The boy dived instantly, followed first by a dish-clout, rolled tightly
up and well aimed, and afterwards by his active-limbed superior. Both
reached the region of smells, cruets, and crockery at the same moment,
and each set energetically to work at their never-ending duties.
Soon after this the ice suddenly loosened, and the crew succeeded, after
a few hours' hard labour, in warping the _Dolphin_ once more out of the
pack; but scarcely had this been accomplished when another storm, which
had been gradually gathering, burst upon them, and compelled them once
more to seek the shelter of the land.
Numerous walrus rolled about in the bays here, and they approached much
nearer to the vessel than they had yet done, affording those on board a
good view of their huge, uncouth visages, as they shook their shaggy
fronts and ploughed up the waves with their tusks. These enormous
creatures are the elephants of the Arctic Ocean. Their aspect is
particularly grim and fierce, and, being nearly equal to elephants in
bulk, they are not less terrible than they appear. In form they
somewhat resemble seals, having barrel-shaped bodies, with round, or
rather square, blunt heads and shaggy bristling moustache, and two long
ivory tusks which curve downwards instead of upwards, serving the
purpose frequently of hooks, by means of which and their fore-flippers
they can pull themselves up on the rocks and icebergs. Indeed they are
sometimes found at a considerable height up the sides of steep cliffs,
basking in the sun.
Fred was anxious to procure the skull of one of these monstrous animals,
but the threatening appearance of the weather rendered any attempt to
secure one at that time impossible. A dark sinister scowl overhung the
blink under the cloud-bank to the southward, and the dovkies which had
enlivened their progress hitherto forsook the channel, as if they
distrusted the weather. Captain Guy made every possible preparation to
meet the coming storm, by warping down under the shelter of a ledge of
rock, to which he made fast with two good hawsers, while everything was
made snug on board.
"We are going to catch it, I fear," said Fred, glancing at the black
clouds that hurried across the sky to the northward, while he walked the
deck with his friend, Tom Singleton.
"I suspect so," replied Tom, "and it does not raise my spirits to see
Saunders shaking his huge visage so portentously. Do you know, I have a
great belief in that fellow. He seems to know everything and to have
gone through every sort of experience, and I notice that most of his
prognostications come to pass."
"So they do, Tom," said Fred, "but I wish he would put a better face on
things till they _do_ come to pass. His looks are enough to frighten
one."
"I think we shall require another line out, Mr Saunders," remarked the
captain, as the gale freshened, and the two hawsers were drawn straight
and rigid like bars of iron: "send ashore and make a whale-line fast
immediately."
The second mate obeyed with a grunt that seemed to insinuate that _he_
would have had one out long ago. In a few minutes it was fast, and not
a moment too soon, for immediately after it blew a perfect hurricane.
Heavier and heavier it came, and the ice began to drift more wildly than
ever. The captain had just given orders to make fast another line, when
the sharp, twanging snap of a cord was heard. The six-inch hawser had
parted, and they were swinging by the two others, with the gale roaring
like a lion through the spars and rigging. Half a minute more and
"twang, twang!" came another report, and the whale-line was gone. Only
one rope now held them to the land, and prevented them being swept into
the turmoil of ice, and wind, and water, from which the rocky ledge
protected them. The hawser was a good one--a new ten-inch rope. It
sung like the deep tones of an organ, loud above the rattle of the
rigging and the shrouds, but that was its death-song. It gave way with
the noise of a cannon, and in the smoke that followed its recoil, they
were dragged out by the wild ice and driven hither and hither at its
mercy.
With some difficulty the ship was warped into a place of comparative
security in the rushing drift, but it was soon thrown loose again, and
severely squeezed by the rolling masses. Then an attempt was made to
set the sails and beat up for the land, but the rudder was almost
unmanageable owing to the ice, and nothing could be made of it, so they
were compelled to go right before the wind under close-reefed top-sails,
in order to keep some command of the ship. All hands were on deck
watching in silence the ice ahead of them, which presented a most
formidable aspect.
Away to the north the strait could be seen growing narrower, with heavy
ice-tables grinding up and clogging it from cliff to cliff on either
side. About seven in the evening they were close upon the piling
masses, to enter into which seemed certain destruction.
"Stand by to let go the anchor," cried the captain, in the desperate
hope of being able to wind the ship.
"What's that ahead of us?" exclaimed the first mate suddenly.
"Ship on the starboard bow, right inshore!" roared the look-out.
The attention of the crew was for a moment called from their own
critical situation towards the strange vessel which now came into view,
having been previously concealed from them by a large grounded berg.
"Can you make her out, Mr Bolton?"
"Yes, sir, I think she's a large brig, but she seems much chafed, and
there's no name left on the stern, if ever there was one."
As he spoke, the driving snow and fog cleared up partially, and the brig
was seen not three hundred yards from them, drifting slowly into the
loose ice. There was evidently no one on board, and although one or two
of the sails were loose, they hung in shreds from the yards. Scarcely
had this been noted when the _Dolphin_ struck against a large mass of
ice, and quivered under the violence of the shock.
"Let go!" shouted the captain.
Down went the heaviest anchor they had, and for two minutes the chain
flew out at the hawse-hole.
"Hold on!"
The chain was checked, but the strain was awful. A mass of ice,
hundreds of tons weight, was tearing down towards the bow. There was no
hope of resisting it. Time was not even afforded to attach a buoy or
log to the cable, so it was let slip, and thus the _Dolphin's_ best
bower was lost for ever.
But there was no time to think of or regret this, for the ship was now
driving down with the gale, scraping against a lee of ice which was
seldom less than thirty feet thick. Almost at the same moment the
strange vessel was whirled close to them, not more than fifty yards
distant, between two driving masses of thick ice.
"What if it should be my father's brig?" whispered Fred Ellice, as he
grasped Singleton's arm, and turned to him a face of ashy paleness.
"No fear of that, lad," said Buzzby, who stood near the larboard gangway
and had overheard the remark. "I'd know your father's brig among a
thousand--"
As he spoke, the two masses of ice closed, and the brig was nipped
between them. For a few seconds she seemed to tremble like a living
creature, and every timber creaked. Then she was turned slowly on one
side, until the crew of the _Dolphin_ could see down into her hold,
where the beams were giving way and cracking up as matches might be
crushed in the grasp of a strong hand. Then the larboard bow was
observed to yield as if it were made of soft clay, the starboard bow was
pressed out, and the ice was forced into the forecastle. Scarcely three
minutes had passed since the nip commenced; in one minute more the brig
went down, and the ice was rolling wildly, as if in triumph, over the
spot where she had disappeared.
The fate of this vessel, which might so soon be their own, threw a
momentary gloom over the crew of the _Dolphin_, but their position left
them no time for thought. One upturned mass rose above the gunwale,
smashed in the bulwarks, and deposited half a ton of ice on deck.
Scarcely had this danger passed when a new enemy appeared in sight
ahead. Directly in their way, just beyond the line of floe-ice against
which they were alternately thumping and grinding, lay a group of bergs.
There was no possibility of avoiding them, and the only question was
whether they were to be dashed to pieces on their hard blue sides or,
perchance, in some providential nook to find a refuge from the storm.
"There's an open lead between them and the floe-ice," exclaimed Bolton
in a hopeful tone of voice, seizing an ice-pole and leaping on the
gunwale.
"Look alive, men, with your poles," cried the captain, "and shove with a
will."
The "Ay, ay, sir!" of the men was uttered with a heartiness that showed
how powerfully this gleam of hope acted on their spirits; but a new damp
was cast over them when, on gaining the open passage, they discovered
that the bergs were not at rest, but were bearing down on the floe-ice
with slow but awful momentum, and threatened to crush the ship between
the two. Just then a low berg came driving up from the southward,
dashing the spray over its sides, and with its fore-head ploughing up
the smaller ice as if in scorn. A happy thought flashed across the
captain's mind. "Down the quarter boat," he cried.
In an instant it struck the water, and four men were on the thwarts.
"Cast an ice-anchor on that berg."
Peter Grim obeyed the order, and, with a swing that Hercules would have
envied, planted it securely. In another moment the ship was following
in the wake of this novel tug! It was a moment of great danger, for the
bergs encroached on their narrow canal as they advanced, obliging them
to brace the yards to clear the impending ice-walls, and they shaved the
large berg so closely that the port-quarter boat would have been crushed
if it had not been taken from the davits. Five minutes of such
travelling brought them abreast of a grounded berg, to which they
resolved to make fast; the order was given to cast off the rope; away
went their white tug on his race to the far north, and the ship swung
round in safety under the lee of the berg, where the crew acknowledged
with gratitude their merciful deliverance from imminent danger.