Wild Adventures round the Pole Part 15

It was Rory who made the last remark.

"And by this and by that!" he exclaimed, "there is a Naiad on it now! or it's Ino herself, by all that's amusing!"

"Away, second whaler!"--this from McBain. "Get your rifle, boy Rory, and jump on board and fetch that seal!"

Down rattled the boat from the davits, Rory in the bows; the next moment she was off, and tearing through the glazed water as fast as st.u.r.dy arms could row. The seal took one look up to see what was coming. Rory's rifle rang out sharp and clear in the frosty air, and the poor seal never lifted head again.

The ship was by this time a goodly mile ahead, but there she stopped; then she went ahead again, rounded, and came back full speed to meet the boat, for they on board could see a danger that Rory couldn't--couldn't, did I say? Ah! but he soon did, and, with the roar of a maelstrom, down they came upon him--an enormous school of whales!

The men lay on their oars thunderstruck. The sea around them seemed alive with the mighty monsters. How they plunged and ploughed and snorted and blew! The sea became roughened, as if a fierce wind was blowing over it; pieces of ice as large as boats were caught on the backs or tails of these brutes and pitched aside as one might a football.

It occurred to Rory to fire at some of them.

"Stay, stay!" roared the c.o.xswain; "if you love your life, sir, and care for ours, fire not. _You_ may never have seen a whale angry--I have.

Fire not, I beseech you!"

It was a strange danger to have encountered, and Rory and his boat-mates were not sorry when it pa.s.sed, and they once more stood in safety on the deck of the _Arrandoon_.

But Rory soon regained his equanimity.

"Five hundred whales!" he cried; "and they were all mine, Ralph, 'cause I found them! Sure, they were worth a million of money?"

"So you've been a millionaire, Rory?" said McBain. "Yes, worse luck!"

said Rory, in a voice of comic sadness, "a millionaire for a minute!"

CHAPTER TWELVE.

THE ISLE OF JAN MAYEN--RETROSPECTION--THE SEA OF ICE--THE DESERTED VILLAGE--CARRIED OFF BY A BEAR--DANCING FOR DEAR LIFE.

What a tiny speck it looks in the map, that island of Jan Mayen, all by itself, right in the centre of the great Arctic Ocean. Of volcanic origin it undoubtedly is--every mountain, rock, and hill in it--and there is ample evidence that from yonder gigantic cone, that rises, like a mighty sugar-loaf or the Tower of Babel itself, to a height of 6,000 feet sheer into the blue and cloudless sky, at one time smoke and flames must oftentimes have burst, and showers of stones and ashes, and streams of molten lava.

I have gazed on it by night, and my imagination has carried me back, and back, and back, through the long-distant past, and I have tried to fancy the sublimity of the scene during an eruption.

The time is early spring. The long, dark winter has pa.s.sed away; the cold-looking, rayless sun rises now, but skirts hurriedly across a small disc of southern sky, then speedily sinks to rest again, as though he shuddered to gaze upon scenery so bleak and desolate. The island of Jan Mayen, with its ridgy hills and its one mighty mountain, is clad in dazzling robes of virgin snow. Its rocky and precipitous sh.o.r.es rise not up, as yet, from the dark waters that in summer time wash round them, but from the sea of ice itself. As far as eye can reach, or north or south, or east or west, stretches this immeasurable ocean of ice.

All flat and all snow-clad is it, like the wildest and loneliest of Highland moorlands in winter, and its very flatness gives it an air of greater lonesomeness, which the solitary hummocks here and there but tend to heighten. And through the short and dreary day one solitary cloud has rested like a pall on the summit of the mountain. But it is midnight now: in the deep blue of the sky big, bright stars are shining, that look like moons of molten silver, and seem far nearer than they do in southern climes. In the north the radiant bow of the Aurora is spread out, its transverse beams glancing and glistering, spears of light, that dance and glide and shimmer, changing their colours every moment from green to blue or red, from pale-yellow to the brightest of crimson.

And the silence that reigns over all this field of ice is one that travellers have often experienced, often been impressed and awed by, but never yet found words to describe.

Silence did I say? Yes! but listen! Subterranean thunders suddenly break it--thunders coming evidently from the bosom of the great mountain yonder, thunders that shake and crack and rend the very ice on which you stand, causing the bergs to grind and shriek like monsters in agony.

The great cloud pall has risen higher and spread itself out, and now hangs horizontally over half the island, black and threatening, its blackness lit up ever and anon with flashes of lightning, sheet and forked, while, peal after peal, the thunder now rolls almost without intermission.

And onward and onward rolls the cloud athwart the sky, blotting out the starlight--blotting out the beautiful Aurora--till the sea of ice for leagues around is canopied in darkness. But behold, over the mountain-top the cloud gets lighter in colour, for immense volumes of steam, solid sheets of water, and pieces of ice tons in weight, are being belched forth, or hurtled into the air with a continued noise that drowns the awful rhythm of the thunder itself. Then flames follow, shooting up into the sky many hundreds of feet, lighting up the scene with a lurid glare, while down the snow-clad sides of the great cone streams of fiery lava rush in fury, crimson, blue, or green. And gigantic rocks are precipitated into the air--rocks so large that, as they fall upon the ice miles distant from the burning crater, they smash the heaviest floes, and sink through into the sea. Great stones, too, are incessantly emitted, like b.a.l.l.s of fire, that burst in the air, and keep up a sound like that of the loudest artillery.

The sun will rise in due course, but his beams cannot penetrate the veil of saturnine darkness that envelops the sea of ice. And the fire will rage, the thunders will roll, and showers of stones and ashes fall for days, ay, mayhap for weeks or months, ere the mighty convulsion ceases, and silence once more reigns in and around this island of Jan Mayen.

Towards this lonely isle of the ocean the _Arrandoon_ had been beating and pushing her way for days; and she now lay, with clewed sails and banked fires, among the flat but heavy bergs not five miles from it.

There was no water in sight, for the iceless ocean had been left far, far astern, and the ship was now to all intents and purposes beset. Yet the ice was loose; it was not welded together by the fingers of King Frost, and if it remained so, the difficulty of getting out into the clear water again would be by no means insurmountable.

Our heroes, the doctor included, were all on deck, dressed to kill, in caps of fur with ear lapels, coats of frieze with pockets innumerable, with boots that reached over the knees, and each was armed with a rifle and seal-club, with revolver in belt and short sheath-knife dangling from the left side.

"And so," said the doctor, "this is the mighty sea of ice that I've heard so much about! Man! boys! I'm no so vera muckle struck with it.

It is not unlike my father's peat moss in the dreary depths of winter.

Where are the lofty pinnacled bergs I expected to see, the rocks and towers of ice, the green glistening gables, and the tall spires, like a hundred cathedrals dang into one?"

"Ah!" said McBain, laughing, "just bide a wee, doctor lad, till we go farther north, and if you don't see ice that will outdo your every dream of romance, I'm neither Scot nor sailor.

"But what is this?" continued the captain. "Who in the name of all that is marvellous have we here?"

"I 'spects I'se Freezin' Powders, sah," was the reply of the little negro boy. "Leastways I hopes I is." Here the urchin touched his cap.

"Freezin' Powders, at your service, sah--your under-steward and butler, sah?"

"Well, my under-steward and butler," said McBain; "but whoever could have expected to see you rigged out in this fashion--pilot suit, fur cap, boots, and all complete? Why, who dressed you, my little Freezin'

Powders?"

"De minor ole gem'lam," replied the boy; "but don't dey fit, sah?

Don't dey become dis chile? Look heah, sah!" and Freezing Powders went strutting up and down the quarter-deck, as proud as a pouter pigeon; and finished off by presenting arms with his seal-club in front of his good-natured captain.

"Well," said McBain, much amused, "you are a comical customer. By 'the minor ole gem'lam' I suppose you mean honest Magnus? But your English is peculiar, youngster."

"My English is puff.u.k, sah!" replied the boy; "but lo! sah! suppose I not have dis suit of close, I freeze, sah! I no longer be Freezin'

Powders, 'cause I freeze all up into one lump, sah! Now, sah, I can go on shoh wid de oder officers."

"Ho! ho!" laughed McBain; "the _other_ officers. It's come to that, has it? But," he added, turning to Allan and Rory, "you'll look after the lad, won't you?"

"That will we," said both in a breath.

Here are the names of those who went on sh.o.r.e in Jan Mayen on this memorable day--Allan, Ralph, Rory, Seth, and the doctor, with three club-armed retainers, and lastly, Freezing Powders himself.

They were a merry band. You could have heard them laughing and talking when they were miles away from the ship. They had to leap from one piece of ice to another; but as the bergs were from forty to fifty feet square--thus affording them a good run for their leaps--and as the pieces were pretty closely packed, jumping was no great hardship. When now and then they came to a bit of water that required a tolerable spring to get over, tall Ralph vaulted first, then brawny-chested Allan pitched Freezing Powders after him, whom Ralph caught as easily as if he had been a cricket-ball.

They landed on the island in a kind of bay, where the land sloped down to the snow-clad beach. Not far from the sea they were much surprised to find the ruins of huts that had been. No smoke issued therefrom now, but there was ample proof that roaring fires had once burned in each hut. They were partly underground, and though built of wood and sealskins they were thatched and fortified with snow. The largest cot of all was in the centre, and entering this they found a key to the seeming mystery, for here were evidences of civilisation. Pots and pans stood on the empty hearth; a chair or two, a truckle bed, a deal table and a book-cupboard, formed the furniture, and to cap all a written doc.u.ment was found, which informed them that this village had been the encampment for the summer months of a party of American walrus-hunters, the captain of which had aided science by making innumerable observations of a meteorological and scientific nature.

"I reckon," said Seth, "there ain't many parts o' the world where my enterprising countrymen hain't shown their noses."

"All honour to them for that same," said Rory; "and troth, there isn't a mightier nation on the face of the earth bar the kingdom of Ireland."

"Now, look here," said Allan, "this wee chap, Freezing Powders, will be far too tired if he goes with us; and here, by good luck, is a frozen ham in this enterprising Yankee's cupboard. I move we light a fire, hang it over it, and leave the little black butler as cook till we come back."

"Bravo!" said Ralph. "Allan, you're a brick. You won't be afraid, will you, Freezing Powders?"

"I stop and do de cookin', plenty quick," answered the boy, briskly.

"Freezin' Powders never was afraid of nuffin in his life."

So the fire was lighted--there was fuel enough in the hut to keep it going for a month; then, leaving the boy to watch the ham, away went our explorers, upwards and onwards, through the ruggedest glens imaginable; winding round rocks and hills of ice and snow, they soon lost sight of the primitive village, the distant ship, and the sea of ice itself.

They wandered on and on for miles, pausing often to allow Rory to make a sketch of some more than usually wild and fantastic group of ice-clad rocks or charming bit of scenery; but wherever they went, or whichever way they turned, there loomed the great mountain cone of Jan Mayen above them.

The scene was everywhere silent and desolate in the extreme, for not a breath of wind was blowing, not a cloud was in the sky, and no sign of life was there to greet them, not even a solitary gull or s...o...b..rd.

It wanted two good hours to sunset when they once more returned to the deserted village, eager to test the flavour of the Yankee's ham, for walking on the snow had given them the appet.i.te of healthy hunters.