LAND HO! THE ISLE OF DESOLATION--THE LAST BLINK OF SUNSHINE--THE AURORA
BOREALIS--STRANGE ADVENTURE WITH A BEAR.
"Well, Magnus," said Captain McBain one day to his old friend, "what
think you of our prospects of gaining the North Pole, or your mysterious
island of Alba?"
Magnus was seated at the table in the captain's own room, with an old
yellow, much-worn chart spread out before him, the only other person in
the cabin, save these two, being Rory, who, with his chin resting on his
hands and his elbows on the table, was listening with great interest to
the conversation.
"Think of it?" replied the weird wee man, looking up and glaring at
McBain through his fierce grey eyebrows. "Think of it, sir? Why we are
nearly as far north now as _we_ were in 1843. We'll reach the Isle of
Alba, sir, if--"
"If what, good Magnus?" asked McBain, as the old man paused. "If what?"
"If that be all you want," answered Magnus.
"Nay, nay, my faithful friend," cried the captain, "that isn't all. We
want to reach the Pole, to plant the British flag thereon, and return
safely to our native shores again."
"So you will, so you will," said Magnus, "if--"
"What, another `if,' Magnus?" said McBain. "What does this new `if'
refer to?"
"If," continued Magnus, "Providence gives us just such another autumn as
that we have had this year. If not--"
"Well, Magnus, well?"
"We will leave our bones to lie among the eternal snows until the last
trump shall sound."
After a pause, during which McBain seemed in deep and earnest thought.
"Magnus," he said, "my brave boys and I have determined to push on as
far as ever we can. We have counted all the chances, we mean to do our
utmost, and we leave the rest to Providence."
Allan had entered while he was speaking, and he said, as the captain
finished,--
"Whatever a man dares he can do."
"Brave words, my foster-son," replied McBain, grasping Allan's hand,
"and the spirit of these words gained for the English nation the victory
in a thousand fights."
"Besides, you know," added Rory, looking unusually serious, "it is sure
to come right in the end."
The _Arrandoon_, wonderful to relate, had now gained the extreme
altitude of 86 degrees north latitude, and although winter was rapidly
approaching, the sea was still a comparatively open one. Nor was the
cold very intense; the frosts that had fled away during the short Arctic
summer had not yet returned. The sea between the bergs and floes was
everywhere calm; they had passed beyond the region of fogs, and, it
would almost seem, beyond the storm regions as well, for the air was
windless.
So on they steamed steadily though slowly, never relaxing their
vigilance; so careful, indeed, in this respect was McBain, that the man
in the chains as well as the "nest hand" were changed every hour, and
only old and tried sailors were permitted to go on duty on these posts.
"Land ahead!" was the shout one day from the nest. The day, be it
remembered, was now barely an hour long.
"Land ahead on the port bow!"
"What does it look like, Mr Stevenson?" cried the captain.
The mate had run up at the first hail.
"I can just see the tops of a few hills, sir," was the reply, "towering
high over the icebergs."
The _Arrandoon_ bore away for this strange land. In three hours' time
they were lying off one of the dreariest and most desolate-looking
islands it has ever been the lot of mariners to behold. It looked like
an island of some worn-out planet, whose internal fires have gone for
ever out, from which life has long since fled, which possesses no future
save the everlasting night of silence and death.
Some slight repairs were required in the engine-room, so the _Arrandoon_
lay here for a week.
"To think," said McBain, as he stood on the bridge one day with our
heroes, "that in the far-distant past that lonely isle of gloom was once
clad in all the bright colour of tropical vegetation, with wild beasts
roaming in its jungles and forests, and wild birds filling its groves
with music,--an island of sunshine, flowers, and beauty! And now behold
it."
An expedition was got up to explore the isle, and to climb its highest
peak to make observations.
McBain himself accompanied it, so did Allan, Rory, and Seth. It was no
easy task, climbing that snowy cone by the light of stars and Aurora.
But they gained the summit ere the short, short day broke.
To the north and west they saw land and mountains, stretching away and
away as far as eye could follow them. To the east and north water
studded with ugly icebergs that looked as if they had broken away from
the shores of the western land.
"But what is that in the middle of yonder ice-floe to the south and
west?" cried Rory.
"As I live," exclaimed McBain, as he eyed the object through the glass,
"it is a ship of some kind, evidently deserted; and it is quite as
evident that we are not the only explorers that have reached as far
north as this island."
The mystery was explained next day, and a sad story brought to light.
McBain and party landed on the floe and walked towards the derelict.
She was sloop-rigged, with sails all clewed, and her hull half hidden in
snow. After a deal of difficulty they succeeded in opening one of the
companion hatches, and making their way down below.
No less than five unburied corpses lay huddled together in the little
cabin. From their surroundings it was plain they had been
walrus-hunters, and it was not difficult to perceive that the poor
fellows had died from cold and hunger _many, many years before_.
Frozen in, too far up in this northern sea, they had been unable to
regain the open water, and so had miserably perished.
Next day they returned and laid the mortal remains of these unfortunate
men in graves in the snow, and even Rory was much more silent and
thoughtful than usual as they returned to the ship.
Was it not possible that they might meet with a similar fate? The poor
fellows they had just buried had doubtless possessed many home ties;
their wives and mothers had waited and wished a weary time, till at long
last the heart had grown sick with hope deferred, and maybe the grave
had long since closed over them.
Such were some of Rory's thoughts, but after dinner McBain "brought him
up with a round turn," as he phrased it.
"Rory," he cried, "go and play to us. Freezing Powders, you young
rascal, bring that cockatoo of yours up on the table and make us laugh."
Rory brightened up and got hold of his fiddle; and "All right, sah,"
cried Freezing Powders. "I bring de old cockatoo plenty quick. Come
along, Cockie, you catchee my arm and pull yourse'f up. Dat's it."
"Come on," cried Cockie, hopping on the table and at once commencing to
waltz and polka round. "Come on; play up, play up."
A queer bird was Cockie. He cared for nobody except his master and
Rory. Rory he loved solely on account of the fiddle, but his affection
for Freezing Powders was very genuine. When his master was glad, so was
Cockie; when the little nigger boy felt tired, and threw himself down
beside the cage to rest, then Cockie would open his cage door and back
tail foremost under the boy's arm, heaving as he did so a deep,
delighted sigh, as much as to say, "Oh, what joy it is to nestle in
here?"
Cockie was not a pretty bird; his bill was worn and all twisted awry,
and his eyes looked terribly old-fashioned, and the blue, wrinkled skin
around them gave him quite an antediluvian look. He was white in
colour--or, more correctly speaking, he had been white once; but time,
that steals the roses from the softest cheeks, had long since toned him
down to a kind of yellow lilac, so he did not look a very respectable
bird on the whole.
"You ought to wash him," McBain said, one day. "Wash him, sah?" said
Freezing Powders; "is dat de 'xpression you make use of, sah? Bless
you, sah! I have tried dat plenty much often; I have tried to wash
myself, too. No good in eeder case, sah; I 'ssure you I speak de truf."
"Come on I come on?" cried Cockie. "Play up! play up! La de lal, de
lal, de lal!"
And round spun the bird, keeping time to the merry air, and every now
and then giving a "whoop?" such as could only be emitted by Cockie
himself, a Connemara Irishman, or a Cuscarora Indian.
But this is a remarkable thing, Cockie danced and whirled in one
direction till he found his head getting light, then he reversed the
action, and whirled round the other way!
[This description of the wonderful bird is in no way overdrawn.]
It really seemed as if he would tire Rory out. "Lal de dal!" he sung:
"our days are short--whoop!--our lives are merry--lal de dal, de dal, de
_whoop_!"
But Rory changed his tactics; he began to play _The Last Rose of
Summer_, leaning down towards the table. Cockie stopped at once, and
backed, tail foremost, in under the musician's hands, crouching down
with a sigh to listen.
But Rory went off again into the _Sprig of Shillelagh_, and off went
Cockie, too, dancing more madly than ever with a small flag in his mouth
that Freezing Powders had handed him. Then he stopped at last, and
walked about gasping, pitching penholders and pencils in all directions.
"Here's a pretty to-do!" he said; and when somebody laughed, Cockie
simply shrieked with laughter till he had everybody joining him and
holding their sides, and feeling sore all over. Verily, Cockie was a
cure! No wonder his master loved him.
In a few days the _Arrandoon_ left the desolate island, which Rory had
named "Walrus Isle."
Everybody was on deck as the vessel slowly steamed away.
Most of the land was already shrouded in gloom, only in the far distance
a tall mountain cone was all ablaze with a crimson glory, borrowed from
the last blink of sunshine. Yes, the god of day had sunk to rest, and
they would bask no more in his cheering beams for many a long and weary
month to come.
"Give us a bass, Ray, old boy!" cried Rory; "and you, doctor, a tenor."