth in the hottest countries?

Your theory will not hold water, my lad. But what's that man going aloft for? We can't be anywhere near land."

This remark was occasioned by one of the men climbing the shrouds of the main-mast, making his way to the top, and then, as they watched him, climbing higher to the main topgallant crosstrees, where he stopped for some little time making an examination before descending.

"Gone up to see if the ropes are safe," said Steve at last. But this soon proved to be a very lame conclusion, for the other three Nors.e.m.e.n and a sour-looking Scotchman, with a little brown mark at the corner of one lip, were busy getting something up out of the hold.

The something resolved itself into a big tub about five feet in height, and narrow, while it was made higher by an iron framework or ring rising another six inches above the open top, and held projecting like a rail by means of stout bars attached to a hoop.

It is a bad plan on shipboard to ask questions of officers when they are busy, and Steve had been to sea long enough to learn this. On the other hand, it is a good thing, not only at sea, but through life, to investigate as much as possible for yourself, and correct any errors into which you fall as you learn more. "Bought wit is better than taught wit," the old moralist wrote; and he was quite right, for the things taught us are too often forgotten, while those which we have bought at the cost of a good deal of puzzling and study fix themselves firmly in the mind. So, as soon as the tub was left standing on the deck, and he could conveniently do so, Steve walked up and began to examine it, noting princ.i.p.ally that about half-way down there was a broad ledge half round the inside.

"To brew something, I suppose," said Steve to himself. "They'll lay the yeast, or whatever it is they use, on that ledge. Some kind of drink, I suppose, to keep the men warm when we get up into the ice."

He had another good look round after thrusting his head inside the iron rail, upon which a board was placed to slide, and then noted something else which quite upset his theory.

At that moment the shock-headed boy came up from the hold, with a bundle of what seemed to be stout oaken laths under his arm.

"What have you got there, Watty?"

"Wud--pieces o' wud."

"What for?"

"I dunno."

"Oh, you are a clever one!" cried Steve, turning away impatiently, for the sour-looking sailor with the brown mark at the corner of his lip came up from below, where he had been to fetch a bunch of tar-twine.

"Here, Andrew," said Steve eagerly, "what are they going to make in that tub?"

"Make, Meester Young?" said the man, turning to gaze thoughtfully at the cask. "Observations."

"Now, no gammon. Tell me!"

The man wiped his lips with the back of his hand, and spread his face into a dry kind of grin, just as if something hurt him, and he was smiling to show people that he did not mind.

"Observations," he said again.

Steve gave him an angry look.

"Don't you make stupid observations."

Andrew McByle of Ballachulish, a well-tanned Scottish whaler, "went off": that is to say, he did not leave the spot on the deck where he stood talking to Steve Young, but he went off like a clock or some other piece of machinery; for he suddenly gave a jerk, and made a peculiar noise inside somewhere about the throat, accompanied by some singular contortions of the face.

Steve pressed close up to him, for he had seen the contortions before.

"Look here, Andy," he whispered, "do you want me to kick you?"

"Na, Mr Stevin."

"Then don't you laugh at me when I ask you questions. Every one isn't so precious clever as you are; and look here, Watty Links, if you dare to grin at me I'll punch your head. Now then, Andy, what is it?"

"Dinna ca' me Andy, my laddie, and she'll tell ye. My name's Andra."

"Very well then, Andra. What's the tub for?"

"The craw's-nest."

"Bah!" exclaimed Steve; and he walked forward to where the stout red-faced sailor who had pulled him aboard from the wharf was busy applying grease to the fore-mast.

"What's that cask for, Hamish?"

"Yon, sir? For the crows," said the man, grinning.

"What! do we shoot crows and salt them down in that tub?"

"Oh no, sir. They shoots themselves up through the bottom."

Steve stood staring at the man for a moment, and then turned away impatiently.