Wild Adventures round the Pole Part 35

But others were soon to follow, for the swell under the ice increased, the bergs all around them rolled higher and higher. The noise from the pack was terrific, as the pieces met and clashed and ground their slippery sides together. In an hour or two the bay ice had been either ground to slush, or piled in packs on top of the bergs, so that the bergs had freedom to fight, as it were. Alas! for the two ships that happened to be between the combatants. Their position was, indeed, far from an enviable one. Hardly had an hour elapsed ere the ice-harbours McBain and Silas had prided themselves in, were wrecked and disintegrated. They were then, in some measure, at the mercy of the enemy, that pressed them closely on every quarter. The _Canny Scotia_ was the worst off--she lay between two of the biggest bergs in the pack.

McBain came to his a.s.sistance with torpedoes. He might as well have tried to blow them to pieces with a child's pop-gun. Better, in fact, for he would have had the same sport with less trouble and expense, and the result would have been equally gratifying.

For once poor Silas lost his equanimity. He actually wrung his hands in grief when he saw the terrible position of his vessel.

"My poor shippie," he said. "Heaven help us! I was building castles in the air. But she is doomed! My bonnie ship is doomed."

At the same time he wisely determined not to be idle, so provisions and valuables were got on sh.o.r.e, and all the men's clothes and belongings.

As nothing more could be done, Silas grew more contented. "It was just his luck," he said, "just his luck."

Long hours of anxiety to every one went slowly past, and still the swell kept up, and the bergs lifted and fell and swung on the unseen billows, and ground viciously against the great sides of the _Arrandoon_. Now the _Canny Scotia_ was somewhat Dutchified in her build--not as to bows but as to bottom. She was not a clipper by any manner of means, and her build saved her. The ice actually ground her up out of the water till she lay with her beam-ends on the ice, and her keel completely exposed.

[As did the _P--e_, of Peterhead, once for weeks. The men lived on the ice alongside, expecting the vessel to sink as soon as the ice opened.

The captain, however, would not desert his ship, but slept on board, his mattress lying on the ship's side. The author's ship was beset some miles off at the same time.]

But the _Arrandoon_ had no such build. The ice caught under her forefoot, and she was lifted twelve feet out of the water. No wonder McBain and our heroes were anxious. The former never went below during all the ten hours or more that the squeeze lasted. But the swells gradually lessened, and finally ceased. The _Arrandoon_ regained her position, and lost her list, but there lay the _Canny Scotia_, a pitiable sight to see, like some giant overthrown, silent yet suffering.

When the pumps of the _Arrandoon_ had been tried, and it was found that there was no extra water in her, McBain felt glad indeed, and thanked G.o.d from his inmost heart for their safe deliverance from this great peril. He could now turn his attention to consoling his friend Silas.

After dinner that day, said McBain,--

"Your cabin is all ready, Captain Grig, for of course you will sleep with us now."

But Silas arose silently and calmly.

"I needn't say," he replied, "how much I feel your manifold acts of kindness, but Silas Grig won't desert his ship. His bed is on the _Canny Scotia_."

"But, my dear fellow," insisted McBain, "the ice may open in an hour, and your good ship go down."

"Then," said Silas, "I go with her, and it will be for you to tell my owners and my little wife--heaven keep her!--that Skipper Grig stuck to his ship to the last."

What could McBain say, what argument adduce, to prevent this rough old tar from risking his life in what he considered a matter of duty?

Nothing! and so he was dumb.

Then away went Silas home, as he called it, to his ship. He lowered himself down by a rope, clambered over the doorway of the cabin, took one glance at the chaos around, then walked tenderly _over_ the bulkhead, and so literally _down_ to his bed. He found the mattress and bed-clothes had fallen against the side, and so there this good man, this true sailor, laid him down and slept the sleep of the just.

But the _Scotia_ did not go to the bottom; she lay there for a whole week, defying all attempts to move her, Silas sleeping on board every night, the only soul in her, and his crew remaining on the _Arrandoon_.

At the end of that time the ice opened more; then the prostrate giant seemed to begin to show signs of returning life. She swayed slightly, and looked as if she longed once more to feel the embrace of her native element; seeing which, scientific a.s.sistance was given her. Suddenly she sprang up as does a fallen horse, and hardly had the men time to seek safety on the neighbouring bergs, when she took the water-- relaunched herself--with a violence that sent the spray flying in every direction with the force of a cataract. It would have been well had the wetting the crew received been the only harm done.

It was not, for the bergs moved asunder with tremendous force. One struck the _Arrandoon_ in her weakest part--amidships, under the water-line. She was stove, the timbers bent inwards and cracked, and the bunks alongside the seat of accident were dashed into matchwood.

Poor old Duncan Gibb, who was lying in one of these bunks with an almost united fracture of one of his limbs, had the leg broken over again.

"Never mind, Duncan," said the surgeon, consolingly, "I didn't make a vera pretty job of it last time. I'll make it as straight as a dart this turn!"

"Vera weel, sir; and so be it," was poor contented Duncan's reply, as he smiled in his agony.

"Dear me, now!" said Silas, some time afterwards; "I could simply cry-- make a big baby of myself and cry. It would be crying for joy and grief, you know--joy that my old shippie should show so much pluck as to right herself like a race-horse, and grief to think she should go and stave the _Arrandoon_. The ungrateful old jade!"

"Never mind," said McBain, cheerfully, "Ap and the carpenters will soon put the _Arrandoon_ all right. We will shift the ballast, throw her over to starboard, and repair her, and the place will be, like Duncan's leg, stronger than ever."

It did not take very long to right Captain Cobb's c.o.c.kle-sh.e.l.l, and all the vessels being now in position again, and the ice opening, it might have been as well to have got steam up at once, and felt the way to the open water. McBain decided to make good repairs first; it was just as easy to list the ship among the ice as out of it, and probably less dangerous. Besides, the water kept pouring in, and the beautiful arrangement of blankets and hammock-cloths which Ap had devised, hardly sufficed to keep it out.--This decision of the captain nearly cost the life of two of our best-loved heroes, and poor old Seth as well. But their adventure demands a chapter, or part of one at least, to itself.

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.

AN ADVENTURE ON THE PACK--SEPARATED FROM THE SHIP--DESPAIR--THE DREAM OF HOME--UNDER WAY ONCE MORE.

Nothing in the shape of adventure came amiss to Rory. He was always ready for any kind of "fun," as he called every kind of excitement.

Such a thing as fear I do not believe Rory ever felt, and, as for failing in anything he undertook, he never even dreamt of such a thing.

He had often proposed escapades and wild adventures to his companions at which they hung fire. Rory's line of argument was very simple and unsophisticated. It may be summed up in three sentences--first, "Sure we've only to try and we're bound to do it." If that did not convince Allan or Ralph, he brought up his first-cla.s.s reserve, "Let us try, _anyhow_;" and if that failed, his second reserve, "It's _bound_ to come right in the end." Had Rory been seized by a lion or tiger, and borne away to the bush, those very words would have risen to his lips to bring him solace, "It's bound to come right in the end."

The few days' delay that succeeded the accident to the _Arrandoon_, while she had to be listed over, and things were made as uncomfortable as they always are when a ship is lying on an uneven keel, threw Rory back upon his books for enjoyment. That and writing verses, and, fiddle in hand composing music to his own words, enabled him to pa.s.s the day with some degree of comfort; but when Mr Stevenson one morning, on giving his usual report at breakfast-time, happened to say,--

"Ice rather more open to-day, sir; a slight breeze from the west, and about a foot of rise and fall among the bergs; two or three bears about a mile to leeward, and a few seals," then Rory jumped up.

"Will you go, Allan," he cried, "and bag a bear? Ralph hasn't done breakfast."

"Bide a wee, young gentleman," said McBain, smiling. "I really imagined I was master of the ship."

"I beg your pardon, Captain McBain," said Rory, at once; and with all becoming gravity he saluted, and continued, "Please, sir, may I go on sh.o.r.e?"

"Certainly not," was the reply; and the captain added, "No, boy, no. We value even Rory, for all the trouble he gives us, more than many bears."

Rory got hold of his fiddle, and his feelings found vent in music. But no sooner had McBain retired to his cabin than Rory threw down his much beloved instrument and jumped up.

"Bide a wee; I'll manage," he cried.

"Doctor," he added, disarranging all the medico's hair with his hand-- Sandy's legs were under the mahogany, so he could not speedily retaliate--"Sandy, mon, I'll manage. It'll be a vera judeecious arrangement."

Then he was off, and presently back, all smiles and rejoicing:

"Come on, Allan, dear boy," he cried. "We're going, both of us, and Seth and one man, and we're going to carry a plank to help us across the ice. Finish your breakfast, baby Ralph. I wouldn't disturb myself for the world if I were you."

"I don't mean to," said Ralph, helping himself to more toast and marmalade.

"What are you grinning at now?" asked Rory of the surgeon.

"To think," said Sandy, laughing outright, "that our poor little boy Rory couldn't be trusted on the ice without Seth and a plank. Ha, ha, ha! my conscience!"

"Doctor," said Rory.

"Well?" said the doctor.

"Whustle," cried Rory, making a face.

"I'll whustle ye," said Sandy, springing up. But Rory was off.

On the wiry shoulders of Seth the plank was borne as easily as if it had been only an oar; the man carried the rope and sealing clubs. The plank did them good service, for whenever the s.p.a.ce between two bergs was too wide for a safe leap it was laid down, and over they went. They thus made good progress.

There was a little motion among the ice, but nothing to signify. The pieces approached each other gradually until within a certain distance.