and Seth. It was noeasy task, climbing that snowy cone by the light of stars and Aurora.But they gained the summit ere the short, short day broke.
To the north and west they saw land and mountains, stretching away andaway as far as eye could follow them. To the east and north waterstudded with ugly icebergs that looked as if they had broken away fromthe shores of the western land.
"But what is that in the middle of yonder ice-floe to the south andwest?" cried Rory.
"As I live," exclaimed McBain, as he eyed the object through the glass,"it is a ship of some kind, evidently deserted; and it is quite asevident that we are not the only explorers that have reached as farnorth as this island."
The mystery was explained next day, and a sad story brought to light.McBain and party landed on the floe and walked towards the derelict.She was sloop-rigged, with sails all clewed, and her hull half hidden insnow. After a deal of difficulty they succeeded in opening one of thecompanion hatches, and making their way down below.
No less than five unburied corpses lay huddled together in the littlecabin. From their surroundings it was plain they had beenwalrus-hunters, and it was not difficult to perceive that the poorfellows had died from cold and hunger _many, many years before_.
Frozen in, too far up in this northern sea, they had been unable toregain the open water, and so had miserably perished.
Next day they returned and laid the mortal remains of these unfortunatemen in graves in the snow, and even Rory was much more silent andthoughtful than usual as they returned to the ship.
Was it not possible that they might meet with a similar fate? The poorfellows they had just buried had doubtless possessed many home ties;their wives and mothers had waited and wished a weary time, till at longlast the heart had grown sick with hope deferred, and maybe the gravehad long since closed over them.
Such were some of Rory's thoughts, but after dinner McBain "brought himup with a round turn," as he phrased it.
"Rory," he cried, "go and play to us. Freezing Powders, you youngrascal, bring that cockatoo of yours up on the table and make us laugh."
Rory brightened up and got hold of his fiddle; and "All right, sah,"cried Freezing Powders. "I bring de old cockatoo plenty quick. Comealong, Cockie, you catchee my arm and pull yourse'f up. Dat's it."
"Come on," cried Cockie, hopping on the table and at once commencing towaltz and polka round. "Come on; play up, play up."
A queer bird was Cockie. He cared for nobody except his master andRory. Rory he loved solely on account of the fiddle, but his affectionfor Freezing Powders was very genuine. When his master was glad, so wasCockie; when the little nigger boy felt tired, and threw himself downbeside the cage to rest, then Cockie would open his cage door and backtail foremost under the boy's arm, heaving as he did so a deep,delighted sigh, as much as to say, "Oh, what joy it is to nestle inhere?"
Cockie was not a pretty bird; his bill was worn and all twisted awry,and his eyes looked terribly old-fashioned, and the blue, wrinkled skinaround them gave him quite an antediluvian look. He was white incolour--or, more correctly speaking, he had been white once; but time,that steals the roses from the softest cheeks, had long since toned himdown to a kind of yellow lilac, so he did not look a very respectablebird on the whole.
"You ought to wash him," McBain said, one day. "Wash him, sah?" saidFreezing Powders; "is dat de 'xpression you make use of, sah? Blessyou, sah! I have tried dat plenty much often; I have tried to washmyself, too. No good in eeder case, sah; I 'ssure you I speak de truf."
"Come on I come on?" cried Cockie. "Play up! play up! La de lal, delal, de lal!"
And round spun the bird, keeping time to the merry air, and every nowand then giving a "whoop?" such as could only be emitted by Cockiehimself, a Connemara Irishman, or a Cuscarora Indian.
But this is a remarkable thing, Cockie danced and whirled in onedirection till he found his head getting light, then he reversed theaction, and whirled round the other way!
[This description of the wonderful bird is in no way overdrawn.]
It really seemed as if he would tire Rory out. "Lal de dal!" he sung:"our days are short--whoop!--our lives are merry--lal de dal, de dal, de_whoop_!"
But Rory changed his tactics; he began to play _The Last Rose ofSummer_, leaning down towards the table. Cockie stopped at once, andbacked, tail foremost, in under the musician's hands, crouching downwith a sigh to listen.
But Rory went off again into the _Sprig of Shillelagh_, and off wentCockie, too, dancing more madly than ever with a small flag in his mouththat Freezing Powders had handed him. Then he stopped at last, andwalked about gasping, pitching penholders and pencils in all directions.
"Here's a pretty to-do!" he said; and when somebody laughed, Cockiesimply shrieked with laughter till he had everybody joining him andholding their sides, and feeling sore all over. Verily, Cockie was acure! No wonder his master loved him.
In a few days the _Arrandoon_ left the desolate island, which Rory hadnamed "Walrus Isle."
Everybody was on deck as the vessel slowly steamed away.
Most of the land was already shrouded in gloom, only in the far distancea tall mountain cone was all ablaze with a crimson glory, borrowed fromthe last blink of sunshine. Yes, the god of day had sunk to rest, andthey would bask no more in his cheering beams for many a long and wearymonth to come.
"Give us a bass, Ray, old boy!" cried Rory; "and you, doctor, a tenor."
And he started,--
"Shades of evening, close not o'er us, Leave our lonely bark awhile, Morn, alas! will not restore us Yonder dim and distant isle."
Ah, reader! what a glorious thing music is; I tell you, honestly andtruthfully, that I do not believe I could have come through half thetrials and troubles and griefs and worries I have had in life, if I hadnot at times been able to seek solace and comfort from my old cremona.
Our heroes thought at first they would greatly miss the light of thesun, but they soon got quite used to the strange electric light emittedby the splendid Aurora, combined with that which gleamed more steadilydownwards from the brilliant stars. These stars were seen to bestadvantage in the south; they seemed very large and very near, andwhether it was the reflection of the Aurora, or whether it was real, Inever could tell, but they seemed to shine with differently colouredlights. There were pure white stars, mostly low on the horizon; therewere crimson and green changing stars, and yellow and rose-colouredchanging stars, and some of a pale-golden hue, the soft light of whichwas inexpressibly lovely. But any effort of mine to paint in words theextreme beauty of the heavens on clear nights would prove but a painfulfailure, so I leave it alone. The chief bow of the Aurora is, I mayjust mention, composed apparently of spears of ever-changingrainbow-coloured light continually falling back into masses andphalanxes, and anon advancing and clashing, as it were. While walkingon the ice-fields, if you listen, you can hear a strange whispering,hissing sound emitted from these clashing, mixing spears. The followingletters, whispered rapidly, give some faint idea of this mysterioussound,--
"Ush-sh-sh-sh-sh-sh-sh."
You can also produce a somewhat similar noise by rubbing your fingersswiftly backwards and forwards on a sheet of paper.
But indeed the whole firmament, when the sky was clear, was precisely asRory described it--"one beautiful poem."
Many bears were now seen, and nearly all that were seen were killed.They were enormously large and fierce, foolishly fierce indeed, for theyseldom thought of taking to flight.
There were unicorns (narwhals) in the sea in scores, and walruses on theflat ice by the dozen. It was after these latter that Master Bruin cameprowling.
A nice juicy walrus-steak a Greenland bear will tell you is the bestthing in the world for keeping the cold out.
Old trapper Seth had strange ways of hunting at times. One example mustsuffice.
Our heroes had been out after a walrus which they had succeeded inkilling. A bear or two had been seen an hour or two before
that,evidently on the prowl, and probably very hungry. Now, nothing willfetch these kings of the northern ice more surely than the scent ofblood.
"Young gentlemen," said Seth, "there's a b'ar about somewheres, and Ireckon he ain't far off either. Now, we'll just whip this old walrusout o' his skin, and Seth will creep in, and you'll see what you'llsee."
He was very busy with his knife as he spoke, and in a few minutes thecrang was got out and thrown into the water, the head being left on.Into the skin crept the trapper, lying down at full length with hisrifle close by his side, and by his directions away pulled the boat.
It was not two hundred yards off, when up out of the sea scrambled ahuge bear.
"Hullo," says Bruin, shaking himself like a dozen great Newfoundlanddogs rolled into one--"hullo!