UNDER WEIGH ONCE MORE.
The chainbobstay under the bowsprit was snapped, our rudder was split
and its pintles were started, but these defects were soon repaired by
the carpenter; and next day, at noon, Hartly and Reeves on comparing
their observations, discovered that, unknown to ourselves, we had
drifted nearly one hundred miles towards the western coast of
Greenland, so a look-out was kept for the field-ice, as they were
anxious to complete their interrupted seal-fishing, to haul up for
St. John's, and then freight for Europe in the spring.
Poor fellows! ...
We seemed to have returned to life once more. Again we were dashing
through the blue sea with a free sheet, with the white canvas
bellying full upon the breeze; again, on waking in the morning, the
first familiar sounds that met the ear were the decks undergoing
their customary ablutions, by bucket and swab, and the rasping
holystones; Cuffy singing some Congo melody as he lighted the cabin
fire, the wind whistling through the rigging, the patter of the
reef-points on the bosom of the swollen sails, the dashing of the
spray over the sharp black bows, the occasional order issued on deck,
the clatter of the rudder in its case, and the bubble of the water as
it frothed past under the counter.
All these spoke of our wonted life of activity, and of the _Leda_
being under canvas.
In a day or two we descried the slender white line of an ice-field,
stretching for miles along the horizon towards the north, and
approached it under easy sail, as the fields usually drift southward
at this season. By the appearance of the ice and the state of the
thermometer, we concluded this to be a much larger field than that
from which we had been blown by the gale of wind.
While Reeves got ready the ice-hooks, sledges, warps, and gangs of
seal-hunters, with their bats, guns, and other apparatus, Hartly and
I were treading to and fro talking of various matters. I can
remember that he was relating to me, how, in his last voyage with the
_Leda_ up the Mediterranean, St. Elmo's blue and phosphorescent light
had enveloped fully three feet of her masts below the trucks, to the
great terror of Cuffy Snowball, and others who were ignorant of the
cause of that phenomenon, which lasted nearly an hour. He was
proceeding with his narration, when Tom Hammer, who was repairing
something aloft, hailed the watch.
"Deck--ahoy!"
"Hallo?" responded Hans Peterkin.
"There is a craft wedged in the ice, sir."
"Where away?"
"About twenty miles off."
"How does she bear?"
"On our lee bow."
"And what do you make her out to be?"
Hammer stood on the main-crosstrees, with his left arm embracing the
mast, and through his telescope took a long and steady glance with a
somewhat perplexed air at this vessel, which we could not see from
the deck.
"She is a brig with her topgallant masts struck."
"Indeed!"
"No," stammered the carpenter.
"What then?"
"A ship with all her canvas unbent."
"Unbent! that is strange," said Hartly, shading his eyes, and peering
away to leeward.
"No--now, sir, she looks like a brigantine, or hermaphrodite brig,
with her yards topped up in different ways."
"Do you wish your nightcap sent up to you, Tom?" said the mate,
drily; "look again, perhaps she is the _Flying Dutchman_."
"Or the ghost of the _Black Schooner_," said one.
"Or a whale," added another.
But on nearing the edge of the ice-field--so close that we sent off
the mate in the jolly boat with the warps, and handed our canvas,
preparatory to resuming the war against the seals--we could all see
the vessel which Hammer had discerned, lying among the ice about
fifteen miles off, and various were the discussions on board as to
her rig and nation. Even our oldest seamen were puzzled. Her hull
was scarcely visible, so high were the hummocks around her. She had
two masts, but her spars were, as Tom said, topped up in various ways
and at various angles, and seemed covered by long-accumulated ice and
snow, from which we augured that she had been long beset.
We hoisted our colours and displayed the private signal of Messrs.
Manly and Skrew, but received no response, by which we supposed that
she had been deserted by her crew, or that her signal halliards had
given way.
Some averred stoutly that they could distinguish a flag flying at her
gaff peak; others that she had no gaff peak whatever, but had _one_
man seated in her fore rigging. Hartly ridiculed these fancies,
saying that the intensity of the cold, and the dazzling glare of the
sun shining on a sea covered by white ice, bewildered the vision of
most men; and so, full of vague conjectures as to what our neighbours
might be, we saw the sun set and night close in upon us.
Next morning another large field of ice was discovered on our
larboard quarter, closing in upon us with considerable rapidity. It
extended along the offing for twelve or fourteen miles, and increased
to the eye as it was borne towards us by an under-current.
Hartly conjectured it had drifted down Hudson's Strait from the Bay,
and to avoid being _beset_ like the unfortunate craft we had been
observing, he brought off the ice-anchor and made sail on the brig,
steering due west and keeping her close hauled with his starboard
tacks on board; but the field of ice we endeavoured to leave kept
close alongside, as if it sailed or floated _with_ us, which I have
no doubt it did.
Thus both fields verged towards each other rapidly, one before the
wind, the other before a current; and so, ere sunset, we were closely
wedged in a frozen sea--BESET, amid a wilderness of pack-ice, of
bergs, and hummocks, which extended, as far as the eye could discern
from the main-crosstrees, in every direction, and probably far beyond
the horizon.
Though this predicament was not without great peril, still it was
preferable by many degrees to our last situation; for here we could
pursue the object of our expedition, and hoped to have our cargo
complete, the hatches battened down, and all ready for our return to
Newfoundland when the ice broke up, amid the warmer water of more
southern latitudes, towards which we expected the field, like others,
would be borne by the currents.
Alas! how little did we then foresee how long we and our desolate
neighbour, whose disordered aspect and bare spars made her resemble a
withered bush or bunch of reeds at the horizon, were to remain in
sight of each other.