Part 34 (1/2)
BREAKING UP OF THE GREAT ICE PACK--IN THE NIPS--THE ”CANNY SCOTIA” ON HER BEAM-ENDS--STAVING OF THE ”ARRANDOON.”
In the very midst of joy and pleasure in this so-called weary world, we are oftentimes very nigh to grief and pain.
See yonder Swiss village by the foot of the mountain, how peacefully it is sleeping in the moonlight; not a sound is to be heard save the occasional crowing of a wakeful c.o.c.k, or the voice of watch-dog baying the moon. The inhabitants have gone to bed hours and hours ago, and their dreams, if they dream at all, are a.s.suredly not dreams of danger.
But hark to that terrible noise far overhead. Is it thunder? Yes, the thunder of a mighty avalanche. Nearer and nearer it rolls, till it reaches the devoted village, then all is desolation and woe.
See yet another village, far away in sunny Africa; its little huts nestle around the banyan-tree, the tall cocoa-palm, and the wide-spreading mango. They are a quiet, inoffensive race who inhabit that village. They live south of the line, far away from treacherous Somali Indians or wild Magulla men; they never even dreamt of war or bloodshed. They certainly do not dream of it now.
”The babe lies in its mother's arms, The wife's head pillowed on the husband's breast.”
Suddenly there is a shout, and when they awake--oh! horror! their huts are all in flames, the Arab slavers are on them, and--I would not harrow your young feelings by describing the scenes that follow.
But a s.h.i.+p--and this is coming nearer home--may be sailing over a rippling sea, with the most pleasant of breezes filling her sails, no land in sight, and every one, fore and aft, as happy as the birds on an early morning in summer, when all at once she rasps, and strikes-- strikes on a rock, the very existence of which was never even suspected before. In half an hour perhaps that vessel has gone down, and those that are saved are afloat in open boats, the breeze freshening every moment, the wavetops breaking into cold spray, night coming on, and dark, threatening clouds banking up on the windward horizon.
When the first wail arose from the pack that announced the breaking up of the sea of ice, a silence of nearly a minute fell on the sailors a.s.sembled at the entertainment. Music stopped, dancing ceased, and every one listened. The sound was repeated, and multiplied, and the s.h.i.+p quivered and half reeled.
McBain knew the advantage of remaining calm and retaining his presence of mind in danger. Because he was a true sailor. He was not like the sailor captains you read of in penny dreadfuls--half coal-heaver, half Herzegovinian bandit.
”Odd, isn't it?” he muttered, as he stroked his beard and smiled; then in a louder voice he gave his orders.
”Men,” he said, ”we'll have some work to do before morning--get ready.
The ice is breaking up. Pipe down, boatswain. Mr Stevenson, see to the clearing away of all this hamper.”
Then, followed by Rory and the doctor, he got away out into the daylight.
The s.h.i.+ps were all safe enough as yet, and there was only perceptible the gentlest heaving motion in the pack. Sufficient was it, however, to break up the bay ice between the bergs, and this with a series of loud reports, which could be heard in every direction. McBain looked overboard somewhat anxiously; the broken pieces of bay ice were getting ploughed up against the s.h.i.+p's side with a noise that is indescribable, not so much from its extreme loudness as from its peculiarity; it was a strange mixture of a hundred different noises, a wailing, complaining, shrieking, grinding noise, mingled with a series of sharp, irregular reports.
”It is like nothing earthly,” said Rory, ”that ever I heard before; and when I close my eyes for a brace of seconds, I could imagine that down on the pack there two hundred tom-cats had lain down to die, that twenty Highland bag-pipers--twenty Peters--were playing pibrochs of lament, and that just forenenst them a squad of militia-men was firing a _feu-de-joie_, and that neither the militia-men nor the pipers either were as self-contained as they should be on so solemn an occasion.”
The doctor was musing; he was thinking how happy he had been half an hour ago, and now--heigho; it was just possible he would never get back to Iceland again, never see his blue-eyed Danish maiden more.
”Pleasures,” he cried, ”pleasures, Captain McBain--”
”Yes,” said McBain, ”pleasures--”
”Pleasures,” continued the doctor,--
”'Are like poppies shed, You seize the flower, the bloom is fled.'
”I'll gang doon below. Bed is the best place.”
”Perhaps,” said McBain, smiling, ”but not the safest. Mind, the s.h.i.+p is in the nips, and a berg might go through her at any moment. There is the merest possibility of your being killed in your bed. That's all; but that won't keep _you_ on deck.”
Mischievous Rory was doing ridiculous att.i.tudes close behind the worthy surgeon.
”What?” cried Sandy, in his broadest accent. ”_That_ not keep me on deck! Man, the merest possibility of such a cawtawstrophy would keep me on deck for a month.”
”A vera judeecious arrangement,” hissed Rory in his ear, for which he was chased round the deck, and had his own ears well pulled next minute.
The doctor had him by the ear when Allan and Ralph appeared on the scene.
”Hullo!” they laughed, ”Rory got in for it again.”