Part 9 (2/2)
Strange to say, up to this tile Arctic anih a narrow channel in the ice, a white bear was seen about half ahis way across the pack toward them, whilst, a quarter of a mile nearer, an ani in the sun on the ice close to the water It speedily becaly all unconscious of the proxih in keen enjoylow The colonel hurried below for rifles, as eager as a schoolboy, to obtain a shot at one or both of the animals; and when he returned to the pilot-house with the weapons both the seal and the bear ithin range He raised one of the rifles to his shoulder, and was covering the seal with it, when Sir Reginald, atching the anie; there is so very curious about this; _that seal is armed with a bow_”
The colonel stared incredulously at his co the rifle, took and applied to his eye the telescope which Sir Reginald handed to hiht!” he exclai Why,” he continued, ”it is not a seal at all, it is a man, an Esquimaux Now, look out and you will see so, and how cautiously he is doing it, too
It is ot hi the actions of the anie There! he has shot his arrow and hit the mark, but the bear does not seem to be very ood fellow By Jove, the !”
The Esquimaux had indeed been compelled to ”run for it,” the only apparent effect of the arrow being to irritate the bear The h ha, but the bear proved the faster of the two He rapidly gained upon theupon hieneral fusillade from their rifles There was just a perceptible click from the locks of the weapons, but neither fire nor smoke appeared, neither was there any report At thatforith his fore-paws, ai hunter Thehis eneht, plunged a light lance fairly under the creature's arle roar of pain and baffled rage, staggered a moment, and fell upon the ice, dead
”Bravo! very cleverly done, indeed,” exclai the distant Esquimaux; ”that was a lucky stroke for you, my man But, I say, professor, what in the world is the matter with these wretched rifles? Every one of them missed fire, and, so far as we are concerned, that unfortunate Esquiht--yes, that is quite true,” answered the professor with provoking composure; ”but if he had been it would have been our fault, not that of the rifles; it ho ed its bullet, and we simply missed our mark But had we--or rather had _I_--preserved my presence of mind, I could still have saved thetwenty shots--a fact which I had forgotten for the moment, and which it now seems I have never yet explained to you Fortunately, the poor man has proved quite able to take care of himself; but the shameful way in which we all ain, is a lesson on the folly of using untried weapons in an eentle theame, the deeply mortified party set themselves forthwith first to listen to the professor's explanation of the peculiarities of the weapons, and next, to practise diligently with them for a full hour; at the expiration of which, as the rifles were really a splendid arh to handle when their action had been clearly explained, the quartette had fully regained their confidence in the done so
Meanwhile the channel hourly grew more narrow and intricate; and, to add still further to the difficulties of the passage, the wind shi+fted round and began to blow freshly fro with it a dense and bitterly cold fog The travellers struggled gallantly against these adverse circuress northas at all possible, being desirous of realising, as fully as ht be, for theh latitudes; but at length they found the le would only be endangering the shi+p, and they were reluctantly compelled to own themselves beaten and to rise into the air
They rose to a height of five hundred feet above the sea-level, and, at this elevation, found the So far this ell, but the dense rey snow-laden cloud which obscured the heavens above the aspect of the sky to ard, told them that their holiday weather was, at all events for the present, gone, and that they were about to experience the terrors of a polar gale The te rapidity; and they were compelled to beat a rapid retreat to their state-rooarments This done, they sallied out on deck, to find that during the short period of their retire so full of the great white blinding flakes that, standing abreast the pilot-house, it was i in the air as they were it was, of course, iale, the only apparentthat due to their own passage through it Though heading to the northward, with the enginesa sufficient nuh still air at the rate of thirty miles per hour, it was quite on the cards that the adverse wind her speed than this, in which event they would actually be drivingtheir apparent forward motion It thus became necessary to post a look-out at each end of the shi+p, in order to avoid all possibility of collision with soh in the air to be clear of all danger; and this they were reluctant to do, as they wished to experience, for at least once in their lives, all the terrors of a polar gale The baronet accordingly volunteered to look out forward and the colonel to do the same aft, and they hastened at once to their respective stations, Mildine levers and other appliances controlling the motion of the shi+p It ell for them that these precautions were so promptly taken, for the colonel had scarcely reached his post when, through the thick whirling snohich scurried past hiuely up in the semi-darkness directly astern, and before he well had ti, the top of a gigantic berg revealed itself close at hand, and his pro cry was only raised in barely sufficient ti stern foremost into it, when the loss of her propeller must inevitably have resulted Mildht the sound, proer was averted
Meanwhile, though the snohirled so thickly around the was so dense beneath that they were unable to see anything, they were not allowed to re in their near proxi of the bitter blast over the frozen waste beneath resounded in their ears like the diapason of soled with these deeper tones there rose up to the sound with occasional rifle-like reports, telling of the tre the ice-floes beneath
Suddenly the snow ceased, the fog ept away upon the wings of the gale, and the entire scene in all its terrific grandeur burst at once upon their gaze They were hovering immediately over the spot where two iht and left of theround to pieces by the enorments heaped up one above another in the wildest confusion, to a height of frohty feet above the surface of the floe The ice, which was about fifteen feet thick, cru thehundreds of tons ildly tossed hither and thither like corks that even an approximate idea of the tremendous power at work could be obtained
A ht presented itself The northern and larger of the two floes, acted strongly upon by the gale, and opposed by the s round, and in its sweep it had co, which, influenced apparently by some undercurrent, ith equally irresistible force actually ale The result was a scene of wild chaos and confusion and destruction compared hich that upon which they had just looked was as nothing The berg sih a furrow, splitting up the thick ice before it, and tossing the huge fragh the field was marked by a black band of open water churned into fleecy froth by the breath of the tempest, and bordered on either side by an immense wall of ice- blocks, each of which constituted a s in itself
The cold had by this time so increased in intensity that the colonel and the baronet were only too glad to abandon their posts, now that there was no further necessity forthem, and retreat to the friendly shelter of the pilot-house, where they lost no ti themselves in
CHAPTER NINE
AN EXCITING ADVENTURE AND A RESCUE
It was at this limpse of an object far away on the northern horizon, which his practised eye at once told him was a sail of some sort He instantly seized one of the telescopes suspended in the pilot-house, and brought the instrument to bear in her direction For nearly a minute he was unsuccessful in his endeavour to find her; but at length she reappeared fro; and it appeared to him that she was in a situation of considerable peril She was a barque, under close-reefed topsails, reefed courses, fore topmast staysail, and e floe, with a whole fleet of bergs in dangerous proxiest peculiarity about her was that, notwithstanding her perilous position, she was dressed with flags, froala day on board
Mildether with his earnest devotion to his telescope, soon attracted the notice of the rest of the party; and the baronet asked him what object it was that so riveted his attention
He withdrew his eyes for aout the suishable dark spot on the horizon, said:
”Do you see that object, gentlemen? Well, that is a barque e a supreme effort to free herself--an effort which to me, and at this distance, appears quite hopeless It isequally unforeseen occurs, she ithin the next half hour be smashed into matchwood--unless, indeed, _we_ can help her”
”Help her? Of course we can,” said the professor; and without waiting for further discussion, he laid his hand on the engine lever and sent theFish_ darted forward like a s in full flight; and the professor, leaving the baronet in charge of the engines and the steering-gear, summoned Mildmay and the colonel to follow him The trio hastened to the after part of the deck, and, raising a trap-door which the professor indicated, withdrew therefro else in the shi+p, of aethereu-bolt in the after extremity of the deck, they coiled down in readiness for use as a tow-line
”There!” ejaculated the professor in a gratified tone of voice, ”ill give her the end of that rope; and it shall go hard with us, but ill tow her into soht,” responded Mildht is a , it is true, but it is rather too bulky to heave on board Have you nothing smaller that we can bend on to the eye of the hawser and use as a heaving-line?”
”Certainly I have,” replied the professor ”I had not thought of that
'Every ed about for a few minutes and finally reappeared with a sht pliant wire line, which Mild, proceeded at once to attach to the eye of the hawser
Meanwhile, the baronet had been anxiously watching the barque through the telescope, and had seen so etful of the exposed situation of his co Fish_ until he had brought it up to full speed This, of course, created so treht that not only was it quite iainst it and thus regain the pilot-house, but they actually had to fling the blown overboard; and even thus it was only with the utmost difficulty that they were able to save themselves
And this, unfortunately, was not the worst of it The light hawser, acted upon by so powerful a draught, was for an instant slightly lifted off the deck, and that slight lift did theaway astern one after the other, and, almost before those itnessed the accident could tell what had happened, the propeller had been fouled and the hawser snapped like a thread