NEW CHARACTERS INTRODUCED--AN OLD GAME UNDER NOVEL CIRCUMSTANCES--
REMARKABLE APPEARANCES IN THE SKY--O'RILEY MEETS WITH A MISHAP.
Dumps was a remarkably grave and sly character, and Poker was a wag--an
incorrigible wag--in every sense of the term. Moreover, although they
had an occasional fight, Dumps and Poker were excellent friends, and
great favourites with the crew.
We have not yet introduced these individuals to our reader; but as they
will act a conspicuous part in the history of the _Dolphin's_
adventurous career in the Arctic regions, we think it right now to
present them.
While at Uppernavik, Captain Guy had purchased a team of six good, tough
Esquimaux dogs, being desirous of taking them to England, and there
presenting them to several of his friends who were anxious to possess
specimens of those animals. Two of these dogs stood out conspicuous
from their fellows, not only in regard to personal appearance, but also
in reference to peculiarities of character. One was pure white, with a
lively expression of countenance, a large shaggy body, two erect,
sharp-pointed ears, and a short projection that once had been a tail.
Owing to some cause unknown, however, his tail had been cut or bitten
off, and nothing save the stump remained. But this stump did as much
duty as if it had been fifty tails in one. It was never at rest for a
moment, and its owner evidently believed that wagging it was the true
and only way to touch the heart of man; therefore the dog wagged it, so
to speak, doggedly. In consequence of this animal's thieving
propensities, which led him to be constantly _poking_ into every hole
and corner of the ship in search of something to steal, he was named
_Poker_. Poker had three jet-black spots in his white visage--one was
the point of his nose, the other two were his eyes.
Poker's bosom friend, Dumps, was so named because he had the sulkiest
expression of countenance that ever fell to the lot of a dog.
Hopelessly incurable melancholy seemed to have taken possession of his
mind, for he never by any chance smiled--and dogs do smile, you know,
just as evidently as human beings do, although not exactly with their
mouths. Dumps never romped either, being old, but he sat and allowed
his friend Poker to romp round him with a sort of sulky satisfaction, as
if he experienced the greatest enjoyment his nature was capable of in
witnessing the antics of his youthful companion--for Poker was young.
The prevailing colour of Dumps's shaggy hide was a dirty brown, with
black spots, two of which had fixed themselves rather awkwardly round
his eyes, like a pair of spectacles. Dumps, also, was a thief, and,
indeed, so were all his brethren. Dumps and Poker were both of them
larger and stronger, and in every way better, than their comrades; and
they afterwards were the sturdy, steady, unflinching leaders of the team
during many a toilsome journey over the frozen sea.
One magnificent afternoon, a few days after the escape of the _Dolphin_
just related, Dumps and Poker lay side by side in the lee-scuppers,
calmly sleeping off the effects of a surfeit produced by the eating of a
large piece of pork, for which the cook had searched in vain for
three-quarters of an hour, and of which he at last found the bare bone
sticking in the hole of the larboard pump.
"Bad luck to them dogs!" exclaimed David Mizzle, stroking his chin as he
surveyed the bone. "If I could only find out, now, which of ye it was,
I'd have ye slaughtered right off, and cooked for the mess, I would."
"It was Dumps as did it, I'll bet you a month's pay," said Peter Grim,
as he sat on the end of the windlass refilling his pipe, which he had
just smoked out.
"Not a bit of it," remarked Amos Parr, who was squatted on the deck
busily engaged in constructing a rope mat, while several of the men sat
round him engaged in mending sails, or stitching canvas slippers,
etcetera. "Not a bit of it, Grim; Dumps is too honest by half to do
sich a thing. 'Twas Poker as did it, I can see by the roll of his eye
below the skin. The blackguard's only shammin' sleep."
On hearing his name mentioned, Poker gently opened his right eye, but
did not move. Dumps, on the contrary, lay as if he heard not the base
aspersion on his character.
"What'll ye bet it was Dumps as did it?" cried Davie Summers, who passed
at the moment with a dish of some sort of edible towards the galley or
cooking-house on deck.
"I'll _bet_ you over the 'ead, I will, if you don't mind your business,"
said Mivins.
"You'd _bet_ter not," retorted Davie with a grin. "It's as much as your
situation's worth to lay a finger on me."
"That's it, youngster, give it 'im," cried several of the men, while the
boy confronted his superior, taking good care, however, to keep the
fore-mast between them.
"What do you mean, you young rascal?" cried Mivins with a frown.
"Mean!" said Davie, "why, I mean that if you touch me I'll resign
office; and if I do that, you'll have to go out, for everyone knows you
can't get on without me."
"I say, Mivins," cried Tom Green, the carpenter's mate, "if you were
asked to say: `Hold on hard to this handspike here, my hearties,' how
would ye go about it?"
"He'd 'it you a pretty 'ard crack hover the 'ead with it, 'e would,"
remarked one of the men, throwing a ball of yarn at Davie, who stood
listening to the conversation with a broad grin.
In stepping back to avoid the blow the lad trod on Dumps's paw, and
instantly there came from the throat of that excellent dog a roar of
anguish that caused Poker to leap, as the cook expressed it, nearly out
of his own skin. Dogs are by nature extremely sympathetic and
remarkably inquisitive; and no sooner was Dumps's yell heard than it was
vigorously responded to by every dog in the ship, as the whole pack
rushed each from his respective sleeping-place, and looked round in
amazement.
"Hallo! what's wrong there for'ard?" enquired Saunders, who had been
pacing the quarter-deck with slow giant strides, arguing mentally with
himself in default of a better adversary.
"Only trod on Dumps's paw, sir," said Mivins as he hurried aft; "the men
are sky-larking."
"Sky-larking, are you?" said Saunders, going forward; "weel, lads,
you've had a lot o' hard work of late, ye may go and take a run on the
ice."
Instantly the men, like boys set free from school, sprang up, tumbled
over the side, and were scampering over the ice like madmen.
"Pitch over the ball!--the football!" they cried. In a second the ball
was tossed over the ship's side, and a vigorous game was begun.
For two days past the _Dolphin_ had been sailing with difficulty through
large fields of ice, sometimes driving against narrow necks and tongues
that interrupted her passage from one lead, or canal, to another; at
other times boring with difficulty through compact masses of sludge, or,
occasionally, when unable to advance farther, making fast to a large
berg or field. They were compelled to proceed north, however, in
consequence of the pack having become fixed towards the south, and thus
rendering retreat impossible in that direction until the ice should be
again set in motion. Captain Guy, however, saw, by the steady advance
of the larger bergs, that the current of the ocean in that place flowed
southward, and trusted that in a short time the ice which had been
forced into the strait by the gales, would be released, and open up a
passage. Meanwhile he pushed along the coast, examining every bay and
inlet in the hope of discovering some trace of the _Pole Star_ or her
crew.
On the day about which we are writing, the ship was beset by large
fields, the snow-white surfaces of which extended north and south to the
horizon, while on the east the cliffs rose in dark, frowning precipices
from the midst of the glaciers that encumber them all the year round.
It was a lovely Arctic day. The sun shone with unclouded splendour, and
the bright air, which trembled with that liquidity of appearance that
one occasionally sees in very hot weather under peculiar circumstances,
was vocal with the wild music of thousands of gulls, and auks, and other
sea-birds, which clustered on the neighbouring cliffs, and flew overhead
in clouds. All round, the pure surfaces of the ice-fields were broken
by the shadows which the hummocks and bergs cast over them, and by the
pools of clear water which shone like crystals in their hollows, while
the beautiful beryl blue of the larger bergs gave a delicate colouring
to the dazzling scene. Words cannot describe the intense _glitter_ that
characterised everything. Every point seemed a diamond; every edge sent
forth a gleam of light, and many of the masses reflected the rich
prismatic colours of the rainbow. It seemed as if the sun himself had
been multiplied in order to add to the excessive brilliancy, for he was
surrounded by _parhelia_, or _sun-dogs_ as the men called them. This
peculiarity in the sun's appearance was very striking. The great orb of
day was about ten degrees above the horizon, and a horizontal line of
white passed completely through it extending to a considerable distance
on either hand, while around it were two distinct halos, or circles of
light. On the inner halo were situated the mock-suns, which were four
in number--one above and one below the sun, and one on each side of him.
Not a breath of wind stirred the little flag that drooped from the
mizzen-peak, and the clamorous ceaseless cries of sea-birds, added to
the merry shouts and laughter of the men, as they followed the restless
football, rendered the whole a scene of life, as it was emphatically one
of beauty.
"Ain't it glorious?" panted Davie Summers vehemently, as he stopped
exhausted in a headlong race beside one of his comrades, while the ball
was kicked hopelessly beyond his reach by a comparatively fresh member
of the party.
"Ah! then, it bates the owld country intirely, it does," replied
O'Riley, wiping the perspiration from his forehead.
It is needless to say that O'Riley was an Irishman. We have not
mentioned him until now, because up to this time he had not done
anything to distinguish himself beyond his messmates; but on this
particular day O'Riley's star was in the ascendant, and Fortune seemed
to have singled him out as an object of her special attention. He was a
short man, and a broad man, and a particularly _rugged_ man--so to
speak. He was all angles and corners. His hair stuck about his head in
violently rigid and entangled tufts, rendering it a matter of wonder how
anything in the shape of a hat could stick on. His brow was a countless
mass of ever-varying wrinkles, which gave to his sly visage an aspect of
humorous anxiety that was highly diverting--and all the more diverting
when you came to know that the man had not a spark of anxiety in his
composition, though he often said he had. His dress, like that of most
Jack-tars, was naturally rugged, and he contrived to make it more so
than usual.
"An' it's hot, too, it is," he continued, applying his kerchief again to
his pate. "If it warn't for the ice we stand on, we'd be melted down, I
do belave, like bits o' whale blubber."
"Wot a jolly game football is, ain't it?" said Davie, seating himself on
a hummock, and still panting hard.
"Ay, boy, that's jist what it is. The only objiction I have agin it is
that it makes ye a'most kick the left leg clane off yer body."
"Why don't you kick with your right leg, then, stupid, like other
people?" enquired Summers.
"Why don't I, is it? Troth, then, I don't know for sartin. Me father
lost his left leg at the great battle o' the Nile, and I've sometimes
thought that had somethin' to do wid it; but then me mother was lame o'
the _right_ leg intirely, and wint about wid a crutch, so I can't make
out how it was, d'ye see?"
"Look out, Pat," exclaimed Summers, starting up, "here comes the ball."
As he spoke, the football came skimming over the ice, towards the spot
on which they stood, with about thirty of the men running at full speed
and shouting like maniacs after it.
"That's your sort, my hearties! another like that and it's home! Pitch
into it, Mivins. You're the boy for me. Now, then, Grim, trip him up!
Hallo, Buzzby, you bluff-bowed Dutchman, luff! luff! or I'll stave in
your ribs! Mind your eye, Mizzle, there's Green, he'll be into your
larboard quarter in no time. Hurrah! Mivins, up in the air with it.
Kick, boy, kick like a spanker boom in a hurricane!"
Such were a few of the expressions that showered like hail round the men
as they rushed hither and thither after the ball. And here we may
remark that the crew of the _Dolphin_ played football in a somewhat
different style, from the way in which that noble game is played by boys
in England. Sides, indeed, were chosen, and boundaries were marked out,
but very little if any attention was paid to such secondary matters! To
kick the ball, and keep on kicking it in front of his companions, was
the ambition of each man; and so long as he could get a kick at it that
caused it to fly from the ground like a cannon-shot, little regard was
had by anyone to the direction in which it was propelled. But, of
course, in this effort to get a kick, the men soon became scattered over
the field, and ever and anon the ball would fall between two men, who
rushed at it simultaneously from opposite directions. The inevitable
result was a collision, by which both men were suddenly and violently
arrested in their career. But generally the shock resulted in one of
the men being sent staggering backwards, and the other getting the
_kick_. When the two were pretty equally matched, both were usually, as
they expressed it, "brought up all standing", in which case a short
scuffle ensued, as each endeavoured to trip up the heels of his
adversary. To prevent undue violence in such struggles, a rule was laid
down that hands were not to be used on any account. They might use
their feet, legs, shoulders, and elbows, but not their hands.
In such rough play the men were more equally matched than might have
been expected, for the want of weight among the smaller men was often
more than counterbalanced by their activity; and frequently a sturdy
little fellow launched himself so vigorously against a heavy tar as to
send him rolling head over heels on the ice. This was not always the
case, however, and few ventured to come into collision with Peter Grim,
whose activity was on a par with his immense size. Buzzby contented
himself with galloping on the outskirts of the fight, and putting in a
kick when fortune sent the ball in his way. In this species of warfare
he was supported by the fat cook, whose oily carcass could neither stand
the shocks nor keep up with the pace of his messmates. Mizzle was a
particularly energetic man in his way, however, and frequently kicked
with such good-will that he missed the ball altogether, and the
tremendous swing of his leg lifted him from the ice, and laid him
sprawling on his back.
"Look out ahead!" shouted Green, the carpenter's mate; "there's a sail
bearing down on your larboard bow."
Mivins, who had the ball before him at the moment, saw his own
satellite, Davie, coming down towards him with vicious intentions. He
quietly pushed the ball before him for a few yards, then kicked it far
over the boy's head, and followed it up like an antelope. Mivins
depended for success on his almost superhuman activity. His tall,
slight frame could not stand the shocks of his comrades, but no one
could equal or come near to him in speed, and he was quite an adept at
dodging a _charge_, and allowing his opponent to rush far past the ball
by the force of his own momentum. Such a charge did Peter Grim make at
him at this moment.
"Starboard hard!" yelled Davie Summers, as he observed his master's
danger.
"Starboard it is!" replied Mivins, and, leaping aside to avoid the
shock, he allowed Grim to pass. Grim knew his man, however, and had
held himself in hand, so that in a moment he pulled up and was following
close on his heels.
"It's an ill wind that blows no good," cried one of the crew, towards
whose foot the ball rolled, as he quietly kicked it into the centre of
the mass of men. Grim and Mivins turned back, and for a time looked on
at the general make that ensued. It seemed as though the ball must
inevitably be crushed among them as they struggled and kicked hither and
thither for five minutes, in their vain efforts to get a kick; and
during those few exciting moments many tremendous kicks, aimed at the
ball, took effect upon shins, and many shouts of glee terminated in
yells of anguish.
"It can't last much longer!" screamed the cook, his face streaming with
perspiration, and beaming with glee, as he danced round the outside of
the circle. "There it goes!"
As he spoke, the ball flew out of the circle, like a shell from a
mortar. Unfortunately it went directly over Mizzle's head. Before he
could wink he went down before them, and the rushing mass of men passed
over him like a mountain torrent over a blade of grass.
Meanwhile Mivins ran ahead of the others, and gave the ball a kick that
nearly burst it and down it came exactly between O'Riley and Grim, who
chanced to be far ahead of the others. Grim dashed at it. "Och! ye big
villain," muttered the Irishman to himself, as he put down his head and
rushed against the carpenter like a battering-ram.
Big though he was, Grim staggered back from the impetuous shock, and
O'Riley, following up his advantage, kicked the ball in a side
direction, away from everyone except Buzzby, who happened to have been
steering rather wildly over the field of ice. Buzzby, on being brought
thus unexpectedly within reach of the ball, braced up his energies for a
kick, but seeing O'Riley coming down towards him like a runaway
locomotive, he pulled up, saying quietly to himself: "Ye may take it all
yer own way, lad; I'm too old a bird to go for to make my carcass a
buffer for a mad-cap like you to run agin."
Jack Mivins, however, was troubled by no such qualms. He happened to be
about the same distance from the ball as O'Riley, and ran like a deer to
reach it first. A pool of water lay in his path, however, and the
necessity of going round it enabled the Irishman to gain on him a
little, so that it became evident that both would come up at the same
moment and a collision be inevitable.
"Hold yer wind, Paddy," shouted the men, who paused for a moment to
watch the result of the race. "Mind your timbers, Mivins! Back your
top-sails, O'Riley; mind how he yaws!"
Then there was a momentary silence of breathless expectation. The two
men seemed about to meet with a shock that would annihilate both, when
Mivins bounded to one side like an india-rubber ball. O'Riley shot past
him like a rocket, and the next instant went head-foremost into the pool
of water.
This unexpected termination to the affair converted the intended huzzah
of the men into a yell of mingled laughter and consternation as they
hastened in a body to the spot; but before they reached it O'Riley's
head and shoulders reappeared, and when they came up, he was standing on
the margin of the pool blowing like a walrus.
"Oh, then, but it is cowld!" he exclaimed, wringing the water from his
garments. "Och, where's the ball? give me a kick or I'll freeze, so I
will."
As he spoke, the drenched Irishman seized the ball from Mivins' hands
and gave it a kick that sent it high into the air. He was too wet and
heavy to follow it up, however, so he ambled off towards the ship as
vigorously as his clothes would allow him, followed by the whole crew.