The Ice Pilot Part 10

The seamen and boat steerers swarmed over the whaler's rail and stretched themselves by a swift run upon the ice. They caught a hose thrown to them and carried its end to a pool of fresh water which had been formed by melting snow.

The pump clanked, the deck tanks were filled, and the first engineer, a.s.sisted by the engine-room force, started work on a boiler which had three leaking tubes in the tube sheet. The smallest of their number crawled through the manhole and started clipping the scale, his tapping sounding throughout the ship.

Stirling descended from the crow's-nest, after a last glance toward the northeast. There floe ice, packed and cemented together, extended to the cold rim of the horizon, with no sign of lanes. The warm sun of the day and its work was undone each night by the freezing cold.

Cushner met Stirling at the rail, thrust out his broad hand, and smiled proudly.

"Fine ice work!" said the second mate. "I knew you could do it. Marr was watching you all the time!"

"Does he know anything about ice?"

"Thundering little! He's a Baffin Bay man, so he says. There's a lot of difference between the Bay and the Bering."

"Considerable! It's a question of currents, here. The pack is farther south than I ever saw it at this time of the year. That means an open season when it breaks. What do you make of the weather?"

The second mate glanced at the telltale on the cap of the mizzenmast.

"Good," he said. "Wind's swinging to th' south'ard."

"That means a thaw, Sam."

"The ice is soft on top. See the water holes?"

Stirling nodded then turned and stared over the broken surface where the crew was moving. "There's hair seals aplenty," he said. "Too bad, Sam, them ain't fur seals. Maybe Marr would be satisfied to stay right here."

Cushner widened his eyes. "Still thinking of a raid?" he inquired, shrewdly.

"That, and other things. Look to the south'ard. Did you ever see better whaling ground? There's slick aplenty. My, how I'd like to lower for a bowhead! They're all along this ice."

"n.o.body's raised any spouts, yet."

"They're there! They can't get north. The barrier holds them. It was just like this when we caught three big bowheads from the _Mary Foster_.

Lowered four boats and fastened to three whales. That was a great day!"

The earnestness in Stirling's strong voice showed Cushner where his heart lay, and he glanced at the low-swinging sun which was going down on a long arc that marked the end of a Northern day.

"Good-night," he said. "Go turn in and forget bowheads. I don't think the old man is thinking about them. He's full of seals. He asked me a thousand questions about them. Darn sealing, says I! Whaling's a man's game! Many an old bowhead has fought back. Many a boat's been smashed by a bull whale-up here or in the South Pacific."

Stirling nodded his head in complete understanding, for he realized the call which was in the big mate's blood. He watched him disappear into the galley-house, then followed, after a glance about the deck. Many of the crew were still out upon the ice.

His cabin seemed strangely small and constricted, and he opened a porthole which overlooked the deck and rail and sea to the south. He examined his few possessions with wistful eyes-a bomb gun, brightly polished, standing in one corner of the cabin, a s.e.xtant and ancient chronometer resting upon a shelf, a Bowditch and well-thumbed almanac which comprised his library. His clothes were but few and worn.

He turned in, after undressing, snapping off his light and rolling over on his right arm. He drowsed with the music of the grinding floes in his ears, then heard a racking shiver which came from the north and east; it was the great North pack breaking along its entire length.

He awoke like a startled child. Cushner's pointed beard was thrust through the open porthole, and the second mate's wide-set eyes were intent and hard.

"Climb out of your bunk!" he said. "Get in your boots and join me on the ice. I'll be right by the hummock where the sh.o.r.e line is."

Stirling hastily dressed and wrapped a great sea coat, with sh.e.l.l b.u.t.tons, about his form. He stepped out on the dark deck with firm stride, glancing intuitively aft as he threw one leg over the port rail, after rounding the deck house.

Nothing showed on the p.o.o.p. A faint light, however, struck upward and brought out the lacery of the after standing rigging. This light vanished suddenly, then a companion hatch slammed.

Stirling dropped to the ice and crawled over its surface till he reached a towering hummock. Behind this Cushner was crouching, and the big mate laid a finger across his whiskered lips.

Stirling knelt upon the snow and listened. He heard the lapping of the waves as they ran up the shelving ice, with now and then a breaker which shot a white plume starward. The broken fragments of the southern floes ground together, and the night was filled with a thousand sounds which blended into a roar.

Then, and suddenly, there rose from the p.o.o.p of the whaler a shaft of yellow light. A voice was raised, and the notes of a song drifted through the open portholes of the after cabin. Marr was singing:

"English there be and Portigee, Who hang on the Brown Bear's flank, And some be Scot, but the worst of the lot- The boldest thieves be Yank!"

Cushner gripped Stirling's arm. "That's ain't all," he said with a deep warning. "Who is standing on the p.o.o.p? Who's that in the shelter of the canvas, aft-right by the jack staff?"

Stirling peered out from behind the hummock, grasped the hawser, and drew himself forward. He pulled down his cap and opened wide his splendid eyes. Cushner was right. There was a figure on the p.o.o.p, and this figure moved and came slowly across the planks to the rail which overlooked the waist of the whaler.

Gla.s.ses clinked in the cabin. Whitehouse joined his c.o.c.kney accents to a song:

"Oh, I'm th' son of a gentleman, For I takes m' whisky clear- I takes m' whisky clear--"

The figure on the p.o.o.p leaned over the rail. Stirling strained his ears; a sob racked the Arctic air, and the figure on the quarter-deck straightened with a convulsive shudder. Whitehouse's voice broke out afresh, and the song was drunken and masterful.

The form above the bold singer turned away from the rail of the ship and glided slowly aft. A yellow light shot upward as a companion was slowly opened, then this light was blotted out degree by degree; the companion hatch clicked shut.

Minutes pa.s.sed. Neither man on the ice moved; both were deep in thought.

The two facts were hard to gather to the brain: Marr and Whitehouse were in the cabin, drinking; another Marr had stood upon the quarter-deck. It was the little captain-line for line. In one thing only did it differ-the racking sob at the drunken levity below was from a woman's throat. It was a protest which she believed fell upon the Northern silences.

Stirling sprang to his feet with an icy glint in his blue eyes.

"We'll fathom that mystery," he told Cushner. "We'll fathom it if it takes to the last day of the voyage!"

CHAPTER XI-BENEATH THE SURFACE

The sun came up on a long slant, to swing its southern arc. Glancing from ice floe to ice floe, it seemed a cold bronze disk placed in motion by some Norseman of the Arctic wilds.

Stirling, haggard and with hot, fevered eyes, sat at the steerage table watching the light striking across a red-checked table cover and bringing out the rude details of the cabin.

He had not slept since seeing that strange figure on the quarter-deck of the whaler. He had sat erect throughout the morning watch, laying facts against facts, which seemed to dull and stupefy his sober senses.

At no time in his life had he believed in the supernatural. He did not share the beliefs, common to most seamen, that the sea held unfathomable mysteries. He had sniffed often at the tales told by old salts. Times without number he had pointed out that natural causes rule the happenings of this world. St. Elmo fire; the creaking of blocks in a calm; the dust on a dustless sea; the tapping that a bolt might make in a hollow spar-these were all phenomena which could be explained by science or good common sense.

The spectre on the p.o.o.p of the _Pole Star_ was as unexplainable as life itself. It bore the shape and form of Marr; it was not Marr, for the captain had been drinking and singing in the cabin. Stirling put trust in the sound of the human voice. It was one thing which could not easily be changed or disguised.

He rose, at six bells, with a slow shrug of his broad shoulders. He stood a moment with his hands gripping the racks, his face deeply lined with the ravages of a sleepless night. He held out his palm and stared at it; his fingers trembled uncontrollably. They always had been steady.

He made his way to the deck and stood by the rail which was nearest the great North pack. The cook, yawning, was making fire in the galley stove. A lone "anchor watch" pacing back and forth at the break of the forecastle head turned and stared at Stirling.

The air was cold with a snap of frost. A gale came from the south and west with a puff that ground the loose floes together. North, to the slaty horizon, stretched the broken surface of the ice field. It had a sound of its own-a grind and a creaking like a soul in agony.