"It never rains but it pours," said McBain, entering the saloon rubbing
his hands, and smiling as he seated himself at the breakfast-table.
"Steward, I hope it is beefsteak this morning, with boiled eggs to
follow, for I declare to you honestly I don't think I ever felt half so
hungry in my born days before! Bravo, steward! bravo, Peter! Be
thankful, boys, for all His mercies, and fall to?"
"One would think, captain," said Ralph, "that you had got good news this
morning."
"Why, it makes one laugh just to look at you," said Rory.
"Laugh away, lad?" said McBain; "laugh and grow fat, but eat as well,
boys! And why haven't you been on deck, eh?"
"Overslept ourselves," observed Allan; "Well, no wonder! You're young,
and the excitement of the past few days has been great: even I have felt
it. But to-day, my boys, there isn't a pirate in sight; the wind has
gone back to the south-east, and in five more days, if it holds we'll be
on shore shooting the denizens of the scented pine forests of the
farthest north lands of America."
Our heroes were soon on deck, the _Snowbird_ was bounding along before a
beautiful breeze, with all her fair-weather sails set and nicely
trimmed. Every one on board seemed joyful; the laugh and the joke were
heard from the second officer's cabin, and the men in the forecastle
were trolling a song.
That same evening a very happy group were assembled around a bright fire
in the cosy snuggery. They were our heroes three, squatted or reclining
on mats before the stove, not sitting on chairs--certainly not, they
knew a trick worth two of that. The captain occupied a rocking-chair,
as became his dignity; Oscar the Saint Bernard's nose was turned
stovewards; and Rory was making a pillow of him. Oscar was eyeing the
cheerful blaze, but every other eye was directed upon wee weazen-faced
Magnus Green, the mysterious little stranger that McBain had picked up
in Lerwick, and who had done them such noble service in crippling the
pirate. He was seated on a camp-stool in the corner.
"Now, Magnus!" cried McBain, "we're all waiting for your yarn."
"Jan Jansen, then," said Magnus, after a moment's pause or two--"Jan
Jansen, gentlemen, was first mate of a merchant brig, as neat and tight
a little craft as ever sailed the seas. He had been in her, man and
boy, for nearly twenty years--in the same ship and with the same
captain. This captain was a Dane, but he hailed and he sailed from a
little town in Shetland. And dearly did this sailor captain love his
profession; he was never really at home except when afloat on the
billowy ocean, when he was as happy as the sea-birds.
"Many a long and prosperous voyage he had made to distant lands, and
never as yet had misfortune--apart from the usual ups and downs of a
sailor's life--befallen him. He had a wife--ay, and a family. Before
the latter had increased the skipper's wife had used to sail with her
husband, but latterly she had stayed at home. And now that she could no
longer share his perils, all she could do--and that wasn't little,
either--was to pray for him, and teach his dear children to do so
likewise. But she thought that if her house were only close to the sea
it would seem like living nearer to the loved one. So the captain built
a house on the slope of a hill, and planted pine-trees thereon to
shelter it from the cutting winds, that in winter and spring swept
downwards from the north and north-east. And the windows of the house
looked away over the broad Atlantic. In his outward voyages the
captain's ship, after leaving the port of embarkation, passed within two
miles of his cottage door, and his wife and children used to watch the
trim-built brig as she glided away from the land, lessening and
lessening, until she looked but like a bird on the horizon, and finally
disappeared. On stormy nights, when the wind howled around the cottage,
and the angry waves lashed themselves into foam against the dark cliffs
that bounded the sea-beach, the little lonely family would assemble in
the parlour to pray for poor father, far at sea, to Him who can quiet
the raging of the winds, and say to the troubled ocean, `Peace, be
still!'
"But the Danish captain was not only a fortunate sailor but a very
ambitious man as well, and ever after each successful voyage his wife
would entreat him to remain on shore now for the rest of his life.
Several times indeed the husband had acceded to her wishes, and settled
down on shore. But only for a time, for woe is me! the heart of a true
sailor is often as restless as the great sea itself.
"The pet of the captain's household was his only daughter, a
bright-faced, lovely girl of sweet seventeen. With her fair flowing
hair, her laughing blue eyes, her cheerful voice, and her winsome ways,
no wonder Nanette was a favourite. But why did she so love to roam down
by the rocks where the seagulls screamed, and why, when her father was
abroad, did her eyes so often fill with tears as she gazed across the
sea? She was her father's darling, it is true; but she was something
else--she was brave Jan Jansen's promised bride. And his thoughts were
always on shore with Nanette, and hers were on the little barque with
Jan. When he was at sea the months seemed to her like long gloomy
years, and the few weeks he was at home like bright short hours of
sunshine and joy.
"And they were going to be married after the very next voyage; then Jan
was to have a ship of his own, and take her away with him to the sunny
lands he was so fond of describing to her, and about which she so loved
to hear, as they walked arm in arm on the breezy cliff-tops.
"If previous voyages had seemed long to Nanette, this last appeared an
age in itself. But one summer's morning when Nanette, awoke and opened
her window to admit the sweet sea air and the song of the lark, oh! joy,
there was the dear old brig with her sea-washed sides, standing close in
towards the land, and she was sure--yes, there was no mistake about it--
those were her father and Jan waving their handkerchiefs to attract her
attention. How quickly did Nanette dress that morning and hurry out;
and how speedily did she bend on and hoist the red flag on the garden
staff, to tell her anxious father and lover that all was well at home!
"Then away stood the brig on the starboard tack, and next day Nanette
had beside her all that she loved on earth--father, mother, her
brothers, and Jan.
"There seemed to be a cloud on the captain's brow, which his wife was
not slow to notice, and even honest Jan appeared to be possessed of some
gloomy secret, that sat but uneasily on his mind. Yet each when asked
had only replied,--
"`'Tis nothing, you will hear it all in good time.'
"But that evening, after supper was cleared away, and Jan with the
captain sat beside the fire in the cosy parlour,--
"`Wife,' said the mariner, `I have news for you that is both good and
bad. Tell them, Jan, I can't.'
"Jan dared not meet the loving eyes of poor Nanette, but gazed dreamily
into the fire as he told them the news that some shipwrecked sailors had
brought to the port of Katrinesand, from which they had last sailed, of
wealth immeasurable to be made on an island far away in the frozen
ocean, and of mines of ivory to be had for the gathering, and of the
captain's resolve to make one last--certainly the last--Jan little knew
how prophetically he spoke--voyage in the brig, and that this voyage was
to be to the Arctic regions; and that neither he nor the captain doubted
that this single voyage would make wealthy men of them both.
"The wife was the first to reply, for poor Nanette was sobbing as if her
heart would break.
"`Oh!' cried the captain's wife, `it is ever, ever thus. Do not go, I
beseech you, oh! my husband. Do not rashly brave the terrors of that
dreadful sea of ice. There has been a cloud on my heart for weeks that
I could not understand till now, and both Nanette and myself have
dreamed dreams that bode no good to us or ours. Husband, husband, stay
at home!'
"But a determined man will have his way, and the captain's mind was so
bent on the new project that nothing would induce him to give it up.
What his wife must suffer, but Nanette even more, for wherever her
father went Jan was bound to follow, and the danger would be the same to
both!
"On the twenty-first day of April, in seventeen hundred and ninety-six,
there sailed away from Shetland the sturdy brig _Danish Queen_, well
manned, mated, found and commanded, and with it went the hearts of the
gentle Nanette and her mother.
"The day was mild and balmy. A soft south wind blew over the sea and
filled the sails, and wafted the brig--oh! how fast she seemed to fly--
away and away and away, till she disappeared on the northern horizon,
and the poor bereaved ones, clasped in each other's arms, wept in
silence now, for neither could find a word of comfort for the other;
hope itself had fled from their hearts.
"And the _Danish Queen_ returned again no more to Shetland shores.
"Two years and a half had barely passed since she sailed away, and the
autumn leaves were mingling with the long green grass in the little
churchyard of Dergen, when two new-made graves might have been seen
there, side by side. One was that of little Nanette, the other the
grave of her heartbroken mother.
"And the time flew by, and the _Danish Queen_ was soon forgotten, and
people had ceased to speak of her, and the friends of her brave sailors
had doffed the garb of mourning for five long years.
"But one day there arrived in Shetland the whaling barque _Clotho_,
direct from the Greenland Ocean, and one passenger, the sole survivor,
by his own account, of the ill-fated _Danish Queen_. If it were indeed
as he said, there must be some strange mystery about his existence for
so many years on the sea of ice, which even Jan Jansen himself--for it
was he--could not, or rather would not, then explain. He was found
dressed in bear-skins, a young man, but with snow-white hair and beard,
wandering purposelessly on the ice, and taken on board. All that he
would tell was that his unfortunate vessel had been dashed to pieces
against the ice just three months after he had left Shetland, and that
he alone of all on board had been saved from a watery grave.
"Jan Jansen never shed a tear when he heard of the death of the two
beings he had loved far better than any one else on earth, but he never
smiled again. He built himself a small cottage and tilled a little farm
quite close to the graveyard of Dergen, and in sight of the sea. Years
softened the poor man's grief, and to many an earnest child-listener,
not a few of whom have long ago gone grey and passed away from earth, he
used to tell the tale of his strange adventures in the far-off sea of
ice.
"It was on winter evenings, when the snow was sifting in beneath Jan
Jansen's cottage door, and the roar of the wind mingling with the dash
of the waves on the cliffs beneath, that Jan would draw closer to the
fire, and rake the blazing peat together till the shadows danced and
flickered on the walls: then his little friends felt sure that he was
going to repeat to them his strange, strange story.
"`But I never told you, did I,' old Jan would say, `of the lonely island
of Alba, in the frozen ocean?'
"He had told them scores of times, but the tale never palled upon them.
"`Yes, yes, Father Jan,' they would cry, `but we have quite forgotten a
great deal that you told us. Do tell us once again of that wonderful
island, and all the strange things you saw there.'
"And Jan would begin, keeping his eyes on the fire, as if the curling
smoke and the blazing peat aided his recollections.
"`It was almost summer when the good brig _Danish Queen_ left Shetland.
A favouring breeze filled our sails, and in less than fourteen days we
made the ice, and the ripple left the water, but still the wind blew
fair. Onward we ploughed our way in the sturdy brig, now through fields
of floating slush and snow, now through streams of small bergs, but
little larger than sheep or swans. Farther north still, and the bergs
grew as large as oxen, then as big as elephants, then bigger than
houses, then bigger than churches; and as they rose and fell on the
smooth dark billows they threatened us every moment with destruction.
Then we knew we had at last reached the sea of perpetual ice; 'twas the
season of the year when the sun never sets, but goes on day and night,
round and round in the cold blue sky, where never a cloud is seen. We
saw strange birds and beasts in the water and on the ice, beasts that
glared at us with a stony fearless stare, and birds that floated so
close we could have captured them by hand. The beautiful snowbird, with
plumage more white than the lily's petal, with eyes and legs of crimson,
and bill of jet; the wild pilot bird, and a hundred curious gulls, and
little sparrow-like birds that fluttered from berg to berg in the
breeze, as if it were very much against their will they were there at
all; and flocks of curious blackbirds with white mottled breasts, that
laughed in the air as they flew around us, with a sound like the voices
of little children just let loose from school. We saw the lonely
narwhal, the unicorn of the sea, with his one long ivory horn appearing
and disappearing in the black waters as he pursued his prey. Seals in
thousands popped their heads above the water to stare at us with their
beautiful eyes; sea cows basked on the snowy bergs; whales played their
gigantic fountains on every side of us; and the great Greenland bear,
king of these regions of ice, stalked majestically around on many a
floe, waiting a chance to pounce on some unwary seal.
"`Northwards still, and now we sailed into an open sea, where no
icebergs were anywhere visible--nothing but water, water, wherever we
looked, except on the northern horizon, where was one small snowy cone,
no bigger it would seem than a sugar-loaf. Taller and taller and
broader and broader it grew, as we sailed towards it, till it formed
itself into a lofty table-land, and we found ourselves under the
ice-bound cliffs of the Isle of Alba.
"`Imagine if you can a large and mountainous island covered with the
snows of ages, with one gigantic cone, the shaft of an extinct volcano,
towering upwards until lost in the heavens; imagine all around an ocean
of inky blackness, a sky above of cloudless blue, with a sun like a
rayless disc of molten silver; imagine neither sight nor sound of life,
saving the mournful cry of the wheeling sea-bird, or the sullen plunge
of the narwhal and whale; and imagine if you can the feeling of being
all alone in such a place, where foot of mortal man had never been
planted before.
"`But for all this, little recked the brave crew of the _Danish Queen_,
for we found the ivory we had braved every danger to seek.
"`Caves full of it!
"`Mines of it!
"`For days and weeks our boats did nothing but ply between ship and
shore, laden to the gunwale with our pearly treasure. We had but room
for one more ton. It was ready packed on shore, and I was left to
watch. Alas and alas! that same night it came on to blow great guns
from off the ocean. I could not see our brig for the foam and spray
that dashed over the cliffs. But, ah me! I soon heard a mournful and
piercing shriek, rising high over wail of wind and wash of wave, and I
knew then she had gone down and all on board had perished. Shuddering
with cold and horror, I sheltered myself in the inner recesses of a
cave, careless even of falling a victim to a bear. I wandered in, and I
wandered on and on, till I could no longer hear the surging of the
storm-lashed waves, and the light behind me was swallowed up in
obscurity. And now I could distinctly perceive a glimmering light and a
rising mist far away ahead, while at the same time the air around me
waxed sensibly warmer; still a spirit of curiosity seemed to impel me
forward, until I found myself standing in front of a vast waterfall,
which disappeared in the bowels of the earth beneath my feet, while
floating in the vapoury mist above me were beings the most lovely I had
ever imagined, in gauzy garments of pink and green.
"`With their strange eyes bent pityingly on me, those water-spirits
floated nearer and nearer. Then I felt lifted off my feet and borne
gently but swiftly upwards through the luminous haze, upwards and into
day once more; and what a blissful day!
"`In this lovely land, where I dwelt so long, there was no alloy of
sorrow, and the strange, bright beings that inhabited it were as happy
and joyous as the birds that sang on every bough, or the flowers that
wooed the wind and the sunshine.
"`Five years passed away like one long and happy dream; then one day my
spirit-friends came towards me with downcast looks and tear-bedimmed
eyes. They came to tell me that, as with joy they had found me, so in
sorrow they must now part with me--that no mortal must stay longer in
their land than my allotted time. Then they clad me in skins and
conveyed me up the mountain-side, even to the top of the highest cone.
Looking down from this height, I could behold all the sea of ice spread
out like a map before me, with sealers at work on the southern floes.
"`"Yonder are your countrymen," said the beautiful spirits; then sadly
they bade me farewell.
"`It must have been days afterwards when I was picked up by the
_Clotho's_ men, who had gone to look for fresh-water ice.'
"The old man," continued Magnus Green, "used to sigh as he finished his
story, and we--for I, gentlemen, was one of his child-listeners--just
whispering adieu, would steal away homewards through the winter's night,
seeing as we went spirits in every curling snowdrift, and hearing voices
in every blast."
"And what do you now think," asked McBain, after a pause, "of this old
man's strange story?"
"Of the spirit portion of it," said Magnus, "I cannot give an opinion,
but that a sea of open water _does_ lie to the far north, my experience
as sealer and whaler has long since convinced me. The Isle of Alba is
known to many Norwegian narwhal and walrus-hunters, and I know the
mammoth caves of ivory to be not only probable, but a fact."
"And you think," continued McBain, "you could guide us and pilot us to
these strange regions?"
"Yes, yes?" cried Magnus, producing from his bosom an old and much
stained parchment chart, and tapping it with his skinny hand as he
spoke, "it is all here, even if my memory failed me. Yes, yes; I can
guide you, if the hearts of your crew do not fail them before the
dangers to be encountered."
"I could answer for the hearts of my crew," said McBain, smiling; "they
are hearts of oak, my Magnus! You will know that before you are long
with us. As to the mammoth caves Magnus, if we ever attempt to reach
them, I promise you that you shall be our pilot."