"We've got to die, both of us," said the American at last, ceasing his wilder oaths; "you en me, Black, en there isn't much ez we kin look for; but, if there's en Almighty God, I reckon ez He'll place this yere off my score, and lay it on yours, or there ain't no hell, an' there ain't no justice, and what seamen dreams of is lies—lies as your word is lies, en everything about your cursed ship. Go on, lay me right here as I lay now; but I'll rize agen you, and the day'll come when you'd give every dollar ye're worth to dig me up, and give me life agen."
The softer speech availed the poor fellow as little as the other. I felt then an exceeding pity for him, and I touched Black on the arm and was about to plead with him; but at the sight of me he raised his fist, and I moved away, seeing by the light of his eyes that he was as much a madman in that moment as any maniac in Bedlam. For he stood foaming and muttering, his hands clenched, his hat upon the snow, great drops of sweat on his bronzed forehead. The haste of the men to get the picks was not half haste enough for him; and when they began to dig he hurried them the more, until a great pile of snow had been thrown out.
It was a weird scene—the most weird I have ever known. We stood in a snow-pit amongst the hills, and above us rose in grandeur the great pyramids of basalt and gneiss. There was no sign of living green thing, even of lichens or of moss, in that elevated plain above the sea; and the shrill call of the gulls was hushed in the greater stillness of the night. The moon, high in the unclouded sky, gave light far down into the crevasses—clear, silvered light that made a jewel of every higher point, and sprinkled the crests of the breakers as with floss of fire. Nor was there wind, even a breath of the night's breeze, but only the melancholy silence of the omnivorous frost, the boom of falling avalanche echoing in the ravines and the ice-caverns, the groans of the doomed man—a very Miserere amongst the hills, as down below amongst the dead upon the shore.
In the snow-plain, which was the centre of this northern desolation, they dug the grave of the living man. I watched from afar—held by what hideous power I knew not—and I saw them roll him over into the trench they had dug, and shovel the snow quickly upon him. He watched them, silent in his terror; but when his head only was uncovered he gave a shriek of agony, which rose like the great cry of a man going before his God, and ceased not to echo from height to height until long minutes had passed. Then all was hushed, for the cold mantle of death fell upon him. Slowly those who had done their work took up their tools and returned doggedly to the beach; but Captain Black was unable to move from the man who had put that last great curse upon him not five minutes gone. Bare-headed and alone, he stood at the snow-grave, and looked down upon the mound now sparkling with the crystals of the frost that bound it. And as he looked there came a great weird wailing from a distant hill, a piercing cry, as of another soul passing, and it echoed again and again from peak to peak and ravine to ravine—a wild "ochone," that had sadness and grief and misery in it; and I knew that it was the cry from one of the seamen who had been turned from the mines—from one who mourned, perchance, the death of a friend or of a brother. Yet, at the cry, Black gave a great start, and shivering as a man struck down with a deadly chill, he passed from the grave to the beach. And this was the agony of his returning reason.
CHAPTER XX.
I QUIT ICE-HAVEN.
It was on the next afternoon, near to the setting of the sun, there having been unusual activity about the creek during the forenoon, that Doctor Osbart came to my room with great news for me.
"This business with the men has completely upset our plans," said he. "Black hoped to winter here; and to let the hubbub in Europe quite subside before he put to sea again. Now he can't do that, for there'll be trouble just as long as the crew eats its head off in this wilderness. There's only one thing that will keep the hands quiet, and that's excitement. After all, it's the same motive with most of us, from the gutter-beggar who lives on the hope of the next penny to the democrat who supports existence on a probable revolution. If we once get them away to sea, with money to win, and towns to riot in, we shall hear no more of this folly, and Black knows it. He has determined to sail to-night; and he'll take some of the men he put out of the mines to do the work of those who went down yesterday. I'm very glad, for I should have cut my throat if I'd been here the winter through, and I dare say you won't be displeased to get a change of quarters; but, before we talk of that, we must have the conditions."
"I won't sign that paper, and Black has been told so," cried I at once; "it's no good coming here again with that."
"You're premature," he replied, with a smile, "premature, as you always are. Isn't it time enough to discuss the paper when I bring it to you?"
"Then what have you to ask?" said I, prepared to hear of something which I must refuse, but longing with a great hope for the freedom of the sea.
"Simply this," he answered, "and, for the life of me, I don't see what the guv'nor is driving at in your case; for he asks only that, if he take you from here, where you'd starve in a month if he left you, you shall give him your word, as a man of honour, that you will make no attempt to leave his ship without permission. Under no pretence or plea will you try to escape, and, whatever you see, you will not complain about when aboard with him. You are to hold no converse with the men, nor will you interfere with them in any work they do; and you will carry out this contract not only in the letter but in the spirit. If you will give me your word on that now, you can pack your trunk and come aboard without any fuss; but I don't disguise it from you, that any folly after this may cost you your life, and that if you have half a thought of playing us false, you'd better stop where you are."
I debated on the whole extent of his proposition, and made up my mind on it in a few moments. I was aware that, if I remained at the station, I could expect nothing but speedy death upon the ice, since the doctor had told me that the place would be deserted during the winter. Against this I had to ask myself if my going aboard the nameless ship meant in any way approval of the occupation of those who sailed it; but this suggestion was too trivial, and I dismissed it in a moment; while the thought flashed across my mind that if I could but once be taken to European or American waters, there would be at least the probability that this man might fall into the hands of those who were seeking him. In that case liberty would come with his undoing; which was even more pleasant to think upon than to contemplate it with him yet free as a voracious beast of the seas.
"You accept?" said the doctor, who sat watching me as I thought these things; and I answered him without hesitation—
"I accept."
"The captain has your word of honour as between gentlemen?"
"As between—well, if you like it so—as between gentlemen."
The satire of the last word was too much for him, for he was one of the pleasantest fellows in his saner moments that I have ever met. We both laughed heartily, and then he said—
"But I'm forgetting, you've got no trunk, and I must lend you one. You're rather short of duds, I know, but we can rig you out until we get to Paris, and there the skipper will see to it—any way, so long as you've a coat thick enough, we won't criticise you in these parts; and I don't suppose you're thinking of garden parties."
"Anything but," I answered, as pleased as he was at the prospect of it all, and especially at the thought of quitting the ice-prison, if only for the winter; "I have neither clothes nor cash."
"Well, I don't see what you're going to do with the latter, just yet;