favor of taking things in their turn. You can’t afford to get in
Macarony’s fix just now. We’ll need you when we get down there below the
Horn. Besides we’re a long ways from shore, and the water here’s full of
sharks.”
The last was certainly true. A black knife-like fin at that instant cut
the water below us, and the swish of a steel-like tail as it disappeared
made me shudder.
“That chap seems to be following us,” commented Gale, “they say it means
a death aboard, but I think it’s more likely he’s after the garbage.
’Twouldn’t be a good time to swim, would it?”
He walked away and left me leaning over the rail. I thought his advice
kindly, on the whole encouraging, and made up my mind to remember it. I
wondered if Ferratoni had really spoken to Edith Gale. “Poor fellow,” I
thought, “it must have been the glamour of the tropic night that made
his ideal seem real to him for the moment.” And this I still believe to
have been the case; but what it was he said that night to Edith Gale, or
just what she replied, I shall never know.
X.
CAPTAIN BIFFER IS ASSISTED BY THE PAMPEIRO.
Southward, and still southward.
We crossed the equator under light steam, for there was no wind and it
was too warm to lie becalmed, even in that mystical, lotus-breathing
sea.
Our world was turned around, now. We were going back to the year’s
beginning, and springtime lay at the end of our bow-sprit. The Big
Dipper and the North Star were ours no longer; the Southern Cross had
become our beacon and our hope. The sun and moon were still with us, but
even these had fallen behind and it was to the northward now that we
turned for noonday.
Gradually the glorious sunsets of the lower tropics faded into a
semblance of those we had known in our own land. It was no longer quite
comfortable on deck without wraps. An April quality had come into the
air, and we grew presently to realize that we were entering rapidly into
what was, to us, the curious anomaly of an October spring.
To me it was all pure enjoyment. It seemed that I could never look at
the sea enough, and often I got Edith Gale to help me. And Ferratoni
too, sometimes, for with the cooler weather and more temperate skies he
had become quite himself again.
The first frost in the air seemed a glacial feeling to us, and set us to
talking with renewed interest of the Far South and the lands and peoples
we had undertaken to discover. I felt sure we were extravagant in some
of our expectations. The tales we had read led us to hope for marvels in
the way of mechanical progress, and we treated ourselves to flying
machines and heaven only knows what other luxuries. In the end, I
discouraged flying machines. I said that if these were a fact with the
Antarcticans, they would have come to us long since. I said also that we
must not build our anticipations too big, but base everything on calm
reason and sound logic. It was more than possible, I admitted, that the
Antarcticans had made some advancements in mechanism that were unknown
to us, but on the whole I thought we would hold our own at the next
world’s exhibition.
It had been Chauncey Gale’s intention to touch at one of the large South
American ports for a little holiday, and to procure a few articles
needed in the construction department below stairs. This idea, however,
was now discouraged by the officers, who believed that a number if not
all of the crew would desert the ship at the first opportunity.
“Why not let them go?” I had asked, when we were talking the matter
over, “and ship a new crew?”
Into the Captain’s off eye there came the twist of indifferent scorn
usually accorded to my suggestions.
“Yes,” he growled, “and get a gang from some crimp who would load ’em
onto us dead drunk, to cut our throats as soon as they got sober. I know
South American crews—I’ve helped kill some of ’em—I don’t want any
more.”
I was silent. I didn’t know what a crimp was, and I wouldn’t have asked
for considerable. I have since learned that he is an unreliable person;
a bad man, who sells worse whisky over a disreputable bar, from which he
unloads on sea-captains anything human, and drunk enough to stand the
operation. His place is a sort of clearing house, and the crimp has a
syndicate or trust, as it were, with the captain at his mercy.
We altered our plans, therefore, and turned our course more directly
southward, toward the Falkland Islands. We were off the River de la
Plata at the time, sailing leisurely along under a blue sky, with the
fair weather that had followed us most of the way from New York. The
sailors had expected we would put into Rio Janeiro or one of the ports
farther down, but now that we had passed below Montevideo and were
standing out to sea, they knew we were not to touch land again.
I was leaning over the rail after the interview in the cabin, puzzling
about crimps, and looking at the shark—or one just like him—who still
followed us, when I heard Mr. Emory, who was on watch, order the men up
into the shrouds to shorten sail. I did not see why this should be done,
for the sky was blue, dotted here and there with small woolly clouds
that showed only a tendency to skurry about a little, like frisking
lambs. Perhaps the men didn’t understand, either, for the bosen,
Frenchy, blew his whistle presently and they left their work about half
finished, and came down. Then they gathered in a group at the bow and I
saw Mr. Emory go forward and talk earnestly to Frenchy, who seemed
excited and gesticulated at the men, the cabin, himself and the world in
general. Mr. Emory left him after a few moments and disappeared into the
cabin, where I knew the Captain and Edith Gale were matched in a rubber
of whist against the Admiral and Ferratoni, who had been coerced into
learning the game.
I left my place at the ship’s side. I did not believe in the old shark
superstition, and I had little respect for a creature that would follow
a ship thirty-five hundred miles for table-scraps when he could get a
fish dinner any time for the trouble of catching it. I did want to know
about the men, though—why they had been taking in sail, and why they had
quit and gathered in a group over the forecastle. Mr. Emory was talking
to Captain Biffer when I came in.
“They refuse to obey orders,” he was saying, “unless we turn around and
put into Montevideo. They claim they need more clothing for the cold
weather south. The sky looks rather queer, and I set them to reefing
down so’s to be ready for one of those Pampeiros that Mr. Larkins says
come up in a minute down here. When they got about half through, Frenchy
stopped them. They’re out forward, now.”
“Did you tell them we had plenty of warm clothing aboard?” asked Gale.
“I told them. It isn’t the clothing. They simply want to desert the
ship.”
“Is Mr. Larkins on the bridge?” asked Captain Biffer.
“He comes on at eight bells—in about five minutes, now.”
“Very well; go back to the bridge, Mr. Emory, I’ll deal with this
situation.” Then to Edith Gale “Don’t be alarmed, ma’am.”
I risked a remark.
“Is this your first strike, Captain?” I ventured.
His eye fixed me grimly.
“We don’t call it that at sea,” he said, “we call it mutiny!”
The word rather startled me, but I followed him out on deck, as did the
others. No one could remain in the cabin with a thing like that going on
outside. The men were about as we had left them—the bosen, Frenchy,
somewhat in front of the others. He was a villain and a traitor, but he
was not without bravado.
“We haf not been well treat!” he began, “we haf been deceive. We——”
He paused. The Captain had drawn a bead on him with the eye he most
frequently used on me. With the other he took aim at the group behind,
and every man of them felt himself singled out, and quailed. I could see
them beginning to shrink and wither even before he said a word. He began
by gently reminding them of the usual lightness of their employment and
the continued excellence of their bill-of-fare; then in good sooth he
opened up.
It was like the breaking loose at Manila. I had known that Biffer had a
way with his English, but I never realized until that moment what he
could do when he tried. They didn’t need any warm clothes, now.
Everything he called them was red-hot and fitted as if they had grown to
it. Why, they fairly shrivelled, and whenever anything he said hit the
deck it smoked.
A cloud of what appeared to be genuine smoke came drifting across our
bows just then, and the air had grown strangely hot, but nobody seemed
to notice it. I think we unconsciously attributed these things to the
Captain’s artillery. The men were huddled and Frenchy alone was still
defiant. His case was desperate and he was a desperate man. He made a
step forward—perhaps he thought the men would follow him—a movement that
a second later would have been a spring at the Captain’s throat. One
hand he held close to his side and in it something gleamed.
There was an instant of dead silence, then—just above our heads—
“_All hands aloft to shorten sail! The Pampeiro!_”
Everybody looked up. Officer Larkins had come on the bridge and his rich
voice rang out like a clarion peal. Frenchy stopped. The men sprang into
life. They were ready enough to obey, now, but it was too late!
[Illustration:
“Then, somebody was clinging to me.”—Page 93.
]
I had seen cyclones in the West, but the Pampeiro is different. From the
smoke across our bow there came a lurid flash, and thunder that seemed
to hit every part of the vessel at once. I heard the smashing of wood
and ripping of canvas overhead, and just in front of me I saw a great
wave come pouring over the ship’s side. Somebody seized my hand and
there was a startled cry of my name. Then somebody was clinging to
me—somebody that I was holding close and helping into the cabin. In the
half blackness I saw that Chauncey Gale and Ferratoni were just behind.
The cabin was dark and the ship pitching violently.
It was all over in ten minutes. The vessel still rolled, but the storm
had passed. Zar, who had been napping when the Pampeiro struck, came
running in to her mistress.
“You po’ li’l’ lam’, how wet you is!” she said, “an’ how yo’ heart
beat—so frightened!”
She bore off her charge, and the rest of us took account of stock.
We found we had lost some sail—a top-mast—several steamer chairs, and
one man—Frenchy—who had been directly in the path of the wave.
“That’s what that shark meant,” said Chauncey Gale solemnly, “he won’t
follow us any more. And say, Biff, it was worth the price of admission
to hear you comb those fellows down. By the great corner-stone, but you
did it beautiful!”
On the whole there were compensations. We had seen a Pampeiro, for one
thing, and we had got rid of a mutiny; a disturbing element had been
removed and an old superstition had been confirmed. Altogether,
everybody was satisfied, including the shark.
But to me had come an added joy. In the moment of danger it was to _me_
that Edith Gale had turned.
That night we walked the deck together. The sky was clear and black
again, though the sea was still billowy, and there was a chill head-wind
which, with our damaged rigging, necessitated the use of steam.
We walked back to the stern, and leaning over looked down at the surge
boiling up from the screw beneath. Like a huge serpent it twisted away
into the night, showing a white coil here and there as it vanished in
the shoreless dark behind. A mighty awe came upon us. Face to face with
the vastness of the universe, we were overpowered by that dread
loneliness which lies between the stars.
By and by I told her of the man sailing around the world in a little
boat, alone. She would not let me dwell upon it. Then I said I had
thought of doing it myself.
“You must never do it,” she shuddered, “promise me that you never will.”
There had never been the slightest danger of my doing it, and never
would be, but it did not seem strange that I should promise.
XI.
IN GLOOMY SEAS.
In entering the waters below Cape Horn it had been my plan to continue
southward not farther than the northern extremity of the South Shetland
Islands, thence to bear off in a southwesterly course until the outer
edge of the field—or pack-ice—had been reached. This ice fringe would, I
believed, begin somewhat north of the Antarctic Circle, not lower than
the sixty-fifth parallel—possibly much higher. It would recede before
the warm sun of December—the month answering to our northern June. My
continued purpose was to creep westward along the edge of the ice-pack,
examining every foot of the way, in the hope of finding a warm northerly
flowing current, of the sort that Borchgrevink had reported. Such a
current would afford a possible entrance to the frozen expanses
surrounding the Antarctic Continent—perhaps guide us to the very gateway
of the continent itself. Failing to find a passage sooner, we would
continue westward to the coast of Victoria Land, and endeavor to reach
our destination by following the warm current already reported by
Borchgrevink.
I was rather surprised at Captain Biffer’s hearty approval of this
outline. I believe now he was of the opinion that a few weeks along the
edge of the pack, with perhaps a little squeeze here and there, would
satisfy Chauncey Gale’s ambition for Antarctic conquest, and that the
Billowcrest would be ordered north for a cruise in the Pacific, in the
direction of more friendly latitudes.
For the present, therefore, we continued directly southward—very slowly,
for we were still full early—keeping well off the stormy coast of
Patagonia, and to the eastward of the Falkland Islands. These we sighted
one morning, and ran close in to get a glimpse of inhabited land once
more before plunging into the vastness of unknown and unpeopled seas. It
was a bleak shore, and perhaps reminded Mr. Larkins of his native
Newfoundland, where the conditions were somewhat similar. He gazed
solemnly at the forbidding coast along which there showed but meager
signs of foliage.
“Thim’s nootmig threes,” he said, at last, waving at the stunted
vegetation which we were inspecting through the glasses, and upon which
we had been commenting.
Edith Gale protested.
“Oh, Mr. Larkins! Nutmeg trees don’t grow in this cold latitude!”
“Yis, ma’am,—wooden nootmigs. The people ship ’em to the shtates.”
“And that long, smooth rock running down; what’s that, Mr. Larkins?”
“That’s a seals’ shlidy-down. The seals, ma’am, get out there and shoot
the shoots. Many’s the time I’ve watched them in Newfoundland. I
shouldn’t wonder if the bake-apple grows over there, too,” he added,
reflectively.
“Baked apple! Do apples grow already baked in Newfoundland, Mr.
Larkins?”
“Not baked apple, but bake-apple, ma’am. A bit of a foine yellow berry
that grows on the top of a shlip of a shtalk, so high”—(holding his hand
down to within a foot of the deck)—“one berry to the shtalk, ma’am, and
delishuous, my worrd! And the bake-apple jam!” Mr. Larkins closed his
eyes and wagged his head in a manner to indicate that life without
bake-apple jam was but a poor shift, at best. “The _bake_-apple, is it!”
he continued. “Oh, but, Miss, you must never die without tasting the
bake-apple!”
There was something about Mr. Larkins’s manner that compelled faith in
this unknown fruit, which ordinarily we would have regarded as a
pleasant myth of his own. We caught a measure of his enthusiasm. We
wanted to see the mysterious golden berry that grew one on a stalk, and
had we not been on our way to find the South Pole, I believe we might
have gone in pursuit of the bake-apple.
And now we were indeed getting well to the southward. The sun though on
its upward incline had fallen far behind. Our days became long spectral
cycles broken only by brief periods of luminous twilight, and the
glacial feeling in the air was no longer a quality of our imagination.
Against the chill wind that came over our bow we tacked but leisurely.
Gradually, as we should, we were acquiring the taste for Antarctic cold,
and daily the fascination of it, and of the lonely seas around and
about, grew upon us.
XII.
WHERE CAPTAIN BIFFER REVISES SOME OPINIONS.
I went up on the bridge one morning to find Captain Biffer gazing
intently through the glass at some distant object.
“There’s your South Shetlands,” he announced, as I approached, “Elephant
Island, I should say. Looks pretty cold to me.”
I did not reply for a moment, but stood looking out over the black
tossing waters that lie below Cape Horn. Somewhere it was, in this cold
expanse, that my uncle’s vessel was believed to have gone down. Here,
amid the crash of storm and surge, she had been last seen, more than
twenty years before, and here must have perished: I swept the sea in
every direction, as if seeking to locate the very spot.
“They used to come to the Shetlands after seal,” continued the Captain,
“and they say there’s gold and precious stones on some of ’em. I never
saw anybody that got any, though. Too cold, I guess, to look and dig for
’em.”
“Colder than the Klondike?”
“Klondike! Well, I should say so. There’s a warm current runs up that
way. I never heard of any warm currents down here except the one you’re
going to find. Just take a glance at that for a cold-looking country.”
I leveled the glass and scrutinized the blue outline ahead. It was a
flat-topped, square formation, and there was a peculiar prismatic glow
about it that suggested ice. I hesitated for some moments, however,
before risking a reply. At last I was convinced.
“Yes, Captain Biffer,” I said, lowering the glass, “it _is_ pretty
cold—it’s an iceberg!”
Edith and Chauncey Gale, followed by Ferratoni, came up the stairs just
in time to hear the Captain’s reply.
“An iceberg!” he jeered. “Well, I’ve seen a good many icebergs up north,
but I never saw one like that. You mean an ice-box.”
I was quite calm. I could afford to be, for I felt that a moment of
triumph was at hand.
“Yes, Captain,” I admitted, “you might liken it to that, I suppose, but
it is an iceberg, nevertheless. The Arctic bergs which you have seen
were split from glaciers and topped by tall pinnacles and turrets. They
were more like castles or cathedrals. The Antarctic berg is usually a
section of that great ice wall or barrier which we hope some day to
reach. It is nearly always of this general character, and is frequently
crossed by blue horizontal lines, showing its stratified formation from
year to year.”
Before I had finished speaking the Captain was again studying the object
ahead. A light mist had drifted across our bows, but it lifted now, and
the square fortress-like walls in the distance shone clearly in the
morning sun. Captain Biffer waited a moment longer. Then he came down
handsomely.
“You’re right!” he said heartily, “I can see those lines from here. I
know the Arctics,” he added, “but I guess I’m all at sea in these
God-forsaken waters!”
It was a slight incident—an opportune display of a bit of knowledge
which any boy familiar with Antarctic literature might have
possessed—but my command of the expedition may be said to have dated
from that moment. The next day fairly completed my triumph. Some large
fragments of surface ice had come drifting to the ship and we were
looking at them, over the side.
“Pancake ice,” commented the Captain. “We’ll get all we want of that,
pretty soon.”
“Not exactly pancake ice, Captain,” I observed respectfully. “A
combination of salt-water pancake with splinters of fresh-water, barrier
ice. Those clear spots are the fresh-water formation.”
Captain Biffer regarded me a moment doubtfully. Then he gave an order to
some sailors.
“Get up a piece of that ice!” he growled, “I want to look at it.”
A man was lowered over the side, and hacked off a fragment which was
hauled on board. The Captain chipped out pieces of the white and the
clear ice and tasted of them. Then he flung them overboard.
“You win!” he laughed, “I’m out of it, down here.”
“What’s that brown color on it?” asked Edith Gale.
“Dirt,” said the Captain. “Comes from the shore.”
“Captain,” I objected, “I’m sorry, but I’ve got to differ with you
again.”
“What is it, then, if it ain’t dirt?” he grumbled.
“A growth,” I replied, “a plant—at least, I think it is. I can’t be
sure, for I have never seen it before, but former explorers have
reported an algæ as giving such an appearance to old ice, and I think I
can show that this is what they found.”
I ran down to my stateroom, and presently returned with a powerful
microscope—a treasure from boyhood. I placed it upon a small table and
putting a bit of the brown color on a slide adjusted the lenses. Then I
beckoned to the Captain. He came and squinted into the glass steadily
for a moment.
“Humph! seaweed!” he commented. “Well, I’ll be —— Say, look here, this
is your ocean, and your expedition—you can have ’em!”
You see, it was my innings. Theoretically I knew more of this part of
the world than any one on board, and theory was about all we had now to
go on. I could see that Chauncey Gale was pleased. I suppose it had not
always been easy to stand for me against the Captain’s poor opinion, and
he felt that in some measure now he had been justified. Edith Gale, too,
was not made less happy by these incidents, and the sailors, taking
their cue from their chief officer, paid me an added and daily
increasing respect. True, the Captain continued to navigate the ship,
but in a general way I directed our course and experiments, and was
regarded more and more as authority in matters of discussion and
dispute.
High up on the mainmast I had constructed for me a crow’s nest, or
lookout, from which to make observations. Chauncey Gale attended to
this, and did it well, as he did everything he undertook. It was a
stout, comfortable barrel arrangement, capable of holding three persons
if necessary.
When it was done I viewed it from below with interest and misgivings. I
had never been aloft, and I felt that an error in reaching my perch
might conclude the expedition. The eyes of the ship were upon me,
however, and it would not do to hesitate.
With a faint but resolute heart, I began the ascent. I did not dare to
look back, and when at last I found myself safely inside the snug box, I
was a bit weak and trembly, but swelling with triumph.
“Let me in, too, please!”
I looked down at my feet. It was Edith Gale, who had run lightly up
behind me. I concealed any pride I may have had in my own accomplishment
and drew her up.
“How pale you are,” she said, “are you ill?”
“No, oh no, it’s the—the excitement, I think.”
We leaned over and waved to those below. They waved back at us and
cheered.
“How’s the weather up there?” called Gale.
“Cold,” I said. “Feels like the North Pole!” (It was, in fact, about
zero at the time, but we did not mind it in the least.)
“What’s the matter with the South Pole?” This from Captain Biffer.
“Hot, there!” I yelled.
The Captain laughed.
“Well,” he shouted, “you’re right about some things, but you’ll find
that barrel a parlor stove compared with the South Pole.”
Edith Gale leveled a glass toward the southern horizon. We were well
down in the sixties, now. Icebergs and floating pack-ice had become
common. To the southward lay mystery that in some weird form might at
any moment rise above the somber waters. Presently she handed me the
glass.
“See if you make out anything,” she said.
I looked steadily, and at first saw nothing. Then, low down, and
stretching from rim to rim across our watery world, far-off and faint,
rising, falling, lifting and disappearing. I saw a thin, uncertain,
glittering edge—the ice-pack!
It was our turn, now, to cheer. Captain Biffer ran up to see and verify.
By nightfall (the radiant dusk fell late now, for it was November, and
the sun shone till ten o’clock) we were in the midst of loose, grinding
ice—the edge of the pack.
The second stage of the Great Billowcrest Expedition had begun.
XIII.
IN THE “FIGHTING-TOP.”
Our crow’s nest became at once the nucleus of the expedition. Edith Gale
named it our “fighting-top” because of the fierce discussions that took
place there.