The World of Ice - Robert Michael Ballantyne (best selling autobiographies TXT) 📗

with any arms they chanced to have.

"Give him a long shot--quick!" cried Singleton.

Fred fired instantly; and the bear stopped, and looked round, as much as to say, "Did you speak, gentlemen?" Then, not receiving a reply, he walked away with dignified indifference, and disappeared among the ice-hummocks.

An hour afterwards the two wanderers were seated at a comfortable breakfast in the cabin of the _Dolphin_, relating their adventures to the captain and mates, and, although unwittingly, to Mivins, who generally managed so to place himself, while engaged in the mysterious operations of his little pantry, that most of the cabin talk reached his ear, and travelled thence through his mouth to the forecastle. The captain was fully aware of this fact, but he winked at it, for there was nothing but friendly feeling on board the ship, and no secrets. When, however, matters of serious import had to be discussed, the cabin door was closed, and Mivins turned to expend himself on Davie Summers, who, in the capacity of a listener, was absolutely necessary to the comfortable existence of the worthy steward.

Having exhausted their appetites and their information, Fred and Tom were told that, during their absence, a bear and two seals had been shot by Meetuck, the Esquimau interpreter, whom they had taken on board at Upernavik; and they were further informed that the ice was in motion to the westward, and that there was every probability of their being released by the falling tide. Having duly and silently weighed these facts for a few minutes, they simultaneously, and as if by a common impulse, yawned, and retired to bed.


CHAPTER IX.


The "Dolphin" gets beset in the ice--Preparations for wintering in the ice--Captain Guy's code of laws.

An accident now befell the _Dolphin_ which effectually decided the fate of the ship and her crew, at least for that winter. This was her getting aground near the ravine of the giant flagstaff before mentioned, and being finally beset by ice, from which all efforts on the part of the men to extricate her proved abortive, and in which she was ultimately frozen in, hard and fast.

The first sight the crew obtained of the red snow filled them with unbounded amazement, and a few of the more superstitious amongst them with awe approaching to fear. But soon their attention was attracted from this by the wonderful column.

"Och, then! may I niver!" exclaimed O'Riley, the moment he caught sight of it, "if there ben't the north pole at long last--_sure_ enough!"

The laugh that greeted this remark was almost immediately checked, partly from the feelings of solemnity inspired by the magnificent view which opened up to them, and partly from a suspicion on the part of the more ignorant among the men that there might be some truth in O'Riley's statement after all.

But their attention and energies were speedily called to the dangerous position of the ship, which unexpectedly took the ground in a bay where the water proved to be unusually shallow, and before they could warp her off the ice closed round her in compact, immovable masses. At first Captain Guy was not seriously alarmed by this untoward event, although he felt a little chagrin in consequence of the detention, for the summer was rapidly advancing, and it behoved him to return to Baffin's Bay and prosecute the whale-fishing as energetically as possible; but when day after day passed, and the ice round the ship still remained immovable, he became alarmed, and sought by every means in his power to extricate himself.

His position was rendered all the more aggravating by the fact that, a week after he was beset, the main body of the ice in the strait opened up and drifted to the southward, leaving a comparatively clear sea through which he could have pushed his way without much difficulty in any direction; but the solid masses in which they lay embedded were fast to the ground for about fifty yards beyond the vessel, seaward, and until these should be floated away there was no chance of escape.

"Get up some powder and canisters, Mr. Bolton," he exclaimed, one morning after breakfast, "I'll try what can be done by blasting the ice. The highest spring tide will occur to-morrow, and if the ship don't move then we shall--"

He did not finish the sentence, but turned on his heel and walked forward, where he found Buzzby and some of the men preparing the ice-saws.

"Ay, ay," muttered the mate, as he went below to give the necessary directions, "you don't need to conclude your speech, captain. If we don't get out to-morrow, we're locked up for one winter, at least, if not more."

"Ay, and ye'll no get oot to-morrow," remarked Saunders, with a shake of his head as he looked up from the log-book in which he was making an entry. "We're hard and fast, so we'll just have to make the best o't."

Saunders was right, as the efforts of the next day proved. The ice lay around the vessel in solid masses, as we have said, and with each of the last three tides these masses had been slightly moved. Saws and ice chisels, therefore, had been in constant operation, and the men worked with the utmost energy, night and day, taking it by turns, and having double allowance of hot coffee served out to them. We may mention here that the _Dolphin_ carried no spirits, except what was needed for medicinal purposes, and for fuel to several small cooking lamps that had been recently invented. It had now been proved by many voyagers of experience that in cold countries, as well as hot, men work harder, and endure the extremity of hardship better, without strong drink than with it, and the _Dolphin's_ crew were engaged on the distinct understanding that coffee, and tea, and chocolate were to be substituted for rum, and that spirits were never to be given to any one on board, except in cases of extreme necessity.

But, to return--although the men worked as only those can who toil for liberation from long imprisonment, no impression worth mentioning could be made on the ice. At length the attempt to rend it by means of gunpowder was made.

A jar containing about thirty pounds of powder was sunk in a hole in an immense block of ice which lay close against the stern of the ship. Mivins, being light of foot, was set to fire the train. He did so, and ran--ran so fast that he missed his footing in leaping over a chasm, and had well-nigh fallen into the water below. There was a whiz and a loud report, and the enormous mass of ice heaved upwards in the centre, and fell back in huge fragments. So far the result was satisfactory, and the men were immediately set to sink several charges in various directions around the vessel, to be in readiness for the highest tide, which was soon expected. Warps and hawsers were also got out and fixed to the seaward masses, ready to heave on them at a moment's notice; the ship was lightened as much as possible by lifting her stores upon the ice; and the whole crew--captain, mates, and all--worked and heaved like horses, until the perspiration streamed from their faces, while Mizzle kept supplying them with a constant deluge of hot coffee. Fred and the young surgeon, too, worked like the rest, with their coats off, handkerchiefs bound round their heads, and shirt-sleeves tucked up to their shoulders.

At last the tide rose--inch by inch, and slowly, as if it grudged to give them even a chance of escape.

Mivins grew impatient and unbelieving under it. "I don't think it'll rise another hinch," he remarked to O'Riley, who stood near him.

"Niver fear, boy. The capting knows a sight better than you do, and _he_ says it'll rise a fut yit."

"Does he?" asked Grim, who was also beginning to despond.

"Ov coorse he does. Sure he towld me in a confidintial way, just before he wint to turn in last night--if it wasn't yisturday forenoon, for it's meself as niver knows an hour o' the day since the sun became dissipated, and tuck to sitting up all night in this fashion."

"Shut up yer tatie-trap and open yer weather-eye," muttered Buzzby, who had charge of the gang; "there'll be time enough to speak after we're off."

Gradually, as the tide rose, the ice and the ship moved, and it became evident that the latter was almost afloat, though the former seemed to be only partly raised from the ground. The men were at their several posts ready for instant action, and gazing in anxious expectation at the captain, who stood, watch in hand, ready to give the word.

"Now, then, fire!" he said in a low voice.

In a moment the ice round the ship was rent, and upheaved, as if some leviathan of the deep were rising from beneath it, and the vessel swung slowly round. A loud cheer burst from the men.

"Now, lads, heave with a will!" roared the captain.

Round went the capstan, the windlass clanked, and the ship forged slowly ahead, as the warps and hawsers became rigid. At that moment a heavy block of ice, which had been overbalanced by the motion of the vessel, fell with a crash on the rudder, splitting off a large portion of it, and drawing the iron bolts that held it completely out of the stern-post.

"Never mind; heave away--for your lives!" cried the captain. "Jump on board, all of you!"

The few men who had until now remained on the ice scrambled up the side. There was a sheet of ice right ahead which the ship could not clear, but which she was pushing out to sea in advance of her. Suddenly this took the ground and remained motionless.

"Out there with ice-chisels! Sink a hole like lightning! Prepare a canister, Mr. Bolton--quick!" shouted the captain in desperation, as he sprang over the side and assisted to cut into the unwieldy obstruction. The charge was soon fixed and fired, but it only split the block in two and left it motionless as before. A few minutes after the ship again grounded; the ice settled round her; the spring tide was lost, and they were not delivered.

Those who know the bitterness of repeated disappointment and of hope deferred, may judge of the feelings with which the crew of the _Dolphin_ now regarded their position. Little, indeed, was said, but the grave looks of most of the men, and the absence of the usual laugh, and jest, and disposition to skylark, which, on almost all other occasions characterized them, showed too plainly how heavily the prospect of a winter in the Arctic Regions weighed upon their spirits. They continued their exertions to free the ship, however, for several days after the high tide, and did not finally give in until all reasonable hope of moving her was utterly annihilated. Before this, however, a reaction began to take place; the prospects of the coming winter were discussed; and some of the more sanguine looked even beyond the winter, and began to consider how they would contrive to get the ship out of her position into deep water again.

Fred Ellice, too, thought of his father, and this abrupt check to the search, and his spirits sank again as his hopes decayed. But poor Fred, like the others, at last discovered that it was of no use to repine, and that it was best to face his sorrows and difficulties "like a man!"

Alas! poor human nature; how difficult