Part 29 (2/2)
”What's the row? What's the row? What's the row?” cried the bird as the boy entered the saloon.
”Don't talk so fast, c.o.c.kie, and I'll tell you,” said Freezing Powders, sinking down on the deck with one arm on the cage. ”I tink I'se all right at present, though my breaf is all frightened out of my body, and I must look 'bout as pale as you, c.o.c.kie.”
”De-ah me!” said c.o.c.kie.
”But don't hang by de legs, c.o.c.kie. When you wants a mouf-ful of hemp just hop down for it, else de blood all run to your poor head, den you die in a fit?”
”Poor de-ah c.o.c.kie! Pretty old c.o.c.kie!” said the bird, in mournful tones.
”And now I got my breaf again, I try to 'splain to you what am de row.
De drefful world round de s.h.i.+p is all white, c.o.c.kie, and to-day dey has commenced blowing it up, and jus' now, c.o.c.kie, dey has commenced to blow derselves up?”
”De-ah me!” from c.o.c.kie.
”Dat am quite true, c.o.c.kie, and de heads and de legs am flying about in all directions! It is too drefful to behold!”
”Now then, young Roley Poley!” cried Peter, entering at that moment, ”toddle away forward for some boiling-hot coffee, and run quicker than ever you ran in your life.”
”I'se off like a bird!” said Freezing Powders, darting out of the cabin as if there had been a boot after him.
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.
CAPTAIN COBB RETIRES--MORE TORPEDOING--THE GREAT ICE-HOLE--STRANGE SPORT--THE TERRIBLE ZUGAENA--THE DEATH STRUGGLE.
Both Captain McBain and Silas Grig felt more easy in their minds when they had got fairly rid of the green-rooted monsters of icebergs that had lain so placidly yet so threateningly alongside their respective s.h.i.+ps. And oh! by the way, how very calm, harmless, and gentle bergs like these _can_ look, when there is no disturbing element beneath them, their snow-clad tops asleep and glistening in the sunlight; but I have seen them angry, grinding and cras.h.i.+ng together, each upheaval representing a height of from fifteen to thirty feet; each upheaval representing a strength hydraulic equal in force to the might of the great ocean itself.
Our heroes had taken time by the forelock. They had ”guncottoned the bergs,” as Captain Cobb termed it, and lay for the time being in square ice-locked harbours, and could bid defiance to almost any ordinary occurrence, whether gale of wind in the pack or swell from the distant sea.
As the days went by the black frost seemed only to increase in severity.
”How long d'ye think,” said Captain Cobb, one morning, while at breakfast in the _Arrandoon_--”how long d'ye think this state of affairs'll last? 'cause, mind ye, I begin to feel a kind o' riled already.”
McBain looked inquiringly at Silas.
”If it's asking me you are,” said the latter, ”I makes answer and says, it may be for months, but it can't be for ever.”
”But the frost isn't likely to go for a week, is it now?”
”That it won't, worse luck,” was the reply.
”Well, then, gentlemen,” said Cobb, ”this child is going off, straight away out o' here back to Jan Mayen.”
”Back to Jan Mayen?”
”Back to Jan Mayen!” everybody said, or seemed to say, in one breath.
”I reckon ye heard aright,” said the imperturbable Yankee.
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