AN ADVENTURE ON THE PACK--SEPARATED FROM THE SHIP--DESPAIR--THE DREAM OF
HOME--UNDER WAY ONCE MORE.
Nothing in the shape of adventure came amiss to Rory. He was always
ready for any kind of "fun," as he called every kind of excitement.
Such a thing as fear I do not believe Rory ever felt, and, as for
failing in anything he undertook, he never even dreamt of such a thing.
He had often proposed escapades and wild adventures to his companions at
which they hung fire. Rory's line of argument was very simple and
unsophisticated. It may be summed up in three sentences--first, "Sure
we've only to try and we're bound to do it." If that did not convince
Allan or Ralph, he brought up his first-class reserve, "Let us try,
_anyhow_;" and if that failed, his second reserve, "It's _bound_ to come
right in the end." Had Rory been seized by a lion or tiger, and borne
away to the bush, those very words would have risen to his lips to bring
him solace, "It's bound to come right in the end."
The few days' delay that succeeded the accident to the _Arrandoon_,
while she had to be listed over, and things were made as uncomfortable
as they always are when a ship is lying on an uneven keel, threw Rory
back upon his books for enjoyment. That and writing verses, and, fiddle
in hand composing music to his own words, enabled him to pass the day
with some degree of comfort; but when Mr Stevenson one morning, on
giving his usual report at breakfast-time, happened to say,--
"Ice rather more open to-day, sir; a slight breeze from the west, and
about a foot of rise and fall among the bergs; two or three bears about
a mile to leeward, and a few seals," then Rory jumped up.
"Will you go, Allan," he cried, "and bag a bear? Ralph hasn't done
breakfast."
"Bide a wee, young gentleman," said McBain, smiling. "I really imagined
I was master of the ship."
"I beg your pardon, Captain McBain," said Rory, at once; and with all
becoming gravity he saluted, and continued, "Please, sir, may I go on
shore?"
"Certainly not," was the reply; and the captain added, "No, boy, no. We
value even Rory, for all the trouble he gives us, more than many bears."
Rory got hold of his fiddle, and his feelings found vent in music. But
no sooner had McBain retired to his cabin than Rory threw down his much
beloved instrument and jumped up.
"Bide a wee; I'll manage," he cried.
"Doctor," he added, disarranging all the medico's hair with his hand--
Sandy's legs were under the mahogany, so he could not speedily
retaliate--"Sandy, mon, I'll manage. It'll be a vera judeecious
arrangement."
Then he was off, and presently back, all smiles and rejoicing:
"Come on, Allan, dear boy," he cried. "We're going, both of us, and
Seth and one man, and we're going to carry a plank to help us across the
ice. Finish your breakfast, baby Ralph. I wouldn't disturb myself for
the world if I were you."
"I don't mean to," said Ralph, helping himself to more toast and
marmalade.
"What are you grinning at now?" asked Rory of the surgeon.
"To think," said Sandy, laughing outright, "that our poor little boy
Rory couldn't be trusted on the ice without Seth and a plank. Ha, ha,
ha! my conscience!"
"Doctor," said Rory.
"Well?" said the doctor.
"Whustle," cried Rory, making a face.
"I'll whustle ye," said Sandy, springing up. But Rory was off.
On the wiry shoulders of Seth the plank was borne as easily as if it had
been only an oar; the man carried the rope and sealing clubs. The plank
did them good service, for whenever the space between two bergs was too
wide for a safe leap it was laid down, and over they went. They thus
made good progress.
There was a little motion among the ice, but nothing to signify. The
pieces approached each other gradually until within a certain distance.
Then was the time to leap, and at once, too, without fear and
hesitation. If you did hesitate, and made up your mind to leap a moment
after, you might fail to reach the next berg, and this meant a ducking
at the very least. But a ducking of this kind is no joke, as the writer
of these lines knows from experience. You strip off your clothes to
wring out the superabundance of water, and by the time you put them on
again, your upper garments, at all events, are frozen harder than
parchment. You have to construe the verb _salto_ [_Salto_--I leap, or
jump] from beginning to end before you feel on good terms with yourself
again. But falling into the sea between two bergs may not end with a
mere ducking. A man may be sucked by the current under the ice, or he
may instantly fall a prey to that great greedy monster, the Greenland
shark. Well the brute loves to devour a half-dead seal, but a man is
caviare to his maw. Again, if you are not speedily rescued, the bergs
may come slowly together and grind you to pulp. But our heroes escaped
scot-free. So did the bears which they had come to shoot.
"It is provoking!" said Rory. "Let us follow them a mile or so, at all
events."
They did, and came in sight of one--an immensely great brute of a
Bruin--who, after stopping about a minute to study them, set off again
shambling over the bergs. Then he paused, and then started off once
more; and this he did many times, but he never permitted them to get
within shot.
All this time the signal of recall was floating at the masthead of the
_Arrandoon_, but they never saw it. They began to notice at last,
though, that the bergs were wider apart, so they wisely determined to
give up the chase and return.
Return? Yes, it is only a little word--hardly a simpler one to be found
in the whole English vocabulary, whether to speak or to spell; and yet
it is a word that has baffled thousands. It is a word that we should
never forget when entering upon any undertaking in which there is danger
to either ourselves or others. It is a word great generals keep well in
view; probably it was just that word "return" which prevented the great
Napoleon from landing half a million of men on our shores with the view
of conquering the country. The man of ambition was afraid he might find
a difficulty in getting his Frenchmen back, and that Englishmen would
not be over kind to them.
Rory and his party could see the flag of recall now, and they could see
also the broad black fan being waved from the crow's-nest to expedite
their movements. So they made all the haste in their power. There was
no leaping now, the plank had to be laid across the chasms constantly.
But at last they succeeded in getting just half-way to the ship, when,
to their horror, they discovered that all further advance was a sheer
impossibility! A lane of open water effectually barred their progress.
It was already a hundred yards wide at least, and it was broadening
every minute. South and by west, as far as eye could reach, stretched
this canal, and north-west as well. They were drifting away on a loose
portion of the pack, leaving their ship behind them.
Their feelings were certainly not to be envied. They knew the whole
extent of their danger, and dared not depreciate it. It was coming on
to blow; already the face of that black lane of water was covered with
angry little ripples. If the wind increased to a gale, the chances of
regaining their vessel were small indeed; more likely they would be
blown out to sea, as men have often been under similar circumstances,
and so perish miserably on the berg on which they stood. To be sure,
they were to leeward, and the _Arrandoon_ was a steamer; there was some
consolation in that, but it was damped, on the other hand, by the
recollection that, though a steamer, she was a partially disabled one.
It would take hours before she could readjust her ballast and
temporarily make good her leak, and hours longer ere she could force and
forge her way to the lane of water, through the mile of heavy bergs that
intervened. Meanwhile, what might not happen?
Both Rory and Allan were by this time good ice-men, and had there been
but a piece of ice big enough to bear their weight, and nothing more,
they could have embarked thereon and ferried themselves across, using as
paddles the butt-ends of their rifles. But there was nothing of the
sort; the bay ice had all been ground up; there was nothing save the
great green-sided, snow-topped bergs. And so they could only wait and
hope for the best.
"It'll all come right in the end," said Rory.
He said this many times; but as the weary hours went by, and the lane
widened and widened, till, from being a lane, it looked a Jake, the
little sentence that had always brought him comfort before seemed trite
to even Rory himself.
The increasing motion of the berg on which they stood did not serve to
reassure them, and the cold they had, from their forced inactivity, to
endure, would have damped the boldest spirits. For a time they managed
to keep warm by walking or running about the berg, but afterwards
movement itself became painful, so that they had but little heart to
take exercise.
The whole hull of the _Arrandoon_ was hidden from their view behind the
hummocky ice, and thus they could not tell what was going on on deck,
but they could see no smoke arising from the funnel, and this but served
further to dishearten them.
Even gazing at those lanes of water that so often open up in the very
midst of a field of ice, is apt to stir up strange thoughts in one's
mind, especially if one be, like Rory, of a somewhat poetical and
romantic disposition. The very blackness of the water impresses you;
its depth causes a feeling akin to awe; you know, as if by instinct,
that it is deep--terribly, eeriesomely deep. It lies smiling in the
sunshine as to surface, but all is the blackness of darkness below. Up
here it is all day; down there, all night. The surface of the water
seems to divide two worlds--a seen and an unseen, a known and an unknown
and mysterious--life and death!
Tired at last of roaming like caged bears up and down the berg, one by
one they seated themselves on the sunny side of a small hummock. They
huddled together for warmth, but they did not care to talk much. Their
very souls seemed heavy, their bodies seemed numbed and frozen, but
their heads were hot, and they felt very drowsy, yet bit their lips and
tongues lest they might fall into that strange slumber from which it is
said men wake no more.
They talked not at all. The last words were spoken by Seth. Rory
remembered them.
"I'm old," he was muttering; "my time's a kind o' up; but it do seem
hard on these younkers. Guess I'd give the best puma's skin ever I
killed, just to see Rory safe. Guess I'd--"
Rory's eyes were closed, he heard no more. He was dreaming. Dreaming
of what? you ask me. I answer, in the words of Lover,--
"Ask of the sailor youth, when far
His light barque bounds o'er ocean's foam
What charms him most when evening star
Smiles o'er the wave? To dream of home."
Yes, Rory was dreaming of home. All the home he knew, poor lad! He was
in the Castle of _Arrandoon_. Seeing, but all unseen, he stood in the
cosy tartan parlour where he had spent so many happy hours. A bright
fire was burning in the grate, the curtains were drawn, in her
easy-chair sat Allan's mother with her work on her lap, the great
deerhound lay on the hearthrug asleep, and Helen Edith was bending over
her harp. How boy Rory longed to rush forward and take her by the hand!
But even in his partial sleep he knew this was but a dream, and he
feared to move lest he might break the sweet spell. But languor, pain,
and cold, all were forgotten while the vision lasted.
But list! a horn seems to sound beyond the castle moat. Rory, in his
dream, wonders that Helen hears it not; then the boy starts to his feet
on the snow. The vision has fled, and the sound of the horn resolves
itself into the shout,--
"Ahoy--oy--hoy! Ahoy! hoy!"
Every one is on his feet at the same time, though both Allan and Rory
stagger and fall again. But, behold! a boat comes dancing down the lane
of water towards them, and a minute after they are all safe on board.
The labour of getting that boat over the ice had been tremendous. It
had been a labour of love, however, and the men had worked cheerily and
boldly, and never flinched a moment, until it was safely launched in the
open water and our heroes were in it.
The _Arrandoon_, the men told them, had got up steam, and in a couple of
hours at most she would reach the water. Meanwhile they, by the
captain's orders, were to land on the other side, and make themselves as
comfortable as possible until her arrival.
Rory and Allan were quite themselves again now, and so, too, was honest
Seth,--
"Though, blame me," said he, "if I didn't think this old trapper's time
had come. Not that that'd matter a sight, but I did feel for you
youngsters, blame me if I didn't;" and he dashed his coat-sleeve rapidly
across his face as he spoke.
And now a fire was built and coffee made, and Stevenson then opened the
Norwegian chest--a wonderful contrivance, in which a dinner may be kept
hot for four-and-twenty hours, and even partially cooked. Up arose the
savoury steam of a glorious Irish stew.
"How mindful of the captain?" said Allan.
"It was Ralph that sent the dinner," said Stevenson, "and he sent with
it his compliments to Rory."
"Bless his old heart," cried Rory. "I don't think I'll ever chaff him
again about the gourmandising propensities of the Saxon race."
"And the doctor," continued the mate, "sent you some blankets, Mr Rory.
There they are, sir; and he told me to give you this note, if I found
you alive."