Wild Adventures in Wild Places Part 3

One morning our travellers were awakened by the sound of singing and shouting, and on going on deck they found the brave skipper rubbing his hands with glee, as he gazed up at the ascending nest.

"Cheerily does it!" he was crying. "Heave, lads! heave, heave, and she goes. Now, young gentlemen," he continued, "are your rifles in order?

In two days more, if all goes well, I'll show you such sport as you couldn't even have dreamt of before."

And sure enough, in two days' time they had made "the country," as the ice-fields are termed. If, however, any one on board had expected to find wealth, in the shape of plump seals, lying thereon ready for the gathering, he was much mistaken. There was the ice, to be sure, but never a seal in sight, neither in the water nor out of it, for it seemed that the country was unusually open that year.

"Well," said Anderson, one day, "I'm tired of this north Greenland work; I'll bear away for the west land."

A week's steaming through fields of slushy ice and floating snow, and streams of flat snow-clad bergs, brought them into open water, and they sighted the lofty and desolate sh.o.r.es of Greenland West, and much to their surprise, found a large three-masted Dutchman quietly lying at anchor in a bay, sails all clewed up, and men away on the ice. It was not long ere the _Grampus_ had followed her example, so far as letting go the anchor went, and making all snug and ready for action. A great bear--always a sign seals are about--stood sniffing on the edge of a floe. Perhaps he had never seen a steamship before, or perhaps he was wondering what the crew were having for breakfast. Frank got his Henri-Martini up, and began potting at him with a long-range sight, and presently Master Bruin remembered an appointment he had, and made tracks to keep it.

It was a glorious morning when the boats were called away. All hands were half frantic with joy at the thought they would soon be among the seals. In they trundle, and down go the boats with a splash into the water, and next moment they are off. Frank and Chisholm are in one boat, Fred Freeman in another, and there is a grand race between the two to see who shall first touch the ice and fire the first shot. The boats seemed to fly over the water, and when they at last ran alongside the floe and the crew jumped on sh.o.r.e, there was hardly a yard's length between them; but Fred was declared winner.

And now the day's work was begun. Warily at first, the riflemen had to creep towards their prey on hands and knees, taking advantage of every hummock or boulder to screen themselves from view. On each piece of ice some forty or fifty seals lay, and each "patch" had a sentry set. When they succeeded in killing him, the others were very much at their mercy; but oftentimes the seal on watch would succeed, even before his eyes closed in death, in giving his companions warning. Then, almost ere another bullet could reach them, they had leapt helter-skelter into the water. But when the sun got higher, the seals seemed to get almost too lazy to move; they could then be approached very much more closely, and the work of death was carried on with an earnestness and energy that was terrible to behold. Indeed, a kind of madness to shed blood seemed to take possession of every man on the ice. There was no thought but to slay. The excitement was intense--awful in its intensity. The sun went slowly round and down, and as he set behind the rugged hills, his disc seemed to reflect the blood on the ice. Even his parting beams had borrowed the self-same hue, and the tops of the highest icebergs looked as if dipped in gore.

When the shadows fell, tired and weary enough now, our heroes went slowly back towards the boats.

"Oh! boys," cried Fred, "don't you remember how bright and lovely the snow was in the morning? Behold it now!"

"Ay, behold it now," said Chisholm. "Indeed, Fred, this is murder. I don't feel I can call it by any other name, and I'm half ashamed of myself."

"So am I," said Frank, "for a seal can't defend itself."

"But the bladder-nosed seals can," said the first mate, who had just joined the trio. "They are terrible beasts to deal with. I'd rather fight a bear single-handed than I would one of these. Once they fill that kettle-pot-like bladder over their noses, they mean mischief, I can tell you. A rifle bullet has no more effect on it than a pea from a pea-shooter."

"Is that so?" said Fred.

"Five years ago," continued the mate, "I was one of the crew of a boat, of ten men in all, that were attacked by these monsters of the deep.

They seemed mad with rage and fury; they swarmed up from the sea to the ice where we stood, with blazing eyes and flashing teeth, by the dozen and by the score. We all fought like fiends; we fought with spears and axes and our rifles clubbed, but the faster we killed them the faster-- they came. Our shouts brought a.s.sistance from the ship, but not before a whole hour was spent in this battle with the bladder-noses, and not until we were quite exhausted, with three of our number lying dead on the ice."

They were walking over a floe of thick bay ice as the mate told his story. No sooner had he spoken the last words than--

"Down, men, down!" he cried; "the ice is rising ahead."

They followed the mate's advice, and threw themselves on their faces.

In two places the ice was heaving and rising. Then all at once it gave way, with a noise like the firing of great guns, and up from the depths of the dark sea rose two gigantic forms, with wild eyes and yard-long tusks, and of such fearful aspect that Frank's heart almost stood still with dread.

"By George!" cried Chisholm, "this is playing at Jack in the box with a vengeance."

Bang, bang, bang went the rifles, and down sank the apparitions, leaving the broken ice all red with blood.

"They are only wounded," said the mate; "they'll have revenge if it is a month hence, depend on that."

The _Grampus_, sealing intent, steamed farther and farther north, and the nearer to the pole they got, the heavier grew the ice. There was shooting every day now for three months and more--seals and bears, and sometimes a fox--and, when there was nothing else to go for, they brought down gulls for their feathers, and looms for the sake of fresh meat. Sometimes they were rewarded by the sight of the lonely narwhal, or giant unicorn of the sea--a creature which always makes direct for a boat as soon as it spies one, and has been known to attack and sink a whaler or gig.

They were after the looms one day, Chisholm and Frank being as usual in one boat, with the first mate steering.

Suddenly, "Stand by your clubs and guns, men!" cried the mate; "Here they come. Now we're in for it. I knew they'd seek revenge."

The sea around them seemed alive with the great tusked heads of walruses, coming from all directions and making straight for the boat.

"In oars, and keep cool, lads," said the mate, seizing an axe; "but for mercy's sake keep the boat trimmed. If she capsizes we are all dead men."

How long they fought with those desperate brutes Frank could never tell; but it seemed to him an age ere the other boats came to their relief, and poured volley after volley into the midst of the pack of walruses.

Then they disappeared, and but for the sea around them, all reddened with blood, and the floating corpses--which, however, speedily sank-- there was not a sign of the fearful hand-to-hand and all-unequal contest.

CHAPTER FIVE.

THE WEST LAND OF GREENLAND--A FALL! A FALL!--DANGER ON ALL SIDES--"MAN THE ICE-SAWS"--WORKING FOR LIFE--BESET IN THE DREARY PACK.

"I feel," said the captain one day, at breakfast, "that I am making a dangerous experiment. I am keeping far in to the west land; I am all but hugging the sh.o.r.e; and if it were to come on to blow from seawards, we would--Steward, I'll have another cup of coffee."

"You think," said Chisholm, "our chances of further cups of coffee wouldn't be very great, eh?"

"I don't think they would," said the captain. "Well, lads, I've shown you a bit of sport, haven't I? And if we had only a little more blubber in her, troth, I'd bear up for bonnie Scotland. I've just come down from the crow's-nest, and what do you think I've spied? Why, open water for miles ahead, stretching away to the north as far as eyes can reach.

There are whales there, boys, if we can but wait for them."

After breakfast it was, "All hands a.s.sist ship!"

Up sprang the men, and ere one could wink, so to speak, half the crew were at the side with poles, pressing on the ice to make room for the _Grampus_. It was strange work, and it seemed at first impossible that twenty men with a spar could move a floe. But they did, and three hours afterwards they were in this mysterious open sea.

"Why," cried Frank, "I declare there is the Dutchman dodging yonder with foreyard aback. A sailing ship beat a steamer!"

"Ay, she's got the pull on us, boys," the captain said. "And see, she is flenshing [skinning] a whale; the crang [the skinned corpse] lies beside her. She has met with a lane of open water, and taken advantage of it."

Just at that moment came the cry, "A fall! a fall! on the weather quarter!"

"A fall! a fall!" Surely never was excitement seen like this before, thought Frank.

There was no waiting for orders. The ship seemed to stop of her own accord, and the escaping steam roared uselessly through the funnel.

"A fall! a fall!" Up tumble the men, many undressed, with their clothes in a bundle. They spring to the boats, our heroes follow the example, and in three minutes more are tearing through the water towards the coveted leviathan. The Dutchman has spied the monster too, and her boats are soon afloat. Who shall be first?

[The origin of this cry is this, I think. "Whaol" is the ordinary Scotch for "whale," but Aberdonians use the "f" instead of the "wh" in such words as "what," "where," etc, which they p.r.o.nounce "fat" and "far." Hence "whale" would become "faul," or "fall."]

"Pull, lads, pull! Hurrah, lads, hurrah! We'll never let a Dutchman beat us!"

Is the whale asleep, that she lies so quietly? Nay, for now she scents the danger, and, lashing her tail madly skywards, is off; but not before the roar of the harpoon gun from the foremost boat has awakened the echoes of the Greenland sea.

"A fall! a fall! She is struck! she is struck!" Vainly now she dashes through the surging sea; another boat pulls around to intercept her, and again she is struck; the lines whirl over the gunwale of Frank's boat till it smokes again. There is blood now in the great beast's wake, and her way is not so swift; she dives and dives again, but she is breathless now. Dreadful her wound must be--for see, she is spouting water mingled with blood; and now she lies still on the surface of the ocean.

"In line, men!" cries the mate, springing up and seizing his long lance, and standing bravely up in the bows. "Pull gently alongside, and stand by to back water the moment I spear the fall."

"How bold and daring he looks!" thinks Frank; all thought of danger swallowed up in admiration of the man who stands, spear in hand, in the boat's bows.

They are close now. Swish! Quick as lightning the spear is sent home; quickly it is turned, to sever the carotid; next moment the backing boat is almost swamped in blood. But not quickly enough can they back, I fear, to save the boat from destruction, themselves from speedy death.

High, high in air is raised that dreadful tail; half the animal seems out of the water; they are under the shadow of it; and now it descends, and every oar on the port-side of the boat is broken off close to the rowlocks. But the boat is saved. For fully half an hour the whale flaps the sea in her dying agony, and the noise may be heard for miles around, while the waters around her are churned into crimson foam. Then there is one more terrible convulsion; her great jaw opens and shuts again. The leviathan is dead. The men of the brig and the men in the boats answer each other with boisterous cheers; but the Dutchman fills her sails, puts about, and bears sullenly up for the south.