Hardly knowing what he did, poor Peter shouldered his pipes, and began to play a dreary, droning, yelling, squealing lament.
At the same moment Bruin commenced to perform some of the queerest antics ever a bear tried before. He stretched first one leg, then another, and he stretched his neck and described circles in the air with his nose, keeping time with the music. Then he sat up entirely on one end.
“Oh!” he seemed to say, “flesh and blood couldn’t stand that; I must, yes, I must give vent to a Ho – o – o – o – o —
“And likewise to a Hoo – oo – oo – oo – oo!!”
Reader, the voice of an asthmatical steam-engine, heard at midnight as it enters a tunnel, is a melancholy sound, so is the Welsh hooter, and the fog-horn of a Newcastle coal brig; but all combined, and sounding together, would be but a feeble imitation of the agonising notes of that great white bear as he sat on his haunches listening to Peter’s pipes. Peter himself saw the effect his music had produced, and, like the “towsy tike” in Tam o’ Shanter, —
“He hotched and blew wi’ might and main.”
And, as if Peter had been a great magician, Bruin felt impelled to try to follow the notes, though I am bound to say he did not always keep even in the key-note. Surely such a duet was never heard before in this world. There was a small open space of water not far from the hummock on which the piper of the Arrandoon had stationed himself; it was soon alive with the heads of hundreds of seals who had come up to listen; so, upon the whole, Peter had a most appreciative audience. But see yonder, is that a seal on the ice that is creeping closer and closer up behind the bear? Nay, for seals don’t carry rifles; and now the newcomer levels his gun just for a moment, there is a puff of blue-white smoke, the bear springs high in the air, then falls prostrate on the snow. His ululations are over for ever and ay; the piper plays a merrier air, and advances with speed to meet old Seth and the rest of the sportsmen, who, glad as they are to see him alive, greet him with uproarious cheers and laughter. Then a procession is formed, and with Peter and his pipes striding on in front, thus do the seal-stalkers return to the Arrandoon.
Chapter Twenty One.
The Coming Frost – Silas Warns the “Arrandoon” of Danger – Forging Through the Ice – Beset – A Strange and Alarming Accident
So willingly and merrily worked all hands on the ice, that in less than three days the Canny Scotia was almost a full, though by no means a bumper ship, and poor Silas began to see visions of future happiness in his mind’s eye, when he should return to his native land and complete the joy of his family. Unfortunately, however, his good fortune did not last for the present. How seldom, indeed, good luck does last in this world of ours! One day, towards midnight, the sky apparently assumed a brighter blue. This seemed to concern Silas considerably. The good man was walking the deck at the time with his inseparable companion the first mate, neither of whom ever appeared now to court sleep or rest.
“Matie,” said Silas, pointing skywards, “do you see any difference in the colour yonder?”
“That do I!” replied the mate.
“And hasn’t it got much colder?”
“Well, both of us have been walking,” the chief officer returned, “at the rate of several knots, just to keep the dear life in us, and I never saw you, sir, with your hands so deep in your pockets before.”
Down rushed the captain to consult his glass; he was speedily up again, however. “It is just as I thought,” he said. “Now come up into the nest with me; there’s room for both of us. Look!” he added, as soon as they had reached their barrel of observation, “the rascals know what is coming. They are taking the water, and before ten minutes there won’t be a seal with his nose on that bit of pack. Heigho, matie! heigho! that is just like my luck. If I’d been born a tailor, every man would have been born a Highlander, and made his own kilts. But hi! up, matie, Silas doesn’t mean to let his heart down yet for a bit. A black frost is on the wing. There is no help for that, but the Arrandoon’s people don’t seem to know it. I must off over and tell them;” and even as he spoke Silas began descending the Jacob’s ladder. “Call all hands!” he cried, as he disappeared over the side; “we must work her round as long as the pieces are anything loose-like.”
It was not a long journey to the big sister ship, and the sturdy legs of this ancient mariner would soon get him there. But he would not wait till alongside; he needs must hail her while still many yards from her dark and stately sides.
“What ho, there!” he bawled. “Arrandoon ahoy!”
That voice of his was a wonderful one. It might have awakened the dead; it was like a ten-horse power speaking-trumpet lined with the roughest emery-paper. Seals heard it far down beneath the ice, and came to the surface to listen and to marvel. A great bear was sitting not twenty yards from Silas. He thought he should like to eat Silas, but he could not swallow that voice, so he went across the ice instead. Then the voice rolled in over the vessel’s bulwarks, startled the officer on duty, and went ringing down below through the state-rooms, causing our sleeping heroes to tumble out of their bunks with double-quick speed, even the usually late and lazy Ralph evincing more celerity than ever he had done in his life before.
They met, rubbing their eyes and looking cold and foolish, all in a knot in the saloon. Cold and foolish, and a little bit frightened as well, for the words of Silas sounded terribly like “the Arrandoon on fire!”
Not a bit of it, for there came the hail again, and distinct enough this time.
“Arrandoon ahoy! Is everybody dead on board?”
“What is the matter?” cried McBain, as soon as he got on deck, dressed as he was in the garments of night.
“Black frost, Captain McBain,” answered Silas, springing up the side, “and you’ll soon find that matter enough, or my name ain’t Grig, nor my luck like a bad wind, always veering in the wrong direction. The seals are gone, sir – every mother’s son o’ them! My advice is – but, dear me, gentlemen! go below and rig out. Why, here’s four more of you! That ain’t the raiment for a black frost! You look like five candidates for a choking good influenza!” This first bit of advice being taken in good part, “Now,” continued Silas, “your next best holt, Captain McBain, will be to get up steam, and get her head pointed away for the blue water, else there is no saying we may not leave our bones here.”
“Ah!” exclaimed McBain, “we’ve no wish to do that. And here comes our worthy engineer. The old question, chief – How soon can you get us under way?”
“With the American hams, sir,” was the quiet reply, “in about twenty minutes; with a morsel of nice blubber that I laid in especially for the purpose of emergencies, in far less time than that.”
“Thanks!” said McBain, smiling; “use anything, but don’t lose time.”
The ships lay far from the open sea. They had been “rove” a long way in through the pack, to get close to the seals, but, independently of that, floating streams of ice, one after another, had joined the outer edge of this immense field of bergs, placing them at a greater distance from the welcome water.
Steam was speedily roaring, and ready for its work. Then, not without considerable difficulty, the vessel was put about, and the voyage seaward was commenced. Slow and tedious this voyage was bound to be, for there was so little wind it was useless to shake the sails loose, so the duty of towing her consorts devolved upon the Arrandoon. Instead of remaining on his own ship, Silas Grig came on board the steamer, where his services as iceman were fully appreciated.
As yet the frost had made no appreciable difference to the solidity of the pack; a very gentle swell was moving the pieces – a swell that rolled in from seaward, causing the whole scene around to look like a tract of snow-clad land, acted on by the giant force of an earthquake. Forging ahead through such ice, even by the aid of steam, is hard, slow work; and, assisted as the Arrandoon was by men walking in front of her and pushing on the bergs with long poles, hardly could she make a headway of half a mile an hour, and there were twenty good miles to traverse! It was a weary task, but the men bent their backs cheerfully to it, as British sailors ever do to a duty that has to be performed.
(Light lie the earth on the breast of the gallant Captain Brownrigg, R.N., and green be the grass on his grave. My young readers know the story; it is such stories as his they ought to read; such men as he ought to be enshrined in their memory. Betrayed by treacherous Arabs, with a mere handful of men he fought their powerful dhow and guns; and even when hope itself had fled he made no attempt to escape, but fought on and fought on, till he fell pierced with twenty wounds. He was a heroic sailor, and he was doing his duty!)
Even had it been possible to keep up the men’s strength, forty hours must have elapsed ere the Arrandoon would be rising and falling on blue water. But many hours had not gone by ere the men got a rest they little cared for – for down went the swell, the motion among the bergs was stilled, and frost began its work of welding them together.
“Just like my luck, now, isn’t it?” said Silas, when he found the ship could not be budged another inch, and was quite surrounded by heavy ice.
“I don’t believe in luck,” said Captain McBain; “and, after all, things might have turned out even worse than they have.”
“Oh!” said Silas, “I’m not the man to grumble or growl. We are comfortable and jolly, and we have plenty to eat.”
“We won’t have much sport, though,” said Rory, with a sigh, “if we have to remain here long, for the bears will follow the seals, won’t they?”
“That they will,” replied Silas, “and small blame to them; it is exactly what I should like to do myself.”
“Well, you can, you know,” said McBain, laughing. “We have a splendid balloon. De Vere will take you for a fly I’m sure, if you’ll ask him.”
“What! trust myself up in the clouds!” cried Silas; “thank you very much for the offer, but if ill-luck has kept following my footsteps all my life, ill-luck would be sure to follow me if I attempted any aerial flights, and I’d come down by the run.”
“Well, we’re fairly beset, anyhow,” said Rory, “and I daresay we’ll have to try to make the best of it.”
So guns were placed disconsolately ill the racks, as soon as the terrible black frost had quite set in, or if they were taken out when a walk was determined on, it was only for fashion’s sake, and for the fear that an occasional bear might be met with. But it was good fun breaking bottles with rifle bullets, and good practice as well. As the days went on, and there were no signs of the pack breaking up, a number of books were taken down to be perused, much time was spent in playing piano or violin, or both together, while after dinner the hours were devoted to talking. Many a racy yarn was told by Cobb, many an adventure by Seth, and many a queer experience by Silas Grig, and duly appreciated, too. So the evenings did not seem long, whatever the days did.
Said Silas one morning to McBain, as they stood together leaning on the bulwarks.
“I don’t quite like the look of that ice, captain; it is precious big, and if it came on to press a bit, why, it would go clean through the ribs of us, strong though our good ships are. And that cockle-shell of Cobb’s would be the very first to go down to the bottom.”
“Or up to the top,” suggested McBain.
“What?” laughed Silas; “would you clap your balloon top of her, and lift her out like?”
“No, not that; but we could hoist her high and dry on top of the ice easily enough.”
“Well, I declare,” cried Silas, clapping one brawny hand on his knee, “that is a glorious idea. And an old iceman like me to never think of it!”
Then Silas’s face fell, as he said, —
“Ah! but you couldn’t hoist me up too. The Canny Scotia would go down; that would be more of my luck.”
“Well, but I’ve thought of a plan. I have torpedoes on board. I’ll have a go at this ice, anyhow.”
“Make a kind of harbour, you mean?” inquired Silas.
“That’s it,” was the reply.
“But,” said Silas, still somewhat dubious, “you know the currents run like mill-streams in under the ice. Well, suppose your torpedoes were to be floated in under my ship, and went bursting off there?”
“Well, your ship would be hoisted,” replied McBain; “that would be all.”
“Ay!” said Silas, “that would be all; that would end all the luck, good or bad.”
“But there is no fear of any such accident. And now let us just have a try at it.”
Blowing up icebergs with torpedoes is by no means difficult, when you know how to do it, but sometimes the current will shift the guiding-pole or rope, and were it to get under the stern of the ship itself, it would make it awkward for the Arctic explorers. In the present instance everything went well, and berg after berg succumbed to the force of the gun-cotton, until the last, when, by some mismanagement, one torpedo was shifted right under a piece of ice on which stood, tools in hand, about ten men, besides Silas, Rory, and Captain McBain himself. Of course it was not likely that boy Rory was going to be far away when any fun was going on, so that is why he happened to be on top of this identical berg when the blowing-up took place. And here is precisely what was seen by disinterested bystanders – a smother of snow and water and ice, mixed, rising in shape of a rounded column over ten feet high, and, dimly visible in the misty midst thereof, a minglement of hands and heads and arms and legs. The sound accompanying the columnar rising was something between a puff and a thud; I cannot better describe it. Then there was a sudden collapse, and next moment the arms and the legs and the hands and the heads were all seen sprawling and struggling in the frothy, seething water below. It simply and purely looked as if they were all being boiled alive in a huge cauldron. But the strangest part of the story is to come. With the exception of a few trifling braises, not one of those who were thus surprised by so sudden a rise in the world was a bit the worse. The ducking in the cold sea was certainly far from pleasant, but dry clothes and hot coffee soon put that to rights, and they came up smiling again.
Freezing Powders, who was on deck at the time of the accident, was dreadfully frightened, and ran down below instantly to report matters to his favourite.
“What’s the row? What’s the row? What’s the row?” cried the bird as the boy entered the saloon.
“Don’t talk so fast, Cockie, and I’ll tell you,” said Freezing Powders, sinking down on the deck with one arm on the cage. “I tink I’se all right at present, though my breaf is all frightened out of my body, and I must look ’bout as pale as you, Cockie.”
“De-ah me!” said Cockie.
“But don’t hang by de legs, Cockie. When you wants a mouf-ful of hemp just hop down for it, else de blood all run to your poor head, den you die in a fit?”
“Poor de-ah Cockie! Pretty old Cockie!” said the bird, in mournful tones.
“And now I got my breaf again, I try to ’splain to you what am de row. De drefful world round de ship is all white, Cockie, and to-day dey has commenced blowing it up, and jus’ now, Cockie, dey has commenced to blow derselves up?”
“De-ah me!” from Cockie.
“Dat am quite true, Cockie, and de heads and de legs am flying about in all directions! It is too drefful to behold!”
“Now then, young Roley Poley!” cried Peter, entering at that moment, “toddle away forward for some boiling-hot coffee, and run quicker than ever you ran in your life.”
“I’se off like a bird!” said Freezing Powders, darting out of the cabin as if there had been a boot after him.
Chapter Twenty Two.
Captain Cobb Retires – More Torpedoing – The Great Ice-Hole – Strange Sport – The Terrible Zugaena – The Death Struggle
Both Captain McBain and Silas Grig felt more easy in their minds when they had got fairly rid of the green-rooted monsters of icebergs that had lain so placidly yet so threateningly alongside their respective ships. And oh! by the way, how very calm, harmless, and gentle bergs like these can look, when there is no disturbing element beneath them, their snow-clad tops asleep and glistening in the sunlight; but I have seen them angry, grinding and crashing together, each upheaval representing a height of from fifteen to thirty feet; each upheaval representing a strength hydraulic equal in force to the might of the great ocean itself.
Our heroes had taken time by the forelock. They had “guncottoned the bergs,” as Captain Cobb termed it, and lay for the time being in square ice-locked harbours, and could bid defiance to almost any ordinary occurrence, whether gale of wind in the pack or swell from the distant sea.
As the days went by the black frost seemed only to increase in severity.
“How long d’ye think,” said Captain Cobb, one morning, while at breakfast in the Arrandoon– “how long d’ye think this state of affairs’ll last? ’cause, mind ye, I begin to feel a kind o’ riled already.”
McBain looked inquiringly at Silas.
“If it’s asking me you are,” said the latter, “I makes answer and says, it may be for months, but it can’t be for ever.”
“But the frost isn’t likely to go for a week, is it now?”
“That it won’t, worse luck,” was the reply.
“Well, then, gentlemen,” said Cobb, “this child is going off, straight away out o’ here back to Jan Mayen.”
“Back to Jan Mayen?”
“Back to Jan Mayen!” everybody said, or seemed to say, in one breath.
“I reckon ye heard aright,” said the imperturbable Yankee.
“It’s just like this, ye see,” he continued. “I’m paid by my employers to make observations on the old island down yonder; stopping here ain’t taking sights, but it’s taking the company’s dollars for nothing, so if you’ll – either o’ ye – lend me a hand or two, and promise to hoist up Cobb’s cockle-shell in the event of a squeeze, Cobb himself is off home, ’tain’t mor’n fifty miles.”
The journey was a dangerous one, nobody knew that better than the bold American himself, and it was a true sense of duty to his employers that caused him to undertake it. But having once made up his mind to a thing, Cobb was not the man to be deterred from accomplishing it.
So, with many a good wish for his safety, accompanied by only three men, he set out on his long journey over the snow. Rory, from the deck of the Arrandoon, and McBain from the nest, watched them as long as they were in sight. Indeed, I am not at all sure that Rory did not feel a little sorry he had not asked leave to accompany them, so fond was he of adventure in every shape and form.
It was a relief for him – and not for him alone – when McBain, in order to break the monotony of existence, and by way of doing something, proposed trying the effects of his torpedoes again at some distance from the ship, and forming a great ice-hole.
“Things will come up to breathe, and look about them, you know,” he explained, “and then we may get some sport, and Silas may bag a seal or two.”
Our heroes were overjoyed when the working party was called away. At last there was a prospect of doing something, and seeing an animal of some kind, for not only the bears, but the very birds had deserted them. Sometimes, indeed, a solitary snowbird would come flying around the ships. It would hover for awhile in the air, giving vent to many a peevish, mournful chirp, then fly away again.
“No, no, no!” it seemed to say, “there is nothing good to eat down there – no raw flesh, no blood – and so I’m off again to the distant sealing ground, where the yellow bear prowls, and the snow is red with blood.”
A few hours’ work with torpedoes, picks, and ice-saws, was enough to form an opening big enough for the purpose required. The broken pieces were either “landed high and dry,” or sunk beneath the pack, and so the work was completed.
“It’ll entail a deal of trouble, gentlemen,” said Dr McFlail, “to keep that hole clear with the temperature which we are at present enjoying – or rather enduring.”
“There is that in the sea, doctor,” said Silas, with a knowing nod, “which will save us the trouble.”
He wasn’t wrong. Not an hour elapsed ere a few black heads, with great wondering eyes, appeared above the surface and peered around them, and blinked at the sun, and seemed to enjoy mightily a sniff of the fresh air and a blink of the daylight.
“This is nice, now,” they said, “and ever so much better than being down there in the dark – quite an oasis in the desert.”
Bang! bang!
Two of them slowly sank to rise no more.
“This won’t do,” said Allan; “it is only murder to shoot poor seals that we cannot land and make some good out off. What is to be done?”
“Be quiet with ye!” said Rory. “Sure yonder is Seth himself, coming straight from the ship, in his suit of skins, and if he isn’t up to some manoeuvre then my name isn’t Roderick, that is all.”
Seth was up to something; he had a coil of rope with him, and the nattiest little harpoon that ever was handled.
“Fire away, gentlemen!” he said, lying down on the sunny side of a small hummock pretty close to the water’s edge, “only don’t hit the old trapper; he’d rather die in his bed if it be all the same to you.”
Undeterred by the fate that had befallen their companions, it was not long before other seals popped up to breathe. Our heroes were ready for them, and two again were killed, one being missed. Seth was ready for them, too. He sprang to his feet, and ere the smoke had melted in the thin air, one of the seals was neatly harpooned and dragged to the edge. Here it was gaffed, and lifted or pulled bodily on to the ice by help of Ralph’s powerful arm. The harpoon was released, and before the other seal had time to sink it was served in precisely the same manner.
The sport was exceedingly novel, and combined, as Rory said, “all the pleasures of shooting and fishing in one glorious whole.”
No work on natural history, so far as my reading goes, remarks upon the exceedingly great speed exhibited by the Greenland seal in his flight – it is in reality a flight – through and beneath the water. I have often been astonished at the rapidity of their movements; so swiftly do they dart along that the eye can barely follow them for the moment or two they are visible. This power of swimming enables them to pursue their finny prey for many miles under an ice-pack; it doubtless also enables them to escape the fangs of their natural enemy, the great Greenland shark (Scymnus borealis), and on the present occasion it accounted for their appearance at the great breathing-hole made for them by the torpedoes and ice-saws of the Arrandoon. The water under the pack would be everywhere else as black and dark as midnight, but through this opening the sunshine would stream in straight and powerful rays, and not seals alone, but fishes and monsters of the deep of many kinds, would naturally come towards the light, as the salmon does to the glimmer from the torch of the Highland poacher.
The sport obtained at the opening was not of a very exciting character on the first day, but next morn, to their joy, they found that a bear had been around, and had left the marks of his broad soles in the snow. Many more seals, too, came up to breathe, and more harpoons had to be requisitioned. Silas was once more in his glory at the prospect of adding a few more skins, and a few more tons of oil, to the cargo he had already shipped.
Towards afternoon the fun grew fast and furious, and when Peter came in person to announce dinner, he could hardly get his officers to pay any heed to the summons. Even Cockie down in the saloon heard the noise, and must needs inquire, as he stretched his neck and fastened one bead of an eye on his little black master.
“What’s all the to-do about? What’s all the to-do about?”
“I don’t know,” was the reply of Freezing Powders. “I don’t know no more nor you do, Cockie. I tinks dey has gone to blow derselves all to pieces again.”
Dinner was partaken of in a merrier mood that day than it had been for weeks. Silas was there, of course; in fact, he had become an honorary member of the Arrandoon mess.
“You see, Captain Grig,” McBain had observed, “we must have you as much with as now as we can, for we soon go different roads, don’t we?”
“Ah! yes,” replied Silas, with a bit of a sigh; “you go north; God send you safe back; and I go back to my little wife and large family.”
“Happy reunion, won’t it be?” said Allan.
The eyes of Silas sparkled, but his heart was too full of happy thoughts to say more than simply, —
“Yes.”
“Won’t the green ginger fly?” said Rory.
“I say, boys,” Ralph put in, “this sort of thing positively gives a man a kind of an appetite.”
Rory looked at him with such a mischievous twinkle in his eyes that Ralph longed to pinch him.
“Just as if ever you lost yours,” said Rory.
At this moment the sound of a rifle was heard, apparently close to the ship.
“It’s the trapper,” cried Rory; “it’s friend Seth. Sure enough I know the charming music of his long gun. Now, Ray, I’ll wager my fiddle he has bagged a bear.”
Rory was right for once, and here is how it fell out. Several bears had that day scented the battle from afar, or were attracted by the noise of the malleys and gulls that were now wheeling around the ships in thousands. They stood aloof while shooting was going on, sitting on their haunches licking their chops, greedy, hungry, expectant; but as soon as the sportsmen went off to dine, —
“Now is our time,” said one, “to get a bit of fresh meat.”
“Come on, then,” cried another; “there are a hundred seals lying on the ice. Hurrah?”
So down they came to the feast. They had not had such a treat for a whole day, and that is a long time for a bear to fast, and they made good use of their time, you may be sure, and so earnest were they, that they did not perceive a long, hairy creature that came creeping stealthily towards them. When at last one of them did observe this strange animal “with the tail of his eye,” he said to himself, —
“Oh! it is only a tiny bit of a young seal, hunting for a lost mother, perhaps. Well, I’ll have it presently by way of dessert.”
And almost immediately after, the sound that had startled our friends at their dessert rang out in the clear, frosty air, and Bruin’s head dropped never more to rise. His brother bears suddenly discovered they had eaten enough; anyhow, they remembered that it was always best to rise up from the table feeling that you could eat a little more, so they shambled away across the pack as fast as four legs could carry them.
“Bravo, Seth, old boy,” cried Rory and Allan, coming on the scene.
Ralph only waited to finish some pastry, then he too joined them.
“Why,” said the latter, “it is the biggest bear we have seen yet.”
In true trapper fashion, Seth was already on his knees beside the enormous carcass, engaged with knife and fist and elbow, “working the rascal out of his jacket,” as he called it, when Rory, who was not far from the edge of the water, started, or rather sprang back in horror.
“Oh! Allan, Allan! Ray, Ray! look!” he cried.
Well might he cry “look,” for a more terrible or revolting apparition never raises head over the black waters of the Greenland ocean than the zugaena, or hammer-headed shark. The skull is in shape precisely what the name indicates, that of a gigantic hammer, with a great eye at each end, and the mouth beneath. This shark is not unfrequently met with in the northern seas, and he is just as fierce as he is fearful to behold.
Allan and Ralph both saw the brute, and neither could repress a shudder. It appeared but for a few moments, then dived below again.
Silas and McBain, coming up at the time, were told of the occurrence.
“I know the vile beasts well,” said Silas, “and they do say that they never appear in these seas without bringing a big slice o’ ill-luck in their wake. That is unless you catches them, and sometimes that doesn’t save the ship. When I was skipper o’ the Penelope, and that is more than ten years ago, there wasn’t a lazier chap in the crew than snuffy Sandy Foster. He wasn’t a deal o’ use down below, he did nothing on deck, and he never went aloft. He had two favourite positions: one was sitting before a joint of junk, with a knife in his hand; t’other was leaning against the bulwarks with a pipe in his mouth, and we never could make out which he liked best.
“‘Did ever you do anything clever in your life, Sandy?’ I asked one day.
“Sandy took his pipe out of his mouth and eyed the mainmast for fully half a minute. Then he brought his eyes round to my face, and said, —
“‘Not that I can remember o’, sir.’
“‘The first time, Sandy,’ says I, ‘that you do anything clever, I’ll give you a pair of the best canvas trousers in the ship.’
“Sandy’s eyes a kind of sparkled; I’d never seen them sparkle before.
“‘I’ll win them,’ said Sandy, ‘wait till ye see.’
“And, indeed, gentlemen, I hadn’t long to wait. One day the brig was dead before the wind under a crowd o’ cloth, for there wasn’t much wind, but a nasty rumble-tumble sea; there was no doubt, gentlemen, from the looks o’ that sea, that we had just come through a gale o’ wind, and there was evidence enough to go to jury on that there was another not far away. Well, it was just in the dusk o’ the evening – we were pretty far south – that the cry got up, —
“‘Man overboard.’
“It was our bo’s’n’s boy, a lad of fourteen, who had gone by the run. Singing out to the mate to lay to, I ran forward, and if ever I forget the expression of the poor bo’s’n’s face as he wrung his hands and cried, ‘Oh, save my laddie! Oh, save my laddie!’ my name will change to something else than Silas.
“‘I’ll save him,’ cried a voice behind me. Some one rushed past. There was a splash in the water next moment, and I had barely time to see it was Sandy. Before the boat reached the spot they were a quarter of a mile astern, but they were saved; they found the bo’s’n’s laddie riding ‘cockerty-coosie’ on Sandy’s shoulder, and Sandy spitting out the mouthfuls of salt water, laughing and crying, —