Robert Michael Ballantyne
The World of Ice
CHAPTER VII
New characters introduced—An old game under novel circumstances—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 shaggy 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 ship 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 shaggy 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 sturdy, 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 windlass 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 stitching 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 passed 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, 'Hold on hard to this handspike here, my hearties,' how would ye go about it?"
"He'd 'it you a pretty 'ard crack hover 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 ship, 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 ship'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 passage from one lead or canal to another; at other times boring with difficulty through compact masses 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 passage. 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 ship 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 encumber 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 circumstances, was vocal with the wild music of thousands of gulls, and auks, and other sea-birds, which clustered 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 masses 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 passed 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.
"Ah! then, it bates the owld country intirely, it does," replied O'Riley, wiping the perspiration from his forehead.
It is needless to say that O'Riley was an Irishman. We have not mentioned him until now, because up to this time he had not done anything to distinguish himself beyond his messmates; but on this particular day O'Riley's star was in the ascendant, and fortune seemed to have singled him out as an object of her special attention. He was a short man, and a broad man, and a particularly rugged man—so to speak. He was all angles and corners. His hair stuck about his head in violently rigid and entangled tufts, rendering it a matter of wonder how anything in the shape of a hat could stick on. His brow was a countless mass of ever-varying wrinkles, which gave to his sly visage an aspect of humorous anxiety that was highly diverting—and all the more diverting when you came to know that the man had not a spark of anxiety in his composition, though he often said he had. His dress, like that of most Jack tars, was naturally rugged, and he contrived to make it more so than usual.
"An' it's hot, too, it is," he continued, applying his kerchief again to his pate "If it warn't for the ice we stand on, we'd be melted down, I do belave, like bits o' whale blubber."
"Wot a jolly game football is, ain't it?" said Davie seating himself on a hummock, and still panting hard.
"Ay, boy, that's jist what it is. The only objiction I have agin it is, that it makes ye a'most kick the left leg clane off yer body."
"Why don't you kick with your right leg, then, stupid, like other people?" inquired Summers.
"Why don't I, is it? Troth, then, I don't know for sartin. Me father lost his left leg at the great battle o' the Nile, and I've sometimes thought that had somethin' to do wid it. But then me mother was lame o' the right leg intirely, and wint about wid a crutch, so I can't make out how it was, d'ye see?"
"Look out, Pat," exclaimed Summers, starting up, "here comes the ball."
As he spoke, the football came skimming over the ice towards the spot on which they stood, with about thirty of the men running at full speed and shouting like maniacs after it.
"That's your sort, my hearties! another like that and it's home! Pitch into it, Mivins. You're the boy for me! Now then, Grim, trip him up! Hallo! Buzzby, you bluff-bowed Dutchman, luff! luff! or I'll stave in your ribs! Mind your eye, Mizzle! there's Green, he'll be into your larboard quarter in no time. Hurrah! Mivins, up in the air with it. Kick, boy, kick like a spanker-boom in a hurricane!"
Such were a few of the expressions that showered like hail round the men as they rushed hither and thither after the ball. And here we may remark that the crew of the Dolphin played football in a somewhat different style from the way in which that noble game is played by boys in England. Sides, indeed, were chosen, and boundaries were marked out, but very little, if any, attention was paid to such secondary matters! To kick the ball, and keep on kicking it in front of his companions, was the ambition of each man; and so long as he could get a kick at it that caused it to fly from the ground like a cannon-shot, little regard was had by any one to the direction in which it was propelled. But, of course, in this effort to get a kick, the men soon became scattered over the field, and ever and anon the ball would fall between two men, who rushed at it simultaneously from opposite directions. The inevitable result was a collision, by which both men were suddenly and violently arrested in their career. But generally the shock resulted in one of the men being sent staggering backwards, and the other getting the kick. When the two were pretty equally matched, both were usually, as they expressed it, "brought up all standing," in which case a short scuffle ensued, as each endeavoured to trip up the heels of his adversary. To prevent undue violence in such struggles, a rule was laid down that hands were not to be used on any account. They might use their feet, legs, shoulders, and elbows, but not their hands.
In such rough play the men were more equally matched than might have been expected, for the want of weight among the smaller men was often more than counterbalanced by their activity, and frequently a sturdy little fellow launched himself so vigorously against a heavy tar as to send him rolling head over heels on the ice. This was not always the case, however, and few ventured to come into collision with Peter Grim, whose activity was on a par with his immense size. Buzzby contented himself with galloping on the outskirts of the fight, and putting in a kick when fortune sent the ball in his way. In this species of warfare he was supported by the fat cook, whose oily carcass could neither stand the shocks nor keep up with the pace of his messmates. Mizzle was a particularly energetic man in his way, however, and frequently kicked with such goodwill that he missed the ball altogether, and the tremendous swing of his leg lifted him from the ice and laid him sprawling on his back.
"Look out ahead!" shouted Green, the carpenter's mate; "there's a sail bearing down on your larboard bow."
Mivins, who had the ball before him at the moment, saw his own satellite, Davie, coming down towards him with vicious intentions. He quietly pushed the ball before him for a few yards, then kicked it far over the boy's head, and followed it up like an antelope. Mivins depended for success on his almost superhuman activity. His tall, slight frame could not stand the shocks of his comrades, but no one could equal or come near to him in speed, and he was quite an adept at dodging a charge, and allowing his opponent to rush far past the ball by the force of his own momentum. Such a charge did Peter Grim make at him at this moment.
"Starboard hard!" yelled Davie Summers, as he observed his master's danger.
"Starboard it is!" replied Mivins, and leaping aside to avoid the shock, he allowed Grim to pass. Grim knew his man, however, and had held himself in hand, so that in a moment he pulled up and was following close on his heels.
"It's an ill wind that blows no good," cried one of the crew, towards whose foot the ball rolled, as he quietly kicked it into the centre of the mass of men. Grim and Mivins turned back, and for a time looked on at the general mêlée that ensued. It seemed as though the ball must inevitably be crushed among them as they struggled and kicked hither and thither for five minutes, in their vain efforts to get a kick; and during those few exciting moments many tremendous kicks, aimed at the ball, took effect upon shins, and many shouts of glee terminated in yells of anguish.
"It can't last much longer!" screamed the cook, his face streaming with perspiration and beaming with glee, as he danced round the outside of the circle. "There it goes!"
As he spoke, the ball flew out of the circle like a shell from a mortar. Unfortunately it went directly over Mizzle's head. Before he could wink he went down before them, and the rushing mass of men passed over him like a mountain torrent over a blade of grass.
Meanwhile Mivins ran ahead of the others, and gave the ball a kick that nearly burst it, and down it came exactly between O'Riley and Grim, who chanced to be far ahead of the others. Grim dashed at it. "Och! ye big villain," muttered the Irishman to himself, as he put down his head and rushed against the carpenter like a battering-ram.
Big though he was, Grim staggered back from the impetuous shock, and O'Riley following up his advantage, kicked the ball in a side direction, away from every one except Buzzby, who happened to have been steering rather wildly over the field of ice. Buzzby, on being brought thus unexpectedly within reach of the ball, braced up his energies for a kick; but seeing O'Riley coming down towards him like a runaway locomotive, he pulled up, saying quietly to himself, "Ye may take it all yer own way, lad; I'm too old a bird to go for to make my carcass a buffer for a madcap like you to run agin."
Jack Mivins, however, was troubled by no such qualms. He happened to be about the same distance from the ball as O'Riley, and ran like a deer to reach it first. A pool of water lay in his path, however, and the necessity of going round it enabled the Irishman to gain on him a little, so that it became evident that both would come up at the same moment, and a collision be inevitable.
"Hold yer wind, Paddy," shouted the men, who paused for a moment to watch the result of the race. "Mind your timbers, Mivins! Back your top-sails, O'Riley; mind how he yaws!"
Then there was a momentary silence of breathless expectation. The two men seemed about to meet with a shock that would annihilate both, when Mivins bounded to one side like an indiarubber ball. O'Riley shot past him like a rocket, and the next instant went head foremost into the pool of water.
This unexpected termination to the affair converted the intended huzzah of the men into a yell of mingled laughter and consternation as they hastened in a body to the spot; but before they reached it, O'Riley's head and shoulders reappeared, and when they came up he was standing on the margin of the pool blowing like a walrus.
"Oh! then, but it is cowld!" he exclaimed, wringing the water from his garments. "Och! where's the ball? give me a kick or I'll freeze! so I will."
As he spoke the drenched Irishman seized the ball from Mivins's hands and gave it a kick that sent it high into the air. He was too wet and heavy to follow it up, however, so he ambled off towards the ship as vigorously as his clothes would allow him, followed by the whole crew.
CHAPTER VIII
Fred and the doctor go on an excursion in which, among other strange things, they meet with red snow and a white bear, and Fred makes his first essay as a sportsman.
But where were Fred Ellice and Tom Singleton all this time? the reader will probably ask.
Long before the game at football was suggested they had obtained leave of absence from the captain, and, loaded with game-bag, a botanical box and geological hammer, and a musket, were off along the coast on a semi-scientific cruise. Young Singleton carried the botanical box and hammer, being an enthusiastic geologist and botanist, while Fred carried the game-bag and musket.
"You see, Tom," he said as they stumbled along over the loose ice towards the ice-belt that lined the cliffs—"you see, I'm a great dab at ornithology, especially when I've got a gun on my shoulder. When I haven't a gun, strange to say, I don't feel half so enthusiastic about birds!"
"That's a very peculiar style of regarding the science. Don't you think it would be worth while communicating your views on the subject to one of the scientific bodies when we get home again. They might elect you a member, Fred."
"Well, perhaps I shall," replied Fred gravely; "but I say, to be serious, I'm really going to screw up my energies as much as possible, and make coloured drawings of all the birds I can get hold of in the Arctic Regions. At least, I would like to try."
Fred finished his remark with a sigh, for just then the object for which he had gone out to those regions occurred to him; and although the natural buoyancy and hopefulness of his feelings enabled him generally to throw off anxiety in regard to his father's fate, and join in the laugh, and jest, and game as heartily as any one on board, there were times when his heart failed him, and he almost despaired of ever seeing his father again, and these feelings of despondency had been more frequent since the day on which he witnessed the sudden and utter destruction of the strange brig.
"Don't let your spirits down, Fred," said Tom, whose hopeful and earnest disposition often reanimated his friend's drooping spirits; "it will only unfit you for doing any good service. Besides, I think we have no cause yet to despair. We know that your father came up this inlet, or strait, or whatever it is, and he had a good stock of provisions with him, according to the account we got at Upernavik, and it is not more than a year since he was there. Many and many a whaler and discovery ship has wintered more than a year in these regions. And then, consider the immense amount of animal life all round us. They might have laid up provisions for many months long before winter set in."
"I know all that," replied Fred, with a shake of his head; "but think of yon brig that we saw go down in about ten minutes."
"Well, so I do think of it. No doubt the brig was lost very suddenly, but there was ample time, had there been any one on board, to have leaped upon the ice, and they might have got to land by jumping from one piece to another. Such things have happened before frequently. To say truth, at every point of land we turn, I feel a sort of expectation amounting almost to certainty that we shall find your father and his party travelling southward on their way to the Danish settlements."
"Perhaps you are right. God grant that it may be so!"
As he spoke, they reached the fixed ice which ran along the foot of the precipices for some distance like a road of hard white marble. Many large rocks lay scattered over it, some of them several tons in weight, and one or two balanced in a very remarkable way on the edge of the cliffs.
"There's a curious-looking gull I should like to shoot," exclaimed Fred, pointing to a bird that hovered over his head, and throwing forward the muzzle of his gun.
"Fire away, then," said his friend, stepping back a pace.
Fred, being unaccustomed to the use of fire-arms, took a wavering aim and fired.
"What a bother! I've missed it!"
"Try again," remarked Tom with a quiet smile, as the whole cliff vomited forth an innumerable host of birds, whose cries were perfectly deafening.
"It's my opinion," said Fred with a comical grin, "that if I shut my eyes and point upwards I can't help hitting something; but I particularly want yon fellow, because he's beautifully marked. Ah! I see him sitting on a rock yonder, so here goes once more."
Fred now proceeded towards the coveted bird in the fashion that is known by the name of stalking—that is, creeping as close up to your game as possible, so as to get a good shot; and it said much for his patience and his future success the careful manner in which, on this occasion, he wound himself in and out among the rocks and blocks of ice on the shore in the hope of obtaining that sea-gull. At last he succeeded in getting to within about fifteen yards of it, and then, resting his musket on a lump of ice, and taking an aim so long and steadily that his companion began to fancy he must have gone to sleep, he fired, and blew the gull to atoms! There was scarcely so much as a shred of it to be found.
Fred bore his disappointment and discomfiture manfully. He formed a resolution then and there to become a good shot, and although he did not succeed exactly in becoming so that day, he nevertheless managed to put several fine specimens of gulls and an auk into his bag. The last bird amused him much, being a creature with a dumpy little body and a beak of preposterously large size and comical aspect. There were also a great number of eider-ducks flying about, but they failed to procure a specimen.
Singleton was equally successful in his scientific researches. He found several beautifully green mosses, one species of which was studded with pale yellow flowers, and in one place, where a stream trickled down the steep sides of the cliffs, he discovered a flower-growth which was rich in variety of colouring. Amid several kinds of tufted grasses were seen growing a small purple flower and the white star of the chickweed; The sight of all this richness of vegetation growing in a little spot close beside the snow, and amid such cold Arctic scenery, would have delighted a much less enthusiastic spirit than that of our young surgeon. He went quite into raptures with it, and stuffed his botanical box with mosses and rocks until it could hold no more, and became a burden that cost him a few sighs before he got back to the ship.
The rocks were found to consist chiefly of red sandstone. There was also a good deal of green-stone and gneiss, and some of the spires of these that shot up to a considerable height were particularly striking and picturesque objects.
But the great sight of the day's excursion was that which unexpectedly greeted their eyes on rounding a cape towards which they had been walking for several hours. On passing this point they stopped with an exclamation of amazement. Before them lay a scene such as the Arctic Regions alone can produce.
In front lay a vast reach of the strait, which at this place opened up abruptly and stretched away northward, laden with floes, and fields, and hummocks, and bergs of every shade and size, to the horizon, where the appearance of the sky indicated open water. Ponds of various sizes and sheets of water whose dimensions entitled them to be styled lakes spangled the white surface of the floes; and around these were sporting innumerable flocks of wild-fowl, many of which, being pure white, glanced like snow-flakes in the sunshine. Far off to the west the ice came down with heavy uniformity to the water's edge. On the right there was an array of cliffs whose frowning grandeur filled them with awe. They varied from twelve to fifteen hundred feet in height, and some of the precipices descended sheer down seven or eight hundred feet into the sea, over which they cast a dark shadow.
Just at the feet of our young discoverers—for such we may truly call them—a deep bay or valley trended away to the right, a large portion of which was filled with the spur of a glacier, whose surface was covered with pink snow! One can imagine with what feelings the two youths gazed on this beautiful sight. It seemed as if that valley, instead of forming a portion of the sterile region beyond the Arctic Circle, were one of the sunniest regions of the south, for a warm glow rested on the bosom of the snow, as if the sun were shedding upon it his rosiest hues. A little farther to the north the red snow ceased, or only occurred here and there in patches; and beyond it there appeared another gorge in the cliffs, within which rose a tall column of rock, so straight and cylindrical that it seemed to be a production of art. The whole of the back country was one great rolling distance of glacier, and, wherever a crevice or gorge in the riven cliffs afforded an opportunity, this ocean of land-ice sent down spurs into the sea, the extremities of which were constantly shedding off huge bergs into the water.
"What a scene!" exclaimed Tom Singleton, when he found words to express his admiration. "I did not think that our world contained so grand a sight. It surpasses my wildest dreams of fairy-land."
"Fairy-land!" ejaculated Fred, with a slight look of contempt; "do you know since I came to this part of the world, I've come to the conclusion that fairy tales are all stuff, and very inferior stuff too! Why, this reality is a thousand million times grander than anything that was ever invented. But what surprises me most is the red snow. What can be the cause of it?"
"I don't know," replied Singleton, "it has long been a matter of dispute among learned men. But we must examine it for ourselves, so come along."
The remarkable colour of the snow referred to, although a matter of dispute at the period of the Dolphin's visit to the Arctic Seas, is generally admitted now to be the result of a curious and extremely minute vegetable growth, which spreads not only over its surface, but penetrates into it sometimes to a depth of several feet. The earlier navigators who discovered it, and first told the astonished world that the substance which they had been accustomed to associate with the idea of the purest and most radiant whiteness had been seen by them lying red upon the ground, attributed the phenomenon to innumerable multitudes of minute creatures belonging to the order Radiata; but the discovery of red snow among the central Alps of Europe, and in the Pyrenees, and on the mountains of Norway, where marine animalcula could not exist, effectually overturned this idea. The colouring matter has now been ascertained to result from plants belonging to the order called Algae, which have a remarkable degree of vitality, and possess the power, to an amazing extent, of growing and spreading with rapidity even over such an ungenial soil as the Arctic snow.
