Wild Adventures round the Pole Part 7

"There isn't a bit of good looking in the dark, is there?" said Allan.

"Well," continued Ralph, "figuratively speaking, look here; I don't see the good of sticking up on deck in the cold. We're not doing an atom of good; let us go below and finish our supper."

"Right," said Allan; "and mind you, that poor girl is below there all this time. She may want some refreshment."

When they entered the saloon they found it empty, deserted as far as human beings were concerned. Polly the c.o.c.katoo was there, no one else.

"Well?" said the bird, inquiringly, as she helped herself to an enormous mouthful of hemp-seed. "Well?"

"What have you done with the young lady?" asked Allan.

"The proof o' the pudding--"

Polly was too busy eating to say more. Peter the steward entered just then, overhearing the question as he came.

"That strange girl, sir," he replied, "went over the side and away in her boat as soon as the s.h.i.+p struck."

"Well, I call that a pity," said Allan; "the poor girl comes here to warn us of danger and never stops for thanks. It is wonderful."

"From this date," remarked Ralph, "I cease to wonder at anything.

Steward, you know we were only half done with supper, and we're all as hungry as hunters, and--"

But Peter was off, and in a few minutes our boys were supping as quietly and contentedly as if they had been in the Coffee-room of the Queen's Hotel, Glasgow, instead of being on a lee sh.o.r.e, with the certainty that if it came on to blow not a timber of the good s.h.i.+p _Arrandoon_ that would not be smashed into matchwood.

But hark! the noise on deck recommences, the men are heaving on the winch, the engines are once more at work, and the great screw is revolving. Then there is a shout from the men forward.

"She moves!"

"Hurrah! then, boys, hurrah!" cried McBain; "heave, and she goes."

[The word "hurrah" in the parlance of North Sea sailors means "do your utmost" or "make all speed."]

The men burst into song--tune a wild, uncouth sailor's melody, words extempore, one man singing one line, another metreing it with a second, with a chorus between each line, in which all joined, with all their strength of voice to the tune, with all the power of their brawny muscles to the winch. Mere doggerel, but it did the turn better, perhaps, than more refined music would have done.

In San Domingo I was born, _Chorus_--Hurrah! lads, hurrah!

And reared among the yellow corn.

Heave, boys, and away we go.

Our bold McBain is a captain nice, _Chorus_--Hurrah! lads, hurrah!

The main-brace he is _sure_ to splice.

Heave, boys, and away we go.

The Faroe Isles are not our goal, Oh! no, lads, no!

We'll reach the North, and we'll _bag_ the Pole, Heave, boys, and away we go, Hurrah!

"We're off," cried Stevenson, excitedly. "Hurrah! men. Hurrah! hurrah!

hurrah!"

The men needed but little encouragement now, though. Round went the winch right merrily, and in a quarter of an hour the bows were abreast of the anchors.

"Now, steward," said the captain, "splice the main-brace."

The ration was brought and served, Ted Wilson, who was a moving spirit in the 'tween decks, giving a toast, which every man re-echoed ere he raised the basin to his head,--

"Success to the saucy _Arrandoon_, and our bold skipper, Captain McBain."

The vessel's head was now turned seawards, and presently the anchors that had been taken in were let go again, and fires banked. The long night wore away, and the dismal dawn came. McBain had lain down for a short time, with orders to be roused on the first appearance of daylight. Rory, anxious to see how the land looked, was on deck nearly as soon as the captain.

A grey mist was lifting up from off the sea, and from off the sh.o.r.e, revealing black, beetling crags, hundreds of feet high at the water's edge, a sheer beetling cliff around which thousands of strange sea-birds were wheeling and screaming, their white wings relieved against the black of the rocks, on which rows on rows of solemn-looking guillemots sat, and lines of those strange old-fas.h.i.+on-faced birds, the puffins.

The cliffs were snow-clad, the hills above were terraced with rocks almost to their summits. Between the s.h.i.+p and this inhospitable sh.o.r.e lay a long, dangerous-looking reef of rocks.

"Ah! Rory," said McBain, "there was a merciful Providence watching over us last night. Yonder is where we lay; had it come on to blow, not one of us would be alive this morning to see the sun rise."

Rory could hardly help, shuddering as he thought of the narrow escape they had had from so terrible a fate.

When steam was got up they went round the island--it was one of the most southerly of the Faroes; but except around one little bay, where boats might land with difficulty, it seemed impossible that human beings could exist in such a place. What, then, was the mystery of the previous evening, of the fair-haired girl, of the lights inside the reef that simulated those of a broad-beamed s.h.i.+p, of the lights like those of a village that twinkled on sh.o.r.e? The whole affair seemed strange, inexplicable. Now that it was broad daylight the events of the preceding night, with its dangers and its darkness, had more the similitude of some dreadful dream than a stern reality.

This same evening the anchor was let go in the Bay of Thorshaven, the capital--city, shall I say?--of the Faroe Islands. I am writing a tale of adventure, not a narrative of travel, else would I willingly devote a whole chapter to a description of this quaint and primitive wee, wee town. Our heroes saw it at its very worst, its very bleakest, for winter still held it in thrall; the turf-clad roofs of its cottages, that in summer are green with gra.s.s and redolent of wild thyme, were now clad with snow; its streets, difficult to climb even in July, were now stairs of gla.s.s; its fort looked frozen out; and its little chapel, where Sunday after Sunday the hardy and brave inhabitants, who never move abroad without their lives in their hands, wors.h.i.+p G.o.d in all humility--this little chapel stood up black and bold against its background of snow.

Although the streamlets were all frozen, although ice was afloat in the bay, and a grey and leaden sky overhead, our boys were not sorry to land and have a look around. To say that they were hospitably received would be hardly doing the Faroese justice, for hospitality really seems a part and parcel of the people's religion. The viands they placed before them were well cooked, but curious, to say the least of it. Steak of young whale, stew of young seal's liver, roast guillemot and baked auk; these may sound queer as dinner dishes, but as they were cooked by the ancient Faroese gentleman who entertained our heroes at his house, each and all of them were brave eating.

Couldn't they stop a month? this gentleman, who looked like a true descendant of some ancient viking, asked McBain. Well then, a fortnight? well, surely one short week?

But, "Nay, nay, nay," the captain answered, kindly and smilingly, to all his entreaties; they must hurry on to the far north ere spring and summer came.

The Faroese could give them no clue to the mystery that shrouded the previous night. They had never heard of either wreckers or pirates in these peaceful islands.

"But," said the old viking, "we are willing to turn out to a man; we are one thousand inhabitants in all--including the women; but even they will go; and we have ten brave, real soldiers in the fort, they too will go, and we will make search, and if we find them we will hang them on--on--"

the old man hesitated.

"On the nearest tree," suggested Rory with a mischievous smile.

The viking laughed grimly at the joke.

"Well," he said, "we will hang them anyhow, trees or no trees."

But McBain could not be induced to deviate from his set purpose, and bidding these simple folk a friendly farewell, they steamed once more out of the bay, pa.s.sed many a strange, fantastic island, pa.s.sed rocks pierced with caves, and bird-haunted, and so, with the vessel's prow pointing to the northward and west, they left the Faroes far behind them.

Tremendous seas rolled in from the broad Atlantic all that night and all next day, little wind though, and no broken water. In the evening, in the dog-watch, the waves seemed to increase in size; they were miles long, mountains high; when down in the trough of the sea you had to look up to their crests as you would to the summer's sun at noontide.

Indeed, those waves made the brave s.h.i.+p _Arrandoon_ look wondrous small.

McBain, somewhat to Stevenson's astonishment, made the man at the wheel steer directly north.

"We're out of our course, sir," said the mate.

"Pardon me for a minute or two," replied the captain, half apologetically, "we are now broadside on to these seas, I just want to test her stability."

"Well, everything is pretty fast, sir," said the mate, quietly; "but if the s.h.i.+p goes on her beam-ends don't blame me."