THE DEAD LEVIATHAN--THE MATE OF THE "TREFOIL" MAKES A PROPOSAL--A RICH
HARVEST--CHRISTMAS CHEER--SOMETHING LIKE A DINNER.
The mate of the _Trefoil_ was a quiet and sober-minded man, as old
travellers in the Arctic regions are sometimes wont to be, but when
Allan McGregor told him the story of the bears and the dead whale
stranded in the frozen bay, he evinced a considerable deal of genuine
excitement. He sought out the captain.
"I would fain see the fish, captain."
[Greenland sailors always call a whale a "fish," although, as must be
well-known, it is a gigantic mammal.]
"Well, my dear sir," said McBain, "that is a desire that can very easily
be gratified. We can start for the bay to-morrow early."
"I shall be so pleased," said the mate.
This expedition consisted of three guns--McBain himself, Allan, and the
mate of the _Trefoil_.
There were still one or two bears prowling around the spot where the
dead leviathan lay, but they seemed to scent danger from afar, and made
off as soon as the expedition hove in sight. Probably they remembered
the events of yesterday, and cared not to renew so unequal a combat.
The mate was evidently a man of business, for no sooner had they got on
to the ice alongside the whale, than he proceeded to open a small parcel
he carried, and to extract therefrom a pair of spiked sandals.
"I'm going on board of her," he said to McBain, with a quiet smile.
Next moment, pole in hand, he was walking about on top of the dead
leviathan, probing here and probing there with as much coolness as
though he had been a fanner taking stock in a patch of potatoes.
He smiled as he jumped on shore again.
"That is what doctors would call a post-mortem examination," said
McBain, smiling too. "Now, sir, can you tell us the cause of death?"
"Oh! bother the cause of death," said the mate, laughing, as he stooped
down to undo his sandals. "Do you think I came all this way to
ascertain the cause of death in a dead fish? But if you really want to
know, I'll tell you. You see from the state of the ice there has been a
heavy swell on here, and the ice has been knocked about anyhow; that
shows there has been a gale away out at sea. Well then, the fish,"--
here the mate poked his stick at the whale's ribs in a manner that, had
the monster been alive, must have tickled him immensely--"this fish,
look _you_, came nearer land to avoid the broken water, and ran ashore
in the dark; he hadn't got any steam, you know, to help him to back
astern, and he couldn't hoist sail, so he had to be content to lie on
his little stomach until--"
"Until death relieved him of his sufferings," put in McBain.
The conversation concerning the whale was renewed after dinner that
evening, the mate and Mr Stevenson having been, as was usual when
anything extra was on the _tapis_, invited to partake of that meal.
Since they left the bay the mate had been unusually silent; he had been
thinking, and now his thoughts took the form of speech. He spoke
slowly, and with many a pause, as one speaks who well weighs his words,
toying with his coffee as he did so, and often changing the position of
the cup. Indeed, it was the cup he seemed to be addressing when he did
speak.
"Gentlemen," he said, "as man and boy, as harpooner, second officer, or
mate, I have been back and fore to Greenland for little less than twenty
years. I've been shipwrecked a time or two, you may easily guess, and
I've come through many a strange danger in the wild, mysterious regions
around the Pole. But it is not of these things I would now speak, it is
about the last sad affair--my poor dear ship _Trefoil_, whose charred
ribs lie deep in the Arctic Ocean. Oh, gentlemen! oh, men! that was a
sad blow to me. Had we been a full ship we would have been home ere
now, and I would have been wedded to one of the sweetest girls in all
England. Now she is mourning for me as for one dead. But blessed be
our great Protector that sent the _Snowbird_ to our assistance in our
dire extremity! Where, now, would we--the survivors of the _Trefoil_--
have been else? Our fate would have been more terrible, than the fate
of those that went down in that doomed ship.
"I can assure you, my dear friends," he continued, "I have felt very
grateful, and have longed for some way of showing that gratitude. I can
never prove it sufficiently. But I have a suggestion to make."
"Well, we are willing to hear it," said McBain; "but really, sir, you
owe us no gratitude, we only did our duty."
"That `fish,'" said the mate--"what do you reckon its value to be?"
"I know," said McBain, smiling, "that if we could tow it along to London
it would fetch a long price; but if we could tow an iceberg there about
ten millions of people would come to see it?"
"How romantic that would be?" said Rory; "and fancy the Union Jack
floating proudly from the top of it!"
"Charge them a shilling a head," said Allan, "and land 500,000 pounds!"
"And spoil the romance!" said our boy-bard.
"Oh, bother the romance!" said Ralph, "think of the cash!"
"Well, but," said McBain, laughing, "we can no more tow the whale than
we can the iceberg."
"That fish," said the mate, "myself and my men can flensh, cut up, and
refine. The produce will be worth three thousand pounds in the English
market; and beside, it will be work for the men for the winter months."
"But you and your men must accept a share," said McBain.
"If," replied the mate of the _Trefoil_, "you but hint at such a thing
again, that fish may lie there till doomsday. No, captain, it is but a
poor way of showing our gratitude."
Once convinced of the feasibility of the mate's proposal, McBain lost no
time in setting about carrying the plan into execution. It would be a
sin, he argued, to leave so much wealth to waste, when they had ample
room for carrying it. Even romantic Rory came to the same conclusion at
last.
"Had it been base blubber now," he said, "you'd have had to excuse me,
Captain McBain, from sailing in the same ship with it I'd have asked you
to have built me a cot in these beautiful wilds, and here I'd have
stopped, sketching and shooting, until you returned with a clean ship to
take me back to bonnie Scotland. But refined oil, sweet and pure,--
indeed I agree with you, it would be a sin entirely to leave it to the
bears."
A busy time now ensued for the officers and men of the _Snowbird_; they
had to be up early and to work late. Nor was the work free from
hardship. Had the bay where lay the monster leviathan--which the mate
of the _Trefoil_ averred was one of the largest "fishes" he had ever
seen--lain anywhere near them, the task would have been mere play to
what it was. First and foremost, sledges had to be built--large, light,
but useful sledges. The building of these occupied many days, but they
were finished at last, and then the working party started on its long
journey to Bear Point, as our heroes had named the place--Bear Point and
Good Luck Bay.
As during the flenshing and the landing of the cakes of blubber, the men
would have to remain all night near their work, every precaution was
taken to protect them from cold in the camping-ground. Rory, Allan, and
Ralph must needs make three of the party, with Seth to guide them in the
woods, where they meant to spend the short day shooting.
By good fortune, the weather all the time remained settled and
beautiful, and the four guns managed easily enough to keep the camp well
supplied with game of various kinds. The cold at night time, however,
was intense, and the roaring fires kept up in the hastily-constructed
huts, could scarcely keep the men warm. This was the only time during
the whole cruise of the _Snowbird_ that McBain deemed it necessary to
serve out to his men a rum ration. The time at which it was partaken
may seem to some of my readers an odd one, but it was, nevertheless,
rational, and it was suggested by the men in camp themselves. It was
served at night, just at that hour when Arctic cold becomes almost
insupportable. They did not require it by day, they could have hot
coffee whenever they cared to partake of it, but at half-past two in the
morning all hands seemed to awake suddenly. This was the coldest time,
and the fires, too, had died low, and the men's spirits, like the
thermometer, were below zero. But when more logs were heaped upon the
fires, and the coffee urn heated, and the ration mixed with a smoking
bowl of it and handed round, then the life-blood seemed to return to
their hearts, and re-wrapping themselves in their skins, they dropped
off to sleep, and by seven o'clock were once more astir.
Several days were spent in the work of landing the treasure-trove, then
the tedious and toilsome labour of conveying it to the _Snowbird_
commenced. There was in all nearly thirty tons of it to be dragged in
the sledges over a rough and difficult country, yet at last this was
safely accomplished, and the mate of the _Trefoil_ had the satisfaction
of seeing it stored in one immense bin, where it could await the process
of boiling down and refining, previously to being conveyed into the
tanks of the yacht.
"I feel happier now," said Mr Hill, as he quietly contemplated the
result of their labours. "It is a goodly pile, thirty tons there if
there is an ounce; it will take us two good months' hard work to refine
it."
"Meanwhile," said McBain, "we must not forget one thing."
"What is that?" said Mr Hill.
"Why," replied the captain, "that to-morrow is Christmas. You must rest
from your labours for a few days at least, there is plenty of time
before us. It will be well on to the middle of May ere the ice lifts
sufficiently to permit us to bear up for the east once more."
"Well," said the mate, "the truth is, I had forgotten the season was so
far advanced."
"You have been thinking about nothing but your `fish,'" said McBain,
laughing.
"I have been full of that fish," replied the mate; "full of it, and that
is a curious way to speak. Why, that fish is a fortune in itself. And
I do think, captain, it is a sad thing to go home in a half-empty ship."
"Ah!" McBain added, "thanks to you, and thanks to our own good guns, we
won't do that."
"Talking about fortunes," said Allan, who had just come on deck, "we
ought to have a small fortune in skins alone."
"In fur and feather," said Rory.
"There is more of that to come," quoth McBain. "As soon as the days
begin to lengthen out we will have some glorious hunting expeditions,
and the animals our good Seth will lead us against, are never in better
condition than they are during the early spring months."
Christmas Day came. McBain resolved it should be spent as much as
possible in the same way as if they were at home. There was service in
the morning on shore in the hall. Was there one soul in that rough log
hut, who did not feel gratitude to Him who had brought them through so
many dangers? I do not think there was.
After service preparations for dinner were commenced. It was to be a
banquet. There was to be no sitting below the salt at this meal; all
should be welcome, all should be equal. I am afraid my powers of
description would utterly fail me if I attempted to give the reader an
idea of the decorations of the new hall. Almost every lamp in the
_Snowbird_ was pressed into the service. The hall was a galaxy of light
then, it was a galaxy of evergreens too, and everywhere on the walls
were hung trophies of the chase, and the part of the room in which the
table stood was bedded with skins. But how Peter, the steward, managed
to get the tablecloth up to such a pitch of snowy whiteness, or how he
succeeded in getting the crystal to sparkle and the silver to shine in
the marvellous manner they did, is more than I can tell you. And if you
asked me to describe the viands, or the glorious juiciness of the giant
joints, or the supreme immensity of the lofty pudding, I should simply
beg to be excused. Why that pudding took two men to carry it in and to
place it on the table, and when it was there it quite hid the smiling
face of Captain McBain, whose duty it was to confront it. If you had
been sitting at the other end of the table you couldn't have seen him.
Ah! but McBain was quite equal to the occasion, and I can assure you
that the hearty way he attacked that pudding soon brought him into view
again.
Well, everybody seemed, and I'm sure _felt_, as happy as happy could be.
Old man Magnus looked twenty years younger, old Ap's face was wreathed
in smiles, and Seth looked as bright as the silver. I can't say more.
Rory was in fine form, his merry sallies kept the table in roars, his
droll sayings were side-splitting; and Ralph and Allan kept him at it,
you may be sure. Yes, that was something like a dinner. And after the
more serious part of the business was over, mirth and music became the
order of the evening; songs were sung and stories told, songs that
brought them back once more in heart and mind to old Scotland, where
they knew that at that very time round many a fireside dear friends were
thinking of them and wondering how they fared.