WAS IT AN OLD MAN'S DREAM?--SUNDAY ON MID-OCEAN--LAND HO!--A STRANGE
ADVENTURE--LOST IN THE GREAT FOREST.
Captain McBain and our heroes stayed up for hours that night after old
man Magnus left, talking and musing upon the strange story they had just
been listening to.
"Think you," said Ralph, "there is much in it, or is it merely an old
man's dream?"
"An old man's dream!" said McBain. "No, I do not; old men do not dream
such dreams as those, but, like Magnus himself, I put little faith in
the spirit part of the story."
"The question then to be answered," said Allan, "is, where did Jan
Jansen stay during the four or five years of his sojourn in the polar
seas?"
"Well," said McBain, "I have thought that over too, and I think it
admits of a feasible enough answer, without having recourse to the
spirit theory. There is a mystery altogether about the regions of the
Pole that has never been revealed."
"In fact," said Rory, "nobody has ever been there to reveal it."
"That is just it," contained McBain; "our knowledge of the country is
terribly meagre, and merely what we have gleaned from sealers or
whalers--men, by the way, who are generally too busy, looking after the
interests of their owners, to bother their heads about exploration--or
from the tales of travellers who have attempted--merely attempted, mind
you--to penetrate as far north as they could."
"True," said Ralph.
"England," continued McBain, "has not all the credit to herself, brave
though her sailors be, of telling us all we know about the Pole and the
country--lands and seas--around it. Why, I myself have heard tales from
Norwegian walrus-hunters, the most daring fellows that ever sailed the
seas, that prove to my facile satisfaction that there is an open ocean
near the North Pole, that there are islands in it--the Isle of Alba if
you like--and that these islands are inhabited. You may tell me it is
too cold for human beings to live there; you may ask me where they came
from. To your first assertion I would reply that the inhabitants may
depend to a great extent for heat on the volcanic nature of the islands
themselves, just as they depend in winter for light on the glorious
aurora, or the radiant light of stars and moon. When you ask me where
they came from, I have but to remind you that Spitsbergen and the
islands around it were, before their glacial period, covered with
vegetation of the most luxuriant kind, that mighty trees grew on their
hills and in their dales, and that giants of the lower animal kingdom
roamed through the forests, the wilder beasts preying on the flocks and
herds that came down at mid-day to quench their thirst in the streams
and in the lakes; Man himself must have lived there too, and if he still
exists in the regions of the Pole, he is but the descendant of a former
race.
"With some of these tribes Jan Jansen no doubt lived: they were good to
him, perhaps so good that he got lazy and wouldn't work, and so they
were glad to get rid of him."
"And what about the mammoth caves--do you believe in them too?" said
Allan.
"Ah! ha!" cried Ralph, laughing; "our brother Allan has an eye to the
main chance, you see; he wants to `malt' money."
"I want to see all I can see on this cruise," said Allan, reddening a
little as he spoke, "and I want if possible to make the voyage pay.
Well, bother take you, Ralph, call it `makin' money' if you like."
"The gigantic mammoth," continued McBain, "used inhabit the far northern
regions, where they existed in millions. Now human nature is the same
all over the world, and, I suppose, always has been. Man is a
collecting animal; the North American Indians collect scalps--"
"Misers collect money," said Rory, "and little boys stamps."
"In some parts of the world," McBain went on, "the natives make giant
pyramids of the antlers of deer; the King of Dahomey prefers human
skulls, and if there be caves filled with mammoth tusks, as the
traditions of the Norwegians would lead us to believe, they were
doubtless collected by the natives as trophies of the hunt, and stowed
away in caves. The mammoth you know was the largest kind of elephant--"
"Och!" cried Rory, interrupting McBain; "what an iconoclast you are to
be sure; what a breaker of images?"
"Explain, my boy," said McBain, smiling, for he could spy fun in Rory's
eye.
"You say the mam-_moth_ was an elephant," said Rory. "Och! sure it was
myself was thinking all the time it was a kind of a butterfly."
"Indeed, indeed, Rory," said Ralph, "I think it is time little boys like
you were in bed."
"Well, boys," said McBain, rising, "maybe it is time we all turned in,
and thankful we have to be for a quiet night, for a fair wind, and a
clear sea. Dream about your `butterfly,' Rory, my son, for depend upon
it we'll see him yet."
Next day was Sunday. How inexpressibly calm and delightful, when
weather is fine and wind is fair, is a Sunday at sea. It is then indeed
a Sabbath, a day of quiet rest.
On this particular morning, saving a few fleecy cloudlets that lay along
the southern horizon, there was no cloud to be seen in all the blue sky,
and the sun shone warmly down on the snowy canvas and white decks of the
_Snowbird_, as she coquetted over the rippling sea. The men, dressed in
their neatest suits, were assembled aft on the quarter-deck, near the
binnacle, so that even the man at the wheel could join in the beautiful
Form of Prayer to be used at Sea, read by McBain in rich and manly
tones. Had you climbed into the maintop of that yacht, that white speck
on the ocean's blue, and gazed around you on every side, you would have
scanned the horizon in vain for a sight of a single living thing. They
were indeed alone on the wide ocean. Alone, yet not alone, for One was
with them to whom they were now appealing. "One terrible in all His
works of wonder, at whose command the winds do blow, and who stilleth
the raging of the tempest."
Prayers over, Ap pipes down, the men move forward to read or to talk,
and by-and-bye it will be the dinner-hour; this is "plum-dough" day,
and, mind you, sailors are just like schoolboys, they _think_ about this
sort of thing. Oscar, the Saint. Bernard, has mounted on top of the
skylight--his favourite resting-place in fine weather--and laid himself
down to sleep in dog fashion, with one eye a little open, and one ear on
half-cock to catch the faintest unusual sound.
"Do you know," said Ralph, looking over the bulwarks and down at the
gliding water, "I think I should like to live at sea."
"Ay, ay," said Rory, "if it was always like this, O! thou fair-weather
sailor, but when we're lying-to in a gale of wind, Ralph, that is the
time I like to see you, fast in your armchair, with the long legs of you
against the bulkheads to steady yourself, and trying in vain to swallow
a cup of tea. Oh! then is the time you look so pleasant."
Ralph looked at this teasing shipmate of his for a moment or two with a
kind of amused smile on his handsome face, then he pulled his ear for
him and walked away aft.
About five days after this Rory came on deck; he had been talking to
Captain McBain in his cabin. The captain was working out the reckoning,
during which I don't think Rory helped him very much.
"Well, Rory," said Allan, "you've been plaguing the life out of poor
McBain, I know. But tell us the news--where are we?"
"Indeed," said Rory, with pretended gravity, "we're in a queer place
altogether, and I don't know that ever we'll get out of it."
"Out of what?" cried Ralph; "speak out, man--anything gone wrong?"
"Indeed then," replied Rory, "there has been a collision."
"A collision?"
"Yes, a collision between the latitude and the longitude, and they're
both standing stock still at 60."
"I'll explain," said McBain, who had just joined them. "The good ship
_Snowbird_, latitude 60 degrees North, longitude 60 degrees West."
"Now do you see, Mr Obtuse?" said Rory.
"I do," said Ralph, "but no thanks to you."
Next morning land was in sight on the lee bow, and by noon they had cast
anchor and clewed sails in a small bay near a creek.
"Not a very hospitable-looking shore, is it?" said McBain; "but never
mind, here are birds in plenty, and no doubt we'll find fur as well as
feather. So be ready by to-morrow for a big shoot."
"_I'm_ ready now," said Rory, "just for a small `explore,' you know, and
we'll come back by sunset and report."
"And I'll go with him," said Allan.
"Mind you don't get lost," cried McBain; "and we don't expect a big bag,
you know."
Rory carried his rifle, Allan his gun; they were armed for anything, and
felt big enough to tackle a bear for that matter. They pulled straight
in-shore and up the creek, and to their joy they found at the head of it
a nice stream; not a river by any means, but still navigable enough for
more than a mile for their little craft. They soon came to a rapid,
almost a waterfall, indeed, and not thinking it expedient to carry their
boat, or to proceed farther on water, they landed, made her fast to the
stump of an old tree, and trudged on in quest of adventure, with their
guns over their shoulders.
"Now," said Rory, pausing to gaze around him, after they had walked on
in silence over a wild and scraggy heath for more than an hour, "if we
had merely come in quest of the beautiful and the picturesque, and if I
had brought my sketch-book with me, it strikes me we would have been
rewarded, but as for shooting, why, we would have done well to have
stopped on the seashore and kept potting away at the gulls."
The scenery about them was indeed lovely, with a loveliness peculiarly
its own. It was summer in this wild northern land; everywhere the
moorlands and plains were carpeted with the greenest of grass, or
bedecked with mosses and lichens of every hue imaginable, from the
sombrest brown to the brightest scarlet. Of wild flowers there were but
few, but heaths, still green, there were in abundance, and many curious
wild shrubs they had never seen before; but they knew the juniper-plant
and the sweet-scented wild myrtle. Why, it was the same that adorned
the braes of Arrandoon! Then there were fruit-trees of various kinds,
and trees that bore large pink and white flowers. It seemed odd to our
heroes to see big flowers growing on tree-tops, but this, and indeed
everything else around them, only served to remind them that they were
in a foreign land. What they missed the most were the wild flowers and
the song of birds. Birds there were, but they were silent: they would
rush out from a bush, or flutter down from a tree, to gaze curiously at
them, then be off again. The horizon was bounded by rugged hills,
surrounded by a forest of pine-trees.
"I think," said Rory, "we should climb that sugar-loaf hill. What a
grand view we would get. Let us walk towards the wood; we are sure to
find game there."
"Do you know in what direction our ship lies?" said Allan.
"That I don't," said Rory; "but if we follow the stream we are sure to
find the boat."
"But we have left the stream. Do you think you know in what direction
that lies?"
"Pooh! no!" cried Rory. "Oh, look, Allan! look at that lovely blue and
crimson bird! Fire, boy, fire!"
Allan fired and Rory bagged the beauty.
Then on they went, firing now at some strange bird and now at a weasel
or polecat, taking little heed of where they were going, just as
heedless as youth so often is.
There was a ravine between them and the forest, which the purple haze of
distance had hidden from their view, but, as they were bent on reaching
the pines by hook or by crook, they descended. The grass grew greener
at the bottom of this dale, and here they found a stream of pure water,
with a bottom of golden sand and boulders. This was a temptation not to
be resisted, so they threw themselves down on the bank after quenching
their thirsty and proceeded, in a languid and dreamy kind of manner, to
watch the movements of the shoals of speckled trout that gambolled in
the stream, chasing each other round the stones, and poking each other
in the ribs with their round slimy noses.
"Don't they look happy?" said Rory, "and wouldn't they eat nicely?"
"Which reminds me," said Allan, "that I've something good in my bag."
"And ain't I hungry just!" Rory said; and his eyes sparkled as Allan
produced, all neatly begirt with a towel of sparkling whiteness, a dish
containing a pie of such delicious flavour that when it was finished,
and washed down with what Rory, mimicking the rich brogue of his
countrymen, called "a taste of the stramelet," they both thought they
had never dined so well before.
Half-a-dozen wood-pigeons flew hurriedly over them. Rory seized Allan's
gun and fired, and one dropped dead within a dozen yards of them. Such
a beauty, so plump and so large.
"That is our game," cried Rory; "let us on to the wood. We'll get such
bags as will make Ralph chew his tongue with regret that he wasn't with
us."
"Hoo-hoo-hooo-o!" resounded from the spruce thickets as they neared the
woods.
"Here, at them?" cried Allan, excitedly. "Now for it, my boy!"
"Yes," said Rory; "it's all very well, but I can't pot them so well with
the rifle."
"Then in all brotherly love and fairness we'll exchange guns every
twenty minutes."
As it was arranged so it was carried out. They crept along under the
trees.
"Hoo-hoo-hooo-o!" cried the great blue-grey birds, rising in the air on
flapping wings. Bang, bang, bang! Down they came thick and fast. The
sportsmen had many little mishaps, and tore their clothes considerably,
but the fun was so "fine" they did not mind that much.