A GALE FROM THE MOUNTAINS--DAYBREAK IN ICELAND--THE GREAT BALLOON
ASCENT--RORY'S YARN--THE SNOW-CLOUD--THE PIRATE IS SEEN.
A whole week has elapsed since the events transpired which I have
related in last chapter,--a week most interestingly if not always quite
pleasantly spent. The _Arrandoon_ is lying before the quaint,
fantastical old town of Reikjavik, surrounded almost in every direction
by mountains bold and wild, the peaked summits and even the sides of
which are now covered with ice and snow. For spring has not yet arrived
to unrivet stern winter's chains, to swell the rivers into roaring
torrents, and finally to carpet the earth with beauty. The streams are
still frozen, the bay in which the good ship lies at her anchors twain,
is filled with broken pancake-ice, which makes communication with the
shore by means of boat a matter of no little difficulty, for oars have
to be had inboard or used as pressing poles, and boat-hooks are in
constant requisition.
Winter it is, and the country all around might be called dreary, were it
not for the ever-varying shades of colour that, as the sun shines out,
or anon hides his head behind a cloud, spread themselves over hill and
dale and rugged glen. Oh! the splendour of those sunrises and sunsets,
the rose tints, the purples, the emerald greens and cool greys, that
blaze and blend, grow faint and fade as they chase each other among
mountains and ravines! What a poor morsel of steel my pen feels as I
attempt to describe them! Yet have they a beauty peculiarly their
own,--a beauty which never can be forgotten by those whose eyes have
once rested thereon.
The fair-haired Danish girl has been landed, and for a time has found
shelter and peace in the humble home of her uncle the clergyman. Our
heroes have been on shore studying the manners and customs of the
primitive but hospitable people they find themselves among.
Several city worthies have been off to see the ship and to dine. But
to-night our heroes are all by themselves in the saloon. Dinner is
finished, nuts and fruit and fragrant coffee are on the table, at the
head of which sits the captain, on his right the doctor and Ralph, on
his left Allan and Rory. Freezing Powders, neatly dressed, is hovering
near, and Peter, the steward, is not far off, while the cockatoo is busy
as usual, helping himself to tremendous billfuls of hemp-seed, but
nevertheless putting in his oar every minute, with a "Well, duckie?" or
a long-drawn "Dea-ah me!"
I cannot say that all is peace, though, beyond the wooden walls of the
_Arrandoon_, for a storm is raging with almost hurricane violence,
sweeping down from the hills with ever-varying force, and threatening to
tear the vessel from her anchorage. Steam is up, the screw revolves,
and it taxes all the engineer's skill to keep up to the anchors so as to
avert the strain from them.
But our boys are used to danger by this time, and there is hardly a
moment's lull in the conversation. Even Sandie McFlail, M.D. o'
Aberdeen, has already forgotten all the horrors of _mal-de-mer_; he even
believes he has found his sea-legs, and feels all over as good a sailor
as anybody.
"Reikjavik?" says Ralph; "isn't it a queer break-jaw kind of a name. It
puts one in mind of a mouthful of exceedingly tough beefsteak."
"A gastronomic simile," says Rory; "though maybe neither poetical nor
elegant, sure, but truly Saxon."
"Ah! weel," the doctor says, in his quiet, thoughtful, canny way, "I
dinna know now. Some o' the vera best poetry of all ages bears
reference to the pleesures o' the table. Witness Horace's Odes, for
instance."
"Hear! hear!" from Allan; and "Horace was a brick!" from honest English
Ralph; but Rory murmurs "Moore?"
"But," continues the doctor, "to my ear there is nothing vera harsh in
the language that these islanders speak. They pronounce the `ch' hard,
like the Scotch; their `j's' soft, like the Spanish; and turn their
`w's' into `v's.' They pronounce church--kurk; and the `j' is a `y,' or
next thing to it. `Reik' or `reyk' means smoke, you know, as it is in
Scotch `reek;' and `wik,' or `wich,' or `vik' means a bay, as in the
English `Woolwich,' `Sandwich,' etc, so that Reikjavik is simply `the
bay of smoke,' or `the smoking bay;' but whether with reference to the
smoke that hangs over the town, or the spray that rises mistlike from
the seething billows when the wind blows, I cannot say--probably the
former; and it is worthy of note, gentlemen, that some savage races far,
far away from here--the aborigines of Australia, for example--designate
towns by the term `the big smoke.'"
"How profoundly erudite you are, doctor!" says Rory. "Now, wouldn't it
have been much better for your heirs and assigns and the world at large,
if you had accepted a Professorship of Antiquity in the University of
Aberdeen, instead of coming away with us, to cool the toes of you at the
North Pole, and maybe leave your bones to bleach beneath the Aurora
Borealis, eh?"
"Ha! there I have you," cries Sandie, smiling good-humouredly, for by
this time he was quite used to Rory's bantering ways,--"there I have
you, boy Rory; and it is with the profoundest awe and respect for
everything sacred, that I remind you that the Aurora Borealis never
bleached any bones; and those poor unfortunates who, in their devotion
for science, have wandered towards the mystery land around the Pole, and
there laid down their lives, will never, never moulder into dust, but,
entombed in the green, salt ice, with the virgin snow as their
winding-sheet, their bodies will rest in peace, and rest intact until
the trumpet sounds."
There was a lull in the conversation at this point, but no lull in the
storm; the waves dashed wildly over the ship, the wind roared through
the rigging, the brave vessel quivered from stem to stern, as if in
constant fear she might be hurled from the protection afforded by anchor
and cable, and cast helpless upon the rock-bound shore.
A lull, broken presently by a deep sigh from Freezing Powders.
"Well, duckie?" said Polly, in sympathising tones.
"Well, Freezing Powders," said McBain, "and pray what are you sighing
about?"
"What for I sigh?" repeated Freezing Powders. "Am you not afraid
you'se'f, sah! You not hear de wild winds roar, and de wave make too
much bobbery? 'Tis a'most enuff, sah, to make a gem'lam turn pale,
sah!"
"Ha! ha?" laughed Rory; "really, it'll take a mighty big storm, Freezing
Powders, to make you turn pale. But, doctor," he continued, "what say
you to some music?"
"If you'll play," said the surgeon, "I'll toot."
And so the concert was begun; and the shriek of the storm spirit was
drowned in mirth and melody, or, as the doctor, quoting Burns, expressed
it,--
"The storm without might roar and rustle,
They didna mind the storm a whustle."
But after this night of storm and tempest, what a wonderful morning it
was! The sun shot up amidst the encrimsoned mountain peaks, and shone
brightly down from a sky of cloudless blue. The snow was everywhere
dazzling in its whiteness, and there was not a sigh of wind to raise so
much as a ripple on the waters of the bay, from which every bit of ice
had been blown far to sea. Wild birds screamed with joy as they wheeled
in hundreds around the ship, while out in the bay a shoal of porpoises
were disporting themselves, leaping high in air from out of the
sparkling waters, and shrieking--or, as the doctor called it,
"whustling"--for very joy.
Every one on board the _Arrandoon_ was early astir--up, indeed, before
the sun himself--for there were to be great doings on shore to-day. The
first great experimental balloon ascent and flight was about to be made.
Every one on shore was early astir, too; in fact, the greatest
excitement prevailed, and on the table-land to the right of, and some
little distance from, the town, from which the balloon was to ascend,
the people had assembled from an early hour, even the ladies of
Reikjavik turning out dressed in their gayest attire, no small
proportion of which consisted of fur and feathers.
The aeronaut was a professional, Monsieur De Vere by name. McBain had
gone all the way to Paris especially to engage his services. Nor had he
hired him at random, for this canny captain of ours had not only
satisfied himself that De Vere was in a scientific point of view a
clever man, but he had accompanied him in several ascents, and could
thus vouch for his being a really practical aeronaut.
Who would go with De Vere in this first great trip over the regions of
perpetual snow? The doctor stepped forward as a volunteer, and by his
side was Rory. Perhaps Allan and Ralph were rather lazy for any such
aerial exploit; anyhow, they were content to stay at home.
"We'll look on, you know," said Ralph, "as long as we can see you; and
when you return--that is, if ever you do return--you can tell us all
about it."
When all was ready the ropes were cast loose, and, with a ringing cheer
from the assembled multitude, up arose the mighty balloon, straight as
arrow from bow, into the blue, sunny sky. Like the eagle that soars
from the peak of Benrinnes, she seemed to seek the very sun itself.
Rory and the surgeon, who had never been in a balloon before--nor even,
for the matter of that, down in a coalpit--at first hardly relished
their sudden elevation, but they soon got used to it.
Not the slightest motion was there; Rory could hardly credit the fact
that he was moving, and when at last he did muster up sufficient courage
to peep earthwards over the side of the car.
"Oh, look, doctor dear!" he cried; "sure, look for yourself; the world
is moving away from us altogether!"
And this was precisely the sensation they experienced. Both the doctor
and Rory were inclined to clutch nervously and tremulously the sides of
the car in the first part of their ascent; but though the former was not
much of a sailor, somewhat to his surprise he experienced none of those
giddy feelings common to the landsman when gazing from an immense
height. He could look beneath him and around him, and enjoy to the full
the strange bird's-eye landscape and seascape that every moment seemed
to broaden and widen, until a great portion of the northern island, with
its mountains, its lakes, its frozen torrents, its gulfs and bays and
islands, and the great blue southern ocean, even to the far-off Faroe
Isles, lay like a beautifully portrayed map beneath their feet. The
grandeur of the scene kept them silent for long minutes; it impressed
them, it awed them. It did more than even this, for it caused them to
feel their own littleness, and the might of the Majesty that made the
world.
De Vere himself seldom vouchsafed a single glance landwards; he seemed
to busy himself wholly and solely with the many strange instruments with
which he was surrounded. He was hardly a moment idle. The intense
cold, that soon began to benumb the senses of Sandie, seemed to have no
deterrent effect on his efforts.
"I must confess I do fell sleepy," said the worthy medico, "and I meant
to assist you, Mr De Vere."
"Here," cried the scientist, pouring something out of a phial, and
handing it to him, "drink that quick."
"I feel double the individual," cried Sandie, brightly, as soon as he
had swallowed the draught.
"Come," said Rory, "come, monsieur, _I_ want to feel double the
individual, too."
"No, no, sir," said De Vere, smiling, "an Irishman no want etherism; you
are already--pardon me--too ethereal."
Sandie was gazing skywards.
"It is the moon,"--he was saying--"I ken her horn,
She's blinkin' in the lift sae hie;
She smiles, the jade! to wile us hame,
But, 'deed, I doubt, she'll wait a wee."
"Happy thought!" cried Rory; "let us go to the moon."
"No," laughed the doctor; "nobody ever got that length yet."
"Oh, you forget, Mr Surgeon," said Rory,--"you forget entirely all
about Danny O'Rourke."
"Tell us, then, Rory."
"Troth, then," began Rory, in his richest brogue, "it was just like this
same. Danny was a dacint boy enough, who lived entoirely alone with
Biddy his wife, and the pig, close to a big bog in old Oireland.
Sitting on a stone in the midst of this bog was Danny, one foine
summer's evening, when who should fly down but an aigle. `Foine
noight,' says the aigle. `The same to you,' says Danny, `and many of
them.' `But,' says the aigle, `don't you see that it is sinking you
are?' `Och! sure,' cries Danny, `and so it is. I'll be swallowed up in
the bog, and poor Biddy and the pig will nivir set eyes on me again.
Och! och! what'll I do?' `Git on to me back, troth,' says the aigle,
`and I'll fly you sthraight to your Biddy's door.' `And the blessings
av the O'Rourkes be wid ye thin,' says Danny, putting his arms round the
aigle's neck, `for you are the sinsible bird, and whatever I'd have done
widout ye, ne'er a bit o' me knows. But isn't it high enough you are
now, aroon? Yonder is my cottage just down there.' For," continued
Rory, "you must know that by this time the aigle had mounted fully a
mile high with poor Danny. `Be quiet wid ye,' says the aigle, `or I'll
shake ye off me back entoirely. Don't ye remember robbing my nest last
year? _I_ do. And it's niver a cottage you'll ever see again, nor
Biddy, nor the pig either. It's right up to the moon I'm flying wid
ye.' `What!' cries Danny, `to that bit av a thing like a raping-hook?
Och! and och! what'll become av me at all at all?' But the moon got
bigger the nearer they came to it, and they found it a dacint size
enough when they got there entirely. `Catch a howld av the end av the
raping-hook,' says the aigle, `or by this and by that I'll shake ye off
me shoulder.' And so poor Danny had no ho' but just to do as he was
told, and away flew the aigle and left him. While he was wondering what
he should do now, a stern voice behind him says, `Let go--let go the end
of the raping-hook, and be off wid ye back to your own counthry.' `It's
hardly civil av you,' says Danny, `to ask me sich a thing. Sure it is
few ever come to call on you anyhow.' `Let go,' thundered the man o'
the moon; and he gave Danny just one kick, and off went the poor boy
flying into the air. `It's killed I'll be,' says he to himself, `killed
entoirely wid the fall, and what'll become o' me wife Biddy and the pig
is more'n I can tell.' But he fell, and he fell, and he fell, and he
never seemed to stop falling, till plump he alights right in the middle
o' the sea, and there he lay on the broad back av him, till a big lump
av a whale came and splashed him all over wid his tail. But sure enough
the sea was only his bed, and the big whale turned out to be Biddy
herself, with the watering-pot, telling him to get up, for a lazy ould
boy, and feed the pig, and troth it was nothing but a dream after all.
"But where in the name of wonder are we now?" he continued, gazing
around.
It was a very natural question. It had got suddenly dark. They were
enveloped in a snow-cloud. The brave balloon seemed to struggle through
it.
Ballast was thrown over, and up and out into the sunshine she rose
again, but what a change had come over her appearance--every rope and
length of her and the car itself and our bold aeronauts were covered
white with virgin snow.
"Monsieurs," said De Vere, "this is more than I bargained for. We must
descend. You see she has lost all life. De lofely soul dat was in de
balloon seems to have gone. We will descend."
Indeed the huge balloon was already moving slowly earthwards, and in a
minute more they were again passing through the snow-cloud. Once clear
of this a breeze sprang up, or, to speak more correctly, they entered a
current of air, that carried them directly inland for many miles. Tired
of this direction, the valve was opened, out roared the gas, and the
descent became more rapid, until the wind ceased to blow--they were
beneath the adverse current. More ballast was thrown out, and her "way"
was stopped.
But see, what aileth our hero, boy Rory? For some minutes he has been
gazing southwards over the sea, so intensely indeed that his looks
almost frighten the honest doctor.
"The glass, the glass," he hisses, holding round his hand, but not
taking his glance for a moment off the southern horizon.
The glass is handed to him, he adjusts it to his eye, and takes one
long, fixed look; and when he turns once more towards the doctor his
face is radiant with joy and excitement.
"It is she," he cried, "it is _she_, it is she!"
The doctor really looked scared.
"Man!" he said, "are ye takin' leave o' your wuts? There, tak' a hold
o' my hand and dinna try to frighten folk. There's never a `she' near
ye."
"It is _she_, I tell you," cried Rory again; "take the glass and look in
under the land yonder, and heading for Stromsoe. It is the pirate
herself,--the pirate we fought in the _Snowbird_. Hurrah! hurrah!"