Kitabı oku: «The Cruise of the Snowbird: A Story of Arctic Adventure», sayfa 8
“On the weather quarter, sir; I can just raise her topmasts; she is holding the same course as ourselves.”
Shortly after, Mr Stevenson, who had gone aloft, came below to report.
“She is no whaler, sir, whatever she is,” he said.
“But what else can she be?” said Captain McBain. “She might have been blown out of her course, to be sure, but with this wind she could make up her leeway. Keep our yacht a bit nearer the wind, Mr Stevenson, we’ll give her a chance of showing her bunting anyhow.”
Dinner-hour in the saloon was one o’clock, and it was barely over when Mr Stevenson entered, and with him a being that made our heroes start and stare in astonishment. What or who was he? They had never seen him before, and knew not he was on board – a very little, thin, wiry, weazened old man, all grey hairs, parchment skin, and wrinkles. Was he the little old man of the sea?
McBain saw their bewilderment and hastened to explain.
“My worthy friend Magnus Green,” he said, “the passenger I took on board at Lerwick.”
“There is precious little green about him,” thought Rory.
“The ship is not far off, she is flying a flag of distress, but Magnus says he knows her, and bids us keep clear of her.”
“Well, Magnus, what do you know about her?” asked McBain.
The little old man talked fast, almost wildly, – it was a way he had, – and gesticulated much.
“What do I know?” he cried; “why, this, – she is a Spaniard, and a thief. She came into Lerwick two weeks before you, took stores on board, sailed in the night, and paid nobody. She is armed to the teeth, and in my opinion is after you. Keep away from her, keep away, keep away.”
“But how could she be after us?” asked McBain, incredulous.
“How? ha! ha!” laughed Magnus; “you speak like a child. She herself sailed from Inverness to Lerwick: she’d heard of you, a gentleman’s yacht, with everything good on board. She couldn’t tackle you near shore, but out here on the high sea, ha! ha! the case in different.”
“There is something in what Magnus says,” said McBain. “Let us go on deck. Hoist the flag, Mr Stevenson.”
Up went the roll of bunting, one touch to the lanyard, and out on the breeze floated the red ensign of England.
(The white ensign is flown by the Royal Navy only, the blue by the Naval Reserve, the red by merchantmen and others.)
The Spaniard was hardly a mile to windward, a long, low, rakish craft, as black as a Mother Carey’s chicken. She had ports as if for guns; and though there was no answering signal, she was seen to alter her course and bear down on the Snowbird.
“She’s too like a hawk to be honest,” said McBain, “and too big for us to fight. We’ll try how she can sail; keep her away, Stevenson.”
The Snowbird began to pay off, but not before a white puff of smoke was seen rising from the stranger’s bows. Next moment down the wind came a cannon’s roar, and a shot ricocheted past the bows of the yacht.
“Ha! ha! ha!” shrieked little Magnus, “yon’s the answering signal – ha! ha! ha!”
At the same moment down went the flag of distress, and up went the black flag that pirates like to display when they really mean mischief. Something else went up at the same time, namely, Captain McBain’s Highland blood. This is no figure of speech; you could have seen pride and anger mantling in his cheek and glancing like fire from his eye.
“The black flag, indeed!” he growled; “only cowards hoist it; they think it startles their would-be prey, like the hiss a cat or a goose emits, or the images and figures idiot savages carry in their battle-van. They will not frighten us. Stevenson, load the six-pounder Armstrong. Lucky we took that little tool with us. Tell Ap to see to the small arms. We’ll show them the metal we’re made of ere we surrender the Snowbird. Stand by tacks and sheets, we’ll put her before the wind. A stern chase is a long chase; we may give her the slip after nightfall.”
There was a cheeriness in McBain’s voice as he spoke, that communicated itself to all hands fore and aft. There was no bombast about the captain, mind you, no vulgar jingoism. He merely meant to hold his own, even if he had to fight for it.
All sail was set that the Snowbird could carry, both below and aloft, an example that was speedily followed by the pirate, for pirate she seemed, from her bunting, to even brag in being, and so the chase began in earnest. The stranger fired once or twice only, but the shots falling short she gave it up, and concentrated all her attention in endeavouring to get within reach.
For the next hour there was silence on board the Snowbird, except for some brief words of command given in quiet quick tones, and just as speedily obeyed. Rory, Ralph, and Allan were clustered astern, watching the pirate. This was a kind of danger to which they had never dreamed they would be exposed; yet still the confidence they had in brave, cool McBain banished all fear from their hearts.
But the captain’s anxiety was extreme, and his eyes roved incessantly from the Snowbird to the vessel in chase, not without many a glance at the fast-declining sun.
“Are we quite prepared?” he asked Stevenson.
“All ready, sir,” was the reply, with an uneasy glance astern, “but I think she is coming up, sir, hand over hand and now she is actually setting stunsails.”
“Then God help us, Stevenson, for that chap is bound to win the battle if he can only win the race.”
The stunsails set by the stranger, however, were no sooner set than they were blown away, booms and all.
“Hullo?” cried the captain, “that is providential. Now Stevenson, get the Armstrong aft.”
This was soon accomplished.
“Here, Magnus Green,” cried McBain, “come on you’re the best shot in the ship. Many a harpoon gun I’ve seen you fire. Pepper away at that pirate till you’re tired. Cripple her if you can. It’s our only chance.”
The fire was briskly returned from the bows of the pirate, and it was soon evident that she was getting nearer and nearer to them, for the shots went over the Snowbird, and some even pierced the sails, proof positive that it was not her intention to sink but to capture the beautiful yacht.
The captain whistled low to himself.
“This is awkward,” he muttered, gloomily. He was gazing aloft, wondering if he could do nothing else to keep clear of the pirate until nightfall, when a shout behind him, followed by a ringing cheer from all hands, made him turn hastily round. Old man Magnus was capering around the quarter-deck wild with glee, rushing hither and thither, only returning every moment to pat the little Armstrong, as though it were a living thing.
“He! he! he!” he cried, “I’ve done it, I’ve done it.”
He had indeed done it. The stranger’s foremast had gone by the board, mast and sails and rigging lay about her forepart in dire confusion, burying guns and gunners.
“Glorious old Magnus!” shouted McBain, rubbing his hands with glee. “Now, Stevenson, ready about.”
The yacht came round like a bird, and sailing wonderfully close to the wind, began rapidly to near the smitten pirate. Presently it was “ready about” again on the other tack, and all the while never a shot came from the foe, but the dastardly flag still floated sullenly aloft.
Ten men were stationed in the weather bow of the Snowbird with rifles, their orders being to fire wherever they saw a head.
“Now then, Magnus,” cried McBain, “fifty guineas are yours if you’ll splinter the enemy’s mainmast. I want to let her have two jury masts to rig instead of one.” McBain carried the Snowbird cruelly near to the pirate, dangerously near too, for presently there was an answering fire of small arms, and two men fell wounded.
Crang! went the Armstrong. Faithfully and well had Magnus done his work, and down went the pirate’s other mast.
“We’ll leave her the mizen,” said McBain; “down with the helm.”
His voice was almost drowned in that deafening shout of victory. Even Oscar the Saint Bernard and the wiry wee Skye felt bound to join it, and Peter the steward rushed below for his bagpipes.
And when the moon rose that night and shone quietly down on the waters, the Snowbird was bravely holding on her course, and the discomfited pirate was far away.
Chapter Twelve
Containing a Strange, Strange Story, Told by the Snuggery Fire
“It never rains but it pours,” said McBain, entering the saloon rubbing his hands, and smiling as he seated himself at the breakfast-table. “Steward, I hope it is beefsteak this morning, with boiled eggs to follow, for I declare to you honestly I don’t think I ever felt half so hungry in my born days before! Bravo, steward! bravo, Peter! Be thankful, boys, for all His mercies, and fall to!”
“One would think, captain,” said Ralph, “that you had got good news this morning.”
“Why, it makes one laugh just to look at you,” said Rory.
“Laugh away, lad?” said McBain; “laugh and grow fat, but eat as well, boys! And why haven’t you been on deck, eh?”
“Overslept ourselves,” observed Allan; “Well, no wonder! You’re young, and the excitement of the past few days has been great: even I have felt it. But to-day, my boys, there isn’t a pirate in sight; the wind has gone back to the south-east, and in five more days, if it holds we’ll be on shore shooting the denizens of the scented pine forests of the farthest north lands of America.”
Our heroes were soon on deck, the Snowbird was bounding along before a beautiful breeze, with all her fair-weather sails set and nicely trimmed. Every one on board seemed joyful; the laugh and the joke were heard from the second officer’s cabin, and the men in the forecastle were trolling a song.
That same evening a very happy group were assembled around a bright fire in the cosy snuggery. They were our heroes three, squatted or reclining on mats before the stove, not sitting on chairs – certainly not, they knew a trick worth two of that. The captain occupied a rocking-chair, as became his dignity; Oscar the Saint Bernard’s nose was turned stovewards; and Rory was making a pillow of him. Oscar was eyeing the cheerful blaze, but every other eye was directed upon wee weazen-faced Magnus Green, the mysterious little stranger that McBain had picked up in Lerwick, and who had done them such noble service in crippling the pirate. He was seated on a camp-stool in the corner.
“Now, Magnus!” cried McBain, “we’re all waiting for your yarn.”
“Jan Jansen, then,” said Magnus, after a moment’s pause or two – “Jan Jansen, gentlemen, was first mate of a merchant brig, as neat and tight a little craft as ever sailed the seas. He had been in her, man and boy, for nearly twenty years – in the same ship and with the same captain. This captain was a Dane, but he hailed and he sailed from a little town in Shetland. And dearly did this sailor captain love his profession; he was never really at home except when afloat on the billowy ocean, when he was as happy as the sea-birds.
“Many a long and prosperous voyage he had made to distant lands, and never as yet had misfortune – apart from the usual ups and downs of a sailor’s life – befallen him. He had a wife – ay, and a family. Before the latter had increased the skipper’s wife had used to sail with her husband, but latterly she had stayed at home. And now that she could no longer share his perils, all she could do – and that wasn’t little, either – was to pray for him, and teach his dear children to do so likewise. But she thought that if her house were only close to the sea it would seem like living nearer to the loved one. So the captain built a house on the slope of a hill, and planted pine-trees thereon to shelter it from the cutting winds, that in winter and spring swept downwards from the north and north-east. And the windows of the house looked away over the broad Atlantic. In his outward voyages the captain’s ship, after leaving the port of embarkation, passed within two miles of his cottage door, and his wife and children used to watch the trim-built brig as she glided away from the land, lessening and lessening, until she looked but like a bird on the horizon, and finally disappeared. On stormy nights, when the wind howled around the cottage, and the angry waves lashed themselves into foam against the dark cliffs that bounded the sea-beach, the little lonely family would assemble in the parlour to pray for poor father, far at sea, to Him who can quiet the raging of the winds, and say to the troubled ocean, ‘Peace, be still!’
“But the Danish captain was not only a fortunate sailor but a very ambitious man as well, and ever after each successful voyage his wife would entreat him to remain on shore now for the rest of his life. Several times indeed the husband had acceded to her wishes, and settled down on shore. But only for a time, for woe is me! the heart of a true sailor is often as restless as the great sea itself.
“The pet of the captain’s household was his only daughter, a bright-faced, lovely girl of sweet seventeen. With her fair flowing hair, her laughing blue eyes, her cheerful voice, and her winsome ways, no wonder Nanette was a favourite. But why did she so love to roam down by the rocks where the seagulls screamed, and why, when her father was abroad, did her eyes so often fill with tears as she gazed across the sea? She was her father’s darling, it is true; but she was something else – she was brave Jan Jansen’s promised bride. And his thoughts were always on shore with Nanette, and hers were on the little barque with Jan. When he was at sea the months seemed to her like long gloomy years, and the few weeks he was at home like bright short hours of sunshine and joy.
“And they were going to be married after the very next voyage; then Jan was to have a ship of his own, and take her away with him to the sunny lands he was so fond of describing to her, and about which she so loved to hear, as they walked arm in arm on the breezy cliff-tops.
“If previous voyages had seemed long to Nanette, this last appeared an age in itself. But one summer’s morning when Nanette, awoke and opened her window to admit the sweet sea air and the song of the lark, oh! joy, there was the dear old brig with her sea-washed sides, standing close in towards the land, and she was sure – yes, there was no mistake about it – those were her father and Jan waving their handkerchiefs to attract her attention. How quickly did Nanette dress that morning and hurry out; and how speedily did she bend on and hoist the red flag on the garden staff, to tell her anxious father and lover that all was well at home!
“Then away stood the brig on the starboard tack, and next day Nanette had beside her all that she loved on earth – father, mother, her brothers, and Jan.
“There seemed to be a cloud on the captain’s brow, which his wife was not slow to notice, and even honest Jan appeared to be possessed of some gloomy secret, that sat but uneasily on his mind. Yet each when asked had only replied, —
“‘’Tis nothing, you will hear it all in good time.’
“But that evening, after supper was cleared away, and Jan with the captain sat beside the fire in the cosy parlour, —
“‘Wife,’ said the mariner, ‘I have news for you that is both good and bad. Tell them, Jan, I can’t.’
“Jan dared not meet the loving eyes of poor Nanette, but gazed dreamily into the fire as he told them the news that some shipwrecked sailors had brought to the port of Katrinesand, from which they had last sailed, of wealth immeasurable to be made on an island far away in the frozen ocean, and of mines of ivory to be had for the gathering, and of the captain’s resolve to make one last – certainly the last – Jan little knew how prophetically he spoke – voyage in the brig, and that this voyage was to be to the Arctic regions; and that neither he nor the captain doubted that this single voyage would make wealthy men of them both.
“The wife was the first to reply, for poor Nanette was sobbing as if her heart would break.
“‘Oh!’ cried the captain’s wife, ‘it is ever, ever thus. Do not go, I beseech you, oh! my husband. Do not rashly brave the terrors of that dreadful sea of ice. There has been a cloud on my heart for weeks that I could not understand till now, and both Nanette and myself have dreamed dreams that bode no good to us or ours. Husband, husband, stay at home!’
“But a determined man will have his way, and the captain’s mind was so bent on the new project that nothing would induce him to give it up. What his wife must suffer, but Nanette even more, for wherever her father went Jan was bound to follow, and the danger would be the same to both!
“On the twenty-first day of April, in seventeen hundred and ninety-six, there sailed away from Shetland the sturdy brig Danish Queen, well manned, mated, found and commanded, and with it went the hearts of the gentle Nanette and her mother.
“The day was mild and balmy. A soft south wind blew over the sea and filled the sails, and wafted the brig – oh! how fast she seemed to fly – away and away and away, till she disappeared on the northern horizon, and the poor bereaved ones, clasped in each other’s arms, wept in silence now, for neither could find a word of comfort for the other; hope itself had fled from their hearts.
“And the Danish Queen returned again no more to Shetland shores.
“Two years and a half had barely passed since she sailed away, and the autumn leaves were mingling with the long green grass in the little churchyard of Dergen, when two new-made graves might have been seen there, side by side. One was that of little Nanette, the other the grave of her heartbroken mother.
“And the time flew by, and the Danish Queen was soon forgotten, and people had ceased to speak of her, and the friends of her brave sailors had doffed the garb of mourning for five long years.
“But one day there arrived in Shetland the whaling barque Clotho, direct from the Greenland Ocean, and one passenger, the sole survivor, by his own account, of the ill-fated Danish Queen. If it were indeed as he said, there must be some strange mystery about his existence for so many years on the sea of ice, which even Jan Jansen himself – for it was he – could not, or rather would not, then explain. He was found dressed in bear-skins, a young man, but with snow-white hair and beard, wandering purposelessly on the ice, and taken on board. All that he would tell was that his unfortunate vessel had been dashed to pieces against the ice just three months after he had left Shetland, and that he alone of all on board had been saved from a watery grave.
“Jan Jansen never shed a tear when he heard of the death of the two beings he had loved far better than any one else on earth, but he never smiled again. He built himself a small cottage and tilled a little farm quite close to the graveyard of Dergen, and in sight of the sea. Years softened the poor man’s grief, and to many an earnest child-listener, not a few of whom have long ago gone grey and passed away from earth, he used to tell the tale of his strange adventures in the far-off sea of ice.
“It was on winter evenings, when the snow was sifting in beneath Jan Jansen’s cottage door, and the roar of the wind mingling with the dash of the waves on the cliffs beneath, that Jan would draw closer to the fire, and rake the blazing peat together till the shadows danced and flickered on the walls: then his little friends felt sure that he was going to repeat to them his strange, strange story.
“‘But I never told you, did I,’ old Jan would say, ‘of the lonely island of Alba, in the frozen ocean?’
“He had told them scores of times, but the tale never palled upon them.
“‘Yes, yes, Father Jan,’ they would cry, ‘but we have quite forgotten a great deal that you told us. Do tell us once again of that wonderful island, and all the strange things you saw there.’
“And Jan would begin, keeping his eyes on the fire, as if the curling smoke and the blazing peat aided his recollections.
“‘It was almost summer when the good brig Danish Queen left Shetland. A favouring breeze filled our sails, and in less than fourteen days we made the ice, and the ripple left the water, but still the wind blew fair. Onward we ploughed our way in the sturdy brig, now through fields of floating slush and snow, now through streams of small bergs, but little larger than sheep or swans. Farther north still, and the bergs grew as large as oxen, then as big as elephants, then bigger than houses, then bigger than churches; and as they rose and fell on the smooth dark billows they threatened us every moment with destruction. Then we knew we had at last reached the sea of perpetual ice; ’twas the season of the year when the sun never sets, but goes on day and night, round and round in the cold blue sky, where never a cloud is seen. We saw strange birds and beasts in the water and on the ice, beasts that glared at us with a stony fearless stare, and birds that floated so close we could have captured them by hand. The beautiful snowbird, with plumage more white than the lily’s petal, with eyes and legs of crimson, and bill of jet; the wild pilot bird, and a hundred curious gulls, and little sparrow-like birds that fluttered from berg to berg in the breeze, as if it were very much against their will they were there at all; and flocks of curious blackbirds with white mottled breasts, that laughed in the air as they flew around us, with a sound like the voices of little children just let loose from school. We saw the lonely narwhal, the unicorn of the sea, with his one long ivory horn appearing and disappearing in the black waters as he pursued his prey. Seals in thousands popped their heads above the water to stare at us with their beautiful eyes; sea cows basked on the snowy bergs; whales played their gigantic fountains on every side of us; and the great Greenland bear, king of these regions of ice, stalked majestically around on many a floe, waiting a chance to pounce on some unwary seal.
“‘Northwards still, and now we sailed into an open sea, where no icebergs were anywhere visible – nothing but water, water, wherever we looked, except on the northern horizon, where was one small snowy cone, no bigger it would seem than a sugar-loaf. Taller and taller and broader and broader it grew, as we sailed towards it, till it formed itself into a lofty table-land, and we found ourselves under the ice-bound cliffs of the Isle of Alba.
“‘Imagine if you can a large and mountainous island covered with the snows of ages, with one gigantic cone, the shaft of an extinct volcano, towering upwards until lost in the heavens; imagine all around an ocean of inky blackness, a sky above of cloudless blue, with a sun like a rayless disc of molten silver; imagine neither sight nor sound of life, saving the mournful cry of the wheeling sea-bird, or the sullen plunge of the narwhal and whale; and imagine if you can the feeling of being all alone in such a place, where foot of mortal man had never been planted before.
“‘But for all this, little recked the brave crew of the Danish Queen, for we found the ivory we had braved every danger to seek.
“‘Caves full of it!
“‘Mines of it!
“‘For days and weeks our boats did nothing but ply between ship and shore, laden to the gunwale with our pearly treasure. We had but room for one more ton. It was ready packed on shore, and I was left to watch. Alas and alas! that same night it came on to blow great guns from off the ocean. I could not see our brig for the foam and spray that dashed over the cliffs. But, ah me! I soon heard a mournful and piercing shriek, rising high over wail of wind and wash of wave, and I knew then she had gone down and all on board had perished. Shuddering with cold and horror, I sheltered myself in the inner recesses of a cave, careless even of falling a victim to a bear. I wandered in, and I wandered on and on, till I could no longer hear the surging of the storm-lashed waves, and the light behind me was swallowed up in obscurity. And now I could distinctly perceive a glimmering light and a rising mist far away ahead, while at the same time the air around me waxed sensibly warmer; still a spirit of curiosity seemed to impel me forward, until I found myself standing in front of a vast waterfall, which disappeared in the bowels of the earth beneath my feet, while floating in the vapoury mist above me were beings the most lovely I had ever imagined, in gauzy garments of pink and green.
“‘With their strange eyes bent pityingly on me, those water-spirits floated nearer and nearer. Then I felt lifted off my feet and borne gently but swiftly upwards through the luminous haze, upwards and into day once more; and what a blissful day!
“‘In this lovely land, where I dwelt so long, there was no alloy of sorrow, and the strange, bright beings that inhabited it were as happy and joyous as the birds that sang on every bough, or the flowers that wooed the wind and the sunshine.
“‘Five years passed away like one long and happy dream; then one day my spirit-friends came towards me with downcast looks and tear-bedimmed eyes. They came to tell me that, as with joy they had found me, so in sorrow they must now part with me – that no mortal must stay longer in their land than my allotted time. Then they clad me in skins and conveyed me up the mountain-side, even to the top of the highest cone. Looking down from this height, I could behold all the sea of ice spread out like a map before me, with sealers at work on the southern floes.
“‘“Yonder are your countrymen,” said the beautiful spirits; then sadly they bade me farewell.
“‘It must have been days afterwards when I was picked up by the Clotho’s men, who had gone to look for fresh-water ice.’
“The old man,” continued Magnus Green, “used to sigh as he finished his story, and we – for I, gentlemen, was one of his child-listeners – just whispering adieu, would steal away homewards through the winter’s night, seeing as we went spirits in every curling snowdrift, and hearing voices in every blast.”
“And what do you now think,” asked McBain, after a pause, “of this old man’s strange story?”
“Of the spirit portion of it,” said Magnus, “I cannot give an opinion, but that a sea of open water does lie to the far north, my experience as sealer and whaler has long since convinced me. The Isle of Alba is known to many Norwegian narwhal and walrus-hunters, and I know the mammoth caves of ivory to be not only probable, but a fact.”
“And you think,” continued McBain, “you could guide us and pilot us to these strange regions?”
“Yes, yes?” cried Magnus, producing from his bosom an old and much stained parchment chart, and tapping it with his skinny hand as he spoke, “it is all here, even if my memory failed me. Yes, yes; I can guide you, if the hearts of your crew do not fail them before the dangers to be encountered.”
“I could answer for the hearts of my crew,” said McBain, smiling; “they are hearts of oak, my Magnus! You will know that before you are long with us. As to the mammoth caves Magnus, if we ever attempt to reach them, I promise you that you shall be our pilot.”
