Chapter XVII: Southward Ho! to the Sea of Ice

In a fortnight's time the _San Salvador_ had placed at least one thousand miles betwixt her and the Cape of Good Hope. This was looked upon by Captain Cawdor as fair running, considering the wild weather the barque experienced. They had put out to sea on a glorious summer's day, on the wings of a gentle breeze, the hills behind them purple and green with vegetation and flowers; white-winged gulls sailing around them in the sky or floating on the hardly ruffled breast of ocean, the good old ship seeming to wish to linger near that lovely land. But hardly had the last seagull shrieked its wild farewell, and night and darkness begun to fall over the waves, than it could be seen, from the rising clouds, the moaning wind, and incessant sheets of lightning, that a tempest was brewing. So sail had been at once shortened, and everything done that could be done to secure safety and comfort for the night. Luckily the wind had come from the right quarter, so that although it blew big guns, and though green seas were shipped over the bows and came roaring aft, the good ship went tearing on, and daylight saw her staggering almost under bare poles, amidst such a chaos of mountain waves as probably is only to be seen in one part of the world, and that the ocean regions round the Cape.

And from that very day, all along, the wind had never entirely ceased to rage and roar, nor stormy seas to dash around the ship. She was always half battened down, especially forward, where in galley and mess-places lamps had to be burned all day long, and where, even down below, the decks were never dry. Little do boys who long to be sailors know of the hardships that men before the mast, aye, and apprentices also, have to endure in such latitudes as these, when the ship is far, far from land, and when no one knows or can guess what fate has in store for himself or his ship.

It was a trying time, but worse was to follow. I must say, however, that the men never grumbled, nor did they snarl and growl at each other like ill-conditioned curs, as sailors so frequently do under like circumstances, until verily the vessel they live in becomes a kind of hell afloat.

Fred Arundel was as much of a favourite forward as he was aft. His open, laughing, good-tempered face seemed to bring sunshine with it wherever he went. Nor was he ever too high and mighty to lend a helping hand wherever needed. Any day you might have seen Fred hauling away at tack or sheet, or even in a wild sea-way taking a dash aloft with the hands, and laying well out on a yard, helping to shorten sail. The men loved and respected him for all this, but they never took advantage of his good nature.

Many a dark night too, when it was not his watch, Fred would mingle with a group forward, and listen to their yarns, or even tell one himself.

As I have said, the crew was chiefly composed of Scotchmen. Well, Fred lent them books to read, just the kind he knew would please them.

Sometimes of an evening, when the captain was below with his boots off, Fred would promise the men a song, and they would slip aft and station themselves near the skylight. Then Fred would go below.

"D'ye mind having the skylight open a wee bit?" Fred would ask of his jolly skipper.

"You young rascal!" the latter might reply, "I'm up to your dodges. You want to play to the men, not to me."

"That's it," Fred would say, laughing, and next moment big Quambo would have the skylight open; that is, of course, if the weather wasn't altogether too rough.

Then Fred would play and sing. It might be the melting melody of "Auld Robin Gray," or "Afton Water;" or something more martial and bold, such as the "March of the Cameron Men;" or "Cam' ye by Athole?" But while he sang he never failed to hold the men entranced.

"Land ahead, sir!"

It was a shout from the look-out on the fore-top.

"Hard up with her!" cried the mate, and presently the land was brought well on the bow.

Only just in time, however; for what had seemed like a mass of cloud on the eastern horizon had suddenly resolved itself into black, beetling rocks, with a fringe of green on top, and waves foaming like cataracts at the foot thereof. So near to some of the outlying rocks or "whales' backs" had they come that they only just missed grazing them. As far as they could make out, the land now visible belonged to the Grozet group of islands. Soon afterwards they sighted land to the north.

Luckily the wind was fair and the day fairly clear; but it was an anxious time with Captain Cawdor until he got fairly clear of these lonely isles of the southern ocean.

These unknown seas of the far south are much more fraught with danger, than even the shifting sands and coral reefs of African shores. On the latter, so long as a man is kept in the chains, and soundings carried on, the vessel is comparatively safe, for the water shoals gradually; but in such latitudes as those in which the _San Salvador_ was now sailing the lead was of little use. On dark nights heaven alone knows what dangers were not narrowly escaped, for by day oftentimes the first indication they had of the vicinity of a semi-submerged rock was the appearance of breaking water at that particular spot.

"There is a sweet little cherub sits up aloft
To look after the life of poor Jack."

Perhaps, and really this cherub was all the captain of the _San Salvador_ had to trust to in the inky darkness of the night; but two very substantial cherubs were always in the foretop and cross-trees by day, and often one of these bore the blue eyes of Fred Arundel.

Kerguelen Isles at last. Blackness and desolation. Only the wild birds, that flocked and flew in myriads about the cliffs and rocks; only an occasional seal, or the head of a monster sea-elephant raised above the black water, to gaze wonderingly at the ship under sail, which, if the beast thought at all, he must have taken for some gigantic bird.

The captain landed in a bay. Yes, people had been here, and lately too. Whalers perhaps, or shipwrecked mariners; but no signs or sounds of human life were seen or heard now, so he came away and the voyage was resumed.

South still. South and east; and after five days of rough and tumble sailing, sometimes with showers of snow driving across the deck and almost choking the men as they kept watch, on a bright, clear morning the man at the mast-head once more raised the cry of "Land, ho!"

An island, undoubtedly.

Perhaps one of the outlying rocks of Donell's Group. They would have passed it, and sailed on their course to resume the search for the missing whalers; but young Fred's eagle eye noticed smoke, and instantly reported it.

"Haul the foreyard aback. Away, whaler!"

These were the orders, and speedily executed they were. Out swang the boat, and down, taking the water on an even keel, and in five minutes' time Captain Cawdor himself, accompanied by Fred, was steering away over the blue-black waters for a little bay in the desolate island.

Here, to their surprise, they found two men, and the joy the poor fellows evinced as the boat's keel rasped on the shingle was almost hysterical. They had been living in a cave near by, and from the way it was lined with sealskins it was evident enough that they had not gone short of provisions during their sojourn here, and that, moreover, despairing of being rescued for long months to come, they had commenced preparations for spending the winter in comparative comfort.

They had a large boat too, and the first thing that the captain noticed was the name painted on her bows--_Resolute_.

"Why," cried Captain Cawdor, "you are the very men we have come to seek for. But where are the rest of you?"

Then the faces of the two men fell, and they looked at each other confusedly and guiltily.

"Bill," said one at last, "better let us make a clean breast of it."

"Right, Nat. Guess it'll be the same in the end."

"We're about the guiltiest men out then," said the man called Nat.

"Mutiny and murder?"

"No, sirree; not so bad as that. Our hands are clean. But, sir, we are willing to own up to robbery. Yes, as base as base could be. But heaven knows, sir, we've suffered for it. Our ship, the _Resolute_, got in a gale of wind in the south-eastern ice down here, and we lost all our boats except this one here. Then we took the ice, or rather we were squeezed into a starvation creek or bay, 'nipped up' and thrown on our beam-ends on top of a floe. That's months ago, sir."

"I see," said Captain Cawdor, "and you and your mate here stole the only boat, provisioned her, and escaped in the dark."

"May the Lord love you, sir, that's it entirely."

"Well, you deserve to be marooned. If it wasn't for one thing more than another I'd take your arms and tools, smash your boat, and leave you here to perish. As it is, we'll leave the boat and take you. Is it far from here where your ship lies wrecked?"

"A good thousand miles, sir."

"A thousand miles! And how on earth did you reach here?"

"We kept hugging the ice all the way till abreast of the islands. Whenever it came on to blow we drew up the boat and lived on small bergs. Ah! sir, I assure you we're real penitent."

"You will have to prove your penitence then by guiding us to the wreck of the _Resolute_. If I find you false, I shall hang you both to the yard-arm as sure as my name is Jamie Cawdor."

"We'll be true as a needle to the Pole, sir. Won't we, Bill? We swear it."

"I swear it," said Nat solemnly.

They were then taken on board, and the voyage was renewed.

No time was to be lost now if the men of the _Resolute_ were to be rescued this year; for the ice-floes in these regions are constantly shifting, and streams of bergs in another month would encompass every island in the southern sea, rendering relief to the castaway crew an utter impossibility.

For two more weeks and over the cruise was continued, the weather being on the whole crisp and clear and the wind favourable.

Being now about the longitude indicated by the men picked up from Donell's rocks, the course was changed and the ship steered south away, till at last the ice was made. Although there were many floating bergs or huge pieces, with green glittering sides and caps of snow, the main flow was in itself a wondrous sight. Imagine, if you can, a huge irregular perpendicular wall of ice of nearly one thousand feet in height, level on its upper crust of snow, and indented with many a bay, with the waves dashing in foam high over the water-line, and forming a ridge of the strangest and most fantastic stalactites that it is possible to imagine. Here were caves of ice and grottoes of ice and coral apparently, with pillars of every shape and size, from which, when the sun shone, the most radiant and lovely colours were reflected, rendering the whole scene dazzling in the extreme. As the ship sailed slowly along this scene of enchantment, it was impossible not to believe you actually saw strange figures moving to and fro in those fairy caves, figures in trailing garments, some all white, others green, or blue or crimson, but all emitting light, and all seeming to mingle and glide as ghosts are said to do. Several times, indeed, Fred could have swore he saw hands and arms waved towards him, and the more he gazed the more life-like the ice spirits grew, till at last he was fain to cover his face with his hands, as a strange momentary fear came over him that he was losing his senses.

The effect of the scene on the men was remarkable. They stared in silent wonder, not unmixed with a kind of superstitious awe.

At long last clouds banked up and hid the sun, then, as if the enchanter had ceased to wave his wand, the spectres fled, and only blue-grey shadows remained to mark the places where the caves of beauty erst had spangled and shone.

On sailed the ship, on and on.

At last, one night, the mate on watch noticed a bright glare of light far away to the southward and east, and reported it to the captain.

Though it was long past midnight, the two men of the _Resolute_ were roused and brought on deck.

The light, they said, had often been seen. It was that from a burning mountain, and was nothing now to what it sometimes appeared. Just here, too, they averred the wreck would be found.

So the _San Salvador_ lay to till daybreak.

Both Fred and Captain Cawdor were on deck long before the first faint flush of dawn. But neither then nor when the sun crimsoned the waters to the east were any signs of human life to be seen.

Just two hours afterwards, however, as Fred and his captain sat at breakfast, the mate's watch being on deck, they heard that officer's footsteps rapidly advancing along the quarter-deck. Immediately after the skylight was opened, and the mate sang out:

"Something large and dark lying on top of the snow in the bay down here, sir."

Captain Cawdor and Fred sprang up and rushed on deck, and presently, while the ship was kept away in towards the bay, every glass on board was levelled at that dark spot on the snow.