I AM STARTLED BY A DISCOVERY.
In this uneasy posture, despite the intense cold, I continued to sleep
soundly during the greater part of the night. I was awakened by a horrid
dream of some giant shape stalking down the slope of ice to seize and
devour me, and sat up trembling with horror that was not a little
increased by my inability to recollect myself, and by my therefore
conceiving the canvas that covered me to be the groping of the ogre's
hand over my face.
I pushed the sail away and stood up, but had instantly to sit again, my
legs being terribly cramped. A drink of spirits helped me; my blood
presently flowed with briskness.
The moon was in the west; she hung large, red, and distorted, and shed
no light save her reflection that waved in the sea under her like
several lengths of undulating red-hot wire. My haven was still very
tranquil--the boat lay calm; but there was a deeper tone in the booming
sound of the distant surf, and a more menacing note in the echoing of
the blows of the swell along this side of the coast, whence I concluded
that, despite the fairness of the weather, the heave of the deep had,
whilst I slept, gathered a greater weight, which might signify stormy
winds not very many leagues away.
The pale stare of the heights of ice at that red and shapeless disc was
shocking. "Oh," I cried aloud, as I had once cried before, "but for one,
even but for one, companion to speak to!"
I had no mind to lie down again. The cold indeed was cruelly sharp, and
the smoke sped from my mouth with every breath as though I held a
tobacco pipe betwixt my teeth. I got upon the ice and stepped about it
quickly, darting searching glances into the gloom to left and right of
the setting moon; but all lay bare, bleak, and black. I pulled off my
stout gloves with the hope of getting my fingers to tingle by handling
the snow; but it was frozen so hard I could not scrape up with my nails
as much as a half-dozen of flakes would make. What I got I dissolved in
my mouth and found it brackish; however, I suspected it would be sweeter
and perhaps not so stonily frozen higher up, where there was less chance
of the salt spray mingling with it, and I resolved when the light came
to fill my empty beer-bottles as with salt or pounded sugar for use
hereafter--that is, if it should prove sweet; as to melting it, I had
indeed a tinder-box and the means of obtaining fire, but no fuel.
It seemed as if the night had only just descended, so tardy was the
dawn. Outside the slanting wall of ice that made my haven the swell
swept past in a gurgling, bubbling, drowning sound, dismal and ghastly,
as though in truth some such ogre as the monster I had dreamt of lay
suffocating there. I welcomed the cold colouring of the east as if it
had been a ship, and watched the stars dying and the frozen shore
darkening to the dim and sifting dawn behind it, against which the
outline of the cliffs ran in a broken streak of ink. The rising of the
sun gave me fresh life. The ice flashed out of its slatish hue into a
radiant white, the ocean changed into a rich blue that seemed as violet
under the paler azure of the heavens; but I could now see that the
swell was heavier than I had suspected from the echo of its remote
roaring in the north. It ran steadily out of the north-east. This was
miserable to see, for the line of its running was directly my course,
and if I committed myself to it in that little boat, the impulse of the
long and swinging folds could not but set me steadily southwards, unless
a breeze sprang up in that quarter to blow me towards the sun. There was
a small current of air stirring, a mere trickle of wind from the
north-west.
I made up my mind to climb as high as I could, taking the oar with me to
serve as a pole, that I might view the ice and the ocean round about and
form a judgment of the weather by the aspect of the sky, of which only
the western part was visible from my low strand. But first I must break
my fast. I remember bitterly lamenting the lack of means to make a fire,
that I might obtain a warm meal and a hot drink and dry my gloves, coat,
and breeches, to which the damp of the salt clung tenaciously. Had this
ice been land, though the most desolate, gloomy, repulsive spot in the
world, I had surely found something that would burn.
I sat in the boat to eat, and whilst thus occupied pondered over this
great field of ice, and wondered how so mighty a berg should travel in
such compacted bulk so far north--that is, so far north from the seat of
its creation. Now leisurely and curiously observing it, it seemed to me
that the north part of it, from much about the spot where my boat lay,
was formed of a chain of icebergs knitted one to another in a
consolidated range of irregular low steeps. The beautiful appearances of
spires, towers, and the like seemed as if they had been formed by an
upheaval, as of an earthquake, of splinters and bodies of the frozen
stuff; for, so far as it was possible for me to see from the low shore,
wherever these radiant and lovely figures were assembled I noticed great
rents, spacious chasms, narrow and tortuous ravines. Certain
appearances, however, caused me to suspect that this island was steadily
decaying, and that, large as it still was, it had been many times vaster
when it broke away from the continent about the Pole. Naturally, as it
progressed northwards it would dissolve, and the cracking and thunderous
noises I had heard in the night, sounds very audible now when I gave
them my attention--sometimes a hollow distant rumbling as of some great
body dislodged and set rolling far off, sometimes an inwards roaring
crack or blast of noise like the report of a cannon fired deep
down--advised me that the work of dissolution was perpetually
progressing, and that this prodigious island which appeared to barricade
the horizon might in a few months be dwindled into half a score of
rapidly dissolving bergs.
My slender repast ended, I pulled the oar out of the crevice, and found
it would make me a good pole to probe my way with and support myself by
up the slope. The boat was now held by the mast, which I shook and found
very firm. I put an empty beer-bottle in my pocket, meaning to see if I
could fill it, if the snow above was sweet enough to be well-tasted, and
then with a final look at the boat I started.
The slope was extremely craggy. Blocks of ice lay about, some on top of
the others, like the stones of which the pyramids are built; the white
glare of the snow caused these stones at a little distance to appear
flat--that is, by merging them into and blending them with the soft
brilliance of the background; and I had sometimes to warily walk fifty
or sixty paces round these blocks to come at a part of the slope that
was smooth.
I speedily found, however, that there was no danger of my being buried
by stepping into a hollow full of snow; for the same hardness was
everywhere, the snow, whether one or twenty feet deep, offering as solid
a surface as the bare ice. This encouraged me to step out, and I began
to move with some spirit; the exercise was as good as a fire, and before
I was half-way up I was as warm as ever I had been in my life.
I had come to a stand to fetch a breath, and was moving on afresh, when,
having taken not half a dozen steps, I spied the figure of a man. He was
in a sitting posture, his back against a rock that had concealed him.
His head was bowed, and his knees drawn up to a level with his chin, and
his naked hands were clasped upon his legs. His attitude was that of a
person lost in thought, very easy and calm.
I stopped as if I had been shot through the heart. Had it been a bear,
or a sea-lion, or any creature which my mind could instantly have
associated with this white and stirless desolation, I might have been
startled indeed; but no such amazement could have possessed me as I now
felt. It never entered into my head to doubt that he was alive, so
natural was his attitude, as of one lost in a mood of tender melancholy.
I stood staring at him, myself motionless, for some minutes, too greatly
astonished and thunder-struck to note more than that he was a man. Then
I looked about me to see if he had companions or for some signs of a
habitation, but the ice was everywhere naked. I fixed my eyes on him
again. His hair was above a foot long, black as ink, and the blacker
maybe for the contrast of the snow. His beard and mustachios, which were
also of this raven hue, fell to his girdle. He wore a great yellow
flapping hat, such as was in fashion among the Spaniards and buccaneers
of the South Sea; but over his ears, for the warmth of the protection,
were squares of flannel, secured by a very fine red silk handkerchief
knotted under his beard, and this, with his hair and pale cheeks and
black shaggy eyebrows, gave him a terrible and ghastly appearance. From
his shoulders hung a rich thick cloak lined with red, and the legs to
the height of the knees were encased in large boots.
I continued surveying him with my heart beating fast. Every instant I
expected to see him turn his head and start to behold me. My emotions
were too tumultuous to analyze, yet I believe I was more frightened than
gladdened by the sight of a fellow-creature, though not long before I
had sighed bitterly for some one to speak to. I looked around again,
prepared to find another one like him taking stock of me from behind a
rock, and then ventured to approach him by a few steps the better to see
him. He had certainly a frightful face. It was not only the length of
his coal-black hair and beard; it was the hue of his skin, a greenish
ashen colour, an unspeakably hideous complexion, sharpened on the one
hand by the red handkerchief over his ears and on the other by the
dazzle of the snow. Then, again, there was the extreme strangeness of
his costume.
I coughed loudly, holding my pole in readiness for whatever might
befall, but he did not stir; I then holloaed, and was answered by the
echoes of my own voice among the rocks. His stillness persuaded me he
was in one of those deep slumbers which fall upon a man in frozen
places, for I could not persuade myself he was dead, so living was his
posture.
This will not do, thought I; so I went close to him and peered into his
face.
His eyes were fixed; they resembled glass painted as eyes, the colours
faded. He had a broad belt round his waist, and the hilt of a kind of
cutlass peeped from under his cloak. Otherwise he was unarmed. I thought
he breathed, and seemed to see a movement in his breast, and I took him
by the shoulder; but in the hurry of my feelings I exerted more strength
than I was sensible of. I pushed him with the violence of sudden
trepidation; my hand slipped off his shoulder, and he fell on his side,
exactly as a statue would, preserving his posture as though, like a
statue, he had been chiselled out of marble or stone.
I started back frightened by his fall, in which my fears found a sort of
life; but it was soon clear to me his rigidity was that of a man frozen
to death. His very hair and beard stood stiff, as before, as though they
were some exquisite counterfeit in ebony. Perfectly satisfied that he
was dead, I stepped round to the other side of him, and set him up as I
had found him. He was as heavy as if he had been alive, and when I put
his back to the rock his posture was exactly as it had been, that of one
deeply meditating.
Who had this man been in life? How had he fallen into this pass? How
long had he been dead there, seated as I saw him?
These were speculations not to be resolved by conjecture. On looking at
the rock against which he leaned and observing its curvature, it seemed
to me that it had formed part of a cave, or of some large, deep hole of
ice; and this I was sure must have been the case, for it is certain
that, had this body remained long unsheltered, it must have been hidden
by the snow.
I concluded then that the unhappy man had been cast away upon this ice
whilst it was under bleaker heights than these parallels, and that he
had crawled into a hollow, and perished in that melancholic sitting
posture. But in what year had his fate come upon him? I had made
several voyages into distant places in my time and seen a great variety
of people; but I had never met any man habited as that body. He had the
appearance of a Spanish or French cut-throat of the middle of last
century, and of earlier times yet; for it may be known to you that the
buccaneers of the Spanish Main and the South Sea were great lovers of
finery; they had a strange theatric taste in their choice of costumes,
which, as you will suppose, they had abundant opportunities for
gratifying out of the many rich and glittering wardrobes that fell into
their hands; and this man, I say, with his large fine hat, handsome
cloak and boots, coupled with the villainous cast of his countenance and
the frightful appearance his long hair gave him, rendered him to my
notions the completest figure that could be imagined of one of those
rogues who earned their living as pirates.
Thinking I might find something on his person to acquaint me with his
story or that would furnish me with some idea of the date of his being
cast away, I pulled his cloak aside and searched his pockets. His legs
were thickly cased in two or three pairs of breeches, the outer pair
being of a dark green cloth. He also wore a handsome red waistcoat,
laced, and a stout coat of a kind of frieze. In his coat pocket I found
a silver tobacco-box, a small glass flask fitted with a silver band and
half full of an amber-coloured liquor, hard froze; and in his waistcoat
pocket a gold watch, shaped like an apple, the back curiously chased and
inlaid with jewels of several kinds, forming a small letter M. The
hands pointed to twenty minutes after three. A key of a strange shape
and a number of seals, trinkets, and the like, were attached to the
watch.
These things, together with a knife, a key, a thick plain silver ring,
and some Spanish pieces in gold and silver were what I found on this
man. There was nothing to tell me who he was nor how long he had been on
the island.
The searching him was the most disagreeable job I ever undertook in my
life. His iron-like rigidity made him seem to resist me, and the swaying
of his back against the rock to the motions of my hand was so full of
life that twice I quitted him, frightened by it. On touching his naked
hand by accident I discovered that the flesh of it moved upon the bones
as you pull a glove off and on. I had had enough of him, and walked away
feeling sick. If he had companions, and they were like him, I did not
want to see them, unless it was that I might satisfy my curiosity as to
the time they had been here. I determined, however, on my way back to
take his cloak, which would make me a comfortable rug in the boat, and
also the watch, flask, and tobacco-box; for if I was drowned they could
but go to the bottom of the sea, which was their certain destination if
I left them in his pockets; and if I came off with them, then the money
they would bring me must somewhat lighten the loss of my clothes and
property in the brig.
I pushed onwards, stepping warily and probing cautiously at every step,
and earnestly peering about me, for after such a sight as that dead man
I was never to know what new wonder I might stumble upon. About a
quarter of a mile on my left--that is, on my left whilst I kept my face
to the slope--there was the appearance of a ravine not discernible from
where the boat lay. When I was within twenty feet of the summit of the
cliff, the acclivity continuing gentle to the very brow, but much
broken, as I have said, I noticed this hollow, and more particularly a
small collection of ice-forms, not nearly so large as the other groups
of this kind, but most dainty and lovely nevertheless. They showed as
the heads of trees might to my ascent, and when I had got a little
higher I observed that they were formed upon the hither side of the
hollow, as though the convulsion which had wrought that chasm had tossed
up those exquisite caprices of ice. However, I was too eager to view the
prospect from the top of the cliff to suffer my admiration to detain me;
in a few minutes I had gained the brow, and, clambering on to a mass of
rock, I sent my gaze around.