_In Which Archie Armstrong falls in with Bill o' Burnt
Bay and Billy Topsail of Ruddy Cove and Makes a
Speech_
THERE is no telling what would have happened had the _Dictator_ struck
the jam of ice in the narrows of Long Tom Harbour. Captain Hand was not
the man to lose half a voyage because there was a risk to be taken; had
he been used to counting the risk, he would not have been in command
of the finest ship in Armstrong and Son's fine fleet. Rather than be
locked in the harbour, he had launched his vessel at the barrier,
quietly confident that she would acquit herself well. But, as he had
foreseen, the jam broke of its own weight before the steamer struck. Of
a sudden, it cracked, and gave way; the key blocks had broken. It then
remained only to breast the pack, which was not at all an impossible
undertaking for the stout _Dictator_.
With her rivals following close, she struck the floe, broke a way
through, and pushed on, with a great noise, but slowly, surely; and she
was soon in the open sea. The course was then shaped northeast, for it
appeared that open water lay in that direction. The floe retarded the
ship's progress, but could not stop it; the ice pans crashed against
her prow and scraped her sides, but she was staunch enough to withstand
every shock; and so, gaining on the rest of the fleet, she crept out to
sea, in the teeth of the rising gale.
At two o'clock in the morning, Archie Armstrong was still on the bridge
with the captain and mate. The lights of the fleet were lost in the
night behind. The _Dictator_ had laboured through the first field of
ice into open water. The sea was dotted with great, white "pans,"
widely scattered; and, as the captain had feared, there were signs of
bergs in the darkness roundabout. The waves were rising, spume crested,
on every hand; at intervals, they broke over the bows, port and
starboard, with frightful violence. Gusts of wind whirled the spray to
the bridge, where it soon sheathed men and superstructure in ice.
"Send a lookout aloft, Mr. Ackell," said the captain, after he had long
and anxiously peered straight ahead.
The thud of ice, as the seas hurled it against the ship's prows, the
hiss and crash of the waves, the screaming of the gale, drowned the
captain's order.
"Pass the word for Bill o' Burnt Bay!" he roared.
A short, brawny man, of middle age, who had not missed a voyage to the
ice in twenty years, soon appeared in response to the call, which had
gone from mouth to mouth through the ship. Archie was inclined to smile
when he observed Bill's unkempt, sandy moustache, which was curiously
given an upward twist at one side, and a downward twist at the other.
Nevertheless, he was strongly attracted to him; for he looked like a
man who could be trusted to the limit of his courage and strength.
"Take a glass t' the nest, b'y, an' look sharp for bergs," the captain
ordered. "Don't stay up there. Come back an' report t' me here."
The man went off with a brisk, "Ay, ay, sir!" It was his duty to
clamber to the crow's-nest--a cask lashed to the topmast just below the
masthead--and to sweep the sea for signs of bergs.
"'Tis more than I bargained for, Mr. Ackell," the captain went on, to
the mate, in an anxious undertone, which, however, Archie managed to
catch; and it may be added that the lad's heart jumped into his throat,
and had a hard time getting back into place again.
"Dirty weather, sir!" the mate agreed. "I'm thinkin' we're close to
some heavy ice."
"Well," said the captain, after a pause, "keep her head as she points
now. I'll have a look 'tween decks."
Archie was tempted to ask the captain "if there was any danger." The
foolish question was fairly on the tip of his tongue; but his better
sense came to his rescue in time. Danger? Of course, there was! There
was always danger. He had surely not come on a sealing voyage expecting
none! But catastrophe was not yet inevitable. At any rate, it was the
captain's duty to sail the ship. He was responsible to the owners, and
to the families of the crew; the part of the passenger was but bravely
to meet the fortune that came. So, completely regaining his courage,
Archie followed the captain below.
'Tween decks the stout hearts were rollicking still. The working crew
had duty to do, every man of them; but the two hundred hunters, who had
been taken along to wield gaff and club, were sprawled in every place,
singing, laughing, yarning, scuffling, for all the world like a pack
of boys: making light of discomfort, and thinking not at all of danger,
for the elation of departure still possessed them. Had any misgiving
still remained with Archie, the sight of this jolly, careless crowd
of hunters would have quieted it. _They_ were not alarmed. Then, why
should he be? Doubtless, it was responsibility that made the captain
anxious.
In the improvised cabin aft, Ebenezer Bowsprit, of Exploits, was
roaring the "Luck o' the Northern Light," a famous old sealing song,
which, no doubt, his grandfather had sung to shipmates upon similar
occasions long ago. Rough, frank faces, broadly smiling, were turned
to him; and when it came time for the chorus, willing voices and
mighty lungs swelled it to a volume that put the very gale to shame.
The ship was pitching violently--with a nauseating roll occasionally
thrown in--and the cabin was crowded and hot and filled with clouds of
tobacco smoke; but neither pitch, nor roll, nor heat, nor smoke, could
interfere with the jollity of the occasion.
"All right here," the captain growled, grinning in his great beard.
"Speech, Sir Archie!" shouted one of the men.
Before Archie could escape--and amid great laughter and uproar and
louder calls for a speech--he was caught by the arm, jerked off his
feet, and hoisted on the table, where he bumped his head, and, by an
especially violent roll of the vessel, was almost thrown headlong into
the arms of the grinning crowd around him.
"Speech, speech!" they roared.
Archie would have declined with some heat had he not caught sight of
the face of Tim Tuttle--a tawny, lean, long man, apparently as strong
as a wire rope. There was a steely twinkle in his eye, and a sneering,
utterly contemptuous smile upon his thin lips. Archie did not know that
this was Tuttle's habitual expression. He felt that the man expected a
rather amusing failure on the part of Sir Archibald Armstrong's son;
and that stimulated him to take the situation seriously. Unconsciously
calling his good breeding to his aid, he pulled off his cap, smoothed
his hair, touched his cravat, and--
"Ahem!" he began; as he had heard the governor of the colony do a dozen
times, and as now, to his surprise, he found most inspiring.
"Hear, hear!" burst rapturously from old Ebenezer Bowsprit.
[Illustration: HE WAS NEAR THE END OF THE SIXTEENTH VERSE.]
Ebenezer was in a condition of high delight and expectation. Admiration
shone in his eyes, surprise was depicted by his wide opened mouth,
bewonderment by his strained attention. The sight of his face was too
much for Archie.
"Oh, what Tommy-rot!" he laughed. "Here, let me go! I can't (hold me
up, or I'll fall) make a speech. ("Hear, hear!" from the awe-stricken
Ebenezer.) All I got to say is that I'm (_please_ get a better hold on
my legs, or I'll be pitched off) mighty glad to be here. I'm having the
best time of my life, and I expect to have a better one when we strike
the seals. (Loud and prolonged cheering.) I hope----"
But, in the excitement following his last remark, the speaker's support
was withdrawn, and a pitch of the ship threw him off the table. He was
caught, set on his feet, and clapped on the back. Then he managed to
escape with the captain, followed by loud cries of "More! More!" to
which he felt justified in paying no attention.
"You're your father's son," laughed the captain, as they made their way
up the deck. "Sure, your father never in his life let slip a chance
t' make a speech."
In the forecastle they had a lad on the table under the lantern--a
tow-headed, blue-eyed, muscular boy, of Archie's age, or less. He had
on goatskin boots, a jacket of homespun, and a flaring red scarf. The
men were quiet; for the boy was piping, in a clear, quavering treble,
the "Song o' the Anchor an' Chain," a Ruddy Cove saga, which goes to
the air of a plaintive West Country ballad of the seventeenth century,
with the refrain,
"Sure, the chain 'e parted,
An' the schooner drove ashoare,
An' the wives o' the 'ands
Never saw un any moare.
No moare!
Never saw un any mo-o-o-are!"
He was near the end of the sixteenth verse, and the men were drawing
breath for the chorus, when the captain appeared in the door, wrath in
his eyes.
"What's this?" roared he.
There was no answer. The lad turned to face the captain, in part
deferentially, in part humorously, altogether fearlessly.