The World of Ice Part 7

Down went the heaviest anchor they had, and for two minutes the chain flew out at the hawse-hole.

"Hold on!"

The chain was checked, but the strain was awful. A ma.s.s of ice, hundreds of tons weight, was tearing down towards the bow. There was no hope of resisting it. Time was not even afforded to attach a buoy or log to the cable, so it was let slip, and thus the _Dolphin's_ best bower was lost for ever.

But there was no time to think of or regret this, for the s.h.i.+p was now driving down with the gale, sc.r.a.ping against a lee of ice which was seldom less than thirty feet thick. Almost at the same moment the strange vessel was whirled close to them, not more than fifty yards distant, between two driving ma.s.ses of thick ice.

"What if it should be my father's brig?" whispered Fred Ellice, as he grasped Singleton's arm and turned to him a face of ashy paleness.

"No fear of that, lad," said Buzzby, who stood near the larboard gangway and had overheard the remark. "I'd know your father's brig among a thousand--"

As he spoke, the two ma.s.ses of ice closed, and the brig was nipped between them. For a few seconds she seemed to tremble like a living creature, and every timber creaked. Then she was turned slowly on one side, until the crew of the _Dolphin_ could see down into her hold, where the beams were giving way and cracking up as matches might be crushed in the grasp of a strong hand. Then the larboard bow was observed to yield as if it were made of soft clay, the starboard bow was pressed out, and the ice was forced into the forecastle. Scarcely three minutes had pa.s.sed since the nip commenced; in one minute more the brig went down, and the ice was rolling wildly, as if in triumph, over the spot where she had disappeared.

The fate of this vessel, which might so soon be their own, threw a momentary gloom over the crew of the _Dolphin_, but their position left them no time for thought. One upturned ma.s.s rose above the gunwale, smashed in the bulwarks, and deposited half a ton of ice on deck.

Scarcely had this danger pa.s.sed when a new enemy appeared in sight ahead. Directly in their way, just beyond the line of floe-ice against which they were alternately thumping and grinding, lay a group of bergs.

There was no possibility of avoiding them, and the only question was, whether they were to be dashed to pieces on their hard blue sides, or, perchance, in some providential nook to find a refuge from the storm.

"There's an open lead between them and the floe-ice," exclaimed Bolton in a hopeful tone of voice, seizing an ice-pole and leaping on the gunwale.

"Look alive, men, with your poles," cried the captain, "and shove with a will!"

The "Ay, ay, sir," of the men was uttered with a heartiness that showed how powerfully this gleam of hope acted on their spirits; but a new damp was cast over them when, on gaining the open pa.s.sage, they discovered that the bergs were not at rest, but were bearing down on the floe-ice with slow but awful momentum, and threatening to crush the s.h.i.+p between the two. Just then a low berg came driving up from the southward, das.h.i.+ng the spray over its sides, and with its forehead ploughing up the smaller ice as if in scorn. A happy thought flashed across the captain's mind.

"Down the quarter boat," he cried.

In an instant it struck the water, and four men were on the thwarts.

"Cast an ice-anchor on that berg."

Peter Grim obeyed the order, and, with a swing that Hercules would have envied, planted it securely. In another moment the s.h.i.+p was following in the wake of this novel tug! It was a moment of great danger, for the bergs encroached on their narrow ca.n.a.l as they advanced, obliging them to brace the yards to clear the impending ice-walls, and they shaved the large berg so closely that the port quarter-boat would have been crushed if it had not been taken from the davits. Five minutes of such travelling brought them abreast of a grounded berg, to which they resolved to make fast. The order was given to cast off the rope. Away went their white tug on his race to the far north, and the s.h.i.+p swung round in safety under the lee of the berg, where the crew acknowledged with grat.i.tude their merciful deliverance from imminent danger.

CHAPTER VII.

_New characters introduced--An old game under novel circ.u.mstances--Remarkable appearances in the sky--O'Riley meets with a mishap_.

Dumps was a remarkably grave and sly character, and Poker was a wag--an incorrigible wag--in every sense of the term. Moreover, although they had an occasional fight, Dumps and Poker were excellent friends, and great favourites with the crew.

We have not yet introduced these individuals to our reader, but as they will act a conspicuous part in the history of the _Dolphin's_ adventurous career in the Arctic Regions, we think it right now to present them.

While at Upernavik, Captain Guy had purchased a team of six good, tough Esquimau dogs, being desirous of taking them to England, and there presenting them to several of his friends who were anxious to possess specimens of those animals. Two of these dogs stood out conspicuous from their fellows, not only in regard to personal appearance, but also in reference to peculiarities of character. One was pure white, with a lively expression of countenance, a large s.h.a.ggy body, two erect, sharp-pointed ears, and a short projection that once had been a tail.

Owing to some cause unknown, however, his tail had been cut or bitten off, and nothing save the stump remained. But this stump did as much duty as if it had been fifty tails in one. It was never at rest for a moment, and its owner evidently believed that wagging it was the true and only way to touch the heart of man; therefore the dog wagged it, so to speak, doggedly. In consequence of this animal's thieving propensities, which led him to be constantly _poking_ into every hole and corner of the s.h.i.+p in search of something to steal, he was named _Poker_. Poker had three jet-black spots in his white visage--one was the point of his nose, the other two were his eyes.

Poker's bosom friend, Dumps, was so named because he had the sulkiest expression of countenance that ever fell to the lot of a dog. Hopelessly incurable melancholy seemed to have taken possession of his mind, for he never by any chance smiled--and dogs do smile, you know, just as evidently as human beings do, although not exactly with their mouths.

Dumps never romped either, being old, but he sat and allowed his friend Poker to romp round him with a sort of sulky satisfaction, as if he experienced the greatest enjoyment his nature was capable of in witnessing the antics of his youthful companion--for Poker was young.

The prevailing colour of Dumps's s.h.a.ggy hide was a dirty brown, with black spots, two of which had fixed themselves rather awkwardly round his eyes, like a pair of spectacles. Dumps, also, was a thief, and, indeed, so were all his brethren. Dumps and Poker were both of them larger and stronger, and in every way better, than their comrades; and they afterwards were the st.u.r.dy, steady, unflinching leaders of the team during many a toilsome journey over the frozen sea.

One magnificent afternoon, a few days after the escape of the _Dolphin_ just related, Dumps and Poker lay side by side in the lee-scuppers, calmly sleeping off the effects of a surfeit produced by the eating of a large piece of pork, for which the cook had searched in vain for three-quarters of an hour, and of which he at last found the bare bone sticking in the hole of the larboard pump.

"Bad luck to them dogs," exclaimed David Mizzle, stroking his chin as he surveyed the bone. "If I could only find out, now, which of ye it was, I'd have ye slaughtered right off, and cooked for the mess, I would."

"It was Dumps as did it, I'll bet you a month's pay," said Peter Grim, as he sat on the end of the windla.s.s refilling his pipe, which he had just smoked out.

"Not a bit of it," remarked Amos Parr, who was squatted on the deck busily engaged in constructing a rope mat, while several of the men sat round him engaged in mending sails, or st.i.tching canvas slippers, etc.--"not a bit of it, Grim; Dumps is too honest by half to do sich a thing. 'Twas Poker as did it, I can see by the roll of his eye below the skin. The blackguard's only shammin' sleep."

On hearing his name mentioned, Poker gently opened his right eye, but did not move. Dumps, on the contrary, lay as if he heard not the base aspersion on his character.

"What'll ye bet it was Dumps as did it?" cried Davie Summers, who pa.s.sed at the moment with a dish of some sort of edible towards the galley or cooking-house on deck.

"I'll _bet_ you over the 'ead, I will, if you don't mind your business,"

said Mivins.

"You'd _better_ not," retorted Davie with a grin. "It's as much as your situation's worth to lay a finger on me."

"That's it, youngster, give it 'im," cried several of the men, while the boy confronted his superior, taking good care, however, to keep the fore-mast between them.

"What do you mean, you young rascal?" cried Mivins with a frown.

"Mean!" said Davie, "why, I mean that if you touch me I'll resign office; and if I do that, you'll have to go out, for every one knows you can't get on without me."

"I say, Mivins," cried Tom Green, the carpenter's mate, "if you were asked to say, '_H_old on _h_ard to this _h_andspike _h_ere, my _h_earties,' how would ye go about it?"

"He'd 'it you a pretty 'ard crack _h_over the 'ead with it, 'e would,"

remarked one of the men, throwing a ball of yarn at Davie, who stood listening to the conversation with a broad grin.

In stepping back to avoid the blow, the lad trod on Dumps's paw, and instantly there came from the throat of that excellent dog a roar of anguish that caused Poker to leap, as the cook expressed it, nearly out of his own skin. Dogs are by nature extremely sympathetic and remarkably inquisitive; and no sooner was Dumps's yell heard than it was vigorously responded to by every dog in the s.h.i.+p, as the whole pack rushed each from his respective sleeping-place and looked round in amazement.

"Hallo! what's wrong there for'ard?" inquired Saunders, who had been pacing the quarter-deck with slow giant strides, arguing mentally with himself in default of a better adversary.

"Only trod on Dumps's paw, sir," said Mivins, as he hurried aft; "the men are sky-larking."

"Sky-larking, are you?" said Saunders, going forward. "Weel, lads, you've had a lot o' hard work of late, ye may go' and take a run on the ice."

Instantly the men, like boys set free from school, sprang up, tumbled over the side, and were scampering over the ice like madmen.

"Pitch over the ball--the football!" they cried. In a second the ball was tossed over the s.h.i.+p's side, and a vigorous game was begun.

For two days past the _Dolphin_ had been sailing with difficulty through large fields of ice, sometimes driving against narrow necks and tongues that interrupted her pa.s.sage from one lead or ca.n.a.l to another; at other times boring with difficulty through compact ma.s.ses of sludge; or occasionally, when unable to advance farther, making fast to a large berg or a field. They were compelled to proceed north, however, in consequence of the pack having become fixed towards, the south, and thus rendering retreat impossible in that direction until the ice should be again set in motion. Captain Guy, however, saw, by the steady advance of the larger bergs, that the current of the ocean in that place flowed southward, and trusted that in a short time the ice which had been forced into the strait by the late gales would be released, and open up a pa.s.sage. Meanwhile he pushed along the coast, examining every bay and inlet in the hope of discovering some trace of the _Pole Star_ or her crew.

On the day about which we are writing, the s.h.i.+p was beset by large fields, the snow-white surfaces of which extended north and south to the horizon, while on the east the cliffs rose in dark, frowning precipices from the midst of the glaciers that enc.u.mber them all the year round.

It was a lovely Arctic day. The sun shone with unclouded splendour, and the bright air, which trembled with that liquidity of appearance that one occasionally sees in very hot weather under peculiar circ.u.mstances, was vocal with the wild music of thousands of gulls, and auks, and other sea-birds, which cl.u.s.tered on the neighbouring cliffs and flew overhead in clouds. All round the pure surfaces of the ice-fields were broken by the shadows which the hummocks and bergs cast over them, and by the pools of clear water which shone like crystals in their hollows, while the beautiful beryl blue of the larger bergs gave a delicate colouring to the dazzling scene. Words cannot describe the intense _glitter_ that characterized everything. Every point seemed a diamond, every edge sent forth a gleam of light, and many of the ma.s.ses reflected the rich prismatic colours of the rainbow. It seemed as if the sun himself had been multiplied in order to add to the excessive brilliancy, for he was surrounded by _parhelia_, or _sun-dogs,_ as the men called them. This peculiarity in the sun's appearance was very striking. The great orb of day was about ten degrees above the horizon, and a horizontal line of white pa.s.sed completely through it, extending to a considerable distance on either hand, while around it were two distinct halos, or circles of light. On the inner halo were situated the mock-suns, which were four in number--one above and one below the sun, and one on each side of him.

Not a breath of wind stirred the little flag that drooped from the mizzen-peak, and the clamorous, ceaseless-cries of sea-birds, added to the merry shouts and laughter of the men as they followed the restless football, rendered the whole a scene of life, as it was emphatically one of beauty.

"Ain't it glorious?" panted Davie Summers vehemently as he stopped exhausted in a headlong race beside one of his comrades, while the ball was kicked hopelessly beyond his reach by a comparatively fresh member of the party.