They were walking over a floe of thick bay ice as the mate told his story. No sooner had he spoken the last words than —
“Down, men, down!” he cried; “the ice is rising ahead.”
They followed the mate’s advice, and threw themselves on their faces.
In two places the ice was heaving and rising. Then all at once it gave way, with a noise like the firing of great guns, and up from the depths of the dark sea rose two gigantic forms, with wild eyes and yard-long tusks, and of such fearful aspect that Frank’s heart almost stood still with dread.
“By George!” cried Chisholm, “this is playing at Jack in the box with a vengeance.”
Bang, bang, bang went the rifles, and down sank the apparitions, leaving the broken ice all red with blood.
“They are only wounded,” said the mate; “they’ll have revenge if it is a month hence, depend on that.”
The Grampus, sealing intent, steamed farther and farther north, and the nearer to the pole they got, the heavier grew the ice. There was shooting every day now for three months and more – seals and bears, and sometimes a fox – and, when there was nothing else to go for, they brought down gulls for their feathers, and looms for the sake of fresh meat. Sometimes they were rewarded by the sight of the lonely narwhal, or giant unicorn of the sea – a creature which always makes direct for a boat as soon as it spies one, and has been known to attack and sink a whaler or gig.
They were after the looms one day, Chisholm and Frank being as usual in one boat, with the first mate steering.
Suddenly, “Stand by your clubs and guns, men!” cried the mate; “Here they come. Now we’re in for it. I knew they’d seek revenge.”
The sea around them seemed alive with the great tusked heads of walruses, coming from all directions and making straight for the boat.
“In oars, and keep cool, lads,” said the mate, seizing an axe; “but for mercy’s sake keep the boat trimmed. If she capsizes we are all dead men.”
How long they fought with those desperate brutes Frank could never tell; but it seemed to him an age ere the other boats came to their relief, and poured volley after volley into the midst of the pack of walruses. Then they disappeared, and but for the sea around them, all reddened with blood, and the floating corpses – which, however, speedily sank – there was not a sign of the fearful hand-to-hand and all-unequal contest.
Chapter Five
The West Land of Greenland – A Fall! a Fall! – Danger on all Sides – “Man the Ice-saws” – Working for Life – Beset in the Dreary Pack
“I feel,” said the captain one day, at breakfast, “that I am making a dangerous experiment. I am keeping far in to the west land; I am all but hugging the shore; and if it were to come on to blow from seawards, we would – Steward, I’ll have another cup of coffee.”
“You think,” said Chisholm, “our chances of further cups of coffee wouldn’t be very great, eh?”
“I don’t think they would,” said the captain. “Well, lads, I’ve shown you a bit of sport, haven’t I? And if we had only a little more blubber in her, troth, I’d bear up for bonnie Scotland. I’ve just come down from the crow’s-nest, and what do you think I’ve spied? Why, open water for miles ahead, stretching away to the north as far as eyes can reach. There are whales there, boys, if we can but wait for them.”
After breakfast it was, “All hands assist ship!”
Up sprang the men, and ere one could wink, so to speak, half the crew were at the side with poles, pressing on the ice to make room for the Grampus. It was strange work, and it seemed at first impossible that twenty men with a spar could move a floe. But they did, and three hours afterwards they were in this mysterious open sea.
“Why,” cried Frank, “I declare there is the Dutchman dodging yonder with foreyard aback. A sailing ship beat a steamer!”
“Ay, she’s got the pull on us, boys,” the captain said. “And see, she is flenshing (skinning) a whale; the crang (the skinned corpse) lies beside her. She has met with a lane of open water, and taken advantage of it.”
Just at that moment came the cry, “A fall! a fall! on the weather quarter!”
“A fall! a fall!” Surely never was excitement seen like this before, thought Frank.
There was no waiting for orders. The ship seemed to stop of her own accord, and the escaping steam roared uselessly through the funnel.
“A fall! a fall!” Up tumble the men, many undressed, with their clothes in a bundle. They spring to the boats, our heroes follow the example, and in three minutes more are tearing through the water towards the coveted leviathan. The Dutchman has spied the monster too, and her boats are soon afloat. Who shall be first?
(The origin of this cry is this, I think. “Whaol” is the ordinary Scotch for “whale,” but Aberdonians use the “f” instead of the “wh” in such words as “what,” “where,” etc, which they pronounce “fat” and “far.” Hence “whale” would become “faul,” or “fall.”)
“Pull, lads, pull! Hurrah, lads, hurrah! We’ll never let a Dutchman beat us!”
Is the whale asleep, that she lies so quietly? Nay, for now she scents the danger, and, lashing her tail madly skywards, is off; but not before the roar of the harpoon gun from the foremost boat has awakened the echoes of the Greenland sea.
“A fall! a fall! She is struck! she is struck!” Vainly now she dashes through the surging sea; another boat pulls around to intercept her, and again she is struck; the lines whirl over the gunwale of Frank’s boat till it smokes again. There is blood now in the great beast’s wake, and her way is not so swift; she dives and dives again, but she is breathless now. Dreadful her wound must be – for see, she is spouting water mingled with blood; and now she lies still on the surface of the ocean.
“In line, men!” cries the mate, springing up and seizing his long lance, and standing bravely up in the bows. “Pull gently alongside, and stand by to back water the moment I spear the fall.”
“How bold and daring he looks!” thinks Frank; all thought of danger swallowed up in admiration of the man who stands, spear in hand, in the boat’s bows.
They are close now. Swish! Quick as lightning the spear is sent home; quickly it is turned, to sever the carotid; next moment the backing boat is almost swamped in blood. But not quickly enough can they back, I fear, to save the boat from destruction, themselves from speedy death. High, high in air is raised that dreadful tail; half the animal seems out of the water; they are under the shadow of it; and now it descends, and every oar on the port-side of the boat is broken off close to the rowlocks. But the boat is saved. For fully half an hour the whale flaps the sea in her dying agony, and the noise may be heard for miles around, while the waters around her are churned into crimson foam. Then there is one more terrible convulsion; her great jaw opens and shuts again. The leviathan is dead. The men of the brig and the men in the boats answer each other with boisterous cheers; but the Dutchman fills her sails, puts about, and bears sullenly up for the south.
Well would it have been for the Grampus had Captain Anderson followed her example; but he would not.
“She can go,” he said; “she is a full ship, and only a sailing ship. Now let us get but two other ‘fish,’ then hey for the sunny south, boys.”
For a whole month