The Giant of the North: Pokings Round the Pole. Robert Michael Ballantyne
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clasped over one knee, sat gazing upwards.
Before he could reply the heart of Toolooha was made to bound by a shriek more terrible than she had ever before heard or imagined.
Chingatok caught her by the wrist, held up a finger as if to impose silence, smiled brightly, and listened.
Again the shriek was repeated with prolonged power.
“Tell me, my son,” gasped Toolooha, “is Oblooria—are the people safe? Why came you to me alone?”
“The little sister and the people are safe. I came alone to prevent your being taken by surprise. Did I not say that it could shriek and yell? This is the white man’s big canoe.”
Dropping the old woman’s hand as he spoke, Chingatok darted into the open air with the agility of a Polar bear, and Toolooha followed with the speed of an Arctic hare.
Chapter Four.
A Catastrophe and a Bold Decision
Two days after her arrival at the temporary residence of the northern Eskimos, the steam yacht Whitebear, while close to the shore, was beset by ice, so that she could neither advance nor retreat. Everywhere, as far as the eye could reach, the sea was covered with hummocks and bergs and fields of ice, so closely packed that there was not a piece of open water to be seen, with the exception of one small basin a few yards ahead of the lead or lane of water in which the vessel had been imprisoned.
“No chance of escaping from this, I fear, for a long time,” said Alf Vandervell to his brother, as they stood near the wheel, looking at the desolate prospect.
“It seems quite hopeless,” said Leo, with, however, a look of confidence that ill accorded with his words.
“I do believe we are frozen in for the winter,” said Benjy Vane, coming up at the moment.
“There speaks ignorance,” said the Captain, whose head appeared at the cabin hatchway. “If any of you had been in these regions before, you would have learned that nothing is so uncertain as the action of pack ice. At one time you may be hard and fast, so that you couldn’t move an inch. A few hours after, the set of the currents may loosen the pack, and open up lanes of water through which you may easily make your escape. Sometimes it opens up so as to leave almost a clear sea in a few hours.”
“But it is pretty tight packed just now, father, and looks wintry-like, doesn’t it?” said Benjy in a desponding tone.
“Looks! boy, ay, but things are not what they seem hereaway. You saw four mock-suns round the real one yesterday, didn’t you? and the day before you saw icebergs floating in the air, eh?”
“True, father, but these appearances were deceptive, whereas this ice, which looks so tightly packed, is a reality.”
“That is so, lad, but it is not set fast for the winter, though it looks like it. Well, doctor,” added the Captain, turning towards a tall cadaverous man who came on deck just then with the air and tread of an invalid, “how goes it with you? Better, I hope?”
He asked this with kindly interest as he laid his strong hand on the sick man’s shoulder; but the doctor shook his head and smiled sadly.
“It is a great misfortune to an expedition, Captain, when the doctor himself falls sick,” he said, sitting down on the skylight with a sigh.
“Come, come, cheer up, doctor,” returned the Captain, heartily, “don’t be cast down; we’ll all turn doctors for the occasion, and nurse you well in spite of yourself.”
“I’ll keep up all heart, Captain, you may depend on’t, as long as two of my bones will stick together, but—well, to change the subject; what are you going to do now?”
“Just all that can be done in the circumstances,” replied the Captain. “You see, we cannot advance over ice either with sail or steam, but there’s a basin just ahead which seems a little more secure than that in which we lie. I’ll try to get into it. There is nothing but a neck of ice between us and it, which I think I could cut by charging in under full steam, and there seems a faint gleam of something far ahead, which encourages me. Tell the steward to fetch my glasses, Benjy.”
“Butterface!” shouted the boy.
“Yis, massa.”
“Fetch the Captain’s glasses, please.”
“Yis, massa.”
A pair of large binoculars were brought up by a huge negro, whose name was pre-eminently unsuggestive of his appearance.
After a long steady gaze at the horizon, the Captain shut up the glass with an air of determination, and ordered the engineer to get up full steam, and the crew to be ready with the ice-poles.
There was a large berg at the extremity of the lakelet of open water into which Captain Vane wished to break. It was necessary to keep well out of the way of that berg. The Captain trusted chiefly to his screw, but got out the ice-poles in case they should be required.
When all the men were stationed, the order was given to go ahead full steam. The gallant little yacht charged the neck of ice like a living creature, hit it fair, cut right through, and scattered the fragments right and left as she sailed majestically into the lakelet beyond. The shock was severe, but no harm was done, everything on board having been made as strong as possible, and of the very best material, for a voyage in ice-laden seas.
An unforeseen event followed, however, which ended in a series of most terrible catastrophes. The neck of ice through which they had broken had acted as a check on the pressure of the great body of the floe, and it was no sooner removed than the heavy mass began to close in with slow but irresistible power, compelling the little vessel to steam close up to the iceberg—so close that some of the upper parts actually overhung the deck.
They were slowly forced into this dangerous position. With breathless anxiety the Captain and crew watched the apparently gentle, but really tremendous grinding of the ice against the vessel’s side. Even the youngest on board could realise the danger. No one moved, for nothing whatever could be done.
“Everything depends, under God, on the ice easing off before we are crushed,” said the Captain.
As he spoke, the timbers of the yacht seemed to groan under the pressure; then there was a succession of loud cracks, and the vessel was thrust bodily up the sloping sides of the berg. While in this position, with the bow high and dry, a mass of ice was forced against the stern-post, and the screw-propeller was snapped off as if it had been made of glass.
Poor Captain Vane’s heart sank as if he had received his death-blow, for he knew that the yacht was now, even in the event of escaping, reduced to an ordinary vessel dependent on its sails. The shock seemed to have shaken the berg itself, for at that moment a crashing sound was heard overhead. The terror-stricken crew looked up, and for one moment a pinnacle like a church spire was seen to flash through the air right above them. It fell with an indescribable roar close alongside, deluging the decks with water. There was a momentary sigh of relief, which, however, was chased away by a succession of falling masses, varying from a pound to a ton in weight, which came down on the deck like cannon-shots, breaking the topmasts, and cutting to pieces much of the rigging. Strange to say, none of the men were seriously injured, though many received bruises more or less severe.
During this brief but thrilling period, the brothers Vandervell and Benjy Vane crouched close together beside the port bulwarks, partially screened from the falling ice by the mizzen shrouds. The Captain stood on the quarter-deck, quite exposed, and apparently unconscious of danger, the picture of despair.
“It can’t last long,” sighed poor Benjy, looking solemnly up at the vast mass of the bluish-white berg, which hung above them as if ready to fall.
Presently the pressure ceased, then the ice eased off, and in a few minutes the Whitebear slid back into the sea, a pitiable wreck! Now had come the time for action.
“Out poles, my lads, and shove her off the berg!” was the sharp order.
Every one strained as if for life at the ice-poles, and slowly forced the yacht away from the