[CONTENTS]
[ILLUSTRATIONS]
[FOOTNOTES]
[TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE]

In the
Great White Land

A Tale of the Antarctic Ocean
BY
DR. GORDON STABLES, R.N.
Author of “The Naval Cadet” “Crusoes of the Frozen North” &c.
Illustrated
BLACKIE & SON LIMITED
LONDON AND GLASGOW

“The ice was here, the ice was there,
The ice was all around;
It cracked and growled, and roared and howled
Like noises in a swound!”

Printed in Great Britain by
Blackie & Son, Limited, Glasgow

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

BOOK I
FAR AWAY IN THE FROZEN NORTH

IN THE GREAT WHITE LAND

CHAPTER I
DAYDAWN IN THE ARCTIC REGIONS—WERE THEY SAVAGES?

“Is it a man, or is it a young Polar bear standing on end?”

Had any one seen that strange figure, shuffling slowly to and fro on the snow-clad Polar ice on this bitterly cold morning late in winter, he might have been excused for asking himself that question.

All around was a scene of desolation such as can only be witnessed in Arctic seas at this season of the year.

Desolation? Yes; but beautiful desolation—a desolation that held one spellbound in silent, solemn admiration.

It had been a long, long night of just three months or nearly, and yesterday the sun—glad herald of the opening season—had glinted over the southern horizon for one brief spell, then sunk again in golden glory.

Yesterday all hands had crowded the deck, the frozen rigging, and the tops themselves of the good barque Walrus, to welcome with cheers and song the first appearance of the god of day. And from many a hole in igloo side, in the village that clustered half hidden beneath those pearly hills, natives had crawled out, as crawleth rat from its burrow, to throw themselves on their faces, to moan, to worship, and to pray.

To-day the romance has worn off a little, and the crew of the Walrus (which a peep round the side of the one solitary iceberg that rises in the midst of this frozen bay reveals) will raise nor song nor cheer.

But the white light broadens in the southern sky, the beams of the aurora, that a little while before were flickering and dancing pink and white in the north, fade, the bright stars wax faint and beautiful, then die. A broad band of orange light low down on the horizon, with far above one crimson feather cloud—then the sun’s appearance.

Ah! We can see now that the figure is no bear, but a man, though covered with hoar frost—his skin boots, skin cap, skin coat and all, and his beard and moustache are white and hung with icicles, which tinkle as he climbs the iceberg, lifts the old quadrant, and takes his sight.

While he does so he touches a button, on a little box hung to his short belt, which sets up communication with an instrument and chronometer on the ship.

The man with the beard of tinkling icicles is Captain Mayne Brace himself. Laughing with almost boyish glee as he slings his quadrant and beats his mittened, paw-like hands to woo back their circulation, he quickly descends, and begins to round in the slack of the field telegraph.

Two huge black Newfoundlands, Nora and Nick, have found their way down off the ship, and now come rushing to meet him, making the icy rocks and hills around the bay ring back their joyous barking.

There is, I believe, no light in all the wide world half so bright and dazzling as that of the first brief day of an Arctic spring. Scarce can the human eye, so long accustomed to the soft, tender star-rays, the flickering, coloured aurora, or magic moon-beams, bear to look on the white wastes all around, which seem to have been sown with billions and trillions of tiny diamonds, the God-made prisms and crystals of the virgin snow, pure and white as brow of angel.

The ship towards which Captain Mayne Brace is slowly advancing looks, but for her masts and rigging, like a white marquee, for from stem to stern she had been roofed over, many, many moons ago, when first anchored here in the Gulf of Incognita high to the North, and west of Baffin’s Bay.

Snow-steps lead him aboard, and the surgeon himself meets him at the frozen gangway.

“Sick all doing well, sir,” says the doctor. “Every one been out to-day to peep at the sun, and the sight has done them all good, though it has made some of them long for the green glades and rolling woods of dear old England. But come below, captain, and thaw your beard. Dinner ready to dish up. Let me lead you. Mind that rope. Step high, and you’ll manage. There, now, catch hold of the rail, and I’ll go down the companion in front. Just fourteen steps. Make your feet your friends, and count.”

For Captain Mayne Brace was for the time being snow-blind.

At the foot of the ladder the steward helped him to get out of his ice-rig, and to thaw his beard and eyebrows, then led him in.

He looked old no longer, but brown-bearded, rosy, rubicund, and jolly—just as a sailor should be.

It was not, however, until the soup was finished—real pea-soup with some strength and body in it—that he once more regained his sight. He had shut his eyes and leaned back in his easy-chair while the steward was changing the plates, and when he looked again, he beheld the saloon table encircled with bright, youthful, and happy faces.

Faces with hope in them, eyes that danced with new-born joy; for after all these months of dreary darkness, of shrieking storms and blinding blizzards, had they not seen the sun at last? Yes, and the days would lengthen and lengthen till it would be all one long, bright Arctic day. The snows would melt in the glens yonder, avalanches would fall thundering into the valleys beneath, the tides would break the ice around; yonder mountain berg, which had loomed ghost-like all through the everlasting night of winter, would move seawards and away; then a week of mist, which would lift at length, and reveal hills already patched with the yellow and red of lichens and the green of mosses, soft and tender. For summer comes quickly in the Arctic.

And what then? Why, the birds would return in their tens of thousands, the gulls and gullimots, the malleys, the pilots, the beautiful angel-snowbird, and the wee snow-bunting itself. Then it would be summer, you see. Bears themselves, that slept in frozen pits or caves for months and months, would be on the prowl once more, and eke the Arctic foxes; the sea would be alive and teeming with fish, from great sharks down to the sportive and gay little ghahkas. Whales—the gigantic “right whales”—would dash into the bay, unicorns would be seen, great seals and walruses would scramble on to patches of ice to bask in the sunshine; and, spreading white sails now to woo the breeze, the Walrus barque would steam slowly away through the opening ice, all hands intent on making their fortunes, that in a “bumper ship” they might sail southwards long before the autumn winds began to blow.

Hadn’t Captain Mayne Brace told those two happy, hungry boys yonder all that would happen? And was the captain ever wrong? Not he.

“Yes, mate, I will have another slice of that brown beef,” said Charlie.

“Thank you, mate,” said Walt; “and why shouldn’t I?”

Both boys were about the same age—glorious and independent sixteen—both called the captain uncle, yet the boys were only cousins.

They loved, respected, nay, even revered, that brown-bearded skipper, as only boys that have an “uncle” who has been twenty long years on the stormy ocean can, and do.

This had been the lads’ first cruise. They were orphans, and though well educated, had been left almost penniless, and were going to adopt the sea as a profession. Their uncle had apprenticed them to the barque, and just because he liked them, they lived here in the saloon, and had a cabin all to themselves, instead of roughing it on the half-deck, sleeping in wooden bunks, and “chumming” it with the spectioneer, the carpenter, and bo’s’n.

He liked the lads, I say, and no man who is over forty, and has still a soul left in him, can help liking an innocent boy of this age, ere yet the bloom has left his healthy cheeks, or the days have come when he scores twenty and fancies himself a real live man.

Walt and Charlie to-day, being so happy at heart from having seen the sun again, were raking the skipper fore and aft with concentrated broadsides of questions.

It was “Oh, I say, uncle,” this and “I say, uncle,” this, that, and t’other all the time, until the great plum-pudding was borne in, and then they stopped their chatter for a minute at least, to wonder and admire.

No ordinary “plum-duff” this. It was large, and round, and brown, and jolly, half inclined to burst its sides with merriment, as the mate lovingly poured the rich gravy over it. Inside it was studded with real raisins, like the stars of an Arctic night in number. Those raisins were well within hail of each other, and not simply dotted and dibbled in here and there as with the point of a marling-spike.

For Captain Mayne Brace knew how a boy or man should live, to buck himself up to face the rigours of an Arctic winter.

While the boys are busy striking their share of that lordly plum-pudding below, let me say just one brief word or two about the Walrus herself.

She was almost a new barque then, and good enough to go anywhere and do anything, and belonged to three speculative merchants at Hull. These owners thought they knew quite a deal about Greenland East and Greenland West, and because they had never been to Polar seas, imagined that you had only to have a good ship and a crack crew to steam and sail away to the frozen North, pick up a paying cargo of seals or whales—skins and blubber—and sail back again, giving to the spirited owners a modest 200 per cent. on the capital.

The Walrus had been capitally found, her engines were the best, she was built of teak and braced with oak, fortified forward and all along the water-line, and carried every modern appliance that a barque could bear, with electric light, and—well, and what not?

Then Brace himself had been in the “country,” as the sea of ice is called, all his life, so had Milton the mate—both Dundee men—and the crew of Hull men, Scots, and Shetlanders could hardly have been better chosen.

“I’m going to do my level best,” Captain Mayne Brace had said to his owners, as they all sat together in the cosy saloon, while, hardly a year ago, the Walrus, with steam up, was just about to bear up and away. “I’ll do my best, gentlemen, to bring the Walrus home a bumper ship. I’ll try the sealing first. If they have been scared away by the impulsive Danes, I’ll bear up for the Bay of Baffin and do what I can with the whales, even if I have to winter there and wait for the spring fishing.”

“Bravo, Brace!” said one of the owners. “It is all a bit of a spec on our part, you know. But we’re well insured, Brace, and rather than come home a clean ship, we wouldn’t mind if you left her ribs in Baffin’s Bay.”

Brace smiled. He knew what they meant. He had heard such hints before. But these greedy owners had made just one mistake. They had chosen as skipper an honest man—the noblest work of God.

“I’m going to do the best for us all,” he repeated quietly.

Then good-byes were said, and the ship had sailed.

Nor’wards, ever nor’wards, the Walrus had gone cracking on, under steam or under sail, leaving the green British shores on which spring was already spreading bourgeon, wild flower, and leaf. Nor’wards, and past the Orkneys, the Shetlands, and the Faroes; nor’wards, into wilder, bluer, blacker seas and shorter days, encountering storms such as cannot even be conceived by sailors in other parts of the world, with waves as high as pyramids, foam-crested, and madly, demoniacally breaking around, or against, or over the barque; nor’wards, with ice-bound bows, and snowstorms raging on the deck, and seas that sang in the frosty air as they went curling past; nor’wards as defiantly as ever sailed ship from British shore.

Nor’wards, but all in vain. For the Danes, who had ploughed their way in their sturdy high-freeboard ships through the darkness of winter itself, had been there before them.

Long months’ fishing and hardly fifty tons of oil. British though they were, the daring Danes had kept ahead of them, leaving naught for them to gaze upon save blood-stained ice and gory krengs, on which gaunt bears were feeding.

Captain Mayne Brace, disgusted, had left the country, and, after a long voyage, had arrived in Baffin’s Bay.

A few “right whales” had been seen, but even they were hunted and wild, and so they had fished all the summer and caught nothing.

Well, but Captain Brace only shook his brown beard and laughed. He wasn’t the man to let down his heart in a hurry.

He was just the very life and soul of his crew; he bore all his own hardships with never a murmur, and had taught his men to do the same. All through the darkness he studied to keep them active. They had games on the snow under stars and aurora; they fished in the ice-holes, tobogganed on the one great ghostly berg that lay not far off; and, on board, hardly an evening passed but some sort of amusement had been on the boards—a play, a dance, a sing-song, a yarning-and-story-telling spell, or a concert itself.

They had often gone on shore in sledges, the men drawing each other time about, and Nick and Nora lending a shoulder.

The doctor was a plucky, clever young fellow about twenty years old, who, having to wait for another whole twelve months before he should be old enough—though he had passed—to be gowned and capped, thought he might as well put in that year at sea, and so here he was.

Next to the skipper himself young Dr. Wright was the best-loved man on board. He was really the quintessence of kindness, and you never would have found him in his bunk if one of the men were seriously ill.

To-day he would not wait the conclusion of dinner, but, with his telescope strapped across his shoulder, he had scrambled right up to the crow’s-nest itself, to have one look round before the sun went down again.

At sea it is always the strange and the unexpected that is happening.

But when Wright turned his glass towards the great snow-lands of the west, he started back and rubbed his eyes.

Were those eyes deceiving him?

He wiped the glass and looked again.

“Mercy on us!” he muttered. “Who or what are these?”

It was a team of some kind that had just come over the horizon, and was now wending its way adown the league-long slope towards the head of the bay.

And now he can make them out more distinctly. It was some wild and wandering tribe of semi-savages from the interior, with dogs and sledges and men on skis,[A] or snow-shoes.

He knew that these roving bands were dangerous, and that they came but to rob or even to carry off into exile the more peaceable Yaks who live along the shores.

So he went hurrying down now to make his report, and soon the news spread through the ship, and the excitement was very great indeed.

The warriors—if warriors they were—delayed their coming, however.

The sun set, darkness fell, and it seemed evident that the natives had made a détour, or gone away entirely.

But watchful eyes guarded the Walrus and the village on shore through all the dreary hours of darkness that followed.

The Yaks ashore yonder had been altogether friendly to the Walrus people, and Captain Mayne Brace determined that he would defend them to the last in case of attack.

But night passed by without a single event happening; and about half-past ten, just as the dawn began to appear in the east, like the reflection from a great city, Wright went up to the crow’s-nest, and once more turned his telescope westwards.

Yes; yonder they were, sure enough, at the very head of the bay not five miles off. He could see their gesticulations, and watch the men as they went scurrying to and fro seeking for errant dogs to harness to the sledges.

They were coming! And before day dawned or the sun rose they would be all around the ship.

The best way to secure peace is to be ready for war.

But Captain Mayne Brace was soon prepared to welcome either friend or foe.

Were they savages?

CHAPTER II
“HEAVE ROUND, SIR,” SAID CAPTAIN MAYNE BRACE

When the Walrus, in the shortening days of autumn, had steamed slowly into Incognita Bay, she had to force her way through the pancake ice with which the whole extent of the water was covered. Flat pieces these are, probably no more than a foot thick, covered of course with several inches of snow, and with an average diameter of, say, eight feet. They are really the débris of a baby-floe which the waves, raised by some far-off gale of wind, have broken up. The snow-edge all around them is raised by the constant contact of the pieces of ice with one another, and this gives them a fancied resemblance to gigantic pancakes. Hence their name.

But soon after the Walrus had anchored, the sky had cleared, and in the dead, unbroken silence of an early winter, they were frozen together by strong bay-ice. Then snow had fallen and fallen and fallen, with never a breath of wind strong enough to lift one feathery flake, till, on looking out over the bulwarks one morning after the decks had been cleared, and the sun was shining again, lo! the whole surface of the bay was one unbroken, unwrinkled sheet of dazzling snow.

Had that fall continued it would have buried ship and crew and all.

Then the glass had gone down somewhat, and the snow-field fell and shrank.

Harder frost than ever rendered Nature’s winter winding-sheet after this so solid and hard, that a regiment of artillery could have passed over it and left not a trace behind.

When snow had again fallen, it had been accompanied by such high, wild winds, that the flakes were ground into choking ice-dust, and swept clean off the surface of the bay.

The head of this inlet was about five nautical miles from the ship, but as soon as the advancing natives got on to the level snow-bay, with dogs and sledges, they commenced to make short work of this, and their strange, shrill cries, as the dogs were urged madly onwards, could now be distinctly heard by those on board the Walrus.

They were coming on like a whirlwind!

Faded the rich orange bar on the southern horizon, and the first rays of the great silver shield of a sun fell athwart the bay.

The advance was stopped in a second’s time. Down dropped men and dogs, the dogs to rest and pant, the natives to pray, their heads turned sunwards.

Two figures in the tallest sledge, who were wrapped in the skins of the big ice-bear, did not descend. Yet even they bent low their heads in reverence.

“We will have no fight,” said Captain Mayne Brace. “Men who pray never fight, save in a cause that is just.”

“For all that,” said “Dr.” Wright, “look yonder!”

He was pointing northwards, where the Teelies, as the friendly natives were called, could now be seen rapidly advancing in a compact body, all armed with that terrible battle-axe, the seal-club.

They were evidently bent on intercepting the newcomers. Perhaps they knew, of old, those semi-savages from the far interior.

“Now,” said the skipper, “this affair enters on a new phase, and if we cannot intervene as peacemakers, the snow out yonder will soon be brown with blood.”

“I have it, sir,” cried bold young Wright. “Give me ten men, and I will go and meet the Teelies. I don’t want to see bloodshed, captain. I have enough on the sick-list as it is, without the addition of wounded Yaks.”

“Take your men, and off you go, Wright,” cried Mayne Brace, laughing; “but I believe you are just spoiling for a fight all the same.”

Before an Englishman could have said “Auchtermuchty” without choking, Wright and his ten merry men were over the side and away.

He soon reached the Teelies and stopped, but these men seemed very excited, and brandished their clubs threateningly.

The sleigh Eskimos had also halted, and appeared to be preparing.

At that moment a battle appeared to be imminent, and, if it took place, a queer one it would be.

The Teelies were like a bull-terrier straining wildly at the end of its chain, mad to make a dash for the enemy.

And poor Wright found that, do what he might, he must speedily let them slip, then stand idly by and look on.

Donnybrook fair on an election day, or a wedding at ancient Ballyporeen, wouldn’t be a circumstance to the fight that would follow.

But lo! just at that moment the Gordian knot was unexpectedly cut.

For the high sledge, with the two men in it, was seen to detach itself from the main body, and, with but four dogs harnessed thereto, was driven at tremendous speed towards the Walrus.

Speed was slackened, however, before it got much over half-way, and now the faces and figures of the men on board could be distinctly seen.

And Captain Mayne Brace and his crew stared silently and wonderingly.

These men were evidently not Eskimos, far less were they savages. One was very tall and squarely built, and, had he not been so dark in skin, would have been very handsome.

His companion was evidently very short, but as broad in the beam as any athlete would care to be.

Both were armed with rifles, but these were slung carelessly in front of the sledge.

Presently they were close at hand. Then the taller of the two, who had been driving, ordered the dogs to “down-charge,” and threw the reins to his companion.

When he stood erect on the snow, with his spear-like pole in his left hand, and pulled his skin hood off, the volume of long dark brown hair that tumbled down over his shoulders, his splendid fur-clad figure and dignity of bearing, would have brought down the house in any theatre.

Then he tossed his head, and shook back his locks.

“Ingomar, sir, at your service!” he said, smiling.

The captain stood in the gangway.

“Ingomar, is it?” he said, smiling in turn. “Well, indeed, you look it, young fellow. But won’t Ingomar honour us with his presence on board?” he added.

“With pleasure, captain; and, come to think of it, that is what brought me here.”

Almost ignoring the assistance of the Jacob’s ladder thrown to him, he swung himself easily on board, and stood before them all.

“Heigho!” he said. “This is a nice wind-up to a windy day. What will happen next, I wonder?”

Boy-like, Charlie at once stepped forward and shook Ingomar by the hand. Boys all love heroes. So do men, only they don’t like to show it.

“I’m sure,” said Charlie, impulsively, “uncle will make you welcome.”

“Hurrah!” cried the men.

“Your welcome, young sir,” said Mayne Brace, “shall be second only to that we gave the sun, as soon as we know a little about you, and what you desire.”

“Prettily spoken, captain. Forgive my familiarity. And I tell you straight, gentlemen, that what I desire most at the present moment is a piece of soap, a basin of water, and three towels. This hospitality to be followed, if you’ll be so good—and, being British, you are bound to be—by a good square meal and a cigar!”

Charlie would have led Ingomar straight away down to his own cabin on the spur of the moment.

But Ingomar held back.

“No,” he said politely, “let me wash—scrub, if you like it better—forward at the fo’c’sle. Every day for six months I have stripped, and my body has been scoured with snow. But my face——”

“Here you are, sir. Follow me!” This from one of the men, who had brought a wooden, rope-handled bucket of steaming water.

Ingomar was conducted to the half-deck, and, when he emerged, but for his romantic dress of skins, no one would have known him.

The skin, even of his hands, was now as white as a lady’s, and his complexion perfect.

And his every action, movement, and sentence were those of a well-bred man of the world.

He looked about ten years younger than he did when he stepped on board.

“By the way, Captain—eh——”

“Mayne Brace,” said Charlie.

“Captain Mayne Brace, I have been dreaming for weeks in my tent, far away over the hills yonder, that I was sailing southwards in a British barque. The fact is, sir, though life in these regions may have a spice of romance about it, one gets tired after a time of the winter’s darkness; and a diet of dried fish, seal-mutton, and whale-blubber becomes irksome at last, even if a bear-steak is now and then added to the menu.

“Do you know, sir,” he added, interrupting himself, “that if your tailor could make me a serge suit of some sort, and if I had my hair cut, I’d really have the audacity to ask you to grant me a passage back to temperate regions with you?”

“We will be delighted, Ingomar,” from the captain.

“Oh, that isn’t my name, but the name of the play in which I last took part in a Chicago theatre. But I should be glad to tell you who and what I am after I have munched a ship biscuit.”

As they went below to dinner, Captain Brace leaving orders for the man in the sledge and the dogs also, to be fed, Charlie found time to seize Ingomar’s hand again and pull himself up, while he whispered—

“Don’t have your hair cut, and don’t wear a serge suit. You look ever so much better in skins.”

* * * * *

After dinner Ingomar consented to sit in an easy-chair, but well away from the fire.

He lit his cigar.

“I’m very happy, Captain Brace,” he said.

“So pleased!” said Brace.

“You promised to tell us your story,” said Charlie.

“Well, yes,” returned the stranger, “and for your sake I’m sorry it must be brief. But, Captain Brace, may I first go and give Humpty Dumpty his orders, if I am to sleep on board all night?”

“Humpty Dumpty, as you call him, is perhaps, like yourself, an Englishman?”

“Oh, pardon me, captain, but neither Humpty nor I have the honour to be English. I am an American, sir, born and bred, and so is my mate. I don’t drawl, and I don’t ‘guess’ and ‘calculate,’ and I don’t use my nose much to talk with. Humpty does a little. But Humpty Dumpty was only a man before the mast when we became first acquainted. I’ll run up and speak to him over the side.”

“No, no,” cried the captain. “We’ll have Humpty down here for a minute.”

“What a strange name!” said Walt.

“Well, yes, but it fits him. It fits his shape and build. His real name is a deal too—a—aristocratic, don’t you call it, for him. Hampden is his surname, so I call him Humpty Dumpty for short.”

“Hullo, here he is!”

Humpty stood in the doorway, cap in hand.

He was about five feet or less in height, and in his Eskimo dress, with his tremendous breadth of shoulder, shaped somewhat like the capital letter V.

“You called me, sir?”

“Um, yes, Humpty. You are to drive back to our tribe, and tell them they must get away over the horizon again and camp there, but to return to-morrow before sunrise, because I believe these young gentlemen would like to ride in a dogsledge, and see the village of which I am king.”

“Oh!” from both boys.

“Right, sir; I’m off straight’s an arrow.”

“One minute, Mr. Hampden. You’ll have a glass of wine?”

“Excuse me, capen, but I’ve tasted it before, I reckon. Yes, sirree, once I took a thimbleful too much, and next day, sez I to myse’f, ‘No more liquor for Dumpty.’”

In a minute or two after this Dumpty was dashing over the snow to the spot where his tribe had been left.

The doctor entered now.

The steward had kept his dinner hot.

“The Teelies have gone back, sir, and peace is restored.”

He bowed and smiled to Ingomar, then sat down to dinner; but while he ate, only ordinary subjects were talked about.

Then Wright joined the circle round the fire, and, having cleared away, the steward considered himself privileged to stand in the doorway for a short time to listen.

For on board Arctic ships faithful servants are allowed quite a deal of freedom, which, by the way, I have never known them abuse.

“Well, my friends,” said Ingomar, “you must excuse my shortcomings as a story-teller. I suppose I’m not old enough to tell fibs, so my yarn, if short and stupid, has at least truthfulness in its favour.”

“Heave round, sir,” said Captain Mayne Brace.

And Ingomar, smiling, obeyed.

CHAPTER III
“MY PRIDE WARRED AGAINST MY BETTER FEELINGS”

“Well, gentlemen, Ingomar being merely my stage name because I played in that piece more than in any other, I ought at the very offset to tell you my baptismal one. That was Hans, and my father being an Armstrong, I very naturally adopted his surname. Hans Armstrong, then; and here you have me clad in skins, of which rig-out I am beginning to be slightly ashamed.”

“Pardon me,” said Captain Brace, “you tell us that you belonged to Chicago. Do you happen to have any personal acquaintance with the Dutch-American millionaire Armstrong?”

“I have known that gentleman, sir, since I was eighteen inches long. He wasn’t much of a millionaire then. I do myself the honour of believing that it was I who brought all the good luck to that well-known family; and although when I was a child Mrs. A. occasionally showed her extreme affection by spanking me, I loved and love her very much. If alive, young gentlemen, she is my mother; if dead, she is a saint in heaven. They have just one other child, a girl, my dear sister Marie, years younger than myself, and she will fall heir some day, I suppose, to all my father’s millions.”

“But you yourself, Hans?”

“Well, sir, I—I suppose I am a fool, sir, or, more probably, a born idiot. I am likewise the prodigal son. For the last six months and over I have not certainly been eating husks with the swine. It would be wrong and cowardly in me to allude to my friends the Yak-Yaks as swine; but I have been living, as I have already told you, in a somewhat unrefined way.

“The Armstrongs, I think I have heard my father say, first went to Britain and settled there, then across the sea to America, and fought against you during the War of Independence. But that has nothing whatever to do with me. My parents have been very, very good to me, and my education has been quite up to the Boston standard. Only when I reached the advanced age of seventeen—I am now two and twenty—I began to grow reckless. Civilization was not good enough for me. It was too much in the same groove. I determined therefore to shake the dust of Chicago off my shoes—there is a good deal of dust in Chicago—and find my way into regions remote, where, if the people were not rich, they were at least honest. My sister’s wild entreaties, my mother’s tears, prevailed not against my headstrong self.

“My adventures among the Rocky Mountains and forests of the Far West would fill a book. I thought seriously of living in the wilds for life, and marrying the daughter of a chief.

“He was ugly enough to have stopped a clock, but a splendid warrior, and his braves were all that braves should be. Cheena, the daughter, was but a child of twelve. But she interested and amused me, and perhaps captivated me with her beauty and her innocent ways. One of these innocent ways was to play with snakes. She even taught me to boldly touch and handle the rattler.

“No wild beast would harm Cheena, and she went fearlessly into the dens of even grizzly bears, and played with their puppies as if they had been dolls.

“I lived in the wilds with this wandering tribe for nearly three happy years. Cheena knew English, and I taught her more. Shakespeare was my constant companion. Better perhaps had it been my Bible. But Cheena and I played many a scene together in glades of the beautiful forest.

“I must hurry over all this, though.

“Well, one day, with three men and two tame wolves, I went away on a big shoot. When we returned, I found that a warlike tribe had attacked the chief’s camp, and that he and his braves had been defeated and scattered.

“I never saw him again, nor poor Cheena, though I wandered about in search of them for three long, dreary months.

“Then one day I returned to my father’s house. It was late at night, but I climbed up into my own old bedroom, just as I used to do when a lad.

“Nothing was changed. Everything had been kept sacred as a temple.

“I went quietly to bed, and when next morning I coolly rang for water and old Roberts entered, he shook with fear so that he would have fallen had I not supported him.

“‘Is—it—you, Master Hans?’ he quavered, ‘and not a dead—go—go—ghost?’

“‘Is that like the hand of a dead go—go—ghost, Roberts?’ I said, grasping his arm with my forest-hardened fingers.

“‘Oh—no—no,’ he almost shrieked. ‘Lor, sir, how you’ve growed! Your mother and Sissie will be skeered, I guess, when they sees you.’

“‘And they are all well?’

“‘That’s so, Master Hans; and the old man too.’

“‘Well, some hot water, Roberts. I’ll wash and come downstairs to breakfast.’

“I was down before anybody, and sitting quietly in a rocker, smoking one of dad’s best Havanas, when Sissie and mother entered.

“You may judge what followed, boys.”

“But,” pleaded Charlie, “you’re not making the story half long enough.”

“I settled down now, sir, to the hardest work ever I had in my life.”

“And that was?”

“Doing nothing. But I couldn’t keep it up. It was ruining my fine constitution.

“I was always fond of the stage, and took Marie to see Ingomar one evening.

“She was delighted. I was not. Ingomar was not written by Shakespeare, I believe, but it was a pet play of mine, and I knew I could act the part better.

“But somehow I went back several nights running. Then, as my good or my bad fortune would have it, one evening the excited manager rushed before the screen to announce that, to his grief and chagrin, the principal actor had been taken suddenly ill, and that the play could not be put on. Yes, of course, he added, the gate-money would be refunded.

“After this, some impulse seized me. I stood boldly up in the box, and shouted with arm extended—

“‘Stay, I know the part, and if the manager will but give me a chance, I will try my best.’

“Every eye was turned towards my box, while Sissie shrank behind the curtain. I am told, sir, that I am not bad looking, and my figure is fairly good.

“There was a wild ‘Hooray!’ now, at all events, and that evening found me before the footlights.

“I played with heart and soul. I had the people with me, and felt I had; and when at the end of the first act I was called before the curtain, I received an ovation that would have satisfied a far better actor than I.

“Hardly thinking about the disgrace my people would imagine I was bringing on them, I accepted the manager’s terms to play for three weeks.

“I told them that night what I had done. Mother was silent, Sissie looked frightened; and when next morning we all met at breakfast, I could see that both had been crying.

“Scarcely a word was said, but that forenoon my father asked me into his sanctum.

“‘Boy, boy,’ he began, ‘why this madness? Do you wish to bring my grey hairs down with sorrow to the grave?’

“I sat quietly down that our eyes might be more on a level, for I am very tall.

“‘Dear father,’ I said, ‘I am foolish enough to think that I shall be an honour to you as an actor.’

“‘Honour! Actor!’ he cried.

“‘It is a noble profession,’ I said quietly; ‘and when you come to listen to my interpretation of Hamlet, you will believe that God has gifted your son with genius. There will be no sorrow then, dear daddy.

“‘Besides,’ I added mischievously, ‘you haven’t got a single solitary grey hair in head or whiskers.’

“Some people are hard to convince. My father is one of them.

“‘I will cut you off with a dollar,’ he thundered, ‘if you do not give up this disgraceful fad. If you do I will take you into partnership.’

“Then I told him grandiosely that the resolution I had taken was fixed, immutable; but that rather than bring disgrace upon him, I would change my name as soon as this engagement was over, and go into a far country to act where no one would know me.

“‘I began life,’ he said, as he sunk back in his chair, ‘with fourpence in my pocket.’

“‘And I, daddy,’ I replied, ‘am beginning life without a penny, but possessed of one of the dearest old fathers that ever a young man was gifted with.’

“He was softened.

“‘Boy,’ he said, after a pause, ‘I am wealthy, but your sister must be my heir. If you must go—then go. I will place a trifle at your disposal in my bank at New York. You will have that to fall back upon, when your fad and folly leave you. Good-bye. I may never see you more.’

“He started from his chair and marched straight out of the room.

“Here, boys, ends the second act of the prodigal son.

“Just two months after this I found that my father’s words were coming true. I had attempted Hamlet, but was playing to very poor houses.

“When I came home one evening and found a very humble dinner waiting for me, I became very sad indeed.

“But worse was to follow, for in a week’s time my engagement at the theatre was over, and I was politely told I was not good business, and could not be retained.

“I went quietly and, I thought, calmly away; but happening to enter a club that evening where my presence had always been welcome before, I found only coldness. When a rival actor taunted me as to my success, I completely lost control of myself. I flew at the fellow, picked him up, armchair and all, and threw him to the other side of the room.

“I heard no more of the matter, but in a week’s time I found myself alone in my dingy lodgings without a copper in my pocket.

“I was alone with my pride. I might beg, but never again, I told myself, would I darken my father’s door.

“It was two days after this when, while strolling along near to the docks, I was met by a French seafaring man. He looked at me and I at him.

“‘Do you want work?’ he asked.

“‘That I do. I’ll do anything.’

“‘Well, you look a likely sportsman. I’m off in a day or two on a curious kind of cruise to the very far north.’

“‘I’ll go with you,’ I answered, ‘if the wages are not starvation.’

“‘Come with me now,’ he said. ‘We will soon settle matters.’

“He had a boat, and we were both rowed off to a strange-looking but strong and sturdy brig.

“Every man on board except this same Humpty Dumpty was French. What cared I? Surely I could hold my own in a fight against a score of little sailors.

“‘You are not a sailor,’ said my new friend, when we were together in his little cabin.

“‘No,’ I said; ‘but I can shoot, and wield an axe, and I can fish.’

“‘You’re my man. But I must explain. We are engaged by a celebrated firm of chemists to go to Greenland waters and fish for sharks. The oil of the livers is not only finer and richer but more abundant than that of the cod, and it is considered an infallible cure for consumption.

“‘You’ll have to rough it,’ he added. “‘Thank God to have the chance.’

“And the bargain was speedily made, and the articles signed.

“I was to join in two days’ time.

“That night it suddenly occurred to me to visit my father’s bank here. I still had his letter, and by its aid could identify myself.

“I must confess that I went to that bank in bitterness of spirit against my poor daddy. But I felt sure that the trifle he had deposited to my credit, would be but the traditional dollar with which prodigal sons are often cut off. I meant to bore a hole in it, and wear it round my neck.

“I had no sooner made myself known than the manager, to my great surprise, shook me by the hand.

“‘Come into my room,’ he said. ‘Your father has sent me your photograph, so that there is no need for identification. And the cheque is a handsome one.’

“‘I hope, sir,’ I said, ‘you will not tantalize me. I expect nothing from my father except one dollar.’

“‘The cash standing to your credit,’ he said, ‘is two millions sterling.’

“I answered scarcely a word. I was too dazed to speak. This, then, was the dollar with which my father had cut me off.

“I arose from my chair, and, hardly taking time to shake hands with this business-like banker, I walked straight out, and away home to my dingy, dismal lodgings.

“I wanted to think, and to be alone.

“‘My poor father!’ These were the first words I said to myself. And at this moment I would have given a good deal to be sitting once more in our old-fashioned parlour, with mother and sister near me, and my father studying the markets as he sat in his chair.

“But evil thoughts began to take the place of good, and my pride warred against my better feelings.

“These two millions were a million times more than I deserved, though it would leave him but little poorer. This was true, but nevertheless I felt that I was cut off.

“‘Here is thy portion, boy,’ he seemed to have said. ‘Get thee away into a far country, and come not near us again.’

“I was banished. I would keep to my engagement with the French shark-hunter strictly and to the letter. My millions might lie there. I would not draw a cheque even for a dollar. I was proud, and my pride bred bitterness of heart.

“I wrote at least half a dozen letters to Sissie and mother, read them over, and tore them up as soon as penned. For somehow that bitterness of heart breathed all through each one of them.

“Then, when calmer, I wrote one simple, loving letter, bidding all good-bye. And it ended thus: ‘When I am worthy to be my good old father’s son I will return.’”

* * * * *

“Ah, gentlemen,” he continued, after a pause of silence that no one cared to break, “my long banishment to this dreary country, though self-inflicted, has done me good and changed my mind. Before, I could see men but as trees walking, now I can read all my father’s motives. Like all our forbears, he is proud, but he is true, and—well, I must confess I love him. There!

“My adventures since I left home are too numerous to tell you. Our ship was wrecked, and Dumpty and I alone were saved. Then I joined a band of wandering Eskimos—the Yak-Yaks. I did not care what became of me. I felt I was running away from myself, from my evil, prideful nature, and so here I am, a changed and, I trust, a better man.

“One thing, however, I have determined upon. I will not return to my father’s house, until I have done something which shall show him that I possess some of the sand and grit in me, which has descended to us from the old fighting Armstrongs.

“But, I say,” he added comically, “you will get me that serge suit, won’t you? And you will let me and Humpty Dumpty join your ship, and let me have my hair cut, and—well, and just share your adventures, won’t you?”

“By all means,” replied Captain Mayne Brace.

“One minute before you finally decide,” said Ingomar. “For all you know, I may be a mere adventurer or a madman. But see, I have some business-like method in my madness.”

He pulled from an inside pouch a bundle of papers.

“I have kept these, Captain Brace. I place them before you, and, unless you promise me you will glance over them, I shall return to-morrow to my igloo among the Yak-Yaks, and trouble you no more.”

“I will take them to my cabin, young sir, though I think there is no need to. I can read honesty in your eyes.”

Ingomar’s manner changed now at once. He was brimful of happiness apparently, and addressed himself more to the boys than the others.

“I say, lads,” he cried, “won’t we have a day of it to-morrow, if your good captain will permit you to cross the mountains with me?”

“Oh, we shall enjoy it!” cried Charlie.

“Won’t we just,” said Walt.

“I’ve never driven dogs, but I think I could if I tried.”

“Hurrah!”

And the evening passed very happily away.

CHAPTER IV
THE AGREEMENT DRAWN UP AND SIGNED

Like all men who are ever likely to do any good in this world, and leave footsteps in the sands of time, Captain Mayne Brace was an early riser.

The stars were still glowing like diamonds in the sky, then, and the merry dancers—the aurora—were still at their revels when he turned out to have his bath. A quarter of an hour after this found him on deck.

Here, to his surprise, he met young Ingomar. He stood on the poop, his face skywards and to the north.

“Is it not a grand sight, sir?” he said. “How near and how brightly these stars and planets burn! It seems as if one could touch them with one’s rifle or fishing-rod. And the aurora-gleams—the positive magnetism that comes from the far-off Southern Pole—how beautiful their transparency of colours! Those ribbons of light seem to me like living things. And in the stillness of this early morning do you not hear them talking? Shsh—shs—shs—shs! Oh, sir, is it not God Himself who is speaking there—the God of power, the God we know so little of, the God whom in our pride of knowledge we sometimes venture to impugn, to correct, to criticize! Forgive me, sir, for speaking thus before an older man than myself. But oh, sir, there is a glamour about that sky, about these northern solitary wilds, which gets around the heart and soul, and makes one feel one is really face to face with the Creator—Maker not alone of this puny earth, but of yonder universe—of infinity itself!”

He scarcely gave Captain Brace time to reply.

“Down in one’s bunk,” he continued, “one belongs to this world. Up here among the stars and aurora one is with God. But down below last night, sir, I was thinking of my father, my mother, and sister. To say that I was not longing a little for home would be to insinuate that I was more than a young man. Yet my resolution has not been one whit shaken. When I can do something that no one else has ever yet done, or at least made an attempt to do this something, the prodigal son will return to his father’s house; not till then. My father is a very Napoleon of finance. In that line I may never, can never, hope to equal him, nor do I desire to do so. Yet I may become a great explorer, and help to add to the world’s fund of knowledge for the world’s benefit.

“I had made up my mind never to finger a frank of those two millions, but I shall, and will gladly, spend one million, if need be, for the furtherance of a plan I have in view, and have well thought out. It is an ambitious one, sir. I feel I ought to blush even to mention it.”

“You need not, young sir, if it be honourable,” said Brace.

Ingomar, as we may continue to call him, had been walking up and down the deck so rapidly, that it was difficult to keep pace with his gigantic strides.

But he hove to now suddenly, and confronted the captain.

“Listen,” he said. “The Americans have done as much as any other nation save Britain to solve the mystery that hangs around the Pole yonder. The veil will soon be raised. I would go farther; I would venture to aid in the attempts that are now about to be made by you Britishers and by the Germans, to wrench its secrets from the Great Unknown, from the Antarctic itself, to force it to tell what it knows of the story of the earth.”

“The ambition,” said the captain, “is a noble one, certainly, and even I have had thoughts of bringing the knowledge I have gained in regions round our own North Pole to bear upon the South. Indeed, I was almost thinking of joining the expedition when I got home.”

“But I,” said Ingomar, “would not join any expedition. No, no, sir, and a thousand ‘No’s.’ I should fit out my own. And if I were to die in the attempt, why, I should die in a worthy cause; and to youth death does not seem so very dreadful if surrounded by a halo of noble adventure.

“And would you believe it,” he went on, “while in my lonesome igloo over the hills yonder, I have for months been forming all my plans for future operation. I would rather lay these before older and more skilled and scientific men than myself, and all I should do, all the honour I might obtain, would be that of finding the money for the expedition.

“Well, now, it may seem an abrupt question to ask, but I think that as long as a fellow keeps a clear brain and a good look-out ahead, abruptness is no great sin. Can you, then, or will you, sell me your ship?”

“This barque is not my own, alas! or, after having been so singularly unfortunate in ‘making a voyage,’[B] and presuming that you are sincere, I would gladly do so on the understanding that my services as master mariner of the Walrus should be retained. But come down below. The fire is well alight, and we can talk uninterruptedly for a good hour yet before the others turn out.”

Although the acquaintance with each other of these two men was so very recent, there was a something—call it by any scientific name you please—that seemed to draw them together.

Captain Mayne Brace was very favourably impressed by the prodigal son, as he would insist upon calling himself. The coincidence that had brought them together was certainly strange, but Fate moves in a mysterious way, and Brace determined to take advantage of the meeting between Ingomar and himself.

He candidly opened his mind to the young millionaire.

“I am bound,” he said, “to do all I can to secure a good voyage during the spring fishery. Nothing could prevent me from attempting this for the benefit of my owners; and if I must return ‘a clean ship,’ then I shall have to steel my nerves to encounter my owners. The ship is well—too well—insured, and it was hinted to me that if I failed in making a paying voyage, no questions would be asked if I cast her away. There would be little chance of that, for even after a rough-and-tumble life at sea for so many years, I have a little honour left me, a clean heart, and a clear conscience.

“But, Mr. Armstrong——”

“Call me not Armstrong yet, sir—just Ingomar, and hang the ‘Mr.’”

“Well, Ingomar, I have no doubt my owners would be willing to sell the Walrus, and therefore, if you choose now to sign articles, I shall rate you as harpooner, and shall be perfectly willing to ship for you, before we leave these regions, the Yak-Yaks, the dogs, and young bears you say would be necessary to make our expedition a success.

“We are a sturdy ship and good sailer, and we have plenty of room, if we do not make a voyage, for you and your pets.”

“You have made me very happy, sir. Let us make the agreement at once.”

“Just one moment, young sir. You have told me that the Walrus will be the auxiliary vessel carrying extra stores, the dogs, the Yak-Yak hunters, sledges, etc., and that you would build or buy and fit out a special ship for the actual scientific exploration. Now, I am a plain man—under what flag should we sail?”

“The Stars and Stripes?” said Ingomar.

This was more like a question than an answer, and Brace replied sturdily—

“No, sir. I will sail under no flag except the British.

‘The flag that braved a thousand years
The battle and the breeze.’

But,” he added, half regretfully, “if you succeed in purchasing this good barque—and a better never sailed to the Sea of Ice—she will belong to you, and you can hoist your Stars and Stripes; only——”

“I understand,” said Ingomar, “and honour your sentiment. Well, you must be captain of the Walrus, that is clear. But everything else must be made clear, and I am certain we will not quarrel about the flag displayed.”

He considered a moment.

“Let us have the two in one,” he said. “Not one beneath the other, else we should quarrel worse than ever.”

He laughed at his own quaint notion, as he added—

“Why not have the two flags tacked together, so that their united ensign should show from one side the Bird of Freedom—the eagle, and on the other your British batch of Lions?”

It was Captain Brace’s turn to laugh now, and he did so right heartily.

“‘Pon my soul,” he said, “the conceit is a good one. I see that you and I, sir, are united, anyhow—just as the British and the Americans should ever be.”

Then the agreement was drawn up and signed by both, and so this memorable interview came to a close.

“I feel so happy now, captain,” said young Ingomar, “that—that I could cry.”

“Rather an original method of showing happiness, isn’t it?”

“Rather effeminate, anyhow. But now I feel at home here; and within the last four and twenty hours my prospects in life have brightened, and my sky is clear; the star of hope is shining as brightly as the Pole star yonder. I’m young, you see, sir, and—— Well, I can’t help that, can I, Captain Brace? But I don’t mean to fail, anyhow.”

“No; and you have nothing to be ashamed of, Ingomar. As to failure—

‘In the lexicon of youth which fate reserves
For a bright manhood, there is no such word
As Fail.’”

* * * * *

True to time—in fact, a little before it—the Yak-Yaks were seen returning to the barque, yelling and whooping, the dogs stretched out, and apparently hugging the snow as they sped onwards like a hairy hurricane across the level stretch of bay.

It was arranged that Nick and Nora both should accompany this tour inland, but as they could not be expected to keep pace with these trained Arctic dogs, one was taken up into Captain Brace’s sledge, and the other with the boys themselves in Ingomar’s.

Food was not forgotten, you may be well sure, nor tobacco and knickknacks for the natives.

The journey was a long one, and many a halt had to be made on hill-tops, and even in the valleys beneath.

No one who has not travelled in a real Eskimo well-appointed dog-sleigh can have the faintest notion of the speed obtained on good snow.

To-day it seemed as if the drivers were bent upon making a record, and it was one that I would defy any motor-car to make over the same track. The dogs needed to rest now and then, to lie down and pant a little, and refresh themselves by gulping down mouthfuls of the pure snow that was within easy reach.

Then they were fit again once more.

Though it was but little past one o’clock p.m., the sun was already going down when the halt for luncheon was called; and it need hardly be said that under so bracing a sky our travellers made each a hearty meal.

They were high up on a rounded hill, and the view all around from the rugged mountains of the west to the east, where lay the rough and rugged sea of ice, was indescribably beautiful.

Even the Yak-Yaks themselves seemed impressed with the transcendent loveliness of this marvellous Arctic sunset, and those moments of such stillness and silence that one might have heard a snowflake fall.

It was night and starlight before they reached the Eskimo village.

A moon by this time had risen solemnly over the hills, and flooded all the country with its strange, mysterious light—- a light the like of which I have seen in no land save the Arctic, a light that seems mystic and positively holy.

All the inhabitants turned out to welcome our heroes, and a wild, strange welcome it was.

This was a wandering tribe, and consequently a more brave and fearless people than the inhabitants of the igloo villages around the coast.

But they were safe; and they looked upon Ingomar as their sun-king, as in their musical, labial language they expressed it.

This tribe might have numbered altogether some six or seven hundred souls, and I may as well tell the truth about them—they never fished for blubber themselves, but levied blackmail on their humbler and more industrious neighbours who lived along the shores of gulfs and bays.

They had very large stores of frozen blubber, however, thousands of skins, and plenty of stored fish, and flesh of every sort, from seagulls’ to whales’.

Stimulants in the shape of rum or brandy I do not believe they ever tasted, but they seemed all the more happy in consequence.

Ingomar strode round among them, and even the children ran towards him to kiss his hand. Nay, more, the very dogs danced about him, but “down-charged” whenever he lifted his hand.

It was a queer sight to see the splendid jet-black Newfoundland standing close by his Nora’s side and defying the whole howling pack, turning his head sideways now and then to give Nora a lick, as much as to say, “Don’t be afraid, my dear; they’re only ignorant savages. I could fight them six at a time.”

The night was to be one of hard frost; but these nomads, much to our heroes’ astonishment, lit a great fire of ancient pine wood, which they had excavated from a hillside not far off, and so John Frost was defied for once.

The arrival of real “Eengleeshmen” at their winter camp was an event that no one would ever forget.

Though, in a manner of speaking, warlike in comparison to the ordinary Eskimos, these Yak-Yaks seemed very gentle and tractable, and did all in their power to entertain their guests. They sang queer little musical ditties, and the men and women joined in every chorus, clapping knees and brows with their palms in quite a funny way.

Then some of the head hunters gave a kind of dramatic performance, spear-armed; and even Charlie and Walter could see that this represented every phase of a great bear-hunt, even to the slaying of Bruin, and the death of one of the hunters.

Then Ingomar himself took the snowy stage, and if he had been listened to with the same rapt attention in New York that he was to-night by these semi-savages, the probability is that he never would have left his own country.

Ingomar’s igloo was a very large one, and in it burned two huge lamps, giving plenty of heat and light. There was no smoke, because that which arose from the oil was carried right up through, and though all the whites slept here in their bear and seal-skins, there was not a particle of discomfort felt.

And all slumbered well till eight o’clock next morning.

The fire was now replenished, and smoked fish made a right dainty addition to the breakfast. The menu was certainly not so extensive as that of a Glasgow or London hotel, but our heroes sat down to it with hearty appetites, and that is more than most people can boast of in gloomy London town.

A surprise was awaiting them this morning, of which Ingomar had given the visitors no previous hint.

CHAPTER V
THE SHIP’S BEARS: GRUFF, AND GROWLEY, AND GRUMPEY, AND MEG

The surprise was this: no fewer than four young Greenland bears[C] were led forth, and attached or harnessed to a hugely large sledge, and seemed so perfectly quiet and well broken, that neither Charlie nor Walt hesitated for a moment to take their seats.

This sleigh could accommodate as many as ten men.

But these bears, although they moved not with half the rapidity of a team of dogs, never varied their pace, and never needed rest until they had covered a distance of not less than twelve miles.

Both the Newfoundlands had been shut up in an igloo. This was a precautionary measure, for although the bears never attempted to molest the Yak-dogs, they might not have objected to a mouthful or two of fine, fresh Newfoundland.

And the end of it all was that Captain Mayne Brace considered himself quite justified in purchasing these noble animals, for if anything came of the proposed Antarctic expedition, there was no reason why they should not be taken south with the force.

The days grew longer and longer now, fresh snow fell, softer winds began to blow, and at long last, with noises that are indescribable, the ice all around began to crack and break with the force of great waves that rolled in beneath them from the Eastern ocean.

Previous to this, however, peace had been established between the Yak-Yaks and the Teelies. The former had encamped close to the bay, and plenty of provisions and necessaries having been landed, Humpty Dumpty himself was left in charge of the whole—a kind of white king, in fact, who considered himself of no small importance. He had orders to keep the peace until the Walrus should return after the spring fishing.

The sun was now shining nineteen hours out of the twenty-four, and soon it would rise not to set again for months; and so one glorious morning sail was set, and the Walrus, scorning the lesser baybergs, went ploughing her way slowly seawards, and in good time reached the whaling grounds.

If Captain Mayne Brace had come to these northern seas merely for sport and pleasure, he might have had plenty of both. There were seals enough, though rather scattered; there were bears in abundance, strolling defiantly on their native ice, or buffeting the billows in search of pastures new; there were bladder-noses, sharks in scores—oh, in shoals sometimes—walruses on the ice and in the water, lonely unicorns, and those marvellous narwhals that go plunging about, and always seem to be going somewhere on particular business, but never getting there. Yet glorious times of it the beasts have for all that when they reach shoal water, and can spear with their wonderful weapons the flat fish and skates that there do dwell. For my own part I should rather like to be a narwhal for a month or two in summer. Hammer-headed sharks, too, there were, those hideous zygænas, and birds in millions; but, alas, for Brace’s pretty barque and her greedy owners, hardly ever was a true Greenland whale seen or tackled.

And so when the season was waxing to a close, and these monster whales had babies of their own with which they departed southward to warmer seas, for their children’s sake, Captain Brace determined one morning that it was time to bear up once more for Britain’s shores.

Of course the men were down-hearted, because many of them had families to provide for, and did not want to return with empty pockets. But “better luck next” is the motto of your Arctic sailor; and when Brace, their well-beloved skipper, told them that there was considerable probability that many of them—if they chose to volunteer—would be engaged for an expedition to the Southern Pole, they regained heart, and made the welkin ring with their lusty cheers.

When the Walrus arrived at last at Incognita Bay, and the anchor was let go in a cosy corner, as near to the shore as they could venture with safety, preparations were immediately commenced, first, for the shipment of huge blocks of fresh-water ice, and afterwards, for the embarkation of the dogs and Yak-Yaks they were to take southwards with them.

The bears were going to be the great difficulty. They were splendidly trained, it is true. But then they were but young; and who could say that they might not, when at sea, kick over the traces, eat their Yak-Yak keepers, and become frantically unmanageable?

The whole of the fo’cas’le was turned into a huge bear-den for their accommodation, and seal-meat in abundance was lowered into an ice-tank, that, during their long voyage, they might not starve.

It was a happy thought of Slap-dash, a brave Innuit and chief keeper of the bears, to have trained three of the Yak-dogs to sleep with his monster pets. The bears had become very fond of these, and growled a good deal at each other over them at night, but never actually fought.

But for these honest dogs the shipment of the Bruins would have presented far greater difficulties.

I must describe how this shipment was actually effected. To have roped the poor beasts would have rendered them savage, and this would have been rather indiscreet, to say the least. So a large raft was constructed, as well as a sort of inclined plane of wood, similar to a horse’s ladder. This last was made fast to the fo’cas’le bulwark above, while the other end was held in its place, on the sea below, by means of floats and beams from the ship’s water-line.

The three pet dogs, the bears’ favourites, were easily got on to the raft, and the Bruins followed. The Innuit himself kept feeding them as they were being towed all the way to the ship, and while the raft was made fast to the inclined plane. Then up sprang Slap-dash, and called the dogs to follow.

“Oh,” said the biggest bear, whose name was Gruff, “if that’s your game, here’s for after.”

And up he went.

In less time than it takes me to write these lines all the lot were comfortably caged.

They were not quite satisfied with their lot to begin with, however.

They had never been to sea or on board ship before in their lives, though they had been permitted to swim about the bay many times and oft, and even to stalk seals for themselves. But to be placed in a den with strong iron stanchions before it, was a trifle more than they had bargained for.

Slap-dash was a very good master to them, however, and tried to comfort them in every way that he could. And so did the dogs.

Before I go any further let me mention that bears are almost, if not quite, as sagacious, in their own way, as cats. Yet the ways of bears are a little peculiar, and as pets—well, they are not altogether satisfactory. The reason is this: they are treated without any tact on board ship, and teased and tormented for the pleasure of hearing them growl or cough or roar. On the ice a bear simply regards a man as something to eat—not so nice, of course, as a seal, but, anyhow, a change. And so they go for the human biped when hungry—I mean when the bear is hungry. Men chase bears and kill them for sport or for their skins and paws. Bears chase men because they are wholesome eating, especially if fat, and almost everybody does get fat in the Arctic regions.

As a parlour pet, a Greenland bear would hardly be suitable for a boy, and if the boy were to take him out for an airing, say, in a city park—well, there would be fewer city babies about before he got his pet back home again.

A young Polar bear, with whom I was shipmate once upon a time, pawed me in fun one day, and the barque giving a bit of a lee lurch, I fell. Instead of waiting till I got up out of the scuppers, the young rascal went for my leg, and I had to wriggle out of one sea-boot and skip. I never saw that boot again, so I imagine he devoured it. On the whole, then, if you hanker after a white ice-bear as a pet, you had better think of probable consequences, for his immense size makes him an awkward customer in many ways.

But, mind this, the Polar bear is to be won by kindness, and when so won, he will never harm you, but always make a point of swallowing the other boy. And that is really very good of the bear, especially if the other boy has been nasty with you some time before this.

It took all the tact of which the brave Innuit was possessed to get those beautiful bears settled down in their quarters, but it was soon evident enough that they were going to be real ship’s pets.

A little doubtful at first they were as to Walter’s and Charlie’s intentions when the boys brought them biscuits and tit-bits from the cabin. Instinct seemed to account for this. Bears become much sooner attached to savages than they do to white men, for whenever the latter appear, their principal object seems to be to torment and torture or get fun out of the animals they subdue. Savages are, as a rule, far more kind to the animals than those creatures who call themselves Christians, but are not.

It was not long, however, before the bears began to take a different view of the pale-faces on board. They might, they seemed to think, turn out better than they looked, although tradition or something else told them that it was those very bipeds who had hunted and chased and killed with fire-sticks (guns) their ancestors from time immemorial, and who added insult to injury by placing them in barrels and casks with bars in front for men to torture and boys to tease during the long and terrible voyage to Britain.

Before a week was over, the bears had quite settled down in their quarters. They had come to the conclusion that nobody here intended to do them any harm. Perhaps they had heard kind and thoughtful Captain Brace give orders that no one should molest them. Over and above this, the wise animals had soon found out that the food was better than any they had ever had on shore, and that ship’s biscuit is even more toothsome than white-man steak.

Besides, every forenoon they were allowed out to have a run round the decks under the guardianship of the brave Innuit Slap-dash. A most fearless fellow was this same Innuit, and in intellect as well as in every manly quality infinitely above his fellows.

But whenever the bo’s’n piped, “Bears to dance and play. Out of the way all you lads as doesn’t want to be ’ugged,” most of the crew who weren’t on shore dived down below and pulled the hatches to. But several who wanted to see the fun, took to the rigging and to the main top or fore.

Nick also went below, and took his wife with him.

“There’s too much bear there for us to eat, Nora,” Nick seemed to say. “Besides, my dear, discretion is the better part of valour.”

The bears’ names were Gruff, and Growley, and Grumpey, and Meg.

And Growley was Gruff’s wife, and Grumpey had married Meg, so to speak.

But Gruff ruled the roost, and would have nailed the roast, too, had he got a chance.

Whenever they were let out of their den, they used to shuffle right away aft all in a row, with their noses in the air and sniffing—ten yards by two of solid bear.

The boys were already on top of the skylight, with bones and biscuits and all things good and tasty; and the bears stood alongside with great open mouths to be fed. It was Gruff’s privilege to have the very last bite, and then to take his wife away; but if Growley did not follow immediately, Gruff went back and gave Growley a wallop with his great paw that landed her in the lee-scuppers.

Then the fun began. All sorts of fun, in fact. They ran and they danced, and stood on end and played at leap-frog, coughing and roaring all the time like a dozen steam-hooters. Gruff had a habit of standing on his head and then rolling clean over. When his body came down with a thud on the deck, the ship shivered as if a green sea had struck her.

This was merely one of Gruff’s tricks, for the little darling thought of something fresh every morning, and some of these I shall take the liberty of mentioning further on.

In three weeks’ time the good ship was ready to take her leave, and a very sad parting it was indeed for the Yak-Yaks and Teelies left behind.

Brace gave them a banquet on shore, which went far to assuage their grief, however. It was a huge cauldron of thick pea-soup, with lumps of fat pork and beef in it, and flanked with biscuits. The dessert was a couple of barrels of red herrings and a barrel of raw potatoes. These were scattered broadcast among the crowd, and to witness that scrambling and tumbling match would have wrung the tears of laughter from a coal-carter’s horse.

When all sail was set and the Walrus began to warm to her work under the influence of a ten-knot breeze, the rigging was manned, and three lusty cheers given for the simple, friendly savages they were leaving behind in the land of perpetual snow, and whom they could never expect to see again.

And down the wind from the tribes on shore came a long-drawn, falsetto cry of farewell. It was meant for a cheer, but sounded more like the moaning of a wintry wind.

END OF BOOK I

BOOK II
UNDER THE SOUTHERN CROSS

CHAPTER I
“AND NOW,” HE SAID, “’TIS DO OR DIE”

It is true enough that Captain Mayne Brace was only a simple sailor. But if his heart was kind and soft, it was also a brave one. Nor did he lack genuine business habits, and long before the Walrus reached the most northerly of the Shetland Islands, he had made up his mind as to what he should do.

He was returning a clean ship. As a clean ship he had to meet his owners. He knew what that would mean. There would be no banquets in his honour at the end of this voyage, as there had been last time when he returned to Hull a bumper ship, with thousands of tons of oil below, with bings of skins on deck even, and bergs of fresh-water ice heaped ’twixt main and fore, enough to gladden the eyes of every hotel-keeper in the City, and with a lovely young Polar bear as a gift to the Lady Mayoress. No wishing him further health and fortune, no men to carry him shoulder-high to the dining-hall. Sic transit gloria mundi when a Greenland captain returns a clean ship, to meet with cold looks and taunts and sneers.

Honest Mayne Brace was not sure that he could face all this, so he put boldly into Lerwick, and let go the anchor opposite this quaint old town.

Everybody wanted a rest anyhow. Ingomar himself was longing to stretch his legs on shore, and the boys to ride madly over the moors on untrained and untameable Shetland ponies.

I believe the brave Yak-Yak men, with their thirty beautiful but daft dogs, and Slap-dash, with his four bears, would have all gone on shore together if invited, and taken the town by storm.

But Brace himself, with the young millionaire, went on shore, and took immediate possession of the telegraph office.

Every one knew good Brace, and lifted his hat to him, and welcomed him back from the land of ice and snow, and would fain have stopped him to chat, but he went hurrying on.

The postmaster himself shook hands effusively, and to him Brace was obliged to talk for a few minutes.

“I want you, Mr. Bryan, to let myself and my young friend here, in your presence of course, wire for a short time. It is on secret business of the greatest importance, and you know, Bryan, I am an adept at working the wires.”

The postmaster was pleased, delighted, he said; and down sat Brace, Ingomar standing by and looking amused.

The Arctic skipper summoned his owners at the Hull end, and requested them to wire him, through the medium of a confidential clerk.

When all was ready, he told them briefly the story of his misadventures, and asked for advice.

The reply was somewhat as follows, when boiled down.

“Curses on your ill luck! But why did you not obey our secret instructions?”

“Hadn’t the heart nor the conscience.” Thus the reply. “Requires more nerve than I have to do a thing of that kind. Would rather not stand in a felon’s dock.”

“You’re a fool.” This from Hull. “You have all but ruined your owners. We must sell the Walrus now, and at once.”

Well, this was just the kind of message Brace half expected. And, when he read it, he burst into a joyous, hearty “Ha, ha, ha!” in which Ingomar readily joined.

Had this been the telephone, they might easily have heard that laugh at Hull. But a laugh that is merely wired is a very cold kind of an article.

“There is a gentleman,” wired Brace, “whom I know, that wants a strongly built craft to cruise around Tierra del Fuego. He is in Lerwick now, and might be tempted to buy the Walrus, at a price.”

“Tempt him, then, and be hanged to you,” was clicked through.

The return clicking spelt out, “He will give two-thirds of original price, if you will dock the ship for complete repairs at Hull.”

There was a long pause now. A consultation was being held. That was evident.

Then the wire rattled off, “A bargain! We will confirm our telegram by letter to-night. Good-bye, Brace, till we see you.”

“Good-bye, owners. Trust no ill feeling. Will lie here a week.”

Then Brace got up, and Ingomar and he shook hands.

“I have a great respect for you, Captain Brace,” said Ingomar. “To look at your jolly British face, I would not have credited you with such thorough business tact and judgment. Why, it is downright Americano!”

“Thank you; and now we’ll go and dine.”

“One minute, my friend. Who should my banker be in London? Thanks. Well, I’ll write a line to mine in New York, and they’ll soon make business straight for us in old England. Ah! my dear old father will know I’ve turned up again, and that my pride is softened will be shown by the fact that I am drawing on my pile for £200,000. I’m like the Germans, sir. There is no use going to war unless you’ve got the sinews and nerve, and we are going to war with the Antarctic Pole. There is nothing to be done without cash in this world.”

Brace’s first mate, with Charlie and Walt, came on shore soon, and all repaired to the chief hotel, and no schoolboys could have enjoyed “a blow-out” more thoroughly than these five enjoyed their first dinner on land, after so long and so dreary a time in Arctic seas.

For one of the chief pleasures in a sailor’s life lies in the getting back to the bonnie green shores of Britain again, after months or years of sailing on far-off foreign seas.

It was the sweet summer time now in the Shetland Isles, and our young folks enjoyed themselves as only young folks can.

They went fishing from boats and from the rocks, which are everywhere most fantastic and lovely, forming many a little lonely cave, where, on the golden sand, bask seals in blinks of sunshine.

The sea in spring and summer is nearly always blue, the breezes are balmy and bracing, and the uplands and inlands all carpeted o’er with the rarest and prettiest of wild flowers. Wild birds, too, are here, especially sea-birds, whose happy voices mingle musically with the song of the waves.

But I think that Charlie and Walt enjoyed more than anything else the bare-back rides they had on daft and droll little Shetland ponies, with Nick and his Nora doing their best to keep up with them, which they could only do by taking all kinds of cross-cuts, and meeting their masters where least expected.

I think it was a happy thought of Ingomar’s to buy and take off with them two of those ponies to assist the work of Antarctic exploration.

But come to think of it, when, weeks after this, the Walrus, now the property of young Ingomar, steamed into Hull, she was more of a floating menagerie than anything else.

The owners were less sulky than Brace had expected. They really did give a dinner, not only to the captain and his officers, but to all hands as well; and one of them, in a hearty speech, said, among other complimentary things, that he was sure he but expressed the sentiments of his colleagues when he told Captain Mayne Brace, whose services they were all too soon to lose, that a more clever, genial, or braver officer never steered a barque to the Polar seas. He hoped that all would join him in drinking his health, and wishing him success and safety all along on the venturesome voyage he was about to embark upon.

And all did.

* * * * *

It took the whole of the autumn and winter to build and fit out the new Arctic explorer Sea Elephant, for the Walrus was going to act more as store-ship and tender to the Sea Elephant than anything else. She was to be under the command of Captain Mayne Brace himself, and would take out the Yak-Yaks, the bears, and dogs, as well as an extra supply of everything that was likely to be needed during the long and terrible voyage and journey into the regions of the Great Unknown.

Captain Mayne Brace knew well what these regions were, for he had himself taken part in a German expedition that had gone out many years before, and had noted the deficiencies thereof.

So it was he alone who superintended everything.

Though aided nobly by his mate, and even his old bo’s’n and his Arctic spectioneer, it was no easy task that he had set himself to perform. They were going to a great snow-clad continent, on which there are neither houses nor towns any more than there are in the moon, and everything in the shape of repairs to engines, to interior, or to any part or portion of the ship, must be done by the artificers, mechanics, and engineers whom he must carry.

Many a long month’s thought and calculation this gave him, and many a long journey also, to and fro in the train, for Dundee itself was to have the honour of building and fitting out the Sea Elephant.

Captain Mayne Brace had no children of his own. He used to say that he never could see any fun in a sailor marrying, who was here to-day and away to-morrow, bound for the back of Bellfuff—wherever that may be—with only a plank or two betwixt him and eternity, and liable any day or hour to have to make a sudden call at the door of Davy Jones’ Locker.

Ingomar quite agreed with him as to the inadvisability of leaving widows behind them to mourn their loss for the rest of their lives.

“Mourn for the rest of their lives? Eh? Humph!” That was Captain Brace’s reply. And proof enough, too, I think, that he was not likely to run the risk of wrecking his barque of life on the reefs and rocks of matrimony.

But Brace had been a saving man though no niggard, and therefore he did not begrudge taking Walt and Charlie with him, to see the beauties of bonnie Dundee whenever school terms permitted.

The companionship of such a man as Captain Brace was indeed a liberal education in itself for them. For even during their holidays he would never suffer them to be altogether idle, and he was, when time admitted, their tutor in everything pertaining to the working of a ship.

The Dundee shipbuilders were honest. They considered that their reputation was quite hung on gimbals with regard to the laying down and building

of the Sea Elephant, especially under the supervision of such an officer as Captain Brace, who would not permit a plank, beam, or knee to be used that was not as sound as bronze.

The manning and officering of the Sea Elephant was another matter for much thought.

She would be when finished about 700 tons, and would carry provisions for three whole years. Every pound or parcel of these would be from the best firms, and hermetically sealed with such care that there would be no danger of anything going wrong should it have to be kept for many years.

I cannot spare space to describe in detail all the articles of food and drink which the two vessels would carry between them, nor their armour. As to the latter, independently of ordinary rifles and ammunition, they had specially built tanks for explosives of tremendous power; and these, I may inform you, were so packed for safety that even if the ship was in flames above them, there could be no danger of catastrophe.

The uses these would be put to we shall see anon, but there was a skilled artificer in charge of them, a man of the name of Macdonald, who had worked in dynamite factories since his boyhood—a steady, sober, long-headed Scot, whose rating was to be Captain of Explosives (Captain X. he was called for short).

The Sea Elephant was going to war, it is true, but it was war with Nature’s forces, for the age has at last come in which Man is master here below.

Ingomar was in constant and loving correspondence with his mother and sister. He wrote to his father, too, but told him nothing about his intention of disappearing from the civilized world for a time. All he said was, that he was embarking upon an honest though daring enterprise, which, he trusted, would, if he were successful, restore him once more to his father’s favour. If he succeeded, then, he would return, the prodigal son to his father’s house; if he failed, that father would never hear of him any more.

The captain of the Sea Elephant was an officer of high repute in the United States Navy, who had seen service in the Polar regions. His name, Bell.

Mr. Curtis was second in command, and belonged to the British Royal Navy. He was a young fellow of barely six and twenty, and with all the dash and go your true-born Englishman and sailor always possesses. From the first he and Ingomar were the greatest friends.

The crew were all tried men, Arctic or icemen, as they are called—English, Scots, Finns, and Norwegians.

“Be good to mother,” was Ingomar’s very last postscript to Sissie. “Don’t believe me dead whatever you hear till thrice twelve months are past and gone.”

Poor Ingomar, he was nothing if not romantic!

They sailed, those two ships, both upon the same day from a port in the English Channel, but with so little fuss, and so little newspaper reporting, that hardly anybody save the nearest and dearest relatives of officers and crew witnessed their departure.

It was not until they were out and away leagues and leagues from the chalky cliffs of England, not indeed until the August sun had set, that Ingomar, as he stood on the quarter-deck of the sturdy Walrus, heaved a sigh of relief, and turned to shake hands with bold Mayne Brace.

“Thank God, captain,” he said, “the trouble, the worry, the fuss, is over at last. How soundly I shall sleep to-night!”

The skipper laughed as he rubbed his hands in glee.

“And now,” he said, “’tis do or die.”

CHAPTER II
A GIANT OF THE SOUTHERN SEAS

In the good old barque the Walrus went not only Captain Mayne Brace himself with our American hero Ingomar, and our two British boys, but the spectioneer, with Dumpty, and a picked crew of sealers or whalers, who hailed from Dundee or Hull. Then there were the Yak-Yaks, or wild Innuits, under the immediate command of Slap-dash himself, who also commanded the bears, Gruff, Growley, Grumpey, and Meg. The sub-chief of the Yak-Yaks had charge of the dogs—the Eskimo dogs, I mean, for there was one other dog to be mentioned presently, who would have scorned to be classed as an Eskimo, just as an Englishman would resent being looked upon as a cannibal from the Congo.

Milton the mate was the only man missing from the Walrus. He had been appointed to the Sea Elephant as second lieutenant, and was very proud indeed of the honour, for this splendid barque was to all intents and purposes the flag-ship. Her commander—Captain Bell, of the United States Navy—had seen much service in the Arctic, while Curtis, first lieutenant, was a daring and very clever young fellow, specially lent from the British Royal Navy for the expedition. He was, as a sailor, your beau-ideal of a Navy man, and Navy men, you know, are warranted to go anywhere and do anything. Although Curtis was a most exemplary officer, a botanist and hydrographer, with a penchant for meteorology, he was the reverse of proud. One doesn’t look for, nor expect, pride in a true gentleman, and although Arnold Curtis came of a very ancient English family, and had blue blood in his veins, and though he had reached the very advanced age of twenty and five, he was out-and-out a boy at heart, and had never been much more happy than when in the cricket-field or making one in a game of footer. At such times, hydrography and meteorology and all the rest of the sciences, except that which was needed for the game, were banished, and he was a boy all over, from his fair hair and laughing blue eyes right away down to his shoes or boots.

Months and months before the two ships sailed, Ingomar and he had been inseparable, while Charlie and Walt often dined with him on board the Sea Elephant.

Well, I was going to say that Captain Bell, or the “Admiral,” as he was more often called, was, like most of his crew, a thorough iceman. The crew were chiefly Americans, and every man Jack of them had braved dangers innumerable on the sea of ice before this.

On the flag-ship were three well-known men of science—a Scot, a German, and an Englishman, but they were just as jolly as anybody. I will not permit my reader to associate long faces, solemnity, and humdrumness with scientists.

Let me add that the British and American flags in this enterprise, instead of being tacked and tagged together as at first proposed, were hoisted, when any occasion demanded their hoisting, one at the peak and another at the fore, or main, as the case might be.

Almost every hour during the voyage to Gibraltar the two barques kept as close together as possible. But here, after a farewell dinner, they parted, the flag-ship bearing up for the Suez Canal, to cruise and make scientific but brief observations all the way down through the Indian Ocean, until she should meet once again with the Walrus at the lonesome and wildly rugged island of Kerguelen, which lies further than 50° South, and in 70° East longitude, or, roughly speaking, about midway ’twixt the Cape of Good Hope and New Zealand.

Both ships carried as much coal as possible, but each had a noble spread of canvas, and so steam was never up while the wind blew fair. The Trades carried the Walrus well and fairly towards the equator, and when these began to fail them, the order was given to get up steam. So no time was lost, the chief object being to get into far Southern seas as soon as possible, and to commence therein the true work of the expedition.

Ingomar had one great, one only ambition. It was to make a noble record that should eclipse that of every nation which had attempted before this, the circumnavigation of the Southern Pole.

The finding of the real pole, as people phrase it, was something which might certainly be dreamt of but never probably accomplished. Yet manly ambition is a noble thing. Let us aim high. If we fire an arrow at the moon, we shall not hit it, but we shall hit a mark far higher than if we had fired at a bush of furze or broom.

I’m afraid that neither Charlie nor Walter cared a very great deal for science for science’s own sake, but they would certainly relish the adventures connected therewith, and all the strange scenes and creatures they were bound to see.

As for young Armstrong, or Ingomar as he still preferred to be called, he chose to consider himself of very little account indeed.

“I am neither a sailor nor a naturalist, nor anything else,” he said one day rather mournfully down in the saloon. “I love Nature, I appreciate beauty, but I’d rather be able to reef topsails or take my trick at the wheel.”

“But, my dear young sir,” said the captain, smiling, “you have found the sinews of war.”

“Found the cash? I have,” he laughed somewhat sarcastically. “Yes, and you may well say I found it. Paddy O’Flynn found a pair of tongs—at the fireside—and got into trouble about it. And I—well, I hadn’t even the honour and glory of making the money we’re spending. I can sing a song, spin a yarn, or recite a piece, and there my utility ends. Why, Humpty Dumpty is a deuced sight more of a real man than I am.”

Charlie and Walt laughed aloud. The idea of comparing himself with Humpty Dumpty seemed very ridiculous!

Long, long ago, crossing the line in a sailing ship used to be a very dreary affair indeed. The doldrums were always a drawback. Is there any real British boy, I wonder, who does not know what is meant by the “doldrums”? If so I trust he will get into them some of these days, in a brig or schooner. It will be an experience he is not likely to forget. His barque may be any time, from two or three weeks to a month, in crossing the line, for the wind may be nil. It may come in puffs or cat’s-paws from any direction of the compass, or, if you ask a sailor how it is, he may tell you discontentedly, that it is straight up and down like a cow’s tail.

Meanwhile the sea is as calm as Farmer Hodge’s mill-dam, a sea of oil, or glycerine, or mercury, but it is a sea of great, round, rolling waves all the same. The ship’s motion, therefore, is just about as disagreeable as could well be imagined; there is no “forwardness” about it. Now you go up, up, up, now you go down, down, down. Sea-legs are little good, and in your progress along the deck, if you do not succeed in getting hold of something, then just as often as not you shall find yourself on your back in the scuppers. You could not say “lee-scuppers,” you know, because there is no lee about it, and no windward either. You laugh when the other fellow falls, and perhaps the smile has hardly vanished when down you go yourself. Discomfort is no name for the doldrums. Fiddles are on the table at every meal, of course, but these do not prevent minor accidents, such as finding the fowl you were about to carve squatting on your lap, the potatoes chasing each other all over the floor, your plate of delicious pea-soup upside down on your knees, or your best white breeches soaked with black coffee.

Of course there are strange birds to be seen, and flying fish, and porpoises, and sharks, and, on rare occasions, the sea-serpent himself, but this doesn’t comfort you, with the thermometer over 95° and the pitch boiling in the seams.

On this voyage there was a pretty commotion, when, one evening, Neptune himself, King of the Ocean, with his bodyguard, his lady wife, and his barber, came on board. It was a pretty bit of acting altogether. Ingomar had consented to play Neptune in order to be let off, for he had never crossed the line before, and a splendid Neptune he made, while squat, droll little Humpty Dumpty was the wife. Ten in all had to submit to the terrible ordeal of shaving—an iron hoop was the razor, a tar-brush spread the horrid lather—and the grizzly embrace of Neptune’s bearded wife, to say nothing of the bath to close up with. Neither Charlie nor Walter, who were the first victims, seemed to like it; but when all was over, and they hurried into their dry pyjama suits, they enjoyed the fun as much as anybody else. The whole wild scene was lit up with electric gleams, blue and red and green, with music galore.

The drollest part of the business was this. Gruff the bear, wondering what all the row was about, managed to scramble up from his ice-tank in which he now lived below, and, accompanied by his wife, put in an appearance just as the fun was waxing fast and furious. The fun grew faster and still more furious after this, especially when Gruff capsized Neptune’s throne, and tried to hug Neptune’s wife.

While attempting to escape, Humpty Dumpty went heels over head into the great sail-berth, and Gruff and his wife jumped in next with a coughing roar that shook the ship from bowsprit to binnacle.

This ended the shaving-match, but Slap-dash managed to lead his pets away at last, and then the dancing commenced. The music was faultless and beautiful, but the dancing was—droll, to say the least. Then after the main-brace had been spliced, the affair resolved itself into a concert, and finally a yarn-spinning contest.

But everybody was happy, and that was the best of it.

* * * * *

Long before the ship had rounded the Cape, and stretched east and south away for Kerguelen, bears and Eskimo dogs were quite acclimatized, and most excellent sailors.

The sea had tamed the bears till they were as harmless as kittens, and just about as playful, though in a larger, more lumpy way.

They had become very friendly, too, with all the dogs, and all the Yak-Yaks, and even with the crew.

The Shetland ponies, however, were never permitted to come out of their comfortable quarters when Gruff, and Growley, and Grumpey, and Meg were at their gambols, shuffling round and round the deck with the dogs at their heels, positively playing at leap-frog with their monster yellow companions.

The king of the whole menagerie was Wallace—a most beautiful and intelligent long-haired sable-and-white Scotch collie. He, however, when the fun was going on, always took his perch on the top of the capstan, from which he barked his orders, and seemed to conduct the gambols and fun. Yet sometimes he got so excited and playful that he must jump off his perch and mingle for awhile himself with the strange revellers.

It was a long voyage to Kerguelen, but on the whole a very happy one, and so accustomed by this time were our heroes to stormy winds and raging seas, that the wildest gales did not terrify them, for every one on board, from the captain downwards, had the greatest confidence in the sea-going qualities of the good old Walrus.

It was a long voyage to Kerguelen, but they weren’t there just yet; and long before its rugged rocks and hills hove in sight, they experienced a spell of such fearful weather as one seldom meets even in southern seas.

It was dark and wild and fearsome!

Dark, owing to the immensity of the cloud strata above and around, which brought the horizon almost close aboard—a mingled chaos of driving mist and moving water; wild with the terrible force of the wind, which was fully five and ninety miles an hour, and fearsome from the height of the foam-crested waves, and the black abysses into which the Walrus ever and anon plunged, remaining almost motionless for long seconds, while the seas made a clean breach over her.

Captain Mayne Brace himself confessed he had never seen the barometer sink lower.

Every stitch of sail that could be spared was at first taken in, and the ship was battened down; for when the first squall struck her, the Walrus had been in a beam wind, with no fires lit. Orders were now issued to get up steam with all speed, for the gale was from the E.N.E., and although the Walrus lay to, she was being driven rapidly out of her course.

Things reached a crisis when the chief engineer—a sturdy, business-looking Scot—made his way aft as best he could, and reported to the captain that something had gone wrong with the engines.

“We have broken down?” asked Mayne Brace, anxiously.

“I wouldn’t go so far as that, sir,” replied Mr. Watson, cautiously. “Something’s out of gear, and it will be quite impossible to put matters straight till the storm abates and we find ourselves on a level keel.”

“All right, Mr. Watson. You’ll do your best, I know, and so will we.”

And Watson scrambled forward once more, smiling and happy.

The storm, a few hours after this, was at its very height.

Well for all hands was it that the Walrus was sturdily built, tough, and strong, a ship that had weathered many and many a tempest in the frozen North, and could hold her own amidst the wildest waves of the great Antarctic Ocean.

It had been early in the day when the storm came on, but long hours flew by without the slightest signs of its abating.

The noise both above and below in the saloon where Ingomar and the boys were trying to take it easy beside the stove, was fearful. On the deck snow and hail added to the confusion, and when suddenly the vessel entered a stream of small pieces of drifting ice, the heavy rattling bombardment of the ship’s sides rendered all conversation quite impossible.

A dark and starless night followed, but the first strength of the storm was somewhat abated, and when day broke lazily in the east, glimmering red through the froth of the seas, it had settled into a steady gale, which lasted for days and days, and prevented the barque from keeping her course.

In these strange Southern seas sudden changes in the state of the weather are the rule rather than the exception; and so one morning, after quickly veering round to the south’ard, the wind fell almost to calm, and with stu’nsails ’low and aloft, the good ship now bore up for Kerguelen, from which lone isle of the ocean she could not now be very far distant.

The sun shone brightly once again, and every one on board felt happy and hopeful.

To add to their joy, the engineer had managed to repair the machinery, which he vowed was now stronger than ever, so in a few more hours sail was taken in, and every heart was beating time to the pleasant old rick-racket of whirling wheels and revolving screw.

“Land ahead, sir!”

This from the man who was swinging high aloft in the crow’s-nest.

The mate went into the foretop to have a look at it through his glass.

One glance was enough.

“This is no land,” he told the skipper, “but a huge iceberg, that must have floated very far indeed out of its course.”

Then all hands crowded the deck to feast their eyes on the strange sight.

Not a soul on board this ship that had not beheld ice in every shape seen in high Northern altitudes, but none so remarkable in formation as this giant of the Southern seas.

CHAPTER III
FIRST ADVENTURES ON THE ICE

When men have been at sea for months and months, catching hardly e’er a blink of the shore, and seeing day by day only the faces and forms of their shipmates, or exchanging passing signals with some other ocean wanderer like the vessel on which they stand, any unusual sight serves to excite them and render them happy for the time being.

But this great iceberg was far indeed from a usual sight. How it had become detached from the vast sea-wall far farther south and floated northwards, almost into the latitude of Kerguelen itself, was, of course, a matter of mere conjecture. The currents of the oceans and the winds had doubtless drifted it hither and thither, for months, if not years; seas had beaten against its sheer and lofty sides, and hollowed strange arches therein; but the everlasting snows that covered it, and rose into cones and peaks high above, were probably as white now as, or even whiter than, when it first broke loose and became a rover on the ocean’s breast. And the very currents that had wafted it thither might in time carry it south again, to join its fellows, and tell the strange story of its wanderings and all the marvels it had seen.

The description of an iceberg of this size, or of any size, in fact, is one of the most difficult and unsatisfactory tasks that an author can attempt.

This one—this vast “gomeril” of ice and snow—might well have been taken for an island at first sight. For it was fully a mile in length, presenting to the astonished eyes of the Walrus’s people a long, glittering wall of blue and violet fully two hundred feet in height. The white hummocks towered far back and above the cold cliff edge. At one side it shelved slowly down towards the sea-level in a long cape, or tongue, and upon this, if anywhere, it would be possible to land.

When the Walrus had ventured so near that the hills above disappeared, and only the gleaming sides were visible, glittering in the spring sunshine, an order was given to stop ship, and not one whaler only, but two, were called away to “board” the mysterious iceberg, as the spectioneer phrased it.

The sea was very calm and blue, and only a longwaved swell was visible on its clear surface, a swell which, when it rushed into the caves and broke into foam in the darkness, elicited ever and anon a longdrawn moan or roar—a deep diapason, in fact, a musical blending of every note of an octave, from this mighty organ on which Father Neptune himself was playing and to which he sang.

This marvellous sea-song, however, melted away almost into silence as the boats reached the outlying tongue of ice on which they were to be drawn up.

It must not be supposed that the scene presented to our heroes, as they were being rowed towards the island-iceberg, was one of desolation.

The sun above them was shining to-day with unusual splendour and glittering on the ocean, which was a beautiful study in brightest blue and silver. High in the air circled and screamed flocks of beautiful sea-gulls, among which were cormorants and skuas, and many a bird resembling those to be met with in the far-off regions around the Northern pole.

Away to the eastward a whale had revealed his black back and head, and the steam from his blowholes rose like fountains into the sky. Farther off was another, and many strange seals raised their shoulders high above the water, to gaze with liquid eyes resplendent, and wonder who or what they might be that were thus invading their lonely and silent domains.

Some of these very seals—chiefly sea-leopards they were—had landed on the ice-foot to slumber in the sunshine.

As the first boat, which contained Ingomar and our boys, swept round towards the landing-place, they noticed to their astonishment that the whole brae-side of the monster berg was covered with what at first sight appeared to be a crowd of daintily dressed schoolboys in long black coats, orange neckties, black caps, and waistcoats of dazzling white. These were all in motion, and were bobbing and bowing to each other or shaking hands as they moved about for all the world like people in a garden-party.

Only these were not people, but king penguins. They are just about the drollest birds, taking them all round, that there are on the surface of the earth or on the face of the waters thereof.

Penguins are of several species, the largest and rarest being what are called emperor penguins, and stand about four feet high. I say stand, because they are so built that walking on one end or resting statue-like on their tails suits them best. The flippers of these are about fifteen inches long, and, when not in use, hang down by their sides in a very awkward-like manner. Their beaks are of great strength and length, and they know how to use them if you interfere too much with them.

I have never known an emperor penguin or a king penguin—next in size to his imperial majesty—have the slightest respect for human beings. They never think of running away if you go amongst them. They cannot fly, because they have no real wings. But they can waddle, and they can paddle either on the snow or in the water.

When the ground on which these strange birds are travelling all in a row is somewhat rough, they cannot do more than about a mile an hour; even this seems very serious work for them. But when they get among soft or smooth snow, down they flop on their breasts, out go the flippers, and they toboggan along over the surface with great speed.

In the water, above or below it, they dart along at the rate of knots. I believe that if the sharks want a nice bit of penguin to eke out a dinner of small fish, they have to swim exceedingly fast to find it.

Sharks, however, are not quite so common in these far Southern seas as they are about the Polar regions of the North. Food is scarcer, and this fact easily accounts for their absence.

* * * * *

When the boats had been called away to proceed to the examination of that great berg, it was not only the officers and crew who felt unwonted exhilaration, but every animal on board as well. The Eskimo dogs happened to be up having their run at the time, as usual under the supervision of the honest collie Wallace; while Nick and Nora stood proudly aloof on the quarter-deck.

“You and I, Nora,” said Nick, seeming to talk to his wife with eyes and tail, “shan’t mingle with that noisy gang. I pity Wallace, who has charge of such savages.”

“Aren’t they calling away a boat?” said Nora in the same language.

“They’ve just called away two,” replied Nick; “and we’ve got to stand by to get on board as quickly as anybody. I mean to stretch my little legs on the snow, anyhow.”

The sledge-dogs were barking with joy, and vaulting and leaping over each other, a perfect whirlwind of happiness.

They were convinced in their own minds that they were back again in Greenland, and would soon be landed to live happy ever after. Even the Shetland ponies stretched long necks towards the iceberg. They snuffed something unusual, anyhow, and felt that something was going to happen.

But the behaviour of the bears was strangest of all. I believe that long before the berg was sighted, these yellow-white monsters were aware of its presence on the horizon.

They became unusually restive, walking rapidly up and down their cage, and tossing their heads in the air.

There was none too much room in their quarters, so, of course, they got in each other’s way. Gruff was a good-hearted bear, and kind even to his dog companions, but he knew he was king of that cage, and conducted himself according. If their language of eyes and gestures could be translated into English, it would be as follows:—

“I’m certain,” Gruff said to Growley—“I’m certain, my dear, we are near home at last, and won’t I be glad, just! I’m longing for a bit of fresh seal-steak.”

“And so am I,” said Growley.

“And so am I,” said Grumpey, yawning.

Gruff slued smartly round, and landed Grumpey a blow that sent him sprawling on the deck.

“Who asked your opinion, eh? Can’t you learn better manners than interfere when your king and queen are talking?”

“Which I didn’t mean no harm,” whimpered Grumpey.

“Hold your tongue, sir! You’re not to answer; you’re not to wink even, when I speak. Take that, and that, and that.”

And Gruff whacked Grumpey all round the cage, and made him sit quietly in a corner with his consort Meg.

“As I was saying,” said the king, “when that impudent rascal interrupted me, we must be near home, and I’m going on shore to see how matters stand, as soon’s I get half a chance.”

“Oh, you’re never going to leave me!” cried Growley.

“My dear wife, never! How could such a thing enter your head? I’ll come back when—when—when I’ve had a look round.”

Gruff was as good as his word, and hardly had the boats been hauled up on the sea-foot of the iceberg than, in the stillness of the morning, the sound of a mighty plash was heard, followed by shouting and hallooing. Gruff had escaped, and was sturdily ploughing his way shorewards.

Gruff could have swum twenty miles through the sea, and been just as calm and self-possessed as he was when he hauled himself, hand over hand, up out of the water.

He shook himself, and gallons of spray flew in all directions. He shook himself again and again, and then he was ready for a romp.

He gave vent to a coughing roar that made the welkin ring—a roar that was echoed back from the ice-peaks above, and caused the very boats to shake.

It was a joy-shout, however, and then his antics commenced. They were somewhat ungainly, it is true, for he tumbled on his back, he stood on end, first on his hind legs, then on his head, then he went shuffling off in search of a seal with the two Newfoundlands, who could move much quicker than he, racing round and round him, and barking for joy. No seal was to be found, but Gruff smote, first one king penguin, then another. They lay dead on the snow, the air full of their beautiful feathers. These birds were nice eating, and Gruff made a hearty meal off them, and licked his great chops with satisfaction.

He seemed very happy and contented after this, and lay down in the sun to sleep, while our heroes went prospecting round and over this wondrous island of ice.

When the boys sat down at last on the lee-side of the iceberg to rest and enjoy a sun-bath, what impressed them most, I think, was the intensity of the silence.

There was not a sound to be heard save the lapping of the waves against the ice-cliffs, and the strange cries of the penguins, which, although the birds were fully half a mile off, could be most distinctly heard. No one talked save in subdued tones. To have rudely broken the holy silence would have seemed something akin to sacrilege.

Beyond the jagged snow-ridge was the dark rippling sea—wondrously blue to-day—while high above the sky itself looked like another ocean, the clouds like bergs of snow-clad ice.

“On such a day as this,” said Ingomar, “what a pleasure it is even to live and have one’s being!”

“Isn’t it just like being in another world?” cried Charlie, enthusiastically.

“Ay, lad, ay, and you are already coming under the glamour of the ice-spirit. The influence is felt in the seas around the North Pole, where you’ve been so long; but old sailors have told me that it is far more perceptible down here.”

“The very dogs appear to feel it. Look, both Nick and Nora are sound asleep!”

“No one,” he added, “can understand the glamour that steals over one in these regions. It is usually ascribed to a species of magnetism which affects the mind, the very soul itself, with a gentle, contented languor, which is nothing if it be not happiness. For sailors, who have once experienced it, will return again and again to the seas of ice, and brave dangers cheerfully that the bravest mariners of other oceans would hesitate to face.”

“Is it the silence, I wonder,” said Walt, “that makes one drowsy? I could sleep now.”

“It is the silence, Walt, but not that alone. For we are breathing the purest air in all the wide, wide world. Besides, though we cannot perceive it, the whole of this great island of ice is for ever gently rising and falling on the Antarctic swell.

“But now, boys, what about returning?”

“Sit yet a little longer,” pleaded Charlie. “I like to fancy that we are Crusoes, just we three, or that there is nobody in the world but ourselves and the dogs.”

“Are we going to shoot some specimens of gulls and penguins?” said Walt. “We have our guns. Isn’t it a pity not to use them?”

“No; rather would it be a pity if we did. It is nearly the end of October now, Walt. It is springtime, or almost, in these regions. Why, then, should we disturb the happiness of the feathered race? It seems to me that a curse would follow us in all our cruising if we stained the pure white surface of our first iceberg with the blood of even one of God’s beautiful birds.”

“I fear Gruff has no such romantic scruples,” said Charlie. “For here he comes shuffling down towards us; and with his great chest bedabbled with gore, he does look a very disreputable person indeed.”

Gruff certainly did, and he was rather flustered too, for presently round a neighbouring hummock came Slap-dash himself and a couple of Yak-Yaks.

Gruff was wanted, and didn’t like the idea of going on board just yet.

But more than this, for when the beautiful bear made up his mind not to do a thing, it took a good deal of coaxing to cause him to alter his determination.

Though no one on the ice knew it, the ship had been brought as near to the ice as possible with safety, for under the water a berg is usually four times as large as the portion exposed.

Slap-dash tried all the persuasion possible, but Gruff, although headed off by the Newfoundlands, refused to be wheedled.

Even the dogs did not dare to go too near.

“I advise you to keep at a respectable distance,” Gruff seemed to say. “One touch of my little foot would bury you both in the snow, and you’d never bark again in this world.”

“I’m not going off for hours yet,” he told Slap-dash; and away he scampered to discuss another penguin.

To have attempted force might have led to an accident, and so at long last all hands returned to the boat, and rowed away towards the ship, dogs and all.

Gruff was close to the sea now, and staring after them.

“Oh,” he said to himself, “if that’s your little game, here is for after you. I can’t forget my poor dear wife Growley.”

He leapt into the sea.

Now, when a snow-bear takes to the water, he swims with terrible strength and speed.

To their consternation, they could soon perceive that Gruff was gaining on them, and would undoubtedly attempt to scramble on board, and so capsize the boat.

“Give way, men!” shouted Ingomar. “Pull for dear life!”

A whaler is not a racing-boat, but the sailors made her fly through the water for all that, and all in time they gained the ship’s side and got on board.

Next moment Gruff was alongside also, and on board too. He was so glad to see his wife again that he promptly knocked her into the lee-scuppers.

Then the two had a stand-up fight or a terrible wrestling match.

But bears are like the Lowland Scots, and biting and scratching is their method of making love.

* * * * *

Having made all the observations needed, the good ship once more pursued her way eastwards and by north towards her destination.

CHAPTER IV
IN FEATHER-LAND—A TERRIBLE ACCIDENT

“How are you, old man?”

“By George, Jack, I am glad to see you!”

“How well you’re looking, Tom!”

“Why, Jim, is that really your silly old self?”

“Me, and nobody else, lad. How’ve ye been?”

“Been roughing it a trifle. Got driven out of our track a piece, you know. Something smashed and we couldn’t make up our leeway.”

“So glad to see you!”

“Been long here?”

“Three whole blessed weeks. The Elephant behaved splendidly all through, except in a typhoon. A real Indian Oceaner that were, Jack. But we called at Mauritius and got letters.”

“Letters?”

“Ay, lad—letters from home. The last we’ll have for many a long month and year.”

These scraps of conversation are but specimens of those heard on board the good Sea Elephant, fore and aft, when the Walrus people boarded her at Kerguelen, after dropping anchor in a natural rock-girt harbour of that Isle of Desolation.

Captain Mayne Brace was himself in charge of the whaler which had brought them here, with Ingomar and Charlie; and now they were below in the sister-ship’s cosy saloon, and for a whole hour the conversation never lagged nor flagged.

Everybody was just as jolly as jolly could be, and Dr. Wright had scarcely a case on the sick-list worth talking about.

True that in hoisting the crow’s-nest a rope which had been dried at the galley-fire, and was somewhat scorched in one place, had snapped. The crow’s-nest was hurled to the deck again, but only one man had been injured.

There was no work done to-day. The mariners visited each other, and gave themselves up to enjoyment. When the music from a merry little string band was not sounding from the ’tween decks of the Sea Elephant, you could hear it distinctly enough swelling over the water from another merry little string band on board of the Walrus, and hear the shouting, and even the laughter, of the crew as well.

Now and then came the coughing roar of the great bears or the shrill but joyful barking of the dogs. Gruff couldn’t understand why he and his wife were not permitted to join the dancers on deck. But this might have been somewhat awkward for the sailors of the Elephant who were visiting the Walrus, for though King Gruff knew every one of his own crew, from the captain down to the ship’s cat, he might have treated strangers a trifle roughly. Those who have had the pleasure or pain of waltzing with a Polar bear on the Arctic ice, have been heard to admit afterwards that it is possible to find a much more gentle partner.

This first evening or night—for the days were now long and bright—was one that the crews of those barques would remember long after this under far more dreary circumstances.

But the letters? Ah, yes; a swift mail steamer had brought those to the capital of Mauritius Isle, and now they were handed over to the officers and crew of the Walrus. They nearly all brought joy and comfort.

Charlie’s and Walt’s were especially nice, and the same may be said of Ingomar’s letter from his father and sister.

The young fellow had written weeks before he had left England, and here were the answers. The sister’s letter was sweet, as sisters’ letters seem always to be; and the father’s—well, his son could read between the lines, and he felt certain that there had been tears in the good but proud old man’s eyes as he penned the following lines: “You are a brave boy, Hans. You are a true Armstrong, and it is just possible I may have been a trifle harsh to you. I would rather, however, you had not gone away, especially to the wild and treacherous seas around the Antarctic Pole. Come back to me, boy—I say come back to me, because I feel certain you will with honour. Come back to your sister and mother.”

“I’ll return with honour, dad,” said Ingomar to himself, as he folded the letter and placed it in his pocket. “I’ll come back to you with honour, or never return again. It is a handsome letter, and, father, you have a heart that I was cruel enough to vex and chafe. I’ll never part with this letter, for, ah! dad, it shows, however you try to hide it, that you have already forgiven your prodigal son.”

He looked very handsome as he stood there in his little cabin, to which he had stolen away to read the letters from home over again.

There was the rattle of oars in rowlocks, and he knew a boat from the Elephant was coming swinging alongside.

Then footsteps overhead, and presently entered his friend Lieutenant Curtis.

“Hillo, Armstrong!”

“Hillo, Curtis!”

They shook hands.

“There is going to be a council of war—war with the ice—to-morrow forenoon, and you and I have to be there. But meanwhile I want you to come for a cruise on shore to have a look at the birds.”

“I’m with you; and I suppose there will be room for the boys?”

“Lots. They can take an oar each. They are strong enough.”

The extreme dreariness and loneliness of these rugged, dark, and hilly shores during some months of the year can be better imagined than described.

Kerguelen was the first to discover the isle. He was a French admiral, but evidently he did not like the looks of it, and his examination must have been but cursory, for he made but one or two half-hearted attempts to examine the place, putting it down in his log as a portion of the great Antarctic continent, about which we have all heard so much.

But other brave mariners managed to put the world to rights, and so Kerguelen was found to be an island.

The rivalry that exists between all nations in the exploration of the great snow lands and seas of ice has done much good. We have most of us had a share in it, and so whether the first man to find either Pole be British or American, or even a Dane or Frenchman, no one else will begrudge him the honour.

No wonder that Kerguelen and Cook himself were glad to get clear away from this island, for the gales that rage around it are often terrific in the Southern autumn. The very appearance of the sky, too, is forbidding, with its awful rolling cumulus or its hues of leaden grey or inky black.

But it was November when the men of the Walrus rowed our heroes on shore, and the day happened to be calm and fine—hardly a breath of wind, hardly a cloudlet in all the firmament.

Now and then a seal’s great head would be raised above the smooth surface of the ocean, and round, wondering eyes would gaze thoughtfully on the wanderers, then slowly sink once more.

And there were gulls afloat on the water and gulls in the sky.

Cormorants could be seen, skuas, and now and then the lovely snow-white petrel.

Some of these had their nests on rocky cliffs, others on the more level shore, but the skuas preferred higher ground, and the droll and weird-looking king penguins had flocked to higher regions still, and formed crowded cities that they might build and converse in peace.

Young Curtis was a student of Nature, and had many other scientific attainments, which made him an excellent companion. There was no finding one’s self weary where Arnold was. The rocks, the birds, the fossils, the seaweeds, and medusæ, the fish, and the flora, all too rare or scarce, formed the subject of most fascinating conversation.

And this young and brave officer had already explored much of Kerguelen, and taken many observations which were bound to be useful in many branches of science. So to-day he was capable of acting as guide to the little picnic.

It was more than springtime in these latitudes. It wanted but little over a month till midsummer, so the birds were very busy indeed. The penguins were an especial study, and their droll ways amused the boys greatly.

“Arrant thieves, they are,” said Curtis. “They are at present too busy examining us. But if one sees a chance, he does not hesitate a moment to steal his neighbour’s eggs, and stick to them too.”

“It is a good thing,” said Ingomar, “we did not bring the dogs with us.”

“Yes, indeed, Hans. They would have caused much destruction and havoc.”

The men followed the officers, and brought bags of matting, in which to stow a few hundred eggs.

Birds’-nesting is sinful, but eggs are needed for food, and those of gulls and penguins are very nice eating indeed. The flesh of the birds may have a fishy taste, if the creatures have not been skinned, but the eggs have no bad taste whatever.

The females sat quietly on their nests, as fearless as frogs, and satisfied themselves with dabbing or pecking at the trousers or boots of the intruders. The cock penguins also take turn about with the hens to sit on the eggs, but at present they were not on watch. They lined the streets of this strange feather-land, and were always ready to fight if any one went too near them.

“Why are there so many birds down yonder on the water or flying about the rocks?” Walt asked.

“Oh,” replied Curtis, “that is a secret not known to all naturalists. Many of these birds are fishing for the rookery, or rather, for their own particular nest in it; but there are very many who choose not to enter into the holy bonds of matrimony at all, and great rogues and cheats these bachelors are, and seem to do their best, or rather worst, to annoy the more sober and staid married folks.

“And this is true,” he added, “of nearly all birds that congregate in colonies, and even of our own humble household British sparrow.”

After a most delightful luncheon, in which the eggs of the sea-birds figured largely, it was proposed by Curtis that they should re-embark, and, rowing round past a cape, visit a still undiscovered part of the island.

They had some difficulty in finding a landing-place, but managed to do so at last, and leaving two men with the boat, the others started off into the interior in search of adventures.

No wild beasts here, no savages, for the place is uninhabited. The hearts of our heroes were young, however; and although they journeyed quite six miles into the interior, through rugged ravines and ice-cold streams, without, of course, the vestige of a road, all were as happy as the day was going to be long.

They found many rare specimens of flora, some eggs, and a few fossils of long-extinct shells.

They were returning by what was considered a near cut, though the ground was higher and far rougher, when suddenly, on the brink of a ravine, the ground gave way under the feet of poor Curtis, and he suddenly disappeared into a kind of crevasse.

They could hear him shouting for a very short time, but his cries seemed to wax feebler and feebler, and then were heard no more.

What was to be done? To descend was impossible without a rope, and here there was none.

But Ingomar, as soon as he recovered somewhat from the grief and shock—for it was firmly believed that Curtis must be dead—despatched men back to the boat, to row in all haste to the ship and procure assistance.

This was, indeed, a sad calamity with which to wind up a very happy day.

While the men were gone, Ingomar and the boys did their very best to find some entrance on lower ground into the crevasse, but were altogether unsuccessful.

There was nothing to be done, therefore, but to wait.

Perhaps time had never seemed more long to any one than it now did to our heroes.

The sun went down at last in orange and crimson, his beams lighting up the waves with unusual splendour, but no one to-night could appreciate the scenery under such circumstances.

The men returned at length, and brought with them not only ropes, but even lanterns; for although there would be a long summer twilight, night would soon fall, and doubtless it would be dark enough at the bottom of the terrible chasm.

It was Ingomar himself who volunteered to be lowered down, and he would brook no contradiction. Was not Arnold Curtis his friend—a friend to whom somehow he had become peculiarly attached?

So the lantern was lighted, Ingomar placed his limbs in the bight of the rope, and immediately gave the order to lower away gently.

In a few seconds’ time he had sunk to the bottom of the abyss.

CHAPTER V
INGOMAR HIMSELF HAD A DREAM TO DREAM

Long minutes went by, and still no signal came from below to haul up.

One of the sailors—a light-weight, but strong—had just proposed shinning down the rope, when suddenly it was shaken three successive times, and the men commenced hauling up with every care.

Charlie and Walt had nothing to do, and their suspense was therefore dreadful.

The rope seemed so thin. What if it should suddenly snap from chafing over the sharp edge of the rock!

At last, however, brave Ingomar’s handsome, resolute face was seen over the precipice. And in his arms he bore a sad burden.

Curtis was not tall, so his weight was nothing in comparison with the strength of his rescuer. But his face hung backwards, and was covered with blood.

The doctor, who had come back with the men, now made attempts to resuscitate his unfortunate patient. But for a long time he was unsuccessful. At last Arnold opened his eyes, and was presently able to swallow a little cordial, and even to talk a word or two, though very incoherently.

“There is no fracture,” said Dr. Wright, as the unfortunate lieutenant relapsed once more into insensibility. “Bear him to the boat most carefully, men, and we will follow.”

“No fracture, doctor. I’m so glad.”

Then Ingomar fainted. The strain had been too much for even his strong physique.

He was laid on his back, however, and soon revived. When fairly restored and able to take the road gently leaning on Charlie’s arm—

“I say, Charlie,” he said, “wasn’t it a blessing that I didn’t succumb when about halfway up the cliff?”

Ingomar was smiling, but the boy shuddered as he thought of the narrow escape of the first lieutenant and Hans Armstrong himself, the two principal men of the expedition. Had the dreadful accident occurred, and the bold rescuer been obliged to quit hold while being hauled to bank, it would have cast a gloom over all the hands which nothing could ever have dispelled.

I believe if people would only try to look upon the bright side of things in this world, they would always find something to be thankful for.

The captain’s cabin in the Sea Elephant was the largest and best in the ship. It was right aft, and there was a minimum of noise above it. This was at once apportioned to the lieutenant, who had not yet recovered sensibility.

Nor did he for three long days.

The shock to brain and system generally had been very great, and would have killed a less strong man. Even the loss of blood, so said Dr. Wright, had been in no way against his patient.

Ingomar constituted himself Arnold’s nurse, and a gentle and tender one he made, Charlie and Walt relieving him now and then.

Meanwhile, good work was being done on shore. Not only were observations both by night and day taken, and surveys made and soundings ascertained, but the sailors were now busy in the erection of a stone house or cabin, which was to be the abode of five men and an officer for probably a whole year—their home, indeed; and a more dreary one than this it would be impossible to conceive, especially throughout the long and terrible winter. They were to have the companionship of two of the best dogs, plenty of provisions, and everything likely to conduce to their comfort, with books to read, and even games to while away the time. Moreover, they would be engaged every day in taking observations, for the advancement of science, for every little aids; but, nevertheless, it would be—

“A weary time, a weary time.”

One evening Dr. Wright came into the saloon or mess-place.

He was looking sad.

“Has a change come?” said the captain.

“I fear so,” said Wright.

“Then we need not ask what it is?”

“No; I fear my patient is sinking, although, mind you, even yet there is hope.”

It was one of those still nights which we find in these far Southern climes, when the stars shine clear and bright above, and are reflected from the dark, smooth sea, when, in the middle watch, hardly a sound is to be heard except the gentle lapping of the water around the stern, a sound that often resembles the talking of people in low, subdued monotones, only that and the solemn far-off boom of the waves breaking drowsily on the rugged rocks and shore.

Wright had given Ingomar his last instructions, and left him sitting quietly by the cotside, Arnold’s favourite Eskimo dog near his feet, for the faithful beast could seldom be prevailed upon to leave the cabin or even to touch a morsel of food.

Presently, and most unexpectedly, the patient breathed a sigh, and opened his eyes. Ingomar was standing over him in a moment with his finger on his pulse.

That pulse was flickering and uncertain, but it seemed stronger; but well did Hans know that these signs might be but the forerunner of death and darkness.

A spoonful of cordial was held to the poor fellow’s lips, and this he swallowed.

“Have—have I—been long ill? How——”

Ingomar smiled, but shook his head.

“Don’t speak just yet awhile,” he half whispered. “You have been ill, but now I think you will recover. Be of good cheer. I’ll go for the doctor now.”

When he returned with Wright, Ruby the dog was sitting by the bed with his cheek resting softly on his master’s hand.

It was such a pretty show of affection that Ingomar would not disturb him.

Not long after this Curtis had fallen into a gentle sleep, and his nurse had resumed his watch.

The change, the happy change, had come during that sleep, the clogged wheels of life were once more moving steadily round, and when the doctor again entered the cabin, he pronounced him out of danger.

It was not until next night, however, and in the stillness of a night just like its predecessor, that the patient was allowed to talk a little, for Dr. Wright’s orders were very peremptory, and were being carried out to the letter.

“Hans Armstrong,” said Curtis, quietly, “you may tell me all.”

Hans did so.

“And you saved my life?”

“That is little credit to me, Arnold. Some one else would have done so had I not.”

“But it is a credit to you. I have reason to love the name of Armstrong; it will be a name dearer to me now than ever.

“But, Hans, when I am strong enough I am going to return to that crevasse, and descend.”

“Indeed?”

“Yes, indeed, for there I must have dropped a gold locket, which contained a portrait of the girl I love.”

Ingomar smiled.

“Keep your mind easy,” he said. “I found the locket, and here it is. I did not open it—I deemed it sacred.”

“Oh, thanks! thanks!” he cried, taking the trinket, and with somewhat shaky hands succeeding in opening it.

Probably one glance at the sweet face it contained did as much to place the patient out of danger as days of nursing.

“Look, Hans—look for yourself. Is she not beautiful?”

No wonder that Ingomar started as he looked upon it, rubbed his eyes, and looked again.

“Why—why——” he said.

“Yes, Hans, a portrait of my Marie.”

“Nay, but my Marie—my sister Marie.”

“Thank God,” murmured Curtis.

He did not speak again for several seconds.

“I say thank God, Hans, for this reason. Ever since we met I have been struck by the strange likeness there is between you and Marie; and being of the same name, I could not help thinking that you might be some near relative—a cousin, and perhaps a lover. My mind is now relieved, and I shall get speedily well.”

“But still I am puzzled. Where did you meet poor Marie?”

“I met her at a ball in New York. I think, Hans, it was love at first sight. It was so with me, at all events. And though we have known each other for but a very short time, it seems as if we had been acquainted for years.”

Ingomar was deep in thought.

“Did she speak of father and mother, and—of me?”

“She often talked of her father and mother, Hans, but seldom of you. She grew so sad when she mentioned you, and it was always as ‘poor brother who is dead and gone.’ And now, Hans, are we still as good friends?”

“Here is my hand, Arnold. It is a brother’s hand; I shall live in hopes of sister Marie and you being happy—some day. But how strange we should have met, and that I should have saved your life!”

“I care little for life save for her.”

“True, Arne; I have felt like that myself before now, when in love with Cheena, the daughter of an Indian backwood chief.”

“Some day, Hans, you will tell me that story. But, Hans, there is something I still have on my mind; and if I unburden myself to you, I shall be in a fair way to happiness.”

“Here,” said Ingomar, “drink this first. I fear I am leading you into too much talk.”

Arnold did as he was told, then continued—

“It was after I knew your sister, and after we loved each other, that I found out your father was very wealthy, and that she would one day be so. This discovery made me very unhappy. Though I myself am connected with the peerage, my family are poor at present. I knew Marie would not believe I was trying to woo her for her wealth. Heavens! she would be rich had she not a single sou; but her father might object. And so I told her all.”

“And did it make any difference?”

“To Marie not the slightest. But to me it did. I was determined she should not bind herself to a roving sailor like myself. It was in grief and sorrow, ay, and in tears, that we parted. I had heard that one or two expeditions were bound for the Antarctic, and I determined to join. I have done so, and I feel it is for the best. If I die—well, all will be over. If, during the years of enforced absence in these seas, Marie forgets me—well, all will be over just the same, and I still can pray for her happiness should I never see her more.”

“But,” said Ingomar, “suppose she does not forget you?”

“Ah! then,” said Arne, with a faint smile, “I may still dare to hope. This hope, dear Hans, I have. It is this hope that makes me live again, and this hope that I will cherish whatever happens.”

Once more he clasped Hans’ hand, and, still clasping it, fell into a gentle sleep. Ingomar now spread a rug over his knees, and went to sleep in Captain Bell’s easy-chair.

For Ingomar himself had a dream to dream.

CHAPTER VI
“TO THE WEST, TO THE WEST”

At the council or consultation that took place some days after this in the ward-room of the Walrus, both Charlie and Walt were present, but, of course, were not supposed to speak.

It was resolved therein that, instead of plunging at once into the great ice-pack, and attempting to find out the South Pole by one bold rush, the two ships should first spend ten or eleven months in sailing completely round the world that lies all beneath or south of the latitudes of Kerguelen and Cape Horn or Tierra del Fuego, and other southern lands around the Antarctic Continent.

But they were to sail in different directions, one, the Sea Elephant, going eastwards, the good old Walrus westwards.

Perhaps they might meet halfway round on the high seas. Anyhow—if all turned out well—they hoped once more to unite their forces at Kerguelen, and thence bear up for the pole itself, or, at all events, get South as far as possible.

This had not been the first intention of the expedition, but the officers thereof were, of course, right in altering their plans.

But what about the bears, and dogs, and the Eskimos themselves?

This was a matter for serious consideration. It was true that there was food enough for all on board the Walrus, and that during explorations, surveyings, and observation-taking all along the line of route, they would be able to catch enough fish to keep the bears and Yak dogs in good health and condition.

“With all my love for the creatures we are so fond of calling the lower animals,” said Captain Mayne Brace, “I must admit that bears and Yak dogs are not the very best shipmates one can possess. What say you, Mr. Milton?”

“No, sir; we found that out in bringing the beggars home. A bear doesn’t sleep so sweetly as a well-cared-for baby. Gruff is apt to wake at night to cough or yawn, and when he does so he wakes his wife, and she coughs or yawns; then the dogs join, and bedlam isn’t a circumstance to the row they make.”

“Well, now,” continued Brace, “I have a question to put. Why shouldn’t we leave them all here on Kerguelen till our return?”

“Why,” cried Captain Bell, “that is a splendid idea of yours. The Yak-Yaks can build their own shelters, and feed and look after the whole pack. Are you agreeable to that proposal, Mr. Armstrong?”

“Oh, quite. In fact, Captain Bell, the bears and dogs are not the best companions; their voices are hardly melodious enough to conduce to sleep, and they are like Artemus Ward’s elephants—they are powerful eaters. So I agree.”

And all agreed. And as soon as everything was got ready on shore, both Eskimos and animals were landed; and then the two ships bade each other farewell, and each steamed away on her own track.

It will thus be seen that both vessels would sail round the world, and each would make different observations and explorations.

But for the present, at all events, we must sail away in the Walrus.

Strangely enough, for the first few days the men actually missed the bears and dogs.

Dumpty himself, who was very fond of Gruff and even Growley, used to stand staring in at the empty cage for a quarter of an hour at a time, and openly declared that he couldn’t sleep half so well now the dear old chaps were gone; and many of the crew also thought the change was not one for the better. However, that remained to be seen.

I must remind the reader just here that, though neither Charlie nor Walter was bound apprentice, they were, nevertheless, already good sailors, and that, moreover, they determined to adopt the sea as a profession eventually. They now tried, therefore, to learn all they could, and were not too proud or lazy to help on deck, and even take their trick at the wheel.

This latter is hard work and weary, especially when the thermometer is at or below zero, a high wind blowing, and when your mittens get frozen to the spokes. It is bad enough in tropical seas, with the sun beating down almost vertically on one’s head, the waves all aglitter with light and heat, and the pitch a-boil between the planks of the quarter-deck. And yet—having done both—I much prefer the heat to the excessive cold of Polar seas when steering.

Whenever time permitted, the boys now sought the companionship of Ingomar. He was a treasure, to their way of thinking. There was no feeling lonely when he was there, whether it were treading the decks by day or listening to his stories and talk at eventide.

Where he had picked up all his knowledge was a puzzle to both lads, and his yarns, at all events, bore an exceedingly strong resemblance to the truth.

There was plenty of music on board, and besides this, almost every one could sing a bit. Before leaving Kerguelen the dogs generally began to sing when the band began to play. The bandsmen could now play in peace, and there was no Gruff nor Grumpey to imitate the trombone. Wallace the collie was far too much of a gentleman to interrupt. Well, there were games of all sorts to go in for in fine weather, and when the storms raged and stormy winds blew, they could read and yarn.

Perhaps the Walrus was not so well found in food and drinkables as an Atlantic liner. Yet there was enough, and everything was of the best.

What more could heart of sailor desire?

I think, though, that Ingomar, who remained in the Walrus, would have been glad if his friend Curtis had made one of the crew of this ship.

One word from the American and the transference would have been accomplished; but he did not speak that word. It would, he thought, look as if he, being the owner of the ships, were interfering with the arrangements thereof.

“Perhaps, after all,” he said to himself, “it is better as it is. We don’t know what may transpire yet. Arnold does not look a bit too strong, and—well, I should not like to see him sink and die.”

* * * * *

“Right gaily goes a ship when the wind blows free.” Thus sing some sailor lads.

And the wind did blow free, and fast also, some few days after the two discovery vessels parted company.

Not with the force of a gale, however, but that of a strong breeze, almost like a joyous trade wind, that filled the white and flowing sail and bent the gallant masts. This is perhaps a trifle too figurative, for the masts of ships like these would take a deal of wind before they bent, and when they did so, they would probably break. Of course the Walrus was not in low enough latitudes to catch the regular or trade winds.

These, it will do you, reader, no harm to know, are really north winds and south winds, that seem out of their course by the motion of the earth in its revolution. In the north of the equator, and its belts of calm and variable winds, and extending from about 10° N. lat. to about 30° N., we have the N.E. trades; and south of the equatorial belt we get, as you would naturally expect, the S.E. trades.

That is near enough for most landsmen to know. If, however, you ask why the winds blow towards the equator, I need only tell you that Nature abhors a vacuum. Well, along the great hot regions round the earth’s waist you have such a vacuum, because heated air always ascends, and winds rush in from both sides to fill it up.

The winds far south of the trades have often, in summer particularly, a northerly direction, because the ocean is here warmer than the ice. But these are very variable.

On the whole, perhaps, the study of the winds is best left to the meteorologist.

A single glance at a map of the Antarctic will show any one what a vast stretch of lonesome ocean there is betwixt Kerguelen and Tierra del Fuego, which is the lowest land of the great South American continent.

The wind to the Walrus, and to the Sea Elephant as well, would be ever welcome, unless it came in the somewhat questionable shape of a hurricane, because they must steam just as little as possible. The Elephant, it is true, had more than filled up at Mauritius. In fact, she had arrived at Kerguelen a bumper ship, with coals, coals everywhere, and these she had shared with the Walrus.

More than this, in the Sea Elephant’s passage back to Kerguelen, she would probably call at the Cape to coal up again—or somewhere else; and, indeed, in a voyage such as this, a good deal has to be left to what is termed blind chance, though be assured chance never is or was blind—every wind and every current of the ocean is but obeying inexorable laws in blowing or flowing whither it does.

* * * * *

Navigation, nowadays, is so strange and difficult a study to a mere outsider, or ’longshoreman, that although told that the Walrus was bearing up for the Crozet Islands, and although they could easily position these on the map or chart, and knew therefore that they lay to the nor’ard and west of Kerguelen, Charlie and Walt were considerably puzzled when they looked at the compass to see which way the ship’s head was.

“We seem to be going a bit zigzag, don’t we, Charlie, old man?” said Walt to his companion one fine forenoon.

“I thought so too, Walt; but I suppose we’ll get there all the same. Come along. Don’t puzzle your head; the dogs want a scamper, and luckily we’re off duty.”

Everybody was dressed in extra clothing now, and this added considerably to everybody’s breadth of beam, but especially, apparently, to Dumpty’s. He was, indeed, a curious figure; and the Newfoundlands and ship’s collie all seemed to know there was something rather ridiculous about his build, and were never tired getting some fun out of him.

Dumpty had been throwing a wooden belaying-pin along the decks to-day, that the wise animals might have exercise. And this was a species of exercise they appeared to enjoy as much as a young man does football.

Collie himself was nearly always first in the field or first to rush after and catch the belaying-pin. But unless he changed ground, or rather deck, and tried to get to Dumpty—who stood for goal—from the other side, he was rolled over, and had speedily to give up his prize, and fall back upon barking to relieve his mind.

But this forenoon they had varied the performance a bit, at a suggestion from big, beautiful Nick himself.

“Come on, Dumpty,” Nick seemed to cry. “You are better than a thousand belaying-pins. Hurrah!”

So he sprang at the droll little man, and down he went.

The two great dogs rolled Dumpty round and round, and over and over along the deck, in the funniest way possible, and with their paws, too, though whenever there was a hitch, Collie gave them a little assistance by seizing Dumpty’s jacket, and hauling him a yard or two.

In this way they rolled him to goal, which to-day was the quarter-deck.

Here they met the boys, and Nick and Nora were constrained to stand up to smile and gasp. This gave Dumpty a chance of escaping to the rigging, and then Charlie and Walter came in for it.

They did not “down” them; but while Nick sprang up and seized Charlie’s cap, Nora did the same for Walt, and then came the grand scamper round and round the decks, four yards of solid Newfoundland and forty inches of collie.

The boys could do nothing but look on and laugh, till, tiring at last, the dear old dogs marched solemnly up and deposited their caps—unmarked by teeth—at their feet.

“Couldn’t really help it,” said Nick, apologetically, speaking with eyes and tail.

“And I only did what Nick did,” said Nora, saucily.

The fiddles were hardly ever off the table now, for the sea, if not actually rough, was a bit lumpy, and there was plenty of motion. Hot soup is very nice and nourishing for a sailor’s inside, but when a roll of the ship spills it all into his lap, it is not quite so pleasant.

Charlie, I think, was the better sailor, and though Walt often ventured into the crow’s-nest, he was generally glad enough to get down again. The crow’s-nest swung so, he explained. Well, it is not a very easy job to get there, as it is a cask with a railing at top, hoisted to and fixed but a little way under the main-truck. But no rigging leads right up to it, so you have to squirm up a Jacob’s ladder from the main-top cross-trees, and to do this you must go quarter-way round the mast. This tries the head of a landsman, I can assure you. Most landsmen who had never been on horseback before, would rather make up their minds to ride a buck-jumper than attempt to reach this same crow’s-nest when there is a bit of seaway on, were it never so little.

It isn’t fun—the first day—reaching even to the cross-trees. Then, having run the risk of your life—not being a Blondin—and gained a footing on the lower rungs of the Jacob’s ladder, you cannot help wondering as you scramble up, hanging back downwards half the time, if it will give way with your weight, and which would be the easier way, when you do fall, to meet death—getting smashed up on the ship’s bulwarks or being plunged headlong into the cold sea.

You enter through a trap-hole at the bottom, and though you may feel safe for just a little while, evil, discomforting thoughts return, and you cannot be quite certain whether or not the crow’s-nest is properly secured, or whether, if the wind begins to blow, you won’t be emptied out altogether.

And then comes the going down again. You must not look below, or you may lose your head altogether. Just shut your eyes and open the trap, slue round after that, and make sure of your footing, then cautiously, foot over foot, you may reach the rigging, and afterwards the deck.

In cold weather a spell in the nest is really a terrible experience.

Yet Charlie never feared to face it, any more than he would have funked a ride in a motor car against the wind on a stormy day.

But when one has got acclimatized to the crow’s-nest, it is a real pleasure to be in it, and to have an eye on the sea and the cloudscape. There are splendid telescopes kept up here, and it is always nice to be the first to sight a craft of any kind, with only her topmasts rising over the far-off horizon.

It was Charlie who had the luck to first discover the Crozet Islands, and bleak and dismal they did look, for, this being summer, there was no snow on the rocks, but with his fine sight he could distinguish birds in myriads.

He felt quite a man, too, when he hailed the quarter-deck, trying to imitate the hoarse shout of the bo’s’n’s mate with his ringing—

“Below there!”

“Ay, ay, sir,” sang up the officer of the watch, putting particular emphasis on the “sir,” more for fun, I think, than anything else.

“Thank you,” said Captain Mayne Brace. “How does it lie?”

“About two points on the weather bow.”

This was so nautical that the boy had to take a long breath after it, and wind himself up as it were.

But the hail, anyhow, although it had had the effect of making even the man at the wheel smile a little, produced no little excitement on board, and more than one camera was got ready to take snapshots at the shore as soon as it put in an appearance from the deck.

CHAPTER VII
A FEARFUL NIGHT—ANTARCTIC LAND-ICE

“Land ho!” This is a cheering cry at times to the mariner. More especially if it be the chalky cliffs of Britain bold, and he is just returning from a long and weary voyage.

It is not so cheering if the ship is out of her course, and the shore looks a forbidding and inhospitable one, and if soon after this shout you hear another “Ready about!”

Nor did the looks of these storm-rent and surf-tormented rocks tend to raise the spirits of the wanderers in the Walrus to a very high degree.

But it was land all the same, and curiosity was excited in the heart of every one. Even Nick and Nora must stand with their paws on the bulwarks, and sniff longingly towards it.

As often as not, these islands or islets are enveloped in rain-clouds, snow-clouds, or fog, the wildest of waves wash their rocky shores, and it can hardly be said that there is a green thing upon them. But the birds love them all the same, and find sustenance in the nesting season in various kinds of algæ or seaweeds, and in the shrimps with which the sea abounds.

A boat or two was lowered, and a landing-place found, and, as usual, observations and soundings were taken. The glass remained high, and there was every prospect of fine weather for a day or two at least, so sea-fishing was gone into with some success, eggs were collected, and made a valuable addition to the larder.

Then the voyage was continued, and the Walrus made in the direction of Marion Island, one of the Prince Edward group, lying in the same latitude.

The wind continued fair for a week, but somewhat ahead.

Then one afternoon it blew a little warmer, and veered more to the north.

“I fear we’re in for a blow,” said Captain Mayne Brace’s acting mate. “Weather looks very dirty, sir, all about. Horizon creeping nearer, wind coming in nasty puffs, sea with a swell on it, and a falling glass, and——”

“That’s enough, mate; take in sail and reef. Just make her fit to encounter anything; and, I say”—the mate had touched his cap and was retiring—“I think we might as well have fires ready to light, in case, you know.”

“Ay, ay, sir. Thank you.”

“Going to be bad weather, captain?” said Ingomar, entering the saloon just then.

“Not sure. Nothing is certain in these seas. It is dark enough to have the lights turned on, but that makes things look gloomy when one goes on deck.”

“Yes; and the sudden transition from bright light to comparative darkness is certainly somewhat depressing.”

“Anyhow, boys all, there’s two things I don’t mean to do, and one I’ve made up my mind to. I’m not going to be blown back if I can help it; I’m not going to waste my precious coals so as to have to burn the bulkheads in an emergency; and if the wind doesn’t go with me, why, I’ll go with the wind.”

“Hurrah!” cried Ingomar. “That is capital policy all through.”

The boys clapped their hands, because it occurred to them that it was the best thing to do.

Everything was conducted during this voyage with the greatest regularity. The very same precautions as to lights was taken at night—though small, indeed, was the likelihood of a ship being met—as would have been observed in steering up or down our own English Channel. There were three watches, so that, in these inclement seas, the men might not suffer from fatigue; the temperature of the water and air had to be taken each watch; the sky and clouds observed, and the force of the wind marked, etc., and all was logged. Notes were taken even of the appearance of seals or whales, the flight of birds, the colour of the sea and floating seaweed. One well-kept log of a voyage is of great use to future mariners who sail the same seas; from many logs so kept, are deduced about all that science knows of winds and seas and ocean currents.

In a few minutes after the mate had gone on deck, the ship seemed to stop suddenly short, to stand suddenly still, and the sails began to flap uncertainly. There was much confusion now on deck, and slacking off of sheets and shouting of orders, for the mate knew not from which side the wind would come next.

Then there was a vivid flash of lightning, which almost blinded the eyes of those below. Another and another followed quickly, and were succeeded by louder thunder than most people ever listen to.

Then the wind!

The shifting, ever shifting wind! For the Walrus was in a little cyclone. Certainly not little as regarded force, but still in extent small enough to be called a whirlwind. Yet such whirlwinds as these are strong enough to sink any ship that ever sailed if not most carefully handled.

There was another circular squall after this, then a third and fourth, and lo! the steady gale came on in earnest, blowing terrifically from the N.N.W.

Now God save the good ship in the darkness of such an awful night as this!

For the wind brought with it its own waves, its own cold spray, its own wild showers of driving rain and sleet and hail combined. It brought something worse—it brought streams of small ice-blocks, and streams of deep snowy slush, passing through which the ship was strangely steady, because never a green sea rolled on board.

It is just on such a night as this long and terrible one that, with the horizon a mere background of blackness to the dimly lighted bulwarks, a wind that shrieks and howls like wild wolves, a wind that even head down one cannot face, but must creep side first against, clutching at rope or stay, and gasping as if engulphed in the dark cold water just beyond; it is on just such a night as this, I say, that the mariner in these far Southern seas, having taken in every bit of canvas he can spare, and done his best for his good ship from bowsprit to glimmering binnacle, must place his trust in Providence, feeling that he is in the hands of Him who can hold the ocean in His palm, and bring him safely through the danger.

The captain himself did not come below until the beginning of the middle watch. He was wet and shiny in his oilskins and sou’wester.

Ingomar had turned in.

The boys had not undressed, but had lain down to talk fearfully, just in front of the stove, with the dogs their only companions.

They had been especially terrified by the loud rattling of some sails that had carried away while the gale was still at hurricane force.

“What! not in bed yet, lads?”

“No,” said Charlie. “Fact is, sir, I’d rather be drowned with my clothes on, and Walt here thinks the same.”

Mayne Brace laughed.

“I can’t blame you, though. I was once young myself. But bustle now, boys; find your way into the pantry, switch on the light, and see what you can find to eat.”

This was very cheering language, not only because they knew that the captain would not think of having supper, if he thought the ship was going down an hour or so after, but because they themselves were hungry enough to swallow an octopus.

An exciting night of storm has always that effect on the seafarer.

Charlie with the cold beef, Walter with sardines, onions, bread, and butter, soon staggered out of the pantry again, and as speedily returned for knives and forks, and plates, and cruets, and dainty sauces.

There was hot coffee in an urn over the stove, and preserved meat; and what a glorious supper they did make to be sure! You would not have said that there was a deal of funk about those boys’ hearts had you seen them ply their knives and forks. But the funniest thing about the matter was this—hardly had they got settled down to serious eating before a state-room door opened, and lo! behold Ingomar in the robes of night (pyjamas) standing swaying and smiling, and holding fast to the bulkhead.

“I’ll join you, if you please,” said Ingomar.

And he did with a hearty good will too. The dogs, of course, partook of the banquet.

The boys felt happy and a bit drowsy after this, and turned in.

Storm still raging next morning. Uncomfortable motion. Wind still more to the north, and ship lying-to almost under bare poles.

And so it blew and blew on and off for well-nigh a week.

Then surcease of a storm and tempest, such as it is the experience of but few to face at this season of the year in these lower latitudes.

And where were they now? Why, still in the longitude or meridian of the Crozet Islands, but, despite their well-conducted war with the elements, several degrees further south. In very truth, they might just as well have sailed here to Enderby Land straight from Kerguelen.

Everybody was pleased one beautiful morning to find that wind and sea had both gone down. It was nice to sit down to a warm and comfortable breakfast, without fear of having the lower extremities parboiled with hot coffee.

The boys had had their sea-water bath this morning early at wash-decks time. This consisted simply in rushing forward, jumping, and skylarking like white savages, and having the hose played on them. But it made them hungry.

Forward, the men’s talk was chiefly about the recent heavy weather.

“Joy to you, Jack,” said Dumpty to a companion, “but this doesn’t seem much like getting round the globe, do it?”

“It don’t, Dumpty, and that’s a fact,” was the reply. “But it’s all in the voyage, little ’un, and the more months the more cash, and that’s how I looks at it.”

The captain’s face and Ingomar’s too were wreathed in smiles as they sat down to the good things sent forward.

“Seems,” said the former, “we’re going to go zigzagging round the world.”

“Yes. Going to resume your course now?”

“No; the wind brought us here. I’ll forego the Marions now, and bear up for the Boukets and Lindsays, weather permitting; but not until we now have a look at the country the storm has been unkindly enough to drive us to nolentes volentes.”

“I wonder where the Sea Elephant is about this time?”

“Ah, it would be hard to say, but the gale that we encountered, if it has passed far on to the east, would have been more favourable for them, and they are now in open seas off Budd or even Knox Land. They’ll beat us in the race round the world, you’ll find.”

Every one had the greatest faith in the sturdy old Walrus, for icebergs to her were nothing, so long as she did not get into a powerful squeeze.

The “ice blink,” a reflection like snow on the horizon over the pack, was seen that forenoon early, and Mayne Brace headed away directly for it. He judged himself to be about the longitude of Cape Anne, and he was right.

Young sailors like Charlie and Walt wondered a little that they did not sooner come into fields of slush and streams of smaller ice, that of broken-up floes and hummocks.

“The reason is simply this, boys,” said the skipper. “That kind of stuff has all been hurled back to the edge of the pack on the main barrier of ice by the force of the northerly wind.

“This land-ice is quite different,” he continued, “from any you have ever encountered in the North Pole regions. Our earlier navigators in their tubs of ships sighted it, and some of them sailed along its edge for hundreds of miles; and as they could find no inlet before they were driven off by storms, they jumped to the conclusion that this great barrier, this solid, cliff-like wall of blue or green or striated ice, hundreds of feet in height at some places, went all around the Antarctic, warning them that thus far might they come but no farther.”

“But what, then,” said Charlie, “do you mean by land-ice? I’m all in a fog.”

“Well, lad, you must first imagine a time in the remote ages when this great unknown Antarctic continent was a land of mountain, forest, and flood, with rivers finding their way down very extensive valleys to pour their bright waters into the sea. Imagine, too, if you please, that these beautiful valleys were in ages far remote from ours clad in verdure, in jungle, heath, and forest, and that a fauna distinct from ours existed here, that immense mammoths and mastodons dwelt here, and mayhap flying alligators, though probably no other creature at all bearing any resemblance to the form of human beings.

“Then let this age pass out of your mind, and another and colder period slowly commence—a glacial period, for instance, during which the rivers and lakes were frozen, and there was no more rainfall, because the mists or dews driven over yonder continent were then condensed, and fell as snow. The long storms of winter would soften and the snows melt somewhat during the Antarctic summer, to form ice again when the dark, wild weather returned. So the valleys would be partially filled up with great glaciers. These must move down towards the sea, though extremely slowly—broad Mississippis of ice and snow. When this so-called land-ice reached the water, it would form a barrier, and monster bergs would get detached and float away, leaving the striated cliffs with their wave-washed caves at the edge. In the gigantic, snow-covered, square blocks that float away on the currents of ocean, these caves form archways, so that you can sometimes see right through the bergs, or even sail a boat through them.

“Well, that is land-ice, but the sea-ice is formed of something like the same pancake and hummocky ice we find in the far, far north, and the peculiarity of the Antarctic seas of ice is this—the land-bergs, if I may so call them, often get embedded or entangled in pack-ice, high above which their great bulk heaves, as towers a ship of battle above a tugboat or dinghy. In course of time the land-bergs are hollowed and tunnelled by the waves on which they float, till they break-up, or divide, forming the strangest-shaped pieces imaginable.

“Another thing which proves that a long way into the interior of this South-polar region land extends is this—débris of earth and blocks of rock are brought down on the glacier that, as an examination of the sea’s bottom proves, could have descended in no other fashion.”

“It is all very wonderful!” said Charlie.

“I wonder,” said Walter, “if any mermaids dwell in these caves of ice?”

Captain Mayne Brace smiled and answered.

“I hope,” he said, “to give you an opportunity of discovering for yourself, my dear boy.”

But the Walrus reached the pack of sea-ice at last; and the sight, though not perfectly new to mariners who had sailed the Arctic seas, was at least very wonderful, and had a cold kind of beauty about it, which it is difficult indeed to describe.

And far, far away in the interior, mountains covered with everlasting snow raised their great peaked heads on the horizon.

No life?

Well, no animals, not even a leopard, seal, or sea-elephant, but droves of droll penguins, standing on end, and looking, at a distance, for all the world like a crowd of lazy boys just let loose from a Sunday school, who had been warned not to soil their clothes by romping.

CHAPTER VIII
WONDROUS SCENERY—NICK SAVES THE LIFE OF WALLACE

The hummocks in this pack were not like those in Greenland seas, which are generally rounded off by wind and snow. These were more like pieces of ice set on end, and were of every conceivable shape or form.

But not far away from the sea-edge was a most gigantic fellow of a land-iceberg. It was quite as large as five and forty St. Paul’s Cathedrals formed into one. Peaked here and there it was too, and the outlines of these peaks were rounded off with snow.

It was evident that this magical monster had been to sea a time or two, and that, moreover, he would go north again on the first chance, quickly dashing aside the pigmies that now impeded his progress, forced along by wind and current.

The Walrus lay-to off the pack-edge for a day or two, that observations, soundings, and a survey of the sea’s bottom, etc., might be taken. For Mayne Brace did not mean to work through at present, and risk the chance of being beset.

But boats were sent off, that our heroes, and even the dogs, might have a scamper.

Though too rough for ski, or snow-shoe travelling, the ice-pieces were pretty close together, and it was easy for everybody to leap from one to the other, and so on and on till at long last they reached the berg, and made an attempt to get to the summit. This was much harder than was at first expected, especially for the dogs, but these were determined to follow their leader; and so, often stumbling, sometimes slipping, many down again, they struggled on until they got to the top.

They had their snow-shoes over their backs, and although there was some danger of their going over a cliff or icy precipice, they enjoyed an hour’s really good fun. They would have tarried here much longer, but noticed that the signal for recall had been hoisted; and so, as soon as they had erected a pole, with a round black ball on the top, and the name of the vessel cut in the handle, they started to retrace their steps.

The hoisting of the pole took a longer time than they had reckoned on, for they had to cut the hard surface of the snow first with their Jack-knives, and get the dogs to complete the excavation with their busy fore-feet. This they encouraged them to do by pointing to the hole and saying “Rats!”

Now, I don’t believe that either Nick or Nora expected to find a rat in such a place, but that they merely worked away to please the boys.

None too soon did they reach the boats, for lo! the ice was opening, and the small bergs getting farther and farther apart. As it was, one man received a ducking which he would remember till his dying day.

If a strong current ran under the ice, it would have been easy for it to have carried him away. In Greenland seas there is extra danger in such an immersion, for sharks are always on the watch there when men are on the ice, and no one would care to be made a meal of by these scaly monsters.

Two boats had come on shore, and, as usual in such cases, a race was got up—and oh, there is no race so exciting as that between real sailors with good honest broad-beamed boats. Ingomar offered as a prize a bottle of rum and pound of “baccy” to the winning whaler. So the men must even doff their heavy jackets to the work.

Noticing what was up, all hands on board crowded into the rigging, and small innocent bets were made, such as clay pipes or postage stamps that had only been once in use.

The men in each boat were about equal in weight. Charlie was cox’n of one, Walt of the other, and Hans himself gave the signal.

Then, had you been there, you might have heard such shouts or encouraging words from the boys to their crews as—

“Up with her now!”

“Cheerily does it!”

“Hurrah, men! Hurrah!”

“We’re winning!” from Charlie.

“We’ll beat them, boys!” from Walter.

“Touch her up!”

“Merrily goes it!” etc.

And Walt’s boat had soon forged ahead at least two lengths, then—

“Now, lads,” roared Charlie—“now, lads, give them fits! We’ve got to win.”

And on rushed the whalers, every man doing his most.

It was likely, after all, to be a win for Walter, when, unluckily, his boat touched a bit of green ice, which caused a man to catch a crab, and, with a loud cheer from those on board, Charlie dashed madly past, and won by a length.

Then cheers, loud and long, rose from the rigging, with many a mighty hurrah, and when Charlie scrambled in-board, he was hoisted and carried three times round the deck shoulder high, the men singing merrily.

Then the boats were hoisted, with the dogs still in them, and they soon joined the merriment, you may be sure.

But everybody seemed happier for what was called their spin on shore.

* * * * *

Shortly after this more sail was set, and the vessel headed away for the west, tack and half-tack, for the wind was not yet fair.

That same afternoon they rounded Cape Anne.

This point of rocky land juts far into the sea here. It is a wonderful sight in summer when the black rocks stand out and the higher cliffs are still covered with purest snow.

But what a world of life was here—in the sea, on the cliffs and shore, where cities of countless, I may say myriads, of birds were built.

Sea-leopards and other phocine creatures were all around in multitudes.

It was determined to risk another lie-to, for the water was too deep to anchor, and they must not venture near those mountain peaks, for unknown seas have a disagreeable habit of shoaling suddenly, and if it is not low water when a ship is stranded, poor indeed is her chance of ever getting off again.

The day was very long now, but still there was a marvellous sunset to-night. Strange colours, rubies, greens, and orange, lingered long on the mountain and snow-cliffs full half an hour after the sun went down. And after the stars shone out, a quarter moon sailed slowly up, but seemed to detract in no whit from their wondrous brightness.

High above shone the Southern Cross, a constellation which in this country can, of course, never be observed. The scene about midnight, when Ingomar and the boys came up to have a last look at it before turning in, might well have been called solemn, but for the strange noises which hardly ever ceased.

Here and there, near to the ship even, was the hissing and hurtling as of a ship blowing off steam, and looking in the direction from which these came, great fountains or geysers could be noticed in the pale light. Whales were blowing. Other sounds, and sighs, and cries, and snortings, and moanings were incessant, and now and then long-drawn cries, proceeding whence or from what no one could ever guess.

For the rocks were covered with skuas, cormorants, and many a curious bird never met with in Northern waters.

“Do these creatures never sleep, I wonder?” asked Charlie.

“Hardly ever in early December,” said Captain Mayne Brace, who stood near him, “because, Charlie, this is the season of love and joy, and the shores are covered with nestlings, who would hardly permit their parents to sleep, if they wished to.”

“But I suppose they sleep sometimes?”

“They just have a nap or a nod or two now and then, when Nature won’t be denied any longer.

“But I say, boys, there is no reason why you should sit up all night, even if yonder birds and beasts do. Off with you and turn in.”

Charlie’s sleep was very dreamful that night, and so was Walter’s too.

But what they had seen the day before was nothing to the sights that met their gaze next morning when the boats landed.

They had been told to land on a white tongue of land where penguins were marching about and sea-leopards lolling in the sunshine, half-standing on their flippers to stare at the advancing boats, scratching themselves, and assuming the most ridiculous attitudes imaginable.

They had the pleasure of seeing several whales, and it was well they did not come into anything like close contact with these, or a nasty capsize would have been the consequence.

The seals were not a bit afraid of them, and hardly troubled to shuffle away into the water. Those who did made splendid dives. Charlie could not help envying them, but he himself would not have cared to dive into so dark and deep and cold a sea.

Some of the smaller ones were pole-axed (clubbed) because the flesh is palatable, and fried seal’s-liver and bacon make a capital breakfast dish.

Close to the precipitous ice-cliffs they had been warned not to venture, and indeed, while gazing and wondering at these as they shone and shimmered in the sunshine, a terrible explosion took place. High up a portion of the ice-wall fell, thundering and splashing into the sea, where it was splintered into pieces.

It fell right into the midst of a portion of water black with the heads of wondering seals, yet not one floated up dead, so nimbly had they dived beneath.

The camera-men and general observation-takers managed to climb a snowy mountain-peak, and I need hardly say that our heroes formed three of the party.

The sight that met their gaze from this lofty altitude, was one which once seen could never be forgotten.

Let those who tell us that scenery of Antarctic ice is dead and monotonous come here. Here was no monotony, and they could see to such a distance icebergs, small and great, afloat on the blue ocean (the sky was blue); an island or two on

the horizon of the north; to the south and west a long stretch of hilly shores, with snow-whitened, rugged peaks, little ice, big ice, ice of every form or shape that could be imagined, clouds and cloudlets in the sky, rolls of cumulus, lines of stria and patches of cirrhus. As for life, that was everywhere beneath them. Such crowds of beautiful sea-birds, especially gulls, had never before been witnessed, and the water was alive with life.

“Look, oh look!” cried Charlie, pointing to a particular spot just beneath. Here was a strange-looking monster, indeed—a real live sea-elephant, called so from the length of his proboscis. But king of the seas he is here, and other seals were crowding round him as if taking counsel, or—what is more probable—to scare him away by the might of their numbers. But he dashed them proudly away and soon disappeared. Like the great bladder-nose of the Arctic, he is a rather lonesome animal, and prefers to be.

With their lorgnettes they could see from such a height as this far down into the sea-depths. It was a busy time with the sea-leopards, for they were teaching their puppies how to swim with grace and celerity, and how long to stay below before Nature craved for a mouthful of fresh air. Some of them held their offspring between their flippers, and these were evidently giving suck.

Luncheon was partaken of, about 1700 feet above the sea level.

Lanes of water, south and west, could be seen penetrating into loughs or inland seas; but on this being reported to Captain Mayne Brace, he decided not to explore.

Lest I forget it, I should mention here, that the huge iceberg, on which the signal broom was hoisted, near to Cape Anne, was encountered far to sea many months after this by the Sea Elephant. The commander was greatly puzzled, but hauled yards aback and lowered a boat, thinking there must be shipwrecked men on the berg, part of the crew of some other expedition. They were even more puzzled when they found the name Walrus burned upon the pole. But this episode served to show the drift of the ocean current of the wind, for it was found far to the west, between South Georgia Islands and the great ice-pack.

On their way further to the west, the Walrus encountered weather fair and fine. They kept inwards, therefore—passing many huge striated icebergs, some caved, others tunnelled through and through—until they reached the Bouvet Isles, in latitude about 53° South and longitude 2° to 5° East.

They are volcanic in origin, as might easily be expected, and were first discovered by Captain Bouvet, who, however, could give but little account of them, owing, first to dense fogs, and secondly to the rocky little uninviting group being so closely packed around with ice-floes.

After seeing all here that could be seen, and catching many specimens of strange seals, as well as birds, the vessel’s direction was altered from N.W. to W. by S., and in due time, with few further adventures, and a considerable deal of monotonous sailing, they reach the Sandwich group, which lies in from 55° to 60° South and somewhere about 30° to the west.

These islands were all volcanic, as far as could be made out, and, indeed, in one of them, nearly the farthest north, smoke still issues from a half-burnt-out cone.

Almost every bottle, as it was emptied, was thrown overboard. After letters were written, they were corked, waxed, and well sealed. Some of these, strange to say, were picked up nearly a year afterwards on the shores of South America. And these, of course, were duly forwarded to England.

Some were, half a year after this, picked up by the Sea Elephant, and joyful enough were all hands to learn that all was going well on the sister ship.

* * * * *

West, and away ever west.

West, and still further south; and one morning, when the sun was unusually bright and clear, Charlie had the satisfaction, from the crow’s-nest, of discovering mountain peaks ahead.

Unfortunately for our young hero, these had been discovered generations before his time, else his name would be handed down in ocean history.