the manliest beauty, His heart was warm and soft, Faithful below he did his duty, And now he's gone aloft."
Just one week after the burial of Ted Wilson, De Vere, the Frenchaeronaut, was attacked, and in three days' time he was dead. He hadnever been really well since the journey to the vicinity of the Pole,and the loss of his great balloon was one which he never seemed to beable to get over. He was quite an enthusiast in his profession, and, ashe remarked to McBain one day, "I have mooch grief for de loss of myballoon. I had give myself over to de thoughts of mooch pleasantvoyaging away up in de regions of de upper air. I s'all soar not againuntil I reach England."
It was sad to hear him, as he lay half delirious on the bed of his lastillness, muttering, muttering to himself and constantly talking aboutthe home far away in sunny France that he would never see again. Eitherthe doctor or one or other of our young heroes was constantly in thecabin with him. About an hour before his demise he sent for Ralph.
"I vould not," he said, "send for Rory nor for Allan, dey vill bothfollow me soon. Oh I do not you look sad, Ralph, dere is nothing butjoy vere ve are going. Nothing but joy, and sunshine, and happiness."
He took a locket from his breast. It contained the portrait of agrey-haired mother.
"Bury dis locket in my grave," he said.
He took two rings from off his thin white fingers.
"For my sister and my mother," he said.
He never spoke again, but died with those dear names on his lips.
Ralph showed himself a very hero in these sad times of trouble anddeath. He was here, there, and everywhere, by night and by day;assisting the surgeon and helping Seth to attend upon the wants of thesick and dying; and many a pillow he soothed, and many a word of comforthe gave to those who needed it. The true Saxon character was nowbeautifully exemplified in our English hero. He possessed that noblecourage which never makes itself uselessly obtrusive, which fritters notitself away on trifles, and which seems at most times to lie dormant orlatent, but is ever ready to show forth and burn most brightly in thehour of direst need.
Sorrows seldom come singly, and one day Stevenson, in making his usualmorning report, had the sad tidings to add that cask after cask ofprovisions had been opened and found bad, utterly useless for humanfood.
McBain got up from his chair and accompanied the mate on deck.
"I would not," he said, "express, in words what I feel, Mr Stevenson,before our boys; but this, indeed, is terrible tidings."
"It can only hasten the end," said Stevenson.
"You think, then, that that end is inevitable?"
"Inevitable," said Stevenson, solemnly but emphatically. "We are doomedto perish here among this ice. There can be no rescue for us butthrough the grave."
"We are in the hands of a merciful and an all-powerful Providence, MrStevenson," said McBain; "we must trust, and wait, and hope, and do ourduty."
"That we will, sir, at all events," said the mate; "but see, sir, whatis that yonder?"
He pointed, as he spoke, skywards, and there, just a little way abovethe highest mountain-tops, was a cloud. It kept increasing almostmomentarily, and got darker and darker. Both watched it until the sunitself was overcast, then the mate ran below to look at the glass. Itwas "tumbling" down.
For three days a gale and storm, accompanied with soft, half-wet snow,raged. Then terrible noises and reports were heard all over the pack ofice seaward, and the grinding and din that never fails to announce thebreak-up of the sea of ice.
"Heaven has not forgotten us," cried McBain, hopefully; "this changewill assuredly check the sickness, and perhaps in a week's time we willbe sailing southwards through the blue, open sea, bound for our nativeshores."
McBain was right; the hopes raised in the hearts of the men did checkthe progress of the sickness. When at last the wind fell, they wereglad to see that the clouds still remained, and that there were no signsof the frost coming on again.
The pieces of ice, too, were loose, and all hands were set to work towarp the ship southwards through the bergs. The work was hard, and theprogress made scarcely a mile a day at first. But they were men workingfor their lives, with new-born hope in their hearts, so they heeded notthe fatigue, and after a fortnight's toil they found the water so muchmore open that by going ahead at full speed in every clear space, a fairday's distance was got over. For a week more they strove and struggledonwards; the men, however, were getting weaker and weaker for want ofsufficient food. How great was their joy, then, when one morning theisland was sighted on which McBain had left the store of provisions!
Boats were sent away as soon as they came within a mile of the place.
Sad, indeed, was the news with which Stevenson, who was in charge,returned. The bears had made an attack on the buried stores. They hadclawed the great cask open, and had devoured or destroyed everything.
Hope itself now seemed for a time to fly from all on board. With a crewweak from want, and with fearful ice to work their way through, whatchance was there that they would ever succeed in reaching the openwater, or in proceeding on their homeward voyage even as far as theisland of Jan Mayen, or until they should fall in with and obtain relieffrom some friendly ship? They were far to the northward of the sealinggrounds, and just as far to the east. McBain, however, determined stillto do his utmost, and, though on short allowance, to try to forge ahead.For one week more they toiled and struggled onwards, then came thefrost again and all chance of proceeding was at an end.
It was no wonder that sickness returned. No wonder that McBain himself,and Allan and Rory, began to feel dejected, listless, weary, and ill.
Then came a day when the doctor and Ralph sat down alone to eat theirmeagre and hurried breakfast.
"What prospects?" said Ralph.
"Moribund!" was all the doctor said just then.
Presently he added--
"There, in the corner, lies poor wee Freezing Powders, and, my dearRalph, one hour will see it all over with him. The captain and Allanand Rory can hardly last much longer."
"God help us, then," said Ralph, wringing his hands, and giving way to amomentary anguish.
The unhappy negro boy was stretched, to all appearance lifeless, closeby the side of his favourite's cage.
Despite his own grief, Ralph could not help feeling for that poor bird.His distress was painful to witness. If his great round eyes could haverun over with tears, I am sure they would have done so. I have saidbefore that Cockie was not a pretty bird, but somehow his very uglinessmade Ralph pity him now all the more. Nor was the grief of the bird anythe less sad to see because it was exhibited in a kind of half ludicrousway. He was not a moment at rest, but he seemed really not to know whathe was doing, and his anxious eye was hardly ever withdrawn from theface of the dying boy:--jumping up and down from his perch to hisseed-tin and back again, grabbing great mouthfuls of hemp, which henever even broke or tried to swallow, and blowing great sighs over histhick blue tongue. And the occasional sentence, too, the bird every nowand then began but never finished,--
"Here's a--"
"Did you--"
"Come--"
All spoke of the anguish in poor Cockie's breast.
A faint moaning was heard in the adjoining cabin, and Ralph hurried awayfrom the table, and Sandy was left alone.
CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR.
A SAILOR'S COTTAGE--THE TELEGRAM--"SOMETHING'S IN THE WIND"--THE GOODYACHT "POLAR STAR"--HOPE FOR THE WANDERERS.
A cottage on a cliff. A cliff whose black, beetling sides rose sheer upout of the water three hundred feet and over; a cliff around whichsea-birds whirled in dizzy flight; a cliff in which the cormorant hadher home; a cliff against which all the might of the German Ocean haddashed and chafed and foamed for ages. Some fifty yards back from theedge of this cliff the cottage was built, of hard blue granite, withsturdy bay windows--a cottage that seemed as independent of any stormthat could blow as the cliff itself was. In front was a neat weegarden, with nicely gravelled
walks and edging of box, and all round ita natty railing painted an emerald green. At the back of the cottagewere more gravelled walks and more flower garden, with a summer-houseand a smooth lawn, from the centre of which rose a tall ship's mast byway of flagstaff, with ratlines and rigging and stays and top complete.
Not far off was a pigeon-house on a pole, and not far from that stillanother pole surmounted by a weather-vane, and two little woodenblue-jackets, that whenever the wind blew, went whirling round andround, clashing swords and engaging in a kind of fanatic duel, whichseemed terribly real and terribly deadly for the time being.
It was a morning in early spring, and up and down the walk behind thecottage stepped a sturdy, weather-beaten old sailor, with hair and beardof iron-grey, and a face as red as the newest brick that ever wasfashioned.
He stood