"I shouldn't wonder if we get it from out yonder," said Dr Barrett,
pointing away south and by west, the very direction in which the
_Icebear_ was steaming.
There was a great billowy heave on the blue sea, blue everywhere, except
where the light shadow of some white fleecy cloud made a patch of
fleeting grey or grey-green. There was not a breath of wind "to swear
by," as Jack Scott unpoetically put it, so the long rolling swell was as
smooth as glass. This swell was meeting them too, and the ship rose and
fell on it with a gentle dipping motion; only now and then, when a
taller wave than usual dipped in under bows and keel, she gave a quick
plunge forward.
Along the horizon ahead was a bank of rock-and-castle clouds, while far
away astern the jagged snowcapped peaks of Iceland were just visible
above the rolling seas.
Flocks of malleys, shrill-screaming kittywakes, and different kinds of
seagulls were tacking and half-tacking round the vessel, afar off, and
the dark and ominous-like skua waited his chance to rob the malleys of
whatever they might happen to pick up.
"Yes," the surgeon said; "I think we'll have it out of yonder."
"Seems so to me, too," said Claude. "We are all ready for a blow, Mr
Lloyd?"
Mr Lloyd gave one glance forward and smiled.
"Ay, sir," he replied, "all ready for a buster; and many is the sneezer,
sir, I've come through in these latitudes, and higher up North too."
These officers were on the bridge.
This latter was not the great elevated deck you see on passenger
steamers right amidships. No, the _Icebear's_ bridge was but a plank,
comparatively speaking. Not more than three feet wide, with a rope
railing at one side, and a brass one at the other, with a step-ladder
leading up to it from the quarter-deck, for it was between the bulwarks
near the mizzen mast.
The glass was going down, and the day was far spent. Already the sun's
rays were beginning to fall aslant the waves.
"Had we started sooner," remarked the doctor, "we would have been
farther off the land ere now."
"True, my good Dr Barrett, true," replied Claude; "but _could_ we have
done so?"
"It would certainly have been difficult I admit; but if anything short
of a hurricane comes along we can face it, and the night is short."
No, it had not been easy getting away from Reykjavik indeed. It so
happens that the good people of that town are exceedingly hospitable,
and it is a hospitality that comes straight away from the heart. So
there had been a kind of farewell _levee_ on board Claude's ship, and as
there happened to lie in the roadstead a French merchantman and a Danish
man-of-war, and the officers from both attended it and talked much, this
made matters worse--or better.
But down went the sun, and ugly and angry were his parting gleams. He
sank in a coppery haze, which lit up all the sea between. He seemed to
squint and to leer at our heroes as much as to say, "You'll catch it
before long; something's brewing. Good night; I'm off to bed, for bed
is the best place."
Down went the sun and up rose the wind. Twilight is very long in these
regions, and before it had quite given place to night, the sea from
being rippled got rough. The breeze seemed uncertain at first where to
come from, and went puffing about from three to four points of the
compass. Then it appeared to say to itself, "First thoughts are best;
I'll follow the swell; I'll soon blow that down." So it came roaring
out of the north-west. Long before it did blow "a stiffener," as the
mate called it, looking up ahead through the gloaming air, you could
have seen mysterious-looking great grey blankets of clouds, drifting
fast and furiously towards the south-east. They might have been a few
miles high, but soon the stream of clouds was lowered and thickened and
darkened, till the horizon was hardly three cables' length away all
round. Then it was night--night with an ever-increasing breeze and a
choppy, frothy sea.
The wind _did_ blow the swell pretty flat, but substituted in its place
genuine waves, as ragged and jagged as the mountain peaks of Iceland.
And the good ship by-and-by creaked and groaned in every timber, and
thick darkness fell, and Claude had to trust to Providence, to steam,
and the compass. There were two men at the wheel at midnight, and at
that time probably the gale was at its worst, for on heaving the log it
was found she was barely making one knot an hour. The seas--whole
water--were coming in over the bows by tons, and sweeping right aft like
a miniature Niagara; but the hatches had been battened down early in the
evening, and the boats secured, so there was little injury done, though
the load of water sadly hampered the vessel's motion: it was not able to
get away fast enough.
About two bells in the middle watch the _Icebear_ struck.
Struck? But what or where? I know not; I cannot tell; it was no
island, no rock. It may have been the carcase of some floating monster
of the deep; or--who knows?--some wretched derelict or a portion of a
wreck. It was a mystery. But she struck with a dull thud that quite
stopped her way, and for a time made every heart beat with fear for her
safety. She must have struck not only on the bows, but gone over
something; all along her keel was the quivering grating felt, as if of a
substance underneath.
For a while, too, the rudder and screw were hampered and the vessel's
way all but stopped.
As it was she staggered and began to broach to. It was a moment of the
greatest danger, but only a moment. Then it was over, and the _Icebear_
was struggling once more with the stormy head wind and raging sea.
By morning light, though the wind still held, it was less furious, and
the seas but broke in froth and spray against the descending bows, and
went singing aft on each side, their tops twisting and curling in the
gale.
Down in the darkened wardroom at breakfast that morning the talk was
naturally about the storm. Although Claude retained his own quarters
abaft, still he preferred taking all his meals with his officers.
"What was it we struck, do I think?" said the doctor in answer to a
question put by Lloyd. "Some unhappy fishing-boat or walrus-hunter on
his way to the east shores of Greenland."
"Heaven forbid!" said Claude, with a slight shudder. "Would we not have
heard a scream or yell?"
"Never a scream or yell in that roaring gale," replied Dr Barrett,
coolly. "Bless you, sir, I've run them down before. Steward, another
cup of coffee, please."
"You've been often to these regions, doctor?"
"I've been often everywhere. I'm the veriest old son of a gun of a
sea-dog of a doctor."
"It's as well no one else said that about you."
"I wouldn't mind. My skin is as hard as tortoise-shell. I've been
married so often, you know."
"Have you really now?" said the second mate, a merry-eyed little dark
man. "Are all your wives dead?"
"What a question!" said Claude.
"Ah! never mind," quoth the surgeon; "I'll answer him, if he'll only cut
me another slice of that delicious corn-beef. Mind, it isn't for a
lady, so you may cut it as thick as you please."
"But about your wives?"
"Oh yes, the wives. I don't think many of them are dead."
"Doctor!" cried Claude, "you dreadful man!"
"Well, you see," said the doctor, tapping the edge of his cup with the
spoon as if counting, "I've been married just exactly fifty-nine times.
My ships, messmates, are my wives."
"Well, you've had many a honeymoon," said Lloyd.
"Ay," replied Dr Barrett; "and many more I hope to have."
An able seaman popped his head in past the door curtain at this moment,
and drew it out again.
"Don't duck your head out and in like an old turtle, man," cried the
doctor; "come right in. Anybody sick?"
"Which I didn't know, sir, the cap'n was 'ere. Nobody sick, but knew ye
liked curios, doctor, sir."
"Well?"
"Well, beggin' yer parding, sir, likus the cap'n's, but there be a bird
wot our cook calls a sea-swallow a-perchin' on the main yard. Shall one
of us go up and fetch him? He's mighty sea-sick I knows, and couldn't
fly to save his life." [Note 1.]
"Certainly, bring it down."
The officers went on with breakfast, and had forgotten all about Tom
Scott and his sea-swallow, when suddenly the man appeared again, bearing
under one arm a beautiful snow-bird.
It escaped almost at once, and fluttering upwards alighted on the
compass that depended from the skylight.
All eyes were fixed on it. It did not seem a bit frightened, but looked
downwards with one crimson saucy eye at the table.
"It looks like a spirit," said Lloyd, half afraid, for, like most
sailors, he was superstitious.
"It's a spirit that will bring us luck. They always do," said the
second mate.
"Are you ill, sir?" exclaimed the doctor, addressing the captain.
One might have thought so. His face was pale, mouth a little open,
brows lowered, and eyes riveted on the bird.
"Were such a thing possible," he muttered, "I'd believe that was my
snow-bird Alba."
To the amazement of every one, no sooner were the words uttered, than
with one quick glance of recognition, down flew the bird and nestled, as
it was wont to do, on its master's hand, held close up on his breast.
Yes, every one was astonished, but poor McDonald, the third mate, was
frightened; and when, after receiving a few caresses, Alba jumped on to
the table and began pattering around and saying, "Poor Alba wants his
breakfast; Alba wants a sop of food," McDonald could stand it no longer:
he left the table and hurried on deck.
"It's no canny," he said to the steward; "it's no canny, and if I could
steal a boat I'd leave the ship and brave the stormy ocean."
"Lord Alwyn--I mean _sir_," said the mate, "a hundred years ago you'd
have been burned for a witch."
"Or a wizard," remarked the doctor, laughing. "But I am not astonished.
The captain has already told me the story of his snow-bird. The
wonderful power of sight, scent, and probably hearing in gulls is
scarcely yet known to naturalists; and the same may be said about nearly
all sea-birds. They either have an instinct that we possess not, or the
faculties they possess, in common with other animals, are most
marvellously developed. [Note 2.] Just look at that lovely bird now,
and listen to its marvellous prattle."
Pattering round the table went Alba, in a very excited condition, only
every now and then flying off to Claude's breast as if he could hardly
believe in his own happiness. He jumbled up his sentences, too, as most
talking birds do when excited.
"Alba wants--Alba wants--Alba wants Fingal's Claude--Fingal's--Fingal--
Claude--Alba wants his breakfast."
"That's better, Alba," said Dr Barrett, lifting the cover from a dish
of fish.
Next moment Alba was in the third heaven.
"You've made that bird your friend for life, doctor," said Claude.
Fingal, the deerhound, got up from under the table and laid his great
head on his master's knee.
"Of course I won't forget you, you silly old Fingal, because Alba has
come. I have room in my heart for both."
Towards sunset that day the weather cleared, the wind having gone round
to the nor'-east-and-by-east. The sea too went down with the sun,
though it still ran high; a morsel of canvas was got up to steady her,
and leaning over to it away she went, cutting merrily through the water
as if she had been a veritable living thing. The stars shone that night
_so_ brilliantly; it was as though you could have stretched out your
hand and touched them, so large, lustrous, and near-like were they. A
broad white gleam of auroral light was in the north, above it the sky
was of a strange sea-green hue. But a whisper had gone around the ship
that a spirit had come on board, and an anxious group was seated round
the galley fire to discuss the situation.
"If it's a spirit," said Tom Scott at last, "it's a good one. It has
brought us good weather. Hurrah, lads! give us a song somebody."
The good ship _Icebear_ had no more adventures for nearly a fortnight,
by which time she had rounded Cape Farewell and reached the
north-eastern ice.
"And now there came both mist and snow,
And it grew wondrous cold,
And ice, mast-high, came floating by
As green as emerald."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note 1. Sea-birds are usually unable to fly after they alight. A Cape
pigeon, for example, gets giddy and frightened at once when put on deck.
Note 2. The author could adduce very many instances in proof of the
good surgeon's statement.