CHAPTER I

[Illustration:

M 968

THE CAVE WAS FILLED WITH DAZZLING LIGHT

_Page 206_

]

In the

Great White Land

A Tale of the Antarctic Ocean

BY

DR. GORDON STABLES, R.N.

Author of “The Naval Cadet” “Crusoes of the Frozen North” &c.

_Illustrated_

BLACKIE & SON LIMITED

LONDON AND GLASGOW

“The ice was here, the ice was there,

The ice was all around;

It cracked and growled, and roared and howled

Like noises in a swound!”

_Printed in Great Britain by

Blackie & Son, Limited, Glasgow_

CONTENTS

BOOK I

_FAR AWAY IN THE FROZEN NORTH_

CHAP. Page

I. DAYDAWN IN THE ARCTIC REGIONS--WERE THEY

SAVAGES? 11

II. “HEAVE ROUND, SIR,” SAID CAPTAIN MAYNE BRACE 24

III. “MY PRIDE WARRED AGAINST MY BETTER FEELINGS” 35

IV. THE AGREEMENT DRAWN UP AND SIGNED 48

V. THE SHIP’S BEARS: GRUFF, AND GROWLEY, AND

GRUMPEY, AND MEG 60

BOOK II

_UNDER THE SOUTHERN CROSS_

I. “AND NOW,” HE SAID, “’TIS DO OR DIE” 73

II. A GIANT OF THE SOUTHERN SEAS 84

III. FIRST ADVENTURES ON THE ICE 96

IV. IN FEATHER-LAND--A TERRIBLE ACCIDENT 109

V. INGOMAR HIMSELF HAD A DREAM TO DREAM 119

VI. “TO THE WEST, TO THE WEST” 128

VII. A FEARFUL NIGHT--ANTARCTIC LAND-ICE 141

VIII. WONDROUS SCENERY--NICK SAVES THE LIFE OF

WALLACE 153

IX. WITH HOBSON ON THE “MERRIMAC”--THE STORY

THAT CURTIS TOLD 167

BOOK III

_ON THE GREAT ANTARCTIC CONTINENT_

I. A STRANGE DISCOVERY--SHEELAH AND TAFFY 183

II. A FIGHT BETWEEN MEN AND ICE 194

III. THE BEAUTY AND MARVELS OF AN ICE-CAVE 204

IV. THE CAMP--SLEDGING ON THE TABLELAND 213

V. THE START--FIRST NIGHT IN THE DESERT OF SNOW 225

VI. “GOOD-BYE, BOYS. IT WON’T BE FOR LONG” 234

VII. MARVELS OF THE ANTARCTIC 246

VIII. THE DASH FOR THE POLE--A WONDROUS SCENE 252

IX. TERRIBLE SUFFERINGS--VICTORY 260

X. A CHAPTER OF JOY AND SADNESS 271

XI. “ENGLAND, HOME, AND BEAUTY” 283

ILLUSTRATIONS

Facing

Page

THE CAVE WAS FILLED WITH DAZZLING LIGHT _Frontis._

CHARLIE AND WALT ENJOYED THE BARE-BACK RIDES 80

HE HAILED THE QUARTER-DECK 160

IT WAS THE BEST OF FUN 264

BOOK I

_FAR AWAY IN THE FROZEN NORTH_

IN THE GREAT WHITE LAND

CHAPTER I

DAYDAWN IN THE ARCTIC REGIONS--WERE THEY SAVAGES?

“Is it a man, or is it a young Polar bear standing on end?”

Had any one seen that strange figure, shuffling slowly to and fro on the

snow-clad Polar ice on this bitterly cold morning late in winter, he

might have been excused for asking himself that question.

All around was a scene of desolation such as can only be witnessed in

Arctic seas at this season of the year.

Desolation? Yes; but beautiful desolation--a desolation that held one

spellbound in silent, solemn admiration.

It had been a long, long night of just three months or nearly, and

yesterday the sun--glad herald of the opening season--had glinted over

the southern horizon for one brief spell, then sunk again in golden

glory.

Yesterday all hands had crowded the deck, the frozen rigging, and the

tops themselves of the good barque _Walrus_, to welcome with cheers and

song the first appearance of the god of day. And from many a hole in

igloo side, in the village that clustered half hidden beneath those

pearly hills, natives had crawled out, as crawleth rat from its burrow,

to throw themselves on their faces, to moan, to worship, and to pray.

To-day the romance has worn off a little, and the crew of the _Walrus_

(which a peep round the side of the one solitary iceberg that rises in

the midst of this frozen bay reveals) will raise nor song nor cheer.

But the white light broadens in the southern sky, the beams of the

aurora, that a little while before were flickering and dancing pink and

white in the north, fade, the bright stars wax faint and beautiful, then

die. A broad band of orange light low down on the horizon, with far

above one crimson feather cloud--then the sun’s appearance.

Ah! We can see now that the figure is no bear, but a man, though covered

with hoar frost--his skin boots, skin cap, skin coat and all, and his

beard and moustache are white and hung with icicles, which tinkle as he

climbs the iceberg, lifts the old quadrant, and takes his sight.

While he does so he touches a button, on a little box hung to his short

belt, which sets up communication with an instrument and chronometer on

the ship.

The man with the beard of tinkling icicles is Captain Mayne Brace

himself. Laughing with almost boyish glee as he slings his quadrant and

beats his mittened, paw-like hands to woo back their circulation, he

quickly descends, and begins to round in the slack of the field

telegraph.

Two huge black Newfoundlands, Nora and Nick, have found their way down

off the ship, and now come rushing to meet him, making the icy rocks and

hills around the bay ring back their joyous barking.

There is, I believe, no light in all the wide world half so bright and

dazzling as that of the first brief day of an Arctic spring. Scarce can

the human eye, so long accustomed to the soft, tender star-rays, the

flickering, coloured aurora, or magic moon-beams, bear to look on the

white wastes all around, which seem to have been sown with billions and

trillions of tiny diamonds, the God-made prisms and crystals of the

virgin snow, pure and white as brow of angel.

The ship towards which Captain Mayne Brace is slowly advancing looks,

but for her masts and rigging, like a white marquee, for from stem to

stern she had been roofed over, many, many moons ago, when first

anchored here in the Gulf of Incognita high to the North, and west of

Baffin’s Bay.

Snow-steps lead him aboard, and the surgeon himself meets him at the

frozen gangway.

“Sick all doing well, sir,” says the doctor. “Every one been out to-day

to peep at the sun, and the sight has done them all good, though it has

made some of them long for the green glades and rolling woods of dear

old England. But come below, captain, and thaw your beard. Dinner ready

to dish up. Let me lead you. Mind that rope. Step high, and you’ll

manage. There, now, catch hold of the rail, and I’ll go down the

companion in front. Just fourteen steps. Make your feet your friends,

and count.”

For Captain Mayne Brace was for the time being snow-blind.

At the foot of the ladder the steward helped him to get out of his

ice-rig, and to thaw his beard and eyebrows, then led him in.

He looked old no longer, but brown-bearded, rosy, rubicund, and

jolly--just as a sailor should be.

It was not, however, until the soup was finished--real pea-soup with

some strength and body in it--that he once more regained his sight. He

had shut his eyes and leaned back in his easy-chair while the steward

was changing the plates, and when he looked again, he beheld the saloon

table encircled with bright, youthful, and happy faces.

Faces with hope in them, eyes that danced with new-born joy; for after

all these months of dreary darkness, of shrieking storms and blinding

blizzards, had they not seen the sun at last? Yes, and the days would

lengthen and lengthen till it would be all one long, bright Arctic day.

The snows would melt in the glens yonder, avalanches would fall

thundering into the valleys beneath, the tides would break the ice

around; yonder mountain berg, which had loomed ghost-like all through

the everlasting night of winter, would move seawards and away; then a

week of mist, which would lift at length, and reveal hills already

patched with the yellow and red of lichens and the green of mosses, soft

and tender. For summer comes quickly in the Arctic.

And what then? Why, the birds would return in their tens of thousands,

the gulls and gullimots, the malleys, the pilots, the beautiful

angel-snowbird, and the wee snow-bunting itself. Then it would be

summer, you see. Bears themselves, that slept in frozen pits or caves

for months and months, would be on the prowl once more, and eke the

Arctic foxes; the sea would be alive and teeming with fish, from great

sharks down to the sportive and gay little ghahkas. Whales--the gigantic

“_right_ whales”--would dash into the bay, unicorns would be seen, great

seals and walruses would scramble on to patches of ice to bask in the

sunshine; and, spreading white sails now to woo the breeze, the

_Walrus_ barque would steam slowly away through the opening ice, all

hands intent on making their fortunes, that in a “bumper ship” they

might sail southwards long before the autumn winds began to blow.

Hadn’t Captain Mayne Brace told those two happy, hungry boys yonder all

that would happen? And was the captain ever wrong? Not he.

“Yes, mate, I will have another slice of that brown beef,” said Charlie.

“Thank you, mate,” said Walt; “and why shouldn’t I?”

Both boys were about the same age--glorious and independent

sixteen--both called the captain uncle, yet the boys were only cousins.

They loved, respected, nay, even revered, that brown-bearded skipper, as

only boys that have an “uncle” who has been twenty long years on the

stormy ocean can, and do.

This had been the lads’ first cruise. They were orphans, and though well

educated, had been left almost penniless, and were going to adopt the

sea as a profession. Their uncle had apprenticed them to the barque, and

just because he liked them, they lived here in the saloon, and had a

cabin all to themselves, instead of roughing it on the half-deck,

sleeping in wooden bunks, and “chumming” it with the spectioneer, the

carpenter, and bo’s’n.

He liked the lads, I say, and no man who is over forty, and has still a

soul left in him, can help liking an innocent boy of this age, ere yet

the bloom has left his healthy cheeks, or the days have come when he

scores twenty and fancies himself a real live man.

Walt and Charlie to-day, being so happy at heart from having seen the

sun again, were raking the skipper fore and aft with concentrated

broadsides of questions.

It was “Oh, I say, uncle,” this and “I say, uncle,” this, that, and

t’other all the time, until the great plum-pudding was borne in, and

then they stopped their chatter for a minute at least, to wonder and

admire.

No ordinary “plum-duff” this. It was large, and round, and brown, and

jolly, half inclined to burst its sides with merriment, as the mate

lovingly poured the rich gravy over it. Inside it was studded with real

raisins, like the stars of an Arctic night in number. Those raisins were

well within hail of each other, and not simply dotted and dibbled in

here and there as with the point of a marling-spike.

For Captain Mayne Brace knew how a boy or man should live, to buck

himself up to face the rigours of an Arctic winter.

While the boys are busy striking their share of that lordly plum-pudding

below, let me say just one brief word or two about the _Walrus_

herself.

She was almost a new barque then, and good enough to go anywhere and do

anything, and belonged to three speculative merchants at Hull. These

owners thought they knew quite a deal about Greenland East and Greenland

West, and because they had never been to Polar seas, imagined that you

had only to have a good ship and a crack crew to steam and sail away to

the frozen North, pick up a paying cargo of seals or whales--skins and

blubber--and sail back again, giving to the spirited owners a modest 200

per cent. on the capital.

The _Walrus_ had been capitally found, her engines were the best, she

was built of teak and braced with oak, fortified forward and all along

the water-line, and carried every modern appliance that a barque could

bear, with electric light, and--well, and what not?

Then Brace himself had been in the “country,” as the sea of ice is

called, all his life, so had Milton the mate--both Dundee men--and the

crew of Hull men, Scots, and Shetlanders could hardly have been better

chosen.

“I’m going to do my level best,” Captain Mayne Brace had said to his

owners, as they all sat together in the cosy saloon, while, hardly a

year ago, the _Walrus_, with steam up, was just about to bear up and

away. “I’ll do my best, gentlemen, to bring the _Walrus_ home a bumper

ship. I’ll try the sealing first. If they have been scared away by the

impulsive Danes, I’ll bear up for the Bay of Baffin and do what I can

with the whales, even if I have to winter there and wait for the spring

fishing.”

“Bravo, Brace!” said one of the owners. “It is all a bit of a spec on

our part, you know. But we’re _well_ insured, Brace, and rather than

come home a clean ship, we wouldn’t mind if you left her ribs in

Baffin’s Bay.”

Brace smiled. He knew what they meant. He had heard such hints before.

But these greedy owners had made just one mistake. They had chosen as

skipper an honest man--the noblest work of God.

“I’m going to do the best for us all,” he repeated quietly.

Then good-byes were said, and the ship had sailed.

Nor’wards, ever nor’wards, the _Walrus_ had gone cracking on, under

steam or under sail, leaving the green British shores on which spring

was already spreading bourgeon, wild flower, and leaf. Nor’wards, and

past the Orkneys, the Shetlands, and the Faroes; nor’wards, into wilder,

bluer, blacker seas and shorter days, encountering storms such as cannot

even be conceived by sailors in other parts of the world, with waves as

high as pyramids, foam-crested, and madly, demoniacally breaking around,

or against, or over the barque; nor’wards, with ice-bound bows, and

snowstorms raging on the deck, and seas that sang in the frosty air as

they went curling past; nor’wards as defiantly as ever sailed ship from

British shore.

Nor’wards, but all in vain. For the Danes, who had ploughed their way in

their sturdy high-freeboard ships through the darkness of winter itself,

had been there before them.

Long months’ fishing and hardly fifty tons of oil. British though they

were, the daring Danes had kept ahead of them, leaving naught for them

to gaze upon save blood-stained ice and gory krengs, on which gaunt

bears were feeding.

Captain Mayne Brace, disgusted, had left the country, and, after a long

voyage, had arrived in Baffin’s Bay.

A few “right whales” had been seen, but even they were hunted and wild,

and so they had fished all the summer and caught nothing.

Well, but Captain Brace only shook his brown beard and laughed. He

wasn’t the man to let down his heart in a hurry.

He was just the very life and soul of his crew; he bore all his own

hardships with never a murmur, and had taught his men to do the same.

All through the darkness he studied to keep them active. They had games

on the snow under stars and aurora; they fished in the ice-holes,

tobogganed on the one great ghostly berg that lay not far off; and, on

board, hardly an evening passed but some sort of amusement had been on

the boards--a play, a dance, a sing-song, a yarning-and-story-telling

spell, or a concert itself.

They had often gone on shore in sledges, the men drawing each other time

about, and Nick and Nora lending a shoulder.

The doctor was a plucky, clever young fellow about twenty years old,

who, having to wait for another whole twelve months before he should be

old enough--though he had passed--to be gowned and capped, thought he

might as well put in that year at sea, and so here he was.

Next to the skipper himself young Dr. Wright was the best-loved man on

board. He was really the quintessence of kindness, and you never would

have found him in his bunk if one of the men were seriously ill.

To-day he would not wait the conclusion of dinner, but, with his

telescope strapped across his shoulder, he had scrambled right up to the

crow’s-nest itself, to have one look round before the sun went down

again.

At sea it is always the strange and the unexpected that is happening.

But when Wright turned his glass towards the great snow-lands of the

west, he started back and rubbed his eyes.

Were those eyes deceiving him?

He wiped the glass and looked again.

“Mercy on us!” he muttered. “Who or what are these?”

It was a team of some kind that had just come over the horizon, and was

now wending its way adown the league-long slope towards the head of the

bay.

And now he can make them out more distinctly. It was some wild and

wandering tribe of semi-savages from the interior, with dogs and sledges

and men on skis,[A] or snow-shoes.

He knew that these roving bands were dangerous, and that they came but

to rob or even to carry off into exile the more peaceable Yaks who live

along the shores.

So he went hurrying down now to make his report, and soon the news

spread through the ship, and the excitement was very great indeed.

The warriors--if warriors they were--delayed their coming, however.

The sun set, darkness fell, and it seemed evident that the natives had

made a _détour_, or gone away entirely.

But watchful eyes guarded the _Walrus_ and the village on shore through

all the dreary hours of darkness that followed.

The Yaks ashore yonder had been altogether friendly to the _Walrus_

people, and Captain Mayne Brace determined that he would defend them to

the last in case of attack.

But night passed by without a single event happening; and about

half-past ten, just as the dawn began to appear in the east, like the

reflection from a great city, Wright went up to the crow’s-nest, and

once more turned his telescope westwards.

Yes; yonder they were, sure enough, at the very head of the bay not five

miles off. He could see their gesticulations, and watch the men as they

went scurrying to and fro seeking for errant dogs to harness to the

sledges.

They were coming! And before day dawned or the sun rose they would be

all around the ship.

The best way to secure peace is to be ready for war.

But Captain Mayne Brace was soon prepared to welcome either friend or

foe.

Were they savages?

CHAPTER II

“HEAVE ROUND, SIR,” SAID CAPTAIN MAYNE BRACE

When the _Walrus_, in the shortening days of autumn, had steamed slowly

into Incognita Bay, she had to force her way through the pancake ice

with which the whole extent of the water was covered. Flat pieces these

are, probably no more than a foot thick, covered of course with several

inches of snow, and with an average diameter of, say, eight feet. They

are really the _débris_ of a baby-floe which the waves, raised by some

far-off gale of wind, have broken up. The snow-edge all around them is

raised by the constant contact of the pieces of ice with one another,

and this gives them a fancied resemblance to gigantic pancakes. Hence

their name.

But soon after the _Walrus_ had anchored, the sky had cleared, and in

the dead, unbroken silence of an early winter, they were frozen together

by strong bay-ice. Then snow had fallen and fallen and fallen, with

never a breath of wind strong enough to lift one feathery flake, till,

on looking out over the bulwarks one morning after the decks had been

cleared, and the sun was shining again, lo! the whole surface of the bay

was one unbroken, unwrinkled sheet of dazzling snow.

Had that fall continued it would have buried ship and crew and all.

Then the glass had gone down somewhat, and the snow-field fell and

shrank.

Harder frost than ever rendered Nature’s winter winding-sheet after this

so solid and hard, that a regiment of artillery could have passed over

it and left not a trace behind.

When snow had again fallen, it had been accompanied by such high, wild

winds, that the flakes were ground into choking ice-dust, and swept

clean off the surface of the bay.

The head of this inlet was about five nautical miles from the ship, but

as soon as the advancing natives got on to the level snow-bay, with dogs

and sledges, they commenced to make short work of this, and their

strange, shrill cries, as the dogs were urged madly onwards, could now

be distinctly heard by those on board the _Walrus_.

They were coming on like a whirlwind!

Faded the rich orange bar on the southern horizon, and the first rays of

the great silver shield of a sun fell athwart the bay.

The advance was stopped in a second’s time. Down dropped men and dogs,

the dogs to rest and pant, the natives to pray, their heads turned

sunwards.

Two figures in the tallest sledge, who were wrapped in the skins of the

big ice-bear, did not descend. Yet even they bent low their heads in

reverence.

“We will have no fight,” said Captain Mayne Brace. “Men who pray never

fight, save in a cause that is just.”

“For all that,” said “Dr.” Wright, “look yonder!”

He was pointing northwards, where the Teelies, as the friendly natives

were called, could now be seen rapidly advancing in a compact body, all

armed with that terrible battle-axe, the seal-club.

They were evidently bent on intercepting the newcomers. Perhaps they

knew, of old, those semi-savages from the far interior.

“Now,” said the skipper, “this affair enters on a new phase, and if we

cannot intervene as peacemakers, the snow out yonder will soon be brown

with blood.”

“I have it, sir,” cried bold young Wright. “Give me ten men, and I will

go and meet the Teelies. I don’t want to see bloodshed, captain. I have

enough on the sick-list as it is, without the addition of wounded Yaks.”

“Take your men, and off you go, Wright,” cried Mayne Brace, laughing;

“but I believe you are just spoiling for a fight all the same.”

Before an Englishman could have said “Auchtermuchty” without choking,

Wright and his ten merry men were over the side and away.

He soon reached the Teelies and stopped, but these men seemed very

excited, and brandished their clubs threateningly.

The sleigh Eskimos had also halted, and appeared to be preparing.

At that moment a battle appeared to be imminent, and, if it took place,

a queer one it would be.

The Teelies were like a bull-terrier straining wildly at the end of its

chain, mad to make a dash for the enemy.

And poor Wright found that, do what he might, he must speedily let them

slip, then stand idly by and look on.

Donnybrook fair on an election day, or a wedding at ancient Ballyporeen,

wouldn’t be a circumstance to the fight that would follow.

But lo! just at that moment the Gordian knot was unexpectedly cut.

For the high sledge, with the two men in it, was seen to detach itself

from the main body, and, with but four dogs harnessed thereto, was

driven at tremendous speed towards the _Walrus_.

Speed was slackened, however, before it got much over half-way, and now

the faces and figures of the men on board could be distinctly seen.

And Captain Mayne Brace and his crew stared silently and wonderingly.

These men were evidently not Eskimos, far less were they savages. One

was very tall and squarely built, and, had he not been so dark in skin,

would have been very handsome.

His companion was evidently very short, but as broad in the beam as any

athlete would care to be.

Both were armed with rifles, but these were slung carelessly in front of

the sledge.

Presently they were close at hand. Then the taller of the two, who had

been driving, ordered the dogs to “down-charge,” and threw the reins to

his companion.

When he stood erect on the snow, with his spear-like pole in his left

hand, and pulled his skin hood off, the volume of long dark brown hair

that tumbled down over his shoulders, his splendid fur-clad figure and

dignity of bearing, would have brought down the house in any theatre.

Then he tossed his head, and shook back his locks.

“Ingomar, sir, at your service!” he said, smiling.

The captain stood in the gangway.

“Ingomar, is it?” he said, smiling in turn. “Well, indeed, you look it,

young fellow. But won’t Ingomar honour us with his presence on board?”

he added.

“With pleasure, captain; and, come to think of it, that is what brought

me here.”

Almost ignoring the assistance of the Jacob’s ladder thrown to him, he

swung himself easily on board, and stood before them all.

“Heigho!” he said. “This _is_ a nice wind-up to a windy day. What will

happen next, I wonder?”

Boy-like, Charlie at once stepped forward and shook Ingomar by the hand.

Boys all love heroes. So do men, only they don’t like to show it.

“I’m sure,” said Charlie, impulsively, “uncle will make you welcome.”

“Hurrah!” cried the men.

“Your welcome, young sir,” said Mayne Brace, “shall be second only to

that we gave the sun, as soon as we know a little about you, and what

you desire.”

“Prettily spoken, captain. Forgive my familiarity. And I tell you

straight, gentlemen, that what I desire most at the present moment is a

piece of soap, a basin of water, and three towels. This hospitality to

be followed, if you’ll be so good--and, being British, you are bound to

be--by a good square meal and a cigar!”

Charlie would have led Ingomar straight away down to his own cabin on

the spur of the moment.

But Ingomar held back.

“No,” he said politely, “let me wash--scrub, if you like it

better--forward at the fo’c’sle. Every day for six months I have

stripped, and my body has been scoured with snow. But my face----”

“Here you are, sir. Follow me!” This from one of the men, who had

brought a wooden, rope-handled bucket of steaming water.

Ingomar was conducted to the half-deck, and, when he emerged, but for

his romantic dress of skins, no one would have known him.

The skin, even of his hands, was now as white as a lady’s, and his

complexion perfect.

And his every action, movement, and sentence were those of a well-bred

man of the world.

He looked about ten years younger than he did when he stepped on board.

“By the way, Captain--eh----”

“Mayne Brace,” said Charlie.

“Captain Mayne Brace, I have been dreaming for weeks in my tent, far

away over the hills yonder, that I was sailing southwards in a British

barque. The fact is, sir, though life in these regions may have a spice

of romance about it, one gets tired after a time of the winter’s

darkness; and a diet of dried fish, seal-mutton, and whale-blubber

becomes irksome at last, even if a bear-steak is now and then added to

the _menu_.

“Do you know, sir,” he added, interrupting himself, “that if your tailor

could make me a serge suit of some sort, and if I had my hair cut, I’d

really have the audacity to ask you to grant me a passage back to

temperate regions with you?”

“We will be delighted, Ingomar,” from the captain.

“Oh, that isn’t my name, but the name of the play in which I last took

part in a Chicago theatre. But I should be glad to tell you who and what

I am after I have munched a ship biscuit.”

As they went below to dinner, Captain Brace leaving orders for the man

in the sledge and the dogs also, to be fed, Charlie found time to seize

Ingomar’s hand again and pull himself up, while he whispered--

“Don’t have your hair cut, and don’t wear a serge suit. You look ever so

much better in skins.”

* * * * *

After dinner Ingomar consented to sit in an easy-chair, but well away

from the fire.

He lit his cigar.

“I’m very happy, Captain Brace,” he said.

“So pleased!” said Brace.

“You promised to tell us your story,” said Charlie.

“Well, yes,” returned the stranger, “and for your sake I’m sorry it must

be brief. But, Captain Brace, may I first go and give Humpty Dumpty his

orders, if I am to sleep on board all night?”

“Humpty Dumpty, as you call him, is perhaps, like yourself, an

Englishman?”

“Oh, pardon me, captain, but neither Humpty nor I have the honour to be

English. I am an American, sir, born and bred, and so is my mate. I

don’t drawl, and I don’t ‘guess’ and ‘calculate,’ and I don’t use my

nose much to talk with. Humpty does a little. But Humpty Dumpty was only

a man before the mast when we became first acquainted. I’ll run up and

speak to him over the side.”

“No, no,” cried the captain. “We’ll have Humpty down here for a minute.”

“What a strange name!” said Walt.

“Well, yes, but it fits him. It fits his shape and build. His real name

is a deal too--a--aristocratic, don’t you call it, for him. Hampden is

his surname, so I call him Humpty Dumpty for short.”

“Hullo, here he is!”

Humpty stood in the doorway, cap in hand.

He was about five feet or less in height, and in his Eskimo dress, with

his tremendous breadth of shoulder, shaped somewhat like the capital

letter V.

“You called me, sir?”

“Um, yes, Humpty. You are to drive back to our tribe, and tell them they

must get away over the horizon again and camp there, but to return

to-morrow before sunrise, because I believe these young gentlemen would

like to ride in a dogsledge, and see the village of which I am king.”

“Oh!” from both boys.

“Right, sir; I’m off straight’s an arrow.”

“One minute, Mr. Hampden. You’ll have a glass of wine?”

“Excuse me, capen, but I’ve tasted it before, I reckon. Yes, sirree,

once I took a thimbleful too much, and next day, sez I to myse’f, ‘No

more liquor for Dumpty.’”

In a minute or two after this Dumpty was dashing over the snow to the

spot where his tribe had been left.

The doctor entered now.

The steward had kept his dinner hot.

“The Teelies have gone back, sir, and peace is restored.”

He bowed and smiled to Ingomar, then sat down to dinner; but while he

ate, only ordinary subjects were talked about.

Then Wright joined the circle round the fire, and, having cleared away,

the steward considered himself privileged to stand in the doorway for a

short time to listen.

For on board Arctic ships faithful servants are allowed quite a deal of

freedom, which, by the way, I have never known them abuse.

“Well, my friends,” said Ingomar, “you must excuse my shortcomings as a

story-teller. I suppose I’m not old enough to tell fibs, so my yarn, if

short and stupid, has at least truthfulness in its favour.”

“Heave round, sir,” said Captain Mayne Brace.

And Ingomar, smiling, obeyed.

CHAPTER III

“MY PRIDE WARRED AGAINST MY BETTER FEELINGS”

“Well, gentlemen, Ingomar being merely my stage name because I played in

that piece more than in any other, I ought at the very offset to tell

you my baptismal one. That was Hans, and my father being an Armstrong, I

very naturally adopted his surname. Hans Armstrong, then; and here you

have me clad in skins, of which rig-out I am beginning to be slightly

ashamed.”

“Pardon me,” said Captain Brace, “you tell us that you belonged to

Chicago. Do you happen to have any personal acquaintance with the

Dutch-American millionaire Armstrong?”

“I have known that gentleman, sir, since I was eighteen inches long. He

wasn’t much of a millionaire then. I do myself the honour of believing

that it was I who brought all the good luck to that well-known family;

and although when I was a child Mrs. A. occasionally showed her extreme

affection by spanking me, I loved and love her very much. If alive,

young gentlemen, she is my mother; if dead, she is a saint in heaven.

They have just one other child, a girl, my dear sister Marie, years

younger than myself, and she will fall heir some day, I suppose, to all

my father’s millions.”

“But you yourself, Hans?”

“Well, sir, I--I suppose I am a fool, sir, or, more probably, a born

idiot. I am likewise the prodigal son. For the last six months and over

I have not certainly been eating husks with the swine. It would be wrong

and cowardly in me to allude to my friends the Yak-Yaks as swine; but I

have been living, as I have already told you, in a somewhat unrefined

way.

“The Armstrongs, I think I have heard my father say, first went to

Britain and settled there, then across the sea to America, and fought

against you during the War of Independence. But that has nothing

whatever to do with me. My parents have been very, very good to me, and

my education has been quite up to the Boston standard. Only when I

reached the advanced age of seventeen--I am now two and twenty--I began

to grow reckless. Civilization was not good enough for me. It was too

much in the same groove. I determined therefore to shake the dust of

Chicago off my shoes--there _is_ a good deal of dust in Chicago--and

find my way into regions remote, where, if the people were not rich,

they were at least honest. My sister’s wild entreaties, my mother’s

tears, prevailed not against my headstrong self.

“My adventures among the Rocky Mountains and forests of the Far West

would fill a book. I thought seriously of living in the wilds for life,

and marrying the daughter of a chief.

“He was ugly enough to have stopped a clock, but a splendid warrior, and

his braves were all that braves should be. Cheena, the daughter, was but

a child of twelve. But she interested and amused me, and perhaps

captivated me with her beauty and her innocent ways. One of these

innocent ways was to play with snakes. She even taught me to boldly

touch and handle the rattler.

“No wild beast would harm Cheena, and she went fearlessly into the dens

of even grizzly bears, and played with their puppies as if they had been

dolls.

“I lived in the wilds with this wandering tribe for nearly three happy

years. Cheena knew English, and I taught her more. Shakespeare was my

constant companion. Better perhaps had it been my Bible. But Cheena and

I played many a scene together in glades of the beautiful forest.

“I must hurry over all this, though.

“Well, one day, with three men and two tame wolves, I went away on a big

shoot. When we returned, I found that a warlike tribe had attacked the

chief’s camp, and that he and his braves had been defeated and

scattered.

“I never saw him again, nor poor Cheena, though I wandered about in

search of them for three long, dreary months.

“Then one day I returned to my father’s house. It was late at night, but

I climbed up into my own old bedroom, just as I used to do when a lad.

“Nothing was changed. Everything had been kept sacred as a temple.

“I went quietly to bed, and when next morning I coolly rang for water

and old Roberts entered, he shook with fear so that he would have fallen

had I not supported him.

“‘Is--it--you, Master Hans?’ he quavered, ‘and not a

dead--go--go--ghost?’

“‘Is that like the hand of a dead go--go--ghost, Roberts?’ I said,

grasping his arm with my forest-hardened fingers.

“‘Oh--no--no,’ he almost shrieked. ‘Lor, sir, how you’ve growed! Your

mother and Sissie will be skeered, I guess, when they sees you.’

“‘And they are all well?’

“‘That’s so, Master Hans; and the old man too.’

“‘Well, some hot water, Roberts. I’ll wash and come downstairs to

breakfast.’

“I was down before anybody, and sitting quietly in a rocker, smoking

one of dad’s best Havanas, when Sissie and mother entered.

“You may judge what followed, boys.”

“But,” pleaded Charlie, “you’re not making the story half long enough.”

“I settled down now, sir, to the hardest work ever I had in my life.”

“And that was?”

“Doing nothing. But I couldn’t keep it up. It was ruining my fine

constitution.

“I was always fond of the stage, and took Marie to see _Ingomar_ one

evening.

“She was delighted. I was not. _Ingomar_ was not written by Shakespeare,

I believe, but it was a pet play of mine, and I knew I could act the

part better.

“But somehow I went back several nights running. Then, as my good or my

bad fortune would have it, one evening the excited manager rushed before

the screen to announce that, to his grief and chagrin, the principal

actor had been taken suddenly ill, and that the play could not be put

on. Yes, of course, he added, the gate-money would be refunded.

“After this, some impulse seized me. I stood boldly up in the box, and

shouted with arm extended--

“‘Stay, I know the part, and if the manager will but give me a chance, I

will try my best.’

“Every eye was turned towards my box, while Sissie shrank behind the

curtain. I am told, sir, that I am not bad looking, and my figure is

fairly good.

“There was a wild ‘Hooray!’ now, at all events, and that evening found

me before the footlights.

“I played with heart and soul. I had the people with me, and felt I had;

and when at the end of the first act I was called before the curtain, I

received an ovation that would have satisfied a far better actor than I.

“Hardly thinking about the disgrace my people would imagine I was

bringing on them, I accepted the manager’s terms to play for three

weeks.

“I told them that night what I had done. Mother was silent, Sissie

looked frightened; and when next morning we all met at breakfast, I

could see that both had been crying.

“Scarcely a word was said, but that forenoon my father asked me into his

sanctum.

“‘Boy, boy,’ he began, ‘why this madness? Do you wish to bring my grey

hairs down with sorrow to the grave?’

“I sat quietly down that our eyes might be more on a level, for I am

very tall.

“‘Dear father,’ I said, ‘I am foolish enough to think that I shall be an

honour to you as an actor.’

“‘Honour! Actor!’ he cried.

“‘It is a noble profession,’ I said quietly; ‘and when you come to

listen to my interpretation of _Hamlet_, you will believe that God has

gifted your son with genius. There will be no sorrow then, dear daddy.

“‘Besides,’ I added mischievously, ‘you haven’t got a single solitary

grey hair in head or whiskers.’

“Some people are hard to convince. My father is one of them.

“‘I will cut you off with a dollar,’ he thundered, ‘if you do not give

up this disgraceful fad. If you do I will take you into partnership.’

“Then I told him grandiosely that the resolution I had taken was fixed,

immutable; but that rather than bring disgrace upon him, I would change

my name as soon as this engagement was over, and go into a far country

to act where no one would know me.

“‘I began life,’ he said, as he sunk back in his chair, ‘with fourpence

in my pocket.’

“‘And I, daddy,’ I replied, ‘am beginning life without a penny, but

possessed of one of the dearest old fathers that ever a young man was

gifted with.’

“He was softened.

“‘Boy,’ he said, after a pause, ‘I am wealthy, but your sister must be

my heir. If you must go--then go. I will place a trifle at your disposal

in my bank at New York. You will have that to fall back upon, when your

fad and folly leave you. Good-bye. I may never see you more.’

“He started from his chair and marched straight out of the room.

“Here, boys, ends the second act of the prodigal son.

“Just two months after this I found that my father’s words were coming

true. I had attempted _Hamlet_, but was playing to very poor houses.

“When I came home one evening and found a very humble dinner waiting for

me, I became very sad indeed.

“But worse was to follow, for in a week’s time my engagement at the

theatre was over, and I was politely told I was not good business, and

could not be retained.

“I went quietly and, I thought, calmly away; but happening to enter a

club that evening where my presence had always been welcome before, I

found only coldness. When a rival actor taunted me as to my success, I

completely lost control of myself. I flew at the fellow, picked him up,

armchair and all, and threw him to the other side of the room.

“I heard no more of the matter, but in a week’s time I found myself

alone in my dingy lodgings without a copper in my pocket.

“I was alone with my pride. I might beg, but never again, I told myself,

would I darken my father’s door.

“It was two days after this when, while strolling along near to the

docks, I was met by a French seafaring man. He looked at me and I at

him.

“‘Do you want work?’ he asked.

“‘That I do. I’ll do anything.’

“‘Well, you look a likely sportsman. I’m off in a day or two on a

curious kind of cruise to the very far north.’

“‘I’ll go with you,’ I answered, ‘if the wages are not starvation.’

“‘Come with me now,’ he said. ‘We will soon settle matters.’

“He had a boat, and we were both rowed off to a strange-looking but

strong and sturdy brig.

“Every man on board except this same Humpty Dumpty was French. What

cared I? Surely I could hold my own in a fight against a score of little

sailors.

“‘You are not a sailor,’ said my new friend, when we were together in

his little cabin.

“‘No,’ I said; ‘but I can shoot, and wield an axe, and I can fish.’

“‘You’re my man. But I must explain. We are engaged by a celebrated firm

of chemists to go to Greenland waters and fish for sharks. The oil of

the livers is not only finer and richer but more abundant than that of

the cod, and it is considered an infallible cure for consumption.

“‘You’ll have to rough it,’ he added. “‘Thank God to have the chance.’

“And the bargain was speedily made, and the articles signed.

“I was to join in two days’ time.

“That night it suddenly occurred to me to visit my father’s bank here. I

still had his letter, and by its aid could identify myself.

“I must confess that I went to that bank in bitterness of spirit against

my poor daddy. But I felt sure that the trifle he had deposited to my

credit, would be but the traditional dollar with which prodigal sons are

often cut off. I meant to bore a hole in it, and wear it round my neck.

“I had no sooner made myself known than the manager, to my great

surprise, shook me by the hand.

“‘Come into my room,’ he said. ‘Your father has sent me your photograph,

so that there is no need for identification. And the cheque is a

handsome one.’

“‘I hope, sir,’ I said, ‘you will not tantalize me. I expect nothing

from my father except one dollar.’

“‘The cash standing to your credit,’ he said, ‘is two millions

sterling.’

“I answered scarcely a word. I was too dazed to speak. This, then, was

the dollar with which my father had cut me off.

“I arose from my chair, and, hardly taking time to shake hands with

this business-like banker, I walked straight out, and away home to my

dingy, dismal lodgings.

“I wanted to think, and to be alone.

“‘My poor father!’ These were the first words I said to myself. And at

this moment I would have given a good deal to be sitting once more in

our old-fashioned parlour, with mother and sister near me, and my father

studying the markets as he sat in his chair.

“But evil thoughts began to take the place of good, and my pride warred

against my better feelings.

“These two millions were a million times more than I deserved, though it

would leave him but little poorer. This was true, but nevertheless I

felt that I was cut off.

“‘Here is thy portion, boy,’ he seemed to have said. ‘Get thee away into

a far country, and come not near us again.’

“I was banished. I would keep to my engagement with the French

shark-hunter strictly and to the letter. My millions might lie there. I

would not draw a cheque even for a dollar. I was proud, and my pride

bred bitterness of heart.

“I wrote at least half a dozen letters to Sissie and mother, read them

over, and tore them up as soon as penned. For somehow that bitterness of

heart breathed all through each one of them.

“Then, when calmer, I wrote one simple, loving letter, bidding all

good-bye. And it ended thus: ‘When I am worthy to be my good old

father’s son I will return.’”

* * * * *

“Ah, gentlemen,” he continued, after a pause of silence that no one

cared to break, “my long banishment to this dreary country, though

self-inflicted, has done me good and changed my mind. Before, I could

see men but as trees walking, _now_ I can read all my father’s motives.

Like all our forbears, he is proud, but he is true, and--well, I must

confess I love him. There!

“My adventures since I left home are too numerous to tell you. Our ship

was wrecked, and Dumpty and I alone were saved. Then I joined a band of

wandering Eskimos--the Yak-Yaks. I did not care what became of me. I

felt I was running away from myself, from my evil, prideful nature, and

so here I am, a changed and, I trust, a better man.

“One thing, however, I have determined upon. I will not return to my

father’s house, until I have done something which shall show him that I

possess some of the sand and grit in me, which has descended to us from

the old fighting Armstrongs.

“But, I say,” he added comically, “you will get me that serge suit,

won’t you? And you will let me and Humpty Dumpty join your ship, and let

me have my hair cut, and--well, and just share your adventures, won’t

you?”

“By all means,” replied Captain Mayne Brace.

“One minute before you finally decide,” said Ingomar. “For all you know,

I may be a mere adventurer or a madman. But see, I have some

business-like method in my madness.”

He pulled from an inside pouch a bundle of papers.

“I have kept these, Captain Brace. I place them before you, and, unless

you promise me you will glance over them, I shall return to-morrow to my

igloo among the Yak-Yaks, and trouble you no more.”

“I will take them to my cabin, young sir, though I think there is no

need to. I can read honesty in your eyes.”

Ingomar’s manner changed now at once. He was brimful of happiness

apparently, and addressed himself more to the boys than the others.

“I say, lads,” he cried, “won’t we have a day of it to-morrow, if your

good captain will permit you to cross the mountains with me?”

“Oh, we shall enjoy it!” cried Charlie.

“Won’t we just,” said Walt.

“I’ve never driven dogs, but I think I could if I tried.”

“Hurrah!”

And the evening passed very happily away.

CHAPTER IV

THE AGREEMENT DRAWN UP AND SIGNED

Like all men who are ever likely to do any good in this world, and leave

footsteps in the sands of time, Captain Mayne Brace was an early riser.

The stars were still glowing like diamonds in the sky, then, and the

merry dancers--the aurora--were still at their revels when he turned out

to have his bath. A quarter of an hour after this found him on deck.

Here, to his surprise, he met young Ingomar. He stood on the poop, his

face skywards and to the north.

“Is it not a grand sight, sir?” he said. “How near and how brightly

these stars and planets burn! It seems as if one could touch them with

one’s rifle or fishing-rod. And the aurora-gleams--the positive

magnetism that comes from the far-off Southern Pole--how beautiful their

transparency of colours! Those ribbons of light seem to me like living

things. And in the stillness of this early morning do you not hear them

talking? Shsh--shs--shs--shs! Oh, sir, is it not God Himself who is

speaking there--the God of power, the God we know so little of, the God

whom in our pride of knowledge we sometimes venture to impugn, to

correct, to criticize! Forgive me, sir, for speaking thus before an

older man than myself. _But_ oh, sir, there is a glamour about that sky,

about these northern solitary wilds, which gets around the heart and

soul, and makes one feel one is really face to face with the

Creator--Maker not alone of this puny earth, but of yonder universe--of

infinity itself!”

He scarcely gave Captain Brace time to reply.

“Down in one’s bunk,” he continued, “one belongs to this world. Up here

among the stars and aurora one is with God. But down below last night,

sir, I was thinking of my father, my mother, and sister. To say that I

was not longing a little for home would be to insinuate that I was more

than a young man. Yet my resolution has not been one whit shaken. When I

can do something that no one else has ever yet done, or at least made an

attempt to do this something, the prodigal son will return to his

father’s house; not till then. My father is a very Napoleon of finance.

In that line I may never, _can_ never, hope to equal him, nor do I

desire to do so. Yet I may become a great explorer, and help to add to

the world’s fund of knowledge for the world’s benefit.

“I had made up my mind never to finger a frank of those two millions,

but I shall, and will gladly, spend one million, if need be, for the

furtherance of a plan I have in view, and have well thought out. It is

an ambitious one, sir. I feel I ought to blush even to mention it.”

“You need not, young sir, if it be honourable,” said Brace.

Ingomar, as we may continue to call him, had been walking up and down

the deck so rapidly, that it was difficult to keep pace with his

gigantic strides.

But he hove to now suddenly, and confronted the captain.

“Listen,” he said. “The Americans have done as much as any other nation

save Britain to solve the mystery that hangs around the Pole yonder. The

veil will soon be raised. _I_ would go farther; I would venture to aid

in the attempts that are now about to be made by you Britishers and by

the Germans, to wrench its secrets from the Great Unknown, from the

Antarctic itself, to force it to tell what it knows of the story of the

earth.”

“The ambition,” said the captain, “is a noble one, certainly, and even I

have had thoughts of bringing the knowledge I have gained in regions

round our own North Pole to bear upon the South. Indeed, I was almost

thinking of joining the expedition when I got home.”

“But _I_,” said Ingomar, “would not join any expedition. No, no, sir,

and a thousand ‘No’s.’ I should fit out my own. And if I were to die in

the attempt, why, I should die in a worthy cause; and to youth death

does not seem so very dreadful if surrounded by a halo of noble

adventure.

“And would you believe it,” he went on, “while in my lonesome igloo over

the hills yonder, I have for months been forming all my plans for future

operation. I would rather lay these before older and more skilled and

scientific men than myself, and all I should do, all the honour I might

obtain, would be that of finding the money for the expedition.

“Well, now, it may seem an abrupt question to ask, but I think that as

long as a fellow keeps a clear brain and a good look-out ahead,

abruptness is no great sin. Can you, then, or will you, sell me your

ship?”

“This barque is not my own, alas! or, after having been so singularly

unfortunate in ‘making a voyage,’[B] and presuming that you are sincere,

I would gladly do so on the understanding that my services as master

mariner of the _Walrus_ should be retained. But come down below. The

fire is well alight, and we can talk uninterruptedly for a good hour yet

before the others turn out.”

Although the acquaintance with each other of these two men was so very

recent, there was a something--call it by any scientific name you

please--that seemed to draw them together.

Captain Mayne Brace was very favourably impressed by the prodigal son,

as he would insist upon calling himself. The coincidence that had

brought them together was certainly strange, but Fate moves in a

mysterious way, and Brace determined to take advantage of the meeting

between Ingomar and himself.

He candidly opened his mind to the young millionaire.

“I am bound,” he said, “to do all I can to secure a good voyage during

the spring fishery. Nothing could prevent me from attempting this for

the benefit of my owners; and if I must return ‘a clean ship,’ then I

shall have to steel my nerves to encounter my owners. The ship is

well--too well--insured, and it was hinted to me that if I failed in

making a paying voyage, no questions would be asked if I cast her away.

There would be little chance of that, for even after a rough-and-tumble

life at sea for so many years, I have a little honour left me, a clean

heart, and a clear conscience.

“But, Mr. Armstrong----”

“Call me not Armstrong yet, sir--just Ingomar, and hang the ‘Mr.’”

“Well, Ingomar, I have no doubt my owners would be willing to sell the

_Walrus_, and therefore, if you choose now to sign articles, I shall

rate you as harpooner, and shall be perfectly willing to ship for you,

before we leave these regions, the Yak-Yaks, the dogs, and young bears

you say would be necessary to make our expedition a success.

“We are a sturdy ship and good sailer, and we have plenty of room, if we

do not make a voyage, for you and your pets.”

“You have made me very happy, sir. Let us make the agreement at once.”

“Just one moment, young sir. You have told me that the _Walrus_ will be

the auxiliary vessel carrying extra stores, the dogs, the Yak-Yak

hunters, sledges, etc., and that you would build or buy and fit out a

special ship for the actual scientific exploration. Now, I am a plain

man--under what flag should we sail?”

“The Stars and Stripes?” said Ingomar.

This was more like a question than an answer, and Brace replied

sturdily--

“No, sir. _I_ will sail under no flag except the British.

‘The flag that braved a thousand years

The battle and the breeze.’

But,” he added, half regretfully, “if you succeed in purchasing this

good barque--and a better never sailed to the Sea of Ice--she will

belong to you, and you can hoist your Stars and Stripes; only----”

“I understand,” said Ingomar, “and honour your sentiment. Well, you must

be captain of the _Walrus_, that is clear. But everything else must be

made clear, and I am certain we will not quarrel about the flag

displayed.”

He considered a moment.

“Let us have the two in one,” he said. “Not one beneath the other, else

we should quarrel worse than ever.”

He laughed at his own quaint notion, as he added--

“Why not have the two flags tacked together, so that their united ensign

should show from one side the Bird of Freedom--the eagle, and on the

other your British batch of Lions?”

It was Captain Brace’s turn to laugh now, and he did so right heartily.

“‘Pon my soul,” he said, “the conceit is a good one. I see that you and

I, sir, are united, anyhow--just as the British and the Americans should

ever be.”

Then the agreement was drawn up and signed by both, and so this

memorable interview came to a close.

“I feel so happy now, captain,” said young Ingomar, “that--that I could

cry.”

“Rather an original method of showing happiness, isn’t it?”

“Rather effeminate, anyhow. But now I feel at home here; and within the

last four and twenty hours my prospects in life have brightened, and my

sky is clear; the star of hope is shining as brightly as the Pole star

yonder. I’m young, you see, sir, and---- Well, I can’t help that, can I,

Captain Brace? But I don’t mean to fail, anyhow.”

“No; and you have nothing to be ashamed of, Ingomar. As to failure--

‘In the lexicon of youth which fate reserves

For a bright manhood, there is no such word

As Fail.’”

* * * * *

True to time--in fact, a little before it--the Yak-Yaks were seen

returning to the barque, yelling and whooping, the dogs stretched out,

and apparently hugging the snow as they sped onwards like a hairy

hurricane across the level stretch of bay.

It was arranged that Nick and Nora both should accompany this tour

inland, but as they could not be expected to keep pace with these

trained Arctic dogs, one was taken up into Captain Brace’s sledge, and

the other with the boys themselves in Ingomar’s.

Food was not forgotten, you may be well sure, nor tobacco and

knickknacks for the natives.

The journey was a long one, and many a halt had to be made on hill-tops,

and even in the valleys beneath.

No one who has not travelled in a real Eskimo well-appointed dog-sleigh

can have the faintest notion of the speed obtained on good snow.

To-day it seemed as if the drivers were bent upon making a record, and

it was one that I would defy any motor-car to make over the same track.

The dogs needed to rest now and then, to lie down and pant a little, and

refresh themselves by gulping down mouthfuls of the pure snow that was

within easy reach.

Then they were fit again once more.

Though it was but little past one o’clock p.m., the sun was already

going down when the halt for luncheon was called; and it need hardly be

said that under so bracing a sky our travellers made each a hearty meal.

They were high up on a rounded hill, and the view all around from the

rugged mountains of the west to the east, where lay the rough and rugged

sea of ice, was indescribably beautiful.

Even the Yak-Yaks themselves seemed impressed with the transcendent

loveliness of this marvellous Arctic sunset, and those moments of such

stillness and silence that one might have heard a snowflake fall.

It was night and starlight before they reached the Eskimo village.

A moon by this time had risen solemnly over the hills, and flooded all

the country with its strange, mysterious light--- a light the like of

which I have seen in no land save the Arctic, a light that seems mystic

and positively holy.

All the inhabitants turned out to welcome our heroes, and a wild,

strange welcome it was.

This was a wandering tribe, and consequently a more brave and fearless

people than the inhabitants of the igloo villages around the coast.

But they were safe; and they looked upon Ingomar as their sun-king, as

in their musical, labial language they expressed it.

This tribe might have numbered altogether some six or seven hundred

souls, and I may as well tell the truth about them--they never fished

for blubber themselves, but levied blackmail on their humbler and more

industrious neighbours who lived along the shores of gulfs and bays.

They had very large stores of frozen blubber, however, thousands of

skins, and plenty of stored fish, and flesh of every sort, from

seagulls’ to whales’.

Stimulants in the shape of rum or brandy I do not believe they ever

tasted, but they seemed all the more happy in consequence.

Ingomar strode round among them, and even the children ran towards him

to kiss his hand. Nay, more, the very dogs danced about him, but

“down-charged” whenever he lifted his hand.

It was a queer sight to see the splendid jet-black Newfoundland standing

close by his Nora’s side and defying the whole howling pack, turning his

head sideways now and then to give Nora a lick, as much as to say,

“Don’t be afraid, my dear; they’re only ignorant savages. I could fight

them six at a time.”

The night was to be one of hard frost; but these nomads, much to our

heroes’ astonishment, lit a great fire of ancient pine wood, which they

had excavated from a hillside not far off, and so John Frost was defied

for once.

The arrival of real “Eengleeshmen” at their winter camp was an event

that no one would ever forget.

Though, in a manner of speaking, warlike in comparison to the ordinary

Eskimos, these Yak-Yaks seemed very gentle and tractable, and did all in

their power to entertain their guests. They sang queer little musical

ditties, and the men and women joined in every chorus, clapping knees

and brows with their palms in quite a funny way.

Then some of the head hunters gave a kind of dramatic performance,

spear-armed; and even Charlie and Walter could see that this

represented every phase of a great bear-hunt, even to the slaying of

Bruin, and the death of one of the hunters.

Then Ingomar himself took the snowy stage, and if he had been listened

to with the same rapt attention in New York that he was to-night by

these semi-savages, the probability is that he never would have left his

own country.

Ingomar’s igloo was a very large one, and in it burned two huge lamps,

giving plenty of heat and light. There was no smoke, because that which

arose from the oil was carried right up through, and though all the

whites slept here in their bear and seal-skins, there was not a particle

of discomfort felt.

And all slumbered well till eight o’clock next morning.

The fire was now replenished, and smoked fish made a right dainty

addition to the breakfast. The _menu_ was certainly not so extensive as

that of a Glasgow or London hotel, but our heroes sat down to it with

hearty appetites, and that is more than most people can boast of in

gloomy London town.

A surprise was awaiting them this morning, of which Ingomar had given

the visitors no previous hint.

CHAPTER V

THE SHIP’S BEARS: GRUFF, AND GROWLEY, AND GRUMPEY, AND MEG

The surprise was this: no fewer than four young Greenland bears[C] were

led forth, and attached or harnessed to a hugely large sledge, and

seemed so perfectly quiet and well broken, that neither Charlie nor Walt

hesitated for a moment to take their seats.

This sleigh could accommodate as many as ten men.

But these bears, although they moved not with half the rapidity of a

team of dogs, never varied their pace, and never needed rest until they

had covered a distance of not less than twelve miles.

Both the Newfoundlands had been shut up in an igloo. This was a

precautionary measure, for although the bears never attempted to molest

the Yak-dogs, they might not have objected to a mouthful or two of fine,

fresh Newfoundland.

And the end of it all was that Captain Mayne Brace considered himself

quite justified in purchasing these noble animals, for if anything came

of the proposed Antarctic expedition, there was no reason why they

should not be taken south with the force.

The days grew longer and longer now, fresh snow fell, softer winds began

to blow, and at long last, with noises that are indescribable, the ice

all around began to crack and break with the force of great waves that

rolled in beneath them from the Eastern ocean.

Previous to this, however, peace had been established between the

Yak-Yaks and the Teelies. The former had encamped close to the bay, and

plenty of provisions and necessaries having been landed, Humpty Dumpty

himself was left in charge of the whole--a kind of white king, in fact,

who considered himself of no small importance. He had orders to keep the

peace until the _Walrus_ should return after the spring fishing.

The sun was now shining nineteen hours out of the twenty-four, and soon

it would rise not to set again for months; and so one glorious morning

sail was set, and the _Walrus_, scorning the lesser baybergs, went

ploughing her way slowly seawards, and in good time reached the whaling

grounds.

If Captain Mayne Brace had come to these northern seas merely for sport

and pleasure, he might have had plenty of both. There were seals

enough, though rather scattered; there were bears in abundance,

strolling defiantly on their native ice, or buffeting the billows in

search of pastures new; there were bladder-noses, sharks in scores--oh,

in shoals sometimes--walruses on the ice and in the water, lonely

unicorns, and those marvellous narwhals that go plunging about, and

always seem to be going somewhere on particular business, but never

getting there. Yet glorious times of it the beasts have for all that

when they reach shoal water, and can spear with their wonderful weapons

the flat fish and skates that there do dwell. For my own part I should

rather like to be a narwhal for a month or two in summer. Hammer-headed

sharks, too, there were, those hideous zygænas, and birds in millions;

but, alas, for Brace’s pretty barque and her greedy owners, hardly ever

was a true Greenland whale seen or tackled.

And so when the season was waxing to a close, and these monster whales

had babies of their own with which they departed southward to warmer

seas, for their children’s sake, Captain Brace determined one morning

that it was time to bear up once more for Britain’s shores.

Of course the men were down-hearted, because many of them had families

to provide for, and did not want to return with empty pockets. But

“better luck next” is the motto of your Arctic sailor; and when Brace,

their well-beloved skipper, told them that there was considerable

probability that many of them--if they chose to volunteer--would be

engaged for an expedition to the Southern Pole, they regained heart, and

made the welkin ring with their lusty cheers.

When the _Walrus_ arrived at last at Incognita Bay, and the anchor was

let go in a cosy corner, as near to the shore as they could venture with

safety, preparations were immediately commenced, first, for the shipment

of huge blocks of fresh-water ice, and afterwards, for the embarkation

of the dogs and Yak-Yaks they were to take southwards with them.

The bears were going to be the great difficulty. They were splendidly

trained, it is true. But then they were but young; and who could say

that they might not, when at sea, kick over the traces, eat their

Yak-Yak keepers, and become frantically unmanageable?

The whole of the fo’cas’le was turned into a huge bear-den for their

accommodation, and seal-meat in abundance was lowered into an ice-tank,

that, during their long voyage, they might not starve.

It was a happy thought of Slap-dash, a brave Innuit and chief keeper of

the bears, to have trained three of the Yak-dogs to sleep with his

monster pets. The bears had become very fond of these, and growled a

good deal at each other over them at night, but never actually fought.

But for these honest dogs the shipment of the Bruins would have

presented far greater difficulties.

I must describe how this shipment was actually effected. To have roped

the poor beasts would have rendered them savage, and this would have

been rather indiscreet, to say the least. So a large raft was

constructed, as well as a sort of inclined plane of wood, similar to a

horse’s ladder. This last was made fast to the fo’cas’le bulwark above,

while the other end was held in its place, on the sea below, by means of

floats and beams from the ship’s water-line.

The three pet dogs, the bears’ favourites, were easily got on to the

raft, and the Bruins followed. The Innuit himself kept feeding them as

they were being towed all the way to the ship, and while the raft was

made fast to the inclined plane. Then up sprang Slap-dash, and called

the dogs to follow.

“Oh,” said the biggest bear, whose name was Gruff, “if that’s your game,

here’s for after.”

And up he went.

In less time than it takes me to write these lines all the lot were

comfortably caged.

They were not quite satisfied with their lot to begin with, however.

They had never been to sea or on board ship before in their lives,

though they had been permitted to swim about the bay many times and oft,

and even to stalk seals for themselves. But to be placed in a den with

strong iron stanchions before it, was a trifle more than they had

bargained for.

Slap-dash was a very good master to them, however, and tried to comfort

them in every way that he could. And so did the dogs.

Before I go any further let me mention that bears are almost, if not

quite, as sagacious, in their own way, as cats. Yet the ways of bears

are a little peculiar, and as pets--well, they are not altogether

satisfactory. The reason is this: they are treated without any tact on

board ship, and teased and tormented for the pleasure of hearing them

growl or cough or roar. On the ice a bear simply regards a man as

something to eat--not so nice, of course, as a seal, but, anyhow, a

change. And so they go for the human biped when hungry--I mean when the

bear is hungry. Men chase bears and kill them for sport or for their

skins and paws. Bears chase men because they are wholesome eating,

especially if fat, and almost everybody does get fat in the Arctic

regions.

As a parlour pet, a Greenland bear would hardly be suitable for a boy,

and if the boy were to take him out for an airing, say, in a city

park--well, there would be fewer city babies about before he got his pet

back home again.

A young Polar bear, with whom I was shipmate once upon a time, pawed me

in fun one day, and the barque giving a bit of a lee lurch, I fell.

Instead of waiting till I got up out of the scuppers, the young rascal

went for my leg, and I had to wriggle out of one sea-boot and skip. I

never saw that boot again, so I imagine he devoured it. On the whole,

then, if you hanker after a white ice-bear as a pet, you had better

think of probable consequences, for his immense size makes him an

awkward customer in many ways.

But, mind this, the Polar bear _is_ to be won by kindness, and when so

won, he will never harm _you_, but always make a point of swallowing the

other boy. And that is really very good of the bear, especially if the

other boy has been nasty with you some time before this.

It took all the tact of which the brave Innuit was possessed to get

those beautiful bears settled down in their quarters, but it was soon

evident enough that they were going to be real ship’s pets.

A little doubtful at first they were as to Walter’s and Charlie’s

intentions when the boys brought them biscuits and tit-bits from the

cabin. Instinct seemed to account for this. Bears become much sooner

attached to savages than they do to white men, for whenever the latter

appear, their principal object seems to be to torment and torture or get

fun out of the animals they subdue. Savages are, as a rule, far more

kind to the animals than those creatures who call themselves Christians,

but are not.

It was not long, however, before the bears began to take a different

view of the pale-faces on board. They might, they seemed to think, turn

out better than they looked, although tradition or something else told

them that it was those very bipeds who had hunted and chased and killed

with fire-sticks (guns) their ancestors from time immemorial, and who

added insult to injury by placing them in barrels and casks with bars in

front for men to torture and boys to tease during the long and terrible

voyage to Britain.

Before a week was over, the bears had quite settled down in their

quarters. They had come to the conclusion that nobody here intended to

do them any harm. Perhaps they had heard kind and thoughtful Captain

Brace give orders that no one should molest them. Over and above this,

the wise animals had soon found out that the food was better than any

they had ever had on shore, and that ship’s biscuit is even more

toothsome than white-man steak.

Besides, every forenoon they were allowed out to have a run round the

decks under the guardianship of the brave Innuit Slap-dash. A most

fearless fellow was this same Innuit, and in intellect as well as in

every manly quality infinitely above his fellows.

But whenever the bo’s’n piped, “Bears to dance and play. Out of the way

all you lads as doesn’t want to be ’ugged,” most of the crew who weren’t

on shore dived down below and pulled the hatches to. But several who

wanted to see the fun, took to the rigging and to the main top or fore.

Nick also went below, and took his wife with him.

“There’s too much bear there for us to eat, Nora,” Nick seemed to say.

“Besides, my dear, discretion is the better part of valour.”

The bears’ names were Gruff, and Growley, and Grumpey, and Meg.

And Growley was Gruff’s wife, and Grumpey had married Meg, so to speak.

But Gruff ruled the roost, and would have nailed the roast, too, had he

got a chance.

Whenever they were let out of their den, they used to shuffle right away

aft all in a row, with their noses in the air and sniffing--ten yards by

two of solid bear.

The boys were already on top of the skylight, with bones and biscuits

and all things good and tasty; and the bears stood alongside with great

open mouths to be fed. It was Gruff’s privilege to have the very last

bite, and then to take his wife away; but if Growley did not follow

immediately, Gruff went back and gave Growley a wallop with his great

paw that landed her in the lee-scuppers.

Then the fun began. All sorts of fun, in fact. They ran and they danced,

and stood on end and played at leap-frog, coughing and roaring all the

time like a dozen steam-hooters. Gruff had a habit of standing on his

head and then rolling clean over. When his body came down with a thud on

the deck, the ship shivered as if a green sea had struck her.

This was merely one of Gruff’s tricks, for the little darling thought of

something fresh every morning, and some of these I shall take the

liberty of mentioning further on.

In three weeks’ time the good ship was ready to take her leave, and a

very sad parting it was indeed for the Yak-Yaks and Teelies left behind.

Brace gave them a banquet on shore, which went far to assuage their

grief, however. It was a huge cauldron of thick pea-soup, with lumps of

fat pork and beef in it, and flanked with biscuits. The dessert was a

couple of barrels of red herrings and a barrel of raw potatoes. These

were scattered broadcast among the crowd, and to witness that scrambling

and tumbling match would have wrung the tears of laughter from a

coal-carter’s horse.

When all sail was set and the _Walrus_ began to warm to her work under

the influence of a ten-knot breeze, the rigging was manned, and three

lusty cheers given for the simple, friendly savages they were leaving

behind in the land of perpetual snow, and whom they could never expect

to see again.

And down the wind from the tribes on shore came a long-drawn, falsetto

cry of farewell. It was meant for a cheer, but sounded more like the

moaning of a wintry wind.

END OF BOOK I

BOOK II

_UNDER THE SOUTHERN CROSS_

CHAPTER I

“AND NOW,” HE SAID, “’TIS DO OR DIE”

It is true enough that Captain Mayne Brace was only a simple sailor. But

if his heart was kind and soft, it was also a brave one. Nor did he lack

genuine business habits, and long before the _Walrus_ reached the most

northerly of the Shetland Islands, he had made up his mind as to what he

should do.

He was returning a clean ship. As a clean ship he had to meet his

owners. He knew what that would mean. There would be no banquets in his

honour at the end of this voyage, as there had been last time when he

returned to Hull a bumper ship, with thousands of tons of oil below,

with bings of skins on deck even, and bergs of fresh-water ice heaped

’twixt main and fore, enough to gladden the eyes of every hotel-keeper

in the City, and with a lovely young Polar bear as a gift to the Lady

Mayoress. No wishing him further health and fortune, no men to carry him

shoulder-high to the dining-hall. _Sic transit gloria mundi_ when a

Greenland captain returns a clean ship, to meet with cold looks and

taunts and sneers.

Honest Mayne Brace was not sure that he could face all this, so he put

boldly into Lerwick, and let go the anchor opposite this quaint old

town.

Everybody wanted a rest anyhow. Ingomar himself was longing to stretch

his legs on shore, and the boys to ride madly over the moors on

untrained and untameable Shetland ponies.

I believe the brave Yak-Yak men, with their thirty beautiful but daft

dogs, and Slap-dash, with his four bears, would have all gone on shore

together if invited, and taken the town by storm.

But Brace himself, with the young millionaire, went on shore, and took

immediate possession of the telegraph office.

Every one knew good Brace, and lifted his hat to him, and welcomed him

back from the land of ice and snow, and would fain have stopped him to

chat, but he went hurrying on.

The postmaster himself shook hands effusively, and to him Brace was

obliged to talk for a few minutes.

“I want you, Mr. Bryan, to let myself and my young friend here, in your

presence of course, wire for a short time. It is on secret business of

the greatest importance, and you know, Bryan, I am an adept at working

the wires.”

The postmaster was pleased, delighted, he said; and down sat Brace,

Ingomar standing by and looking amused.

The Arctic skipper summoned his owners at the Hull end, and requested

them to wire him, through the medium of a confidential clerk.

When all was ready, he told them briefly the story of his misadventures,

and asked for advice.

The reply was somewhat as follows, when boiled down.

“Curses on your ill luck! But why did you not obey our secret

instructions?”

“Hadn’t the heart nor the conscience.” Thus the reply. “Requires more

nerve than I have to do a thing of that kind. Would rather not stand in

a felon’s dock.”

“You’re a fool.” This from Hull. “You have all but ruined your owners.

We must sell the _Walrus_ now, and at once.”

Well, this was just the kind of message Brace half expected. And, when

he read it, he burst into a joyous, hearty “Ha, ha, ha!” in which

Ingomar readily joined.

Had this been the telephone, they might easily have heard that laugh at

Hull. But a laugh that is merely wired is a very cold kind of an

article.

“There is a gentleman,” wired Brace, “whom I know, that wants a strongly

built craft to cruise around Tierra del Fuego. He is in Lerwick now, and

might be tempted to buy the _Walrus_, at a price.”

“Tempt him, then, and be hanged to you,” was clicked through.

The return clicking spelt out, “He will give two-thirds of original

price, if you will dock the ship for complete repairs at Hull.”

There was a long pause now. A consultation was being held. That was

evident.

Then the wire rattled off, “A bargain! We will confirm our telegram by

letter to-night. Good-bye, Brace, till we see you.”

“Good-bye, owners. Trust no ill feeling. Will lie here a week.”

Then Brace got up, and Ingomar and he shook hands.

“I have a great respect for you, Captain Brace,” said Ingomar. “To look

at your jolly British face, I would not have credited you with such

thorough business tact and judgment. Why, it is downright Americano!”

“Thank you; and now we’ll go and dine.”

“One minute, my friend. Who should my banker be in London? Thanks. Well,

I’ll write a line to mine in New York, and they’ll soon make business

straight for us in old England. Ah! my dear old father will know I’ve

turned up again, and that my pride is softened will be shown by the fact

that I am drawing on my pile for £200,000. I’m like the Germans, sir.

There is no use going to war unless you’ve got the sinews and nerve,

and we are going to war with the Antarctic Pole. There is nothing to be

done without cash in this world.”

Brace’s first mate, with Charlie and Walt, came on shore soon, and all

repaired to the chief hotel, and no schoolboys could have enjoyed “a

blow-out” more thoroughly than these five enjoyed their first dinner on

land, after so long and so dreary a time in Arctic seas.

For one of the chief pleasures in a sailor’s life lies in the getting

back to the bonnie green shores of Britain again, after months or years

of sailing on far-off foreign seas.

It was the sweet summer time now in the Shetland Isles, and our young

folks enjoyed themselves as only young folks can.

They went fishing from boats and from the rocks, which are everywhere

most fantastic and lovely, forming many a little lonely cave, where, on

the golden sand, bask seals in blinks of sunshine.

The sea in spring and summer is nearly always blue, the breezes are

balmy and bracing, and the uplands and inlands all carpeted o’er with

the rarest and prettiest of wild flowers. Wild birds, too, are here,

especially sea-birds, whose happy voices mingle musically with the song

of the waves.

But I think that Charlie and Walt enjoyed more than anything else the

bare-back rides they had on daft and droll little Shetland ponies, with

Nick and his Nora doing their best to keep up with them, which they

could only do by taking all kinds of cross-cuts, and meeting their

masters where least expected.

I think it was a happy thought of Ingomar’s to buy and take off with

them two of those ponies to assist the work of Antarctic exploration.

But come to think of it, when, weeks after this, the _Walrus_, now the

property of young Ingomar, steamed into Hull, she was more of a floating

menagerie than anything else.

The owners were less sulky than Brace had expected. They really did give

a dinner, not only to the captain and his officers, but to all hands as

well; and one of them, in a hearty speech, said, among other

complimentary things, that he was sure he but expressed the sentiments

of his colleagues when he told Captain Mayne Brace, whose services they

were all too soon to lose, that a more clever, genial, or braver officer

never steered a barque to the Polar seas. He hoped that all would join

him in drinking his health, and wishing him success and safety all along

on the venturesome voyage he was about to embark upon.

And all did.

* * * * *

It took the whole of the autumn and winter to build and fit out the new

Arctic explorer _Sea Elephant_, for the _Walrus_ was going to act more

as store-ship and tender to the _Sea Elephant_ than anything else. She

was to be under the command of Captain Mayne Brace himself, and would

take out the Yak-Yaks, the bears, and dogs, as well as an extra supply

of everything that was likely to be needed during the long and terrible

voyage and journey into the regions of the Great Unknown.

Captain Mayne Brace knew well what these regions were, for he had

himself taken part in a German expedition that had gone out many years

before, and had noted the deficiencies thereof.

So it was he alone who superintended everything.

Though aided nobly by his mate, and even his old bo’s’n and his Arctic

spectioneer, it was no easy task that he had set himself to perform.

They were going to a great snow-clad continent, on which there are

neither houses nor towns any more than there are in the moon, and

everything in the shape of repairs to engines, to interior, or to any

part or portion of the ship, must be done by the artificers, mechanics,

and engineers whom he must carry.

Many a long month’s thought and calculation this gave him, and many a

long journey also, to and fro in the train, for Dundee itself was to

have the honour of building and fitting out the _Sea Elephant_.

Captain Mayne Brace had no children of his own. He used to say that he

never could see any fun in a sailor marrying, who was here to-day and

away to-morrow, bound for the back of Bellfuff--wherever that may

be--with only a plank or two betwixt him and eternity, and liable any

day or hour to have to make a sudden call at the door of Davy Jones’

Locker.

Ingomar quite agreed with him as to the inadvisability of leaving widows

behind them to mourn their loss for the rest of their lives.

“Mourn for the rest of their lives? Eh? Humph!” That was Captain Brace’s

reply. And proof enough, too, I think, that he was not likely to run the

risk of wrecking his barque of life on the reefs and rocks of matrimony.

But Brace had been a saving man though no niggard, and therefore he did

not begrudge taking Walt and Charlie with him, to see the beauties of

bonnie Dundee whenever school terms permitted.

The companionship of such a man as Captain Brace was indeed a liberal

education in itself for them. For even during their holidays he would

never suffer them to be altogether idle, and he was, when time admitted,

their tutor in everything pertaining to the working of a ship.

The Dundee shipbuilders were honest. They considered that their

reputation was quite hung on gimbals with regard to the laying down and

building

[Illustration: CHARLIE AND WALT ENJOYED THE BARE-BACK RIDES

_Page 77_

]

of the _Sea Elephant_, especially under the supervision of such an

officer as Captain Brace, who would not permit a plank, beam, or knee to

be used that was not as sound as bronze.

The manning and officering of the _Sea Elephant_ was another matter for

much thought.

She would be when finished about 700 tons, and would carry provisions

for three whole years. Every pound or parcel of these would be from the

best firms, and hermetically sealed with such care that there would be

no danger of anything going wrong should it have to be kept for many

years.

I cannot spare space to describe in detail all the articles of food and

drink which the two vessels would carry between them, nor their armour.

As to the latter, independently of ordinary rifles and ammunition, they

had specially built tanks for explosives of tremendous power; and these,

I may inform you, were so packed for safety that even if the ship was in

flames above them, there could be no danger of catastrophe.

The uses these would be put to we shall see anon, but there was a

skilled artificer in charge of them, a man of the name of Macdonald, who

had worked in dynamite factories since his boyhood--a steady, sober,

long-headed Scot, whose rating was to be Captain of Explosives (Captain

X. he was called for short).

The _Sea Elephant_ was going to war, it is true, but it was war with

Nature’s forces, for the age has at last come in which Man is master

here below.

Ingomar was in constant and loving correspondence with his mother and

sister. He wrote to his father, too, but told him nothing about his

intention of disappearing from the civilized world for a time. All he

said was, that he was embarking upon an honest though daring enterprise,

which, he trusted, would, if he were successful, restore him once more

to his father’s favour. If he succeeded, then, he would return, the

prodigal son to his father’s house; if he failed, that father would

never hear of him any more.

The captain of the _Sea Elephant_ was an officer of high repute in the

United States Navy, who had seen service in the Polar regions. His name,

Bell.

Mr. Curtis was second in command, and belonged to the British Royal

Navy. He was a young fellow of barely six and twenty, and with all the

dash and go your true-born Englishman and sailor always possesses. From

the first he and Ingomar were the greatest friends.

The crew were all tried men, Arctic or icemen, as they are

called--English, Scots, Finns, and Norwegians.

“Be good to mother,” was Ingomar’s very last postscript to Sissie.

“Don’t believe me dead whatever you hear till thrice twelve months are

past and gone.”

Poor Ingomar, he was nothing if not romantic!

They sailed, those two ships, both upon the same day from a port in the

English Channel, but with so little fuss, and so little newspaper

reporting, that hardly anybody save the nearest and dearest relatives of

officers and crew witnessed their departure.

It was not until they were out and away leagues and leagues from the

chalky cliffs of England, not indeed until the August sun had set, that

Ingomar, as he stood on the quarter-deck of the sturdy _Walrus_, heaved

a sigh of relief, and turned to shake hands with bold Mayne Brace.

“Thank God, captain,” he said, “the trouble, the worry, the fuss, is

over at last. How soundly I shall sleep to-night!”

The skipper laughed as he rubbed his hands in glee.

“And now,” he said, “’tis do or die.”

CHAPTER II

A GIANT OF THE SOUTHERN SEAS

In the good old barque the _Walrus_ went not only Captain Mayne Brace

himself with our American hero Ingomar, and our two British boys, but

the spectioneer, with Dumpty, and a picked crew of sealers or whalers,

who hailed from Dundee or Hull. Then there were the Yak-Yaks, or wild

Innuits, under the immediate command of Slap-dash himself, who also

commanded the bears, Gruff, Growley, Grumpey, and Meg. The sub-chief of

the Yak-Yaks had charge of the dogs--the Eskimo dogs, I mean, for there

was one other dog to be mentioned presently, who would have scorned to

be classed as an Eskimo, just as an Englishman would resent being looked

upon as a cannibal from the Congo.

Milton the mate was the only man missing from the _Walrus_. He had been

appointed to the _Sea Elephant_ as second lieutenant, and was very proud

indeed of the honour, for this splendid barque was to all intents and

purposes the flag-ship. Her commander--Captain Bell, of the United

States Navy--had seen much service in the Arctic, while Curtis, first

lieutenant, was a daring and very clever young fellow, specially lent

from the British Royal Navy for the expedition. He was, as a sailor,

your _beau-ideal_ of a Navy man, and Navy men, you know, are warranted

to go anywhere and do anything. Although Curtis was a most exemplary

officer, a botanist and hydrographer, with a _penchant_ for meteorology,

he was the reverse of proud. One doesn’t look for, nor expect, pride in

a true gentleman, and although Arnold Curtis came of a very ancient

English family, and had blue blood in his veins, and though he had

reached the very advanced age of twenty and five, he was out-and-out a

boy at heart, and had never been much more happy than when in the

cricket-field or making one in a game of footer. At such times,

hydrography and meteorology and all the rest of the sciences, except

that which was needed for the game, were banished, and he was a boy all

over, from his fair hair and laughing blue eyes right away down to his

shoes or boots.

Months and months before the two ships sailed, Ingomar and he had been

inseparable, while Charlie and Walt often dined with him on board the

_Sea Elephant_.

Well, I was going to say that Captain Bell, or the “Admiral,” as he was

more often called, was, like most of his crew, a thorough iceman. The

crew were chiefly Americans, and every man Jack of them had braved

dangers innumerable on the sea of ice before this.

On the flag-ship were three well-known men of science--a Scot, a German,

and an Englishman, but they were just as jolly as anybody. I will not

permit my reader to associate long faces, solemnity, and humdrumness

with scientists.

Let me add that the British and American flags in this enterprise,

instead of being tacked and tagged together as at first proposed, were

hoisted, when any occasion demanded their hoisting, one at the peak and

another at the fore, or main, as the case might be.

Almost every hour during the voyage to Gibraltar the two barques kept as

close together as possible. But here, after a farewell dinner, they

parted, the flag-ship bearing up for the Suez Canal, to cruise and make

scientific but brief observations all the way down through the Indian

Ocean, until she should meet once again with the _Walrus_ at the

lonesome and wildly rugged island of Kerguelen, which lies further than

50° South, and in 70° East longitude, or, roughly speaking, about midway

’twixt the Cape of Good Hope and New Zealand.

Both ships carried as much coal as possible, but each had a noble spread

of canvas, and so steam was never up while the wind blew fair. The

Trades carried the _Walrus_ well and fairly towards the equator, and

when these began to fail them, the order was given to get up steam. So

no time was lost, the chief object being to get into far Southern seas

as soon as possible, and to commence therein the true work of the

expedition.

Ingomar had one great, one only ambition. It was to make a noble record

that should eclipse that of every nation which had attempted before

this, the circumnavigation of the Southern Pole.

The finding of the real pole, as people phrase it, was something which

might certainly be dreamt of but never probably accomplished. Yet manly

ambition is a noble thing. Let us aim high. If we fire an arrow at the

moon, we shall not hit it, but we shall hit a mark far higher than if we

had fired at a bush of furze or broom.

I’m afraid that neither Charlie nor Walter cared a very great deal for

science for science’s own sake, but they would certainly relish the

adventures connected therewith, and all the strange scenes and creatures

they were bound to see.

As for young Armstrong, or Ingomar as he still preferred to be called,

he chose to consider himself of very little account indeed.

“I am neither a sailor nor a naturalist, nor anything else,” he said one

day rather mournfully down in the saloon. “I love Nature, I appreciate

beauty, but I’d rather be able to reef topsails or take my trick at the

wheel.”

“But, my dear young sir,” said the captain, smiling, “you have found the

sinews of war.”

“Found the cash? I have,” he laughed somewhat sarcastically. “Yes, and

you may well say I _found_ it. Paddy O’Flynn found a pair of tongs--at

the fireside--and got into trouble about it. And I--well, I hadn’t even

the honour and glory of making the money we’re spending. I can sing a

song, spin a yarn, or recite a piece, and there my utility ends. Why,

Humpty Dumpty is a deuced sight more of a real man than I am.”

Charlie and Walt laughed aloud. The idea of comparing himself with

Humpty Dumpty seemed very ridiculous!

Long, long ago, crossing the line in a sailing ship used to be a very

dreary affair indeed. The doldrums were always a drawback. Is there any

real British boy, I wonder, who does not know what is meant by the

“doldrums”? If so I trust he will get into them some of these days, in a

brig or schooner. It will be an experience he is not likely to forget.

His barque may be any time, from two or three weeks to a month, in

crossing the line, for the wind may be _nil_. It may come in puffs or

cat’s-paws from any direction of the compass, or, if you ask a sailor

how it is, he may tell you discontentedly, that it is straight up and

down like a cow’s tail.

Meanwhile the sea is as calm as Farmer Hodge’s mill-dam, a sea of oil,

or glycerine, or mercury, but it is a sea of great, round, rolling waves

all the same. The ship’s motion, therefore, is just about as

disagreeable as could well be imagined; there is no “forwardness” about

it. Now you go up, up, up, now you go down, down, down. Sea-legs are

little good, and in your progress along the deck, if you do not succeed

in getting hold of something, then just as often as not you shall find

yourself on your back in the scuppers. You could not say “lee-scuppers,”

you know, because there is no lee about it, and no windward either. You

laugh when the other fellow falls, and perhaps the smile has hardly

vanished when down you go yourself. Discomfort is no name for the

doldrums. Fiddles are on the table at every meal, of course, but these

do not prevent minor accidents, such as finding the fowl you were about

to carve squatting on your lap, the potatoes chasing each other all over

the floor, your plate of delicious pea-soup upside down on your knees,

or your best white breeches soaked with black coffee.

Of course there are strange birds to be seen, and flying fish, and

porpoises, and sharks, and, on rare occasions, the sea-serpent himself,

but this doesn’t comfort you, with the thermometer over 95° and the

pitch boiling in the seams.

On this voyage there was a pretty commotion, when, one evening, Neptune

himself, King of the Ocean, with his bodyguard, his lady wife, and his

barber, came on board. It was a pretty bit of acting altogether. Ingomar

had consented to play Neptune in order to be let off, for he had never

crossed the line before, and a splendid Neptune he made, while squat,

droll little Humpty Dumpty was the wife. Ten in all had to submit to the

terrible ordeal of shaving--an iron hoop was the razor, a tar-brush

spread the horrid lather--and the grizzly embrace of Neptune’s bearded

wife, to say nothing of the bath to close up with. Neither Charlie nor

Walter, who were the first victims, seemed to like it; but when all was

over, and they hurried into their dry pyjama suits, they enjoyed the fun

as much as anybody else. The whole wild scene was lit up with electric

gleams, blue and red and green, with music galore.

The drollest part of the business was this. Gruff the bear, wondering

what all the row was about, managed to scramble up from his ice-tank in

which he now lived below, and, accompanied by his wife, put in an

appearance just as the fun was waxing fast and furious. The fun grew

faster and still more furious after this, especially when Gruff

capsized Neptune’s throne, and tried to hug Neptune’s wife.

While attempting to escape, Humpty Dumpty went heels over head into the

great sail-berth, and Gruff and his wife jumped in next with a coughing

roar that shook the ship from bowsprit to binnacle.

This ended the shaving-match, but Slap-dash managed to lead his pets

away at last, and then the dancing commenced. The music was faultless

and beautiful, but the dancing was--droll, to say the least. Then after

the main-brace had been spliced, the affair resolved itself into a

concert, and finally a yarn-spinning contest.

But everybody was happy, and that was the best of it.

* * * * *

Long before the ship had rounded the Cape, and stretched east and south

away for Kerguelen, bears and Eskimo dogs were quite acclimatized, and

most excellent sailors.

The sea had tamed the bears till they were as harmless as kittens, and

just about as playful, though in a larger, more lumpy way.

They had become very friendly, too, with all the dogs, and all the

Yak-Yaks, and even with the crew.

The Shetland ponies, however, were never permitted to come out of their

comfortable quarters when Gruff, and Growley, and Grumpey, and Meg were

at their gambols, shuffling round and round the deck with the dogs at

their heels, positively playing at leap-frog with their monster yellow

companions.

The king of the whole menagerie was Wallace--a most beautiful and

intelligent long-haired sable-and-white Scotch collie. He, however, when

the fun was going on, always took his perch on the top of the capstan,

from which he barked his orders, and seemed to conduct the gambols and

fun. Yet sometimes he got so excited and playful that he must jump off

his perch and mingle for awhile himself with the strange revellers.

It was a long voyage to Kerguelen, but on the whole a very happy one,

and so accustomed by this time were our heroes to stormy winds and

raging seas, that the wildest gales did not terrify them, for every one

on board, from the captain downwards, had the greatest confidence in the

sea-going qualities of the good old _Walrus_.

It was a long voyage to Kerguelen, but they weren’t there just yet; and

long before its rugged rocks and hills hove in sight, they experienced a

spell of such fearful weather as one seldom meets even in southern seas.

It was dark and wild and fearsome!

Dark, owing to the immensity of the cloud strata above and around, which

brought the horizon almost close aboard--a mingled chaos of driving

mist and moving water; wild with the terrible force of the wind, which

was fully five and ninety miles an hour, and fearsome from the height of

the foam-crested waves, and the black abysses into which the _Walrus_

ever and anon plunged, remaining almost motionless for long seconds,

while the seas made a clean breach over her.

Captain Mayne Brace himself confessed he had never seen the barometer

sink lower.

Every stitch of sail that could be spared was at first taken in, and the

ship was battened down; for when the first squall struck her, the

_Walrus_ had been in a beam wind, with no fires lit. Orders were now

issued to get up steam with all speed, for the gale was from the E.N.E.,

and although the _Walrus_ lay to, she was being driven rapidly out of

her course.

Things reached a crisis when the chief engineer--a sturdy,

business-looking Scot--made his way aft as best he could, and reported

to the captain that something had gone wrong with the engines.

“We have broken down?” asked Mayne Brace, anxiously.

“I wouldn’t go so far as that, sir,” replied Mr. Watson, cautiously.

“Something’s out of gear, and it will be quite impossible to put matters

straight till the storm abates and we find ourselves on a level keel.”

“All right, Mr. Watson. You’ll do your best, I know, and so will we.”

And Watson scrambled forward once more, smiling and happy.

The storm, a few hours after this, was at its very height.

Well for all hands was it that the _Walrus_ was sturdily built, tough,

and strong, a ship that had weathered many and many a tempest in the

frozen North, and could hold her own amidst the wildest waves of the

great Antarctic Ocean.

It had been early in the day when the storm came on, but long hours flew

by without the slightest signs of its abating.

The noise both above and below in the saloon where Ingomar and the boys

were trying to take it easy beside the stove, was fearful. On the deck

snow and hail added to the confusion, and when suddenly the vessel

entered a stream of small pieces of drifting ice, the heavy rattling

bombardment of the ship’s sides rendered all conversation quite

impossible.

A dark and starless night followed, but the first strength of the storm

was somewhat abated, and when day broke lazily in the east, glimmering

red through the froth of the seas, it had settled into a steady gale,

which lasted for days and days, and prevented the barque from keeping

her course.

In these strange Southern seas sudden changes in the state of the

weather are the rule rather than the exception; and so one morning,

after quickly veering round to the south’ard, the wind fell almost to

calm, and with stu’nsails ’low and aloft, the good ship now bore up for

Kerguelen, from which lone isle of the ocean she could not now be very

far distant.

The sun shone brightly once again, and every one on board felt happy and

hopeful.

To add to their joy, the engineer had managed to repair the machinery,

which he vowed was now stronger than ever, so in a few more hours sail

was taken in, and every heart was beating time to the pleasant old

rick-racket of whirling wheels and revolving screw.

“Land ahead, sir!”

This from the man who was swinging high aloft in the crow’s-nest.

The mate went into the foretop to have a look at it through his glass.

One glance was enough.

“This is no land,” he told the skipper, “but a huge iceberg, that must

have floated very far indeed out of its course.”

Then all hands crowded the deck to feast their eyes on the strange

sight.

Not a soul on board this ship that had not beheld ice in every shape

seen in high Northern altitudes, but none so remarkable in formation as

this giant of the Southern seas.

CHAPTER III

FIRST ADVENTURES ON THE ICE

When men have been at sea for months and months, catching hardly e’er a

blink of the shore, and seeing day by day only the faces and forms of

their shipmates, or exchanging passing signals with some other ocean

wanderer like the vessel on which they stand, any unusual sight serves

to excite them and render them happy for the time being.

But this great iceberg was far indeed from a usual sight. How it had

become detached from the vast sea-wall far farther south and floated

northwards, almost into the latitude of Kerguelen itself, was, of

course, a matter of mere conjecture. The currents of the oceans and the

winds had doubtless drifted it hither and thither, for months, if not

years; seas had beaten against its sheer and lofty sides, and hollowed

strange arches therein; but the everlasting snows that covered it, and

rose into cones and peaks high above, were probably as white now as, or

even whiter than, when it first broke loose and became a rover on the

ocean’s breast. And the very currents that had wafted it thither might

in time carry it south again, to join its fellows, and tell the strange

story of its wanderings and all the marvels it had seen.

The description of an iceberg of this size, or of any size, in fact, is

one of the most difficult and unsatisfactory tasks that an author can

attempt.

This one--this vast “gomeril” of ice and snow--might well have been

taken for an island at first sight. For it was fully a mile in length,

presenting to the astonished eyes of the _Walrus’s_ people a long,

glittering wall of blue and violet fully two hundred feet in height. The

white hummocks towered far back and above the cold cliff edge. At one

side it shelved slowly down towards the sea-level in a long cape, or

tongue, and upon this, if anywhere, it would be possible to land.

When the _Walrus_ had ventured so near that the hills above disappeared,

and only the gleaming sides were visible, glittering in the spring

sunshine, an order was given to stop ship, and not one whaler only, but

two, were called away to “board” the mysterious iceberg, as the

spectioneer phrased it.

The sea was very calm and blue, and only a longwaved swell was visible

on its clear surface, a swell which, when it rushed into the caves and

broke into foam in the darkness, elicited ever and anon a longdrawn moan

or roar--a deep diapason, in fact, a musical blending of every note of

an octave, from this mighty organ on which Father Neptune himself was

playing and to which he sang.

This marvellous sea-song, however, melted away almost into silence as

the boats reached the outlying tongue of ice on which they were to be

drawn up.

It must not be supposed that the scene presented to our heroes, as they

were being rowed towards the island-iceberg, was one of desolation.

The sun above them was shining to-day with unusual splendour and

glittering on the ocean, which was a beautiful study in brightest blue

and silver. High in the air circled and screamed flocks of beautiful

sea-gulls, among which were cormorants and skuas, and many a bird

resembling those to be met with in the far-off regions around the

Northern pole.

Away to the eastward a whale had revealed his black back and head, and

the steam from his blowholes rose like fountains into the sky. Farther

off was another, and many strange seals raised their shoulders high

above the water, to gaze with liquid eyes resplendent, and wonder who or

what they might be that were thus invading their lonely and silent

domains.

Some of these very seals--chiefly sea-leopards they were--had landed on

the ice-foot to slumber in the sunshine.

As the first boat, which contained Ingomar and our boys, swept round

towards the landing-place, they noticed to their astonishment that the

whole brae-side of the monster berg was covered with what at first sight

appeared to be a crowd of daintily dressed schoolboys in long black

coats, orange neckties, black caps, and waistcoats of dazzling white.

These were all in motion, and were bobbing and bowing to each other or

shaking hands as they moved about for all the world like people in a

garden-party.

Only these were not people, but king penguins. They are just about the

drollest birds, taking them all round, that there are on the surface of

the earth or on the face of the waters thereof.

Penguins are of several species, the largest and rarest being what are

called emperor penguins, and stand about four feet high. I say _stand_,

because they are so built that walking on one end or resting statue-like

on their tails suits them best. The flippers of these are about fifteen

inches long, and, when not in use, hang down by their sides in a very

awkward-like manner. Their beaks are of great strength and length, and

they know how to use them if you interfere too much with them.

I have never known an emperor penguin or a king penguin--next in size to

his imperial majesty--have the slightest respect for human beings. They

never think of running away if you go amongst them. They cannot fly,

because they have no real wings. But they can waddle, and they can

paddle either on the snow or in the water.

When the ground on which these strange birds are travelling all in a row

is somewhat rough, they cannot do more than about a mile an hour; even

this seems very serious work for them. But when they get among soft or

smooth snow, down they flop on their breasts, out go the flippers, and

they toboggan along over the surface with great speed.

In the water, above or below it, they dart along at the rate of knots. I

believe that if the sharks want a nice bit of penguin to eke out a

dinner of small fish, they have to swim exceedingly fast to find it.

Sharks, however, are not quite so common in these far Southern seas as

they are about the Polar regions of the North. Food is scarcer, and this

fact easily accounts for their absence.

* * * * *

When the boats had been called away to proceed to the examination of

that great berg, it was not only the officers and crew who felt unwonted

exhilaration, but every animal on board as well. The Eskimo dogs

happened to be up having their run at the time, as usual under the

supervision of the honest collie Wallace; while Nick and Nora stood

proudly aloof on the quarter-deck.

“You and I, Nora,” said Nick, seeming to talk to his wife with eyes and

tail, “shan’t mingle with that noisy gang. I pity Wallace, who has

charge of such savages.”

“Aren’t they calling away a boat?” said Nora in the same language.

“They’ve just called away two,” replied Nick; “and we’ve got to stand by

to get on board as quickly as anybody. I mean to stretch my little legs

on the snow, anyhow.”

The sledge-dogs were barking with joy, and vaulting and leaping over

each other, a perfect whirlwind of happiness.

They were convinced in their own minds that they were back again in

Greenland, and would soon be landed to live happy ever after. Even the

Shetland ponies stretched long necks towards the iceberg. They snuffed

something unusual, anyhow, and felt that something was going to happen.

But the behaviour of the bears was strangest of all. I believe that long

before the berg was sighted, these yellow-white monsters were aware of

its presence on the horizon.

They became unusually restive, walking rapidly up and down their cage,

and tossing their heads in the air.

There was none too much room in their quarters, so, of course, they got

in each other’s way. Gruff was a good-hearted bear, and kind even to

his dog companions, but he knew he was king of that cage, and conducted

himself according. If their language of eyes and gestures could be

translated into English, it would be as follows:--

“I’m certain,” Gruff said to Growley--“I’m certain, my dear, we are near

home at last, and won’t I be glad, just! I’m longing for a bit of fresh

seal-steak.”

“And so am I,” said Growley.

“And so am I,” said Grumpey, yawning.

Gruff slued smartly round, and landed Grumpey a blow that sent him

sprawling on the deck.

“Who asked your opinion, eh? Can’t you learn better manners than

interfere when your king and queen are talking?”

“Which I didn’t mean no harm,” whimpered Grumpey.

“Hold your tongue, sir! You’re not to answer; you’re not to wink even,

when I speak. Take that, and that, and that.”

And Gruff whacked Grumpey all round the cage, and made him sit quietly

in a corner with his consort Meg.

“As I was saying,” said the king, “when that impudent rascal interrupted

me, we must be near home, and I’m going on shore to see how matters

stand, as soon’s I get half a chance.”

“Oh, you’re never going to leave _me_!” cried Growley.

“My dear wife, never! How could such a thing enter your head? I’ll come

back when--when--when I’ve had a look round.”

Gruff was as good as his word, and hardly had the boats been hauled up

on the sea-foot of the iceberg than, in the stillness of the morning,

the sound of a mighty plash was heard, followed by shouting and

hallooing. Gruff had escaped, and was sturdily ploughing his way

shorewards.

Gruff could have swum twenty miles through the sea, and been just as

calm and self-possessed as he was when he hauled himself, hand over

hand, up out of the water.

He shook himself, and gallons of spray flew in all directions. He shook

himself again and again, and then he was ready for a romp.

He gave vent to a coughing roar that made the welkin ring--a roar that

was echoed back from the ice-peaks above, and caused the very boats to

shake.

It was a joy-shout, however, and then his antics commenced. They were

somewhat ungainly, it is true, for he tumbled on his back, he stood on

end, first on his hind legs, then on his head, then he went shuffling

off in search of a seal with the two Newfoundlands, who could move much

quicker than he, racing round and round him, and barking for joy. No

seal was to be found, but Gruff smote, first one king penguin, then

another. They lay dead on the snow, the air full of their beautiful

feathers. These birds were nice eating, and Gruff made a hearty meal off

them, and licked his great chops with satisfaction.

He seemed very happy and contented after this, and lay down in the sun

to sleep, while our heroes went prospecting round and over this wondrous

island of ice.

When the boys sat down at last on the lee-side of the iceberg to rest

and enjoy a sun-bath, what impressed them most, I think, was the

intensity of the silence.

There was not a sound to be heard save the lapping of the waves against

the ice-cliffs, and the strange cries of the penguins, which, although

the birds were fully half a mile off, could be most distinctly heard. No

one talked save in subdued tones. To have rudely broken the holy silence

would have seemed something akin to sacrilege.

Beyond the jagged snow-ridge was the dark rippling sea--wondrously blue

to-day--while high above the sky itself looked like another ocean, the

clouds like bergs of snow-clad ice.

“On such a day as this,” said Ingomar, “what a pleasure it is even to

live and have one’s being!”

“Isn’t it just like being in another world?” cried Charlie,

enthusiastically.

“Ay, lad, ay, and you are already coming under the glamour of the

ice-spirit. The influence is felt in the seas around the North Pole,

where you’ve been so long; but old sailors have told me that it is far

more perceptible down here.”

“The very dogs appear to feel it. Look, both Nick and Nora are sound

asleep!”

“No one,” he added, “can understand the glamour that steals over one in

these regions. It is usually ascribed to a species of magnetism which

affects the mind, the very soul itself, with a gentle, contented

languor, which is nothing if it be not happiness. For sailors, who have

once experienced it, will return again and again to the seas of ice, and

brave dangers cheerfully that the bravest mariners of other oceans would

hesitate to face.”

“Is it the silence, I wonder,” said Walt, “that makes one drowsy? I

could sleep now.”

“It is the silence, Walt, but not that alone. For we are breathing the

purest air in all the wide, wide world. Besides, though we cannot

perceive it, the whole of this great island of ice is for ever gently

rising and falling on the Antarctic swell.

“But now, boys, what about returning?”

“Sit yet a little longer,” pleaded Charlie. “I like to fancy that we are

Crusoes, just we three, or that there is nobody in the world but

ourselves and the dogs.”

“Are we going to shoot some specimens of gulls and penguins?” said Walt.

“We have our guns. Isn’t it a pity not to use them?”

“No; rather would it be a pity if we did. It is nearly the end of

October now, Walt. It is springtime, or almost, in these regions. Why,

then, should we disturb the happiness of the feathered race? It seems to

me that a curse would follow us in all our cruising if we stained the

pure white surface of our first iceberg with the blood of even one of

God’s beautiful birds.”

“I fear Gruff has no such romantic scruples,” said Charlie. “For here he

comes shuffling down towards us; and with his great chest bedabbled with

gore, he does look a very disreputable person indeed.”

Gruff certainly did, and he was rather flustered too, for presently

round a neighbouring hummock came Slap-dash himself and a couple of

Yak-Yaks.

Gruff was wanted, and didn’t like the idea of going on board just yet.

But more than this, for when the beautiful bear made up his mind not to

do a thing, it took a good deal of coaxing to cause him to alter his

determination.

Though no one on the ice knew it, the ship had been brought as near to

the ice as possible with safety, for under the water a berg is usually

four times as large as the portion exposed.

Slap-dash tried all the persuasion possible, but Gruff, although headed

off by the Newfoundlands, refused to be wheedled.

Even the dogs did not dare to go too near.

“I advise you to keep at a respectable distance,” Gruff seemed to say.

“One touch of my little foot would bury you both in the snow, and you’d

never bark again in this world.”

“I’m not going off for hours yet,” he told Slap-dash; and away he

scampered to discuss another penguin.

To have attempted force might have led to an accident, and so at long

last all hands returned to the boat, and rowed away towards the ship,

dogs and all.

Gruff was close to the sea now, and staring after them.

“Oh,” he said to himself, “if that’s your little game, here is for after

you. I can’t forget my poor dear wife Growley.”

He leapt into the sea.

Now, when a snow-bear takes to the water, he swims with terrible

strength and speed.

To their consternation, they could soon perceive that Gruff was gaining

on them, and would undoubtedly attempt to scramble on board, and so

capsize the boat.

“Give way, men!” shouted Ingomar. “Pull for dear life!”

A whaler is not a racing-boat, but the sailors made her fly through the

water for all that, and all in time they gained the ship’s side and got

on board.

Next moment Gruff was alongside also, and on board too. He was so glad

to see his wife again that he promptly knocked her into the

lee-scuppers.

Then the two had a stand-up fight or a terrible wrestling match.

But bears are like the Lowland Scots, and biting and scratching is their

method of making love.

* * * * *

Having made all the observations needed, the good ship once more pursued

her way eastwards and by north towards her destination.

CHAPTER IV

IN FEATHER-LAND--A TERRIBLE ACCIDENT

“How are you, old man?”

“By George, Jack, I _am_ glad to see you!”

“How well you’re looking, Tom!”

“Why, Jim, is that really your silly old self?”

“Me, and nobody else, lad. How’ve ye been?”

“Been roughing it a trifle. Got driven out of our track a piece, you

know. Something smashed and we couldn’t make up our leeway.”

“So glad to see you!”

“Been long here?”

“Three whole blessed weeks. The _Elephant_ behaved splendidly all

through, except in a typhoon. A real Indian Oceaner that were, Jack. But

we called at Mauritius and got letters.”

“Letters?”

“Ay, lad--letters from home. The last we’ll have for many a long month

and year.”

These scraps of conversation are but specimens of those heard on board

the good _Sea Elephant_, fore and aft, when the _Walrus_ people boarded

her at Kerguelen, after dropping anchor in a natural rock-girt harbour

of that Isle of Desolation.

Captain Mayne Brace was himself in charge of the whaler which had

brought them here, with Ingomar and Charlie; and now they were below in

the sister-ship’s cosy saloon, and for a whole hour the conversation

never lagged nor flagged.

Everybody was just as jolly as jolly could be, and Dr. Wright had

scarcely a case on the sick-list worth talking about.

True that in hoisting the crow’s-nest a rope which had been dried at the

galley-fire, and was somewhat scorched in one place, had snapped. The

crow’s-nest was hurled to the deck again, but only one man had been

injured.

There was no work done to-day. The mariners visited each other, and gave

themselves up to enjoyment. When the music from a merry little string

band was not sounding from the ’tween decks of the _Sea Elephant_, you

could hear it distinctly enough swelling over the water from another

merry little string band on board of the _Walrus_, and hear the

shouting, and even the laughter, of the crew as well.

Now and then came the coughing roar of the great bears or the shrill but

joyful barking of the dogs. Gruff couldn’t understand why he and his

wife were not permitted to join the dancers on deck. But this might

have been somewhat awkward for the sailors of the _Elephant_ who were

visiting the _Walrus_, for though King Gruff knew every one of his own

crew, from the captain down to the ship’s cat, he might have treated

strangers a trifle roughly. Those who have had the pleasure or pain of

waltzing with a Polar bear on the Arctic ice, have been heard to admit

afterwards that it is possible to find a much more gentle partner.

This first evening or night--for the days were now long and bright--was

one that the crews of those barques would remember long after this under

far more dreary circumstances.

But the letters? Ah, yes; a swift mail steamer had brought those to the

capital of Mauritius Isle, and now they were handed over to the officers

and crew of the _Walrus_. They nearly all brought joy and comfort.

Charlie’s and Walt’s were especially nice, and the same may be said of

Ingomar’s letter from his father and sister.

The young fellow had written weeks before he had left England, and here

were the answers. The sister’s letter was sweet, as sisters’ letters

seem always to be; and the father’s--well, his son could read between

the lines, and he felt certain that there had been tears in the good but

proud old man’s eyes as he penned the following lines: “You are a brave

boy, Hans. You are a true Armstrong, and it is just possible I may have

been a trifle harsh to you. I would rather, however, you had not gone

away, especially to the wild and treacherous seas around the Antarctic

Pole. Come back to me, boy--I say come back to me, because I feel

certain you will with honour. Come back to your sister and mother.”

“I’ll return with honour, dad,” said Ingomar to himself, as he folded

the letter and placed it in his pocket. “I’ll come back to you with

honour, or never return again. It is a handsome letter, and, father, you

have a heart that I was cruel enough to vex and chafe. I’ll never part

with this letter, for, ah! dad, it shows, however you try to hide it,

that you have already forgiven your prodigal son.”

He looked very handsome as he stood there in his little cabin, to which

he had stolen away to read the letters from home _over again_.

There was the rattle of oars in rowlocks, and he knew a boat from the

_Elephant_ was coming swinging alongside.

Then footsteps overhead, and presently entered his friend Lieutenant

Curtis.

“Hillo, Armstrong!”

“Hillo, Curtis!”

They shook hands.

“There is going to be a council of war--war with the ice--to-morrow

forenoon, and you and I have to be there. But meanwhile I want you to

come for a cruise on shore to have a look at the birds.”

“I’m with you; and I suppose there will be room for the boys?”

“Lots. They can take an oar each. They are strong enough.”

The extreme dreariness and loneliness of these rugged, dark, and hilly

shores during some months of the year can be better imagined than

described.

Kerguelen was the first to discover the isle. He was a French admiral,

but evidently he did not like the looks of it, and his examination must

have been but cursory, for he made but one or two half-hearted attempts

to examine the place, putting it down in his log as a portion of the

great Antarctic continent, about which we have all heard so much.

But other brave mariners managed to put the world to rights, and so

Kerguelen was found to be an island.

The rivalry that exists between all nations in the exploration of the

great snow lands and seas of ice has done much good. We have most of us

had a share in it, and so whether the first man to find either Pole be

British or American, or even a Dane or Frenchman, no one else will

begrudge him the honour.

No wonder that Kerguelen and Cook himself were glad to get clear away

from this island, for the gales that rage around it are often terrific

in the Southern autumn. The very appearance of the sky, too, is

forbidding, with its awful rolling cumulus or its hues of leaden grey or

inky black.

But it was November when the men of the _Walrus_ rowed our heroes on

shore, and the day happened to be calm and fine--hardly a breath of

wind, hardly a cloudlet in all the firmament.

Now and then a seal’s great head would be raised above the smooth

surface of the ocean, and round, wondering eyes would gaze thoughtfully

on the wanderers, then slowly sink once more.

And there were gulls afloat on the water and gulls in the sky.

Cormorants could be seen, skuas, and now and then the lovely snow-white

petrel.

Some of these had their nests on rocky cliffs, others on the more level

shore, but the skuas preferred higher ground, and the droll and

weird-looking king penguins had flocked to higher regions still, and

formed crowded cities that they might build and converse in peace.

Young Curtis was a student of Nature, and had many other scientific

attainments, which made him an excellent companion. There was no finding

one’s self weary where Arnold was. The rocks, the birds, the fossils,

the seaweeds, and medusæ, the fish, and the flora, all too rare or

scarce, formed the subject of most fascinating conversation.

And this young and brave officer had already explored much of Kerguelen,

and taken many observations which were bound to be useful in many

branches of science. So to-day he was capable of acting as guide to the

little picnic.

It was more than springtime in these latitudes. It wanted but little

over a month till midsummer, so the birds were very busy indeed. The

penguins were an especial study, and their droll ways amused the boys

greatly.

“Arrant thieves, they are,” said Curtis. “They are at present too busy

examining us. But if one sees a chance, he does not hesitate a moment to

steal his neighbour’s eggs, and stick to them too.”

“It is a good thing,” said Ingomar, “we did not bring the dogs with us.”

“Yes, indeed, Hans. They would have caused much destruction and havoc.”

The men followed the officers, and brought bags of matting, in which to

stow a few hundred eggs.

Birds’-nesting is sinful, but eggs are needed for food, and those of

gulls and penguins are very nice eating indeed. The flesh of the birds

may have a fishy taste, if the creatures have not been skinned, but the

eggs have no bad taste whatever.

The females sat quietly on their nests, as fearless as frogs, and

satisfied themselves with dabbing or pecking at the trousers or boots of

the intruders. The cock penguins also take turn about with the hens to

sit on the eggs, but at present they were not on watch. They lined the

streets of this strange feather-land, and were always ready to fight if

any one went too near them.

“Why are there so many birds down yonder on the water or flying about

the rocks?” Walt asked.

“Oh,” replied Curtis, “that is a secret not known to all naturalists.

Many of these birds are fishing for the rookery, or rather, for their

own particular nest in it; but there are very many who choose not to

enter into the holy bonds of matrimony at all, and great rogues and

cheats these bachelors are, and seem to do their best, or rather worst,

to annoy the more sober and staid married folks.

“And this is true,” he added, “of nearly all birds that congregate in

colonies, and even of our own humble household British sparrow.”

After a most delightful luncheon, in which the eggs of the sea-birds

figured largely, it was proposed by Curtis that they should re-embark,

and, rowing round past a cape, visit a still undiscovered part of the

island.

They had some difficulty in finding a landing-place, but managed to do

so at last, and leaving two men with the boat, the others started off

into the interior in search of adventures.

No wild beasts here, no savages, for the place is uninhabited. The

hearts of our heroes were young, however; and although they journeyed

quite six miles into the interior, through rugged ravines and ice-cold

streams, without, of course, the vestige of a road, all were as happy as

the day was going to be long.

They found many rare specimens of flora, some eggs, and a few fossils of

long-extinct shells.

They were returning by what was considered a near cut, though the ground

was higher and far rougher, when suddenly, on the brink of a ravine, the

ground gave way under the feet of poor Curtis, and he suddenly

disappeared into a kind of crevasse.

They could hear him shouting for a very short time, but his cries seemed

to wax feebler and feebler, and then were heard no more.

What was to be done? To descend was impossible without a rope, and here

there was none.

But Ingomar, as soon as he recovered somewhat from the grief and

shock--for it was firmly believed that Curtis must be dead--despatched

men back to the boat, to row in all haste to the ship and procure

assistance.

This was, indeed, a sad calamity with which to wind up a very happy

day.

While the men were gone, Ingomar and the boys did their very best to

find some entrance on lower ground into the crevasse, but were

altogether unsuccessful.

There was nothing to be done, therefore, but to wait.

Perhaps time had never seemed more long to any one than it now did to

our heroes.

The sun went down at last in orange and crimson, his beams lighting up

the waves with unusual splendour, but no one to-night could appreciate

the scenery under such circumstances.

The men returned at length, and brought with them not only ropes, but

even lanterns; for although there would be a long summer twilight, night

would soon fall, and doubtless it would be dark enough at the bottom of

the terrible chasm.

It was Ingomar himself who volunteered to be lowered down, and he would

brook no contradiction. Was not Arnold Curtis his friend--a friend to

whom somehow he had become peculiarly attached?

So the lantern was lighted, Ingomar placed his limbs in the bight of the

rope, and immediately gave the order to lower away gently.

In a few seconds’ time he had sunk to the bottom of the abyss.

CHAPTER V

INGOMAR HIMSELF HAD A DREAM TO DREAM

Long minutes went by, and still no signal came from below to haul up.

One of the sailors--a light-weight, but strong--had just proposed

shinning down the rope, when suddenly it was shaken three successive

times, and the men commenced hauling up with every care.

Charlie and Walt had nothing to do, and their suspense was therefore

dreadful.

The rope seemed so thin. What if it should suddenly snap from chafing

over the sharp edge of the rock!

At last, however, brave Ingomar’s handsome, resolute face was seen over

the precipice. And in his arms he bore a sad burden.

Curtis was not tall, so his weight was nothing in comparison with the

strength of his rescuer. But his face hung backwards, and was covered

with blood.

The doctor, who had come back with the men, now made attempts to

resuscitate his unfortunate patient. But for a long time he was

unsuccessful. At last Arnold opened his eyes, and was presently able to

swallow a little cordial, and even to talk a word or two, though very

incoherently.

“There is no fracture,” said Dr. Wright, as the unfortunate lieutenant

relapsed once more into insensibility. “Bear him to the boat most

carefully, men, and we will follow.”

“No fracture, doctor. I’m so glad.”

Then Ingomar fainted. The strain had been too much for even his strong

physique.

He was laid on his back, however, and soon revived. When fairly restored

and able to take the road gently leaning on Charlie’s arm--

“I say, Charlie,” he said, “wasn’t it a blessing that I didn’t succumb

when about halfway up the cliff?”

Ingomar was smiling, but the boy shuddered as he thought of the narrow

escape of the first lieutenant and Hans Armstrong himself, the two

principal men of the expedition. Had the dreadful accident occurred, and

the bold rescuer been obliged to quit hold while being hauled to bank,

it would have cast a gloom over all the hands which nothing could ever

have dispelled.

I believe if people would only try to look upon the bright side of

things in this world, they would always find something to be thankful

for.

The captain’s cabin in the _Sea Elephant_ was the largest and best in

the ship. It was right aft, and there was a minimum of noise above it.

This was at once apportioned to the lieutenant, who had not yet

recovered sensibility.

Nor did he for three long days.

The shock to brain and system generally had been very great, and would

have killed a less strong man. Even the loss of blood, so said Dr.

Wright, had been in no way against his patient.

Ingomar constituted himself Arnold’s nurse, and a gentle and tender one

he made, Charlie and Walt relieving him now and then.

Meanwhile, good work was being done on shore. Not only were observations

both by night and day taken, and surveys made and soundings ascertained,

but the sailors were now busy in the erection of a stone house or cabin,

which was to be the abode of five men and an officer for probably a

whole year--their home, indeed; and a more dreary one than this it would

be impossible to conceive, especially throughout the long and terrible

winter. They were to have the companionship of two of the best dogs,

plenty of provisions, and everything likely to conduce to their comfort,

with books to read, and even games to while away the time. Moreover,

they would be engaged every day in taking observations, for the

advancement of science, for every little aids; but, nevertheless, it

would be--

“A weary time, a weary time.”

One evening Dr. Wright came into the saloon or mess-place.

He was looking sad.

“Has a change come?” said the captain.

“I fear so,” said Wright.

“Then we need not ask what it is?”

“No; I fear my patient is sinking, although, mind you, even yet there is

hope.”

It was one of those still nights which we find in these far Southern

climes, when the stars shine clear and bright above, and are reflected

from the dark, smooth sea, when, in the middle watch, hardly a sound is

to be heard except the gentle lapping of the water around the stern, a

sound that often resembles the talking of people in low, subdued

monotones, only that and the solemn far-off boom of the waves breaking

drowsily on the rugged rocks and shore.

Wright had given Ingomar his last instructions, and left him sitting

quietly by the cotside, Arnold’s favourite Eskimo dog near his feet, for

the faithful beast could seldom be prevailed upon to leave the cabin or

even to touch a morsel of food.

Presently, and most unexpectedly, the patient breathed a sigh, and

opened his eyes. Ingomar was standing over him in a moment with his

finger on his pulse.

That pulse was flickering and uncertain, but it seemed stronger; but

well did Hans know that these signs might be but the forerunner of

death and darkness.

A spoonful of cordial was held to the poor fellow’s lips, and this he

swallowed.

“Have--have I--been long ill? How----”

Ingomar smiled, but shook his head.

“Don’t speak just yet awhile,” he half whispered. “You have been ill,

but now I think you will recover. Be of good cheer. I’ll go for the

doctor now.”

When he returned with Wright, Ruby the dog was sitting by the bed with

his cheek resting softly on his master’s hand.

It was such a pretty show of affection that Ingomar would not disturb

him.

Not long after this Curtis had fallen into a gentle sleep, and his nurse

had resumed his watch.

The change, the happy change, had come during that sleep, the clogged

wheels of life were once more moving steadily round, and when the doctor

again entered the cabin, he pronounced him out of danger.

It was not until next night, however, and in the stillness of a night

just like its predecessor, that the patient was allowed to talk a

little, for Dr. Wright’s orders were very peremptory, and were being

carried out to the letter.

“Hans Armstrong,” said Curtis, quietly, “you may tell me all.”

Hans did so.

“And you saved my life?”

“That is little credit to me, Arnold. Some one else would have done so

had I not.”

“But it is a credit to you. I have reason to love the name of Armstrong;

it will be a name dearer to me now than ever.

“But, Hans, when I am strong enough I am going to return to that

crevasse, and descend.”

“Indeed?”

“Yes, indeed, for there I must have dropped a gold locket, which

contained a portrait of the girl I love.”

Ingomar smiled.

“Keep your mind easy,” he said. “I found the locket, and here it is. I

did not open it--I deemed it sacred.”

“Oh, thanks! thanks!” he cried, taking the trinket, and with somewhat

shaky hands succeeding in opening it.

Probably one glance at the sweet face it contained did as much to place

the patient out of danger as days of nursing.

“Look, Hans--look for yourself. Is she not beautiful?”

No wonder that Ingomar started as he looked upon it, rubbed his eyes,

and looked again.

“Why--why----” he said.

“Yes, Hans, a portrait of _my_ Marie.”

“Nay, but _my_ Marie--my sister Marie.”

“Thank God,” murmured Curtis.

He did not speak again for several seconds.

“I say thank God, Hans, for this reason. Ever since we met I have been

struck by the strange likeness there is between you and Marie; and being

of the same name, I could not help thinking that you might be some near

relative--a cousin, and perhaps a lover. My mind is now relieved, and I

shall get speedily well.”

“But still I am puzzled. Where did you meet poor Marie?”

“I met her at a ball in New York. I think, Hans, it was love at first

sight. It was so with me, at all events. And though we have known each

other for but a very short time, it seems as if we had been acquainted

for years.”

Ingomar was deep in thought.

“Did she speak of father and mother, and--of me?”

“She often talked of her father and mother, Hans, but seldom of you. She

grew so sad when she mentioned you, and it was always as ‘poor brother

who is dead and gone.’ And now, Hans, are we still as good friends?”

“Here is my hand, Arnold. It is a brother’s hand; I shall live in hopes

of sister Marie and you being happy--some day. But how strange we

should have met, and that I should have saved your life!”

“I care little for life save for her.”

“True, Arne; I have felt like that myself before now, when in love with

Cheena, the daughter of an Indian backwood chief.”

“Some day, Hans, you will tell me that story. But, Hans, there is

something I still have on my mind; and if I unburden myself to you, I

shall be in a fair way to happiness.”

“Here,” said Ingomar, “drink this first. I fear I am leading you into

too much talk.”

Arnold did as he was told, then continued--

“It was after I knew your sister, and after we loved each other, that I

found out your father was very wealthy, and that she would one day be

so. This discovery made me very unhappy. Though I myself am connected

with the peerage, my family are poor at present. I knew Marie would not

believe I was trying to woo her for her wealth. Heavens! she would be

rich had she not a single sou; but her father might object. And so I

told her all.”

“And did it make any difference?”

“To Marie not the slightest. But to me it did. I was determined she

should not bind herself to a roving sailor like myself. It was in grief

and sorrow, ay, and in tears, that we parted. I had heard that one or

two expeditions were bound for the Antarctic, and I determined to join.

I have done so, and I feel it is for the best. If I die--well, all will

be over. If, during the years of enforced absence in these seas, Marie

forgets me--well, all will be over just the same, and I still can pray

for her happiness should I never see her more.”

“But,” said Ingomar, “suppose she does not forget you?”

“Ah! then,” said Arne, with a faint smile, “I may still dare to hope.

This hope, dear Hans, I have. It is this hope that makes me live again,

and this hope that I will cherish whatever happens.”

Once more he clasped Hans’ hand, and, still clasping it, fell into a

gentle sleep. Ingomar now spread a rug over his knees, and went to sleep

in Captain Bell’s easy-chair.

For Ingomar himself had a dream to dream.

CHAPTER VI

“TO THE WEST, TO THE WEST”

At the council or consultation that took place some days after this in

the ward-room of the _Walrus_, both Charlie and Walt were present, but,

of course, were not supposed to speak.

It was resolved therein that, instead of plunging at once into the great

ice-pack, and attempting to find out the South Pole by one bold rush,

the two ships should first spend ten or eleven months in sailing

completely round the world that lies all beneath or south of the

latitudes of Kerguelen and Cape Horn or Tierra del Fuego, and other

southern lands around the Antarctic Continent.

But they were to sail in different directions, one, the _Sea Elephant_,

going eastwards, the good old _Walrus_ westwards.

Perhaps they might meet halfway round on the high seas. Anyhow--if all

turned out well--they hoped once more to unite their forces at

Kerguelen, and thence bear up for the pole itself, or, at all events,

get South as far as possible.

This had not been the first intention of the expedition, but the

officers thereof were, of course, right in altering their plans.

But what about the bears, and dogs, and the Eskimos themselves?

This was a matter for serious consideration. It was true that there was

food enough for all on board the _Walrus_, and that during explorations,

surveyings, and observation-taking all along the line of route, they

would be able to catch enough fish to keep the bears and Yak dogs in

good health and condition.

“With all my love for the creatures we are so fond of calling the lower

animals,” said Captain Mayne Brace, “I must admit that bears and Yak

dogs are not the very best shipmates one can possess. What say you, Mr.

Milton?”

“No, sir; we found that out in bringing the beggars home. A bear doesn’t

sleep so sweetly as a well-cared-for baby. Gruff is apt to wake at night

to cough or yawn, and when he does so he wakes his wife, and she coughs

or yawns; then the dogs join, and bedlam isn’t a circumstance to the row

they make.”

“Well, now,” continued Brace, “I have a question to put. Why shouldn’t

we leave them all here on Kerguelen till our return?”

“Why,” cried Captain Bell, “that is a splendid idea of yours. The

Yak-Yaks can build their own shelters, and feed and look after the whole

pack. Are you agreeable to that proposal, Mr. Armstrong?”

“Oh, quite. In fact, Captain Bell, the bears and dogs are not the best

companions; their voices are hardly melodious enough to conduce to

sleep, and they are like Artemus Ward’s elephants--they are powerful

eaters. So _I_ agree.”

And all agreed. And as soon as everything was got ready on shore, both

Eskimos and animals were landed; and then the two ships bade each other

farewell, and each steamed away on her own track.

It will thus be seen that both vessels would sail round the world, and

each would make different observations and explorations.

But for the present, at all events, we must sail away in the _Walrus_.

Strangely enough, for the first few days the men actually missed the

bears and dogs.

Dumpty himself, who was very fond of Gruff and even Growley, used to

stand staring in at the empty cage for a quarter of an hour at a time,

and openly declared that he couldn’t sleep half so well now the dear old

chaps were gone; and many of the crew also thought the change was not

one for the better. However, that remained to be seen.

I must remind the reader just here that, though neither Charlie nor

Walter was bound apprentice, they were, nevertheless, already good

sailors, and that, moreover, they determined to adopt the sea as a

profession eventually. They now tried, therefore, to learn all they

could, and were not too proud or lazy to help on deck, and even take

their trick at the wheel.

This latter is hard work and weary, especially when the thermometer is

at or below zero, a high wind blowing, and when your mittens get frozen

to the spokes. It is bad enough in tropical seas, with the sun beating

down almost vertically on one’s head, the waves all aglitter with light

and heat, and the pitch a-boil between the planks of the quarter-deck.

And yet--having done both--I much prefer the heat to the excessive cold

of Polar seas when steering.

Whenever time permitted, the boys now sought the companionship of

Ingomar. He was a treasure, to their way of thinking. There was no

feeling lonely when he was there, whether it were treading the decks by

day or listening to his stories and talk at eventide.

Where he had picked up all his knowledge was a puzzle to both lads, and

his yarns, at all events, bore an exceedingly strong resemblance to the

truth.

There was plenty of music on board, and besides this, almost every one

could sing a bit. Before leaving Kerguelen the dogs generally began to

sing when the band began to play. The bandsmen could now play in peace,

and there was no Gruff nor Grumpey to imitate the trombone. Wallace the

collie was far too much of a gentleman to interrupt. Well, there were

games of all sorts to go in for in fine weather, and when the storms

raged and stormy winds blew, they could read and yarn.

Perhaps the _Walrus_ was not so well found in food and drinkables as an

Atlantic liner. Yet there was enough, and everything was of the best.

What more could heart of sailor desire?

I think, though, that Ingomar, who remained in the _Walrus_, would have

been glad if his friend Curtis had made one of the crew of this ship.

One word from the American and the transference would have been

accomplished; but he did not speak that word. It would, he thought, look

as if he, being the owner of the ships, were interfering with the

arrangements thereof.

“Perhaps, after all,” he said to himself, “it is better as it is. We

don’t know what may transpire yet. Arnold does not look a bit too

strong, and--well, _I_ should not like to see him sink and die.”

* * * * *

“Right gaily goes a ship when the wind blows free.” Thus sing some

sailor lads.

And the wind did blow free, and fast also, some few days after the two

discovery vessels parted company.

Not with the force of a gale, however, but that of a strong breeze,

almost like a joyous trade wind, that filled the white and flowing sail

and bent the gallant masts. This is perhaps a trifle too figurative, for

the masts of ships like these would take a deal of wind before they

bent, and when they did so, they would probably break. Of course the

_Walrus_ was not in low enough latitudes to catch the regular or trade

winds.

These, it will do you, reader, no harm to know, are really north winds

and south winds, that seem out of their course by the motion of the

earth in its revolution. In the north of the equator, and its belts of

calm and variable winds, and extending from about 10° N. lat. to about

30° N., we have the N.E. trades; and south of the equatorial belt we

get, as you would naturally expect, the S.E. trades.

That is near enough for most landsmen to know. If, however, you ask why

the winds blow towards the equator, I need only tell you that Nature

abhors a vacuum. Well, along the great hot regions round the earth’s

waist you have such a vacuum, because heated air always ascends, and

winds rush in from both sides to fill it up.

The winds far south of the trades have often, in summer particularly, a

northerly direction, because the ocean is here warmer than the ice. But

these are very variable.

On the whole, perhaps, the study of the winds is best left to the

meteorologist.

A single glance at a map of the Antarctic will show any one what a vast

stretch of lonesome ocean there is betwixt Kerguelen and Tierra del

Fuego, which is the lowest land of the great South American continent.

The wind to the _Walrus_, and to the _Sea Elephant_ as well, would be

ever welcome, unless it came in the somewhat questionable shape of a

hurricane, because they must steam just as little as possible. The

_Elephant_, it is true, had more than filled up at Mauritius. In fact,

she had arrived at Kerguelen a bumper ship, with coals, coals

everywhere, and these she had shared with the _Walrus_.

More than this, in the _Sea Elephant’s_ passage back to Kerguelen, she

would probably call at the Cape to coal up again--or somewhere else;

and, indeed, in a voyage such as this, a good deal has to be left to

what is termed blind chance, though be assured chance never is or was

blind--every wind and every current of the ocean is but obeying

inexorable laws in blowing or flowing whither it does.

* * * * *

Navigation, nowadays, is so strange and difficult a study to a mere

outsider, or ’longshoreman, that although told that the _Walrus_ was

bearing up for the Crozet Islands, and although they could easily

position these on the map or chart, and knew therefore that they lay to

the nor’ard and west of Kerguelen, Charlie and Walt were considerably

puzzled when they looked at the compass to see which way the ship’s head

was.

“We seem to be going a bit zigzag, don’t we, Charlie, old man?” said

Walt to his companion one fine forenoon.

“I thought so too, Walt; but I suppose we’ll get there all the same.

Come along. Don’t puzzle your head; the dogs want a scamper, and luckily

we’re off duty.”

Everybody was dressed in extra clothing now, and this added considerably

to everybody’s breadth of beam, but especially, apparently, to Dumpty’s.

He was, indeed, a curious figure; and the Newfoundlands and ship’s

collie all seemed to know there was something rather ridiculous about

his build, and were never tired getting some fun out of him.

Dumpty had been throwing a wooden belaying-pin along the decks to-day,

that the wise animals might have exercise. And this was a species of

exercise they appeared to enjoy as much as a young man does football.

Collie himself was nearly always first in the field or first to rush

after and catch the belaying-pin. But unless he changed ground, or

rather deck, and tried to get to Dumpty--who stood for goal--from the

other side, he was rolled over, and had speedily to give up his prize,

and fall back upon barking to relieve his mind.

But this forenoon they had varied the performance a bit, at a suggestion

from big, beautiful Nick himself.

“Come on, Dumpty,” Nick seemed to cry. “You are better than a thousand

belaying-pins. Hurrah!”

So he sprang at the droll little man, and down he went.

The two great dogs rolled Dumpty round and round, and over and over

along the deck, in the funniest way possible, and with their paws, too,

though whenever there was a hitch, Collie gave them a little assistance

by seizing Dumpty’s jacket, and hauling him a yard or two.

In this way they rolled him to goal, which to-day was the quarter-deck.

Here they met the boys, and Nick and Nora were constrained to stand up

to smile and gasp. This gave Dumpty a chance of escaping to the rigging,

and then Charlie and Walter came in for it.

They did not “down” them; but while Nick sprang up and seized Charlie’s

cap, Nora did the same for Walt, and then came the grand scamper round

and round the decks, four yards of solid Newfoundland and forty inches

of collie.

The boys could do nothing but look on and laugh, till, tiring at last,

the dear old dogs marched solemnly up and deposited their caps--unmarked

by teeth--at their feet.

“Couldn’t really help it,” said Nick, apologetically, speaking with eyes

and tail.

“And I only did what Nick did,” said Nora, saucily.

The fiddles were hardly ever off the table now, for the sea, if not

actually rough, was a bit lumpy, and there was plenty of motion. Hot

soup is very nice and nourishing for a sailor’s inside, but when a roll

of the ship spills it all into his lap, it is not quite so pleasant.

Charlie, I think, was the better sailor, and though Walt often ventured

into the crow’s-nest, he was generally glad enough to get down again.

The crow’s-nest swung so, he explained. Well, it is not a very easy job

to get there, as it is a cask with a railing at top, hoisted to and

fixed but a little way under the main-truck. But no rigging leads right

up to it, so you have to squirm up a Jacob’s ladder from the main-top

cross-trees, and to do this you must go quarter-way round the mast. This

tries the head of a landsman, I can assure you. Most landsmen who had

never been on horseback before, would rather make up their minds to

ride a buck-jumper than attempt to reach this same crow’s-nest when

there is a bit of seaway on, were it never so little.

It isn’t fun--the first day--reaching even to the cross-trees. Then,

having run the risk of your life--not being a Blondin--and gained a

footing on the lower rungs of the Jacob’s ladder, you cannot help

wondering as you scramble up, hanging back downwards half the time, if

it will give way with your weight, and which would be the easier way,

when you do fall, to meet death--getting smashed up on the ship’s

bulwarks or being plunged headlong into the cold sea.

You enter through a trap-hole at the bottom, and though you may feel

safe for just a little while, evil, discomforting thoughts return, and

you cannot be quite certain whether or not the crow’s-nest is properly

secured, or whether, if the wind begins to blow, you won’t be emptied

out altogether.

And then comes the going down again. You must not look below, or you may

lose your head altogether. Just shut your eyes and open the trap, slue

round after that, and make sure of your footing, then cautiously, foot

over foot, you may reach the rigging, and afterwards the deck.

In cold weather a spell in the nest is really a terrible experience.

Yet Charlie never feared to face it, any more than he would have funked

a ride in a motor car against the wind on a stormy day.

But when one has got acclimatized to the crow’s-nest, it is a real

pleasure to be in it, and to have an eye on the sea and the cloudscape.

There are splendid telescopes kept up here, and it is always nice to be

the first to sight a craft of any kind, with only her topmasts rising

over the far-off horizon.

It was Charlie who had the luck to first discover the Crozet Islands,

and bleak and dismal they did look, for, this being summer, there was no

snow on the rocks, but with his fine sight he could distinguish birds in

myriads.

He felt quite a man, too, when he hailed the quarter-deck, trying to

imitate the hoarse shout of the bo’s’n’s mate with his ringing--

“Below there!”

“Ay, ay, _sir_,” sang up the officer of the watch, putting particular

emphasis on the “_sir_,” more for fun, I think, than anything else.

“Thank you,” said Captain Mayne Brace. “How does it lie?”

“About two points on the weather bow.”

This was so nautical that the boy had to take a long breath after it,

and wind himself up as it were.

But the hail, anyhow, although it had had the effect of making even the

man at the wheel smile a little, produced no little excitement on board,

and more than one camera was got ready to take snapshots at the shore as

soon as it put in an appearance from the deck.

CHAPTER VII

A FEARFUL NIGHT--ANTARCTIC LAND-ICE

“Land ho!” This is a cheering cry at times to the mariner. More

especially if it be the chalky cliffs of Britain bold, and he is just

returning from a long and weary voyage.

It is not so cheering if the ship is out of her course, and the shore

looks a forbidding and inhospitable one, and if soon after this shout

you hear another “Ready about!”

Nor did the looks of these storm-rent and surf-tormented rocks tend to

raise the spirits of the wanderers in the _Walrus_ to a very high

degree.

But it was land all the same, and curiosity was excited in the heart of

every one. Even Nick and Nora must stand with their paws on the

bulwarks, and sniff longingly towards it.

As often as not, these islands or islets are enveloped in rain-clouds,

snow-clouds, or fog, the wildest of waves wash their rocky shores, and

it can hardly be said that there is a green thing upon them. But the

birds love them all the same, and find sustenance in the nesting season

in various kinds of algæ or seaweeds, and in the shrimps with which the

sea abounds.

A boat or two was lowered, and a landing-place found, and, as usual,

observations and soundings were taken. The glass remained high, and

there was every prospect of fine weather for a day or two at least, so

sea-fishing was gone into with some success, eggs were collected, and

made a valuable addition to the larder.

Then the voyage was continued, and the _Walrus_ made in the direction of

Marion Island, one of the Prince Edward group, lying in the same

latitude.

The wind continued fair for a week, but somewhat ahead.

Then one afternoon it blew a little warmer, and veered more to the

north.

“I fear we’re in for a blow,” said Captain Mayne Brace’s acting mate.

“Weather looks very dirty, sir, all about. Horizon creeping nearer, wind

coming in nasty puffs, sea with a swell on it, and a falling glass,

and----”

“That’s enough, mate; take in sail and reef. Just make her fit to

encounter anything; and, I say”--the mate had touched his cap and was

retiring--“I think we might as well have fires ready to light, in case,

you know.”

“Ay, ay, sir. Thank you.”

“Going to be bad weather, captain?” said Ingomar, entering the saloon

just then.

“Not sure. Nothing is certain in these seas. It is dark enough to have

the lights turned on, but that makes things look gloomy when one goes on

deck.”

“Yes; and the sudden transition from bright light to comparative

darkness is certainly somewhat depressing.”

“Anyhow, boys all, there’s two things I don’t mean to do, and one I’ve

made up my mind to. I’m not going to be blown back if I can help it; I’m

not going to waste my precious coals so as to have to burn the bulkheads

in an emergency; and if the wind doesn’t go with me, why, I’ll go with

the wind.”

“Hurrah!” cried Ingomar. “That is capital policy all through.”

The boys clapped their hands, because it occurred to them that it was

the best thing to do.

Everything was conducted during this voyage with the greatest

regularity. The very same precautions as to lights was taken at

night--though small, indeed, was the likelihood of a ship being met--as

would have been observed in steering up or down our own English Channel.

There were three watches, so that, in these inclement seas, the men

might not suffer from fatigue; the temperature of the water and air had

to be taken each watch; the sky and clouds observed, and the force of

the wind marked, etc., and all was logged. Notes were taken even of the

appearance of seals or whales, the flight of birds, the colour of the

sea and floating seaweed. _One_ well-kept log of a voyage is of great

use to future mariners who sail the same seas; from _many_ logs so kept,

are deduced about all that science knows of winds and seas and ocean

currents.

In a few minutes after the mate had gone on deck, the ship seemed to

stop suddenly short, to stand suddenly still, and the sails began to

flap uncertainly. There was much confusion now on deck, and slacking off

of sheets and shouting of orders, for the mate knew not from which side

the wind would come next.

Then there was a vivid flash of lightning, which almost blinded the eyes

of those below. Another and another followed quickly, and were succeeded

by louder thunder than most people ever listen to.

Then the wind!

The shifting, ever shifting wind! For the _Walrus_ was in a little

cyclone. Certainly not little as regarded force, but still in extent

small enough to be called a whirlwind. Yet such whirlwinds as these are

strong enough to sink any ship that ever sailed if not most carefully

handled.

There was another circular squall after this, then a third and fourth,

and lo! the steady gale came on in earnest, blowing terrifically from

the N.N.W.

Now God save the good ship in the darkness of such an awful night as

this!

For the wind brought with it its own waves, its own cold spray, its own

wild showers of driving rain and sleet and hail combined. It brought

something worse--it brought streams of small ice-blocks, and streams of

deep snowy slush, passing through which the ship was strangely steady,

because never a green sea rolled on board.

It is just on such a night as this long and terrible one that, with the

horizon a mere background of blackness to the dimly lighted bulwarks, a

wind that shrieks and howls like wild wolves, a wind that even head down

one cannot face, but must creep side first against, clutching at rope or

stay, and gasping as if engulphed in the dark cold water just beyond; it

is on just such a night as this, I say, that the mariner in these far

Southern seas, having taken in every bit of canvas he can spare, and

done his best for his good ship from bowsprit to glimmering binnacle,

must place his trust in Providence, feeling that he is in the hands of

Him who can hold the ocean in His palm, and bring him safely through the

danger.

The captain himself did not come below until the beginning of the middle

watch. He was wet and shiny in his oilskins and sou’wester.

Ingomar had turned in.

The boys had not undressed, but had lain down to talk fearfully, just in

front of the stove, with the dogs their only companions.

They had been especially terrified by the loud rattling of some sails

that had carried away while the gale was still at hurricane force.

“What! not in bed yet, lads?”

“No,” said Charlie. “Fact is, sir, I’d rather be drowned with my clothes

on, and Walt here thinks the same.”

Mayne Brace laughed.

“I can’t blame you, though. I was once young myself. But bustle now,

boys; find your way into the pantry, switch on the light, and see what

you can find to eat.”

This was very cheering language, not only because they knew that the

captain would not think of having supper, if he thought the ship was

going down an hour or so after, but because they themselves were hungry

enough to swallow an octopus.

An exciting night of storm has always that effect on the seafarer.

Charlie with the cold beef, Walter with sardines, onions, bread, and

butter, soon staggered out of the pantry again, and as speedily returned

for knives and forks, and plates, and cruets, and dainty sauces.

There was hot coffee in an urn over the stove, and preserved meat; and

what a glorious supper they did make to be sure! You would not have said

that there was a deal of funk about those boys’ hearts had you seen them

ply their knives and forks. But the funniest thing about the matter was

this--hardly had they got settled down to serious eating before a

state-room door opened, and lo! behold Ingomar in the robes of night

(pyjamas) standing swaying and smiling, and holding fast to the

bulkhead.

“I’ll join you, if you please,” said Ingomar.

And he did with a hearty good will too. The dogs, of course, partook of

the banquet.

The boys felt happy and a bit drowsy after this, and turned in.

Storm still raging next morning. Uncomfortable motion. Wind still more

to the north, and ship lying-to almost under bare poles.

And so it blew and blew on and off for well-nigh a week.

Then surcease of a storm and tempest, such as it is the experience of

but few to face at this season of the year in these lower latitudes.

And where were they now? Why, still in the longitude or meridian of the

Crozet Islands, but, despite their well-conducted war with the elements,

several degrees further south. In very truth, they might just as well

have sailed here to Enderby Land straight from Kerguelen.

Everybody was pleased one beautiful morning to find that wind and sea

had both gone down. It was nice to sit down to a warm and comfortable

breakfast, without fear of having the lower extremities parboiled with

hot coffee.

The boys had had their sea-water bath this morning early at wash-decks

time. This consisted simply in rushing forward, jumping, and skylarking

like white savages, and having the hose played on them. But it made them

hungry.

Forward, the men’s talk was chiefly about the recent heavy weather.

“Joy to you, Jack,” said Dumpty to a companion, “but this doesn’t seem

much like getting round the globe, do it?”

“It don’t, Dumpty, and that’s a fact,” was the reply. “But it’s all in

the voyage, little ’un, and the more months the more cash, and that’s

how I looks at it.”

The captain’s face and Ingomar’s too were wreathed in smiles as they sat

down to the good things sent forward.

“Seems,” said the former, “we’re going to go zigzagging round the

world.”

“Yes. Going to resume your course now?”

“No; the wind brought us here. I’ll forego the Marions now, and bear up

for the Boukets and Lindsays, weather permitting; but not until we now

have a look at the country the storm has been unkindly enough to drive

us to _nolentes volentes_.”

“I wonder where the _Sea Elephant_ is about this time?”

“Ah, it would be hard to say, but the gale that we encountered, if it

has passed far on to the east, would have been more favourable for them,

and they are now in open seas off Budd or even Knox Land. They’ll beat

us in the race round the world, you’ll find.”

Every one had the greatest faith in the sturdy old _Walrus_, for

icebergs to her were nothing, so long as she did not get into a powerful

squeeze.

The “ice blink,” a reflection like snow on the horizon over the pack,

was seen that forenoon early, and Mayne Brace headed away directly for

it. He judged himself to be about the longitude of Cape Anne, and he was

right.

Young sailors like Charlie and Walt wondered a little that they did not

sooner come into fields of slush and streams of smaller ice, that of

broken-up floes and hummocks.

“The reason is simply this, boys,” said the skipper. “That kind of stuff

has all been hurled back to the edge of the pack on the main barrier of

ice by the force of the northerly wind.

“This land-ice is quite different,” he continued, “from any you have

ever encountered in the North Pole regions. Our earlier navigators in

their tubs of ships sighted it, and some of them sailed along its edge

for hundreds of miles; and as they could find no inlet before they were

driven off by storms, they jumped to the conclusion that this great

barrier, this solid, cliff-like wall of blue or green or striated ice,

hundreds of feet in height at some places, went all around the

Antarctic, warning them that thus far might they come but no farther.”

“But what, then,” said Charlie, “do you mean by land-ice? I’m all in a

fog.”

“Well, lad, you must first imagine a time in the remote ages when this

great unknown Antarctic continent was a land of mountain, forest, and

flood, with rivers finding their way down very extensive valleys to pour

their bright waters into the sea. Imagine, too, if you please, that

these beautiful valleys were in ages far remote from ours clad in

verdure, in jungle, heath, and forest, and that a fauna distinct from

ours existed here, that immense mammoths and mastodons dwelt here, and

mayhap flying alligators, though probably no other creature at all

bearing any resemblance to the form of human beings.

“Then let this age pass out of your mind, and another and colder period

slowly commence--a glacial period, for instance, during which the rivers

and lakes were frozen, and there was no more rainfall, because the

mists or dews driven over yonder continent were then condensed, and fell

as snow. The long storms of winter would soften and the snows melt

somewhat during the Antarctic summer, to form ice again when the dark,

wild weather returned. So the valleys would be partially filled up with

great glaciers. These must move down towards the sea, though extremely

slowly--broad Mississippis of ice and snow. When this so-called land-ice

reached the water, it would form a barrier, and monster bergs would get

detached and float away, leaving the striated cliffs with their

wave-washed caves at the edge. In the gigantic, snow-covered, square

blocks that float away on the currents of ocean, these caves form

archways, so that you can sometimes see right through the bergs, or even

sail a boat through them.

“Well, that is land-ice, but the sea-ice is formed of something like the

same pancake and hummocky ice we find in the far, far north, and the

peculiarity of the Antarctic seas of ice is this--the land-bergs, if I

may so call them, often get embedded or entangled in pack-ice, high

above which their great bulk heaves, as towers a ship of battle above a

tugboat or dinghy. In course of time the land-bergs are hollowed and

tunnelled by the waves on which they float, till they break-up, or

divide, forming the strangest-shaped pieces imaginable.

“Another thing which proves that a long way into the interior of this

South-polar region land extends is this--_débris_ of earth and blocks of

rock are brought down on the glacier that, as an examination of the

sea’s bottom proves, could have descended in no other fashion.”

“It is all very wonderful!” said Charlie.

“I wonder,” said Walter, “if any mermaids dwell in these caves of ice?”

Captain Mayne Brace smiled and answered.

“I hope,” he said, “to give you an opportunity of discovering for

yourself, my dear boy.”

But the _Walrus_ reached the pack of sea-ice at last; and the sight,

though not perfectly new to mariners who had sailed the Arctic seas, was

at least very wonderful, and had a cold kind of beauty about it, which

it is difficult indeed to describe.

And far, far away in the interior, mountains covered with everlasting

snow raised their great peaked heads on the horizon.

No life?

Well, no animals, not even a leopard, seal, or sea-elephant, but droves

of droll penguins, standing on end, and looking, at a distance, for all

the world like a crowd of lazy boys just let loose from a Sunday school,

who had been warned not to soil their clothes by romping.

CHAPTER VIII

WONDROUS SCENERY--NICK SAVES THE LIFE OF WALLACE

The hummocks in this pack were not like those in Greenland seas, which

are generally rounded off by wind and snow. These were more like pieces

of ice set on end, and were of every conceivable shape or form.

But not far away from the sea-edge was a most gigantic fellow of a

land-iceberg. It was quite as large as five and forty St. Paul’s

Cathedrals formed into one. Peaked here and there it was too, and the

outlines of these peaks were rounded off with snow.

It was evident that this magical monster had been to sea a time or two,

and that, moreover, he would go north again on the first chance, quickly

dashing aside the pigmies that now impeded his progress, forced along by

wind and current.

The _Walrus_ lay-to off the pack-edge for a day or two, that

observations, soundings, and a survey of the sea’s bottom, etc., might

be taken. For Mayne Brace did not mean to work through at present, and

risk the chance of being beset.

But boats were sent off, that our heroes, and even the dogs, might have

a scamper.

Though too rough for ski, or snow-shoe travelling, the ice-pieces were

pretty close together, and it was easy for everybody to leap from one to

the other, and so on and on till at long last they reached the berg, and

made an attempt to get to the summit. This was much harder than was at

first expected, especially for the dogs, but these were determined to

follow their leader; and so, often stumbling, sometimes slipping, many

down again, they struggled on until they got to the top.

They had their snow-shoes over their backs, and although there was some

danger of their going over a cliff or icy precipice, they enjoyed an

hour’s really good fun. They would have tarried here much longer, but

noticed that the signal for recall had been hoisted; and so, as soon as

they had erected a pole, with a round black ball on the top, and the

name of the vessel cut in the handle, they started to retrace their

steps.

The hoisting of the pole took a longer time than they had reckoned on,

for they had to cut the hard surface of the snow first with their

Jack-knives, and get the dogs to complete the excavation with their

busy fore-feet. This they encouraged them to do by pointing to the hole

and saying “Rats!”

Now, I don’t believe that either Nick or Nora expected to find a rat in

such a place, but that they merely worked away to please the boys.

None too soon did they reach the boats, for lo! the ice was opening, and

the small bergs getting farther and farther apart. As it was, one man

received a ducking which he would remember till his dying day.

If a strong current ran under the ice, it would have been easy for it to

have carried him away. In Greenland seas there is extra danger in such

an immersion, for sharks are always on the watch there when men are on

the ice, and no one would care to be made a meal of by these scaly

monsters.

Two boats had come on shore, and, as usual in such cases, a race was got

up--and oh, there is no race so exciting as that between real sailors

with good honest broad-beamed boats. Ingomar offered as a prize a bottle

of rum and pound of “baccy” to the winning whaler. So the men must even

doff their heavy jackets to the work.

Noticing what was up, all hands on board crowded into the rigging, and

small innocent bets were made, such as clay pipes or postage stamps that

had only been once in use.

The men in each boat were about equal in weight. Charlie was cox’n of

one, Walt of the other, and Hans himself gave the signal.

Then, had you been there, you might have heard such shouts or

encouraging words from the boys to their crews as--

“Up with her now!”

“Cheerily does it!”

“Hurrah, men! Hurrah!”

“We’re winning!” from Charlie.

“We’ll beat them, boys!” from Walter.

“Touch her up!”

“Merrily goes it!” etc.

And Walt’s boat had soon forged ahead at least two lengths, then--

“Now, lads,” roared Charlie--“now, lads, give them fits! We’ve got to

win.”

And on rushed the whalers, every man doing his most.

It was likely, after all, to be a win for Walter, when, unluckily, his

boat touched a bit of green ice, which caused a man to catch a crab,

and, with a loud cheer from those on board, Charlie dashed madly past,

and won by a length.

Then cheers, loud and long, rose from the rigging, with many a mighty

hurrah, and when Charlie scrambled in-board, he was hoisted and carried

three times round the deck shoulder high, the men singing merrily.

Then the boats were hoisted, with the dogs still in them, and they soon

joined the merriment, you may be sure.

But everybody seemed happier for what was called their spin on shore.

* * * * *

Shortly after this more sail was set, and the vessel headed away for the

west, tack and half-tack, for the wind was not yet fair.

That same afternoon they rounded Cape Anne.

This point of rocky land juts far into the sea here. It is a wonderful

sight in summer when the black rocks stand out and the higher cliffs are

still covered with purest snow.

But what a world of life was here--in the sea, on the cliffs and shore,

where cities of countless, I may say myriads, of birds were built.

Sea-leopards and other phocine creatures were all around in multitudes.

It was determined to risk another lie-to, for the water was too deep to

anchor, and they must not venture near those mountain peaks, for unknown

seas have a disagreeable habit of shoaling suddenly, and if it is not

low water when a ship is stranded, poor indeed is her chance of ever

getting off again.

The day was very long now, but still there was a marvellous sunset

to-night. Strange colours, rubies, greens, and orange, lingered long on

the mountain and snow-cliffs full half an hour after the sun went down.

And after the stars shone out, a quarter moon sailed slowly up, but

seemed to detract in no whit from their wondrous brightness.

High above shone the Southern Cross, a constellation which in this

country can, of course, never be observed. The scene about midnight,

when Ingomar and the boys came up to have a last look at it before

turning in, might well have been called solemn, but for the strange

noises which hardly ever ceased.

Here and there, near to the ship even, was the hissing and hurtling as

of a ship blowing off steam, and looking in the direction from which

these came, great fountains or geysers could be noticed in the pale

light. Whales were blowing. Other sounds, and sighs, and cries, and

snortings, and moanings were incessant, and now and then long-drawn

cries, proceeding whence or from what no one could ever guess.

For the rocks were covered with skuas, cormorants, and many a curious

bird never met with in Northern waters.

“Do these creatures never sleep, I wonder?” asked Charlie.

“Hardly ever in early December,” said Captain Mayne Brace, who stood

near him, “because, Charlie, this is the season of love and joy, and

the shores are covered with nestlings, who would hardly permit their

parents to sleep, if they wished to.”

“But I suppose they sleep sometimes?”

“They just have a nap or a nod or two now and then, when Nature won’t be

denied any longer.

“But I say, boys, there is no reason why you should sit up all night,

even if yonder birds and beasts do. Off with you and turn in.”

Charlie’s sleep was very dreamful that night, and so was Walter’s too.

But what they had seen the day before was nothing to the sights that met

their gaze next morning when the boats landed.

They had been told to land on a white tongue of land where penguins were

marching about and sea-leopards lolling in the sunshine, half-standing

on their flippers to stare at the advancing boats, scratching

themselves, and assuming the most ridiculous attitudes imaginable.

They had the pleasure of seeing several whales, and it was well they did

not come into anything like close contact with these, or a nasty capsize

would have been the consequence.

The seals were not a bit afraid of them, and hardly troubled to shuffle

away into the water. Those who did made splendid dives. Charlie could

not help envying them, but he himself would not have cared to dive into

so dark and deep and cold a sea.

Some of the smaller ones were pole-axed (clubbed) because the flesh is

palatable, and fried seal’s-liver and bacon make a capital breakfast

dish.

Close to the precipitous ice-cliffs they had been warned not to venture,

and indeed, while gazing and wondering at these as they shone and

shimmered in the sunshine, a terrible explosion took place. High up a

portion of the ice-wall fell, thundering and splashing into the sea,

where it was splintered into pieces.

It fell right into the midst of a portion of water black with the heads

of wondering seals, yet not one floated up dead, so nimbly had they

dived beneath.

The camera-men and general observation-takers managed to climb a snowy

mountain-peak, and I need hardly say that our heroes formed three of the

party.

The sight that met their gaze from this lofty altitude, was one which

once seen could never be forgotten.

Let those who tell us that scenery of Antarctic ice is dead and

monotonous come here. Here was no monotony, and they could see to such a

distance icebergs, small and great, afloat on the blue ocean (the sky

was blue); an island or two on

[Illustration: HE HAILED THE QUARTER-DECK

_Page 164_

]

the horizon of the north; to the south and west a long stretch of hilly

shores, with snow-whitened, rugged peaks, little ice, big ice, ice of

every form or shape that could be imagined, clouds and cloudlets in the

sky, rolls of cumulus, lines of stria and patches of cirrhus. As for

life, that was everywhere beneath them. Such crowds of beautiful

sea-birds, especially gulls, had never before been witnessed, and the

water was alive with life.

“Look, oh look!” cried Charlie, pointing to a particular spot just

beneath. Here was a strange-looking monster, indeed--a real live

sea-elephant, called so from the length of his proboscis. But king of

the seas he is here, and other seals were crowding round him as if

taking counsel, or--what is more probable--to scare him away by the

might of their numbers. But he dashed them proudly away and soon

disappeared. Like the great bladder-nose of the Arctic, he is a rather

lonesome animal, and prefers to be.

With their lorgnettes they could see from such a height as this far down

into the sea-depths. It was a busy time with the sea-leopards, for they

were teaching their puppies how to swim with grace and celerity, and how

long to stay below before Nature craved for a mouthful of fresh air.

Some of them held their offspring between their flippers, and these were

evidently giving suck.

Luncheon was partaken of, about 1700 feet above the sea level.

Lanes of water, south and west, could be seen penetrating into loughs or

inland seas; but on this being reported to Captain Mayne Brace, he

decided not to explore.

Lest I forget it, I should mention here, that the huge iceberg, on which

the signal broom was hoisted, near to Cape Anne, was encountered far to

sea many months after this by the _Sea Elephant_. The commander was

greatly puzzled, but hauled yards aback and lowered a boat, thinking

there must be shipwrecked men on the berg, part of the crew of some

other expedition. They were even more puzzled when they found the name

_Walrus_ burned upon the pole. But this episode served to show the drift

of the ocean current of the wind, for it was found far to the west,

between South Georgia Islands and the great ice-pack.

On their way further to the west, the _Walrus_ encountered weather fair

and fine. They kept inwards, therefore--passing many huge striated

icebergs, some caved, others tunnelled through and through--until they

reached the Bouvet Isles, in latitude about 53° South and longitude 2°

to 5° East.

They are volcanic in origin, as might easily be expected, and were first

discovered by Captain Bouvet, who, however, could give but little

account of them, owing, first to dense fogs, and secondly to the rocky

little uninviting group being so closely packed around with ice-floes.

After seeing all here that could be seen, and catching many specimens of

strange seals, as well as birds, the vessel’s direction was altered from

N.W. to W. by S., and in due time, with few further adventures, and a

considerable deal of monotonous sailing, they reach the Sandwich group,

which lies in from 55° to 60° South and somewhere about 30° to the west.

These islands were all volcanic, as far as could be made out, and,

indeed, in one of them, nearly the farthest north, smoke still issues

from a half-burnt-out cone.

Almost every bottle, as it was emptied, was thrown overboard. After

letters were written, they were corked, waxed, and well sealed. Some of

these, strange to say, were picked up nearly a year afterwards on the

shores of South America. And these, of course, were duly forwarded to

England.

Some were, half a year after this, picked up by the _Sea Elephant_, and

joyful enough were all hands to learn that all was going well on the

sister ship.

* * * * *

West, and away ever west.

West, and still further south; and one morning, when the sun was

unusually bright and clear, Charlie had the satisfaction, from the

crow’s-nest, of discovering mountain peaks ahead.

Unfortunately for our young hero, these had been discovered generations

before his time, else his name would be handed down in ocean history.

Never mind, when he hailed the quarter-deck, Charlie was just as proud

as a pouter pigeon who discovers three eggs in her nest instead of the

legitimate two.

The observations were continued, for science’ sake, and at great risk

too, for half a gale of wind was blowing from the south-east, and the

sea roared wild and angrily, so that to land a boat was impossible.

So no one was sorry when they bade farewell to this strangely

inhospitable group of islands. They were covered entirely with snow, and

it was found from soundings that the bottom around was not of volcanic

formation. This, at all events, was something to know.

They had hardly seen the sun for weeks, fogs prevailed as well as high,

uncertain winds, so that navigation had been considerably impeded.

Just one adventure they had on leaving these islands. Somehow, while

racing about, poor Wallace, the collie, managed to leap clean and clear

over the bows.

Every one loved that dear dog, and he was said to be far wiser and more

sagacious than even Nick himself.

Be this as it may, he had not the same swimming power, and what followed

fully proved this.

A life-buoy was let go almost _instanter_, and some confusion ensued.

At first it was thought that a lifeboat could hardly live in that wild

sea; but Ingomar himself pleaded with the captain to make the attempt,

and the ship was being stopped, and the men standing by to lower, when

the captain gave the order.

But now comes the strange point. Nick had seen all, and as soon as the

command was given he sped quickly aft and dived overboard.

The collie was far astern; but, rising on the crest of a wave, Nick

could see him, and barked joyously.

It was a sight to see that boat leave the vessel’s side, and to mark the

stern-set faces of her brave British crew. They were only going to save

a dog! Is that what you say, my gentle boy reader? All the more honour

to them for risking their lives in the cause.

They found the dogs at last, the Newfoundland with his head turned

shipward, the collie resting his fore-paws on his strong shoulders.

And when the boat was hoisted, at last, and the lifeboat men, the

gallant dog, and rescued collie, oh, then, I say you ought to have been

on board to listen to the wild cheering, and to see the men crowding

forward to caress the beautiful Nick.

CHAPTER IX

WITH HOBSON ON THE “MERRIMAC”--THE STORY THAT CURTIS TOLD

Both Curtis and Ingomar were capital story-tellers or “yarn spinners,”

and the tales they told the boys helped to while away the time on many a

forenight which might otherwise have felt long. I give the following as

specimen; it was told by Curtis:--

“I liked Jack Hardy from the very first day I clapped eyes on him. Had I

got that lad into the British Navy, I should have been proud to have

seen him among his pals drawn up for inspection on the flagship’s deck,

first Sunday after entering. But this young Jack was an American Jack,

and his ship was the bold _Iowa_, on which my hammock was hung _pro

temp._, and the time was very shortly after the capitulation or capture

of Santiago, and destruction of the fleet of Cervera.

“The American-Spanish War didn’t last long enough to please me, but it

did rip and rattle and roar in Cuba and all around the island after the

first ship spat angry fire. You shall earn my eternal gratitude, boys,

if you bring any one up with a round turn who dares call it ‘a _little_

war.’ I tell you what it is, the book isn’t written yet that shall

describe one-half the gallant deeds done by our brave cousins, on land

and at sea, during those brief summer months of eighteen hundred and

ninety-eight.

“‘The Spaniards never had a chance,’ some may tell you.

“But the Spaniards _had_, and Admiral Cervera had also; and if his

gunners had been smart and good, and with some degree of dash and go

about them then, with his splendid ships he might have done wonders, and

the war might still be raging.

“‘Manaña!’ (ma-nyah-na--to-morrow). ‘Manaña!’ is the beggarly whine for

ever on the lips of the Dons, be they seamen or soldiers.

“But ‘To-day!’ is America’s battle-cry. Jackie just flings off his

jacket and goes at it hammer and tongs, like a true-born Briton. And God

give us gunners, lads, like the Americans, when our own day of battle

dawns.

“Well, about Jack Hardy? He was a fine, open-countenanced boy, say

seventeen or a little over. He really hadn’t been a year in the service,

hardly time for some to get used to their sea-legs. But the lad was a

sailor already--you could have told that at a glance--a sailor every

inch, from his purser’s shoes to his broad blue-banded cap and collar,

and his cheerful, willing, brick-dust face. Guess it was his splendid,

spreading bare brown neck that first drew my attention to Jack. Give me

a boy, or a dog either, that has a well-put-on neck; he’s got the sand

in him. You can bet your blouse on that. Take your turtle-necked chap on

shore again. He is no good for the navy, and a turtle-necked dog isn’t

worth the price of a rope to hang him.

“Now, the American man-o’-war’s courtesy is well known, so is my

modesty. But the latter is _sui generis_. For example, if I required to

borrow money from a friend to get me a dinner, I should never ask for a

dollar, if there was the ghost of a chance of getting a guinea. So when

Captain Hotchkiss, in his kindly way, said to me, ‘Want to do Santiago,

do you, Curtis? Press, eh? Very well, you can choose a man and boy as

body-guard,’ I chose Hardy, and a fine old sailor not long promoted to

the rank of bo’s’n’s mate--the two best hearts in the ship; and the

latter, I knew, had been with Hobson in the _Merrimac_, and I hoped,

therefore, to worm a _vivâ voce_ yarn out of him before we came off from

shore again.

“Now, I had been to Santiago before--years ago--and I rather liked it

then. I can remember it even now as I speak, remember it as a lovely

dream, a romance--with a beautiful Spanish girl in it whom I---- But

never mind, the ruthless fingers of Time have long since torn that leaf

from the log of my young life. But somehow I expected to find Santiago

on this bright and beautiful forenoon, as my boat went dancing over the

blue bay, just as I had left it in the days of ‘Auld Lang Syne.’ I had

but to close my eyes to see once more all its greenery and quaintness,

with its quiet court-yards where flowers and fruit trees grew; where,

when moon or stars shone bright and fire-flies rose and fell among the

foliage, I used to listen to the tinkle of the lute--Lucia’s lute, Lucia

in robes of white, with dark mantilla thrown carelessly over her raven

hair, and a flower on her breast, a flower I never left without.

“‘I say, bo’s’n’--I had opened my eyes now wide enough--‘I say, doesn’t

the breeze smell rather--er--er--gamey?’

“The good fellow laughed. ‘That it do, sir,’ he said. ‘Santeehager ain’t

what it used to be by a jugful. You’ll find it ain’t the sweetest o’

perfoomery now. Sometimes it’s wusser’n others. Sometimes, when seven

miles at sea, ye might hang your sou’wester on the perfoom o’ sweet

Santeehager!’

“My romance, my dream of fair women fled just then, and didn’t return.

“Well, I have seen a city or two after a siege and bombardment, and I

know as well as anybody how many ‘r’s’ there are in horror, but the

sights I saw that day I had better make no attempt to describe. How

American and Spanish troops could live and laugh in such a place as

this, even with assistance from the bodegas, was more than I could tell.

Ruins everywhere, sometimes whole rows of them, with fallen roofs and

blackened rafters; streets and lanes and piazzas obstructed with broken

furniture of every sort; vilely smelling currents of black filth, and

pools and lakelets of the same; and--mercy on us!--corpses everywhere in

the quieter squares--corpses of wretches who had crawled there to die;

corpses reeking in the sunlight; corpses that even the clouds of horrid

vultures refused to put a talon in.

“Such was Santiago. I had come for copy, and I soon had enough of it.

“‘Let’s get out of this, bo’s’n. Can’t we spend the night up yonder

among the hills and palm trees?’

“‘Yes,’ the good fellow answered, cheerily. ‘And luckily the wind’s

about a N.N.E.’

“We didn’t leave the city empty-handed, though. One hotel was doing a

roaring trade, and when we found ourselves, an hour before sunset, high

up among the woods, we had enough of the good things of this life to

have stood a five days’ siege.

“Perhaps we didn’t make a hearty supper! Oh no, sailor-men never eat and

drink!

“We had some wine anyhow, for our stomachs’ sake, let me say, and to

eliminate the perfume of sweet Santiago, which seemed still to hang

around us.

“The sunset was ineffably beautiful, the clouds and the bay were

streaked with the colours of tropical birds; of those very birds that

sang their evening songs above us, while the breeze sighed through the

foliage.

“Twilight does not last long here, however, but a big round moon rose

slowly over the hills, and there would be neither darkness nor danger

to-night.

“‘I say, bo’s’n,’ I cried, ‘you were in the _Merrimac_ with gallant

Hobson. Tell us your version. Have another cigar, and another glass of

wine. Keeps away infection, you know.’

“The bo’s’n needed no second bidding. He had a bo’s’n’s nip--four

fingers high--and the wine was brandy too.

“‘Ahem! Yes, I was in the _Merrimac_, and so was Jack Hardy, here.’

“‘Well,’ I cried, ‘I _am_ in luck. Wait, bo’s’n, till I light up. Now,

then, heave round, my friend. Sure you’re not thirsty?’

“‘No, sirree. I feel that last little tot in my eye like. Ever seen

Hobson? Well, you’ll like ’im when you does. You’ve seen a yacht, spick

and span, new, that can rip through a stormy sea, hang or move like a

Mother Carey’s chicken, and do ’most anything. That’s him. That’s

Hobson. Bless you, sir, the old men didn’t like the youngster’s brave

proposal at first. They pooh-poohed it, as ye might say. Even Schley

himself laughed a little, as, in his fatherly way, he put a hand on

young Hobson’s shoulder. I was as close to ’em, sir, as I am to Jack

here. “Admiral Cervera,” he says, “is in yonder right enough. Only wish

the beggar would come out. He’s bottled.”

“‘“Ay, admiral,” says Hobbie, as we calls him for fond like, “and I want

to cork the bottle. Give me that old collier the _Merrimac_, and, with a

few volunteers, I’ll take her in and sink her right across the narrow

neck, ’twixt Canores and Estrella Points, and----”

“‘“And where will you and your men be then?” says Schley.

“‘“I’ll give you my word of honour, sir, I’ll go to heaven, almost

cheerfully, as soon’s we bottle up the dirty Don! Besides, sir,” he

says, “why smash that fine fleet up, when it would make so grand an

addition to the American Navy?”

“‘Yes; and it were that very argerment, I guess, that carried the pint,

wi’ the captains in council assembled. Volunteers! Ay, in course; half

the navy would have volunteered to steam to certain death with young

Hobson. It was the forlornest o’ hopes ever led.

“‘Look you, see, sir.’ The bo’s’n paused a minute to draw with his knife

a rough sketch of Santiago bay and city on the ground.

“‘That’s my map, like, o’ the place lying down yonder beneath us in the

moonlight. Them things there at sea is the fleet--our fleet. You’ll have

to take Cervera’s for granted, but one of his ships lay here, you see,

to guard the entrance. The crosses is the batteries, and they did blaze

and batter us that awful night!’

“The bo’s’n paused a moment, and laid his hand affectionately on Jack

Hardy’s shoulder.

“‘Me and my young pal here,’ he continued, ‘had known one another for

months afore then. There was something about the lad that made me like

him. See’d him throw his extra garments one day and go like thunder for

big Nat Dowlais, ’cause he’d kicked the ship’s cat. Ay, and welted him

well, too. I took to talkin’ more to Jack after that. But I couldn’t get

down deep enough to the boy’s heart. There was something under the

surface; I could tell that. Jack was no ordinary bit o’ ship’s junk.

Bless you, sir, there’s hundreds o’ gentlemen’s sons before the

mast--but they’re not all like Jack Hardy. Jack was more like a stage

sailor than anything else. Everything he put on was so darned natty--his

hands so white and soft, though his face and neck was brown. Then he

talked American like a book. Played the piano, too, like a freak, and

was often in the ward-room in consequence. And blowed if I didn’t hear

the master-at-arms--bloomin’ old brass-bound Jimmy Legs--more’n once

call him “sir.”

“‘Well, the _Merrimac_ was ’long-side and ready. Incloodin’ Lieutenant

Hobson himself, eight of us were chosen for this deed o’ danger.

Torpedoes were arranged in the hold. Hobson would stand by the helmsman,

Hobson would touch the button and sink her, and, at a word, we should

leap into the sea and swim for the dinghy towin’ astern, for this was

our only hope o’ salvation.

“‘Jack, here, had stood by my side among the volunteers, but the poor

lad was passed over. Don’t nudge me, Jackie lad; I’m goin’ to tell the

truth, the whole bloomin’ truth, and nothin’ but--so there! I’ll never

forget, sir, the look o’ disappointment on the lad’s face just then.

Some time after, I found him for’ard with his back to the ship and his

face to the sea. He looked smartly up, but I could see by the starlight

there were tears on his face.

“‘He said nothing, but walked away impatient like, and I saw him no more

_for a time_.’

“The bo’s’n leaned towards me now, and his eyes sparkled in the

moonlight. He touched my knee with his horny palm.

“‘We steamed away,’ he said, in a hoarse half-whisper--steamed into the

darkness and away from the flag-ship. Not a sound for a time save the

hollow dump o’ the screw and the swirl o’ the seethin’ seas!

“‘In silence we steamed--it might have been for half an hour, but it

seemed like an age--an age of blackness and terror. Nothing was nateral

like. The ship was a death-ship, the figures agin the bulwarks yonder

were spectres. I would have given worlds to have heard but a word, a

laugh, a cough even!

“‘I said there were _eight_ of us! By the sky above us yonder, sir,

there were _nine_!

“‘I guessed at once who the ninth was, and I shuddered a bit when I

thought of brave, foolish Hardy here. For never a stroke could he swim,

and his coming with us to-night was sheer madness--nay, more, it looked

like suicide.

“‘Soon after Jack slid slowly up towards me, and his left arm clutched

my right as I clutch yours now. Every one of us, sir, was stripped to

the waist. Every one wore a lifebelt save Jack Hardy. He was a stowaway,

and not in it.

“‘“Oh, boy,” I said, speaking in a whisper, “why have you done this?”

“‘“Hush!” he answered. “My time is mebbe short, mate, and you’ve always

been my friend. So listen. Something tells me you’ll be saved, but I am

here to die. I want you to bear a message to my parents--to my mother

especially. Her address you’ll find in my ditty-box. But go to see her,

Sam, when the war is over. Far away west my people live in opulence, and

I’m an only son. Father taunted me with cowardice, and I ran away and

came to sea. Tell father I forgave him. Tell mother----” Ah, sir, just

here the lad broke down. He’s only a boy. “Tell mother,” he sobbed, “how

her Jack died for his country. Tell her I felt she’d forgiven me--that

will please her--that my every dream was of home and her, that----”

“‘“A boat on the weather-bow,” cried a man to Hobson. “Shall we fire?”

“‘“No,” cried Hobson; “never a shot.”

“‘It had been a picket. We heard her officer shout in Spanish to give

way with a will, and she disappeared up into the darkness of the channel

we were now entering.

“‘The end was coming; the end was very near, and we all knew it.’

* * * * *

“While the bo’s’n had been telling his story, young Hardy sat silent,

but he spoke now almost for the first time.

“‘A moment, sir. The bo’s’n won’t tell you, but I must. He tore off his

lifebelt, and fastened it around me. He swore I must wear it or he would

fling it into the sea. That’s all!’

“‘Well, sir,’ continued the bo’s’n, ‘the awful silence was speedily

broken. They had seen us only as a dark mass, black as the rocks that

towered above us. Then their fire opened. We’ll never be under such a

fire again as that, sir, and live. Shells burst above us, around us,

shells riddled our hull, and raked our spar-deck, and crushed into our

deck-house. Fragments and splinters flew about in all directions. I

think most of us were flat on our faces just then, and I lay beside

Jackie here holding his hand. No tremor there, though! No signs of fear!

And the fire poured into us from three sides, sir, from the batteries of

Socappa on the left, from Morro on the right, and from a warship ahead.

“‘Speak of thunder. Pah! thunder isn’t in it with such a devil’s din as

this, and lightning ’gainst those gun-gleams would have been like the

glint of a farthing candle!

“‘Then we saw brave Hobson’s figure--unearthly tall it looked. No voice

could be heard, only his arms waved us to the bulwarks.

“‘Next second it seemed we were all in the water, as a roar louder than

the artillery shook the sky, shook the hills, and silenced even the

batteries.

“‘The ship was sinking beside us! We were all but drawn into the

whirlpool, but I held Jack’s hand and toughly towed him off.

“‘But the dinghy was gone, and the rudder too, and the _Merrimac_ sank,

not across, but along the channel. So our forlorn hope had been led in

vain. The Spanish fleet was bottled still, but not corked, sir.’

“He paused for a moment.

“‘Ah, sir, no one there would ever forget that night, nor the hours we

passed under a tilted grating that God in His mercy had put it into some

one’s head to attach by a rope to the ship. We could just get under this

catamaran and hold on to the spars above.

“‘Hour after hour of darkness went by. Boats passed and repassed, and we

could hear the men talking. Had they known there were nine heads under

that grating, short would have been our shrift, sir.

“‘And all these hours we hardly spoke. We almost feared to breathe

aloud.

“‘More than once I thought that Jackie here was dead or dying, but I

whispered cheering words to him. More than once I trembled as my feet

were touched by slimy sharks. How they did not tear me down I cannot

tell you. Seems to me, sir, ’twere a ’tarposition o’ Providence like.

“‘But daylight came at last, and Cervera’s own boat and Cervera himself.

“‘Hobson’s voice was feeble enough now, but he managed to hail her.

“‘“_Por Dios!_” we heard the white-haired admiral cry. “Do the dead talk

to us?”

“‘But we were saved, and taken to the Spanish ship. Yes, sir, treated

with every kindness, made prisoners, but released at long, long last,

even before sweet Santeehager fell.

“‘Well, that’s my yarn, sir, and it’s all as true as the stars above

us.’

“‘And Jack Hardy here,’ I ventured to ask, ‘was he reprimanded?’

“‘Tried by drum-head he was, sir. Condemned to death for desertion, and

pardoned all in one sentence.’”

“‘Ah, sir,’ the brave bo’s’n added, ‘I’ll bet my boots that Jack Hardy

is a midshipman before this cruel war is over. Thank ye, sir, I don’t

mind if I do; and I’ll give ye a toast, too--

“‘“May the Stars and Stripes we love so well,

With Britain’s flag entwine,

And we’re goin’ to give the world--fits,

When the two brave fleets combine.“‘“

* * * * *

The _Walrus_ sailed on and on around the great Antarctic continent, but

never saw her consort till once more the two ships met safe and sound at

Kerguelen Isle.

END OF BOOK II

BOOK III

_ON THE GREAT ANTARCTIC CONTINENT_

CHAPTER I

A STRANGE DISCOVERY--SHEELAH AND TAFFY

“She is bound to be,” said Captain Mayne Brace, a day or two before the

good ship _Walrus_ reached Kerguelen. “Bound to be, Mr. Armstrong. She

is the better craft of the two, you know.”

He was talking to Ingomar and Walter, one evening in October, while they

all sat together in the cosy saloon, not a mile away from the stove.

Ingomar and Brace were smoking the pipe of peace, and sipping their

coffee (which they placed, to keep warm, on top of the stove), between

each longdrawn sip. Walter was reading one of Scott’s novels, or trying

to, for he was listening to the conversation all the same. Charlie was

missing to-night. I rather think he would have been found, if any one

had cared to look for him, forward in the galley, listening to the men’s

yarns, or playing a hornpipe to please them.

“Well, yes, she is bound to be, in the natural course of events,

because, as you say, she has faster sailing qualities, and all that;

but----”

“Ah!” interrupted Mayne Brace, with a smile, and another hearty pull at

his coffee; “we must not think of the ‘might be,’ or the ‘may be.’ Else

we’d go on thinking and get nervous, and end in believing, that because

we did not meet the _Sea Elephant_ somewhere to the east of Dougherty

Islands, she has been taken aback in a squall, and gone down stern

foremost, with all hands. Or that she had, at the very least, broken her

screw.”

“Steward!”

“Ay, ay, sir!”

“Put more coals on the fire.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And just replenish our cups of coffee. Fresh ground, isn’t it?”

“That it be, sir.

“Dumpty always roasts it himself, and I grinds it. A main good hand

Dumpty is, sir, at roasting coffee. A little morsel of lard in the

bottom of the pan to keep the beans from burning, a good clear fire, and

keep them moving and moving; and there you be, sir.”

“Steward!”

“Sir to you again, sir.”

“Ever anybody ask you for a recipe for roasting coffee?”

“Milk and sugar, sir?”

The milk was another invention of the steward. It was a fresh gull’s

egg, beaten and mixed with hot water, and sweetened with pure preserved

milk.

On the whole, everybody did his best on board the old _Walrus_.

The men forward to-night were very jolly, for, being so near to the end

of their exceedingly long voyage, the captain had spliced the main

brace, that is, he had added one modest glass of rum to their nightly

allowance. I don’t believe in rum myself, but when one is writing a sea

story, one must adhere to the truth. The man who does not face realities

and the naked truth, is like the fabled ostrich that hid its head in the

sand when danger approached.

The men drank “sweethearts and wives,” or “wives and sweethearts,” in

the real good old British fashion. The married men, you know, drank

“_wives_ and sweethearts.” The bachelors, and they were nearly all of

that persuasion, put the “sweethearts” to the front.

They had mixed the grog with a good deal of hot water and sugar to make

it last. But they toasted each other also; and it was, “Here’s to you,

Jack;” or, “Here’s to you, Bill,” or Tom or Joe, as the case might be.

And “We’ve been shipmates now more’n a year, and never a word atween us,

bar a sea-boot now and then.”

And they toasted “The Captain.” “And he _is_ a good fellow,” was the

remark of one sailor, “though a stickler for duty.”

“Ah! Well, Sconce, dooty is dooty all the world. Stick by that, and

we’ll all do well.”

“Dooty,” said another, “is the needle wot points to the Pole, and the

Pole is Heaven itself.”

“Very good sentiment for _you_, Jack. Here’s to dooty!”

“Now, sir”--this to Charlie--“touch her up, sir. Give us ‘Homeward

Bound,’ and we’ll all chime in, from Dumpty downwards, to the nipper wot

tends the dogs.”

“Homeward Bound” was given with glee; but, of course, it was only a

make-believe, because there wasn’t much home life about Kerguelen.

They sighted the island after passing McDonald and Heard Isles.

Charlie again. He had been determined to be first to see land.

Before the entrance to the creek or natural harbour, where the men and

animals were, is a spit of rocky land, a rugged kind of breakwater, and

had the _Sea Elephant_ been the first inside, her top-masts would have

shown over this.

But here was never a ship’s mast to be seen.

On the shore, high up on a braeside, was an outlook, and the _Walrus’s_

people saw both American and British ensigns dipped to welcome the

_Walrus_.

The _Walrus_ returned the salute.

Then flags of all kinds were set in motion, and the signalmen on board

and on shore were very busy indeed, for a time.

“Yes, all was well, now,” said the signalman on shore, “but two dogs

dead, and one Innuit. _Sea Elephant_ had never been seen.”

The anchor was hardly let go when the officer’s boat was alongside, and

he was heartily welcomed down below to exchange experiences.

He and his men had been very busy all the time, and they were ably

assisted and supported by the kindly Yak-Yaks. He spoke in the very

highest terms of Slap-dash, the chief. In the dreary days of winter,

when the island was deep in snow, snow-shoe expeditions were got up; but

sleighing, especially with the bears, who were better suited to the

rough work, was preferred. The Yak-Yak died of inflammation. One dog

fell over a cliff and was killed at once. The other was found dead. Both

were buried side by side, and cairns mark their resting-place. “There is

a cairn also,” said Slator, “on the poor Yak-Yak. I think we nearly all

dropped some tears at his grave.”

I suppose they did, reader, for in the loneliness of such a place as

this the heart is sometimes very near the throat. Sunshine brings mirth

and happiness, gloom depresses, and there is always a certain amount of

sadness in even the songs of northern nations, such as Iceland,

Scotland, and Norway.

Both Charlie and Walt had some doubt as to how the Yak-Yak dogs would

receive them again. But, accompanied by Ingomar, they boldly marched

some distance into the interior, to the kennels. It was the afternoon of

what had been a glorious day, and they had doffed their fur caps and

coats.

The bears were not at home just then. Both bears and dogs, indeed, had

gone away to roam the wilds nearly every day, but the Bruins, with the

dogs, always came shambling or trotting back at eventide, to sleep and

to eat.

They were away then at this moment, and Slap-dash proposed that, with

the Newfoundlands and pet collie, they should all march forth to meet

them.

Strangely enough, they had a rendezvous on a hill-top, where most of

them met every night, and from this a beaten track to the camp.

To-day several of the dogs were already at the place of meeting, several

were straggling up from seawards, and in front (for no dog was permitted

to walk behind him) was Gruff, with his well-beloved wife Growley.

When within about seventy yards of the place, where Ingomar and the boys

were standing, both stopped short and sniffed the air. Then Growley

gave vent to a half-choked roar of rage, that shook the hills--well, if

it didn’t shake the hills, it shook the hearts of Charlie and Walt.

“Strangers!” Growley seemed to shout. “I’ll tear ’em limb from limb!”

Gruff rounded on her at once, and promptly knocked her down.

Then Gruff came trotting on, and Nora and Nick and the collie ran off to

meet them, our heroes following.

That was a _pas de joie_, a joy-dance, if ever there was a joy-dance in

this world; and those sceptical creatures, who would class dogs and our

other dumb friends as mere automata, would have been converted on the

spot to the dear old doctrine, that animals have souls, had they but

seen that dance.

It was too absurdly intrinsically droll for description. The other two

bears, Grumpey and Meg, came up and joined, and presently all the rest

of the bonnie dogs.

They went round and round our heroes in a hairy hurricane; they

pretended to worry each other, they barked and roared, and grumbled and

growled, till the boys’ sides were sore with laughing.

Surely such a scene of merriment was never before witnessed, and when

all had quietened down somewhat, they went amicably back to the kennels.

This is not one of Grimms’ fairy tales, mind, rather is it a fairy tale

of science and natural history, and these, readers mine, are all true.

* * * * *

A whole week passed away, but still no _Sea Elephant_.

Captain Mayne Brace had taken in more coals, and his arrangements were

all complete, so he was becoming impatient; but at long last the ship

hove in sight over the horizon, and the union was complete.

On comparing logs, it was found that they must have passed each other at

night, and had been probably within ten nautical miles of each other.

The bigger ship had taken many observations, and done a much quicker

voyage. But, knowing that he could be at Kerguelen much sooner than the

_Walrus_, a happy thought had occurred to Captain Bell. He would run up

to the Cape of Good Hope and endeavour to get a cargo of coals.

Although the war was raging, he succeeded, and now these were landed in

case of emergency, each ship just taking enough for the grand new

cruise.

I need hardly say that the meeting between Curtis and Ingomar was most

cordial.

A grand ball was given on shore on the night of re-union.

Sailors are not sailors unless they can have a bit of fun.

It was a ball of a somewhat heterogeneous description, for men waltzed

with men, though Slap-dash did some really graceful movements with Gruff

and the other bears as partners. There were no ladies, you see, but all

the more freedom and merriment.

Yet, stay; I must qualify this statement. The Eskimos, Yaks, Innuits,

Teelies, or any other name you choose to give them, are droll creatures.

They all dress alike in skins, and their faces are all about the same

shape.

Now the very day before the _Walrus_ and _Sea Elephant_ sailed, all

being then on board, except a change of men who were to remain at

Kerguelen for observation duty, Slap-dash came up and saluted Captain

Bell.

“Four of my rascals,” he said, “want to speak to you directly.”

Then the four “rascals” were led up and threw themselves on their faces

before Captain Bell as if they had been worshipping the sun.

“Get up, get up,” said Bell, “and speak like men.”

They arose at once and stood before him, and two took a step in advance

of the other two.

“We not all men-people, sir,” said one.

“We not all men-people,” said the other.

Captain Bell began to frown.

“Dis ees my ole woman-people,” said the first speaker.

“Dis ees my ole mudder-people,” said the other.

“Slap-dash,” cried Bell, “did you know this?”

“Not befo’ dis morning, sah; no, no.”

Captain Bell was puzzled and silent. He addressed Ross, the officer who

had been left in charge at Kerguelen.

“No, sir,” said this gentleman; “I don’t see how we can send them on

shore. We can’t want the whole four. They will pine and die if

separated. That would be a dead certainty.”

“Very dead,” said Bell, smiling.

“Besides, though no one suspected their sex, that one called Sheelah is

an excellent cook, and both are capital nurses. We were sick sometimes.

We had green fever in winter, and certain I am that they nursed us back

to life.”

The carpenter was next called for.

“Carpenter,” said Bell, “a small screen berth will be wanted below in

some corner, a kind of l-l-ladies’ cabin. Do ye hear?”

“Well, sir, I do hear, because I’m not deaf; but I don’t understand.”

“Then just do as you are told, Mr. Inglis.”

“Certainly, sir, certainly.”

So a little privacy was obtained for Sheelah and Taffy, and, as it

turned out afterwards, no one was the loser for the “women-people”

being on board.

Do coming events throw their shadows before?

Perhaps they do. Anyhow, when the two ships looked their last on

Kerguelen--the last for a long time, at all events--there was more

silence on board than is usual with sailors going off to sea.

They knew the dangers they were going to encounter, but they were all

quite acclimatized to the rigorous Antarctic climate by this time, and

there was not a man on board, British or American, who was not prepared

to do his best. Which of us can do more?