Adrift in the Ice-Fields Part 20

At that moment a flaw from the westward bore on its wings a repet.i.tion of the sounds they had heard in the morning, but nearer and more distinct than before. Heavily, measured, and mournfully, came the tones of the great bell, as the storm-vapors shut down closer, and the west wind blew fiercer across the icebound sea.

"They toll for the dead," said Regnar.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE PACK OPENS.--MYSTERIOUS MURMURS.--LOVE SCENES AND SOUNDS.

All day long the snow fell heavily, and although the wind blew with no great violence, it was evidently increasing their drift eastward into the open Gulf. At night the temperature was perceptibly higher, and as they gathered around the light of the rude brazier in the centre of their ice-cave, each for the first time opened his heavy outer clothing, and felt the cool zephyrs that, from time to time, found their way through the door curtain, to be a welcome visitant.

The fire had melted a deep hollow in the centre, which was naturally the lowest part of the floor, and Peter quietly arose, and bringing in the axe, cut a narrow but deep gutter out through the doorway. Reverently that night the little group bowed their heads as Waring, with his sweet voice, led the singing of one of the old familiar hymns, dear alike to Churchman and Dissenter, and La Salle prayed that the hand of the Father might be with them in their coming trials.

For already the boat had received her scanty store of food and fuel, their weapons stood close at hand, a pile of cooked meats was cooling near the door, and all knew that a few hours might again find them seeking a new shelter, among perils compared to which those already pa.s.sed, were "trifles light as air."

Heretofore they had been exposed to no wide sweep of seas, and had never felt the solid ice beneath them rolling and plunging through mountainous surges, or dashed in terrible collision against its companions of the dismembered ice-pack. Now every mile which they drifted increased the sweep of the sea, and in the centre of the wide Gulf, the southerly winds would scarcely fail to open, at least, the outer sections of the floes.

As they concluded their brief Sabbath exercises, La Salle drew from his vest pocket a stump of lead pencil, and seemed at a loss for something on which to write.

"Have any of you a piece of paper?" he asked.

All answered in the negative; but a thought seemed to strike him, and drawing from an inner pocket a much crumpled letter, he opened it, and seemed to consider. The envelope was worn out, but had preserved the closely-written note paper within; and taking a single page, he spread it on his gunstock, and, in broad-lined, coa.r.s.ely-made letters, drew up the following record of their present position and prospects:--

"OFF CAPE NORTH, SUNDAY, April 15, 186--.

"TO WHOEVER MAY FIND THIS: This morning the undersigned, with George Waring, Peter Mitch.e.l.l, and Regnar Orloff, all well, were twelve miles north-east of Cape North, but a snow storm prevented an attempt to land. Knowing that, with the presently impending southerly storm, we may have to leave our present refuge, I hereby a.s.sure those who may find this of our present safety, and desire them to forward this to the office of the Controller of Customs at Halifax, or St. John.

(Signed) "CHARLES LA SALLE."

"Regnie, please write this in French on the other side--will you?" said the writer, as he finished.

Orloff took the page, and turning it over, did as requested; but as he finished signing his own name, he let the pencil drop from his fingers, and for a moment found himself incapable of movement or expression.

Controlling himself with an effort, he folded the note neatly, and returned it, with the pencil, to La Salle.

"Who is your fair correspondent, M. La Salle?" said he, in French.

La Salle, with flushed face and eyes lighted up with due resentment of the other's curiosity, answered,--

"You seem to have read for yourself."

Orloff's manner changed at once.

"A thousand pardons, monsieur, but I have a good reason for asking the lady's name."

"Pauline H. Randall, as you may see for yourself," was the quiet reply.

"One more question, sir. Do you know her middle name?"

"I did, but cannot exactly recall it, as she never uses it in full, and I have forgotten whether it is Hobel or Hubel; that it is one of the two, I am pretty certain."

A glance of mingled expression shot from the eyes of Orloff, but he restrained himself with a visible effort, and he became again the somewhat phlegmatic pilot of the Gulf sh.o.r.e.

"Thank you, M. La Salle. You shall know more at a fitting season."

Taking one of Waring's cartridge cases, La Salle forced the record into its narrow chamber, and selecting a small strip of pine,--a part of the thin side of his crushed float,--he stopped the cartridge with a tightly-fitting wad, and fastened it to the board with a piece of stout cord. On the white board he printed, in large letters, "Read the contents of the case;" and going out, he placed it firmly upright on the summit of the berg.

At twelve that night the rain fell fast, the wind blew steadily from the southward, and the undulations of the ice, from time to time, told that, although safe in the very heart of the pack, yet still the field had already resolved itself into its component parts. Towards midnight all fell asleep, being satisfied that no immediate danger threatened them; but at about half an hour before daybreak, Waring awoke, and placed a few blocks on the smoldering embers. As he waited for them to burst into a flame, he heard the air filled with confused murmurings, unlike any sounds that he had previously experienced. Gradually they appeared to draw nearer, to sound from all sides, to fill the air overhead, and even at last to ascend from the depths below. Strangely sweet, yet sadly plaintive, they at once charmed and terrified the poor boy, weak from his recent illness, and worn with the anxieties of his situation.

At last Regnar awoke, and to him Waring applied for an explanation of the strange sounds. Orloff listened attentively, and answered with paling cheeks,--

"Such are the melodies which my people say that the sad Necker sings by the lonely river, when he bemoans his lot, in that Christ died not for him. Doubtless the sea has its water spirits, and they now surround our island of ice."

Waring, unskilled in the folk-lore of Dane, Swede, and German, answered,--

"It can't be that. It must be that some vessel is near us, or there is a crew of wrecked sealers around us on the ice. Ah, Peter, are you thinking of getting up. Listen to those sounds, and tell us what they are--will you?"

Peter listened gravely and attentively.

"I not know that noise, brother. I know nearly all the cries of bird and beast, and often I sleep all 'lone in the woods; hear howl, hear fox, hear frog, hear everyting. Sometime I tink I know that noise; then I tink I not know him at all. Get La Salle awake; ask him--he know."

La Salle slept but lightly whenever there was need of vigil, and the last words had fallen on his awakening ears.

"What's the matter, Peter?" said he.

"We hear many strange noise. I not know, George not know, Regnie not know, none of us know. There it come again. What you call that?"

La Salle listened a moment, went to the door, and then beckoned to his companions to follow. The rain fell heavily, but the wind came warm and gently from the balmy south, and no rude blast shrieked and sighed amid the ice-peaks. The strange sounds were sweeter, louder, and apparently nearer than before. Soft and sad as the strains of the disconsolate Necker, plaintive as the mournings of men without hope, wild as the cries of the midnight forest, and the sighings of wind-tossed branches.

La Salle laughed a low, glad laugh.

"You may sleep soundly," said he; "the coots and ducks have come northward, and the spring is here at last. To-morrow will bring us sport to repletion, for the sounds you hear are the love-songs of the sea-birds, whose voices, however harsh, grow sweet when the sun brings back again the season of love and flowers."

When the morn came, unheralded by sunbeams, and shrouded by leaden rain-clouds, a veil of mist covered the vast ice-field, of which no two ma.s.ses retained their former proximity. A network of narrow channels opened and closed continually among the dripping bergs, from whose sides flashed the frequent cascade, and glimmered the s.h.i.+mmering avalanche of dislodged snow. Amid this ever-s.h.i.+fting panorama, giving it life and beauty, covering pool and channel with merry, restless knots of diving, feeding, coquetting, quarreling swimmers, relieving the colorless ice with groups of jetty velvet and scoter ducks, gray and white-winged coots, crested mergansers in their gorgeous spring plumage, and fat, lazy black ducks, with Lilliputian blue and green winged teal, filling the air with the whirr of swift pinions, and the ceaseless murmur of the mating myriads, rested from their long northward journey, a host such as mortal eye hath seldom beheld, and which it hath fallen to the lot of few sportsmen to witness and enjoy.

"I kill many birds on _h_ice, in _quetan_, among sedge out on the bay, but I never see such sight. I never think so many birds in the world before," said Peter, as he loaded his double-barrel.

"I been up Ivuctoke Inlet, on Greenland coast; down Disco saw great many bird, but nothing like this," muttered Regnar.

"It is almost too bad to kill any of these lovely creatures," said George, whose loving nature drank in the full beauty of the scene; "can't we do without them?"

"We have only six birds, and some seal fat, meat, and liver. If it closes the ice again we shall soon be short of food. So we'll get out our floating decoys to leeward, and see what we can do to replenish our larder."

La Salle's plan was duly carried out. A couple of flocks of floating decoys were anch.o.r.ed to a protruding spur of ice, and for an hour or so the four had their fill of slaughter. Each was limited to three cartridges apiece, and no one would fire except at an unusually large flock. Peter brought down a goose with each barrel, and six brent with his third shot; Regnar killed nine black duck with one barrel, five velvet ducks with another, and six teal with the third. Waring unexpectedly had a shot at a flock of Phalapores, and secured twelve of these curious birds; but his third shot at a solitary goose failed, owing to a defective cap. La Salle, after a single shot which killed a brace of brent, was about to reload, and had just poured in a charge of powder, when he suddenly crouched behind a hummock, and motioned to the others to follow his example; then, pointing to a small lead just opening between two bergs about two hundred yards away, he called the attention of his companions to an enormous seal, even larger than their victim of the day before.

The new-comer was a prodigious "hooded" seal, and the loose skin which enveloped his head was distended with air, and gave forth a hollow, barrel-like sound, whenever, raising himself above the waves, he came down with a heavy splash upon the surface. His aspect was savage and ferocious, and he seemed looking for some object on which to wreak his rancor; for from time to time he sent forth a savage cry, far hoa.r.s.er and prolonged than the whining bark which these animals usually utter.

[Ill.u.s.tration:]