Part 7 (1/2)
Down went the heaviest anchor they had, and for two minutes the chain flew out at the hawse-hole.
”Hold on!”
The chain was checked, but the strain was awful. A ma.s.s of ice, hundreds of tons weight, was tearing down towards the bow. There was no hope of resisting it. Time was not even afforded to attach a buoy or log to the cable, so it was let slip, and thus the _Dolphin's_ best bower was lost for ever.
But there was no time to think of or regret this, for the s.h.i.+p was now driving down with the gale, sc.r.a.ping against a lee of ice which was seldom less than thirty feet thick. Almost at the same moment the strange vessel was whirled close to them, not more than fifty yards distant, between two driving ma.s.ses of thick ice.
”What if it should be my father's brig?” whispered Fred Ellice, as he grasped Singleton's arm and turned to him a face of ashy paleness.
”No fear of that, lad,” said Buzzby, who stood near the larboard gangway and had overheard the remark. ”I'd know your father's brig among a thousand--”
As he spoke, the two ma.s.ses of ice closed, and the brig was nipped between them. For a few seconds she seemed to tremble like a living creature, and every timber creaked. Then she was turned slowly on one side, until the crew of the _Dolphin_ could see down into her hold, where the beams were giving way and cracking up as matches might be crushed in the grasp of a strong hand. Then the larboard bow was observed to yield as if it were made of soft clay, the starboard bow was pressed out, and the ice was forced into the forecastle. Scarcely three minutes had pa.s.sed since the nip commenced; in one minute more the brig went down, and the ice was rolling wildly, as if in triumph, over the spot where she had disappeared.
The fate of this vessel, which might so soon be their own, threw a momentary gloom over the crew of the _Dolphin_, but their position left them no time for thought. One upturned ma.s.s rose above the gunwale, smashed in the bulwarks, and deposited half a ton of ice on deck.
Scarcely had this danger pa.s.sed when a new enemy appeared in sight ahead. Directly in their way, just beyond the line of floe-ice against which they were alternately thumping and grinding, lay a group of bergs.
There was no possibility of avoiding them, and the only question was, whether they were to be dashed to pieces on their hard blue sides, or, perchance, in some providential nook to find a refuge from the storm.
”There's an open lead between them and the floe-ice,” exclaimed Bolton in a hopeful tone of voice, seizing an ice-pole and leaping on the gunwale.
”Look alive, men, with your poles,” cried the captain, ”and shove with a will!”
The ”Ay, ay, sir,” of the men was uttered with a heartiness that showed how powerfully this gleam of hope acted on their spirits; but a new damp was cast over them when, on gaining the open pa.s.sage, they discovered that the bergs were not at rest, but were bearing down on the floe-ice with slow but awful momentum, and threatening to crush the s.h.i.+p between the two. Just then a low berg came driving up from the southward, das.h.i.+ng the spray over its sides, and with its forehead ploughing up the smaller ice as if in scorn. A happy thought flashed across the captain's mind.
”Down the quarter boat,” he cried.
In an instant it struck the water, and four men were on the thwarts.
”Cast an ice-anchor on that berg.”
Peter Grim obeyed the order, and, with a swing that Hercules would have envied, planted it securely. In another moment the s.h.i.+p was following in the wake of this novel tug! It was a moment of great danger, for the bergs encroached on their narrow ca.n.a.l as they advanced, obliging them to brace the yards to clear the impending ice-walls, and they shaved the large berg so closely that the port quarter-boat would have been crushed if it had not been taken from the davits. Five minutes of such travelling brought them abreast of a grounded berg, to which they resolved to make fast. The order was given to cast off the rope. Away went their white tug on his race to the far north, and the s.h.i.+p swung round in safety under the lee of the berg, where the crew acknowledged with grat.i.tude their merciful deliverance from imminent danger.
CHAPTER VII.
_New characters introduced--An old game under novel circ.u.mstances--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 s.h.a.ggy 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 s.h.i.+p 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 s.h.a.ggy 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 st.u.r.dy, 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.