Cast Away in the Cold Part 3

"But by and by I came to my senses, and, upon discovering that the bad usage I received was partly my own fault, I stopped lamenting over my unhappy condition, and began to show more spirit. Would you believe it?

I had actually been in the vessel five days before I had curiosity enough to inquire her name. They told me that it was called the _Blackbird_; but what ever possessed anybody to give it such a ridiculous name I never could imagine. If they had called it Black Duck, or Black Diver, there would have been some sense in it, for the s.h.i.+p was driving head foremost into the water pretty much all the time. But I found out that the vessel was not exactly a s.h.i.+p after all, but a sort of half schooner, half brig,--what they call a brigantine, having two masts, a mainmast and a foremast. On the former there was a sail running fore and aft, just like the sail of the little yacht _Alice_, and on the latter there was a foresail, a foretop-sail, a foretop-gallant-sail, and a fore-royal-sail,--all of course square sails, that is, running across the vessel, and fastened to what are called yards. The vessel was painted jet-black on the outside, but inside the bulwarks the color was a dirty sort of green.

"Such, as nearly I can remember, was the brigantine _Blackbird_, three hundred and forty-two tons register. Brigantine is, however, too large a word; so when we pay the _Blackbird_ the compliment of mentioning her, we will call her a s.h.i.+p.

"Having picked up the name of the s.h.i.+p, I was tempted to pursue my inquiries further, and it was not long before I had got quite a respectable stock of seaman's knowledge, and hence I grew in favor. I learned to distinguish between a 'halyard,' which is rope for pulling the yards up and letting them down, from a 'brace,' which is used to pull them around so as to 'trim the sails,' and a 'sheet,' which is a rope for keeping the sails in their proper places. I found out that what I called a floor the sailors called a 'deck'; a kitchen they called a 'galley'; a pot, a 'copper'; a pulley was a 'block'; a post was a 'stancheon'; to fall down was to 'heel over'; to climb up was to 'go aloft'; and to walk straight, and keep one's balance when the s.h.i.+p was pitching over the waves, was to 'get your sea legs on.' I found out, too, that everything behind you was 'abaft,' and everything ahead was 'forwards,' or for'ad as the sailors say; that a large rope was a 'hawser,' and that every other rope was a 'line'; to make anything temporarily secure was to 'belay' it; to make one thing fast to another was to 'bend it on'; and when two things were close together, they were 'chock-a-block.' I learned, also, that the right-hand side of the vessel was the 'starboard' side, while the left-hand side was the 'port' or 'larboard' side; that the lever which moves the rudder that steers the s.h.i.+p was called the 'helm,' and that to steer the s.h.i.+p was to take 'a trick at the wheel'; that to 'put the helm up' was to turn it in the direction from which the wind was coming (windward), and to 'put the helm down' was to turn it in the direction the wind was going (leeward).

I found out still further, that a s.h.i.+p has a 'waist,' like a woman, a 'forefoot,' like a beast, besides 'bull's eyes' (which are small holes with gla.s.s in them to admit light), and 'cat-heads,' and 'monkey-rails,'

and 'cross-trees,' as well as 'saddles' and 'bridles' and 'harness,' and many other things which I thought I should never hear anything more of after I left the farm. I might go on and tell you a great many more things that I learned, but I should only tire your patience without doing any good. I only want to show you how John Hardy began his marine education.

"When it was discovered how much I had improved, they proposed immediately to turn it to their own account; for I was at once sent to take 'a trick at the wheel,' from which I came away, after two hours'

hard work, with my hands dreadfully blistered, and my legs bruised, and with the recollection of much abusive language from the red-faced mate, who could never see anything right in what I did. I gave him, however, some good reason this time to abuse me, and I was glad of it afterwards, though I was badly enough scared at the time. I steered the s.h.i.+p so badly that a wave which I ought to have avoided by a skilful turn of the wheel, came breaking in right over the quarter-deck, wetting the mate from head to foot. He thought I did it on purpose (which you may be sure I did not do). Again his face grew red enough to s.h.i.+ne of a dark night, and his mind invented hard words faster than his tongue would let them out of his ugly throat.

"I tell you all this, that you may have some idea of what a s.h.i.+p is, and how sailors live, and what they have to do. You can easily see that they have no easy time of it, and, let me tell you, there isn't a bit of romance about it, except the stories that are cut out of whole cloth to make books and songs of. However, I never could have much sympathy for my s.h.i.+pmates in the _Blackbird_; for if they did treat me a little better when they found that I could do something, especially when I could take a trick at the wheel, I still continued to look upon them as little better than a set of pirates, and I felt satisfied that, if they were not born to be hanged, they would certainly drown."

"I don't think I'll be a sailor," said Fred.

"Nor I either," said William. "But, Captain," continued the cunning fellow, "if a sailor's life is so miserable, what do you go to sea so much for?"

"Well, now, my lad," replied the Captain, evidently at first a little puzzled, "that's a question that would require more time to explain than we have to devote to it to-day. Besides" (he was fully recovered now), "you know that going to sea in the cabin is as different from going to sea in the forecastle as you are from a Yahoo Indian. But never mind that, I must get on with my story, or it will never come to an end. I've hardly begun it yet."

CHAPTER V.

In which the Ancient Mariner, continuing his Story, borrows an Ill.u.s.tration from the "Ancient Mariner"

of Song, and then proceeds to tell how they went into the Cold, and were cast away there.

"'And now there came both mist and snow, And it grew wondrous cold: And ice mast-high came floating by, As green as emerald.'

"I recite this from a famous poem because it suits so well what came of us, for you must understand that, while all I have been telling you was going on, we were approaching the northern regions, and were getting into the sea where ice was to be expected. A man was accordingly kept aloft all the time to look out for it: for you will remember that we were going after seals, and it is on the ice that the seals are found.

The weather now became very cold, it being the month of April.

"At length the man aloft cried out that he saw ice. 'Where away?'

shouted the red-faced mate. 'Off the larboard bow,' was the answer. So the course of the s.h.i.+p was changed, and we bore right down upon the ice, and very soon it was in sight from the deck, and gradually became more and more distinct. It was a very imposing sight. The sea was covered all over with it, as far as the eye could reach,--a great plain of whiteness, against the edge of which the waves were breaking and sending the spray flying high in the air and sending to our ears that same dull, heavy roar which the breakers make when beating on the land.

"As we neared this novel scene, I observed that it consisted mostly of flat ma.s.ses of ice, of various sizes (called by the sealers 'floes'); some were miles in extent, and others only a few feet. The surface of these ice floes or fields rose only about a foot or so above the surface of the water. Between them there were in many places very broad openings, and when I went aloft and looked ahead, these ice-fields appeared like a great collection of large and small flat white islands, dotted about in the midst of the ocean. Through these openings between the fields the s.h.i.+p was immediately steered, and we were soon surrounded by ice on every side. To the south, whence we had come, there was in an hour or so apparently just as much ice as there was before us to the north, or to the right and left of us,--a vast immeasurable waste of ice it was, looking dreary and frightful enough, I can a.s.sure you.

"I have said that the pieces of ice now about us were called 'floes,' or ice-fields; the whole together was called 'the pack.' We were now in perfectly smooth water, for you will easily understand that the ice which we had pa.s.sed broke the swell of the sea. But the crew of the s.h.i.+p did not give themselves much concern about the ice itself; for it was soon discovered that the floes were covered in many places with seals.

"Now you must understand that seals are not fish, but are air-breathing, warm-blooded animals, like horses and cows, and therefore they must always have their heads, or at least their noses, out of water when they breathe. When the weather is cold, they remain in the water all the time, merely putting up their noses now and then (for they can remain a long time under water without breathing) to sniff a little fresh air, and then going quickly down again. In the warm weather, however, they come up bodily out of the sea, and bask and go to sleep in the sun, either on the land or on the ice. Many thousands of them are often seen together.

"As we came farther and farther into the 'pack,' the seals on the ice were observed to be more and more numerous. Most of them appeared to be sound asleep; some of them were wriggling about, or rolling themselves over and over, while none of them seemed to have the least idea that we had come all the way from New Bedford to rob them of their sleek coats and their nice fat blubber.

"We were now fairly into our 'harvest-field,' and when a suitable place was discovered the s.h.i.+p was brought up into the wind, that is, the helm was so turned as to bring the s.h.i.+p's head towards the wind, when of course the sails got 'aback,' and the s.h.i.+p stopped. Then a boat was lowered, and a crew, of which I was one, got into it, with the end of a very long rope, and we pulled away towards the edge of a large ice-field, hauling out the rope after us, of course, from the coil on s.h.i.+pboard. As we approached the ice, the seals near by all became frightened, and floundered into the sea as quickly as they could, with a tremendous splash. In a few minutes they all came up again, putting their cunning-looking heads out of the water, all around the boat, no doubt as curious to see what these singular-looking beings were that had come amongst them, as the Indians were about Columbus and his Spaniards, when they first came to America.

"As soon as we had reached the ice, we sprang out of the boat on to it, and, after digging a hole into it with a long, sharp bar of iron, called an ice-chisel, we put therein one end of a large, heavy, crooked hook, called an ice-anchor, and then to a ring in the other end of this ice-anchor we made fast the end of the rope that we had brought with us.

This done, we signalled to the people on board to 'haul in,' which they did on their end of the rope, and in a little while the s.h.i.+p was drawn close up to the ice. Then another rope was run out over the stern of the s.h.i.+p, and, this being made fast to an ice-anchor in the same way as the other, the s.h.i.+p was soon drawn up with her whole broadside close to the ice, as snug as if she were lying alongside of a dock in New Bedford.

"And now began the seal-hunt. It would not interest you to hear all about the preparations we made, first to catch the seals, and then to preserve the skins and try out the oil from the blubber, and put it away in barrels. For this latter duty some of the crew were selected, while others were sent off to kill and bring in the seals. These latter were chosen with a view to their activity, and I, being supposed to be of that sort, was one of the party. I was glad enough, I can a.s.sure you, to get off the vessel for once on to something firm and solid, even if it was only ice, and at least for a little while to have done with rocking and rolling about over the waves.

"Each one of the seal-catchers was armed with a short club for killing the seals, and a rope to drag them over the ice to the s.h.i.+p. We scattered in every direction, our object being each by himself to approach a group of seals, and, coming upon them as noiselessly as possible, to kill as many of them as we could before they should all take fright and rush into the sea. In order to do this, we were obliged to steal up between the seals and the water as far as possible.

"My first essay at this novel business was ridiculous enough, and, besides nearly causing my death, overwhelmed me with mortification. It happened thus. I made at a large herd of seals, nearly all of which were lying some distance from the edge of the ice, and before they could get into the water I had managed to intercept about a dozen of them.

Thus far I thought myself very lucky; but, as the poet Burns says,

'The best laid schemes o' mice and men Gang aft a-gley, And leave us naught but grief and pain For promised joy,'--

so it fell out with me. The seals, of course, all rushed towards the water as fast as they could go, the moment they saw me coming. But I got up with them in time, and struck one on the nose, killing it, and was in the act of striking another, when a huge fellow that was big enough to have been the father of the whole flock, too badly frightened to mind where he was going, ran his head between my legs, and, whipping up my heels in an instant, landed me on his back, in which absurd position I was carried into the sea before I could recover myself. Of course I sunk immediately, and dreadfully cold was the water; but, rising to the surface in a moment, I was preparing to make a vigorous effort to swim back to the ice, when another badly frightened and ill-mannered seal, as I am sure you will all think, plunged into the sea without once looking to see what he was doing, and hit me with the point of his nose fairly in the stomach.

"I thought now for certain that my misfortunes were all over, and that my end was surely come. However, I got my head above the surface once more, and did my best to keep it there; but my hopes vanished when I perceived that I was at least twenty feet from the edge of the ice. It was as much as I could do to keep my head above water, without swimming forward, so much embarra.s.sed was I by my heavy clothing, the great cold, and the terrible pains (worse than those of colic) caused by the seal hitting me in the stomach. I am quite certain that this would have been the last of John Hardy's adventures, had not one of my companions, seeing me going overboard on the back of the seal, rushed to my rescue.

He threw me his line for dragging seals (the end of which I had barely strength to catch and hold on to), and then he drew me out as one would haul up a large fish.

[Ill.u.s.tration: John Hardy takes a Ride without meaning it.]

"I came from the sea in a most sorry condition, as you can well imagine.

My mouth was full of salt water. I was so prostrated with the cold that I could scarcely stand, and my pains were so great that I should certainly have screamed had I not been so full of water that I could not utter a single word. But I managed, after a while, to get all the water spit out, and then, after drawing into my lungs a few good long breaths of air, I felt greatly refreshed. I could still, however, hardly stand, and was s.h.i.+vering with the cold. But I found that I had strength enough to stagger back to the s.h.i.+p, where I was greeted in a manner far from pleasant.

"The sailors looked upon my adventure as a great joke, never once seeming to think how near I was to death's door, and the mate simply cried out 'Overboard, eh? Pity the sharks didn't catch him!' It was clear enough that this red-faced tyrant would show me no mercy; and when, pale and cold and panting for breath, I asked him for leave to go below for a while, he cried out, 'Yes, for just five minutes. Be lively, or I'll warm your back for you with a rope's end.'

"The prospect of a 'back warming' of this description had the effect to make me lively, sure enough, although I was s.h.i.+vering as if I would shake all my teeth out, and tumble all my bones down into a heap. As soon as I reached the deck, the mate cried out again for me to 'be lively,' and when he set after me with an uplifted rope's end, his face glaring at me all the while like a red-hot furnace, you may be sure I was quite as lively as it was possible for me to be, and was over the s.h.i.+p's side in next to no time at all, and off after seals again. After a while I got warmed up with exercise, and this time, being more cautious, I met with no similar misadventure, and soon came in dragging three seals after me. The mate now complimented me by exclaiming, 'Why, look at the lubber!'

"We continued at this seal-hunting for a good many days, during which we s.h.i.+fted our position frequently, and made what the sealers called a good 'catch.' But still the barrels in the hold of the s.h.i.+p were not much more than half of them filled with oil, when a great storm set in, and, the ice threatening to close in upon us, we were forced to get everything aboard, to cast loose from the ice-field, and work our way south into clear water again, which we were fortunate enough to do without accident. But some other vessels which had come up while we were fis.h.i.+ng, and were very near to us, were not so lucky. Two of them were caught by the moving ice-fields before they could make their escape, and were crushed all to pieces. The crews, however, saved themselves by jumping out on the ice, and were all successful in reaching other vessels, having managed to save their boats before their s.h.i.+ps actually went down. It was a very fearful sight, the crus.h.i.+ng up of these vessels,--as if they were nothing more than eggsh.e.l.ls in the hand.

"This storm lasted, with occasional interruptions, thirteen days, but the breaks in it were of such short duration that we had little opportunity to 'fish' (as seal-catching is called) any more. We approached the ice several times, only to be driven off again before we had fairly succeeded in getting to work, and hence we caught very few seals.

"By the time the storm was over the season for seal-fis.h.i.+ng was nearly over too; so we had no alternative, if we would get a good cargo of oil, but to go in search of whales, which would take us still farther north, and into much heavier ice, and therefore, necessarily, into even greater danger than we had hitherto encountered. Accordingly, the course of the vessel was changed, and I found that we were steering almost due north, avoiding the ice as much as possible, but pa.s.sing a great deal of it every day. The wind being mostly fair, and the ice not thick enough at any time to obstruct our pa.s.sage, we hauled in our lat.i.tude very fast."

"Excuse me, Captain Hardy," here interrupted William, "what is hauling in lat.i.tude?"

"That's for going farther north," answered the Captain. "Lat.i.tude is distance from the equator, either north or south, and what a sailor makes in northing or southing he calls 'hauling in his lat.i.tude,' just as making easting or westing is 'hauling in his longitude.'"

"Thank you, Captain," said William, politely, when he had finished.

"Is it all clear now?" inquired the Captain.

"Yes," said William, "clear as mud."

"Clear as mud, eh! Well, that isn't as clear as the pea-soup was they used to give us on board the _Blackbird_, for that was so clear that, if the ocean had been made of it, you might have seen through it all the way down to the bottom; indeed, one of the old sailors said that it wasn't soup at all. 'If dat is soup,' growled he, 'den I's sailed forty tousand mile trough soup,'--which is the number of miles he was supposed to have sailed in his various voyages.

"But no matter for the soup. The days wore on none the less that the soup was thin, and still we kept going on and on,--getting farther and farther north, and into more and more ice. Sometimes our course was much interrupted, and we had to wait several days for the ice to open; then we would get under way again, and push on. At length it seemed to me that we must be very near the North Pole. It was a strange world we had come into. The sun was s.h.i.+ning all the time. There was no night at all,--broad daylight constantly. This, of course, favored us; indeed, had there been any darkness, we could not have sailed among the ice at all. As it was, we were obliged to be very cautious, for the ice often closed upon us without giving us a chance to escape, obliging us to get out great long saws, and cut out and float away great blocks of the ice, until we had made a dock for the s.h.i.+p, where she could ride with safety.

We had many narrow escapes from being crushed.

"At first, when we concluded to go after whales, there were several vessels in company with us. At one time I counted nine, all in sight at one time; but we had become separated in thick weather; and whether they had gone ahead of us, or had fallen behind, we could not tell. However, we kept on and on and on; where we were, or where we were going, I, of course, had not the least idea; but I became aware, from day to day, that greater dangers were threatening us, for _icebergs_ came in great numbers to add their terrors to those which we had already in the ice-fields. They became at length (and suddenly too) very numerous, and not being able to go around them on account of the field-ice, which was on either side, we entered right amongst them. The atmosphere was somewhat foggy at the time, and it seemed as if the icebergs chilled the very air we breathed. I fairly shuddered as we pa.s.sed the first opening.

The ice was now at least three times as high as our masts, and very likely more than that, and it appeared to cover the sea in every direction. It seemed to me that we were going to certain destruction, and indeed I thought I read a warning written as it were on the bergs themselves. Upon the corner of an iceberg to the left of us there stood a white figure, as plain as anything could possibly be. One hand of this strange, weird-looking figure was resting on the ice beside it, while the other was pointing partly upwards toward heaven, and backwards toward the south whence we had come. I thought I saw the figure move, and, much excited, I called the attention of one of the sailors to it.

'Why, you lubber,' said he, 'don't you know that the sun melts the ice into all sorts of shapes. Look overhead, if there isn't a man's face!' I looked up as the sailor had directed me, and, sure enough, there was a man's face plainly to be seen in the lines of an immense tongue of ice which was projecting from the side of a berg on the right, and under which we were about to pa.s.s.

"I became now really terrified. In addition to these strange spectral objects, the air was filled with loud reports, and deep, rumbling noises, caused by the icebergs breaking to pieces, or ma.s.ses splitting off from their sides and falling into the sea. These noises came at first from the icebergs in front of us; but when we had got fairly into the wilderness of ice which covered the sea, they came from every side.

It struck me that we had pa.s.sed deliberately into the very jaws of death, and that from the frightful situation there was no escape.