The World of Ice by R. M. Ballantyne (digital e reader TXT) đź“•
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- Author: R. M. Ballantyne
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“I will,” answered Fred, “but I don’t know that I’ll ever be rich, or influential, or able to help them much.”
“Of course you don’t. But when a thought about them strikes you, will you always think it out, and, if possible, act it out, as God shall enable you?”
“Yes, Tom, I promise to do that as well as I can.”
“That’s right, thank you, my boy!” said the young surgeon, as they descended the shrouds and leaped on deck.
Here they found the captain walking up and down rapidly, with an anxious expression of face. After taking a turn or two he stopped short, and gazed out astern.
“Set the stun’sails, Mr Bolton. The breeze will be up in a little, I think. Let the men pull with a will.”
The order was given, and soon the ship was under a cloud of canvas, advancing slowly as the boats towed her between two large icebergs, which had been gradually drawing near to each other the whole afternoon.
“Is there any danger, Buzzby?” enquired Fred, as the sturdy sailor stood looking at the larger berg, with an ice-pole in his hands.
“Danger! ay, that there is, lad! more nor’s agreeable, d’ye see. Here we are without a breath o’ wind to get us on, right between two bergs as could crack us like a walnut. We can’t get to starboard of ’em for the current, nor to larboard of ’em for the pack, as ye see, so we must go between them, neck or nothing.”
The danger was indeed imminent. The two bergs were within a hundred yards of each other, and the smaller of the two, being more easily moved by the current, probably, was setting down on the larger at a rate that bade fair to decide the fate of the Dolphin in a few minutes. The men rowed lustily, but their utmost exertions could move the ship but slowly. Aid was coming, however, direct from the hand of Him who is a refuge in the time of danger. A breeze was creeping over the calm sea right astern, and it was to meet this that the studding sails had been set a-low and aloft, so that the wide-spreading canvas, projecting far to the right and left, had, to an inexperienced eye, the appearance of being out of all proportion to the little hull by which it was supported.
With breathless anxiety those on board stood watching the two bergs and the approaching breeze.
At last it came. A few cat’s-paws ruffled the surface of the sea, distending the sails for a moment, then leaving them flat and loose as before. This, however, was sufficient; another such puff and the ship was almost out of danger, but before it came, the projecting summit of the smaller berg was overhanging the deck. At this critical moment the wind began to blow steadily, and soon the Dolphin was in the open water beyond. Five minutes after she had passed, the moving mountains struck with a noise louder than thunder; the summits and large portions of the sides fell, with a succession of crashes like the roaring of artillery, just above the spot where the ship had lain not quarter of an hour before, and the vessel, for some time after, rocked violently to and fro in the surges that the plunge of the falling masses raised.
The narrow escape related in the last chapter was but the prelude to a night of troubles. Fortunately, as we have before mentioned, night did not now add darkness to their difficulties. Soon after passing the bergs, a stiff breeze sprang up off shore, between which and the Dolphin there was a thick belt of loose ice, or sludge, while outside, the pack was in motion, and presented a terrible scene of crashing and grinding masses under the influence of the breeze, which soon freshened to a gale.
“Keep her away two points,” said Captain Guy to the man at the wheel; “we’ll make fast to yonder berg, Mr Bolton; if this gale carries us into the pack, we shall be swept far out of our course, if, indeed, we escape being nipped and sent to the bottom.”
Being nipped is one of the numberless dangers to which Arctic navigators are exposed. Should a vessel get between two moving fields or floes of ice, there is a chance, especially in stormy weather, of the ice being forced together and squeezing in the sides of the ship; this is called nipping.
“Ah!” remarked Buzzby, as he stood with folded arms by the capstan, “many and many a good ship has been sent to the bottom by that same. I’ve see’d a brig, with my own two eyes, squeezed together a’most flat by two big floes of ice, and after doin’ it they jist separated agin an’ let her go plump down to the bottom. Before she was nipped, the crew saved themselves by jumpin’ on to the ice, and they wos picked up by our ship that wos in company.”
“There’s no dependin’ on the ice, by no means,” remarked Amos Parr, “for I’ve see’d the self-same sort of thing that ye mention happen to a small schooner in Davis Straits, only, instead o’ crushin’ it flat, the ice lifted it right high and dry out o’ the water, and then let it down again, without more ado, as sound as iver.”
“Get out the warps and ice-anchors, there,” cried the captain.
In a moment the men were in the boats, and busy heaving and planting ice-anchors, but it was not until several hours had been spent in this tedious process that they succeeded in making fast to the berg. They had barely accomplished this when the berg gave indications of breaking up, so they cast off again in great haste, and, not long afterwards, a mass of ice, many tons in weight, fell from the edge of the berg close to where they had been moored.
The captain now beat up for the land in the hope of finding anchoring-ground. At first the ice presented an impenetrable barrier, but at length a lead of open water was found, through which they passed to within a few hundred yards of the shore, which, at this spot, showed a front of high precipitous cliffs.
“Stand by to let go the anchor,” shouted the captain.
“Ay, ay, sir!”
“Down your helm! Let go!”
Down went the anchor to the music of the rattling chain-cable, a sound which had not been heard since the good ship left the shores of Old England.
“If we were only a few yards farther in, sir,” remarked the first mate, “we should be better. I’m afraid of the stream of ice coming round yonder point.”
“So am I,” replied the captain; “but we can scarcely manage it, I fear, on account of the shore ice. Get out a boat, Mr Saunders, and try to fix an anchor. We may warp in a few yards.”
The anchor was fixed, and the men strained at the capstan with a will, but, notwithstanding their utmost efforts, they could not penetrate the shore ice. Meanwhile the wind increased, and snow began to fall in large flakes. The tide, too, as it receded, brought a stream of ice round the point ahead of them, which bore right down on their bows. At first the concussions were slight, and the bow of the ship turned the floes aside, but heavier masses soon came down, and at last one fixed itself on the cable, and caused the anchor to drag with a harsh, grating sound.
Fred Ellice, who stood beside the second mate, near the companion hatch, looked enquiringly at him.
“Ah! that’s bad,” said Saunders, shaking his head slowly, “I dinna like that sound. If we’re carried out into the pack there, dear knows where we’ll turn up in the long run.”
“Perhaps we’ll turn bottom up, sir,” suggested the fat cook, as he passed, at the moment with a tray of meat. Mizzle could not resist a joke—no matter how unsuitable the time or dreadful the consequences.
“Hold your tongue, sir,” exclaimed Saunders indignantly. “Attend to your business, and speak only when you’re spoken to.”
With some difficulty the mass of ice that had got foul of the cable was disengaged, but in a few moments another and a larger mass fixed upon it, and threatened to carry it away. In this extremity the captain ordered the anchor to be hove up, but this was not easily accomplished, and when at last it was hove up to the bow, both flukes were found to have been broken off, and the shank was polished bright with rubbing on the rocks.
Ice now came rolling down in great quantities and with irresistible force, and at last the ship was whirled into the much-dreaded pack, where she became firmly embedded, and drifted along with it before the gale into the unknown regions of the north all that night. To add to their distress and danger a thick fog overspread the sea, so that they could not tell whither the ice was carrying them, and to warp out of it was impossible. There was nothing for it, therefore, but to drive before the gale and take advantage of the first opening in the ice that should afford them a chance of escape.
Towards evening of the following day the gale abated, and the sun shone out bright and clear, but the pack remained close as ever, drifting steadily towards the north.
“We’re far beyond the most northerly sea that has ever yet been reached,” remarked Captain Guy to Fred and Singleton, as he leaned on the weather bulwarks, and gazed wistfully over the fields of ice in which they were embedded.
“I beg your pardon for differing, Captain Guy, but I think that Captain Parry was farther north than this when he attempted to reach the pole,” remarked Saunders, with the air of a man who was prepared to defend his position to the last.
“Very possibly, Mr Saunders, but I think we are at least farther north in this direction than anyone has yet been; at least I make it out so by the chart.”
“I’m no sure o’ that,” rejoined the second mate positively; “charts are not always to be depended on, and I’ve heard that whalers have been up hereabouts before now.”
“Perhaps you are right, Mr Saunders,” replied the captain, smiling; “nevertheless I shall take observations and name the various headlands until I find that others have been here before me. Mivins, hand me the glass; it seems to me there’s a water-sky to the northward.”
“What is a water-sky, Captain?” enquired Fred.
“It is a peculiar, dark appearance of the sky on the horizon, which indicates open water—just the reverse of that bright appearance which you have often seen in the distance, and which we call the ice-blink.”
“We’ll have open water soon,” remarked the second mate authoritatively.
“Mr Saunders,” said Mivins, who, having just finished clearing away and washing up the débris and dishes of one meal, was enjoying in complete idleness the ten minutes of leisure that intervened between that and preparations for the next,—“Mr Saunders, sir, can you hinform me, sir, ’ow it is that the sea don’t freeze at ’ome the same as it does hout ’ere?”
The countenance of the second mate brightened, for he prided himself not a little on his vast and varied stores of knowledge, and nothing pleased him so much as to be questioned, particularly on knotty subjects.
“Hem! yes, Mivins, I can tell ’ee that. Ye must know that before fresh water can freeze on the surface the whole volume of it must be cooled down to 40 degrees, and salt
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