Seven Frozen Sailors Part 27

I took out my wet cake of 'bacca, and whittled off a bit, shoved it in my cheek, shut my knife with a click, and sot thar watchin' of 'em-- father, and mother, and bairn.

"You've been too happy, you have," I says out loud; not as they could hear it, for the noise of the waters. "Now you'll be sorry for other people. Drown, darn yer! stock, and lock, and barrel; I'm safe."

Just then, as I sot and chawed, telling myself as a chap would be mad to try and save his friends out of such a flood, let alone his enemies, darn me! if Jael didn't put that there little squealer's hands together, and hold them up as if she was making it say its prayers--a born fool!-- when that thar string seemed to be pulled, inside me like, agin my heart; and--I couldn't help it--I jumped up.

"Say, Dab," I says to myself, "don't you be a fool. You hate that lot like pyson, you do. Don't you go and drown yerself."

I was 'bout mad, you know, and couldn't do as I liked, for, if I didn't begin to rip off my things, wet and hanging to me. Cuss me! how they did stick!--but I cleared half on 'em off, and then, like a mad fool, I made a run and a jump, and was fighting hard with the water to get across to Hez's wife and child.

It was a bit of a fight. Down I went, and up I went, and the water twisted me like a leaf: but I got out of the roar and thunder, on to the bit of a shelf where Jael knelt; when, if the silly thing didn't begin to hold up to me her child; and her lips, poor darling, said dumbly, "Save it! save it!"

In the midst of that rush and roar as I saw that poor gal, white, horrified, and with her yaller hair clinging round her, all my old love for her comes back, and I swore a big oath as I'd save her for myself, or die.

I tore her dress into ribbons, for there warn't a moment to lose, and I bound that bairn somehow on to my shoulders, she watching me the while; and then, with my heart beating madly, I caught her in my arms, she clinging tightly to me in her fear, and I stood up, thinking how I could get back, and making ready to leap.

The flood didn't wait for that, though. In a moment there was a quiver of the bank, and it went from beneath my feet, leaving me wrastling with the waters once more.

I don't know how I did it, only that, after a fight and being half smothered, I found myself crawling up the side of the Gulch, ever so low down, and dragging Jael into a safe place with her bairn.

She fell down afore me, hugged my legs, and kissed my feet; and then she started up and began staring up and down, ending by seeing, just above us, old Hez clinging there still, with his sound arm rammed into the bush, and his body swept out by the fierce stream.

The next moment she had seized me by the arm, and was pynting at him, and she gave a wild kind of shriek.

"He's a gone c.o.o.n, my gal," I says, though she couldn't hear me; and I was gloating over her beautiful white face and soft, clear neck, as I thought that now she was mine--all mine. I'd saved her out of the flood, and there was no Hez to stand in our way.

"Save him!--save him!" she shrieked in my ear.

What, Hez? Save Hez, to come between us once more? Save her husband-- the man I hated, and would gladly see die? Oh, I couldn't do it; and my looks showed it, she reading me like a book the while. No, he might drown--he was drowned--must be. No: just then he moved. But, nonsense!

I wasn't going to risk my life for his, and cut my own throat like, as to the futur'.

She went down on her knees to me though, pointing again at where Hez still floated; and the old feeling of love for her was stronger on me than ever.

"You're asking me to die for you, Jael!" I shouted in her ear.

"Save him--save Hez!" she shrieked.

"Yes, save him!" I groaned to myself. "Bring him back to the happiness that might be mine. But she loves him--she loves him; and I must."

I give one look at her--as I thought my last--and I couldn't help it.

If she had asked me dumbly, as she did, to do something ten times as wild, I should have done it; and, with a run, I got well up above Hez afore I jumped in once more, to have the same fight with the waters till I was swept down to the bush where he was.

I'd got my knife in my teeth to cut the bush away, and let him free; but as I was swept against it my weight tore it away, and Hez and I went down the stream together; him so done up that he lay helpless on the water.

Something seemed to tell me to finish him off. A minute under water would have done it; but Jael's face was before me, and at last I got to the other side, with her climbing along beside us; and if it hadn't been for the hand she stretched down to me, I should never have crawled out with old Hez--I was that done.

As I dropped down panting on the rock, Jael came to my side, leaned over me, and kissed me, and I turned away, for the next moment she was trying hard, and bringing her husband to, and I was beginning to feel once more that I had been a fool.

I ain't much more to tell, only that the flood went down 'most as quick as it had come up, and Hez got all right again with his broken arm, and did well. They wanted muchly to be friends; but I kep' away. I felt as I'd been a fool to save him, and I was kinder shamed like of it; so I took off to 'Frisco, where, after chumming about, I took to going voyages to Panama and back, and the sea seemed to suit me like, and there I stuck to it; and one day a s.h.i.+p comes into 'frisco, where I was hanging ash.o.r.e after a long drinking bout, and I heer'd as they wanted a man or two to fill up, because a couple had deserted to the diggings.

"Whar for?" I says to the officer.

"Discovering--up North," he says.

"That'll do," I says. "I'm yer man; only I don't think as you'll get gold if you finds it, 'cause the water'll all freeze when you wants to wash it."

"We want to find the North Pole, my lad," he says.

"And what'll yer do with it when yer find it?" I says.

"The president wants it down in New York, to put in the big gardens, for the Great Bear to climb, if we can catch him, too."

Wal, seeing as it promised plenty of amus.e.m.e.nt, I stuck to my bond, and went with them. And a fine time we had of shooting, and sledging, and exploring. We found the North Pole, after being away from the s.h.i.+p a month. One chap swore it was only the mast of a friz-up s.h.i.+p, sticking out of the ice; but skipper said it was the North Pole, and I cut a bit off with the saw. That's a bit as I'm whittling.

We couldn't get it out then, so we turned back to reach the s.h.i.+p, and get tackle to rig out and draw it; and while we was going back I turned so snoozy that, 'gainst orders, I lay down on the ice and went off bang to sleep. Ain't seen anything of 'em, I 'spose?

"Well, no," said the doctor, winking at us, as the Yankee whittled away, "I haven't. You expect to see them again?"

"'Spect? Of course I do. They'll come back to pull up the North Pole, and pick me up on the way. If they don't I'll show you where it lies."

"Lies; yes, where it lies," said the doctor. "Well, whereabouts does it lie?"

"Heigh-ho--yaw--aw--aw--hum?" went the Yankee, with the most awful yawn I ever heard; and then, as we looked, he seemed to go all at once into water--body, clothes, bones, and all--till there was nothing left before us but the knife and the bit of wood he had been whittling; and we shrank back, feeling all of a s.h.i.+ver, composed of equal parts of cold and fear.

I thought the doctor would have had a fit, he was so disappointed, and he stamped about the ice until he grew quite blue in the face.

"The last chance!" he cried--"the last chance!"

He did not know how true a prophet he was; for the next day, when we set to and searched for another specimen of suspended animation, not one could we find. We could not even hit upon one of the old elephants: nothing but ice--ice--ice everywhere; and, now that the stimulus of making strange discoveries was over, the men began to grumble.

"I don't like the state of affairs, doctor," I said. "I fear there's mutiny on the way."

"Why?" he said.

"The men are growing so discontented with their provisions; but hush, here they are."

The doctor's nephew was standing by me as the crew came up, looking fierce and angry.

"What's the matter, my lads?" I said, when they all came close to me, and thrust their tongues in their cheeks.

"Look here, skipper," said Binny Scudds, who seemed to be leader, "we've had enough of this here!"

"My good man,"--began the doctor.

"Now that'll do, old skyantific!" cried Binny. "We've had enough of you. Who's been doin' nothin' but waste good, wholesome sperrits, by stuffing black beadles, and dirty little fishes, and hinsecks in 'em, till there ain't a drop fit to drink?"

"But, Scudds--" I began.

"That'll do!" he shouted fiercely; and he threatened me with an ice pick. "We've had enough of it, I tell yer!"