Part 21 (1/2)

”The _Perseverance_!” cried the skipper. ”I know the s.h.i.+p, a Peterheader. Last time I saw her she had got in the nips, and was lying keel up on the ice, yards and rigging all awry of course; and, bother her, I hope she'll lie there till Silas Grig gets a voyage [a cargo], then when the _Scotia_ is full s.h.i.+p, the _Perseverance_ can get down off the shelf, and cabbage all the rest. Them's my sentiments. But come below, gentlemen, come below; there is room enough in the cabin of the old _Scotia_ for every man Jack o' ye. Come below.”

Silas was right. There was room, but not much to spare, and, squeezed in between Allan and McBain, poor Rory was hardly visible, and could only reach the table with one hand.

The cabin of this Greenlandman can be described with a stroke of the pen, so to speak. It was square and not very lofty--a tall man required to duck when under a beam; the beams were painted white, the bulkheads and cabin doors--four in number--were grey picked out with green.

One-half at least of the available s.p.a.ce was occupied by the table; close around it were cus.h.i.+oned lockers; the only other furniture was the captain's big chair and a few camp-stools, a big square stove with a roaring fire, and a big square urn fixed on top thereof, which contained coffee, had never been empty all the voyage, and would not be till the end thereof. I suppose a bucket of water could hardly be called furniture, but there it stood close to the side of the stove, and the concentric rings of ice inside it showed the difficulty everybody must experience who chose to quench his thirst in the most natural way possible.

Above, in the hollow of the skylight, hung a big compa.s.s, and several enormously long sealer's telescopes.

”No rum, gentlemen?” said Silas; ”well, you do astonish _me_; but you'll taste my wife's green ginger wine, and drink her health?”

”That we will,” replied McBain, ”and maybe finish a bottle.”

”And welcome to ten,” said Silas; ”and the bun, steward, bring the bun.

That's the style! My wife isn't much to look at, gentlemen, but, for a bun or o' drop o' green ginger, I'll back her against the whole world.”

After our heroes had done justice to the bun, and pledged the skipper's good lady in the green ginger, that gentleman must needs eye them again and again, with as much curiosity as if they had been some new and wonderful zoological specimens, that he had by chance captured.

”All the way to the North Pole!” he muttered. ”Well, well, but that _does_ get over Silas.”

Rory could not help laughing.

”Funny old stick,” said Silas, joining in his merriment, ”ain't I?”

He did look all that and more, with his two elbows on the table, and his knuckles supporting his chin, for his face was as round as a full moon orient, and just the colour of a new flower-pot; then he laughed more with one side of his face than the other, his eyes were nowhere in the folds of his face, and his nose hardly worth mentioning.

After the laugh, beginning with Rory, had spread fairly round the table, everybody felt relieved.

”I'm only a plain, honest blubber-hunter, gentlemen,” said Silas Grig, apologetically, ”with a large family and--and a small wife--but--but you do surprise _me_. There?”

[It is but fair to say that, as a rule, captains of Greenlandmen are far more refined in manner than poor Silas.]

But when McBain informed him that the _Arrandoon_ would lay alongside him for a week or more, and help him to secure a voyage, and wouldn't s.h.i.+p a single skin herself, Silas was more surprised than ever. Indeed, until this day I could not tell you what would have happened to Silas, had the mate not been providentially beside him to vent his feelings upon. On that unfortunate officer's back he brought down his great shoulder-of-mutton fist with a force that made him jump, and his breath to come and go as if he had just been popped under a shower-bath.

”Luck's come,” he cried. ”Hey? hey?”

And every ”hey?” represented a dig in the mate's ribs with the skipper's thumb of iron.

”Told ye it would, hey? Didn't I? hey?”

”What'll the old woman say, hey? Hey, boys? Hey, matie? Hey? Hey?”

”You gentlemen,” said Silas, alter his feelings had calmed down a trifle, ”are all for sport, and Silas has to make a voyage. But you'll have sport, gentlemen, that ye will. My men are sealing now. They're among the young seals. It has been nothing but flay, flay, flay, for the last two rounds of the sun, and there isn't such a very long night now, is there? And you saw the blood?”

Saw the blood, reader! Indeed, our heroes had. Where was it that that blood was not? All the beautiful snow was encrimsoned with it on the distant field of ice, where the men were carrying on their ghastly work.

It was as if a great battle had been fought there, and the dead crangs lay in dozens and hundreds. A crang means a carca.s.s. Is the adjective ”dead,” then, not unnecessary? What else can a carca.s.s or crang be but ”dead”? Nay, but listen: let me whisper a truth in your ear, and I know your brave young blood will boil when I tell you: I've known our men, Englishmen and Scotchmen, flense the lambs while still alive.

From the field of slaughter the skins were being dragged to the s.h.i.+p by men with ropes, so there were streaks of red all the way to the s.h.i.+p, and all the vessel's starboard side was smeared with blood. Indeed, I do not wish to harrow the feelings of my readers, and I shall but describe a few of the cruelties of sealing--no, on second thoughts, I will not even do that, because I know well you will believe me when I tell you these cruelties are very great, and believing this, if ever you have an opportunity of voting for a bill or signing a pet.i.tion to get poor Greenland seals fair play, I know you will.