The World of Ice, R. M. Ballantyne [funny books to read txt] 📗

them about, and leaping over them like kittens. In these movements they displayed their enormous strength several times. Their leaps, although performed with the utmost ease, were so great as to prove the iron nature of their muscles. They tossed the heavy casks, too, high into the air like tennis-balls, and in two instances, while the crew were watching them, dashed a cask in pieces with a slight blow of their paws. The tough canvas yielded before them like sheets of paper, and the havoc they committed was wonderful to behold.

"Most extraordinary!" exclaimed Captain Guy, after watching them for some time in silence. "I cannot imagine where these creatures can have got hold of such things. Were not the goods at Store Island all right this morning, Mr. Bolton?"

"Yes, sir, they were."

"Nothing missing from the ship?"

"No, sir, nothing."

"It's most unaccountable."

"Captain Guy," said O'Riley, addressing his commander with a solemn face, "haven't ye more nor wance towld me o' the queer thing in the deserts they calls the mirage?"

"I have," answered the captain, with a puzzled look.

"An' didn't ye say there was somethin' like it in the Polar Seas, that made ye see flags, an' ships, an' things o' that sort when there was no sich things there at all?"

"True, O'Riley, I did."

"Faix, then, it's my opinion that yon bears is a mirage, an' the sooner we git out o' their way the better."

A smothered laugh greeted this solution of the difficulty.

"I think I can give a better explanation—begging your pardon, O'Riley," said Captain Ellice, who had hitherto looked on with a sly smile. "More than a year ago, when I was driven past this place to the northward, I took advantage of a calm to land a supply of food, and a few stores and medicines, to be a stand-by in case my ship should be wrecked to the northward. Ever since the wreck actually took place I have looked forward to this cache of provisions as a point of refuge on my way south. As I have already told you, I have never been able to commence the southward journey; and now I don't require these things, which is lucky, for the bears seem to have appropriated them entirely."

"Had I known of them sooner, captain," said Captain Guy, "the bears should not have had a chance."

"That accounts for the supply of tobacco and sticking-plaster we found in the bear's stomach," remarked Fred, laughing.

"True, boy; yet it surprises me that they succeeded in breaking into my cache, for it was made of heavy masses of stone, many of which required two and three men to lift them, even with the aid of handspikes."

"What's wrong with O'Riley?" said Fred, pointing to that eccentric individual, who was gazing intently at the bears, muttering between his teeth, and clinching his cudgel nervously.

"Sure it's a cryin' shame," he soliloquized in an undertone, quite unconscious that he was observed, "that ye should escape, ye villains. Av I only had a musket now—but I han't. Arrah! av it was only a spear. Be the mortial! I think I could crack the skull o' the small wan! Faix, then, I'll try!"

At the last word, before any one was aware of his intentions, this son of Erin, whose blood was now up, sprang down the cliffs towards the bears, flourishing his stick, and shouting wildly as he went. The bears instantly paused in their game, but showed no disposition to retreat.

"Come back, you madman!" shouted the captain; but the captain shouted in vain.

"Stop! halt! come back!" chorused the crew.

But O'Riley was deaf. He had advanced to within a few yards of the bears, and was rushing forward to make a vigorous attack on the little one.

"He'll be killed!" exclaimed Fred in dismay.

"Follow me, men," shouted the captain, as he leaped the ridge: "make all the noise you can."

In a moment the surrounding cliffs were reverberating with the loud halloos and frantic yells of the men, as they burst suddenly over the ridge, and poured down upon the bears like a torrent of maniacs.

Bold though they were, they couldn't stand this. They turned tail and fled, followed by the disappointed howls of O'Riley, and also by his cudgel, which he hurled violently after them as he pulled up.

Having thus triumphantly put the enemy to flight, the party continued their ascent of the hill, and soon gained the summit.

"There it is!" shouted Fred, who, in company with Mivins, first crossed the ridge, and tossed his arms in the air.

The men cheered loudly as they hurried up and one by one emerged into a red glow of sunshine. It could not be termed warm, for it had no power in that frosty atmosphere, and only a small portion of the sun's disk was visible. But his light was on every crag and peak around; and as the men sat down in groups, and, as it were, bathed in the sunshine, winking at the bright gleam of light with half-closed eyes, they declared that it felt warm, and wouldn't hear anything to the contrary, although Saunders, true to his nature, endeavoured to prove to them that the infinitely small degree of heat imparted by such feeble rays could not by any possibility be felt except in imagination. But Saunders was outvoted. Indeed, under the circumstances, he had not a chance of proving his point; for the more warm the dispute became, the greater was the amount of animal heat that was created, to be placed, falsely, to the credit of the sun.

Patience, however, is a virtue which is sure to meet with a reward. The point which Saunders failed to prove by argument, was pretty well proved to every one (though not admitted) by the agency of John Frost. That remarkably bitter individual nestled round the men as they sat sunning themselves, and soon compelled them to leap up and apply to other sources for heat. They danced about vigorously, and again took to leap-frog. Then they tried their powers at the old familiar games of home. Hop-step-and-jump raised the animal thermometer considerably, and the standing leap, running leap, and high leap sent it up many degrees. But a general race brought them almost to a summer temperature, and at the same time, most unexpectedly, secured to them a hare! This little creature, of which very few had yet been procured, darted in an evil hour out from behind a rock right in front of the men, who, having begun the race for sport, now continued it energetically for profit. A dozen sticks were hurled at the luckless hare, and one of these felled it to the ground.

After this they returned home in triumph, keeping up all the way an animated dispute as to the amount of heat shed upon them by the sun, and upon that knotty question, "Who killed the hare?"

Neither point was settled when they reached the Dolphin, and, we may add, for the sake of the curious reader, neither point is settled yet.

CHAPTER XXII.

The "Arctic Sun"—Rats! rats! rats!--A hunting-party—Out on the floes—Hardships.

Among the many schemes that were planned and carried out for lightening the long hours of confinement to their wooden home in the Arctic Regions, was the newspaper started by Fred Ellice, and named, as we have already mentioned, the Arctic Sun.

It was so named because, as Fred stated in his first leading article, it was intended to throw light on many things at a time when there was no other sun to cheer them. We cannot help regretting that it is not in our power to present a copy of this well-thumbed periodical to our readers; but being of opinion that something is better than nothing, we transcribe the following extract as a specimen of the contributions from the forecastle. It was entitled—

JOHN BUZZBY'S OPPINYUNS O' THINGS IN GIN'RAL.

Mr. Editer,—As you was so good as to ax from me a contribootion to your waluable peeryoddical, I beg heer to stait that this heer article is intended as a gin'ral summery o' the noos wots agoin'. Your reeders will be glad to no that of late the wether's bin gittin' colder, but they'll be better pleased to no that before the middle o' nixt sumer it's likely to git a, long chawk warmer. There's a gin'ral complaint heer that Mivins has bin eatin' the shuger in the pantry, an' that's wots makin' it needfull to put us on short allowance. Davie Summers sais he seed him at it, an' it's a dooty the guvermint owes to the publik to have the matter investigated. It's gin'rally expected, howsever, that the guvermint won't trubble its hed with the matter. There's bin an onusual swarmin' o' rats in the ship of late, an' Davie Summers has had a riglar hunt after them. The lad has becum more than ornar expert with his bow an' arrow, for he niver misses now—exceptin', always, when he dusn't hit—an' for the most part takes them on the pint on the snowt with his blunt-heded arow, which he drives in—the snowt, not the arow. There's a gin'ral wish among the crew to no whether the north pole is a pole or a dot. Mizzle sais it's a dot, and O'Riley swears (no, he don't do that, for we've gin up swearin' in the fog-sail), but he sais that it's a real post, 'bout as thick again as the main-mast, an' nine or ten times as hy. Grim sais it's nother wun thing nor anuther, but a hydeear that is sumhow or other a fact, but yit don't exist at all. Tom Green wants to no if there's any conexshun between it an' the pole that's conected with elections. In fact, we're all at sea, in a riglar muz abut this, an' as Dr. Singleton's a syentiffick man, praps he'll give us a leadin' article in your nixt—so no more at present from— Yours to command,

JOHN BUZZBY.

This contribution was accompanied with an outline illustration of Mivins eating sugar with a ladle in the pantry, and Davie Summers peeping in at the door—both likenesses being excellent.

Some of the articles in the Arctic Sun were grave and some were gay, but all of them were profitable, for Fred took care that they should be charged either with matter of interest or matter provocative of mirth. And, assuredly, no newspaper of similar calibre was ever looked forward to with such expectation, or read and re-read with such avidity. It was one of the expedients that lasted longest in keeping up the spirits of the men.

The rat-hunting referred to in the foregoing "summary" was not a mere fiction of Buzzby's brain. It was a veritable fact. Notwithstanding the extreme cold of this inhospitable climate, the rats in the ship increased to such a degree that at last they became a perfect nuisance. Nothing was safe from their attacks—whether substances were edible or not, they were gnawed through and ruined—and their impudence, which seemed to increase with their numbers, at last exceeded all belief. They swarmed everywhere—under the stove, about the beds, in the lockers, between the sofa cushions, amongst the moss round the walls, and inside the boots and mittens (when empty) of the men. And they became so accustomed to having missiles thrown at them, that they acquired to perfection that art which Buzzby described as "keeping one's weather-eye open."

You couldn't hit one if you tried. If your hand moved towards an object with which you intended to deal swift destruction, the intruder paused, and turned his sharp eyes towards you, as if to say, "What! going to try it again?—come, then, here's a chance for you." But when you threw, at best you could only hit the empty space it had occupied the moment before. Or, if you seized a stick, and rushed at the enemy in wrath, it grinned fiercely, showed its long white teeth, and then vanished with a fling of its tail that could be construed into nothing but an expression of contempt.

At last an expedient was hit upon for destroying these disagreeable inmates. Small bows and arrows were made, the latter having heavy, blunt heads, and with these the men slaughtered hundreds. Whenever any one was inclined for a little sport, he took up his bow and arrows, and retiring to a dark corner of the cabin, watched for a shot. Davie Summers acquired the title of Nimrod in consequence of his success in this peculiar field.

At first the rats proved a capital addition to the dogs' meals, but at length some of the men were glad to eat them, especially when fresh meat failed altogether, and scurvy began its assaults. White or Arctic foxes, too, came about the ship sometimes in great numbers, and proved an acceptable addition to their fresh provisions; but at one period all these sources failed, and the crew were reduced to the utmost extremity, having nothing to eat