ANOTHER WINTER AT THE POLE--CHRISTMAS DAY--THE CURTAIN RISES ON THE LAST
ACT--SICKNESS--DEATH--DESPAIR.
The summer was far advanced before Captain McBain and his crew returned
to where their vessel lay off the island of Alba. They had fully
expected to see some signs of the ice breaking up, so as to allow them
to get clear and bear up for home, but the chance of this taking place
seemed as far off as ever. If the truth must be told, the captain had
counted upon a break-up of the sea of ice shortly after midsummer at the
very latest. But midsummer went past, the sun each midnight began to
decline nearer and nearer to the northern horizon, and it already seemed
sadly probable that another winter would have to be passed in these
desolate regions. McBain could not help recalling the words of old
Magnus, "Open seasons do not come oftener than once in ten years." If
this indeed were true, then he, his boys and his crew, were doomed to
sufferings more terrible than tongue could tell or pen relate--
sufferings from which there could be no escape save through the jaws of
death. Provisions would hardly last throughout another winter, and
until the ice broke up and they were again free, there could be no
chance of getting those that had been stored on the northernmost isle of
Spitzbergen.
The sky remained clear and hard, and McBain soon began to think he would
give all he possessed in life for the sight of one little cloud not
bigger than a man's hand. But that cloud never came, and the sun
commenced to set and the summer waned away. The captain kept his sorrow
very much to himself; at all events he tried to talk cheerfully and
hopefully when in the company of any of our young heroes; but they could
mark a change, and well they knew the cause.
The ice-hole was opened, but, strange to say, although they captured
sharks and other great fish innumerable, neither seal nor walrus ever
showed head above the water.
Bears were pretty numerous on the ice, and now McBain gave orders to
preserve not only the skins but even the flesh of those monsters. It
was cut in pieces and buried in the ice and snow, well up the braeland
near to the mouth of the cave, in which they had found shelter during
all the dark months of the former winter.
The fact that no seals appeared at the ice-hole proved beyond a doubt
that the open water was very far indeed to the southward of them.
How they had rejoiced to see the sun rise for the first time in the
previous spring; how their hearts sank now to see him set!
"Boys," said McBain one day, after he had remained silent for some time,
as if in deep thought--"boys, I fear we won't get out of this place for
many months to come. How do you like the prospect?"
He smiled as he spoke; but they could see the smile was a simulated one.
"Never mind," said Ralph and Allan; "we'll keep our hearts up, never
fear; don't you be unhappy on our account."
"I'll try not to be," said McBain, "and I'm sure I shall not be so on my
own."
"Besides, captain dear," added Rory, "it's sure to come right in the
end."
McBain laid his hand on boy Rory's head, and smiled somewhat sadly.
"You're always hopeful, Rory," he said. "We must pray that your words
may come true."
And, indeed, besides waiting with a hopeful trust in that all-seeing
Providence who had never yet deserted them in their direst need, there
was little now to be done.
As the days got shorter and shorter, and escape from another winter's
imprisonment seemed impossible, the crew of the _Arrandoon_ was set to
work overhauling stores. It was found that with strict economy the
provisions would last until spring, but, with the addition of the flesh
of sharks and bears, for a month or two longer. It was determined,
therefore, that the men should not be put upon short allowance, for
semi-starvation--McBain was doctor enough to know--only opened the door
for disease to step in, in the shape perhaps of that scourge called
scurvy, or even the black death itself.
When the sun at last sank to rise no more for three long months, so far
from letting down their hearts, or losing hope, the officers and crew of
our gallant ship once more settled down to their "old winter ways," as
Seth called them. They betook themselves to the cave in the hillside,
which, for sake of giving the men exercise, McBain had made double the
size, the mould taken therefrom and the rocks being used to erect a
terrace near the entrance. This was surrounded by a balustrade or
bulwark, with a flagstaff erected at one end, and on this was unfurled
the Union Jack. Watches were kept, and meals cooked and served, with as
much regularity as if they had been at sea, while the evenings were
devoted to reading, music, and story-telling round the many great fires
that were lighted to keep the cave warm.
Where, it may be asked, did the fuel come from? Certainly not from the
ship. The coals were most carefully stored, and retained for future
service; but tons on tons of great pine-logs were dug from the
hill-sides. And glorious fires they made, too. It was, as Rory said,
raking up the ashes of a long-past age to find fuel for a new one.
Once more the electric light was got under way, and twice a week at
least the diving-bell was sunk. This was a source of amusement that
never failed to give pleasure; but so intense was the frost at times
that it was a matter of no small difficulty to break the ice on the
water.
The captain was untiring in his efforts to keep his men employed, and in
as happy a frame of mind as circumstances would admit of.
There was no snowstorm this winter, and very seldom any wind; the sky
was nearly always clear, and the stars and Aurora brighter than ever
they had seen them.
Christmas--the second they had spent together since leaving the Clyde--
passed pleasantly enough, though there was no boisterous merriment.
Songs and story-telling were in far greater request than dancing.
Never, perhaps, was Rory in better spirits for solo-playing. He
appeared to know intuitively the class of music the listeners would
delight in, and his rendering of some of the old Scottish airs seemed
simply to hold them spell-bound. As the wild, weird, plaintive notes of
the violin, touched by the master fingers of the young poet, fell on
their ears, they were no longer ice-bound in the dreary regions of the
pole. It was no longer winter; it was no longer night. They were home
once more in their native land; home in dear auld Scotland. The sun was
shining brightly in the summer sky, the purple of the heather was on the
moorland, the glens and valleys were green, and the music of merle and
mavis, mingling with the soft croodle of the amorous cushat, resounded
from the groves. No wonder that a few sighs were heard when Rory ceased
to play; he had touched a chord in their inmost hearts, and for the time
being had rendered them inexpressibly happy.
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It is well to let the curtain fall here for a short time; it rises again
on the first scene of the last act of this Arctic drama of ours.
Three months have elapsed since that Christmas evening in the cave when
we beheld the crew of the _Arrandoon_ listening with happy, hopeful,
upturned faces to the sweet music that Rory discoursed from his darling
instrument. Only three months, but what a change has come over the
prospects of sill on board that seemingly doomed ship! Often and often
had our heroes been face to face with death in storms and tempests at
sea, in fighting with wild beasts, and even with wild men, but never
before had they met the grim king of terrors in the form he now assumed.
For several weeks the men had been falling ill, and dying one by one,
and already no less than nine graves had been dug and filled under the
snow on the mountain's side.
The disease, whatever it was, resisted all kinds of treatment, and,
indeed, though the symptoms in every case were similar at the
commencement, no two men died in precisely the same way. At first there
was an intense longing for home; this would be succeeded in a few days
by loss of all appetite, by distaste for food or exertion of any kind,
and by fits of extreme melancholy and depression. The doctor did his
best. Alas! there are diseases against which all the might of medical
skill is unavailing.
Brandy and other stimulants were tried; but these only kept the deadly
ailment at bay for a very short time; it returned with double force, and
poor sufferers were doubly prostrated in consequence.
There was no bodily pain, except from a strange hollow cough that in all
cases accompanied the complaint, but there was rapid emaciation, hot,
burning brow, and hands and feet that scorched like fire, and while some
fell into a kind of gentle slumber from which they awoke no more in this
world, others died from sheer debility, the mind being clear to the
last--nay, even brighter as they neared the bourne from which no
traveller ever returns.
As the time went on--the days were now getting long again, for spring
had returned--matters got even worse. It was strange, too, that the
very best and brightest of the crew were the first to be attacked and to
die. I do not think there was a dry eye in the ship when the little
procession wound its way round the hillside bearing in its unpretending
coffin the mortal remains of poor Ted Wilson. All this long cruise he
had been the life and soul of the whole crew. No wonder that the words
of the beautiful old song _Tom Bowling_ rose to the mind of more than
one of the crew of the _Arrandoon_ when Ted was laid to rest:
"His form was of the manliest beauty,
His heart was warm and soft,
Faithful below he did his duty,
And now he's gone aloft."
Just one week after the burial of Ted Wilson, De Vere, the French
aeronaut, was attacked, and in three days' time he was dead. He had
never been really well since the journey to the vicinity of the Pole,
and the loss of his great balloon was one which he never seemed to be
able to get over. He was quite an enthusiast in his profession, and, as
he remarked to McBain one day, "I have mooch grief for de loss of my
balloon. I had give myself over to de thoughts of mooch pleasant
voyaging away up in de regions of de upper air. I s'all soar not again
until I reach England."
It was sad to hear him, as he lay half delirious on the bed of his last
illness, muttering, muttering to himself and constantly talking about
the home far away in sunny France that he would never see again. Either
the doctor or one or other of our young heroes was constantly in the
cabin with him. About an hour before his demise he sent for Ralph.
"I vould not," he said, "send for Rory nor for Allan, dey vill both
follow me soon. Oh I do not you look sad, Ralph, dere is nothing but
joy vere ve are going. Nothing but joy, and sunshine, and happiness."
He took a locket from his breast. It contained the portrait of a
grey-haired mother.
"Bury dis locket in my grave," he said.
He took two rings from off his thin white fingers.
"For my sister and my mother," he said.
He never spoke again, but died with those dear names on his lips.
Ralph showed himself a very hero in these sad times of trouble and
death. He was here, there, and everywhere, by night and by day;
assisting the surgeon and helping Seth to attend upon the wants of the
sick and dying; and many a pillow he soothed, and many a word of comfort
he gave to those who needed it. The true Saxon character was now
beautifully exemplified in our English hero. He possessed that noble
courage which never makes itself uselessly obtrusive, which fritters not
itself away on trifles, and which seems at most times to lie dormant or
latent, but is ever ready to show forth and burn most brightly in the
hour of direst need.
Sorrows seldom come singly, and one day Stevenson, in making his usual
morning report, had the sad tidings to add that cask after cask of
provisions had been opened and found bad, utterly useless for human
food.
McBain got up from his chair and accompanied the mate on deck.
"I would not," he said, "express, in words what I feel, Mr Stevenson,
before our boys; but this, indeed, is terrible tidings."
"It can only hasten the end," said Stevenson.
"You think, then, that that end is inevitable?"
"Inevitable," said Stevenson, solemnly but emphatically. "We are doomed
to perish here among this ice. There can be no rescue for us but
through the grave."
"We are in the hands of a merciful and an all-powerful Providence, Mr
Stevenson," said McBain; "we must trust, and wait, and hope, and do our
duty."
"That we will, sir, at all events," said the mate; "but see, sir, what
is that yonder?"
He pointed, as he spoke, skywards, and there, just a little way above
the highest mountain-tops, was a cloud. It kept increasing almost
momentarily, and got darker and darker. Both watched it until the sun
itself was overcast, then the mate ran below to look at the glass. It
was "tumbling" down.
For three days a gale and storm, accompanied with soft, half-wet snow,
raged. Then terrible noises and reports were heard all over the pack of
ice seaward, and the grinding and din that never fails to announce the
break-up of the sea of ice.
"Heaven has not forgotten us," cried McBain, hopefully; "this change
will assuredly check the sickness, and perhaps in a week's time we will
be sailing southwards through the blue, open sea, bound for our native
shores."
McBain was right; the hopes raised in the hearts of the men did check
the progress of the sickness. When at last the wind fell, they were
glad to see that the clouds still remained, and that there were no signs
of the frost coming on again.
The pieces of ice, too, were loose, and all hands were set to work to
warp the ship southwards through the bergs. The work was hard, and the
progress made scarcely a mile a day at first. But they were men working
for their lives, with new-born hope in their hearts, so they heeded not
the fatigue, and after a fortnight's toil they found the water so much
more open that by going ahead at full speed in every clear space, a fair
day's distance was got over. For a week more they strove and struggled
onwards; the men, however, were getting weaker and weaker for want of
sufficient food. How great was their joy, then, when one morning the
island was sighted on which McBain had left the store of provisions!
Boats were sent away as soon as they came within a mile of the place.
Sad, indeed, was the news with which Stevenson, who was in charge,
returned. The bears had made an attack on the buried stores. They had
clawed the great cask open, and had devoured or destroyed everything.
Hope itself now seemed for a time to fly from all on board. With a crew
weak from want, and with fearful ice to work their way through, what
chance was there that they would ever succeed in reaching the open
water, or in proceeding on their homeward voyage even as far as the
island of Jan Mayen, or until they should fall in with and obtain relief
from some friendly ship? They were far to the northward of the sealing
grounds, and just as far to the east. McBain, however, determined still
to do his utmost, and, though on short allowance, to try to forge ahead.
For one week more they toiled and struggled onwards, then came the
frost again and all chance of proceeding was at an end.
It was no wonder that sickness returned. No wonder that McBain himself,
and Allan and Rory, began to feel dejected, listless, weary, and ill.
Then came a day when the doctor and Ralph sat down alone to eat their
meagre and hurried breakfast.
"What prospects?" said Ralph.
"Moribund!" was all the doctor said just then.