"Well, Jack, my boy, d'ye see anythin'? Keep a bright lookout, you know,
for we all looks to _you_!"
"Come, don't make fun o' me, Bob! P'raps I'll have as sharp eyes as
yourn afore I'm half your size."
Anybody might well have wondered to hear a child's voice speaking from
the mast-head of a North Sea whaler, and still more surprised would he
have been at sight of the figure from which that voice proceeded.
There were two persons in the "crow's-nest," as the lookout post of a
whaler is called. This is simply a big cask firmly lashed to the mast
with small ropes, and supported by two pieces of stout planking.
One of the two watchers on this occasion was a grim old sailor, with a
voice as harsh as his face, which, roughened by the storms of fifty
years, and framed in short iron-gray hair and whiskers, looked very much
like the battered figure-head of some weather-worn old ship. His
companion was a little boy of ten, whose fair hair and round ruddy face
appeared quite babyish beside the granite-hewn visage of the "old salt."
But young as he looked, Jack Raikes was no baby. Those blue eyes of his
were as sharp as any on board; and to run up the weather-rigging in a
stiff breeze, climb to the mast-head and hang his cap on it, was mere
play to "little Jack," as the sailors affectionately called him.
"So, my lad," said Bob Watson, laughing, "you thinks your eyes'll be as
good as mine afore long. Well, you're a sharp-sighted 'un for your age,
you are, but I don't know as how you're quite up to _me_ yet. Come,
s'pose we tries which'll sight a whale fust?"
But the smile suddenly vanished from the old sea-man's face, as a gleam
of sunshine fades into a rising cloud. He arched his hand over his eyes,
and gazed fixedly to the northward, his look becoming graver and graver
with every moment, until Jack was quite startled.
"What's up, Bob? Anything wrong?"
"Can't say yet, lad, but I'm afeard so. Let's have another look. Yes,
it's just as I thought. God help us!"
And putting both hands to his mouth, he shouted at the top of his voice:
"Deck, ahoy! Look out for _ice_!"
The men, who were lying idly about the deck, sprang to their feet at
once, and there was a sudden bustle which showed that the warning had
been heard and understood.
"Where away?" hallooed the Captain.
"Right ahead--two on 'em--bearin' down upon us!"
The Captain's hard mouth set itself a little tighter, but that was all.
He threw a quick glance to windward, and then shouted to the steersman,
"Keep her away a point or two!"
"Ay, ay, sir!"
There was no sign of fear in either Captain or crew--only a grave,
subdued look on every face, which showed that they fully understood
their danger, although it could not terrify them. And yet the peril was
one which might well have dismayed the bravest man alive. Once caught
between the two approaching mountains of ice, the vessel would be
crushed like an egg-shell, and she and all her crew sent to the bottom
together. Nor did there seem to be much chance of escape. The wind was
light, and what little there was of it was driving the ship straight
toward the icebergs as they drifted with the current. Unless they should
change their course, or the wind shift suddenly, the doom of both ship
and crew appeared certain.
Little Jack had caught sight of the advancing masses almost as soon as
his old friend, and the sudden paling of his ruddy cheeks showed how
fully he understood the situation. He looked wistfully up in Bob's face,
as if to ask whether there was any hope for them, and the old sailor,
mindful of his little pet even in the teeth of that deadly peril,
answered, as cheerily as ever: "Well, Jack, my son, them two lubbers is
a-tryin' hard to outmanoover us, ain't they? But you jist see if we
don't git the weather-gauge on 'em yet!"
By this time the icebergs were near enough to be plainly visible from
the deck, and the sudden chilling of the air by their approach, like the
coldness of coming death, was felt by every man on board. Onward they
came, those great cathedrals of frost, slowly, steadily, mercilessly,
like the march of a destroying army.
And all the while the sea around them was blue and bright, and the sun
shone brilliantly in a cloudless sky, and the great battlements of ice
glowed like living rainbows with every variety of gorgeous
coloring--blue, red, green, and gold. And so, with all the beauty and
splendor of life around them, the doomed men stood silently awaiting
death.
Old Bob set his teeth hard, and pressed his hand firmly upon little
Jack's shoulder.
"'Tain't for myself as I minds it," he muttered, "for my time's pretty
nigh up; but it _do_ seem hard for this little chap to be cut off in his
fust blossomin' like. If my life could go for hisn, God knows I'd give
it gladly."
And now, as if to destroy the last chance of escape, her terrible
assailants parted suddenly, the one bearing down upon her port and the
other upon her starboard quarter, as if to shut her in between them.
Even the iron-nerved Captain changed color, and flung down his
speaking-trumpet in despair. But just as all hope seemed gone, the
long-hoped-for shift of the wind came.
"Starboard your helm!--starboard!" roared the Captain, instantly.
"Starboard it is."
One quick turn of the helm, and the vessel glided past the nearest berg,
so close that one of the projecting ice points scraped her taffrail.
Even that slight contact with the mighty mass made her whole frame
quiver from stem to stern; but the danger was past, and the crew
breathed freely once more.
"Now, my boys," shouted the youngest of the men, "stand by and see them
two have it out by theirselves."
It was even so. The two destroyers, balked of their prey, were rushing
straight upon each other. The wind had lulled again as if holding its
breath for the coming battle, and all was as still as death, when the
two moving mountains clashed together.
There came a crash to which the loudest thunder would have been as
nothing, and the smooth sea boiled up into huge waves, dashing the
vessel about like a toy, while the very air was darkened with flying
splinters of ice. When the rush passed, the contending icebergs were
seen to be at some distance, swaying dizzily to and fro like two living
combatants reeling under a heavy stroke.
"At it again, old fellers!" cried young Simmonds; "that first bout don't
count neither way."
Again came the terrible shock, followed by a fierce, grinding crash, as
a huge pinnacle of ice, heavy enough to sink a hundred-gun ship, fell
thundering into the sea.
"Port your helm!--port!" shouted the Captain.
"Port it is," answered the steersman, coolly, and the vessel sheered
off.
She was not a moment too soon. Hardly had she got clear when the nearest
iceberg was seen to lurch heavily forward. For an instant it rocked
violently to and fro, and then plunged down into the sea, with a noise
that might have been heard for miles.[2] The billows cast up by its fall
tossed the strong ship aloft like a feather, flinging all the crew upon
their faces; and for a moment sea and sky were all one blinding whirl of
foam.
[2] This is a common occurrence in the Northern seas, and usually
attributed to the melting away of the iceberg from below.
There was a moment of awful silence, when nothing could be heard but
the groaning of the ship's timbers and the awful roar of the waves.
Then, as the frightened men rose to their feet, Bill Simmonds cried out,
"We ain't dead this time, anyway."
But old Bob Watson drew little Jack to his side, and whispered to him:
"Jack, lad, when ye say yer prayers to-night, don't forget to thank God
for savin' us, for if 'twasn't for that shift o' wind, all our lives
warn't worth _that_."