Adrift in the Ice-Fields Part 25

"Is that a seal, Charley?"

The words were simple, but the tone was so unlike the usual voice of the speaker, so tinged with awe and doubt, that La Salle felt a chill traverse his frame as he turned to see what had provoked the question.

Regnar stood on the brink of the only pool of open water in sight, gazing earnestly at a floating object in the centre, which appeared at first sight like a dead seal, but a second glance at the shape and size of the body revealed the corpse of a man clad in a seal-skin coat, and floating on its face.

"It is some poor fellow who has been drowned in pa.s.sing from one cake to another," said La Salle, gravely. "Let us examine the body; perhaps there are papers or valuables on it, which will identify it, or be of value to its friends. At all events, we can give it a more Christian sepulture to-morrow."

Regnar gave no answer, but stood motionless as if turned into stone.

"Come, Regnar! wake up, man! Surely you are not afraid of a poor lifeless body. Bear a hand with that boat-hook, or, if you don't care to touch it, hand it to me."

[Ill.u.s.tration:]

Starting as if from a trance, Regnar extended the long boat-hook and gently drew the body to the sh.o.r.e, where La Salle, making a loop of the rope they carried, dropped it over the head and shoulders, and drawing it tightly under the arm-pits, gave one end to Regnar.

"His pockets are turned inside out," said La Salle.

"The man has been murdered," almost whispered the lad. "See what a terrible wound there is in the skull."

"Let us land him, any way, Regnar. We will get him upon the ice, and to-morrow we can come down here and look into the matter. Gently, now; that's right. Great Heavens! Regnie, lad, are you mad?"

As the body was landed, turning slowly over on its back, exposing a face handsome even in death, Regnar started, glanced curiously at the features, and dropping the line, raised the boat-hook, and with every muscle and feature alive with rage and fury, seemed about to transfix the senseless body of the dead. Then a change came over him; he lowered his arm, dropped the useless weapon, and burst into tears.

"Come, Regnie, you are worn out, and it is growing late; let us hasten back to our new hut. To-morrow we can return and look after this poor stranger."

"Stranger! He is no stranger to me. For two years I have sought him in both hemispheres, urged on by the love of my only relative whom he betrayed, and hatred of him which could end but with his life or mine.

My fondest hope was to find him, my dearest wish to lay him dead at my feet; and thus we meet at last."

"This, then, is the man you have sought, and for this you have hidden your true character from all men. Is this the gift by which you were to gain, and I to lose?" said La Salle.

"Ask me no more to-night," said the boy, whose powers of self-control, were only less marvellous than the innate force of his intense nature.

"We have none too much light for our homeward way, and to-morrow's sun may help us to learn more of the cause of his death, and our own duty in the premises. We will say nothing to our friends of this dreadful matter, and at early dawn we will set off alone to return here;" and taking the boat-hook and his weapons, Orloff set off with his usual firm step and tireless energy.

It was nearly dusk when they reached the floe, and saw at some hundreds of feet distant the moving lantern that told that Peter and Waring were anxious about the safety of their friends. La Salle hardly dared trust his voice, but Orloff uttered his well-known halloo; and of the four who were gathered in that dwelling of ice, the most cheerful and kindly, was he whose dead enemy lay gazing with stony eyeb.a.l.l.s at the wintry skies, amid a golgotha of animal butchery, with the dark impress of a rifle-bullet in the centre of his forehead.

That night the cold north-wester died away, and a gentle breeze began to blow from the south. The tired Indian and the delicately-nurtured merchant's son slept side by side on their leaf-strewn floor, and even La Salle, excited and surprised as he had been, at last fell into a broken slumber. But when all were asleep, and no human eye could pry into his secret sorrows, Regnar seated himself by the flaring lamp, and drawing from his breast a locket, took from it a small folded paper, and a closely-curled ringlet of yellow hair, such as St. Olave, the warrior saint of Norway, laid in the lap of the fair Geyra, princess of Vendland.

With many a kiss, pa.s.sionate and sorrowful, he greeted the hidden love-treasures, and many a falling tear dimmed the bold eyes, and wet the ruddy cheeks of the youthful watcher, as late into the night he sat gazing into the flaring flame of that element, in which many a sorrowful heart, in its agony, seems to find a parallel of the torture it endures, and to find a saddened pleasure in the contemplation. But at last the watcher turned to his rude couch, and only the radiance of the lamp, diffused through the opaline walls of the hut, gave evidence of the presence of human beings in that desolate, wave-borne, wind-driven, desert of ice.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE RING.--THE BURIAL.--A MAUSOLEUM OF ICE.

In the early dawn La Salle started from sleep, as he felt a chill touch upon his forehead, and saw Regnar standing above him, booted and equipped for travel. In one hand he held a cup of hot coffee, and in the other the breast of a roast goose, which he offered to La Salle in silence. Fearful of awaking their companions, nothing was said by either, until, armed and equipped, they issued from the hut, and hastened towards the scene of last night's strange adventure.

It was the nineteenth of the month, and the ninth day of their involuntary voyage, and La Salle, as usual, gave a sweeping glance at ice and sky, to determine as nearly as possible the direction of their drift, and the probable state of the weather for the next twelve hours.

"We shall know all that at sunrise," said Regnar; and avoiding the haunts of the seals, they hurried through the gray light along the devious windings of the ice-foot, until they reached the murdered sealer. The body lay as it had been landed on the edge of a pool, and was that of a singularly handsome man, about forty-five years of age. No beard, save a well-kept mustache, covered the sharply-moulded features; and even the death-wound--the work of a small-sized bullet--had left but a tiny livid discoloration on the marble forehead.

Turning the body over,--a work of some time and difficulty, for the wet clothes had frozen,--an expression of surprise escaped the lips of Regnar, for the rear of the skull, from which the missile had issued, was almost blown into pieces.

"How could a bullet have done this?" asked the youth, gravely.

"There is but one kind of missile which produces such a terrible wound--the percussion rifle-sh.e.l.l, perfected years ago by an army officer in India, and since then introduced into every part of the globe. Into the point of a cylindro-conical slug is inserted a thin copper cartridge, loaded with powder, and primed with fulminate of mercury. This bullet enters the flesh, but explodes when it strikes a bone, and a huge ma.s.s of bone and muscle is usually driven out in front of the issuing projectile. Such a bullet has destroyed this man."

A curious ring on the little finger of the right hand attracted the notice of Regnar, who with a glad cry seized the stiffened hand and tried to remove it, but the swollen flesh baffled his efforts.

"I must have that ring, La Salle," said he, ceasing his futile efforts.

"I cannot leave that with his body." And taking up his axe, he severed the finger at the joint, and removed the circlet.

La Salle started back in horror at what he could but consider a senseless and unwarranted profanation; but Orloff, drawing his knife, made a close search of the clothing worn by the deceased, ripping open every seam and fold which seemed capable of concealing the slightest sc.r.a.p of paper, while his companion, lost in astonishment and disgust, scorned to question, and awaited an explanation of his conduct.

Beyond the ring, however, little was found, for the larger pockets of the deceased were turned inside out, the vest had been opened, and a sharp knife had evidently cut through the heavy under-garments of knitted woolens. No mark of the knife was to be seen on the exposed flesh; and Regnar, breaking the oppressive silence, said,--

"Why was this done, La Salle?"

"Perhaps he had a money-belt around his waist. Many people carry their money and valuables thus," said La Salle, coldly.

Regnar continued the search, finding in a narrow pocket, like that used by carpenters for their rules, but opening on the inside of the right pantaloon pocket, a long, slender dagger, with double cutting edges.

The handle was curiously carved, of walrus ivory, and represented an ancient Danish warrior, in his mail-s.h.i.+rt, and armed with battle-axe and sword. The sheath, slender and flexible, was evidently of more modern make, formed of rough shark-skin, with richly chased mountings of silver.

"That is all," said Regnar. "Let us find him a grave."

"We must hide the body surely," said La Salle, "for if the vessel returns to get her load, and it is found, we may be charged with mutilating the body, and perhaps with murder. Let us consign it to the sea."

"We have nothing with which to sink it, and the waters have already given up their trust. There, if I mistake not, we shall find a tomb worthy of a better man than this."

A ledge of the iceberg, some forty feet above the wave-worn base, had received a tiny branch of the fresh-water stream, at some time long previous, and its course could still be traced by the immense icicle formation, which, in fantastical imagery of a lofty cascade, seemed still to fall from base to summit. Between the ledge and the water were formed huge irregular pillars and b.u.t.tresses of opaline ice whose semi-transparency seemed to indicate the presence of a cave beneath.

Axe in hand, Regnar led the way to the base of the berg, and carefully examined every nook and cranny, evidently seeking a concealed opening.

A narrow aperture was at last found, some twenty feet above the ice-pool; and at the call of his companion, La Salle ascended with the coil of rope, one end of which he fastened firmly to a projection of the berg.

"Come down here; there is no danger," said the lad; and descending, La Salle found himself in a cave of large size and almost fairy-like beauty.

Over their heads the ledge projected some twenty feet above a floor, levelled by the earlier flow of the cascade, which, by some sudden removal of obstructing ice or snow, had been projected beyond the little pool, whose surface had frozen into a level floor of crystal. Over this, as upon the roof and back of the cave, had gathered groups of those beautiful congelations to be found only on newly-formed ice, and in seasons of intense cold. Among them were to be noticed many minute patterns of the most delicate star-crystals, and the surface of the floor was nearly covered with congelations of the purest white, resembling in shape, size, and beauty the leaf of the moss-rose. A fantastic conglomeration of irregular, round, and convoluted pillars, running into each other in indescribable ramifications, formed the outer wall, whose semi-translucent crystal, like opal gla.s.s, allowed the rays of the rising sun to shower a mild and silvery radiance upon the hidden wonders of the s.p.a.cious grotto.

"Here he will sleep, after a life of crime and treachery, in a tomb such as few monarchs can boast of, until in some terrible gale, amid tremendous and overwhelming seas, this vast fabric shall strew the ocean with its ruins, and give his icy form to the monsters of the summer seas."

"Let us then to our task, Regnar," said La Salle, "for our friends may follow on our track, and I fear we shall have need of the closest secrecy concerning the fate of this unhappy man, at least until we are safely landed on civilized sh.o.r.es."

Carefully descending the slippery way which led up to the aperture, they descended to the level ice, and seeking the floe, enveloped the body in one of the many seal-skins surrounding them, swathing it closely, and binding the hairy covering with strong las.h.i.+ngs of raw hide, leaving loops at each extremity. Gently drawing it to the ice below the aperture, they ran the cord through the loops, knotting each firmly, so that nearly half the rope projected from each end.

Taking one end, and setting the shrouded form upright against the smooth slope, the companions ascended to the aperture, and with some difficulty managed to haul up their unwonted burden.

"We can find no footing here," said Regnar, who no longer affected his partial ignorance of English. "You, I think, had better descend again, and take a turn of your end around that pinnacle. I will go down into the grotto and guide its descent."