“Stand by once again,” whispers De Vere, “to throw that anchor over as soon as I tell you.”
A moment of awful suspense.
“Now! now!” hisses De Vere.
Two anchors quit the car at the same time – one thrown by the aeronaut himself, one by Allan, and the ropes are speedily made fast. The balloon gives an upward plunge, the cables tighten, then all is still!
“Ha! ha! she is fast!” cried De Vere, now for the first time showing a little excitement. “Oh, she is a beauty! she has behave most lofely! Look up, gentlemen! – look up! – behold the mighty walls of blue ice that surround us! – behold the circle of blue sky dat over-canopies us! – look, the stars are shining!”
“Can it be night so soon?” exclaimed Allan, in alarm.
“Nay, nay, gentlemen,” said the enthusiastic Frenchman, “be easy of your minds. It is not night in the vorld outside, but here it is alvays night; up yonder the stars shine alvays, alvays, when de clouds are absent. And shine dey vill until de crack of doom. Now gaze around you. See, the darkness already begins to vanish, and you can see the vast and mighty cavern into which I have brought you. If my judgment serves me, it extends for miles around beneath de mountain. There! – you begin to perceive the gigantic stalactites that seem to support the roof!”
“Ralph,” cried Rory, seizing his friend by the hand, “do you remember, years and years ago, while we all sat round the fire in the tartan parlour of Arrandoon Castle, wishing we might be able to do something that no one, man or boy, had ever done before?”
“I do – I do,” answered Ralph.
“Descend with me here, then,” continued Rory, “and let us explore the cavern. Only a little, little way, captain,” he pleaded, seeing that De Vere shook his head in strong dissent.
“You know not vat you do ask,” said De Vere, solemnly. “Here are caves within caves, one cavern but hides a thousand more; besides, there are, maybe, and doubtless are, crevasses in de floor of dis awful crater, into which you may tumble, neever, neever to be seen again. Pray do not think of risking a danger so vast.”
The day wore slowly to a close; many and many an anxious look did McBain take skywards, in hopes of seeing the returning balloon. But the sun set, tipping the distant hills with brightest crimson, twilight died away in the west, and one by one shone out the stars, till night and darkness and silence reigned over all the sea of ice.
He went below at last. His feelings may be better imagined then described. He tried to make himself believe that nothing had occurred, and that the balloon had safely descended in some snow-clad valley, and that morning would bring good tidings. But for all this he could not for the life of him banish a dread, cold feeling that something terrible had occurred, the very novelty of which made it all the more appalling to think of. Presently the mate entered the saloon.
“What cheer, Stevenson! Any tidings?”
“A pigeon, sir,” replied the mate, handing the bird into the captain’s grasp.
McBain’s hands shook as he had never remembered them shake before, as he undid the tiny missive from the pigeon’s leg.
It ran briefly thus: —
“We are detained here in the crater all night. Do not be alarmed. To-morrow will, please Providence, see us safely home.”
Chapter Fourteen.
Anxious Hours – Exploration of the Mountain Cavern – The Cave of the King of Ice, and Ghouls of a Thousand Winters – Transformation Scenes – Snowblind – Lost
It would be difficult to say which was most to be pitied, McBain on board the Arrandoon, passing long hours of inconceivable anxiety, or our other heroes, left to spend the drear, cold night in the awful depths of that Arctic crater.
It was with light hearts that Ralph and Rory descended from the car of the Perseverando and commenced their perilous exploration of the vast and dimly-lighted cavern; but heavy hearts were left behind them, and hardly had they disappeared in the gloom ere the Frenchman exclaimed to Allan, “I greatly fear dat I have done wrong. Your two friends are big wid impulse; if anydings happen to them dere vill be for me no more peace in dis world.”
Allan was silent.
But when hours passed away and there were no signs of their returning, when gloaming itself began to fall around them, and the stars at the crater’s mouth assumed a brighter hue, Allan’s anxiety knew no bounds, and he proposed to De Vere to go in search of his friends.
“Ah! if dat vere indeed possible!” was the reply.
“And why not?” said Allan.
“For many reasons: de balloon vill even now hardly bear de strain on her anchors; de loss of even your veight vould require such delicate manipulation on my part, dat I fear I could not successfully vork in such small space. Alas! ve must vait. But there yet is hope.”
Meanwhile it behoves us to follow Ralph and Rory. They had faithfully promised De Vere they would go but a short distance from the car, and that promise they had meant to redeem. They found that the ground sloped downwards from the mouth of the crater, but there was no want of light, as yet at least, and thus not the slightest danger of being unable to find their way back, for were there not their footsteps in the snow to guide them? So onward they strolled, cheerfully enough, arm-in-arm, like brothers, and that was precisely how they felt towards each other.
The road – if I may say “road” where there was no road – was rough enough in all conscience, and at times it was difficult for them to prevent stumbling over a boulder.
“I wonder,” said Rory, “how long these boulders have lain here, and I wonder what is beneath us principally, and what those vast stalactite pillars are formed of.”
“‘Bide a wee,’ as the doctor says,” replied Ralph; “don’t hurry me with too many questions, and don’t forget that though I am ever so much bigger and stronger than you, I don’t think I am half so wise. But the boulders may have lain here for ages: those ghostly-looking pillars are doubtless ice-clad rocks, partly formed through the agency of fire, partly by water. I think we stand principally on rocks and on ice, with, far, far down beneath us, fire.”
“Dear, dear!” said Rory, talking very seriously, and with the perfect English he always used when speaking earnestly; “what a strange, mysterious place we are in! Do you know, Ralph, I am half afraid to go much farther.”
“Silly boy!” said his companion, “how thoroughly Irish you are at heart – joy, tears, sunshine and fun, but, deep under all, a smouldering superstition.”
“Just like the fires,” added Rory, “that roll so far beneath us. But you know, Ray,” – in their most affectionate and friendly moods Ralph had come to be “Ray” to Rory, and Rory “Row” to Ralph – “you know, Ray, that the silence and gloom of this eerie place are enough to make any one superstitious – any one, that is, whose soul isn’t solid matter-of-fact.”
“Well, it is silent. But I say, Row – ”
“Well, Ray?”
“Suppose we try to break it with a song? I daresay they have never heard much singing down here.”
“Who?” cried Rory, staring fearfully into the darkness.
“Oh!” said Ralph, carelessly, “I didn’t mean any one in particular. Come, what shall we sing – ‘The wearing o’ the green’?”
“No, Ray, no; that were far too melancholic, though I grant it is a lovely melody.”
“Well, something Scotch, and stirring. The echoes of this cavern must be wonderful.”
They were, indeed; and when Rory started off into that world-known but ever-popular song, “Auld lang syne,” and Ralph chimed with deep and sonorous bass, the effect was really grand and beautiful, for a thousand voices seemed to fill the cavern. They heard the song even in the car of the balloon, and it caused Allan to remark, smilingly, for they had not yet been long gone, “Ralph and boy Rory seem to be enjoying themselves; but I trust they won’t be long away.”
Rory was quite lively again ere he reached the words —
“And we’ll tak’ a richt good-willy waught
For auld lang syne.”
He burst out laughing. “Indeed, indeed! there is no wonder I laugh,” he said; “fancy the notion of taking a ‘good-willy waught’ in a place like this! And now,” he added, “for a bit of a sketch.”
“Don’t be long in nibbing it in, then.”
Rory was seated on a boulder now, tracing on his page the outlines of those strange, weird pillars that hands of man had never raised nor human eyes gazed upon before. So the silence once more became irksome, and the time seemed long to Ralph, but Rory had finished at last.
Then the two companions, after journeying on somewhat farther, began to awaken the echoes by various shouts; and voices, some coming from a long distance, repeated clearly the last words.
“Let us frighten those ghouls down there by rolling down boulders,” said Rory.
“Come on, then,” said Ralph; “I’ve often played at that game.”
They had ten minutes of this work. It was evident this hill within a hill, this crater’s point, was of depth illimitable from the distant hissing noises which the broken boulders finally emitted.
“It’s a regular whispering gallery,” said Rory.
“It is, Row. But do let us get back. See, there is already barely light enough to reveal our footsteps.”
“Ah! but, my boy,” said Rory, “the nearer the car we walk the more light we’ll have. And I have just one more surprise for you. You see this little bag?”
“Yes. What is in it – sandwiches?”
“Nay, my Saxon friend! but Bengal fires. Now witness the effects of the grand illumination of the Cave of the King of Ice by us, his two ghouls of a thousand winters!”
The scene, under weird blue lights, pale green or crimson, was really magical. All the transformation scenes ever they had witnessed dwindled into insignificance compared to it.
“I shall remember this to my dying day?” Rory exclaimed.
“And I too!” cried Ralph, entranced.
“Now the finale?” said the artist; “it’ll beat all the others! This white light of mine will eclipse the glory of the rest as the morning sun does that of moonlight! It will burn quite a long time, too; I made it last night on purpose.”
It was a Bengal fire of dazzling splendour that now was lit, and our heroes themselves were astonished.
“It beats the ‘Arabian Nights’!” cried Rory. “Look, look!” he continued, waving it gently to and fro, “the stalactites seem to dance and move towards us from out the gloom arrayed in robes of transplendent white. Yonder comes the King of Ice himself to bid us welcome.”
“Put it out! put it out!” murmured Ralph, with his hand on his brow.
It presently burned out, but lo! the change! – total darkness!
Rory and Ralph were snowblind!
“Oh, boy Rory!” said Ralph, “that brilliant of yours has sealed our fate. It will be hours ere our eyes can be restored, and long before then the darkness of night will have enshrouded us. We are lost!”
“Let us not lose each other, at all events,” said Rory, feeling for his friend’s arm, and linking it in his own.
“You think we are lost; dear Ralph, I have more hopes. Something within me tells me that we were never meant to end our days in the awful darkness of this terrible cavern. Pass the night here it is certain we must, but to-morrow will bring daylight, and daylight safety, for be assured Allan and De Vere will not leave us, unless – ”
Here the hope-giver paused.
“Unless,” added Ralph – “for I know what you would say – an accident should be imminent – unless they must leave. A balloon needs strange management.”
“Even then they will return to seek us by morning light. Do you know what, Ray?” he continued, “our adventures have been too foolhardy. Providence has punished us, but He will not utterly desert us.”
“Hope springs eternal in the human breast.”
The lamp of hope was flickering – had, indeed, burned out – in Ralph’s heart, but his friend’s words rekindled it. Perhaps Rory’s true character never shone more clearly out than it did now, for, while trying to cheer his more than friend, he fully appreciated the desperateness of the situation, and had but little hope left in him, except his extreme trust in the goodness of a higher Power.
“Could we not,” said Ralph, “all snowblind as we are, try to grope our way upwards?”
“No, no, no!” cried Rory; “success in that way is all but impossible; and, remember, we have but the trail of our footprints to guide us even by day.”
Something of the ludicrous invariably mixes itself up with the most tragic affairs of this world. I have seen the truth of this in the chamber of death itself, in storms at sea, and in scenes where men grappled each other in deadly strife. And it is well it should be so, else would the troubles of this world oftentimes swamp reason itself. The attempts of Rory to keep his companion in cheer, partook of the nature of the ludicrous, as did the attempts of both of them to keep warm.
So hours elapsed, and sometimes sitting, sometimes standing and beating feet and hands for circulation’s sake, and doing much talking, but never daring to leave the spot, at last says Rory, “Hullo, Ray! joy of joys! I’ve found a lucifer!”
Almost at the same moment he lit it. They could see each other’s faces – see a watch, and notice it was nearly midnight. They had regained sight! Joy and hope were at once restored.
“Troth!” said Rory, resuming his brogue, “it’s myself could be a baby for once and cry. Now what do ye say to try to sleep? We’ll lie close together, you know, and it’s warm we’ll be in a jiffey?”
So down they lay, and, after ten long shivering minutes, heat came back to their frozen bodies. They had not been talking all this time; it is but right to say they were better engaged.
With warmth came le gaiété– to Rory, at least.
“Have you wound your watch, Ray?”
“No, Row? and I wouldn’t move for the world!”
After a pause, “Ray,” says Row.
“Yes, Row?” says Ray.
“You always said you liked a big bed-room, Ray, and, troth, you’ve got one for once!”
“How I envy you your spirits,” answers Ray.
“Don’t talk about spirits,” says Row, “and frighten a poor boy. I’ve covered up my head, and I wouldn’t look up for the world. I’m going to repeat myself to sleep. Good night.”
“Good night,” asks Ray, “but how do you do it?”
“Psalms, Ray,” Row replies. “I know them all. I’ll be out of here in a moment.
“‘He makes me down to lie by pastures green,
He leadeth me the quiet waters by.’
“Isn’t that pretty, Ray?”
“Very, Row, but ‘pastures green’ and ‘quiet waters’ aren’t much in my way. Repeat me to sleep, Rory boy, and I promise you I won’t pull your ears again for a month.”
“Well, I’ll try,” says Row. “Are your eyes shut?”
“To be sure. A likely thing I’d have them open, isn’t it?”
“Then we’re both going to a ball in old England.”
“Glorious,” says Ray. “I’m there already.”
Then in slow, monotonous, but pleasing tones, Row goes on. He describes the brilliant festive scene, the warmth, the light, the beauty and the music, and the dances, and last but not least the supper table. It is at this point that our Saxon hero gives sundry nasal indications that this strange species of mesmerism had taken due effect, so Row leaves him at the supper table, and goes back to his “pastures green” and “quiet waters,” and soon they both are sound enough. Let us leave them there; no need to watch them. Remember what Lover says in his beautiful song, —
“O! watch ye well by daylight,
For angels watch at night.”
Poor McBain! Worn out with watching, he had sunk at last to sleep in his chair.
And day broke slowly on the sea of ice. The snow-clad crater’s peak was the first to welcome glorious aurora with a rosy blush, which stole gradually downwards till it settled on the jagged mountain tips. Then bears began to yawn and stretch themselves, the sly Arctic foxes crept forth from snow-banks, and birds in their thousands – brightest of all the snowbird – came wheeling around the Arrandoon to snatch an early breakfast ere they wended their way westward to fields of blood and phocal carnage.
And their screaming awoke McBain.
He was speedily on deck.
Yonder was the Perseverando slowly descending.
During all the long cruise of the Arrandoon nobody referred to the adventure at the crater of Jan Mayen without a feeling akin to sadness and contrition, for all felt that something had been done which ought not to have been done – there had been, as McBain called it, “a tempting of Providence.”
“Well, well, well,” cried the skipper of the Canny Scotia– and he seemed to be in anything but a sweet temper. “Just like my luck. I do declare, mate, if I’d been born a hatter everybody else would have been born without heads. Here have I been struggling away for years against fortune, always trying to get a good voyage to support a small wife and a big family, and now that luck seems to have all turned in our favour, two glorious patches of seals on the ice yonder, a hard frost, and the ice beautifully red with blood, and no ship near us, then you, mate, come down from the crow’s-nest with that confoundedly long face of yours, for which you ought to have been smothered at birth – ”
“I can’t help my face, sir,” cried the mate, bristling up like a bantam cock.
“Silence!” roared the burly skipper. “Silence! when you talk to your captain. You, I say, you come and report a big steamer in sight to help us at the banquet.”
The mate scratched his head, taking his hat off for the purpose.
“Did I make the ship?” he asked with naïve innocence.
“Pooh!” the skipper cried; and next moment he was scrambling up the rigging with all the elegance, grace, and speed of a mud turtle.
He was in a better humour when he returned.
“I say, matie,” he said, “yonder chap ain’t a sealer; too dandy, and not boats enough. No, she is one of they spectioneering kind o’ chaps as goes a prowling around lookin’ for the North Pole. Ha! ha! ha! Come below, matie, and we’ll have a glass together. She ain’t the kind o’ lady to interfere with our blubber-hunting.”
The mate was mollified. His face was soaped, and he shone.
Chapter Fifteen.
The “Arrandoon” Anchors to the “Floe” – The Visit to the “Canny Scotia” – Silas Grig – A Sad Scene – Rory Relieves His Feelings – Strangers Coming from the Far West
Seeing the skipper of the Canny Scotia and his mate come below together smiling, the steward readily guessed what they wanted, so he was not dilatory in producing the rum-bottle and two tumblers. Then the skipper pushed the former towards the mate, and said, —
“Help yourself, matie.”
And the mate dutifully and respectfully pushed it back again, saying, —
“After you, sir.”
This palaver finished, they both half-filled their tumblers with the ruby intoxicant, added thereto a modicum of boiling coffee from the urn that simmered on top of the stove, then, with a preliminary nod towards each other, emptied their glasses at a gulp. After this, gasping for breath, they beamed on each other with a newly-found friendliness.
“Have another,” said the skipper.
They had another, then went on deck.
After ten minutes of attentive gazing at the Arrandoon, “Well,” said the skipper, “I do call that a bit o’ pretty steering; if it ain’t, my name isn’t Silas Grig.”
“But there’s a deal o’ palaver about it, don’t you think so, sir?” remarked the mate.
“Granted, granted,” assented Silas; “granted, matie.”
The cause of their admiration was the way in which the Arrandoon was brought alongside the great ice-floe. She didn’t come stem on – as if she meant to flatten, her bows – and then swing round. Not she. She approached the ice with a beautiful sweep, describing nearly half a circle, then, broadside on to the ice, she neared it and neared it. Next over went the fenders; the steam roared from the pipe upwards into the blue air, like driven snow, then dissolved itself like the ghost of the white lady; the ship was stopped, away went the ice-anchors, the vessel was fast.
And no noise about it either. There may not be much seamanship now-a-days, but I tell you, boys, it takes a clever man to manage a big steamer prettily and well.
The Arrandoon was not two hundred yards from the Canny Scotia. Now round go the davits on the port quarter, outward swings the boat, men and officers spring nimbly into her, blocks rattle, and down goes the first whaler, reaching the water with a flop, but not a plash, and with keel as even and straight as a ruled line.
“I say, matie,” said Silas Grig, in some surprise, “if that boat ain’t coming straight away here, I hope I may never chew cheese again.”
So far as that was concerned, if Silas chose, he would at least have the chance of chewing cheese again, for the Arrandoon’s boat came rippling along towards them with a steady cluck-el-tee cluck-el-tee, which spoke well for the men at the oars.
“Well,” continued Silas, who, rough nut though he was, always meant well enough, “let us do the civil, matie; tell the steward to fill the rum-bottle, and pitch ’em a rope.”
The rope came in very handy; but there was no need for the rum; even in Greenland men can live without it – the officers of the Arrandoon had found that out.
McBain, with Allan and Rory, – the latter, by the way, seemed to have registered a vow to go everywhere and see everything, – stood on the quarter-deck of the Canny Scotia, the skipper of which craft was in front of him, a comical look of admiration on his round brick-coloured countenance, and his two hands deep in the pockets of his powerful pilot coat.
“Ay, sir! ay!” he was saying; “well, I must say ye do surprise me.”
He put such an emphasis on the “me” that one would have thought that to surprise Silas Grig was something to be quite boastful of ever after.
“All the way to the North Pole? Well, well; but d’ye think you’ll find it?”
“We mean to,” said Rory, boldly.
“Perseverando!” said Allan.
“The Perseverance!” cried the skipper. “I know the ship, a Peterheader. Last time I saw her she had got in the nips, and was lying keel up on the ice, yards and rigging all awry of course; and, bother her, I hope she’ll lie there till Silas Grig gets a voyage (a cargo), then when the Scotia is full ship, the Perseverance can get down off the shelf, and cabbage all the rest. Them’s my sentiments. But come below, gentlemen, come below; there is room enough in the cabin of the old Scotia for every man Jack o’ ye. Come below.”
Silas was right. There was room, but not much to spare, and, squeezed in between Allan and McBain, poor Rory was hardly visible, and could only reach the table with one hand.
The cabin of this Greenlandman can be described with a stroke of the pen, so to speak. It was square and not very lofty – a tall man required to duck when under a beam; the beams were painted white, the bulkheads and cabin doors – four in number – were grey picked out with green. One-half at least of the available space was occupied by the table; close around it were cushioned lockers; the only other furniture was the captain’s big chair and a few camp-stools, a big square stove with a roaring fire, and a big square urn fixed on top thereof, which contained coffee, had never been empty all the voyage, and would not be till the end thereof. I suppose a bucket of water could hardly be called furniture, but there it stood close to the side of the stove, and the concentric rings of ice inside it showed the difficulty everybody must experience who chose to quench his thirst in the most natural way possible.
Above, in the hollow of the skylight, hung a big compass, and several enormously long sealer’s telescopes.
“No rum, gentlemen?” said Silas; “well, you do astonish me; but you’ll taste my wife’s green ginger wine, and drink her health?”
“That we will,” replied McBain, “and maybe finish a bottle.”
“And welcome to ten,” said Silas; “and the bun, steward, bring the bun. That’s the style! My wife isn’t much to look at, gentlemen, but, for a bun or o’ drop o’ green ginger, I’ll back her against the whole world.”
After our heroes had done justice to the bun, and pledged the skipper’s good lady in the green ginger, that gentleman must needs eye them again and again, with as much curiosity as if they had been some new and wonderful zoological specimens, that he had by chance captured.
“All the way to the North Pole!” he muttered. “Well, well, but that does get over Silas.”
Rory could not help laughing.
“Funny old stick,” said Silas, joining in his merriment, “ain’t I?”
He did look all that and more, with his two elbows on the table, and his knuckles supporting his chin, for his face was as round as a full moon orient, and just the colour of a new flower-pot; then he laughed more with one side of his face than the other, his eyes were nowhere in the folds of his face, and his nose hardly worth mentioning.
After the laugh, beginning with Rory, had spread fairly round the table, everybody felt relieved.
“I’m only a plain, honest blubber-hunter, gentlemen,” said Silas Grig, apologetically, “with a large family and – and a small wife – but – but you do surprise me. There?”
(It is but fair to say that, as a rule, captains of Greenlandmen are far more refined in manner than poor Silas.)
But when McBain informed him that the Arrandoon would lay alongside him for a week or more, and help him to secure a voyage, and wouldn’t ship a single skin herself, Silas was more surprised than ever. Indeed, until this day I could not tell you what would have happened to Silas, had the mate not been providentially beside him to vent his feelings upon. On that unfortunate officer’s back he brought down his great shoulder-of-mutton fist with a force that made him jump, and his breath to come and go as if he had just been popped under a shower-bath.
“Luck’s come,” he cried. “Hey? hey?”
And every “hey?” represented a dig in the mate’s ribs with the skipper’s thumb of iron.
“Told ye it would, hey? Didn’t I? hey?”
“What’ll the old woman say, hey? Hey, boys? Hey, matie? Hey? Hey?”
“You gentlemen,” said Silas, alter his feelings had calmed down a trifle, “are all for sport, and Silas has to make a voyage. But you’ll have sport, gentlemen, that ye will. My men are sealing now. They’re among the young seals. It has been nothing but flay, flay, flay, for the last two rounds of the sun, and there isn’t such a very long night now, is there? And you saw the blood?”
Saw the blood, reader! Indeed, our heroes had. Where was it that that blood was not? All the beautiful snow was encrimsoned with it on the distant field of ice, where the men were carrying on their ghastly work. It was as if a great battle had been fought there, and the dead crangs lay in dozens and hundreds. A crang means a carcass. Is the adjective “dead,” then, not unnecessary? What else can a carcass or crang be but “dead”? Nay, but listen: let me whisper a truth in your ear, and I know your brave young blood will boil when I tell you: I’ve known our men, Englishmen and Scotchmen, flense the lambs while still alive.
From the field of slaughter the skins were being dragged to the ship by men with ropes, so there were streaks of red all the way to the ship, and all the vessel’s starboard side was smeared with blood. Indeed, I do not wish to harrow the feelings of my readers, and I shall but describe a few of the cruelties of sealing – no, on second thoughts, I will not even do that, because I know well you will believe me when I tell you these cruelties are very great, and believing this, if ever you have an opportunity of voting for a bill or signing a petition to get poor Greenland seals fair play, I know you will.
Silas Grig and our heroes took a walk to the field of unequal strife, and Rory and Allan, to whom all they saw was very new, were not a little horrified as well as disgusted.
“This,” said McBain, “is the young-sealing. We are not going to assist you in this; we are sportsmen, not butchers, Captain Grig?”
Silas grasped McBain’s hand. “Your feelings do you credit, sir,” he said – “they do. But I have feelings, too. Yes, a weather-beaten old stick like me has feelings! But I’m sent out here to make a voyage, and what can I do? I’ve a small wife and a large family; and my owners, too, would sack me if I didn’t bring the skins. I say,” he added, after a pause, “you know my mate?”
“Yes,” said McBain.
“Well,” said Silas, “you wouldn’t, imagine that a fellow with such an ugly chunk o’ a figure-head as that had feelings, eh? But he has, though; and during all this young-sealing business we both of us just drowns our feelings in the rum-bottle. Fact, sir! and old Silas scorns a lie. But, gentlemen, when all this wicked work is over, when we are away north from here, among the old seals, and when we can look at that sun again without seeing blood, then my matie and I banishes Black-Jack (the gallon measure from which rum is served is so called) and sticks to coffee and arrowroot; that we do!”
They had turned their backs on the by no means inviting scene, and were walking towards the Canny Scotia as Silas spoke.
“But,” said the Greenland mariner, “come and dine with the old man to-morrow. The last of the young seals will be on board by then, and we’ll have had a wash down; we’ll be clean and tidy like. Then hurrah for the old seals! That’s sport, if you like! – that’s fair play.”
“Ah!” said McBain, “your heart is in the right place, I can see that. I wish there were more like you. Do you seal on Sunday? Many do.”
Silas looked solemn. “I knows they do,” he said, “but Silas hasn’t done so yet, and he prays he never may be tempted to.”
“Captain Grig, we’ll come and dine with you, and we expect you to pay us the same compliment another day.”
“I daresay you fellows are glad to get home?” said Ralph, rising from the sofa and throwing down the volume he had been dreaming over.
“Not a bit of it!” said Rory and Allan, both in one breath; and Rory added, “You don’t know what a funny ship a real Greenlandman is! I declare you’ve lost a treat!”
“Does it smell badly?” asked Ralph, with a slight curl of his upper lip.
“Never a taste!” says Rory; “she’s as sweet as cowslips or clover, or newly-made hay; and the bun was beautiful!”
“The what?” said Ralph.
“Don’t tell him?” cried Allan; “don’t tell him!”
“And the green ginger!” said Rory, smacking his lips. “Ah, yes! the green ginger,” said Allan; “I never tasted anything like that in all my born days!”