The sun came up on a long slant, to swing its southern arc. Glancing
from ice floe to ice floe, it seemed a cold bronze disk placed in motion
by some Norseman of the Arctic wilds.
Stirling, haggard and with hot, fevered eyes, sat at the steerage table
watching the light striking across a red-checked table cover and
bringing out the rude details of the cabin.
He had not slept since seeing that strange figure on the quarter-deck of
the whaler. He had sat erect throughout the morning watch, laying facts
against facts, which seemed to dull and stupefy his sober senses.
At no time in his life had he believed in the supernatural. He did not
share the beliefs, common to most seamen, that the sea held unfathomable
mysteries. He had sniffed often at the tales told by old salts. Times
without number he had pointed out that natural causes rule the
happenings of this world. St. Elmo fire; the creaking of blocks in a
calm; the dust on a dustless sea; the tapping that a bolt might make in
a hollow spar--these were all phenomena which could be explained by
science or good common sense.
The spectre on the poop of the _Pole Star_ was as unexplainable as life
itself. It bore the shape and form of Marr; it was not Marr, for the
captain had been drinking and singing in the cabin. Stirling put trust
in the sound of the human voice. It was one thing which could not easily
be changed or disguised.
He rose, at six bells, with a slow shrug of his broad shoulders. He
stood a moment with his hands gripping the racks, his face deeply lined
with the ravages of a sleepless night. He held out his palm and stared
at it; his fingers trembled uncontrollably. They always had been steady.
He made his way to the deck and stood by the rail which was nearest the
great North pack. The cook, yawning, was making fire in the galley
stove. A lone "anchor watch" pacing back and forth at the break of the
forecastle head turned and stared at Stirling.
The air was cold with a snap of frost. A gale came from the south and
west with a puff that ground the loose floes together. North, to the
slaty horizon, stretched the broken surface of the ice field. It had a
sound of its own--a grind and a creaking like a soul in agony.
Stirling rested his hands on the rail and stared downward. The whaler
surged against the shelving ice, steadied, then surged back again. Seals
peered curiously from the depths of the Bering. Some scrambled from the
floes and plumped into the icy water. Walruses were upon the pack. They
had broken through the thin ice formed overnight, and their whiskers and
tusks were white with hoar frost.
Stirling stared aloft, then shuddered slightly and drew his great coat
close about him. The ratlines and standing rigging, the downhauls and
halyards formed a ghostly tapestry, like the gossamer web of some forest
glade.
He raised his hands, breathed upon them to secure circulation, slowly
climbed the rail, and reached for the shrouds, and thrusting his feet
through the chains he mounted until he reached the Jacob's ladder. Going
over this he leaned far outboard, glanced down at the deck, then
finished the climb to the crow's-nest which was coated with frost.
Some whim of the current had cleared the sea to the south and east. It
was as if a broom had swept through the pile of a purple carpet. The
floes which had broken from the main pack had been whisked southward to
melt in the warm waters of the north Pacific. Occasionally, however, a
hoary old "grandpa" went drifting by with its load of walrus and hair
seals, while over them hovered gulls and other birds.
Stirling narrowed his eyes and searched long and carefully for some sign
of another whaler. The season was an early one. Bowheads were to be
expected in such waters; the whale slick which showed marked their
feeding ground. He saw no sign of sail or smoke. A slight haze to the
southward marked the smoky sea where the chilled waters of the Bering
met the first warm current which seeped through the passes of the
Aleutian Group.
Climbing from the crow's-nest, Stirling swung out over the ladder and
smiled slightly as he saw a patient fisherman, in the shaggy form of a
polar bear, all too intent upon the circular opening of a seal's hole
through the ice.
A whiff of galley smoke and the rattle of falling ice from the shrouds
disturbed the fisherman. He raised his yellow snout, blinked his tiny
eyes, and was off with a lumbersome trot toward the shelter of higher
hummocks in the east.
Cushner appeared like a giant who had slept without turning over. He
lifted his long arms, stretched, pointed his icicle-sharp beard aloft,
and held his mouth open as he stared at Stirling swinging down the
shrouds.
"By the stars, old man!" he exclaimed. "You're an early bird. Ain't more
than seven bells, if it's that. Raised any bowheads yet?"
Stirling sprang from the rail to the deck and rubbed his frosted hands.
He stepped to Cushner's side and clapped him on the back. "Not yet!" he
said. "No whales, but there's an ocean of fine slick. It's a whaling day
if ever there was one."
"Waal," yawned Cushner. "Waal, I'll call the watches and get ready. We
might as well drop away from the pack."
Without consulting Marr, the second mate gave the order to bring in the
hawser and hoist easy canvas on the fore and main. The _Pole Star_
sheered and drifted toward the southward. Stirling emerged from the
galley house, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, felt the glow
of the strong coffee he had drunk, then crossed the deck and mounted
again to the crow's-nest where he took position to observe any signs of
whales or white water.
The whaler was hove to, with her yards braced, and steam pluming from
the pipe after the raking funnel; the boats were swung outboard; the
gear was gone over and the water kegs filled.
Marr appeared at one bell. He glanced toward the distant pack, frowned
slightly, then leaned over the rail of the quarter-deck. "Who gave the
order to drop down here?" he asked Cushner.
The second mate stood erect in the starboard-waist boat. "I did," he
said, slowly. "I thought, seeing as how there was whale slick, that we
better get in position for lowering. We could only lower three boats
where we were."
Marr motioned for Whitehouse, who sprang up the weather poop steps, and
the two men went aft behind the canvas screen. Cushner glanced toward
Stirling in the crow's-nest, and Stirling nodded. He seemed to say
without words that he would stick by the second mate's statement.
Whitehouse appeared and glanced upward. "What d'ye make out?" he asked,
pointing over the ship's rail. "'Ow's the sea to lee'ard?"
"Plenty of signs," said Stirling. "There's a sail far down toward that
big floe. Looks like the first of the Frisco fleet. She's headin' for
the ice. Likely there'll be more. Old 'Hank' Peterson and his _Beluga_
always fasten around about here. That looks like the _Beluga's_
fore-topsail. It's dirty enough!"
The _Beluga_, so it proved, tacked and went about with its long row of
white boats showing clear and distinct in the Northern sunlight.
Peterson was cruising over known ground. He drove the ship away from the
pack and vanished through the smoke of the seas with the patches of his
ancient sails allowing the last sight of him.
Another ship climbed up over the rim of the world. Smoke showed in a
long slaty line, and soon was revealed the fine sheer and trim rig of a
revenue cutter. Stirling lowered his glasses with a dry smile, and
stared toward the whaler's poop. Marr stood there with feet braced and a
telescope clapped to his eye.
The little skipper muttered vehemently as he wheeled swiftly and strode
to the rail. "What ship's that?" he called up to Stirling.
"The United States revenue cutter _Bear_, Mr. Marr!"
The captain frowned, turned, and looked over the ice-dotted waters.
"Which way is she heading now?" he asked.
"Same course. She's sizing us up. Likely she'll skirt the pack, back and
forth, until she finds a lane to the east. She always does."
"How many cutters come North?"
"Usually three----the _Bear_ and the _Wolverene_ and the _Northern
Star_."
Stirling's voice contained a shaded warning, as he leaned over the edge
of the crow's-nest and watched Marr intently. The little captain was
plainly disturbed. He coiled and uncoiled his well-manicured fingers,
stroked his smooth chin, then went aft with a quick stride and
disappeared through the cabin companion.
Cushner climbed up the fore shrouds and dropped alongside Stirling.
Pinching the Ice Pilot's arm, he chuckled as he twirled the knob of the
glasses and extended his arm outward.
"She's th' _Bear_, all right," he said after a careful glance. "She's
giving us a good lookin' over. We're new to her. I reckon th' whaleboats
will satisfy her. There's nothin' to excite suspicion."
The _Bear_ slowly vanished into the mist, and a line of dark smoke
marked her going.
Cushner laid down the glasses and exclaimed through his beard: "They
ought to know you, old man!"
"Not in this rig," Stirling said. "Last time I saw the _Bear_, I was
pilot of the _Mary Foster_. They gammed us the other side of St.
Lawrence Island. They were looking for poachers. Somebody had raided the
northeast point of St. Paul's, and three hundred bachelor seals were
missing."
"Fair game, I say, when you do it out beyond the three-mile limit. It's
just the same as highway when it's done on the rookeries."
"That's the way I think. Marr had better take warning. It would be a
short shift to McNeal's Island and a long sentence if he tried
anything."
Cushner climbed out of the crow's-nest and lowered himself to the deck.
Standing by the rail he watched the crew who were alert to raise a
spout. Whitehouse, at a suggestion from Marr, had offered ten plugs of
tobacco and two square faces of trade gin for the first blow reported.
The morning passed without any sign of whales. At two bells in the
afternoon watch a second whaler wallowed by and offered the signal that
she had already fastened and cut in. A dark slab of muck tuck, or
blubber, was dangling from her stumpy jib boom.
Stirling knew the ship as he knew the palm of his strong hand. She was
the _Norwhale_ out of Frisco. He called down her name and pointed out
her aged captain to the crew of the _Pole Star_.
"The luckiest man in the North!" Stirling exclaimed. "Already fastened
and lookin' for more. Keep your eyes peeled to lee'ard, boys. There's an
ocean of slick and plenty of signs."
The sun was rolling into the west when a stir passed through the _Pole
Star_. A voice forward had half shouted, then died to a whisper. One
lookout pointed far down to the south and east; Stirling swung his
glasses and studied the wide surface of the Bering. He saw a spout which
proved to be waves dashed from the weather side of a floe, and sea gulls
hovering over an oily patch. He tested the direction of the wind by
holding his finger aloft, and stared at the telltale which draped from
the mizzen top.
Clapping the glasses to his eyes, he swung about in a slow circle. Due
south, he steadied and grew rigid. He saw the low bore of water which
marked the presence of some animal beneath the surface. He closed his
lips in a hard, firm line; his face cleared; his arms grew rigid as bars
of steel. He waited with every muscle tense. Then, and suddenly, he
lowered the glasses, leaned far out over the edge of the crow's-nest,
and called loudly: "A blow! A blow! There she blows!"