A NEW ARRIVAL--THE DOGS--TRAPPER SETH BECOMES KENNEL-MAN--PREPARATIONS
FOR A GREAT SEAL HUNT--THE GREENLAND BEAR.
On the very day that McBain shot the great she-bear--for it was one of
the largest that ever fell before a sportsman's gun--on that day, and on
the afternoon of that day, just as our heroes were about to leave the
island and re-embark on the _Arrandoon_, there landed from off that
saucy "little two-stick yacht" one of the tallest Yankees that ever
stepped in boots.
Seth squeezed the hand of this countryman of his till tears sprang into
the stranger's eyes; and they were not tears of emotion, nor sentiment
either, but of downright pain.
"I say, siree?" cried the newcomer, shaking his hand and looking at the
tips of his fingers, "patriotism and brotherly love are both beautiful
things in their way, but when it comes to squeezing the blood out from
under a fellow's finger-nails, then I say, bother brotherly love."
"I'm proud to meet you, sir," exclaimed Seth, "let us shake hands once
more."
"Never a shake, old man," said the stranger; "let us admire each other
at a respectable distance. But come, gentlemen all," he continued,
turning to the others, "you ain't going on board just yet. Come up with
me to my house. I daresay you've been there already; but come back and
break bread with Nathaniel Cobb, sometimes called the Little Wonder,
because I ain't much more'n seven feet high."
Nat Cobb's boat's crew were Norwegians every one of them, short,
somewhat squat, fair-haired fellows, but as active and bustling as a
corresponding number of well-bred fox-terriers. A couple of them were
moving on ahead now, with an immense basket between them.
"That's the dinner," said the Little Wonder; "and you'll find there's
enough for all hands, too."
"Well, gentlemen," Nat said, when everybody had done justice to the good
things placed before them, "let us drink each other's healths in a cup
of fragrant mocha, for that's the wine for Greenland weather.
Gentlemen, I look around me at your smiling faces, and I pledge you and
bid you welcome to my island of Jan Mayen."
"Hallo!" thought Rory, "_your_ island."
"Yes, gentlemen," continued Nat, looking as if he really read Rory's
thoughts, "_my_ island. Six months and more ago I annexed it, and
to-morrow once again the stars and stripes will proudly flutter from
yonder flagstaff, and the bird o' freedom will soar over this wild
mountain land."
Apart from his queer, half-boastful speech, Nat Cobb was a very
agreeable companion.
He was very frank at all events.
After looking at Rory for the space of half a minute, he suddenly
stretched out his hand.
"I like you," he said, "muchly, and I like you all. It is from men like
you that the mightiest republic in the world has been built. But why
don't you speak more, Rory, as your messmates call you?"
"Ach! troth?" said Rory, "and sure I'm driving _tandem_ with the
thinking."
"And you're wondering," said Nat, "where a piece of elongated mortality
like myself stretches himself of a night on board the _Highflier_?"
"Seeing," replied Rory, laughing, "that you're about as long as the
keel, and maybe a bit longer, I may well wonder that same; and unless
you lean against a mast, I don't quite see how you can stretch
yourself."
"Well, young sir, I'll tell you how I do it. I double up into four, and
lie on my back! that is how it's done."
The Little Wonder went off with our party to the _Arrandoon_; and as
Yankees are ever ready to trade, he had not been long on board when
McBain had purchased from him a dozen of his best dogs. They were to be
kept until the ship returned from a week's sport among the old seals,
then taken on board just before the _Arrandoon_ left for the extreme
north. Old Seth was duly told off to superintend the erection of
kennels, forward near the bows, and old Seth was in his glory in
consequence.
"I'll feel myself o' some kind o' use now," he said. "Kennel-man in
ordinary to the _Arrandoon_, a free house and victuals found, I guess it
ain't half a bad sitivation."
About a week after this--the Greenland sealer having been made as good
as new again--the Jan Mayen fleet sailed away from the island, and
directed its course about north-and-by-east. First on the line went the
noble _Arrandoon_ sailing, not steaming, for a nice beam wind was
blowing; next came the _Canny Scotia_ with her tall, tapering spars; and
the saucy _Highflier_, with her fore-and-aft canvas, brought up the
rear.
Nathaniel Cobb was Arctic meteorologist to a private company of American
scientists, but his time was pretty much his own, and he didn't mind
spending a week or a fortnight of it among the old seals. He wanted a
skin or two anyhow, he said, to make a warm carpet for his "house," and
some oil to burn for fuel, but promised that everything beyond what he
really wanted which happened to fall to his gun should be given to
Silas.
Silas Grig was never happier in his life than he was now. Luck had
indeed turned, fortune was about to favour him for once in a way. His
would be a bumper ship, full to the hatches, with a bing of skins on
deck that he wouldn't be able to find room for below. And when he
returned to Peterhead, flags would fly and bands would play, and his
little wife and he would live happy ever after.
McBain wanted to show his young companions a little genuine sport, and
at the same time do a good turn to honest Silas, by helping him to a
voyage; while the former, on the other hand, were all excitement and
bustle, for the _Arrandoon_ was about to be transformed into a sealer;
and the idea being such a perfectly new one, was correspondingly
appreciated.
The little fleet kept well together; it would not have suited them to
part company, although, even on a wind, without the aid of her boilers,
the _Arrandoon_ could easily have shown her consorts a pair of clean
heels. The doctor himself was led away with enthusiasm, and longed to
draw a bead, as Seth called it, on a bear itself. He had chosen a rifle
from the box, cleaned and polished it, and called it his own.
"I've never shot a wild beast," he explained to Rory, "but, man, if I
get the chance, I'll have a try."
"Bravo!" cried Rory, "and you're sure to get the chance, you know."
The ice was loose, although the weather was clear and very frosty.
There was a heaving motion in the main pack that prevented the bergs
from getting frozen together, but for all that the fleet kept well clear
of it, for fear of getting beset. Patches of old seals might, it is
true, have been found far in among the ice, but the risk was too great
to run, so McBain kept to the outside edge, and the others followed his
example.
Silas Grig was invited on board the _Arrandoon_; and proud he was when
the captain told him that he could choose five-and-twenty of his best
men, and superintend their preparations for going after the seals. The
third mate might be one of the number, but neither Stevenson nor
Mitchell was to be allowed to go, although McBain did not object to
these officers, or even the engineers, having a day's sport now and
then.
It was a glorious morning--for Greenland--when Captain McBain called all
hands, in order that Silas might choose the men who were to assist him
in making his fortune. The sun was shining as brightly as ever it does
in England, and there wasn't too much wind to blow the cold through and
through one. Either of the officers might have passed for old men, if
white hairs make men look old, for their hair, whiskers, and moustachios
were coated with hoar-frost ice. Our heroes had just finished
breakfast, all of them having had a cold sea-bath to give them a glow
before they sat down, and were now walking briskly up and down the
quarter-deck, talking merrily and laughing.
The _Scotia_ had her foreyard aback, and the _Arrandoon_ had also
stopped her way, and yonder was Silas in his boat coming rapidly over
the rippling water towards the steamer, the skipper himself standing
like a gondolier and steering with an oar in true whaler fashion.
"Now, lads," cried Silas, when the men of the _Arrandoon_ lay aft in
obedience to orders. "You're a fine lot, I must say; every man Jack o'
ye is better than the other; but I just want the men that have been to
the country before. The men among ye that know a seal-club from a
toastin'-fork, or a lowrie-tow from a bell-rope, just elevate a hand,
will ye?"
[Lowrie-tow--the rope with which the men drag the skins to the ship's
side.]
No less than fifteen gloved hands were waved aloft. Silas was
delighted, and did not take long to choose the remaining ten.
"You'll go on the ice by twos, you know, men," he continued, "and when
one o' ye tumbles into the water, why, the other'll simply pull him out.
Nothing easier."
All these hands were to be clubsmen and draggers, while "the guns," as
they were called, comprised the following: Ralph, Rory, Allan, Sandy the
surgeon, De Vere the aeronaut, Seth trapper, and the third mate, seven
in all, and warranted to give a good account of the seals, and keep the
men steadily on drag if the sport was anything like good.
Having made these preliminary arrangements, the men were dismissed, and
Silas spent the rest of the day forward with old Ap the carpenter and
the sail-maker. And very busy the whole four of them were, too, for
three dozen daggers or seal-knives had to be fitted with sheaths of
leather, and belts to go round the men's waists, and three dozen
lowrie-tows, with the same number of seal-clubs, had to be got ready.
I saw the other day an engraving of a sealing scene in Greenland,
evidently done by an artist who had never been in the Arctic regions in
his life, and who had therefore trusted to his imagination, which had
led him far from the truth. In this picture there is a ship under
canvas: error Number 1, for sealers always clue or brail up before the
men go over the side. The ice is tall and pinnacled: error Number 2,
for the ice the old seals lie on is either flat or hummocky. The men on
the ice are leaping madly from berg to berg and clubbing _old_ seals:
error Number 3, for unless old seals get positively frozen out of the
water by the pieces becoming fast together, they will not wait to be
clubbed. You may catch a weasel asleep, but never an old seal. Lastly,
in this picture, the men are wielding clubs that have evidently been
borrowed from some gymnasium: this constitutes error Number 4, for
seal-clubs are nothing like these. They are more like an ancient
battle-axe; the shaft is about four or five feet long and made of
strong, tough wood, while through the top of this terrible weapon is run
the part that does the execution--a square piece of iron or steel--
sharpened at one end, hammer-like at the other, and nearly a foot long.
With this instrument a strong man has been known to lay a Greenland bear
dead with one blow. No one of course would dare to attack a bear armed
with a club alone, but instances have occurred where the bear has been
the aggressor, and where the man had to defend himself as best he could.
One word parenthetically about the great Polar or ice bear. Until I had
first seen the carcass of one lying flensed on the ice, I could not have
believed that any wild beast could attain such gigantic proportions.
The footprints of this monster were as large as an ordinary pair of
kitchen bellows. The pastern, or ankle, seemed as wide as the paw, and
as near as I could guess about thirty inches round; the forearms and
hind-legs were of tremendous strength; so too were the shoulders and
loin. An animal like this with one stroke can slay the largest seal in
Greenland, and could serve the biggest lion that ever roared in an
African jungle precisely the same. As to the voice, it is hardly so
fearful as the lion's, but heard, as I heard it one night on the pack,
within two yards of me, it is sufficiently appalling, to say the least
of it. It is a sort of half-cough, half roar. As trapper Seth
described it after his adventure at the cave in Jan Mayen, when little
Freezing Powders so nearly lost the number of his mess:
"The roar of a healthy Greenland bear, when the owner of it is so close
ye could kick him, is a kind o' confusin'; it shakes your innards
considerable, and makes ye think the critter has swallowed the thick end
of a thunderstorm and is tryin' to work it up again."
An elephant--a tusker--is no joke when he loses his temper and comes
after you, nor is a lion or tiger when he thinks he can do you a
mischief, but I would rather face either of them twice over than I would
an ice bear with his back up, if I myself were unarmed. I was very
young, by the way, when I found myself confronted with my first
Greenland bear, but I well remember both what my thoughts were at the
time, and what were my feelings. The truth is, I had made the captain
promise he would give me a chance to go and fight one of these terrible
giants of the ice. He did so in good time, and I confess that as the
boat neared the pack--I being in the bows--I suddenly discovered that I
was not half so brave as I had previously imagined. The bear did not
run away, as I fear I had almost wished that he would. He simply
waited, looking at us somewhat inquiringly; and when I landed, all
alone, mind you, he came along to meet me, and inquire what I wanted,
and I hated him while I envied him for his coolness. He seemed to say,
"Why, you're only a boy; just wait till I get alongside you, and I'll
show you how I treat boys. I'll turn you inside out." I had to wait.
Wild horses couldn't have tom me from the spot, where I had dropped on
one knee. Oh! I can assure you, I would have liked, well enough, to
run away, but with all the ship's crew looking at me--? No; death
rather than live a coward. On came Bruin, much to my disgust; I would
have felt as brave as a lion had he only shown me his heels. Then these
questions chased each other through my brain: "How near will I let the
beggar come before I fire? Shall I hit him on the head, or shoot him in
the chest? and, What shall I do if the rifle misses fire?"
Bruin still advanced at a shambling trot. Then I brought my rifle to
the shoulder and took aim, glancing along the glimmering barrel till I
could only see the _vise_ at the end, and immediately beyond that
Bruin's yellow breast. Bang, bang! I dare say it really was myself who
pulled those two triggers of my double-barrelled rifle, but at the time
I felt as if I had nothing at all to do with it. Then there was a shout
from the boat, and a shout from the ship. Bruin was dead, and I was the
hero; but somehow I did not feel that I deserved the praise which I
received. Yet, after all, I daresay I only felt in this encounter as
most boys would have felt. Doing anything dangerous is always nasty at
first, but when one gains confidence in himself, then is the time one
knows--
"That strange joy that warriors feel
In foemen worthy of their steel."