Captain Talbot was a brave man, but the ice for the present looked far
too dangerous to venture in through. So he kept "dodging" along the
great barrier-edge or cruising eastwards, and away towards what is known
as Enderby Land.
Sometimes he encountered a storm, brief but terrible, and dangerous in
the extreme. They saw around them great bergs coming into collision,
their green, towering, wall-like sides dashed together by the force of
wind and waves; heard the thunder of the encounter, and witnessed the
mist and foam as they fell to pieces in a chaos of boiling surf.
At times dense fog would envelop the whole sea, and then sail had to be
taken in, for the icebergs went floating past and past like mysterious
ghosts.
But clearer weather prevailed at last, and two more monster whales were
captured.
Three great leviathans! Nearly a voyage in itself. No wonder that the
spirits of the men rose higher and higher, as they thought of those who
would press them to their hearts on their return home from this
adventuresome cruise. And--happiest thought of all!--they would have
plenty of money to spend on fathers or mothers, wives or children. For
my experience is that so long as they are unallured by the drink demon,
British sailors are not really improvident.
But the good luck of the _Flora_ did not continue. Talbot had expected
to find sea-elephants in great evidence in these regions.
They are so called, it will do you no harm to know, reader, first on
account of their immense size and unwieldiness, many of the males
attaining a length of twenty feet or over, and from the fact that they
have a kind of proboscis which, when alarmed or angry, they inflate till
it looks almost like the trunk of an elephant. They are dangerous then,
and, though as a rule peaceable, can give a good account of anyone
daring enough to attempt an attack upon them, armed with the spiked
seal-club alone.
They usually, however, go further north during the spring or pupping
season, but now having returned, they ought to have been about
somewhere. But they had evidently chosen fresh ground, and Captain
Talbot was unable to find a trace of them.
He was not easily cast down, however, and taking advantage of a splendid
westerly and north-westerly wind, he daringly set every inch of
canvas--remember it was the long Antarctic day--and flew eastwards on
its wings.
But his object was not only to get a paying voyage, but to do some good
also to science and to geographical knowledge as well.
It was the duty of Duncan himself, and of Frank as well, not only to
keep a log, but to enter therein, along with the ship's sailings,
adventures, &c., the temperature of air and water twice a day.
The vessel again appeared to imagine herself a clipper-built yacht and
to fly along, and by good luck she not only had a fair wind, but a clear
sea, having only now and then to steer away from floating icebergs.
But now and then a boat was lowered to pick up some unusual form of
seal, that might be observed floating along on a morsel of snow-clad
ice. So tame were these that they only gazed open-mouthed at the
advancing boat, and thus fell an easy prey to the gunner.
Very few more Right whales were seen, and none captured.
For a time the course held was about east with a bit of northerly in it,
then on reaching the sixties they bowled along in fine style, and in the
first week in February they were daringly--far too daringly as it turned
out--steering almost directly south through a comparatively open sea
towards the great southern ice-barrier in the seventies, which lies east
of a mighty volcanic hill well-named Erebus.
It was autumn now--early autumn in these regions, but still a delightful
time.
Do not imagine that this distant ocean was uninhabited. Far from it.
There were still millions on millions of birds about, that later on
would fly far away to nor'land lands and islands. Petrels of many
sorts, especially the snow-white species, Cape pigeons, the smaller
penguins on point ends of land, and gulls of such beauty and rarity that
it would have puzzled cleverer men than our heroes to classify them.
Many of these were carefully shot and made skins of, to be set up when
they reached once more their dear native land, if God in his mercy
should spare them.
----
Mount Sabine itself is passed, and soon after, to the east of that
mountain, they lie for a day or two at Coulman Island. Strangely
enough, though floating icebergs are heaving about all around, this
rocky and storm-tossed isle is bare, and they can land.
The captain, with Frank and Conal, go off on a lichen hunt inland. They
take their rifles with them, but no wild creature is here that can hurt
them.
They find beautiful mosses, however, and strangely beautiful lichens.
Indeed, some parts of the rising ground are crimson or orange with these
latter, and the green of the mosses stand out in lovely and striking
contrast.
They continued their journey far inland, and although the rocks and the
sea all about the shore was alive with birds, here it was solemn and
still enough. The scene was indeed impressive and beautiful, and with
the blue of the sky above and the bright blue of the ocean beyond,
dotted over with green and lofty snow-capped ice-blocks, the whole
seemed a little world fresh from the hands of the great Creator of all.
Captain Talbot took specimens not only of the flora--if so I may call
the scanty vegetation of this island--but of its rocks as well, and the
height of its chief hills, with many soundings around it, to say nothing
of collecting marine algae.
All the way southwards, as far as the great ice-barrier to the eastward
of the land wherein was Mount Terror, he was at the pains of surveying
and charting out for the benefit of future generations, for as laid down
in the charts that he possessed the coast was very indolently described
indeed.
----
He was a very ambitious mariner, this skipper of the _Flora M'Vayne_,
and at the same time a bold, daring, true-blue sailor.
Now would be the time, therefore, to make his great aerial journey still
farther to the southward. But could such a thing be successfully
accomplished? That was the question that he and he alone had to answer
for himself. There was no one to consult.
And he took a whole long day to consider it, keeping himself very much
alone in his state-room that he might come quietly to a correct
conclusion.
Thus far to the south had he come with the intention of penetrating
still farther by balloon. But he had calculated on getting here much
sooner.
He had no intention of doing anything foolishly rash. Had he reached 75
deg. south latitude when the summer was still in its prime he might have
reckoned on perpetual sunshine and constant shifting of wind, but now
the breeze blew mostly from the south, and although by rising into the
higher regions he might get a fair wind if he descended one hundred
miles nearer to the Antarctic Pole, was there any certainty that he
should ever return? Indeed, it was the reverse. It seemed as though
there was not the ghost of a chance of his ever seeing his ship again.
Life is sweet, and so at long last he gave up all thoughts of his aerial
voyage for the present season.
He communicated this resolve to his mates and youngsters that day at
dinner.
But the sun had already begun to set to the south'ard, though so brief
was the night that scarce a star was even visible.
"We shall now," he told them, "bear up for the north and the west once
more, and if we reach the lone isles of Kerguelen in time, we may yet
fall among old sea-elephants enough to pay us handsomely. For though I
have never been there, I am told that they make that lone region a
habitat throughout the greater part of the year."
"And then we shall be homeward-bound, sha'n't we, sir?" said Frank.
"Yes," was the reply. "But I say, young fellow, you are not tired of a
sailor's life, are you?"
"Oh no! I would like to see all--all the world first, and then return
and dream of my wild adventures, and fight my battles with the stormy
main o'er and o'er and o'er again."
"Bravo! lad, though you are just a little effusive. Well, you are pretty
strong in wind and limb, Frank, aren't you?"
"Fairly, sir. I haven't got real Highland legs like Duncan there, but
they've always served me well on a pinch."
"Well, as soon as we get into the neighbourhood of Mount Terror again I
mean to make an ascent, and I shall want the assistance of all you young
fellows, and a hand or two besides. There are scientific instruments to
take along, besides plenty of food, drink, and sleeping-bags, for I
guess it will take us the greater part of three days to accomplish the
journey to the top and back.
"What is the height, sir?"
"It is said to be nearly eleven thousand feet high, and it is volcanic."
"Don't you think," said Morgan the mate, "that the adventure is almost
foolhardy?"
"It is risky enough, I daresay; but really, Morgan, my dear fellow, I
hate the idea of going back home without having accomplished something
out of the common."
And so, after some further conversation of an after-dinner style, the
ascent was determined on.
This was Saturday night, and as usual wives and sweethearts were
toasted, for Captain Talbot was a man who dearly loved to keep up old
customs.
So after a hearty supper of sea-pie the men got up a dance, Frank and
the man who played the clarionet forming, as usual, the chief portion of
the band.
Old Pen was in grand form to-night, and his antics, as he danced and
whirled around with little Johnnie Shingles, were laughable in the
extreme. It would be impossible to say that Pen tripped it--
"On the light fantastic toe".
For his feet were about as broad and flat as a couple of kippered
herrings, but he made the best use of them he could, and no one could
have done more.
After the dance the chief yarn-spinners assembled in a wide circle
around the galley fire. Frank and Conal made two of the party, with
noble Vike in the rear.
It hardly would have needed the rum that the cabin steward dealt out to
make these good fellows happy to-night or to cause them to spin short
yarns and sing, so jolly were they to know the ship was homeward bound--
"Across the foaming billows, boys,
Across the roaring sea,
"We'll all forget our hardships, lads,
With England on the lee".
But the crew of the brave _Flora M'Vayne_ took their cue from the
skipper, and never a Saturday night passed without many a song and many
a toast, and always an original yarn of some adventure afloat or ashore.
Sings Dibdin:--
"The moon on the ocean was dimmed by a ripple,
Affording a chequered delight;
The gay jolly tars passed the word for the tipple
And the _toast_--for 'twas Saturday night,
Some sweetheart or wife that he lov'd as his life,
Each drank, while he wished he could hail her,
But the standing toast that pleased the most was--
Here's the wind that blows and the ship that goes,
And the lass that loves a sailor!"
So thoroughly old-fashioned was Captain Talbot that on some Saturday
nights he did not think it a bit beneath him to join his men around the
fire, and they loved him all the better for it too.
Well, no matter how crowded the men might be of a night like this, there
was always room left in the inner circle for Viking, old Pen, and Jim
the monkey.
Jim, with his red jacket on, used to sit by Viking, looking very serious
and very old, and combing the dog's coat with his long slender black
fingers.
This was a kind of shampoo that invariably sent Vike off to sleep.
Then Jim would lie down alongside him, draw one great paw over his body,
and go off to sleep also.
But old Pen would be very solemn indeed. He was troubled with cold
feet, and it was really laughable enough to see him standing there on
one leg while he held up and exposed his other great webbed pedal
apparatus to the welcome glow emitted by the fire.
Sometimes yarns were at a discount, though songs never were, and no
matter how simple, they were always welcome, even if told without any
straining for effect and in ordinary conversational English, if they had
truth in them.
On this particular Saturday night Captain Talbot came forward and took a
seat in a corner to smoke his long pipe, while the steward brewed him a
tumbler of punch with some cinnamon and butter in it, for the skipper
had a cold.
"It's long since we've had a yarn from you, sir," remarked the
carpenter.
The skipper took a drink, and then let his eyes follow the curling smoke
from his pipe for a few seconds before replying.
"Well, Peters," he said, "I've had so many adventures in my time that I
hardly ever know which to tell first. Once upon a time I served in a
Royal Navy ship on the coast of Africa, and it is just the odour of the
'baccy, boys, that brings this little yarn to my mind."
"Out with it, sir," cried one.
"Yes, out with it, Captain. We'll listen as if it were a sermon, and we
were old wives."
"First and foremost," said Talbot, "let me give you a toast--Here's to
the loved ones at home!"
"The loved ones at home!" And every glass was raised, and really that
toast was like a prayer.