He took two rings from off his thin white fingers.
“For my sister and my mother,” he said.
He never spoke again, but died with those dear names on his lips.
Ralph showed himself a very hero in these sad times of trouble and death. He was here, there, and everywhere, by night and by day; assisting the surgeon and helping Seth to attend upon the wants of the sick and dying; and many a pillow he soothed, and many a word of comfort he gave to those who needed it. The true Saxon character was now beautifully exemplified in our English hero. He possessed that noble courage which never makes itself uselessly obtrusive, which fritters not itself away on trifles, and which seems at most times to lie dormant or latent, but is ever ready to show forth and burn most brightly in the hour of direst need.
Sorrows seldom come singly, and one day Stevenson, in making his usual morning report, had the sad tidings to add that cask after cask of provisions had been opened and found bad, utterly useless for human food.
McBain got up from his chair and accompanied the mate on deck.
“I would not,” he said, “express, in words what I feel, Mr Stevenson, before our boys; but this, indeed, is terrible tidings.”
“It can only hasten the end,” said Stevenson.
“You think, then, that that end is inevitable?”
“Inevitable,” said Stevenson, solemnly but emphatically. “We are doomed to perish here among this ice. There can be no rescue for us but through the grave.”
“We are in the hands of a merciful and an all-powerful Providence, Mr Stevenson,” said McBain; “we must trust, and wait, and hope, and do our duty.”
“That we will, sir, at all events,” said the mate; “but see, sir, what is that yonder?”
He pointed, as he spoke, skywards, and there, just a little way above the highest mountain-tops, was a cloud. It kept increasing almost momentarily, and got darker and darker. Both watched it until the sun itself was overcast, then the mate ran below to look at the glass. It was “tumbling” down.
For three days a gale and storm, accompanied with soft, half-wet snow, raged. Then terrible noises and reports were heard all over the pack of ice seaward, and the grinding and din that never fails to announce the break-up of the sea of ice.
“Heaven has not forgotten us,” cried McBain, hopefully; “this change will assuredly check the sickness, and perhaps in a week’s time we will be sailing southwards through the blue, open sea, bound for our native shores.”
McBain was right; the hopes raised in the hearts of the men did check the progress of the sickness. When at last the wind fell, they were glad to see that the clouds still remained, and that there were no signs of the frost coming on again.
The pieces of ice, too, were loose, and all hands were set to work to warp the ship southwards through the bergs. The work was hard, and the progress made scarcely a mile a day at first. But they were men working for their lives, with new-born hope in their hearts, so they heeded not the fatigue, and after a fortnight’s toil they found the water so much more open that by going ahead at full speed in every clear space, a fair day’s distance was got over. For a week more they strove and struggled onwards; the men, however, were getting weaker and weaker for want of sufficient food. How great was their joy, then, when one morning the island was sighted on which McBain had left the store of provisions!
Boats were sent away as soon as they came within a mile of the place.
Sad, indeed, was the news with which Stevenson, who was in charge, returned. The bears had made an attack on the buried stores. They had clawed the great cask open, and had devoured or destroyed everything.
Hope itself now seemed for a time to fly from all on board. With a crew weak from want, and with fearful ice to work their way through, what chance was there that they would ever succeed in reaching the open water, or in proceeding on their homeward voyage even as far as the island of Jan Mayen, or until they should fall in with and obtain relief from some friendly ship? They were far to the northward of the sealing grounds, and just as far to the east. McBain, however, determined still to do his utmost, and, though on short allowance, to try to forge ahead. For one week more they toiled and struggled onwards, then came the frost again and all chance of proceeding was at an end.
It was no wonder that sickness returned. No wonder that McBain himself, and Allan and Rory, began to feel dejected, listless, weary, and ill.
Then came a day when the doctor and Ralph sat down alone to eat their meagre and hurried breakfast.
“What prospects?” said Ralph.
“Moribund!” was all the doctor said just then.
Presently he added —
“There, in the corner, lies poor wee Freezing Powders, and, my dear Ralph, one hour will see it all over with him. The captain and Allan and Rory can hardly last much longer.”
“God help us, then,” said Ralph, wringing his hands, and giving way to a momentary anguish.
The unhappy negro boy was stretched, to all appearance lifeless, close by the side of his favourite’s cage.
Despite his own grief, Ralph could not help feeling for that poor bird. His distress was painful to witness. If his great round eyes could have run over with tears, I am sure they would have done so. I have said before that Cockie was not a pretty bird, but somehow his very ugliness made Ralph pity him now all the more. Nor was the grief of the bird any the less sad to see because it was exhibited in a kind of half ludicrous way. He was not a moment at rest, but he seemed really not to know what he was doing, and his anxious eye was hardly ever withdrawn from the face of the dying boy: – jumping up and down from his perch to his seed-tin and back again, grabbing great mouthfuls of hemp, which he never even broke or tried to swallow, and blowing great sighs over his thick blue tongue. And the occasional sentence, too, the bird every now and then began but never finished, —
“Here’s a – ”
“Did you – ”
“Come – ”
All spoke of the anguish in poor Cockie’s breast.
A faint moaning was heard in the adjoining cabin, and Ralph hurried away from the table, and Sandy was left alone.
Chapter Thirty Four.
A Sailor’s Cottage – The Telegram – “Something’s in the Wind” – The Good Yacht “Polar Star” – Hope for the Wanderers
A cottage on a cliff. A cliff whose black, beetling sides rose sheer up out of the water three hundred feet and over; a cliff around which sea-birds whirled in dizzy flight; a cliff in which the cormorant had her home; a cliff against which all the might of the German Ocean had dashed and chafed and foamed for ages. Some fifty yards back from the edge of this cliff the cottage was built, of hard blue granite, with sturdy bay windows – a cottage that seemed as independent of any storm that could blow as the cliff itself was. In front was a neat wee garden, with nicely gravelled walks and edging of box, and all round it a natty railing painted an emerald green. At the back of the cottage were more gravelled walks and more flower garden, with a summer-house and a smooth lawn, from the centre of which rose a tall ship’s mast by way of flagstaff, with ratlines and rigging and stays and top complete.
Not far off was a pigeon-house on a pole, and not far from that still another pole surmounted by a weather-vane, and two little wooden blue-jackets, that whenever the wind blew, went whirling round and round, clashing swords and engaging in a kind of fanatic duel, which seemed terribly real and terribly deadly for the time being.
It was a morning in early spring, and up and down the walk behind the cottage stepped a sturdy, weather-beaten old sailor, with hair and beard of iron-grey, and a face as red as the newest brick that ever was fashioned.
He stood for a moment gazing upwards at the strutting fantails.
“Curr-a-coo – curr-a-coo,” said the pigeons.
“Curr-a-coo – curr-a-coo,” replied the sailor. “I dare say you’re very happy, and I’m sure you think the sun was made for you and you only. Ah! my bonnie birdies, you don’t know what the world is doing. You don’t – hullo?”
“Yes, my dear, you may say hullo,” said a cheerful little woman, with a bright, pleasant face, walking up to him, and placing an arm in his. “Didn’t you hear me tapping on the pane for you?”
“Not I, little wife, not I,” said Silas Grig. “I’ve been thinking, lass, thinking – ”
“Well, then,” interrupted his wife, “don’t you think any more; you’ve made your hair all white with thinking. Just come in and have breakfast. That haddock smells delicious, and I’ve made some nice toast, and tried the new tea. Come, Silas, come.”
Away went the two together, he with his arm around her waist, looking as happy, the pair of them, as though their united ages didn’t make a deal over a hundred.
“Come next month,” said Silas, as soon as he had finished his first cup of tea – “come next month, little wife, it will just be two years since I first met the Arrandoon. Heigho?”
“You needn’t sigh, Silas,” his wife remarked. “They may return. Wonders never cease.”
“Return?” repeated Silas, with a broken-hearted kind of a laugh, “Nay, nay, nay, we’ll meet them no more in this world. Poor Rory! He was my favourite. Dear boy, I think I see him yet, with his fair, laughing face, and that rogue of an eye of his.”
Rat-tat.
Silas started.
“The postman?” he said; “no, it can’t be. That’s right, little woman, run to the door and see. What! a telegram for me!”
Silas took the missive, and turned it over and over in his hand half a dozen times at least.
“Why, my dear, who can it be from?” he asked with a puzzled look, “and what can it be about? Can you guess, little wife? Eh? can you?”
“If I were you, Silas,” said his wife, quietly, “I’d open it and see.”
“Dear me! to be sure,” cried Silas. “I didn’t think of that. Why, I declare,” he continued, as soon as he had read it, “it is from Arrandoon Castle, and the poor widow, Allan’s mother, wants to see me at once. I’m off, little woman, at once. Get out my best things. The blue pilots, you know. Quick, little woman – quick! Bear a hand! Hurrah!”
Silas Grig didn’t finish that second cup of tea. He was dressed in less than ten minutes, had kissed his wife, and was hurrying away to the station. Indeed, Silas had never in his life felt in such a hurry before.
“It’ll be like my luck,” he muttered, “if I miss this train.”
But he did not miss it, and it was a fast one, too, a flying train, that every day went tearing along through Scotland, and was warranted to land him at Inverness six hours after he first stepped on board.
No sooner was Silas seated than he pulled out the telegram again, and read it over and over at least a dozen times. Then he looked at the back of it, as if it were just possible that some further information might be found there. Then he read the address, and as he could not get anything more out of it he folded it up and replaced it in his pocket, merely remarking, “I’ll vow something’s in the wind.”
Silas had bought a newspaper. He had meant to read; he tried to read as hard as ever he had tried to do anything, but it was all in vain. His mind was in too great a ferment, so he threw down the paper and devoted himself to gazing out of the window at the glorious panorama that was passing before him; but if anybody else had been in the same compartment, he or she would have heard this ancient mariner frequently muttering to himself, and the burden of all his remarks was, “Something’s in the wind, I’m sure of that!”
A fast train? A flying train? Yes, a deal too much so, many would have thought, but she could not fly a bit too fast for Silas. Yet how she did rattle and rush and roar along the lines, to be sure! The din she made only deepening for a moment as she dived under a bridge or brushed past a wayside station, too insignificant by far to waste a thought upon! Now she passes a country village, with rows of trim-built cottages and tidy gardens, with lines for clothes to dry, and fences where children hang or perch and wave their caps at the flying train. Now she shaves past rows of platelayers, who stand at attention or extend their grimy arms like signal yards, while a blue-coated jack-in-a-box waves a white flag from his window to show that all is safe. Now she ploughs through some larger junction, over a whole field of rails that seems to run in every conceivable direction; but she makes her way in safety in a whirl of dust, and next she shrieks as she plunges into the darkness of a long, dreary tunnel. Ah! but she is out again into the glare of the day, and again the telegraph posts go popping past as fast as one could wink. Five miles now on a stretch of level country as straight as crow could fly, through fields and woods and past thriving farms, with far beyond on the horizon hills, hills, hills.
’Tis spring-time, spring changing into summer, summer coming six good weeks before its time. Look, Silas, look! crimson flowers are already peeping red through the greenery of cornfields, drowsy-looking cows are wading knee-deep in grass and buttercups, the braelands are snowed over with the gowan’s bloom. Birds are singing in meadow and copse, the yellow furze is blossoming on heathy moorlands. Great black spruces raise their tall heads skywards, and their every branch is tipped with a tassel of tender green; rowan-trees seem studded with roses of a pearly hue, and the feathery larches are hung round with a fringe-work of darkest crimson. Is it not glorious, Silas? is it not all beautiful? Did ever you see a sky more blue before, or cloudlets more fleecy and light?
“I’ll stake my word,” replies Silas, “that something’s in the wind.”
Wilder scenery now, dark, frowning mountains, lonely glens, heathlands, highlands, cañons, and tarns, then a long and fertile flat, every sod of which marks a Scottish warrior’s grave.
Inverness at last!
“Boat gone, is it?” cried Silas. “Like my luck. But why didn’t she wait for the train? Tell me that, eh?”
“Yes, sir; dare say I could, sir.” This from an ostler in answer to another query of friend Silas. “Five-and-twenty mile, sir. I’ve just the horse that’ll suit. Three hours to a tick, sir, rough though the road is, sir. I’ll be ready in twenty minutes. Thank’ee, sir, much obliged. Now then, Donald, bustle about, will you? Get out the bay mare. Look sharp, gentleman’s only got five minutes to feed.”
“It can’t be Captain Grig already,” said Mrs McGregor.
“And yet who else can it be?” said Helen Edith.
“I’ll run out and see,” said Ralph’s father, who had been spending some weeks at the castle.
“Ha! welcome, honest Silas Grig,” he cried, rushing up and literally receiving Silas with open arms as he jumped from the high-wheeled dogcart. “A thousand welcomes. Well, I do declare you haven’t let the grass grow under your feet. How your horse steams! Take him round, driver, and see to his comfort, then go to the kitchen and see to your own. Old Janet is there. Now, Silas,” continued Mr Leigh, “before you go to talk to the ladies, I’ll tell you what we have arranged. We have thought well over all you said when you were here in the autumn, and I’ve chartered a German Arctic cruiser, and we’re going to put you in command. She is lying at Peterhead, everything ready, crew and all, stores and all. Our prayers will follow you, dear Captain Grig, and if you find our poor boys, or even bring us tidings of their fate, we will be ever grateful. Nay, nay, but ‘grateful’ poorly expresses my meaning. We will – ”
“Not another word,” cried Silas, “not one single word more, sir, or as sure as my name is Silas Grig I’ll clap my fingers in my ears.”
He shook Mr Leigh’s hand as he spoke.
“I’ll find the boys if they be alive,” he said. “I knew, sir, when I got the telegram there was something in the wind. I told my little wife I was quite sure of it. Ha! ha! ha!”
Silas was laughing, but it was only to hide the tears with which his eyes were swimming.
“When can you start, my dear Silas?”
“To-night. At once. Give me a fresh horse and five minutes for a mouthful of refreshment, and off I start; and I’ll take command to-morrow before the sun is over the foreyard.”
“To-night?” cried Mr Leigh, smiling. “No, no, no.”
“But I say ‘yo, yo, yo,’” said Silas, “and ‘yo heave, O,’ and what Silas says he means. There! Ah, ladies, how are you? Nay, never cry, Miss McGregor. I’m going straight away to the Arctic Sea, and I’m sure to bring your brother back, and Rory as well, to say nothing of honest Ralph and Peter the piper. So cheer ye up, my little lass, If Silas Grig doesn’t come back in company with the bonnie Arrandoon, may he never chew cheese again!”
There was no getting over the impetuosity of this honest old sailor, but there was withal a freshness and happiness about him, which made every one he talked with feel as hopeful as he was himself. Before dinner was done both Mrs McGregor and her lovely daughter were smiling and laughing as they had not smiled or laughed for months before, and when Silas asked for a song, the latter went quite joyfully to the harp.
You see it appeared quite a foregone conclusion with everybody that night, that Silas would find the lost explorers and bring them safely home.
The moon rose in all its majesty as nine tolled forth from the clock-tower of the ancient castle. Then Silas said “good-bye,” and, followed by many a blessing and many a prayer, the dogcart wound away up through the solemn pine forest, and was soon lost to view.
He was just as good as his word. He took command of his new ship – a splendid sea-going yacht – before noon next day. Almost immediately afterwards he summoned both officers and men and mustered them all aft, and somewhat startled them by the following curt speech: “Gentlemen and men of the Polar Star, we’ll sail to-morrow morning. We touch nowhere until we enter harbour here again. Any one that isn’t ready to go can step on shore and stop there. All ready, eh? Bravo, men! You’ll find your skipper isn’t a bad fellow to deal with, but he means to crack on! No ship that ever sailed ’twixt Pekin and London, no clipper that ever left Aberdeen, or yacht from New York city, ever did such cracking on as I mean to do. Go to your duty. Pipe down.”
Then Silas Grig inspected the ship. He was pleased with her get-up and her rig-out, only he ordered extra spars and extra sails, and these were all on board ere sundown.
“The old man means business,” said the first mate to the second.
“That he does!” replied the inferior officer.
The Polar Star sailed away from Peterhead on the very day that poor Ted Wilson was laid in his grave beneath the eternal snows of Alba. Could Silas have seen the desperate position of the Arrandoon just then, how little hopes he would have entertained of ever reaching her in time to save the precious lives on board!
The doctor was left alone in the saloon of the great ship.
The silence that reigned both fore and aft was oppressive even to dismalness.
For a moment or two Sandy buried his face in his hands, and tears welled through his fingers. “Oh,” he whispered, “it is terrible! The silence of death is all about us! Our men dying forward, our captain doomed, and Allan and Rory. Ay, and poor Ralph will be next; I can see that in his face. Not one of us can ever reach his native land again! I envy – yes, I envy the dead in their quiet graves, and even wish it were all past – all, all over?”
“Doctor!” a kindly hand was laid on his shoulder. Sandy started to his feet, he cared not who saw his face, wet though it was with tears. “Doctor, don’t you take on so,” said Stevenson.
“Speak, man I speak quick! There is hope in your face!” cried the doctor.
“There is hope in my heart, too,” said the mate – “only a glint, only a gleam; but it is there. The frost is gone; the ice is open again.”
“Then quick,” cried the surgeon, “get up steam! that alone can save the dying. Energy, energy, and something to do. I can do nothing more to save my patients while this hopeless silence lies pall-like around us. Break it, dear mate, with the roar of steam and the rattle of the engine’s screw!”
“Listen,” said the mate. “There goes the steam. Our chief has not been long.”
Round went the screw once more, and away moved the ship.
Poor McBain came staggering from his cabin. Ghastly pale he looked. He had the appearance of one risen from the grave.
He clutched Sandy by the shoulder.
“We are – under – way?” he gasped.
“Yes, yes,” said the surgeon. “Homeward bound, captain.”
“Homeward bound,” muttered the captain, pressing his hand on his brow, as if to recall his memory, which for a time had been unseated from her throne.
For a minute or two the surgeon feared for his captain’s life or reason.
“Drink this, dear sir,” he said; “be seated, too, you are not over well, and there is much to be done.”
“Much to be done?” cried McBain, as soon as he had quaffed the medicine. “I’m better. Thank you, good doctor; thank you, Sandy. There is much to be done. Those words have saved your captain’s life.”
Sandy gave a big sigh of relief and hastened away to Rory’s cabin.
Rory had been lying like a dead thing for hours, but now a new light seemed to come into his eye. He extended his hand to Sandy and smiled.
“We are positively under steam again, Sandy?” he said.
Sandy, like a wise surgeon, did not tell him the frost was quite gone. Joy kills, and Sandy knew it.
“Yes,” he said, carelessly, “we’ll get down south a few miles farther, I dare say. It is nice, though, isn’t it, to hear the old screw rattling round again?”
“Why, it is music, it is life?” said Rory. “Sandy, I’m going to be well again soon. I know and feel I am.”
Then Ralph burst into the cabin.
“I say, Sandy,” he said, “run and see dear old Allan; he says he is going to get up, and I know he is far, far too weak.”
Sandy had to pass through the saloon. Freezing Powders was sitting bolt upright in the corner, and Cockie was apparently mad with joy. The bird couldn’t speak fast enough, and he seemed bent on choking himself with hemp.
“Peter, Peter, Peter, Peter,” he was saying, “here’s a pretty, pretty, pretty to-do. Call the steward, call the steward. Come on, come on, come on.”
“Oh, Cockie,” Freezing Powders said, “I’se drefful, drefful cold, Cockie. ’Spects I’se gwine to die, Cockie. ’Spects I is – Oh! de-ah, what my ole mudder say den?”
“Come, come,” cried Sandy, “take this, you young sprout, and don’t let me catch you talking about dying. There now, pull yourself together.”
“I’ll try,” said the poor boy, “but I ’spects I’se as pale as deaf (death).”