The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras Part 68

"All right!" said the American.

"And now we have done all that men can do! We have helped ourselves; may G.o.d help us!"

Hatteras, Altamont, and Bell went to the magazine. The doctor remained alone at the pile. Soon he heard Johnson's voice crying,--

"Ready?"

"All right!" he answered.

Johnson gave a strong pull at the rope; it pulled over the stake; then he ran to the loop-hole and looked out. The surface of the slope had sunk in. The fox's body was visible upon the shattered ice. The bears, at first surprised, crowded about this new prey.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

"Fire!" shouted Johnson.

The doctor at once established the electric current between the threads; a loud explosion followed; the house shook as if in an earthquake; the walls fell in. Hatteras, Altamont, and Bell hastened out of the magazine, ready to fire. But their guns were not needed; four of the five bears fell about them in fragments, while the fifth, badly burned, ran away as fast as he could.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "A loud explosion followed."]

"Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!" shouted the doctor's companions, while they crowded about him and embraced him.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE POLAR SPRING.

The prisoners were set free; they expressed their joy by the warmth of their thanks to the doctor. Johnson regretted somewhat the skins, which were burned and useless; but his regret did not sour his temper.

They spent the day in repairing the house, which was somewhat injured by the explosion. They took away the blocks heaped up by the animals, and the walls were made secure. They worked briskly, encouraged by the cheery songs of the boatswain.

The next day the weather was much milder; the wind changed suddenly, and the thermometer rose to +15. So great a difference was soon felt by both man and nature. The southerly wind brought with it the first signs of the polar spring. This comparative warmth lasted for many days; the thermometer, sheltered from the wind, even rose as high as +31, and there were signs of a thaw. The ice began to crack; a few spirts of salt-water arose here and there, like jets in an English park; a few days later it rained hard.

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A dense vapor arose from the snow; this was a good sign, and the melting of the immense ma.s.ses appeared to be near at hand. The pale disk of the sun grew brighter and drew longer spirals above the horizon; the night lasted scarcely three hours. Another similar symptom was the reappearance of some ptarmigans, arctic geese, plover, and flocks of quail; the air was soon filled with the deafening cries which they remembered from the previous summer. A few hares, which they were able to shoot, appeared on the sh.o.r.es of the bay, as well as the arctic mice, the burrows of which were like a honeycomb. The doctor called the attention of his friends to the fact that these animals began to lose their white winter plumage, or hair, to put on their summer dress; they were evidently getting ready for summer, while their sustenance appeared in the form of moss, poppy, saxifrage, and thin gra.s.s. A new life was peering through the melting snows. But with the harmless animals returned the famished foes; foxes and wolves arrived in search of their prey; mournful howling sounded during the brief darkness of the nights.

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The wolf of these countries is near of kin to the dog; like him, it barks, and often in such a way as to deceive the sharpest ears, those of the dogs themselves, for instance; it is even said that they employ this device to attract dogs, and then eat them. This has been observed on the sh.o.r.es of Hudson's Bay, and the doctor could confirm it at New America; Johnson took care not to let loose the dogs of the sledge, who might have been destroyed in that way. As for Duke, he had seen too many of them, and he was too wise to be caught in any such way.

During a fortnight they hunted a great deal; fresh food was abundant; they shot partridges, ptarmigans, and snow-birds, which were delicious eating. The hunters did not go far from Fort Providence. In fact, small game could almost be killed with a stick; and it gave much animation to the silent sh.o.r.es of Victoria Bay,--an unaccustomed sight which delighted their eyes.

The fortnight succeeding the great defeat of the bears was taken up with different occupations. The thaw advanced steadily; the thermometer rose to 32, and torrents began to roar in the ravines, and thousands of cataracts fell down the declivities. The doctor cleared an acre of ground and sowed in it cresses, sorrel, and cochlearia, which are excellent remedies for the scurvy; the little greenish leaves were peeping above the ground when, with incredible rapidity, the cold again seized everything.

In a single night, with a violent north-wind, the thermometer fell forty degrees, to -8. Everything was frozen; birds, quadrupeds, and seals disappeared as if by magic; the holes for the seals were closed, the creva.s.ses disappeared, the ice became as hard as granite, and the waterfalls hung like long crystal pendants.

It was a total change to the eye; it took place in the night of May 11-12. And when Bell the next morning put his nose out of doors into this sharp frost, he nearly left it there.

"O, this polar climate!" cried the doctor, a little disappointed; "that's the way it goes! Well, I shall have to begin sowing again."

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Hatteras took things less philosophically, so eager was he to renew his explorations. But he had to resign himself.

"Will this cold weather last long?" asked Johnson.

"No, my friend, no," answered Clawbonny; "it's the last touch of winter we shall have! You know it's at home here, and we can't drive it away against its will."

"It defends itself well," said Bell, rubbing his face.

"Yes, but I ought to have expected it," said the doctor; "and I should not have thrown the seed away so stupidly, especially since I might have started them near the kitchen stove."

"What!" asked Altamont, "could you have foreseen this change of weather?"

"Certainly, and without resorting to magic. I ought to have put the seed under the protection of Saints Mamert, Panera, and Servais, whose days are the 11th, 12th, and 13th of this month."

"Well, Doctor," said Altamont, "will you tell me what influence these three saints have on the weather?"

"A very great influence, to believe gardeners, who call them the three saints of ice."

"And why so, pray?"

"Because generally there is a periodic frost in the month of May, and the greatest fall of temperature takes place from the 11th to the 13th of this month. It is a fact, that is all."

"It is curious, but what is the explanation?" asked the American.

"There are two: either by the interposition of a greater number of asteroids between the earth and the sun at this season, or simply by the melting of the snow, which thereby absorbs a great quant.i.ty of heat. Both explanations are plausible; must they be received? I don't know; but if I'm uncertain of the truth of the explanation, I ought not to have been of the fact, and so lose my crop."

The doctor was right; for one reason or another the cold was very intense during the rest of the month of May; their hunting was interrupted, not so much by the severity of the weather as by the absence of game; fortunately, the supply of fresh meat was not yet quite exhausted. They found themselves accordingly condemned to new inactivity; for a fortnight, from the 11th to the 25th of May, only one incident broke the monotony of their lives; a serious illness, diphtheria, suddenly seized the carpenter; from the swollen tonsils and the false membrane in the throat, the doctor could not be ignorant of the nature of the disease; but he was in his element, and he soon drove it away, for evidently it had not counted on meeting him; his treatment was very simple, and the medicines were not hard to get; the doctor simply prescribed pieces of ice to be held in the mouth; in a few hours the swelling went down and the false membrane disappeared; twenty-four hours later Bell was up again.

When the others wondered at the doctor's prescriptions: "This is the land of these complaints," he answered; "the cure must be near the disease."

"The cure, and especially the doctor," added Johnson, in whose mind the doctor was a.s.suming colossal proportions.

During this new leisure the latter resolved to have a serious talk with the captain; he wanted to induce Hatteras to give up his intention of going northward without carrying some sort of a boat; a piece of wood, something with which he could cross an arm of the sea, if they should meet one. The captain, who was fixed in his views, had formally vowed not to use a boat made of the fragments of the American s.h.i.+p. The doctor was uncertain how to broach the subject, and yet a speedy decision was important, for the month of June would be the time for distant excursions. At last, after long reflection, he took Hatteras aside one day, and with his usual air of kindness said to him,--

"Hatteras, you know I am your friend?"

"Certainly," answered the captain, warmly, "my best friend; indeed, my only one."

"If I give you a piece of advice," resumed the doctor, "advice which you don't ask for, would you consider it disinterested?"

"Yes, for I know that selfish interest has never been your guide; but what do you want to say?"

"One moment, Hatteras; I have something else to ask of you: Do you consider me a true Englishman like yourself, and eager for the glory of my country?"

Hatteras looked at the doctor with surprise.