CAPTAIN COBB RETIRES--MORE TORPEDOING--THE GREAT ICE-HOLE--STRANGE
SPORT--THE TERRIBLE ZUGAENA--THE DEATH STRUGGLE.
Both Captain McBain and Silas Grig felt more easy in their minds when
they had got fairly rid of the green-rooted monsters of icebergs that
had lain so placidly yet so threateningly alongside their respective
ships. And oh! by the way, how very calm, harmless, and gentle bergs
like these _can_ look, when there is no disturbing element beneath them,
their snow-clad tops asleep and glistening in the sunlight; but I have
seen them angry, grinding and crashing together, each upheaval
representing a height of from fifteen to thirty feet; each upheaval
representing a strength hydraulic equal in force to the might of the
great ocean itself.
Our heroes had taken time by the forelock. They had "guncottoned the
bergs," as Captain Cobb termed it, and lay for the time being in square
ice-locked harbours, and could bid defiance to almost any ordinary
occurrence, whether gale of wind in the pack or swell from the distant
sea.
As the days went by the black frost seemed only to increase in severity.
"How long d'ye think," said Captain Cobb, one morning, while at
breakfast in the _Arrandoon_--"how long d'ye think this state of
affairs'll last? 'cause, mind ye, I begin to feel a kind o' riled
already."
McBain looked inquiringly at Silas.
"If it's asking me you are," said the latter, "I makes answer and says,
it may be for months, but it can't be for ever."
"But the frost isn't likely to go for a week, is it now?"
"That it won't, worse luck," was the reply.
"Well, then, gentlemen," said Cobb, "this child is going off, straight
away out o' here back to Jan Mayen."
"Back to Jan Mayen?"
"Back to Jan Mayen!" everybody said, or seemed to say, in one breath.
"I reckon ye heard aright," said the imperturbable Yankee.
"It's just like this, ye see," he continued. "I'm paid by my employers
to make observations on the old island down yonder; stopping here ain't
taking sights, but it's taking the company's dollars for nothing, so if
you'll--either o' ye--lend me a hand or two, and promise to hoist up
Cobb's cockle-shell in the event of a squeeze, Cobb himself is off home,
'tain't mor'n fifty miles."
The journey was a dangerous one, nobody knew that better than the bold
American himself, and it was a true sense of duty to his employers that
caused him to undertake it. But having once made up his mind to a
thing, Cobb was not the man to be deterred from accomplishing it.
So, with many a good wish for his safety, accompanied by only three men,
he set out on his long journey over the snow. Rory, from the deck of
the _Arrandoon_, and McBain from the nest, watched them as long as they
were in sight. Indeed, I am not at all sure that Rory did not feel a
little sorry he had not asked leave to accompany them, so fond was he of
adventure in every shape and form.
It was a relief for him--and not for him alone--when McBain, in order to
break the monotony of existence, and by way of doing something, proposed
trying the effects of his torpedoes again at some distance from the
ship, and forming a great ice-hole.
"Things will come up to breathe, and look about them, you know," he
explained, "and then we may get some sport, and Silas may bag a seal or
two."
Our heroes were overjoyed when the working party was called away. At
last there was a prospect of doing something, and seeing an animal of
some kind, for not only the bears, but the very birds had deserted them.
Sometimes, indeed, a solitary snowbird would come flying around the
ships. It would hover for awhile in the air, giving vent to many a
peevish, mournful chirp, then fly away again.
"No, no, no!" it seemed to say, "there is nothing good to eat down
there--no raw flesh, no blood--and so I'm off again to the distant
sealing ground, where the yellow bear prowls, and the snow is red with
blood."
A few hours' work with torpedoes, picks, and ice-saws, was enough to
form an opening big enough for the purpose required. The broken pieces
were either "landed high and dry," or sunk beneath the pack, and so the
work was completed.
"It'll entail a deal of trouble, gentlemen," said Dr McFlail, "to keep
that hole clear with the temperature which we are at present enjoying--
or rather enduring."
"There is that in the sea, doctor," said Silas, with a knowing nod,
"which will save us the trouble."
He wasn't wrong. Not an hour elapsed ere a few black heads, with great
wondering eyes, appeared above the surface and peered around them, and
blinked at the sun, and seemed to enjoy mightily a sniff of the fresh
air and a blink of the daylight.
"This is nice, now," they said, "and ever so much better than being down
there in the dark--quite an oasis in the desert."
Bang! bang!
Two of them slowly sank to rise no more.
"This won't do," said Allan; "it is only murder to shoot poor seals that
we cannot land and make some good out off. What is to be done?"
"Be quiet with ye!" said Rory. "Sure yonder is Seth himself, coming
straight from the ship, in his suit of skins, and if he isn't up to some
manoeuvre then my name isn't Roderick, that is all."
Seth _was_ up to something; he had a coil of rope with him, and the
nattiest little harpoon that ever was handled.
"Fire away, gentlemen!" he said, lying down on the sunny side of a small
hummock pretty close to the water's edge, "only don't hit the old
trapper; he'd rather die in his bed if it be all the same to you."
Undeterred by the fate that had befallen their companions, it was not
long before other seals popped up to breathe. Our heroes were ready for
them, and two again were killed, one being missed. Seth was ready for
them, too. He sprang to his feet, and ere the smoke had melted in the
thin air, one of the seals was neatly harpooned and dragged to the edge.
Here it was gaffed, and lifted or pulled bodily on to the ice by help
of Ralph's powerful arm. The harpoon was released, and before the other
seal had time to sink it was served in precisely the same manner.
The sport was exceedingly novel, and combined, as Rory said, "all the
pleasures of shooting and fishing in one glorious whole."
No work on natural history, so far as my reading goes, remarks upon the
exceedingly great speed exhibited by the Greenland seal in his flight--
it is in reality a flight--through and beneath the water. I have often
been astonished at the rapidity of their movements; so swiftly do they
dart along that the eye can barely follow them for the moment or two
they are visible. This power of swimming enables them to pursue their
finny prey for many miles under an ice-pack; it doubtless also enables
them to escape the fangs of their natural enemy, the great Greenland
shark (_Scymnus borealis_), and on the present occasion it accounted for
their appearance at the great breathing-hole made for them by the
torpedoes and ice-saws of the _Arrandoon_. The water under the pack
would be everywhere else as black and dark as midnight, but through this
opening the sunshine would stream in straight and powerful rays, and not
seals alone, but fishes and monsters of the deep of many kinds, would
naturally come towards the light, as the salmon does to the glimmer from
the torch of the Highland poacher.
The sport obtained at the opening was not of a very exciting character
on the first day, but next morn, to their joy, they found that a bear
had been around, and had left the marks of his broad soles in the snow.
Many more seals, too, came up to breathe, and more harpoons had to be
requisitioned. Silas was once more in his glory at the prospect of
adding a few more skins, and a few more tons of oil, to the cargo he had
already shipped.
Towards afternoon the fun grew fast and furious, and when Peter came in
person to announce dinner, he could hardly get his officers to pay any
heed to the summons. Even Cockie down in the saloon heard the noise,
and must needs inquire, as he stretched his neck and fastened one bead
of an eye on his little black master.
"What's all the to-do about? What's all the to-do about?"
"I don't know," was the reply of Freezing Powders. "I don't know no
more nor you do, Cockie. I tinks dey has gone to blow derselves all to
pieces again."
Dinner was partaken of in a merrier mood that day than it had been for
weeks. Silas was there, of course; in fact, he had become an honorary
member of the _Arrandoon_ mess.
"You see, Captain Grig," McBain had observed, "we must have you as much
with as now as we can, for we soon go different roads, don't we?"
"Ah! yes," replied Silas, with a bit of a sigh; "you go north; God send
you safe back; and I go back to my little wife and large family."
"Happy reunion, won't it be?" said Allan.
The eyes of Silas sparkled, but his heart was too full of happy thoughts
to say more than simply,--
"Yes."
"Won't the green ginger fly?" said Rory.
"I say, boys," Ralph put in, "this sort of thing positively gives a man
a kind of an appetite."
Rory looked at him with such a mischievous twinkle in his eyes that
Ralph longed to pinch him.
"Just as if ever you lost yours," said Rory.
At this moment the sound of a rifle was heard, apparently close to the
ship.
"It's the trapper," cried Rory; "it's friend Seth. Sure enough I know
the charming music of his long gun. Now, Ray, I'll wager my fiddle he
has bagged a bear."
Rory was right for once, and here is how it fell out. Several bears had
that day scented the battle from afar, or were attracted by the noise of
the malleys and gulls that were now wheeling around the ships in
thousands. They stood aloof while shooting was going on, sitting on
their haunches licking their chops, greedy, hungry, expectant; but as
soon as the sportsmen went off to dine,--
"Now is our time," said one, "to get a bit of fresh meat."
"Come on, then," cried another; "there are a hundred seals lying on the
ice. Hurrah?"
So down they came to the feast. They had not had such a treat for a
whole day, and that is a long time for a bear to fast, and they made
good use of their time, you may be sure, and so earnest were they, that
they did not perceive a long, hairy creature that came creeping
stealthily towards them. When at last one of them did observe this
strange animal "with the tail of his eye," he said to himself,--
"Oh! it is only a tiny bit of a young seal, hunting for a lost mother,
perhaps. Well, I'll have it presently by way of dessert."
And almost immediately after, the sound that had startled our friends at
_their_ dessert rang out in the clear, frosty air, and Bruin's head
dropped never more to rise. His brother bears suddenly discovered they
had eaten enough; anyhow, they remembered that it was always best to
rise up from the table feeling that you could eat a little more, so they
shambled away across the pack as fast as four legs could carry them.
"Bravo, Seth, old boy," cried Rory and Allan, coming on the scene.
Ralph only waited to finish some pastry, then he too joined them.
"Why," said the latter, "it is the biggest bear we have seen yet."
In true trapper fashion, Seth was already on his knees beside the
enormous carcass, engaged with knife and fist and elbow, "working the
rascal out of his jacket," as he called it, when Rory, who was not far
from the edge of the water, started, or rather sprang back in horror.
"Oh! Allan, Allan! Ray, Ray! look!" he cried.
Well might he cry "look," for a more terrible or revolting apparition
never raises head over the black waters of the Greenland ocean than the
zugaena, or hammer-headed shark. The skull is in shape precisely what
the name indicates, that of a gigantic hammer, with a great eye at each
end, and the mouth beneath. This shark is not unfrequently met with in
the northern seas, and he is just as fierce as he is fearful to behold.
Allan and Ralph both saw the brute, and neither could repress a shudder.
It appeared but for a few moments, then dived below again.
Silas and McBain, coming up at the time, were told of the occurrence.
"I know the vile beasts well," said Silas, "and they do say that they
never appear in these seas without bringing a big slice o' ill-luck in
their wake. That is unless you catches them, and sometimes that doesn't
save the ship. When I was skipper o' the _Penelope_, and that is more
than ten years ago, there wasn't a lazier chap in the crew than snuffy
Sandy Foster. He wasn't a deal o' use down below, he did nothing on
deck, and he never went aloft. He had two favourite positions: one was
sitting before a joint of junk, with a knife in his hand; t'other was
leaning against the bulwarks with a pipe in his mouth, and we never
could make out which he liked best.
"`Did ever you do anything clever in your life, Sandy?' I asked one
day.
"Sandy took his pipe out of his mouth and eyed the mainmast for fully
half a minute. Then he brought his eyes round to my face, and said,--
"`Not that I can remember o', sir.'
"`The first time, Sandy,' says I, `that you do anything clever, I'll
give you a pair of the best canvas trousers in the ship.'
"Sandy's eyes a kind of sparkled; I'd never seen them sparkle before.
"`I'll win them,' said Sandy, `wait till ye see.'
"And, indeed, gentlemen, I hadn't long to wait. One day the brig was
dead before the wind under a crowd o' cloth, for there wasn't much wind,
but a nasty rumble-tumble sea; there was no doubt, gentlemen, from the
looks o' that sea, that we had just come through a gale o' wind, and
there was evidence enough to go to jury on that there was another not
far away. Well, it was just in the dusk o' the evening--we were pretty
far south--that the cry got up,--
"`Man overboard.'
"It was our bo's'n's boy, a lad of fourteen, who had gone by the run.
Singing out to the mate to lay to, I ran forward, and if ever I forget
the expression of the poor bo's'n's face as he wrung his hands and
cried, `Oh, save my laddie! Oh, save my laddie!' my name will change to
something else than Silas.
"`I'll save him,' cried a voice behind me. Some one rushed past. There
was a splash in the water next moment, and I had barely time to see it
was Sandy. Before the boat reached the spot they were a quarter of a
mile astern, but they were saved; they found the bo's'n's laddie riding
`cockerty-coosie' on Sandy's shoulder, and Sandy spitting out the
mouthfuls of salt water, laughing and crying,--
"`I've won the breeks! I've won the canvas breeks, boys!'
"He had won them, and that right nobly, too. Well, after he had worn
them for over a month, it became painfully evident even to Sandy that
they sorely needed washing; but, woe is me! Sandy was too lazy to put a
hand to them. But he thought of a plan, nevertheless, to save trouble.
He steeped them in a soda ley, attached a strong line to them, and
pitched them overboard to tow.
"When, after two hours' towing, Sandy went to haul them up, great was
his astonishment to find a great hammer-head spring half out of the
water and seize them. Sandy had never seen so awful a monster before;
he put it down as an evil spirit.
"`Let go,' he roared; `let go my breeks, ye beast.'
"Now, maybe, with those hooked teeth of his, the shark could not let go;
anyhow, he did not.
"`I dinna ken who ye are, or what ye are,' cried Sandy, `but ye'll no
get my breeks. Ah! bide a wee.'
"Luckily the dolphin-striker lay handy, Sandy made a grab at it, and
next minute it was hard and fast in the hammer-head's neck. To see how
that monster wriggled and fought, more like a fiend than a fish, when we
got him on deck, would have--but look--look--r--"
Seth had not been idle while his companions were talking. He had cut
off choice pieces of blubber and thrown them into the sea; he had coiled
his rope on the ice close by; then, harpoon in hand, he knelt ready to
strike. Nor had he long to wait. The bait took, the bait was taken,
the harpoon had left the trapper's hand and gone deep into the monster's
body.
I will not attempt to describe the scene that followed--it was a
death-scene that no pen could do justice to--the wild struggle of the
giant shark in the water, his mad and frantic motions ere clubbed to
death on the ice, and his terrible appearance as he snapped his dreadful
jaws at everything within reach; but here is a fact, strange and weird
though it may read--fully half an hour after the creature seemed dead,
and lying on its side, while our heroes stood silently round it, with
the wild birds wheeling and screaming closely overhead, the zugaena
suddenly threw itself on its stomach as if about to swim away. It was
the last of its movements, and a mere spasmodic and painless one, though
very distressing to witness.