Adrift in the Ice-Fields Part 16

"I'm afraid not, my dear George. The straits here, nearly thirty miles wide, converge to about twelve at the capes; and this terrible gale, although we feel it scarcely at all in the heart of this berg, will drive us with the rising ebb, at a velocity little less than ten miles an hour, through that narrow, choked pa.s.s, bordered by the ice-cliffs which form, on the shallows every winter, to the height of from ten to twenty feet above the water."

"Should this berg be driven against the verge of these immovable cliffs, our only resource will be to take to our boats and retreat farther off on the floes; for a single mishap in crossing the terrible chasm which borders the irresistible course of this great ice-stream, would consign us all to irremediable destruction. I propose that we thank G.o.d for his mercies thus far, and implore his aid in the future. Then we may lie down secure in His protection, and gather new strength for whatever may be before us."

Thus saying, La Salle knelt, and in solemn but unfaltering tones repeated the short but inimitable prayer which embodies the needs of every pet.i.tioner. Peter crossed himself at the close, and broke out,--

"I feel 'fraid, all time till now. I hear Lund see ghost. I think we never get back. Now I feel sure all go right, and I worry like woman no more."

"Thank you, Peter. I shall depend on good service from you; and I may say that I have little doubt of landing somewhere to-morrow, if the weather clears so that we can see. Come, Regnie, get the rest of those dry decoys out of the boat, and we'll turn in for two or three hours, when you must take the first watch."

Regnar brought in about twenty bundles more of fir-twigs, which were piled against the wall so as to form a kind of slanting pillow, against which the party might rest their backs and heads in a half-sitting posture, without being chilled by the ice-wall of their narrow dormitory. Waring drew his seal-skin cap over his ears, turned up his wide coat-collar of the same costly fur, and placed himself next to Peter, who, as the worst clad of the party, wrapped himself in his dingy blanket, and seated himself at the back of the hut. Regnar, in his Canadian capote, was next, and La Salle with difficulty found room between himself and the door for his faithful dog, whose natural warmth had already dried his long fur, and made him a very welcome bed-fellow under such circ.u.mstances. Thus disposed, it was not long before they all fell asleep; and at twelve o'clock, La Salle, only half awake, gave Regnar his watch, and saw the resolute boy go out into the storm to commence his lonely vigil.

Scarcely feeling that he had more than got fairly to sleep again, he was again awakened by Regnar, who said in a low voice, "'Tis two o'clock, master; but I would not waken you if I did not think that the floe has s.h.i.+fted sides, for we are no longer under a lee. I hear too, at times, cracking and grinding of the ice, and I think we are not far from sh.o.r.e."

La Salle hurriedly went out. The wind blew into his very teeth, as he emerged from the narrow door; but it seemed no warmer or colder, and the snow fell much the same as before. Near them, through the storm, another berg of equal height with their own seemed to appear at times, and the crash of falling and breaking ice arose on all sides. Still, for an hour nothing could be seen, until between three and four the snow gave place to a sleety rain, and the watchers saw that they were pa.s.sing with frightful rapidity a line of jagged ice-cliffs, not two hundred yards away. La Salle called his companions, and they watched for nearly an hour in constant expectation of having to take to their boat.

The pressure was tremendous, and on every side floes heaped up their debris on each other, and pinnacles forced into collision were ground into common ruin. Now shut out from view in darkness and storm, and now close at hand in the mult.i.tudinous s.h.i.+ftings of the ice, the immovable and gigantic b.u.t.tresses of the ice-pool ground into powder acres of level floe, and bergs containing hundreds of thousands of tons of ice.

Along that terrible line of impact rolled and heaved a chaos of mealy sludge and gigantic fragments, while from time to time a ma.s.s of many tons would be thrown, like a child's plaything, high up amid the debris already heaped along the inaccessible sh.o.r.e. Half a dozen times the startled voyagers seized their boat to drag her down from the berg, as the sh.o.r.e-ice gnawed into the sides of their narrowing ice-field.

At last a move appeared inevitable. The distance between their refuge and the sh.o.r.e was less than fifty yards, and in the gray of the morning they saw castle after castle crushed off by this fearful attrition, while high above their heads rose the ruin-strewed and inhospitable ice-foot.

"Stand by, lads, to move the boats, when I give the word. Look, Regnar!

What is that above the cliff?"

"That a light-house, I think. Guess that on Cape Torment. No light there in winter; not many vessels here then."

"Yes, we are pa.s.sing the capes, and not a mile distant is the hostelry of Tom Allan. Well, we can't land, that's certain; and as we can't, I hope we shall soon get into a wider channel. How the trees fly past! Ah, here the pressure lessens; we shall soon be above the narrows, and if the tide only serves--Good Heaven! what is that?"

An eddy seemed to catch the floe as he spoke, and whirling like a top, it brought between it and the sh.o.r.e a fantastically-shaped berg, at least twenty-five feet high. The "nip" was but momentary; but the lofty shaft and its floating base cracked like a mirror, the huge fabric fell into ruins, and one of its pieces, striking the smaller boat, crushed it into utter uselessness.

La Salle viewed the wreck of his little bark ruefully a moment.

"Well, the worst is over, and we are fortunate in losing so little, for it might have struck the larger boat, and that would have been indeed a loss. Come, boys, we have pa.s.sed Cape Torment; let us pick some of those birds and get breakfast, for we shan't land this day, with an easterly gale hurrying the ice-pack thus to the north-west."

CHAPTER XI.

TAKING AN INVENTORY.--SETTING UP THE STOVE.

Peter was already picking a dead goose, and Regnar and Waring were about to follow his example, when La Salle interposed.

"Let us skin the birds, for it may be that we shall be unable to land for several days, and if so, we shall need all the covering we can get, for this thaw is sure to be followed by a severe frost or two."

"Sposum tide turn, ice lun down to capes, then get ash.o.r.e," said Peter, confidently.

La Salle drew out his watch.

"It was high tide at four o'clock, and it is now nearly seven. Peter, just climb to the top of the berg, and see how we drift."

Peter dropped his half-picked bird, ascended with eager agility, lined another projection of the floe with some object on the New Brunswick sh.o.r.e, seemed puzzled, looked more carefully, and then slowly descended, apparently sad and disheartened.

"Well, Peter, how is it?" said La Salle, cheerfully.

"No good; ice lun north-west, against tide; no get ash.o.r.e to-day," was the reluctant answer.

Regnar seemed little surprised, but Waring turned almost white with anxiety and disappointment.

"I thought as much," said La Salle, quietly. "With such a gale as this, the tide, whose rise and fall does not average four feet on this coast, often seems to run in one direction, and even to remain at flood for a day or two; but even if it did fall, this floe carries sail enough with this wind to make from two to three miles an hour against it. We shall probably have easterly and southerly winds until to-morrow, and must now be well up to Cape Bauld, and about mid-channel, say twelve miles from sh.o.r.e."

"Why not try land, then, with the boat? We four could surely make twelve mile in the course of the day," asked Regnar, somewhat impatiently for him.

"How deep is the snow and slush now, Regnie?" asked the leader of the little party, calmly.

"'Bout knee-deep on level ice," said the boy.

"Come up here, all of you," said La Salle, ascending the lookout.

The three followed, and found themselves scarcely able to stand at times, when a fiercer blast than usual swept up the strait, howling through the tortuous and intricate ravines and valleys of the ice-fields.

"Can we cross such a place as that?" asked La Salle, pointing to where an edge of a large ice-field, suddenly lifted by the wedge-like brink of another, began a majestic and resistless encroachment, with the incalculable power communicated by the vast weight pressing behind it.

A body of ice, at least a yard in thickness, ran up a steep ascent of five or six feet, broke with its own weight, pressed on again up the steeper incline, broke again, and so continued to ascend and break off until a ridge a score of feet high, crested with glittering fragments of broken ice, interrupted the pa.s.sage between the two floes.

Regnar was silent, and then said, resolutely,--

"We can try, at least."

"Well said, Regnie," cried La Salle; "but look again yonder." He pointed to a small lead of open water bounded with abrupt sh.o.r.es, which were surrounded with rounded b.a.l.l.s and water-worn fragments of ice. A berg, losing its balance, fell with a loud splash, sank, and came to the surface with a bound, covering the water with wet snow and the ruins of the shattered pinnacles. "Can we also pa.s.s the heavy drags of the drifted snow, the baffling resistance of floating sludge, and such dangers as that?"

Turning, he descended under the lee of the shelter, where he was soon followed by the rest.

"What spose we do, then?" asked Peter. "We stay this place to die of cold and hunger?"

"Peter, I'm ashamed of you," said La Salle. "Die, do you say, when we have food, shelter, fire, and covering? We must, indeed, stay here until the winds and sea give us a better chance to escape to the sh.o.r.e.

Meanwhile let us try to make ourselves comfortable."

Accordingly the birds--six geese and eight brent--were divested of their skins, which furnished patches of warm covering, of from two to four square feet. The sinews of the legs were divided into threads, and, using a small sail-needle which he carried to clean the tube of his gun, La Salle proceeded to show Waring how to make a large robe, placing the larger skins in the middle, and forming a border of the smaller ones.

Meanwhile Regnar had cleared the snow from a s.p.a.ce about twelve feet square in front of the door, and, with fragments of ice, cemented with wet snow, formed a walled enclosure which kept off the wind; and Peter, splitting two or three of the wooden decoys, soon built a fire, over which a pair of geese, spitted on sticks, were narrowly watched and sedulously turned, while La Salle made a cup of his carefully-treasured coffee.

As they sat eating their rude meal, Regnar broke the silence; for it may well be believed that no great hilarity pervaded the little party.

"As we not know how long we may be adrift, I think we better take 'count stock. See how much wood, provisions, powder, shot, everyting."

"You are right, Regnie; we will set to work at once. I can tell how much food we have now. We have a little bread, coffee, sugar, and a tin of sardines, which I think we had better reserve for possible emergencies, also six candles, which we must not waste. I have a pound canister of powder untouched, and nearly half a pound more in my flask, with about five pounds of shot, and three dozen shot-cartridges of different sizes, say sixty charges in all. Besides that, my rifle lies in the boat, loaded, with a small bag of bullets, and a quarter-pound flask of rifle powder."