Steve Young Part 37

"You might almost fancy, if you saw one of them looking over a rock at you at a little distance, that it was some kind of savage."

"Yes, but it would have to keep its body out of sight."

"She has never seen the walrus, then?" said Andrew.

"Only a stuffed specimen."

"Nay, she tidn't say a stuff spessaman; she said ta walrus, sir."

"No, I never saw a live walrus," said the doctor, smiling.

"Then she'll just wait a wee till she sees a big bull walrus lift her het oot o' ta watter and look, and she'll say tat she's seen a chiant having a swim."

The captain came on deck about an hour after with the haggard, drawn look gone out of his face, and he mounted the bridge at once to the mate, who handed him the gla.s.s, and Steve saw him take a long look to the north-east before closing the telescope. Directly after Mr Lowe descended and fetched the instruments to take their observations, with the result that soon after the mate went below for a rest, leaving the captain to direct the movements of the vessel.

There was so much open water around them now, and so direct a channel toward the land, while all the rest of the s.p.a.ce about them was hemmed in with ice drifting northward, that to go to the north coast was the least perilous course.

"I should like to get an observation from the crow's-nest," said the captain, looking upward, "but everything is so coated with ice and slippery that I hardly like to send a man aloft."

"I'll go!" cried Steve eagerly.

The captain shook his head.

"Too dangerous, my lad," he said.

"But you did not tell us where you made out we had been driven," said the doctor, as Steve stood looking up at the ratlines thick with ice, and the gla.s.sy look of shroud and stay, while great icicles hung from the tops and yards.

"I beg your pardon," said the captain. "I was thinking of the land yonder. I make out that we have been driven right up to 82 degrees north lat.i.tude and about 45 east longitude."

"But what does that mean?" said Steve, laughing.

"Not very far from being as near to the North Pole as any one has reached in this direction," said the captain, "and that we are close to land that in all probability man has never set foot upon yet."

"Hooray!" cried Steve excitedly.

"We have come north at an exceptional time. Generally the icy barrier stops all progress. This year that storm has broken it up in ma.s.ses, and it is quite possible that we may be able to penetrate farther yet."

"To the North Pole?" cried Steve.

"No," said the captain, smiling. "My dear boy, you have North Pole on the brain. Would you be ready to go with me if I said that I would try and penetrate the ice as far as I could?"

"Of course," cried Steve. "But you have no confidence in me, sir."

"What do you mean?"

"You will not let me go up even to the crow's-nest to use the gla.s.s."

"Yes, I will, my lad," replied the captain. "Take the gla.s.s and go up.

But warily, mind. No excitement. You will be quite cool?"

"Yes," cried Steve, s.n.a.t.c.hing at the gla.s.s and starting for the main-mast shrouds.

"Stop!" cried the captain. "Come here."

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.

AMONG THE NATIVES.

Steve walked back to the captain looking puzzled, and feeling damped by this sudden change, while his eyes gazed questioningly in his leader's.

"What did I say to you?" cried Captain Marsham.

"I was to go up to the crow's-nest and make observations," replied the boy.

"Coolly, warily, and without excitement, because you were going to make a dangerous ascent, over what is ten times as slippery as gla.s.s."

"Yes," said Steve; "and I was going."

"Going!" cried the captain angrily. "Yes, just as if you were about to run up somebody's carefully sanded steps to the front door."

"But I should have been as careful as could be as soon as I started, sir."

"It looked like it. What do you say, doctor?"

"That he seemed to me as if he would have given me a job to mend some of his bones before he was half-way to the main-top."

"Oh, Mr Hands...o...b..!" cried Steve reproachfully.

"It's a fact, sir," said the captain sternly. "I dare not let you go about so serious a task in that jaunty way. There, give me the gla.s.s."

Steve slowly handed the gla.s.s, in so despondent a fashion that the captain spoke more quietly.

"I can't help it, my lad. I regret checking you; but you see the state of the rigging, and that a slip might be fatal. I dare not let you go."

Steve said nothing, but glanced up at the crow's-nest, which glistened like silver in the sunshine; and he noted again how the rope ladders were all coated with ice, and he found it hard to imagine that he had been jaunty and careless; he told himself he had only been eager to do what was required, and hence it seemed to be doubly hard.

"I did mean to be very careful, sir," he said at last.

"I know it, my lad," replied the captain quietly; "but I was wrong to think of it, and your quick, eager way showed me the risk, and made me wiser."

"But I don't think it is so dangerous, sir," cried Steve. "Let me try."

"I do think it dangerous," said the captain. "There, you shall hear another opinion. Johannes!"

The Norseman answered the hail, and came quickly aft, after laying down his pole.