_In Which the Crew of the "Rough and Tumble" is Harshly Punished,
and Archie Armstrong, Having Pulled the Wool Over the Eyes of Cap'n
Saul, Goes Over the Side to the Floe, Where He Falls in with a Timid
Lad, in Whose Company, with Billy Topsail Along, He is Some Day to
Encounter His Most Perilous Adventure_
Well, now, two days later, near dusk, with Archie Armstrong on the
bridge, the _Rough and Tumble_ was crawling northwest through the first
ice of the floe. An hour of drab light was left of the day--no more. And
it was mean ice roundabout--small pans and a naughty mess of slush.
There was a hummock or two, it might be, and a clumper or two, as well;
and a man might travel that ice well enough, sore pinched by need to do
so. But it was foul footing for the weight of a full-grown man, and
tricky for the feet of a lad; and a man must dance a crooked course, and
caper along, or perish--leap from a block that would tip and sink under
his feet to a pan that would bear him up until he had time and the wit
to leap again, and so come, at last, by luck and good conduct, to a pan
stout enough for pause.
It was mean ice, to be sure. Yet there was a fine sign of seals drifting
by. Here and there was an old dog hood on a hummock; and there and here
were a harp and a whitecoat on a flat pan. But the orders of Cap'n Saul
were to "leave the swiles be"--to "keep the mouths o' the guns shut"
until the _Rough and Tumble_ had run up to the herd that was coming down
with the floe.
"I'll have no swiles slaughtered in play," he declared.
A gun popped forward. It was from the midst of a crowd. And Cap'n Saul
leaned over the bridge-rail.
"Who done that?" he demanded.
There was no answer.
"Mm-m?" Cap'n Saul repeated. "Who done that?"
No answer.
"A dog hood lyin' dead off the port bow!" said Cap'n Saul. "Who killed
un?"
Still no answer. And Cap'n Saul didn't ask again. Forthwith he stopped
the ship.
"Mister Knibbs, sir," said he, to the mate, "send the crew after that
dead hood."
The mate jumped.
"Cap'n Saul, sir," he replied, his eyes popping, "the ice----"
"Sir?"
"This here ice, sir----"
"_Sir?_"
"This here----"
"SIR?"
"This----"
"Mister Knibbs, sir," said Cap'n Saul, dryly, "this here ice is fit
enough for any crew that I commands. An' if the crew isn't fit for the
ice, sir, I'll soon have un so, ecod! Put un over the side. We'll waste
no swiles on this v'y'ge."
"All hands, sir?"
"All hands over the side, sir, t' fetch that dead hood aboard."
Archie put in:
"May I go, Cap'n Saul?"
"No!"
"Cap'n Saul," Archie began to wheedle, "I'm so wanting to----"
"No, sir."
"I'm just crazy to----"
"'Tis no fit place for you."
"But----"
Cap'n Saul changed his mind all at once. He sent a call for Archie's old
and well-tried friend, Bill o' Burnt Bay.
"Stand by the lad," said he.
"Ay, sir."
Archie left the bridge with Bill o' Burnt Bay, with whom he had sailed
before. And over the side they went. And over the side went the crew for
punishment. There were more than two hundred men. And not a man was
spared. Cap'n Saul sent the ship's doctor after malingerers, and the
mate and the haft of a sealing gaff after lurkers; and he kept them
capering and balancing for dear life on that dirty floe, sopping and
shivering, all in a perilous way, until dusk was in the way of catching
some of them unaware.
* * * * *
It was then that Archie and Bill o' Burnt Bay fell in with old Jonathan
Farr of Jolly Harbour. Bill o' Burnt Bay knew the old man well. And he
was shocked to find him cavorting over that foul, tricky ice, with the
thin blood and dry old bones he had to serve his need--a gray old dog
like Jonathan Farr of Jolly Harbour, past his full labour these years
gone by, gone stiff and all unfit for the labour and chances of the ice.
Still, the old man was blithe enough, as Bill marvelled to see. His eye
was lit up with a flicker of fun, sparkling, somehow, through the rheum
of age; and his words were mixed with laughter. They came to rest on a
pan--the four of them together; old Jonathan Farr and Bill and Archie
and a little lad. And Archie marked this in a glance--that the lad,
whoever he was, was out of heart with the work he was at.
A good deal was to flow from that meeting; and Billy Topsail was to have
a part in it all.