THE GALE--ANCHORED TO A BERG WHICH PROVES TO BE A TREACHEROUS ONE--
DANGERS OF THE "PACK"--BESET IN THE ICE--MIVINS SHOWS AN ENQUIRING
MIND--WALRUS--GALE FRESHENS--CHAINS AND CABLES--HOLDING ON FOR LIFE--AN
UNEXPECTED DISCOVERY--A "NIP" AND ITS TERRIBLE CONSEQUENCES--YOKED TO AN
ICEBERG.
The narrow escape related in the last chapter was but the prelude to a
night of troubles. Fortunately, as we have before mentioned, _night_
did not now add darkness to their difficulties. Soon after passing the
bergs, a stiff breeze sprang up off shore, between which and the
_Dolphin_ there was a thick belt of loose ice, or sludge, while outside,
the pack was in motion, and presented a terrible scene of crashing and
grinding masses under the influence of the breeze, which soon freshened
to a gale.
"Keep her away two points," said Captain Guy to the man at the wheel;
"we'll make fast to yonder berg, Mr Bolton; if this gale carries us
into the pack, we shall be swept far out of our course, if, indeed, we
escape being nipped and sent to the bottom."
Being nipped is one of the numberless dangers to which Arctic navigators
are exposed. Should a vessel get between two moving fields or floes of
ice, there is a chance, especially in stormy weather, of the ice being
forced together and squeezing in the sides of the ship; this is called
nipping.
"Ah!" remarked Buzzby, as he stood with folded arms by the capstan,
"many and many a good ship has been sent to the bottom by that same.
I've see'd a brig, with my own two eyes, squeezed together a'most flat
by two big floes of ice, and after doin' it they jist separated agin an'
let her go plump down to the bottom. Before she was nipped, the crew
saved themselves by jumpin' on to the ice, and they wos picked up by our
ship that wos in company."
"There's no dependin' on the ice, by no means," remarked Amos Parr, "for
I've see'd the self-same sort of thing that ye mention happen to a small
schooner in Davis Straits, only, instead o' crushin' it flat, the ice
lifted it right high and dry out o' the water, and then let it down
again, without more ado, as sound as iver."
"Get out the warps and ice-anchors, there," cried the captain.
In a moment the men were in the boats, and busy heaving and planting
ice-anchors, but it was not until several hours had been spent in this
tedious process that they succeeded in making fast to the berg. They
had barely accomplished this when the berg gave indications of breaking
up, so they cast off again in great haste, and, not long afterwards, a
mass of ice, many tons in weight, fell from the edge of the berg close
to where they had been moored.
The captain now beat up for the land in the hope of finding
anchoring-ground. At first the ice presented an impenetrable barrier,
but at length a lead of open water was found, through which they passed
to within a few hundred yards of the shore, which, at this spot, showed
a front of high precipitous cliffs.
"Stand by to let go the anchor," shouted the captain.
"Ay, ay, sir!"
"Down your helm! Let go!"
Down went the anchor to the music of the rattling chain-cable, a sound
which had not been heard since the good ship left the shores of Old
England.
"If we were only a few yards farther in, sir," remarked the first mate,
"we should be better. I'm afraid of the stream of ice coming round
yonder point."
"So am I," replied the captain; "but we can scarcely manage it, I fear,
on account of the shore ice. Get out a boat, Mr Saunders, and try to
fix an anchor. We may warp in a few yards."
The anchor was fixed, and the men strained at the capstan with a will,
but, notwithstanding their utmost efforts, they could not penetrate the
shore ice. Meanwhile the wind increased, and snow began to fall in
large flakes. The tide, too, as it receded, brought a stream of ice
round the point ahead of them, which bore right down on their bows. At
first the concussions were slight, and the bow of the ship turned the
floes aside, but heavier masses soon came down, and at last one fixed
itself on the cable, and caused the anchor to drag with a harsh, grating
sound.
Fred Ellice, who stood beside the second mate, near the companion hatch,
looked enquiringly at him.
"Ah! that's bad," said Saunders, shaking his head slowly, "I dinna like
that sound. If we're carried out into the pack there, dear knows where
we'll turn up in the long run."
"Perhaps we'll turn bottom up, sir," suggested the fat cook, as he
passed, at the moment with a tray of meat. Mizzle could not resist a
joke--no matter how unsuitable the time or dreadful the consequences.
"Hold your tongue, sir," exclaimed Saunders indignantly. "Attend to
your business, and speak only when you're spoken to."
With some difficulty the mass of ice that had got foul of the cable was
disengaged, but in a few moments another and a larger mass fixed upon
it, and threatened to carry it away. In this extremity the captain
ordered the anchor to be hove up, but this was not easily accomplished,
and when at last it was hove up to the bow, both flukes were found to
have been broken off, and the shank was polished bright with rubbing on
the rocks.
Ice now came rolling down in great quantities and with irresistible
force, and at last the ship was whirled into the much-dreaded pack,
where she became firmly embedded, and drifted along with it before the
gale into the unknown regions of the north all that night. To add to
their distress and danger a thick fog overspread the sea, so that they
could not tell whither the ice was carrying them, and to warp out of it
was impossible. There was nothing for it, therefore, but to drive
before the gale and take advantage of the first opening in the ice that
should afford them a chance of escape.
Towards evening of the following day the gale abated, and the sun shone
out bright and clear, but the pack remained close as ever, drifting
steadily towards the north.
"We're far beyond the most northerly sea that has ever yet been
reached," remarked Captain Guy to Fred and Singleton, as he leaned on
the weather bulwarks, and gazed wistfully over the fields of ice in
which they were embedded.
"I beg your pardon for differing, Captain Guy, but I think that Captain
Parry was farther north than this when he attempted to reach the pole,"
remarked Saunders, with the air of a man who was prepared to defend his
position to the last.
"Very possibly, Mr Saunders, but I think we are at least farther north
in _this_ direction than anyone has yet been; at least I make it out so
by the chart."
"I'm no sure o' that," rejoined the second mate positively; "charts are
not always to be depended on, and I've heard that whalers have been up
hereabouts before now."
"Perhaps you are right, Mr Saunders," replied the captain, smiling;
"nevertheless I shall take observations and name the various headlands
until I find that others have been here before me. Mivins, hand me the
glass; it seems to me there's a water-sky to the northward."
"What is a water-sky, Captain?" enquired Fred.
"It is a peculiar, dark appearance of the sky on the horizon, which
indicates open water--just the reverse of that bright appearance which
you have often seen in the distance, and which we call the ice-blink."
"We'll have open water soon," remarked the second mate authoritatively.
"Mr Saunders," said Mivins, who, having just finished clearing away and
washing up the debris and dishes of one meal, was enjoying in complete
idleness the ten minutes of leisure that intervened between that and
preparations for the next,--"Mr Saunders, sir, can you hinform me, sir,
'ow it is that the sea don't freeze at 'ome the same as it does hout
'ere?"
The countenance of the second mate brightened, for he prided himself not
a little on his vast and varied stores of knowledge, and nothing pleased
him so much as to be questioned, particularly on knotty subjects.
"Hem! yes, Mivins, I can tell 'ee that. Ye must know that before fresh
water can freeze on the surface the whole volume of it must be cooled
down to 40 degrees, and _salt_ water must be cooled down to 45 degrees.
Noo, frost requires to be very long continued and very sharp indeed
before it can cool the deep sea from the top to the bottom, and until it
is so cooled it canna freeze."
"Oh!" remarked Mivins, who only half understood the meaning of the
explanation, "'ow very hodd. But can you tell me, Mr Saunders, 'ow it
is that them 'ere hicebergs is made? Them's wot I don't comprehend no
'ow."
"Ay," replied Saunders, "there has been many a wiser head than yours
puzzled for a long time aboot icebergs. But if ye'll use yer eyes
you'll see how they are formed. Do you see the high cliffs yonder away
to the nor'-east? Well, there are great masses o' ice that have been
formed against them by the melting and freezing of the snows of many
years. When these become too heavy to stick to the cliffs, they tumble
into the sea and float away as icebergs. But the biggest bergs come
from the foot of glaciers. We know what glaciers are, Mivins!"
"No, sir, I don't."
The second mate sighed. "They are immense accumulations of ice, Mivins,
that have been formed by the freezings and meltings of the snows of
hundreds of years. They cover the mountains of Norway and Switzerland,
and many other places in this world, for miles and miles in extent, and
sometimes they flow down and fill up whole valleys. I once saw one in
Norway that filled up a valley eight miles long, two miles broad, and
seven or eight hundred feet deep, and that was only a wee bit of it, for
I was told by men who had travelled over it that it covered the
mountains of the interior, and made them a level field of ice, with a
surface like rough, hard snow, for more than twenty miles in extent."
"You don't say so, sir!" said Mivins in surprise. "And don't they
_never_ melt?"
"No, never. What they lose in summer they more than gain in winter.
Moreover, they are always in motion, but they move so slow that you may
look at them ever so closely and so long, you'll not be able to observe
the motion--just like the hour hand of a watch,--but we know it by
observing the changes from year to year. There are immense glaciers
here in the Arctic regions, and the lumps which they are constantly
shedding off into the sea are the icebergs that one sees and hears so
much about."
Mivins seemed deeply impressed with this explanation, and would probably
have continued the conversation much longer had he not been interrupted
by the voice of his mischievous satellite, Davie Summers, who touched
his forelock and said: "Please, Mr Mivins, shall I lay the table-cloth,
or would it be better to slump dinner with tea this afternoon?"