CHAPTER XXV
ONE OF JAMES ROSS'S FOXES
On that day the thermometer fell to three degrees below zero. The day was calm; the cold was very endurable in the absence of wind. Hatteras took advantage of the clearness of the air to reconnoitre the surrounding plains; he ascended one of the highest icebergs to the north, but even with his glass he could make out nothing but a series of ice-mountains and ice-fields. There was no land in sight, nothing but gloomy confusion. He returned, and tried to calculate the probable length of their imprisonment.
The hunters, and among them the doctor, James Wall, Simpson, Johnson, and Bell, kept them supplied with fresh meat. The birds had disappeared, seeking a milder climate in the south. The ptarmigans alone, a sort of rock-partridge peculiar to this latitude, did not flee the winter; it was easy to kill them, and there were enough to promise a perpetual supply of game.
Hares, foxes, wolves, ermines, and bears were plentiful; a French, English, or Norwegian hunter would have had no right to complain; but they were so shy that it was hard to approach them; besides, it was hard to distinguish them on the white plain, they being white themselves, for in winter they acquire that colored fur. In opposition to the opinions of some naturalists, the doctor held that this change was not due to the lowering of the temperature, since it took place before October; hence it was not due to any physical cause, but rather providential foresight, to secure these animals against the severity of an arctic winter.
Often, too, they saw sea-cows and sea-dogs, animals included under the name of seals; all the hunters were specially recommended to shoot them, as much for their skins as for their fat, which was very good fuel. Besides, their liver made a very good article of food; they could be counted by hundreds, and two or three miles north of the ship the ice was continually perforated by these huge animals; only they avoided the hunter with remarkable instinct, and many were wounded who easily escaped by diving under the ice.
Still, on the 19th, Simpson succeeded in getting one four hundred yards distant from the ship; he had taken the precaution to close its hole in the ice, so that it could not escape from its pursuers. He fought for a long time, and died only after receiving many bullets. He was nine feet long; his bull-dog head, the sixteen teeth in his jaw, his large pectoral fins shaped like little wings, his little tail with another pair of fins, made him an excellent specimen. The doctor wished to preserve his head for his collection of natural history, and his skin for future contingences, hence he prepared both by a rapid and economical process. He plunged the body in the hole, and thousands of little prawns removed the flesh in small pieces; at the end of half a day the work was half finished, and the most skilful of the honorable corporation of tanners at Liverpool could not have done better.
When the sun had passed the autumn equinox, that is to say, September 23d, the winter fairly begins in the arctic regions. The sun, having gradually sunk to the horizon, disappeared at last, October 23d, lighting up merely the tops of the mountains with its oblique rays. The doctor gave it his last farewell. He could not see it again till the month of February.
Still the darkness was not complete during this long absence of the sun; the moon did its best to replace it; the stars were exceedingly brilliant, the auroras were very frequent, and the refractions peculiar to the snowy horizons; besides, the sun at the time of its greatest southern declension, December 21st, approaches within thirteen degrees of the polar horizon; hence, every day there was a certain twilight for a few hours. Only the mist and snow-storms often plunged these regions in the deepest obscurity.
Still, up to this time the weather was very favorable; the partridges and hares alone had reason to complain, for the hunters gave them no rest; a great many traps were set for foxes, but these crafty animals could not be caught; very often they scraped the snow away beneath the trap and took the bait without running any risk; the doctor cursed them, being very averse to making them such a present.
October 25th, the thermometer fell as low as -4°. A violent hurricane raged; the air was filled with thick snow, which permitted no ray of light to reach the Forward. For several hours there was some anxiety about the fate of Bell and Simpson, who had gone some distance away hunting; they did not reach the ship till the next day, having rested for a whole day wrapped up in their furs, while the hurricane swept over them and buried them under five feet of snow. They were nearly frozen, and the doctor found it very hard to restore their circulation.
The tempest lasted eight days without interruption. No one could set foot outside. In a single day there were variations in the temperature of fifteen or twenty degrees.
During this enforced leisure every one kept to himself, some sleeping, others smoking, others again talking in a low tone and stopping at the approach of Johnson or the doctor; there was no moral tie between the men of the crew; they only met at evening prayers and at Sunday services.
Clifton knew perfectly well that when the seventy-eighth parallel was passed, his share of the pay would amount to three hundred and seventy-five pounds; he thought it a good round sum, and his ambition did not go any further. His opinion was generally shared, and all looked forward to the day when they should enjoy this hardly-earned fortune.26
Hatteras kept almost entirely out of sight. He never took part in the hunts or the walks from the ship. He took no interest in the meteorological phenomena which kept the doctor in a constant state of admiration. He lived with but a single idea; it consisted of three words, – The North Pole. He only thought of when the Forward, free at last, should resume her bold course.
In fact, the general feeling on board was one of gloom. Nothing was so sad as the sight of this captive vessel, no longer resting in its natural element, but with its shape hidden beneath thick layers of ice; it looks like nothing; it cannot stir, though made for motion; it is turned into a wooden storehouse, a sedentary dwelling, this ship which knows how to breast the wind and the storms. This anomaly, this false situation, filled their hearts with an indefinable feeling of disquiet and regret.
During these idle hours the doctor arranged the notes he had taken, from which this book is made up; he was never out of spirits, and never lost his cheerfulness. Yet he was glad to see the end of the storm, and prepared to resume his hunting.
November 3d, at six o'clock in the morning, with a temperature of -5°, he set off in company with Johnson and Bell; the expanse of ice was unbroken; all the snow which had fallen so abundantly during the preceding days was hardened by the frost, and made good walking; the air was keen and piercing; the moon shone with incomparable purity, glistening on the least roughness in the ice; their footprints glowed like an illuminated trail, and their long shadows stood out almost black against the brilliant ice.
The doctor had taken Duke with him; he preferred him to the Greenland dogs to hunt game, and he was right; for they are of very little use under such circumstances, and they did not appear to possess the sacred fire of the race of the temperate zone. Duke ran along with his nose on the ground, and he often stopped on the recent marks of bears. Still, in spite of his skill, the hunters did not find even a hare in two hours' walking.
"Has all the game felt it necessary to go south?" said the doctor, stopping at the foot of a hummock.
"I should fancy it must be so, Doctor," answered the carpenter.
"I don't think so," said Johnson; "the hares, foxes, and bears are accustomed to this climate; I think this last storm must have driven them away; but they will come back with the south-winds. Ah, if you were to talk about reindeer and musk-deer, that might be different!"
"And yet at Melville Island numberless animals of this sort are found," resumed the doctor; "it lies farther south, it is true, and during the winters he spent there Parry always had plenty of this magnificent game."
"We have much poorer luck," answered Bell; "if we could only get enough bear's meat, we would do very well."
"The difficulty is," said the doctor, "the bears seem to me very rare and very wild; they are not civilized enough to come within gun-shot."
"Bell is talking about the flesh of the bear," said Johnson, "but his grease is more useful than his flesh or his fur."
"You are right, Johnson," answered Bell; "you are always thinking of the fuel."
"How can I help it? Even with the strictest economy, we have only enough for three weeks!"
"Yes," resumed the doctor, "that is the real danger, for we are now only at the beginning of November, and February is the coldest month in the frigid zone; still, if we can't get bear's grease, there's no lack of seal's grease."
"But not for a very long time, Doctor," answered Johnson; "they will soon leave us; whether from cold or fright, soon they won't come upon the ice any more."
"Then," continued the doctor, "we shall have to fall back on the bear, and I confess the bear is the most useful animal to be found in these countries, for he furnishes food, clothing, light, and fuel to men. Do you hear, Duke?" he said, patting the dog's head, "we want some bears, my friend, bears! bears!"
Duke, who was sniffing at the ice at that time, aroused by the voices, and caresses of the doctor, started off suddenly with the speed of an arrow. He barked violently and, far off as he was, his loud barks reached the hunters' ears.
The extreme distance to which sound is carried when the temperature is low is an astonishing fact; it is only equalled by the brilliancy of the constellations in the northern skies; the waves of light and sound are transmitted to great distances, especially in the dry cold of the nights.
The hunters, guided by his distant barking, hastened after him; they had to run a mile, and they got there all out of breath, which happens very soon in such an atmosphere. Duke stood pointing about fifty feet from an enormous mass which was rolling about on the top of a small iceberg.
"Just what we wanted!" shouted the doctor, cocking his gun.
"A fine bear!" said Bell, following the doctor's example.
"A curious bear!" said Johnson, who intended to fire after his companions.
Duke barked furiously. Bell advanced about twenty feet, and fired; but the animal seemed untouched, for he continued rolling his head slowly.
Johnson came forward, and, after taking careful aim, he pulled the trigger.
"Good!" said the doctor; "nothing yet! Ah, this cursed refraction! We are too far off; we shall never get used to it! That bear is more than a mile away."
"Come on!" answered Bell.
The three companions hastened toward the animal, which had not been alarmed by the firing; he seemed to be very large, but, without weighing the danger, they gave themselves up already to the joy of victory. Having got within a reasonable distance, they fired; the bear leaped into the air and fell, mortally wounded, on the level ice below.
Duke rushed towards him.
"That's a bear," said the doctor, "which was easily conquered."
"Only three shots," said Bell with some scorn, "and he's down!"
"That's odd," remarked Johnson.
"Unless we got here just as he was going to die of old age," continued the doctor, laughing.
"Well, young or old," added Bell, "he's a good capture."
Talking in this way they reached the small iceberg, and, to their great surprise, they found Duke growling over the body of a white fox.
"Upon my word," said Bell, "that's too much!"
"Well," said the doctor, "we've fired at a bear, and killed a fox!"
Johnson did not know what to say.
"Well," said the doctor with a burst of laughter in which there was a trace of disappointment, "that refraction again! It's always deceiving us."
"What do you mean, Doctor?" asked the carpenter.
"Yes, my friend; it deceived us with respect to its size as well as the distance! It made us see a bear in a fox's skin! Such a mistake is not uncommon under similar circumstances! Well, our imagination alone was wrong!"
"At any rate," answered Johnson, "bear or fox, he's good eating. Let's carry him off."
But as the boatswain was lifting him to his shoulders: —
"That's odd," he said.
"What is it?" asked the doctor.
"See there, Doctor, he's got a collar around his neck."
"A collar?" asked the doctor again, examining the fox.
In fact, a half-worn-out copper collar appeared under his white fur; the doctor thought he saw letters engraved upon it; he unfastened it from the animal's neck, about which it seemed to have been for a long time.
"What does that mean?" asked Johnson.
"That means," said the doctor, "that we have just killed a fox more than twelve years old, – a fox who was caught by James Ross in 1848."
"Is it possible?" said Bell.
"There's no doubt about it. I'm sorry we killed him! While he was in winter-quarters, James Ross thought of trapping a large number of white foxes; he fastened on their necks copper collars on which was engraved the position of his ships, the Enterprise and Investigator, as well as where the supplies were left. These animals run over immense distances in search of food, and James Ross hoped that one of them might fall into the hands of one of the men of the Franklin expedition. That's the simple explanation; and this poor beast, who might have saved the life of two crews, has fallen uselessly beneath our guns."
"Well, we won't eat it," said Johnson, "especially if it's twelve years old. But we shall keep the skin as a memento."
Johnson raised it to his shoulders. The hunters made their way to the ship, guiding themselves by the stars; their expedition was not wholly without result; they were able to bring back several ptarmigans.
An hour before reaching the Forward, there was a singular phenomenon which greatly interested the doctor. It was a real shower of shooting-stars; they could be counted by thousands, flying over the heavens like rockets; they dimmed the light of the moon. For hours they could have stood gazing at this beautiful sight. A similar phenomenon was observed in Greenland in 1799, by the Moravians. It looked like an exhibition of fireworks. The doctor after his return to the ship spent the whole night gazing at the sight, which lasted till seven o'clock in the morning, while the air was perfectly silent.
CHAPTER XXVI
THE LAST PIECE OF COAL
The bears, it seemed, could not be caught; a few seals were killed on the 4th, 5th, and 6th of November, and the wind shifted and the weather grew much milder; but the snow-drifts began again with incomparable severity. It became impossible to leave the ship, and it was hard to subdue the dampness. At the end of the week the condensers contained several bushels of ice.
The weather changed again November 15th, and the thermometer, under the influence of certain atmospheric conditions, sank to -24°. That was the lowest temperature they had yet observed. This cold would have been endurable in calm weather; but the wind was blowing at that time, and it seemed as if the air was filled with sharp needles.
The doctor regretted his captivity, for the snow was hardened by the wind, so as to make good walking, and he might have gone very far from the ship.
Still, it should be said that the slightest exercise in so low a temperature is very exhausting. A man can perform hardly more than a quarter of his usual work; iron utensils cannot be touched; if the hand seizes them, it feels as if it were burned, and shreds of skin cleave to the object which had been incautiously seized.
The crew, being confined to the ship, were obliged to walk on the covered deck for two hours a day, where they had leave to smoke, which was forbidden in the common-room.
There, when the fire got low, the ice used to cover the walls and the intervals between the planks; every nail and bolt and piece of metal was immediately covered with a film of ice.
The celerity of its formation astonished the doctor. The breath of the men condensed in the air, and, changing from a fluid to a solid form, it fell about them in the form of snow. A few feet from the stove it was very cold, and the men stood grouped around the fire.
Still, the doctor advised them to harden themselves, and to accustom themselves to the cold, which was not so severe as what yet awaited them; he advised them to expose their skin gradually to this intense temperature, and he himself set the example; but idleness or numbness nailed most of them to their place; they refused to stir, and preferred sleeping in that unhealthy heat.
Yet, according to the doctor, there was no danger in exposing one's self to great cold after leaving a heated room; these sudden changes only inconvenience those who are in a perspiration; the doctor quoted examples in support of his opinion, but his lessons were for the most part thrown away.
As for John Hatteras, he did not seem to mind the inclement cold. He walked to and fro silently, never faster or slower. Did not the cold affect his powerful frame? Did he possess to a very great degree the principle of natural heat which he wanted his men to possess? Was he so bound up in his meditations that he was indifferent to outside impressions? His men saw him with great astonishment braving a temperature of -24°; he would leave the ship for hours, and come back without appearing to suffer from the cold.
"He's a singular man," said the doctor to Johnson; "he astonishes me! He carries a glowing furnace within him! He is one of the strongest natures I ever saw!"
"The fact is," answered Johnson, "he goes and comes and circulates in the open air, without dressing any more thickly than in the month of June."
"O, it doesn't make much difference what one wears!" answered the doctor; "what is the use of dressing warmly if one can't produce heat within himself? It's like trying to heat ice by wrapping it up in wool! But Hatteras doesn't need it; he's built that way, and I should not be surprised if his side was as warm as the neighborhood of a glowing coal."
Johnson, who was charged with clearing away the water-hole every morning, noticed that the ice was ten feet thick.
Almost every night the doctor could observe the magnificent auroras; from four o'clock till eight of the evening, the sky in the north was slightly lighted up; then this took a regular shape, with a rim of light yellow, the ends of which seemed to touch the field of ice. Gradually the brilliancy arose in the heavens, following the magnetic meridian, and appeared striped with black bands; jets of luminosity shot with varying brightness here and there; when it reached the zenith it was often composed of several arcs bathed in waves of red, yellow, or green light. It was a dazzling sight. Soon the different curves met in a single point, and formed crowns of celestial richness. Finally the arcs all crowded together, the splendid aurora grew dim, the intense colors faded away into pale, vague, uncertain tints, and this wonderful phenomenon vanished gradually, insensibly, in the dark clouds of the south.
It is difficult to realize the wonderful, magical beauty of such a spectacle in high latitudes, less than eight degrees from the pole; the auroras which are seen in the temperate zone give no idea of it; it seems as if Providence wished to reserve the greatest wonders for these regions.
Numerous mock-moons appeared also while the moon was shining, and a great many would appear in the sky, adding to the general brilliancy; often, too, simple lunar halos surrounded the moon with a circle of splendid lustre.
November 26th the tide rose very high, and the water came through the hole with great violence; the thick crust of ice seemed pushed up by the force of the sea, and the frequent cracking of the ice proclaimed the conflict that was going on beneath; fortunately the ship remained firm in her bed, but her chains worked noisily; it was as a precaution against just such an event, that Hatteras had made the brig fast.
The following days were still colder; a dense fog hid the sky; the wind tossed the snow about; it was hard to determine whether it came from the clouds or from the ice-fields; everything was in confusion.
The crew kept busy with various interior occupations, the principal one being the preparation of the grease and oil from the seal; it was frozen into blocks of ice, which had to be cut with a hatchet; it was broken into small fragments, which were as hard as marble; ten barrels full were collected. As may be seen, every vessel became nearly useless, besides the risk of its breaking when the contents froze.
The 28th the thermometer fell to -32°; there was only ten days' coal on board, and every one awaited with horror the moment when it should come to an end.
Hatteras, for the sake of economy, had the fire in the stove in the after-room put out; and from that time Shandon, the doctor, and he were compelled to betake themselves to the common-room of the crew. Hatteras was hence brought into constant communication with his men, who gazed at him with surly, dejected glances. He heard their fault-finding, their reproaches, even their threats, without being able to punish them. However, he seemed deaf to every remark. He never went near the fire. He remained in a corner, with folded arms, without saying a word.
In spite of the doctor's recommendations, Pen and his friends refused to take the slightest exercise; they passed whole days crouching about the stove or under their bedclothes; hence their health began to suffer; they could not react against the rigor of the climate, and scurvy soon made its appearance on board.
The doctor had long since begun to distribute, every morning, lemon-juice and lime pastilles; but these precautions, which were generally so efficacious, did very little good to the sick; and the disease, following its usual course, soon showed its most horrible symptoms.
Terrible indeed it was to see those wretches with their nerves and muscles contracted with pain! Their legs were fearfully swollen, and were covered with large bluish-black patches; their bleeding gums, their swollen lips, permitted them to utter only inarticulate sounds; their blood was poisoned, deprived of fibrine, and no longer carried life to the extremities.
Clifton was the first to be attacked by this cruel malady; soon Gripper, Brunton, and Strong had to keep to their hammocks. Those whom the illness spared could not avoid the sight of the sufferings of their friends; the common-room was the only place where they could stay; so it was soon transformed into a hospital, for of the eighteen sailors of the Forward, thirteen were soon down with scurvy. It seemed as if Pen would escape the contagion; his strong constitution preserved him; Shandon felt the first symptoms, but it went no further with him, and plenty of exercise soon restored him to good health.
The doctor tended his patients with the greatest devotion, and his heart would bleed at the sight of the sufferings he could not assuage. Still, he inspired as much cheerfulness as he could in the lonely crew; his words, his consolations, his philosophical reflections, his fortunate inventions, broke the monotony of those long days of suffering; he would read aloud to them; his wonderful memory kept him supplied with amusing anecdotes, while the men who were well stood pressing closely around the stove; but the groans of the sick, their complaints, and their cries of despair would continually interrupt him, and, breaking off in the middle of a story, he would become the devoted and attentive physician.
Besides, his health remained good; he did not grow thin; his corpulence stood him in better stead than the thickest raiment, and he used to say he was as well clad as a seal or a whale, who, thanks to their thick layers of fat, easily support the rigors of the winter.
Hatteras did not suffer physically or morally. The sufferings of the crew did not seem to depress him. Perhaps he would not let his emotions appear on his face, while an acute observer would have detected the heart of a man beneath this mask of iron.
The doctor analyzed him, studied him, and could not classify this strange organization, this unnatural temperament.
The thermometer fell still lower; the deck was entirely deserted; the Esquimaux dogs alone walked up and down it, barking dismally.
There was always a man on guard near the stove, who superintended putting on the coal; it was important not to let it go out; when the fire got low the cold crept into the room, formed on the walls, and the moisture suddenly condensed and fell in the form of snow on the unfortunate occupants of the brig.
It was among these terrible sufferings that they reached December 8th; that morning the doctor went as usual to look at the thermometer. He found the mercury entirely frozen in the bulb.
"Forty-four degrees below zero!" he said with terror.
And on that day the last piece of coal on board was thrown into the stove.