"After you, sir."
This palaver finished, they both half-filled their tumblers with the
ruby intoxicant, added thereto a modicum of boiling coffee from the urn
that simmered on top of the stove, then, with a preliminary nod towards
each other, emptied their glasses at a gulp. After this, gasping for
breath, they beamed on each other with a newly-found friendliness.
"Have another," said the skipper.
They had another, then went on deck.
After ten minutes of attentive gazing at the _Arrandoon_, "Well," said
the skipper, "I do call that a bit o' pretty steering; if it ain't, my
name isn't Silas Grig."
"But there's a deal o' palaver about it, don't you think so, sir?"
remarked the mate.
"Granted, granted," assented Silas; "granted, matie."
The cause of their admiration was the way in which the _Arrandoon_ was
brought alongside the great ice-floe. She didn't come stem on--as if
she meant to flatten, her bows--and then swing round. Not she. She
approached the ice with a beautiful sweep, describing nearly half a
circle, then, broadside on to the ice, she neared it and neared it.
Next over went the fenders; the steam roared from the pipe upwards into
the blue air, like driven snow, then dissolved itself like the ghost of
the white lady; the ship was stopped, away went the ice-anchors, the
vessel was fast.
And no noise about it either. There may not be much seamanship
now-a-days, but I tell you, boys, it takes a clever man to manage a big
steamer prettily and well.
The _Arrandoon_ was not two hundred yards from the _Canny Scotia_. Now
round go the davits on the port quarter, outward swings the boat, men
and officers spring nimbly into her, blocks rattle, and down goes the
first whaler, reaching the water with a flop, but not a plash, and with
keel as even and straight as a ruled line.
"I say, matie," said Silas Grig, in some surprise, "if that boat ain't
coming straight away here, I hope I may never chew cheese again."
So far as that was concerned, if Silas chose, he would at least have the
chance of chewing cheese again, for the _Arrandoon's_ boat came rippling
along towards them with a steady cluck-el-tee cluck-el-tee, which spoke
well for the men at the oars.
"Well," continued Silas, who, rough nut though he was, always meant well
enough, "let us do the civil, matie; tell the steward to fill the
rum-bottle, and pitch 'em a rope."
The rope came in very handy; but there was no need for the rum; even in
Greenland men can live without it--the officers of the _Arrandoon_ had
found that out.
McBain, with Allan and Rory,--the latter, by the way, seemed to have
registered a vow to go everywhere and see everything,--stood on the
quarter-deck of the _Canny Scotia_, the skipper of which craft was in
front of him, a comical look of admiration on his round brick-coloured
countenance, and his two hands deep in the pockets of his powerful pilot
coat.
"Ay, sir! ay!" he was saying; "well, I must say ye do surprise _me_."
He put such an emphasis on the "me" that one would have thought that to
surprise Silas Grig was something to be quite boastful of ever after.
"All the way to the North Pole? Well, well; but d'ye think you'll find
it?"
"We mean to," said Rory, boldly.
"Perseverando!" said Allan.
"The _Perseverance_!" cried the skipper. "I know the ship, a
Peterheader. Last time I saw her she had got in the nips, and was lying
keel up on the ice, yards and rigging all awry of course; and, bother
her, I hope she'll lie there till Silas Grig gets a voyage [a cargo],
then when the _Scotia_ is full ship, the _Perseverance_ can get down off
the shelf, and cabbage all the rest. Them's my sentiments. But come
below, gentlemen, come below; there is room enough in the cabin of the
old _Scotia_ for every man Jack o' ye. Come below."
Silas was right. There was room, but not much to spare, and, squeezed
in between Allan and McBain, poor Rory was hardly visible, and could
only reach the table with one hand.
The cabin of this Greenlandman can be described with a stroke of the
pen, so to speak. It was square and not very lofty--a tall man required
to duck when under a beam; the beams were painted white, the bulkheads
and cabin doors--four in number--were grey picked out with green.
One-half at least of the available space was occupied by the table;
close around it were cushioned lockers; the only other furniture was the
captain's big chair and a few camp-stools, a big square stove with a
roaring fire, and a big square urn fixed on top thereof, which contained
coffee, had never been empty all the voyage, and would not be till the
end thereof. I suppose a bucket of water could hardly be called
furniture, but there it stood close to the side of the stove, and the
concentric rings of ice inside it showed the difficulty everybody must
experience who chose to quench his thirst in the most natural way
possible.
Above, in the hollow of the skylight, hung a big compass, and several
enormously long sealer's telescopes.
"No rum, gentlemen?" said Silas; "well, you do astonish _me_; but you'll
taste my wife's green ginger wine, and drink her health?"
"That we will," replied McBain, "and maybe finish a bottle."
"And welcome to ten," said Silas; "and the bun, steward, bring the bun.
That's the style! My wife isn't much to look at, gentlemen, but, for a
bun or o' drop o' green ginger, I'll back her against the whole world."
After our heroes had done justice to the bun, and pledged the skipper's
good lady in the green ginger, that gentleman must needs eye them again
and again, with as much curiosity as if they had been some new and
wonderful zoological specimens, that he had by chance captured.
"All the way to the North Pole!" he muttered. "Well, well, but that
_does_ get over Silas."
Rory could not help laughing.
"Funny old stick," said Silas, joining in his merriment, "ain't I?"
He did look all that and more, with his two elbows on the table, and his
knuckles supporting his chin, for his face was as round as a full moon
orient, and just the colour of a new flower-pot; then he laughed more
with one side of his face than the other, his eyes were nowhere in the
folds of his face, and his nose hardly worth mentioning.
After the laugh, beginning with Rory, had spread fairly round the table,
everybody felt relieved.
"I'm only a plain, honest blubber-hunter, gentlemen," said Silas Grig,
apologetically, "with a large family and--and a small wife--but--but you
do surprise _me_. There?"
[It is but fair to say that, as a rule, captains of Greenlandmen are far
more refined in manner than poor Silas.]
But when McBain informed him that the _Arrandoon_ would lay alongside
him for a week or more, and help him to secure a voyage, and wouldn't
ship a single skin herself, Silas was more surprised than ever. Indeed,
until this day I could not tell you what would have happened to Silas,
had the mate not been providentially beside him to vent his feelings
upon. On that unfortunate officer's back he brought down his great
shoulder-of-mutton fist with a force that made him jump, and his breath
to come and go as if he had just been popped under a shower-bath.
"Luck's come," he cried. "Hey? hey?"
And every "hey?" represented a dig in the mate's ribs with the skipper's
thumb of iron.
"Told ye it would, hey? Didn't I? hey?"
"What'll the old woman say, hey? Hey, boys? Hey, matie? Hey? Hey?"
"You gentlemen," said Silas, alter his feelings had calmed down a
trifle, "are all for sport, and Silas has to make a voyage. But you'll
have sport, gentlemen, that ye will. My men are sealing now. They're
among the young seals. It has been nothing but flay, flay, flay, for
the last two rounds of the sun, and there isn't such a very long night
now, is there? And you saw the blood?"
Saw the blood, reader! Indeed, our heroes had. Where was it that that
blood was not? All the beautiful snow was encrimsoned with it on the
distant field of ice, where the men were carrying on their ghastly work.
It was as if a great battle had been fought there, and the dead crangs
lay in dozens and hundreds. A crang means a carcass. Is the adjective
"dead," then, not unnecessary? What else can a carcass or crang be but
"dead"? Nay, but listen: let me whisper a truth in your ear, and I know
your brave young blood will boil when I tell you: I've known our men,
Englishmen and Scotchmen, flense the lambs while still alive.
From the field of slaughter the skins were being dragged to the ship by
men with ropes, so there were streaks of red all the way to the ship,
and all the vessel's starboard side was smeared with blood. Indeed, I
do not wish to harrow the feelings of my readers, and I shall but
describe a few of the cruelties of sealing--no, on second thoughts, I
will not even do that, because I know well you will believe me when I
tell you these cruelties are very great, and believing this, if ever you
have an opportunity of voting for a bill or signing a petition to get
poor Greenland seals fair play, I know you will.
Silas Grig and our heroes took a walk to the field of unequal strife,
and Rory and Allan, to whom all they saw was very new, were not a little
horrified as well as disgusted.
"This," said McBain, "is the young-sealing. We are not going to assist
you in this; we are sportsmen, not butchers, Captain Grig?"
Silas grasped McBain's hand. "Your feelings do you credit, sir," he
said--"they do. But I have feelings, too. Yes, a weather-beaten old
stick like me has feelings! But I'm sent out here to make a voyage, and
what can I do? I've a small wife and a large family; and my owners,
too, would sack me if I didn't bring the skins. I say," he added, after
a pause, "you know my mate?"
"Yes," said McBain.
"Well," said Silas, "you wouldn't, imagine that a fellow with such an
ugly chunk o' a figure-head as that had feelings, eh? But he has,
though; and during all this young-sealing business we both of us just
drowns our feelings in the rum-bottle. Fact, sir! and old Silas scorns
a lie. But, gentlemen, when all this wicked work is over, when we are
away north from here, among the old seals, and when we can look at that
sun again without seeing blood, then my matie and I banishes Black-Jack
[the gallon measure from which rum is served is so called] and sticks to
coffee and arrowroot; that we do!"
They had turned their backs on the by no means inviting scene, and were
walking towards the _Canny Scotia_ as Silas spoke.
"But," said the Greenland mariner, "come and dine with the old man
to-morrow. The last of the young seals will be on board by then, and
we'll have had a wash down; we'll be clean and tidy like. Then hurrah
for the old seals! That's sport, if you like!--that's fair play."
"Ah!" said McBain, "your heart is in the right place, I can see that. I
wish there were more like you. Do _you_ seal on Sunday? Many do."
Silas looked solemn. "I knows they do," he said, "but Silas hasn't done
so yet, and he prays he never may be tempted to."
"Captain Grig, we'll come and dine with you, and we expect you to pay us
the same compliment another day."
"I daresay you fellows are glad to get home?" said Ralph, rising from
the sofa and throwing down the volume he had been dreaming over.
"Not a bit of it!" said Rory and Allan, both in one breath; and Rory
added, "You don't know what a funny ship a real Greenlandman is! I
declare you've lost a treat!"
"Does it smell badly?" asked Ralph, with a slight curl of his upper
lip.
"Never a taste!" says Rory; "she's as sweet as cowslips or clover, or
newly-made hay; and the bun was beautiful!"
"The what?" said Ralph.
"Don't tell him?" cried Allan; "don't tell him!"
"And the green ginger!" said Rory, smacking his lips. "Ah, yes! the
green ginger," said Allan; "I never tasted anything like that in all my
born days!"
"Hi, you, Freezing Powders!" cried Rory, "take my coat and out-o'-doors
gear. D'ye hear? Look sharp?"
"I'm coming, sah; and coming plenty quick!"
"De-ah me!" from Cockie.
"Now bring my fiddle, you young rascal, into my cabin;" for Rory,
reader, had that young-sealing scene on his brain, and he would not be
happy till he had played it away. And a wild, weird lilt it was, too,
that he did bring forth. Extempore, did you ask? Certainly, for he
played as he thought and felt; all his soul seemed to enter the cremona,
and to well forth again from the beautiful instrument, now in tones of
plaintive sorrow, now in notes of wrath; and then it stopped all at once
abruptly. That was Rory's way; he had pitched fiddle and bow on the
bed, and presently he returned to the saloon.
"Are you better?" inquired Allan. Rory only gave a little laugh, and
sat down to read. It had taken McBain nearly a fortnight to get clear
away from the Isle of Jan Mayen, for the frost had set in sharp and
hard, and the great ice-saws had to be worked, and the aid of dynamite
called in to blast the pieces. They were now some ten miles to the
north and east of the island, but, so far as he knew on the day of his
visit to the _Scotia_, he had bidden it farewell for ever.
It had not been for the mere sake of sport or adventure he had called in
there, he had another reason. Old Magnus, before the sailing--ay, or
even the building--of the _Arrandoon_, had heard that the island was
inhabited by a party of wandering Eskimos. Wherever Eskimos were McBain
had thought there must be dogs, and that was just what was wanting to
complete the expedition--a kennel of sleigh-dogs. But, as we have seen,
the Eskimo encampment was deserted, so McBain had to leave it
disappointed. But, as it turned out, it was only temporarily deserted
after all, and on the very day on which they had arranged to dine with
Skipper Grig, two daring men, chiefs of a tribe of Eskimos, drawn in a
rude sledge, were making their way towards the island. Their team
consisted of over a dozen half-wild dogs, harnessed with ropes of skin
and untanned leather. They seemed to fly across the sea of ice. Hardly
could you see the dogs for the powdery snow that rose in clouds around
them. Well might they hurry, for clouds were banking up in the west, a
low wind came moaning over the dreary plain, and a storm was brewing,
and if it burst upon them ere they reached the still distant island,
then--