Part 21 (1/2)

It was all he could say. Yet the salt tears almost blinded him as he spoke.

”Oh, to be an artist!” exclaimed Frank once.

”An artist!” cried Duncan, almost scornfully. ”What artist would dare to paint the golden gray and crimson splendour that unites both sea and sky into one living gorgeous whole? Oh, Frank, even Turner himself, were he here, would throw down his brush, and confess that he was a mere caricaturist.”

But in a few weeks' time the sunsets were nil, and all, all was day.

Nor did it blow so high now.

Sometimes, indeed, the sea was as calm as a mill-pond, except where rippled in patches by huge shoals of the fry of certain kinds of fish that inhabit these seas.

And these were invariably followed by denizens of the deep that preyed upon them--dancing, leaping, cooing dolphins, for example.

Some of these latter were harpooned, and their dark red flesh made an excellent change of diet from the somewhat salt provisions, eggs, or penguin flesh.

Once or twice, while the weather was calm and the surface of the sea smooth and gla.s.sy, they came upon patches of yellow--banks they were, in fact, over which they were drifting.

Men were now kept constantly in the chains, and sometimes the danger was so great that the anchors were let go to wait for even the lightest breeze.

This might have delayed the voyage somewhat, but nevertheless it was not time wholly misspent, for where the bottom is near to the surface fish are always found in abundance. So boats would be lowered, and real good hand-line sport enjoyed.

In this old Pen partic.i.p.ated. But the first day he started fis.h.i.+ng he swam so fast and so far away, that those in the boat imagined they would never see him more.

Then little Johnnie began to weep.

”Oh, poll deah Pen! Oh, my ole mudder Sue,” he cried. ”He done gone away foh ebbermoh.”

But Johnnie's ”weeps” were quite a useless expenditure of lachrymal fluid. This was evident enough when Pen came racing back again with a great silvery fish held proudly aloft. He delivered this, and went back for another. And this again and again, till a breath of wind springing up, it was deemed advisable to return to the _Flora_, who was ”t.i.tting”

at her anchor as if eager to be on the wing again.

That Pen loved the darkie was evident enough, for one day, when bent on to his line and hauling away with all his might, a huge bonito pulled the little lad right overboard, the strange bird went grunting and squawking round him in terrible distress.

Johnnie's position just then was not an enviable one, for although he could swim like a herring, there was many a monster shark hovering near that would have been pleased indeed to make a meal of the boy.

These sharks were sometimes caught, and although their flesh had no great flavour, parts of it served sometimes to eke out breakfast or supper.

There are dangers innumerable in those Antarctic seas, and one of the most terrible is that of striking on a sand-bank or running foul of a sunken rock. These not being on the chart, the navigator has to sail along literally with his life in his hand, trusting all to blind chance.

A bank does give some evidence before the s.h.i.+p gets on if there is an outlook in the foretop, and the cry of, ”Below there! shoal water ahead!” is all too common. Next comes the shout of, ”Ready about!

Stand by tacks and sheets!”

But the rock hides its awful head and gives no sign. The s.h.i.+p strikes, then backward reels, and mayhap sinks before there is time to provision, water, arm, man, and lower the boats.

Ice at last.

But the Antarctic sea was wonderfully open this season, and the ice loose.

It lay in streams of small pieces at first, athwart the world, as Jack termed it; athwart the s.h.i.+p's course, at all events, so these they had to sail through. The good _Flora_ was strong enough to negotiate them, but the battering and thumping along the vessel's sides, as heard below, was tremendous.