Steve Young Part 67

"Ay, she tid: ferry wairm as efer wa.s.s," added Andrew. "Is it her nose?"

"That will do, my men; let me come," said the doctor, kneeling down and hastily drawing off the big fur glove that Watty wore on his right hand, in spite, too, of a good deal of resistance on the lad's part.

"Dinna lat him coot it off, Meester Stevey, sir," he whispered. "Her mither wadna ken her if she went back to Ardnachree gin she had nae airms and legs."

"Humph! dear me!" said the doctor; "bring that lanthorn closer. Very red and inflamed, but that one's not frost-bitten."

He held the hand close to the lanthorn, which was lowered by Andrew, and then knocked sidewise, for the lad sprang up sitting.

"Then she wadna chop it off?"

"No, no; lie still!" cried the doctor testily.

"You had better hold him, my lads," said the captain; and Hamish and Andrew held him down again, bringing forth a fierce growl from Skene, who seemed to feel that if there was a struggle on he ought to be in it.

"Down, Skeny!" said Steve sharply; and the dog uttered an uneasy whine.

"Here, let me see the other hand," cried the doctor.

"Na, that one's the waur!" cried Watty excitedly. "She's nae waur than this or my puir foots."

"No nonsense," said the doctor; and he firmly but gently held the boy's other red and swollen hand to the light of the lanthorn.

"Frost-bitten?" said the captain; but the doctor did not answer save by a grunt.

"Ane's waur than t'ither," whimpered Watty.

"And now about your feet, my lad," cried the doctor.

"Oh, they're nane so bad as my han's, sir; only dings and tangs o'

nichts."

"There, get up, you young impostor!" cried the doctor, rising.

"Frost-bitten?" he added, turning to the captain. "Nothing but a few chilblains. Here, you Steve," he continued, b.u.t.ton-holing the lad, "did you know there was nothing the matter but chilblains?"

"He told me his hands and feet were frost-bitten," said Steve.

"Yes, but you knew better, sir," said the doctor, who had hold of the boy's arm and was marching him toward the cabin stairs.

"Well, I--" began Steve.

"Of course," cried the doctor. "I saw the twinkle in your eye, my lad.

Look here, don't you play tricks with doctors; they get such chances for serving you out."

"I suppose I ought to have spoken," said Steve; "but it seemed so comic to see him so sure that he was frost-bitten, and it's such a long time since we had a laugh that--"

"Let it rest, Hands...o...b..," said Captain Marsham good-humouredly. "Steve says it is a long time since he had a hearty laugh."

"What!" cried the doctor. "Why, I heard him roaring with laughter not above an hour ago."

Steve looked confused.

"Of course," he said, colouring. "I'd forgotten that."

"There, we don't want any apologies, my boy," said the captain. "Keep up your spirits, and other people's if you can. I want every one to have a good store of health and strength before the long night comes."

CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN.

A NOCTURNAL VISITOR.

And that long night which was on everybody's lips, and when silent in everybody's mind, was coming on surely and gradually, but to all on board the _Hvalross_ very fast; for the captain never let the men rest.

After every heavy fall of snow--and these came at shorter intervals--the crew were set to work banking it up against the sides of the ship.

"But it will make it so much colder," Steve protested.

"No, my lad, so much warmer," said the captain. "Do you know what is our greatest enemy here that we shall have to fight?"

"Yes, the bears. They'll smell the meat--Johannes said so; and you're making an extremely easy way up to the deck."

"Well, yes, if they come. But if they do, we must be ready for them.

We can keep them off from our fortress, I daresay. But that was not the enemy I meant."

"Oh, I see; you mean the cold."

"Yes, my boy; but in one form. I mean the wind. I daresay we could stand thirty degrees below zero without wind better than we could stand zero with wind. That is the enemy we have to fight against. The still cold will not affect us like the storms."

And so it pa.s.sed, day after day. The men were out hunting one morning, when it was the coldest by the thermometer they had yet felt; but no one suffered. The men came back with their beards quite ma.s.ses of ice, but the exercise in the still air kept them all aglow; while the very next day they had a walk along the lane they had trampled down in the snow as far as the piled-up ice-floe which had shut them up in the peaceful fiord, and coming back they had to face a piercing north wind which carried with it a fine snow-dust which seemed to cut into the skin.

"The coldest day we have had yet," said the doctor as they stepped on deck; but the captain went at once to the instruments which were placed ready for taking the observations duly entered in a journal, and turned back, shaking his head.

"Twenty degrees warmer than it was yesterday."

"You amaze me," said Mr Hands...o...b... "I never felt it so cold before."

"He meant twenty degrees not quite so cold, sir," said Steve, who was rubbing and beating his half-numbed hands. "It isn't warmer."

The wind dropped at sundown, if it could be called sundown, when that day they had only had some hours of glow over the icy rampart that shut them in. Then in the darkening sky the stars began to peer out one by one, till, as the sky grew perfectly black, the heavens were one blaze of glittering splendour.

"Why, the stars seem double the size that they are at home," said Steve, as he stood out on the snow steps for a little while before retiring to rest. "The sky looks so transparent, too, just as if you were peeping right in amongst them. Look, look!"

He pointed at that which the others saw as soon as he, for a brilliant meteor suddenly flashed into sight, formed an arc in the sky, and disappeared, leaving a thin line of sparks behind it for a moment or two before they died out.

"What was that?" cried Steve.

"A meteor," said the captain. "One of the little bodies which astronomers say burst into light in pa.s.sing through our atmosphere. But come; the fireside is the best place on a night like this."

They retired to the cabin, after carefully tying the points of the canvas down; and, after a walk right forward by the dim light of the lanthorns to see that the men were all comfortable and well, the trio returned to the cabin, where the stove was crackling and roaring, and the hanging lamp, books, papers, and chess-board looked cheery and home-like.