Part 15 (1/2)

It was Rory who made the last remark.

”And by this and by that!” he exclaimed, ”there is a Naiad on it now! or it's Ino herself, by all that's amusing!”

”Away, second whaler!”--this from McBain. ”Get your rifle, boy Rory, and jump on board and fetch that seal!”

Down rattled the boat from the davits, Rory in the bows; the next moment she was off, and tearing through the glazed water as fast as st.u.r.dy arms could row. The seal took one look up to see what was coming. Rory's rifle rang out sharp and clear in the frosty air, and the poor seal never lifted head again.

The s.h.i.+p was by this time a goodly mile ahead, but there she stopped; then she went ahead again, rounded, and came back full speed to meet the boat, for they on board could see a danger that Rory couldn't--couldn't, did I say? Ah! but he soon did, and, with the roar of a maelstrom, down they came upon him--an enormous school of whales!

The men lay on their oars thunderstruck. The sea around them seemed alive with the mighty monsters. How they plunged and ploughed and snorted and blew! The sea became roughened, as if a fierce wind was blowing over it; pieces of ice as large as boats were caught on the backs or tails of these brutes and pitched aside as one might a football.

It occurred to Rory to fire at some of them.

”Stay, stay!” roared the c.o.xswain; ”if you love your life, sir, and care for ours, fire not. _You_ may never have seen a whale angry--I have.

Fire not, I beseech you!”

It was a strange danger to have encountered, and Rory and his boat-mates were not sorry when it pa.s.sed, and they once more stood in safety on the deck of the _Arrandoon_.

But Rory soon regained his equanimity.

”Five hundred whales!” he cried; ”and they were all mine, Ralph, 'cause I found them! Sure, they were worth a million of money?”

”So you've been a millionaire, Rory?” said McBain. ”Yes, worse luck!”

said Rory, in a voice of comic sadness, ”a millionaire for a minute!”

CHAPTER TWELVE.

THE ISLE OF JAN MAYEN--RETROSPECTION--THE SEA OF ICE--THE DESERTED VILLAGE--CARRIED OFF BY A BEAR--DANCING FOR DEAR LIFE.

What a tiny speck it looks in the map, that island of Jan Mayen, all by itself, right in the centre of the great Arctic Ocean. Of volcanic origin it undoubtedly is--every mountain, rock, and hill in it--and there is ample evidence that from yonder gigantic cone, that rises, like a mighty sugar-loaf or the Tower of Babel itself, to a height of 6,000 feet sheer into the blue and cloudless sky, at one time smoke and flames must oftentimes have burst, and showers of stones and ashes, and streams of molten lava.

I have gazed on it by night, and my imagination has carried me back, and back, and back, through the long-distant past, and I have tried to fancy the sublimity of the scene during an eruption.

The time is early spring. The long, dark winter has pa.s.sed away; the cold-looking, rayless sun rises now, but skirts hurriedly across a small disc of southern sky, then speedily sinks to rest again, as though he shuddered to gaze upon scenery so bleak and desolate. The island of Jan Mayen, with its ridgy hills and its one mighty mountain, is clad in dazzling robes of virgin snow. Its rocky and precipitous sh.o.r.es rise not up, as yet, from the dark waters that in summer time wash round them, but from the sea of ice itself. As far as eye can reach, or north or south, or east or west, stretches this immeasurable ocean of ice.

All flat and all snow-clad is it, like the wildest and loneliest of Highland moorlands in winter, and its very flatness gives it an air of greater lonesomeness, which the solitary hummocks here and there but tend to heighten. And through the short and dreary day one solitary cloud has rested like a pall on the summit of the mountain. But it is midnight now: in the deep blue of the sky big, bright stars are s.h.i.+ning, that look like moons of molten silver, and seem far nearer than they do in southern climes. In the north the radiant bow of the Aurora is spread out, its transverse beams glancing and glistering, spears of light, that dance and glide and s.h.i.+mmer, changing their colours every moment from green to blue or red, from pale-yellow to the brightest of crimson.

And the silence that reigns over all this field of ice is one that travellers have often experienced, often been impressed and awed by, but never yet found words to describe.

Silence did I say? Yes! but listen! Subterranean thunders suddenly break it--thunders coming evidently from the bosom of the great mountain yonder, thunders that shake and crack and rend the very ice on which you stand, causing the bergs to grind and shriek like monsters in agony.

The great cloud pall has risen higher and spread itself out, and now hangs horizontally over half the island, black and threatening, its blackness lit up ever and anon with flashes of lightning, sheet and forked, while, peal after peal, the thunder now rolls almost without intermission.

And onward and onward rolls the cloud athwart the sky, blotting out the starlight--blotting out the beautiful Aurora--till the sea of ice for leagues around is canopied in darkness. But behold, over the mountain-top the cloud gets lighter in colour, for immense volumes of steam, solid sheets of water, and pieces of ice tons in weight, are being belched forth, or hurtled into the air with a continued noise that drowns the awful rhythm of the thunder itself. Then flames follow, shooting up into the sky many hundreds of feet, lighting up the scene with a lurid glare, while down the snow-clad sides of the great cone streams of fiery lava rush in fury, crimson, blue, or green. And gigantic rocks are precipitated into the air--rocks so large that, as they fall upon the ice miles distant from the burning crater, they smash the heaviest floes, and sink through into the sea. Great stones, too, are incessantly emitted, like b.a.l.l.s of fire, that burst in the air, and keep up a sound like that of the loudest artillery.

The sun will rise in due course, but his beams cannot penetrate the veil of saturnine darkness that envelops the sea of ice. And the fire will rage, the thunders will roll, and showers of stones and ashes fall for days, ay, mayhap for weeks or months, ere the mighty convulsion ceases, and silence once more reigns in and around this island of Jan Mayen.

Towards this lonely isle of the ocean the _Arrandoon_ had been beating and pus.h.i.+ng her way for days; and she now lay, with clewed sails and banked fires, among the flat but heavy bergs not five miles from it.

There was no water in sight, for the iceless ocean had been left far, far astern, and the s.h.i.+p was now to all intents and purposes beset. Yet the ice was loose; it was not welded together by the fingers of King Frost, and if it remained so, the difficulty of getting out into the clear water again would be by no means insurmountable.

Our heroes, the doctor included, were all on deck, dressed to kill, in caps of fur with ear lapels, coats of frieze with pockets innumerable, with boots that reached over the knees, and each was armed with a rifle and seal-club, with revolver in belt and short sheath-knife dangling from the left side.

”And so,” said the doctor, ”this is the mighty sea of ice that I've heard so much about! Man! boys! I'm no so vera muckle struck with it.