Part 16 (1/2)
At his command the creere drawn up around him on a flat spot a little to the left of the Halbrane In that place the folloere asseers, Francis, Gratian, Bury, Stern, the cook (Endicott), and I may add Dirk Peters; on the side of the new-comers, Hearne and the thirteen other Falkland sailors The latter co-master was their spokesman and exercised a baneful influence over thelance upon the men and said in a sharp tone: ”Sailors of the Halbrane, I must first speak to you of our lost companions Five of us have just perished in this catastrophe”
”We are waiting to perish in our turn, in these seas, where we have been dragged in spite of--”
”Be silent, Hearne,” cried West, pale with anger, ”or if not--”
”Hearne has said what he had to say,” Captain Len Guy continued, coldly ”Now it is said, and I advise hi-ht possibly have ventured on an answer, for he felt that he was backed by the majority of the crew; but Martin Holt held him back, and he was silent Captain Len Guy then took off his hat and pronounced the folloords with an emotion that affected us to the bottom of our hearts:- ”We e, which was undertaken in the name of humanity May God be pleased to take into consideration the fact that they devoted their lives to their fellow-creatures, and may He not be insensible to our prayers! Kneel down, sailors of the Halbrane!”
They all knelt down on the icy surface, and the murmurs of prayer ascended towards heaven
We waited for Captain Len Guy to rise before we did so
”Now,” he resumed, ”after those who are dead come those who have survived To them I say that they must obey me, whatever my orders may be, and even in our present situation I shall not tolerate any hesitation or opposition The responsibility for the general safety is mine, and I will not yield any of it to anyone I am master here, as on board--”
”On board--when there is no longer a shi+p,” -master
”You are mistaken, Hearne, the vessel is there, and ill put it back into the sea Besides, if we had only a boat, I aets this!”
That day, Captain Len Guy, having taken the height of the sun by the sextant and fixed the hour by the chronometer (both of these instruments had escaped destruction in the collision), obtained the following position of his shi+p:-- South latitude: 88A 55aE
West longitude: 39A 12aE
The Halbrane was only at 1A 5aE--about 65 miles--from the south pole
”All hands to work,” was the captain's order that afternoon, and every one obeyed it with a will There was not a moment to lose, as tile question of time was more important than any other So far as provisions were concerned, there was enough in the schooner for eighteen er, nor with thirst either, notwithstanding that owing to the water-casks having been burst in the collision, their contents had escaped through their staves Luckily, the barrels of gin, whisky, beer, and wine, being placed in the least exposed part of the hold, were nearly all intact Under this head we had experienced no loss, and the iceberg would supply us with good drinking-water It is a well-known fact that ice, whether for to the chloride of sodiue froin of the ice, therefore, is a matter of no iuished by their greenish colour and their perfect transparency are preferable They are solidified rain, and therefore -water
Without doubt, our captain would have recognized any blocks of this description, but none were to be found on the glacier, owing to its being that part of the berg which was originally subed, and came to the top after the fall
The captain and West decided first to lighten the vessel, by conveying everything on board to land The , taken out, and placed on the plateau It was necessary to lighten the vessel asto the difficult and dangerous operation of launching It would be better to put off our departure for some days if this operation could be perforht be afterwards accomplished without much difficulty
Besides this, another reason by no means less serious presented itself to us It would have been an act of unpardonable rashness to leave the provisions in the storeroo being very precarious One shake would suffice to detach the shi+p, and with her would have disappeared the supplies on which our lives depended
On this account, we passed the day in reetables, flour, biscuits, tea, coffee, barrels of gin, whisky, wine and beer fro them in safety in the hammocks near the Halbrane
We also had to insure our landing against any possible accident, and, I ainst any plot on the part of Hearne and others to seize the boat in order to return to the ice-barrier
We placed the long boat in a cavity which would be easy to watch, about thirty feet to the left of the schooner, along with its oars, rudder, compass, anchor,to fear, and at night, or rather during the hours of sleep, the boatswain and one of the superiors would keep guard near the cavity, and we ht rest assured that no evil could befall
The 19th, 20th, and 21st of January were passed in working extra hard in the unshi+pping of the cargo and the dis the lowerprops Later on, West would see to replacing the main and mizzen masts; in any case, we could do without them until we had reached the Falklands or some other winter port
Needless to say, we had set up a camp on the plateau of which I have spoken, not far froainst the inclemency of the weather, not unfrequent at this time of the year, was to be found under tents, constructed of sails placed on spars and fastened down by pegs The glass remained set fair; the as nor'-east, the terees (2A 78aE C)
Endicott's kitchen was fitted up at the end of the plain, near a steep projection by which we could cli
It is only fair to state that during these three days of hard work no fault was to be found with Hearne The sealing- closely watched, and he ell aware that Captain Len Guy would not spare hist his comrades It was a pity that his bad instincts had induced hith, skill, and cleverness made him a very valuable man, and he had never proved more useful than under these circued for the better? Did he understand that general good feeling was necessary for the safety of all? I know not, but I had no confidence in hiuerly!
I need not dwell on the ardour hich the half-breed did the rough work, always first to begin and the last to leave off, doing asmeals, which he took apart from the others He had hardly spoken to me at all since the schooner had met with this terrible accident
What indeed could he say to me? Did I not knoell as he that it would be necessary to renounce every hope of pursuing our intended voyage?
Now and again I noticed Martin Holt and the halfbreed near each other while so- near Dirk Peters, who always tried his best to escape froht of the secret of the fate of the so-called Parker, Martin Holt's brother, which had been entrusted to me, that dreadful scene of the Grampus filled me with horror I was certain that if this secret were made known the half-breed would becoer be looked upon as the rescuerof the sailing that his brother--Luckily, Dirk Peters and myself were the only two acquainted with the fact
While the Halbrane was being unloaded, Captain Len Guy and the ht be launched They had to allow for a drop of one hundred feet between the cavity in which the shi+p lay and the sea; this to be effected bythe west side of the iceberg, and to th So, while the first lot ofthe schooner, a second batch under West's orders began to cut the trench between the blocks which covered the side of the floating ? I know not why I use this expression, for the iceberg no longer floated, but re to indicate that it would ever oing south-east, whilst ours, to use Dirk Peters' expression, was ”lying to” Would its base be sufficiently undermined to allow it to detach itself? Perhaps soht strike it and set it free by the shock No one could predict such an event, and we had only the Halbrane to rely upon for getting us out of these regions
We were engaged in these various tasks until the 24th of January The atmosphere was clear, the teone up to two or three degrees above freezing-point The nu fro; there were now a hundred of theht have a most disastrous result Hardy, the caulker, hastened first of all toto be replaced, sea that was necessary for this work, and we ht rest assured that it would be performed in the best possible manner In the midst of the silence of these solitudes, the noise of the ha nails into the side, and the sound of theeffect Sea-gulls, wild duck, albatross, and petrels flew in a circle round the top of the berg with a shrill screa, and made a terrible uproar
When I found myself with West and the captain, our conversation naturally turned on our situation and how to get out of it, and upon our chances of pulling through Thewould be successfullyaccomplished The captain was ht that he would have to renounce all hope of finding the survivors of the fane, his heart was ready to break When the Halbrane should again be ready for the sea, and when West should inquire what course he was to steer, would Captain Len Guy dare to reply, ”To the south? No!” for he would not be followed either by the new hands, or by the greater portion of the older members of the crew To continue our search in this direction, to go beyond the pole, without being certain of reaching the Indian Ocean instead of the Atlantic, would have been rashness of which no navigator would be guilty If a continent bound the sea on this side, the schooner would run the danger of being crushed by the mass of ice before it could escape the southern winter
Under such circumstances, to attee would only be to court a certain refusal It could not even be proposed, now that necessity obliged us to return northwards, and not to delay a single day in this portion of the Antarctic regions At any rate, though I resolved not again to speak of thethe boatswain Often when he had finished his work, Hurliguerly would come and join me; ould chat, and ould compare our recollections of travel
One day as ere seated on the su fixedly on the deceptive horizon, he exclai, when the Halbrane left Kerguelen, that six and a half months afterwards she would be stuck on the side of an iceretted,” I replied, ”because only for that accident we should have attained our object, and we should have begun our return journey”
”I don't mean to contradict,” replied the boatswain, ”but you say we should have attained our object, Do you mean by that, that we should have found our countrymen?”
”Perhaps”
”I can scarcely believe such would have been the case, Mr Jeorling, although this was the principal and perhaps even the only object of our navigation in the polarseas”
”The only one--yes--at the start,” I insinuated ”But since the half-breed's revelations about Arthur Py back on that subject, like brave Dirk Peters”
”Always, Hurliguerly; and only that a deplorable and unforeseen accident round--”
”I leave you to your delusions, Mr Jeorling, since you believe you have run aground--”
”Why? Is not this the case?”