CHAPTER NINE.
AN EXCITING ADVENTURE AND A RESCUE.
It was at this moment that Mildmay caught a momentary glimpse of anobject far away on the northern horizon, which his practised eye at oncetold him was a sail of some sort. He instantly seized one of thetelescopes suspended in the pilot-house, and brought the instrument tobear in her direction. For nearly a minute he was unsuccessful in hisendeavour to find her; but at length she reappeared from behind anintervening berg; and it appeared to him that she was in a situation ofconsiderable peril. She was a barque, under close-reefed topsails,reefed courses, fore topmast staysail, and mizzen; and she appeared tobe embayed in the bight of a huge floe, with a whole fleet of bergs indangerous proximity and apparently bearing down upon her. Perhaps thestrangest peculiarity about her was that, notwithstanding her perilousposition, she was dressed with flags, from her mast-heads downward, asthough it were a gala day on board.
Mildmay's anxious attitude and expression of face, together with hisearnest devotion to his telescope, soon attracted the notice of the restof the party; and the baronet asked him what object it was that soriveted his attention.
He withdrew his eyes for a moment from the instrument, and, pointing outthe small and scarcely distinguishable dark spot on the horizon, said:
"Do you see that object, gentlemen? Well, that is a barque embayed inthe ice, and evidently making a supreme effort to free herself--aneffort which to me, and at this distance, appears quite hopeless. It ismy opinion that, unless the wind changes, or something equallyunforeseen occurs, she will within the next half hour be smashed intomatchwood--unless, indeed, _we_ can help her."
"Help her? Of course we can," said the professor; and without waitingfor further discussion, he laid his hand on the engine lever and sentthe machinery ahead at nearly half-speed.
The _Flying Fish_ darted forward like a swallow in full flight; and theprofessor, leaving the baronet in charge of the engines and thesteering-gear, summoned Mildmay and the colonel to follow him. The triohastened to the after part of the deck, and, raising a trap-door whichthe professor indicated, withdrew therefrom a thin pliant wire hawser--made, like almost everything else in the ship, of aethereum--which,having secured one end of it to a ring-bolt in the after extremity ofthe deck, they coiled down in readiness for use as a tow-line.
"There!" ejaculated the professor in a gratified tone of voice, "we willgive her the end of that rope; and it shall go hard with us, but we willtow her into some place of at least temporary safety."
"That is all right," responded Mildmay; "but how are we going to get iton board her? Its weight is a mere nothing, it is true, but it israther too bulky to heave on board. Have you nothing smaller that wecan bend on to the eye of the hawser and use as a heaving-line?"
"Certainly I have," replied the professor. "I had not thought of that.`Every man to his trade.'" And, diving down the hatchway, he rummagedabout for a few minutes and finally reappeared with a small coil of verythin light pliant wire line, which Mildmay, pronouncing it to be exactlythe thing, proceeded at once to attach to the eye of the hawser.
Meanwhile, the baronet had been anxiously watching the barque throughthe telescope, and had seen so much to increase his anxiety for hersafety that, forgetful of the exposed situation of his companions, hehad gradually increased the pace of the _Flying Fish_ until he hadbrought it up to full speed. This, of course, created so tremendous adraught that not only was it quite impossible for the party aft to makeheadway against it and thus regain the pilot-house, but they actuallyhad to fling themselves flat on the deck to avoid being blown overboard;and even thus it was only with the utmost difficulty that they were ableto save themselves.
And this, unfortunately, was not the worst of it. The light hawser,acted upon by so powerful a draught, was for an instant slightly liftedoff the deck, and that slight lift did the mischief. The next momentthe coils went streaming away astern one after the other, and, almostbefore those who witnessed the accident could tell what had happened,the propeller had been fouled and the hawser snapped like a thread.
The powerful jerk thus occasioned caused the baronet to turn his head;and he then saw in a moment what mischief he had done. He, luckily, hadpresence of mind enough to stop the engines at once; the _Flying Fish's_course was stayed, and she immediately began to drive swiftly astern inapparently a dead calm, but actually swept along upon the wings of thegale.
The professor at once scrambled to his feet, and, followed by hiscompanions, hurried to the pilot-house, where, without wasting time inuseless words, he at once set himself to look out for a suitable spotupon which to alight, it being absolutely necessary to clear thepropeller before again moving the engines, lest in doing so a completebreak-down should result.
A favourable spot was at length found--but not until they had driftedcompletely out of sight of the apparently doomed barque--and the _FlyingFish_ was carefully lowered to the surface of a large floe, her anchorbeing first let go in order to "bring her up" and prevent her beingdriven along by the wind over the smooth surface. It was a task moredifficult of accomplishment than they had anticipated, the anchor forsome time refusing to bite, but it caught at last in a crevice, andimmediately on the vessel touching, the grip-anchors were extended andthe ship secured.
No sooner was the _Flying Fish_ fairly settled on the ice than Mildmay,who knew exactly what ought to be done, descended to the lower recessesof the ship, and, opening the trap-door in her bottom, made his way outon the ice, dragging with him a ladder which was always kept in thediving-room. He soon reached the stern of the vessel, and, rearing theladder in a suitable position against the propeller, nimbly ran aloftand began to throw off the convolutions of the entangled hawser. Twentyminutes sufficed, not only to complete the work, but also to assure himthat no damage had been done to the hull of the vessel; and, his threecompanions having followed him and removed the hawser to the interior ofthe vessel, he re-entered the hull, secured the trap-door after him, andascended to the deck. He here found Sir Reginald and the colonel busilyengaged in adjusting a new hawser ready for use, and, with hisassistance, this task was completed in another five minutes, and theship was once more ready for service.
As the _Flying Fish_ was in the act of rising from off the ice, SirReginald asked:
"Should we not make better speed by taking at once to the water,professor?"
"Undoubtedly we should," was the answer. "Such a course would also havethe additional advantage of enabling us to immerse the hull to theproper depth as we go along, thus giving us that hold upon the waternecessary to cope successfully with the weight of a large ship like theone of which we are going in search. We _might_, whilst floating in theair, be able to tow her out of danger, but I am a little doubtful on thepoint; and, as this is a case in which it will not do to incur any riskby trying experiments, we will take to the water as soon as we candiscover a suitable channel. It appears to me that there is somethingof the kind about six miles ahead and a little to our right."
There certainly was a channel through the ice at the point indicated bythe professor, but whether it was a true channel, or merely a _cul desac_, they were for the moment unable to decide. On nearing it towithin a mile, however, they found it to be the latter; but about acouple of miles beyond it another streak of water was seen extending,unbroken, as far as the eye could reach. For this they steered, and ina very few minutes afterwards the _Flying Fish_ was once more afloat,with her water-chambers full and her air-compressor working to the fullextent of its power.
The hawser being this time temporarily secured in such a manner as torender a repetition of their late accident impossible, and the entireparty being, moreover, safely ensconced in the pilot-house, there was nohesitation about again pressing the ship forward at full speed, thechannel, luckily, being straight enough to allow of this; and very soonthe group of icebergs in which the unfortunate barque was entangled oncemore appeared in view. Mildmay was at the helm, with the professorstanding b
y the engines; but Sir Reginald and the colonel no sooner sawthe bergs than they seized their telescopes and began at once to lookout for the barque.
At first they could see nothing of her, but presently she glided intoview from behind an intervening berg, and a single glance was sufficientto assure them that another five minutes would decide her fate. She hadgradually set down into the triangular extremity of the bight in whichshe was embayed, so that every tack she made became shorter than the onepreceding it, and very soon the water space would become socircumscribed as to leave no room for her to manoeuvre. But this wasnot the worst feature of the case. As desperate diseases are sometimescombated with desperate remedies, so in her desperate condition thehazardous and almost hopeless expedient of berthing her alongside one ofthe edges of the floe might have been attempted. But this last resourcewas denied to the despairing seamen, from the fact that two enormousbergs, the vanguard of the fleet, had already reached the edge of thefloe, on opposite sides of the bay, to windward of the entrapped barque,and were rapidly rasping their way down toward the apex of the trianglewhere the whaler was already shooting into stays for what must evidentlybe her last tack. This would be so short that she could scarcely failto miss stays on her next attempt, when she would drift helplessly downinto the corner of the bight, and be ground out of existence by the bergwhich first happened to reach that point.
It was at this critical moment that a cry of dismay arose simultaneouslyfrom the lips of the party in the _Flying Fish's_ pilot-house. A slightturn in the channel had revealed to them the appalling fact that it,also, terminated in a _cul de sac_, a neck of solid ice, some fiftyyards in width, dividing it from the open water in which the barque wasstill battling for her life.
What was to be done? There was no time to discuss the question; but ahappy inspiration flashed through the baronet's brain.
"We must _leap_ the barrier!" he exclaimed.
"Right! I understand," was the professor's brief reply; and, turningthe compressed air into the water-chambers, he forced out the water andsucceeded in raising the sharp nose of the _Flying Fish_ just above thelevel of the floe a single instant before she reached it.
It was a tremendous risk to run--one which would never have been thoughtof in cold blood, as the ship was rushing forward at full speed, andthere was no knowing what might happen; but the sympathies of the partywere now so fully aroused by the awful peril of the barque--which, inthe midst of all her danger, was still gaily dressed in flags--that theynever paused to think of the possible consequences, but sent the ship atthe barrier as a huntsman sends his horse to a desperate leap. For aninfinitesimal fraction of time the four adventurous travellers werethrilled with a feeling of wild exultation as they held their breath andbraced themselves for the expected shock. Then the smooth polished hullof the _Flying Fish_ met the ice, and, rising like a hunter to the leap,slid smoothly, and without the slightest jar, up on to the surface ofthe floe, across the narrow barrier, and into the water beyond.
"Stop her!" shouted Mildmay, checking the exultant cheer which rose tothe lips of his companions. "Sheer as close alongside the barque as youcan go, Sir Reginald, and give me a chance to get our heaving line onboard. Then, as soon as I wave my hand, go ahead gently until you havebrought a strain upon the hawser, when you may increase the speed toabout twelve knots--not more, or you will tear the windlass out of thebarque. Steer straight out between those two bergs, and remember that_moments_ are now precious."
With these words the lieutenant hurried out on deck and made his wayaft, where he at once began to clear away the heaving line and makeready for a cast.
The engines meanwhile had been stopped in obedience to Mildmay'scommand, his companions intuitively recognising that he was the man tocope with the present emergency, and the _Flying Fish_ answering thehelm, which the baronet, an experienced yachtsman, was deftlymanipulating, shot cleverly up along the weather side of the barque.
"Look out for our line, lads!" hailed Mildmay to the crew of the vessel,who were gaping in open-mouthed astonishment at the extraordinaryapparition which had thus abruptly put in an appearance alongside them.
"Ay, ay, sir; heave!" answered one smart fellow, who, notwithstandinghis surprise, still seemed to have his wits about him. Mildmay hove theline with all a seaman's skill, and a couple of bights settled downround the neck and shoulders of the expectant tar.
"Haul in, and throw the eye of the hawser over your windlass bitts,"ordered Mildmay; "we will soon have you clear of your present pickle."
"Thank you, sir," hailed the skipper; "haul in smart there, for'ard, andtake a turn _anywhere_; those bergs are driving down upon us mightyfast."
With a joyous "hurrah" at the timely arrival of such unexpectedassistance, the men roused the hawser on board, threw the eye over thebitts, passed two or three turns of the slack round the barrel of thewindlass, and adjusted the rope in a "fair-lead" with lightningrapidity. Mildmay, who was intently watching their movements, waved hishand as a signal to the baronet the instant he saw that the hawser wasproperly fast on board the barque, and the _Flying Fish_ immediatelybegan to glide ahead. The baronet was evidently bent on retrieving hischaracter and making up for his past carelessness, for he handled hisstrangely-shaped vessel with most consummate skill, bringing the strainupon the hawser very gradually, and, when he had done so, coaxing thebarque's head round until her nose and that of the _Flying Fish_ pointedstraight toward the rapidly narrowing passage between the bergs. Then,indeed, the thin but tough hawser straightened out taut as a bow-stringbetween the two vessels as the baronet sent his engines powerfullyahead; the barque's windlass bitts creaked and groaned with thetremendous strain to which they were suddenly subjected; a foaming surgegathered and hissed under her bows, and as her harassed crew, active aswild-cats, skipped about the decks busily letting go and clewing up,away went the two craft toward the closing gap.
It was like steering into the jaws of death. The two bergs were by thistime within a bare cable's-length of the _Flying Fish's_ conical stem;and as they swept irresistibly onward, their pinnacled summits toweringfive hundred feet into the air, their rugged sides rasping horriblyalong the edges of the floe with an awful crushing, grinding sound, andtheir contiguous sides approaching each other more and more nearly everymoment, there was not a man on either of those two vessels who did nothold his breath and stand fascinated in awestricken suspense, gazingupon those menacing walls of ice and waiting for the shock which shouldbe the herald of their destruction.
Rapidly--yet slower than a snail's pace, as it seemed to those anxiousmen--the space narrowed between the bergs and the ships; the grindingcrash and crackle of the ice grew momentarily more loud and distracting;the freezing wind from the bergs cut their faces like an invisible razoras it swept down upon them in sudden powerful gusts, apparently intentupon retarding their progress until the last hope of escape should becut off; the gigantic icy cliffs lowered more and more threateninglydown upon them; and at last, when the feeling of doubt and suspense wasat its highest, the _Flying Fish_ entered the gap. The channel had bythis time become so narrow that for the _Flying Fish_ to pass through itseemed utterly impossible; indeed, it looked as though there remainedscarcely room for the barque with her much narrower beam; and as thetowering crystal walls closed in upon them every man present felt thatthe final moment had now come. Everything depended upon Sir Reginald;if at this critical instant his nerve failed him there was nothing butquick destruction and a horrible death for every man there. But thebaronet's nerve did _not_ fail him. With a face pale and teeth clenchedwith excitement, but with a steady pulse and an unquailing eye, he stoodwith one hand on the tiller and the other on the engine lever, guidinghis ship exactly midway through the narrow gorge; and precisely at theright moment, when the _Flying Fish's_ sides were actually grazing theice on either side, he increased the pressure of his hand upon thelever, the engines revolved a shade more rapidly, and the flying shipslid through the narrowest part of the pass uninjured, but
escaping bythe merest hair's breadth.
But would the barque also get through? She was fully two hundred feetastern of the _Flying Fish_, and the bergs were revolving on their owncentres in such a manner that ere many seconds were past they mustinevitably come together with a force which would literally annihilatewhatever might happen to be between them. And as for the barque--theway in which her bows were burying themselves in the hissing wave thatfoamed and surged about her cutwater, and the terrified looks of hercrew as they glanced, now aloft at the formidable bergs, and now at thestraining hawser--from which they stood warily aloof lest it shouldpart, and in so doing inflict upon some of them a deadly injury--toldthe baronet that he must not increase by a single ounce the strain uponthe rope, lest something should give way on board the whaler and leaveher there helpless in the very grip of those awful floating mountains ofice.
It was a race between the bergs and the barque; and Mildmay, standingthere by the after rail, told himself, as he breathlessly watched theprogress of events, that the bergs would win. The contiguous sides ofthese monsters were slightly concave in shape; and whilst the whaler,still some dozen yards or so within the passage had a foot or two ofclear water on either side of her, the projecting extremities of thebergs had neared each other to within a distance of twenty feet, or somefive feet less than the breadth of the imprisoned ship.
Suddenly a tremendous crash was heard, and the party on board the_Flying Fish_ looked to see the unfortunate barque collapse and crumpleinto a shapeless mass of splintered wood before their eyes. But, totheir inexpressible astonishment, nothing of the sort occurred. Therewas a reverberating sound as of muffled thunder, which echoed and re-echoed in the confined space between the two bergs; a series oftremendous splashes just astern of the whaler; the bergs recoiledviolently from each other; the baronet, more by instinct than anythingelse, threw the engine lever still further forward, and before anyonehad time even to draw a breath of relief, the apparently doomed vesselwas dragged, with a foaming surge heaped up round her bows as high asthe figurehead, out from the reopened portal and clear of all danger asingle instant before the two gigantic masses of ice again closed inupon each other with a horrible grinding _crunch_ which must have beenaudible for miles.
It was not until the barque had been dragged, almost bows under, somefifty or sixty fathoms away from the still grinding and rasping bergs,that her crew were able to realise the astounding fact of their safety,but when they did so they sent up a wild cheer which was as distinct anexpression of gratitude to God for their deliverance as ever issued fromhuman lips. Their escape, though it could easily be accounted for,might indeed well be called miraculous, for at the moment when theirlast hope was extinguished--apparently their last chance gone--two hugeoverhanging projections on the summits of the bergs had come intocontact with such violence that both the projecting masses of ice hadbecome detached and had gone thundering down into the water, fortunatelyat some few yards' distance astern of the whaler, and the shock ofcollision had been so great as to compel the momentary recoil of thebergs, with the fortunate result already described.
Directly it was seen that the barque had indeed escaped, the _FlyingFish's_ engines were slowed down to their lowest speed, and the whaler,relieved of the enormous tugging strain upon her, once more floated onher normal water-lines. The two craft were now in comparatively openwater, the channel being between two and three miles wide, and stillwidening ahead of them, with a few small bergs in their vicinity, it istrue, but with no ice at hand likely to cause them immediate peril. Thebarque was towed to windward of all these, and then the baronet stoppedthe _Flying Fish_ altogether, and hailed the skipper of the whaler toknow whither he was bound. Upon this the worthy man lowered one of hisboats and pulled alongside his strange consort to return thanks inperson for his recent rescue.
He was a very fine specimen of a seaman, not very tall, but bluff andhearty-looking in his manifold wraps surmounted by a dreadnought pilotjacket, sealskin cap, and water boots reaching to his thighs; and it wasamusing to see his look of surprise as he came up the _Flying Fish's_side-ladder and stepped in upon her roomy deck unencumbered by anythingbut the pilot-house. The four companions of course stepped out on deckin a body to meet him, and after they had all heartily shaken hands withhim and deprecatingly received his thanks for the important servicerendered in the rescue of his ship from the ice, he was invited toaccompany them below to cement the newly-made acquaintance over a glassof grog. And if the worthy seaman was surprised at the exterior of thestrange craft he was now visiting, how much greater was his astonishmentwhen he entered her magnificent saloons, revelled in their gratefulwarmth, and looked round bewildered upon the rich carpets, the handsomefurniture, the superb pictures and statuary, and the choice _bric abrac_, all glowing under the brilliant but cunningly modified electriclight. And if he was surprised at all these unwonted sights, hisastonishment may be imagined when he was informed that the four refinedand cultured men who welcomed him so hospitably, constituted, with theexception of the cook and the steward, the entire crew of the immensecraft, and that the owner of all the magnificence he beheld had daredthe terrors of the polar regions solely by way of pastime.
"Well, gentlemen," he remarked, "it's an old saying that tastes differ,and what you've just told me proves it. I've been a whaler for nigh onto twenty-five years, but it has been a case of necessity, not choice,with me; and after the first two or three years of the life--when thenovelty had worn off a bit, as you may say--I've looked forward to onlyone thing, and that is the scraping together of enough money to retireand get quit of it all for ever. I took to it first as a hand beforethe mast, and have regularly passed through all the grades--boat-steerer, third, second, and chief mate, master, and at last owner of myown ship, always with the same object ahead. And when, little more thana year ago, I put the savings of a lifetime into the purchase of the old_Walrus_ there, I thought that the dream of my life was soon to berealised, and that one trip more to the nor'ard would bring me in asufficiency to last me the remainder of my days, and enable me to enjoy'em in the company of my wife and my little daughter. God bless thechild! if she's still alive she's five years old to-day."
"Ah!" interrupted Mildmay, "then that, I suppose, accounts for the flagsflying on board you, and the meaning of which we were so utterly unableto guess?"
"That's it, sir," was the reply. "I `dressed ship' at eight o'clockthis morning in honour of my little Florrie's birthday, and I hadn't theheart to haul down the flags even when we found ourselves in such aprecious pickle amongst the ice yonder. I thought that if so be it wasGod's will that we was to go, we might as well go with the buntin' stillflying in Florrie's honour as not."
"And what success have you met with, captain?" asked Sir Reginald.
"Precious little, sir. We've been out now more'n a twelvemonth, andwe've only killed three fish in all that time. Got jammed up here inthe ice all last winter. I stayed in hopes of doin' something in thesealing line, and only got some three hundred skins after all. It'sbeen a bad speculation for me. An old friend of mine came this way theyear before last, and, the season being an open one and not much iceabout, he reached as far north as Baffin's Bay and through Jones' Sound,fillin' his ship with oil and bone in a single season. He was luckyenough to hit upon a spot where the sea was fairly alive with whales,and he filled the ship right up in that very spot. The fish seemedtame, as though they hadn't been interfered with for years; and bein' anold friend, as I said before, he gave me the latitude and longitude ofthe place as a great secret, and I've been trying to reach the spot eversince we came north, but have been kept back by the ice and the contrarywinds. If I could get there, even now, it would make the tripprofitable enough to serve my purpose; but I see no chance of it, andthe men are getting disheartened."
"Never mind, captain, cheer up; all may yet be well," exclaimed thebaronet. "We can't drag your ship _over_ the ice, but if there is onlya passage for her we can drag her _through_ it, and for
little Florrie'ssake we will. If it is in our power to get you to the spot you wish toreach, you shall go there. Now, as the present open water affords anopportunity too good to be lost, return to your ship, secure our hawserin such a way that we may put a big strain upon it without damaging thevessel, and send a trustworthy hand aloft into the crow's-nest to lookout for the best channels. We will tow you to the northward as long asa channel can be found through the ice, and at seven o'clock I hope youwill give us the pleasure of your company on board here to dinner, whenwe will drink `many happy returns of the day' to Florrie in the bestchampagne the _Flying Fish's_ cellar affords."
The captain of the whaler returned to his own ship in a state of suchmingled astonishment and elation that his people were at first inclinedto think he had suddenly gone demented. However, the order which hegave them to secure the towing hawser in such a manner as would enablethe ship to withstand a heavy strain was intelligible enough; it toldthem that, with the assistance of their strange rescuers, a supremeeffort was now to be made to reach those prolific fishing-grounds whichhad from the first been the goal of their voyage; and that, best of all,that effort was to be unaccompanied by any of the usual harassing labourof working the ship to windward through the ice, and they set to with awill. A sufficient length of the hawser was hauled on board to enablethem to take a couple of turns round the barrel of the windlass and twomore round the heel of the foremast, the eye of the hawser being furthersecured by tackles to every ring-bolt in the ship capable of bearing agood substantial strain; and then, the skipper himself going aloft tothe crow's-nest, the signal was given for the _Flying Fish_ to go ahead.