CHAPTER XIX.
WE TAKE A VIEW OF THE ICE.
For seven days the gale raged with uncommon violence: it then broke, andthis brought us into the first week of August. The wind fell in thenight, and I was awakened by the silence, which you will not thinkstrange if you consider how used were my ears to the fierce seething andstrong bellowing of the blast. I lay listening, believing that it hadonly veered, and that it would come on again in gusts and guns; but thestillness continued, and there was no sound whatever, saving the noisesof the ice, which broke upon the air like slow answers from batteriesnear and distant, half whose cannons have been silenced.
I slept again, and when I awoke it was half-past nine o'clock in themorning. The Frenchman was snoring lustily. I went on deck beforeentering the cook-house, and had like to have been blinded by theastonishing brilliance of the sunshine upon the ice and snow. All thewind was gone. The air was exquisitely frosty and sharp. But there was aheavy sound coming from the sea which gave me to expect the sight of astrong swell. The sky was a clear blue, and there was no cloud on asmuch of its face as showed betwixt the brows of the slopes.
The schooner was a most wonderful picture of drooping icicles. A morebeautiful and radiant sight you could not figure. From every rope, fromthe yards forward, from the rails, from whatever water could run in astream, hung glorious ice-pendants of prismatic splendour. No snow hadfallen to frost the surfaces, and every pendant was as pure and polishedas cut-glass and reflected a hundred brilliant colours. The water hurledover and on the schooner had frozen upon the masts, rigging, and decks,and as this ice, like the pendants, was very sparklingly bright, it gaveback all the hues of the sunbeam, so that, stepping from the darkness ofthe cabin into this effulgent scene, you might easily have persuadedyourself that before you stood the fabric of a ship fashioned out of arainbow.
My attention, however, was quickly withdrawn from this shining spectacleby the appearance of the starboard cliff over against our quarter. Thewhole shoulder of it had broken away and I could just catch a view ofthe horizon of the sea from the deck by stretching my figure. The sightof the ocean showed me that the breakage had been prodigious, for tohave come to that prospect before, I should have had to climb to theheight of the main lower masthead. No other marked or noteworthy changedid I detect from the deck; but on stepping to the larboard side to peerover I spied a split in the ice that reached from the very margin of theravine, I mean to that end of it where it terminated in a cliff, to pastthe bows of the schooner by at least four times her own length.
I returned to the cook-room and went about the old business of lightingthe fire and preparing the breakfast--this job by an understandingbetween the Frenchman and me, falling to him who was first out ofbed--and in about twenty minutes Tassard arrived.
"The wind is gone," said he.
"Yes," I replied, "it is a bright still morning. I have been on deck.There has been a great fall of ice close to."
"Does it block us?"
"No, on the contrary, it clears the way to the sea; the ocean is nowvisible from the deck. Not that it mends our case," I added. "But thereis a great rent in the ice that puts a fancy into my head; I'll speak ofit later after a closer look."
The breakfast was ready, and we fell to in a hurry, the Frenchmangobbling like a hog in his eagerness to make an end. When we werefinished he wrapped himself up in three or four coats and cloaks,warming the under ones before folding them about him, and completing hispreparations for the excursion by swallowing half a pint of raw brandy.I bade him arm himself with a short-headed spear to save his neck; andthus equipped we went on deck.
He stood stock-still with his eyes shut on emerging through the hatch,crying out with a number of French oaths that he had been struck blind.This I did not believe, though I readily supposed that the glare madehis eyeballs smart so as to cause him a good deal of agony. Indeed, allalong I had been surprised that he should have found his sight soeasily after having sat in blindness for forty-eight years, and it wasnot wonderful that the amazing brilliance on deck, smiting his sight ona sudden, should have caused him to cry out as if he had lost the use ofhis eyes for ever.
I waited patiently, and in about ten minutes he was able to look abouthim, and then it was not long before he could see without pain. He stooda minute gazing at the glories upon the rigging, and in that piercinglight I noticed the unwholesome colour of his face. His cap hid thescar, and nothing of his countenance was to be seen but the cheeks,eyes, and nose; he was much more wrinkled than I had supposed, andmethought the spirit of cruelty lay visible in every line. I had neverseen eyes so full of cunning and treachery--so expressive, I should say,of these qualities; yet they were no bigger than mere punctures. I wassensible of a momentary fear of the man--not, let me say, an emotion ofcowardice--but a sort of mixture of alarm and awe, such as a ghost mightinspire. This I put down to the searching light in which I watched himfor a moment or two, an irradiation subtle enough to give the sharpestform to expression, to exquisitely define every meaning that wasdistinguishable in his graveyard physiognomy. I left him to stare andjudge for himself of the posture in which the long hard gale had put theschooner and stepped over to the two bodies. They were shrouded in icefrom head to foot, as though they had each man been packed in a glasscase cunningly wrought to their shapes. Their faces were hid by thecrystal masks. Tassard joined me.
"Small chance for your friends now," said I, "even if you were agreeableto my proposal to attempt to revive them."
"So!" cried he, touching the body of the mate with his foot; "and thisis the end of the irresistible Trentanove! for what conquests has Deathrobed him so bravely? See, the colours shine in him like fifty differentkinds of ribbands. Poor fellow! he could not curl his moustachios now,though the loveliest eyes in Europe were fixed in passionate admirationon him. He'll never slit another throat, nor hiccup Petrarch over agoblet nor remonstrate with me on my humanity. Shall we toss the bodiesover the side?"
"They are your friends," said I; "do as you please."
"But we must empty their pockets first. Business before sentiment, Mr.Rodney."
He stirred the figure again with his foot.
"Well, presently," said he, "this armour will want the hatchet. Now, myfriend, to view the work of the gale."
The increased heel of the ship brought the larboard fore-channel low,and we stepped without difficulty from it on to the ice. The rent orfissure that I have before spoken of went very deep; it was nearly twofeet wide in places, but, though the light poured brilliantly upon it, Icould see no bottom.
"If only such another split as this would happen t'other side," said theFrenchman, "I believe this block would go adrift."
"Well," said I, after musing a little whilst I ran my eye over thehollows, "I'll tell you what was in my mind just now. There is a greatquantity of gunpowder in the hold; ten or a dozen barrels. By droppinglarge parcels of it into the crevices on the right there, and firing itwith slow-matches--"
He interrupted me with a cry: "By St. Paul, you have it! What creviceshave you?"
We walked briskly round the vessel, and all about her beam and starboardquarter I found, in addition to the seams I had before noticed, manygreat cracks and fissures, caused no doubt by the fall of the shoulderof the slope. I pushed on further yet, going down the ravine, as I havecalled it, until I came to the edge; and here I looked down from aheight of some twelve or fourteen feet--so greatly had the ice sunk orbeen changed by the weather--upon the ocean. I called to Tassard. Heapproached warily. I believe he feared I might be tempted to give him afriendly shove over the edge.
"Observe this hollow," said I; "the split there goes down to the water,and you may take it that the block is wholly disconnected on that side.Now look at the face of the ice," said I, pointing to the starboard orright-hand side; "that crack goes as far as the vessel's quarter, andthe weakness is carried on to past the bows by the other rents. Mr.Tassard, if we could burst this body of ice by an explosion from itsmoorings ahead of the
bowsprit, where it is all too compact, this cradlewith the schooner in it will go free of the parent body."
He answered promptly, "Yes; it is the one and only plan. That crack tostarboard is like telling us what to do. It is well you came here. Weshould not have seen it from the top. This valley runs steep. You mustexpect no more than the surface to be liberated, for the foot of thecliff will go deep."
"I desire no more."
"Will the ship stand such a launch, supposing we bring it about?" saidhe.
I responded with one of his own shrugs, and said, "Nothing is certain.We have one of two courses to choose: to venture this launch, or staytill the ice breaks up, and take our chance of floating or of beingsmashed."
"You are right," he exclaimed. "Here is an opportunity. If we wait,bergs may gather about this point and build us in. As to this islanddissolving, we are yet to know which way 'tis heading. Suppose it shouldbe travelling south, hey!"
He struck the ice with his spear, and we toiled up the slippery rockswith difficulty to the ship. We walked past the bows to the distance ofthe vessel's length. Here were many deep holes and cracks, and as if wewere to be taught how these came about, even whilst we were viewing theman ear-splitting crash of noise happened within twenty fathoms of us, arock many tons in weight rolled over, and left a black gulf behind it.
The Frenchman started, muttered, and crossed himself. "Holy Virgin!" hecried, rolling his eyes. "Let us return to the schooner. We shall beswallowed up here."
I own I was not a little terrified myself by the sudden loud blast andthe thunder of the uprooted rock, and the sight of the huge black rent;but I meant to view the scene from the top, and to consider how best todispose of the powder in the cracks, and said, "There is nothing to bedone on board; skulking below will not deliver us or preserve thetreasure. Here are several fissures big enough to receive barrels ofgunpowder. See, Mr. Tassard, as they stand they cover the whole width ofthe hollow."
And I proceeded to give him my ideas as to lowering, fixing the barrels,and the like. He nodded his head, and said, "Yes, very good; yes, itwill do," and so on; but was too scared in his heart, I believe, to seemy full meaning. He was perpetually moving, as if he feared the icewould split under his feet, and his eyes travelled over the face of therocks with every manifestation of alarm in their expression. I wonderedhow so poor a creature should ever have had stomach enough to serve as apirate; no doubt his spirit had been enfeebled by his long sleep; butthen it is also true that the greatest bullies and most bloodthirstyrogues prove themselves despicable curs under conditions which make nodemand upon their temper or their lust for plunder.
He would have returned to the ship, had I encouraged him, but on seeingme start to climb to the brow he followed. The prospect disappointed me.I had expected to witness a variety of surprising changes; but southwardthe scene was scarce altered. It was a wonderfully fair morning, the skyclear from sea-line to sea-line, and of a very soft blue, the ocean of alike hue, with a high swell running, that was a majestic undulation evenfrom the height at which I surveyed it. The sun stood over the ice inthe north-east, and the dazzle kept me weeping, so intolerable was theeffulgence. Half of the delicate architecture that had enriched theslopes and surfaces that way was swept down, and ice lay piled in placesto an elevation of many feet, where before it had been flat or hollow.However, there was no question but that the gale had played havoc withthe north extremity of the island: I counted no less than twenty bergsfloating off the main, and it was quite likely the sea was crowdedbeyond, though my sight could not travel so far.
However, when I came to look close, and to recollect the features of theshore as they showed when I first landed, I found some vital changesnear at hand. Where my haven had been the ice had given way and left agap half a mile broad and a hundred feet deep. The fall on theschooner's starboard quarter was very heavy, and the ice was split inall directions; and in parts was so loose that a point of cliff hardupon the sea rocked with the swell. When Tassard came to a stand helooked about him north and south, shading his eyes with his hand, andthen swearing very savagely in French, he cried out in English, freelyemploying oaths as he spoke,--
"Why, here's as much ice as there was before I fell asleep! See yonder!"pointing to the south. "It dies out in the distance. If it does notjoin the pole there, may the devil rise before me as I speak. Thunderand fury! I had hoped to see it shrivelled to an ordinary berg!"
"What! in a week?" cried I, as if I believed his stupor had not lastedlonger.
He returned no answer and gaped about him full of consternation andpassion.
"And are we to wait for our deliverance till this continent breaks up?"he bawled. "The day of judgment will be a thing of the past by thattime. Travelling north! 'sdeath!" he roared, his mouth full of theexpletives of his day, French and English. "Who but a madman couldsuppose that this ice is not as fixed as the antarctic circle to whichit is moored? Why, six months ago it was no bigger than it is now!" Andhe sent a furious terrified gaze into the white solitudes vanishing inazure faintness in the south-west.
It was not a thing to reason upon. I was as much disappointed as he bythe trifling changes the gale had made, and my heart felt very heavy atthe sight of the great field disappearing in the south. The bergs in thenorth signified little. It is true they indicated demolition, butdemolition so slow as to be worthless to us. It was not to be questionedthat the island was proceeding north, but at what rate? Here, perhaps,might be a frozen crescent of forty or fifty leagues: and at what speed,appreciable enough to be of the least consequence to our calculations,should such a body travel?
I looked at the Frenchman.
"This must decide us!" said I. "We must fix on one of two courses:endeavour to launch the ship by blowing up the ice, or turn to and rigup the best arrangement we can contrive and put to sea."
"Yes," he answered, scowling as he darted his enraged eyes over the ice."Better set a slow match in the magazine and drink ourselves senseless,and so blow ourselves to hell, than linger here in the hope that thiscontinent will dissolve and release us. Where's Mendoza's body?"
I stared about me, and then pointing to the huge gap the ice had made,answered, "It was there. Where it is now I know not."
He shrugged his shoulders, took another view of the ice and the ocean,and then cried impatiently, "Let us return! the powder-barrels must havethe first chance." And he made for the schooner, savagely striking theice with his spear and growling curses to himself as he ploughed andclimbed and jumped his way along.