To his disappointment, Raynor was not allowed on the boats that took
the water party ashore on Skull Island. He and Noddy had to content
themselves with watching the operations ashore.
It was night when the work had been completed and the casks all
filled. Terror Carson, therefore, decided to remain at anchor off
the island all night. This was against the advice of his mate, who
counseled making for the open sea.
“I don’t like the look of the weather,” he said, regarding certain
yellowish castellated clouds that hung on the northern horizon. But
Terror Carson only laughed.
“This is a snug enough berth,” he declared. “We’ll lie here till
daylight. Then for a dash across the boundary and some fine Canadian
seals.”
But by midnight it was seen that the mate’s advice had been good.
Without warning on the barometer, a furious storm swept down on the
anchored schooner. She began to drag. Two more anchors were let go
and she held securely. But now another peril appeared.
Huge fields of drift ice and growlers, driven from the north by the
storm, drove down on the _Polly Ann_. The ice crunched against her
sides like rasping teeth. It seemed as if the forces of nature had
combined to destroy her.
The stout timbers of her hull cracked ominously under the terrific
pressure. There was no sleep on board. All hands were on deck.
Terror Carson, more perturbed than Raynor had ever seen him, strode
the deck as if distracted.
The schooner was the apple of his eye. But now it appeared that she
was doomed, and through his fault.
There was nothing to be done. A sickly gray dawn showed the schooner
surrounded by ice for miles. Almost as far as the eye could reach,
in fact.
“We’ll never get out of here alive,” declared the sailors.
“Nothing but bad luck has followed us on this trip,” was another
remark heard among them.
All that day the _Polly Ann_ held together. Terror Carson grew more
confident.
“The old hooker will weather it yet,” he declared. But the mate
shook his head.
“She’ll leave her bones here,” he said.
Carson turned on him like an infuriated wild beast.
“One more word like that and I’ll knock what serves you for brains
out of your thick skull,” he snarled, and fell to pacing the poop.
Completely tired out, Raynor sought his bunk that night and fell
into a deep sleep of exhaustion. He had not closed his eyes the
night before and even the perilous position of the ship could not
have kept him on his feet.
When he awakened, sunshine was streaming into the port of his cabin.
“Gracious!” he gasped. “I must be late. Carson will half kill me.”
He hustled into some clothes and emerged into the outer cabin.
Almost instantly he stepped into water which the tilt of the ship
had prevented penetrating into his cabin. The water almost covered
the main cabin floor. The tilt of the ship made it deeper on the
opposite side of the cabin.
“The ice has crushed the _Polly Ann’s_ ribs,” exclaimed the boy.
“She is doomed.”
He rushed on deck. The next instant he stood still at the top of the
companionway, stricken with stupefaction.
The decks, usually at that hour alive with men, were deserted. Not a
soul was to be seen either fore or aft.
What had happened? Then Raynor’s eyes wandered to the davits where
the big whale boats used in sealing, generally hung.
They were empty!
The boats were gone!
In a flash he realized what had occurred. The crushing of the _Polly
Ann_ had happened in the night. Knowing that she was doomed the crew
had taken to the boats, which could push a way through the drift ice
and left the ship.
“Oh, the cowards! the cowards!” cried Raynor, in an agony of anger
and apprehension.
The schooner was sinking under his feet and he had no means of
escape. He was doomed to go to the bottom of the Arctic Sea in her
without the chance to make a struggle for his life. For a few
minutes he almost went mad. He rushed up and down the decks shouting
and raving like a lunatic. Then he suddenly came to his senses.
He must be calm. There was nothing to be gained by losing his head.
Never had he needed the cool use of all his faculties so urgently as
he did now. He sat down on one of the knightheads forward and
concentrated his mind on his situation.
Suddenly he sprang to his feet with a shout.
“What a blind idiot I’ve been!” he cried aloud, “the dories. I never
thought of them.”
It was curious but true, that in his excitement the lad had entirely
forgotten, for the time being, the half dozen dories “nested” on the
after deck. Now, however, the recollection of them affected him like
a tonic. He began bustling about making his preparations to leave
the _Polly Ann_ to her ocean grave.