Cast Away in the Cold Page 6

  CHAPTER V.

  In which the Ancient Mariner, continuing his Story,borrows an Illustration from the "Ancient Mariner"of Song, and then proceeds to tell how theywent into the Cold, and were cast away there.

  "'And now there came both mist and snow,And it grew wondrous cold:And ice mast-high came floating by,As green as emerald.'

  "I recite this from a famous poem because it suits so well what came ofus, for you must understand that, while all I have been telling you wasgoing on, we were approaching the northern regions, and were gettinginto the sea where ice was to be expected. A man was accordingly keptaloft all the time to look out for it: for you will remember that wewere going after seals, and it is on the ice that the seals are found.The weather now became very cold, it being the month of April.

  "At length the man aloft cried out that he saw ice. 'Where away?'shouted the red-faced mate. 'Off the larboard bow,' was the answer. Sothe course of the ship was changed, and we bore right down upon the ice,and very soon it was in sight from the deck, and gradually became moreand more distinct. It was a very imposing sight. The sea was covered allover with it, as far as the eye could reach,--a great plain ofwhiteness, against the edge of which the waves were breaking and sendingthe spray flying high in the air and sending to our ears that samedull, heavy roar which the breakers make when beating on the land.

  "As we neared this novel scene, I observed that it consisted mostly offlat masses of ice, of various sizes (called by the sealers 'floes');some were miles in extent, and others only a few feet. The surface ofthese ice floes or fields rose only about a foot or so above the surfaceof the water. Between them there were in many places very broadopenings, and when I went aloft and looked ahead, these ice-fieldsappeared like a great collection of large and small flat white islands,dotted about in the midst of the ocean. Through these openings betweenthe fields the ship was immediately steered, and we were soon surroundedby ice on every side. To the south, whence we had come, there was in anhour or so apparently just as much ice as there was before us to thenorth, or to the right and left of us,--a vast immeasurable waste of iceit was, looking dreary and frightful enough, I can assure you.

  "I have said that the pieces of ice now about us were called 'floes,' orice-fields; the whole together was called 'the pack.' We were now inperfectly smooth water, for you will easily understand that the icewhich we had passed broke the swell of the sea. But the crew of the shipdid not give themselves much concern about the ice itself; for it wassoon discovered that the floes were covered in many places with seals.

  "Now you must understand that seals are not fish, but are air-breathing,warm-blooded animals, like horses and cows, and therefore they mustalways have their heads, or at least their noses, out of water when theybreathe. When the weather is cold, they remain in the water all thetime, merely putting up their noses now and then (for they can remain along time under water without breathing) to sniff a little fresh air,and then going quickly down again. In the warm weather, however, theycome up bodily out of the sea, and bask and go to sleep in the sun,either on the land or on the ice. Many thousands of them are often seentogether.

  "As we came farther and farther into the 'pack,' the seals on the icewere observed to be more and more numerous. Most of them appeared to besound asleep; some of them were wriggling about, or rolling themselvesover and over, while none of them seemed to have the least idea that wehad come all the way from New Bedford to rob them of their sleek coatsand their nice fat blubber.

  "We were now fairly into our 'harvest-field,' and when a suitable placewas discovered the ship was brought up into the wind, that is, the helmwas so turned as to bring the ship's head towards the wind, when ofcourse the sails got 'aback,' and the ship stopped. Then a boat waslowered, and a crew, of which I was one, got into it, with the end of avery long rope, and we pulled away towards the edge of a largeice-field, hauling out the rope after us, of course, from the coil onshipboard. As we approached the ice, the seals near by all becamefrightened, and floundered into the sea as quickly as they could, with atremendous splash. In a few minutes they all came up again, puttingtheir cunning-looking heads out of the water, all around the boat, nodoubt as curious to see what these singular-looking beings were that hadcome amongst them, as the Indians were about Columbus and his Spaniards,when they first came to America.

  "As soon as we had reached the ice, we sprang out of the boat on to it,and, after digging a hole into it with a long, sharp bar of iron, calledan ice-chisel, we put therein one end of a large, heavy, crooked hook,called an ice-anchor, and then to a ring in the other end of thisice-anchor we made fast the end of the rope that we had brought with us.This done, we signalled to the people on board to 'haul in,' which theydid on their end of the rope, and in a little while the ship was drawnclose up to the ice. Then another rope was run out over the stern of theship, and, this being made fast to an ice-anchor in the same way as theother, the ship was soon drawn up with her whole broadside close to theice, as snug as if she were lying alongside of a dock in New Bedford.

  "And now began the seal-hunt. It would not interest you to hear allabout the preparations we made, first to catch the seals, and then topreserve the skins and try out the oil from the blubber, and put it awayin barrels. For this latter duty some of the crew were selected, whileothers were sent off to kill and bring in the seals. These latter werechosen with a view to their activity, and I, being supposed to be ofthat sort, was one of the party. I was glad enough, I can assure you, toget off the vessel for once on to something firm and solid, even if itwas only ice, and at least for a little while to have done with rockingand rolling about over the waves.

  "Each one of the seal-catchers was armed with a short club for killingthe seals, and a rope to drag them over the ice to the ship. Wescattered in every direction, our object being each by himself toapproach a group of seals, and, coming upon them as noiselessly aspossible, to kill as many of them as we could before they should alltake fright and rush into the sea. In order to do this, we were obligedto steal up between the seals and the water as far as possible.

  "My first essay at this novel business was ridiculous enough, and,besides nearly causing my death, overwhelmed me with mortification. Ithappened thus. I made at a large herd of seals, nearly all of whichwere lying some distance from the edge of the ice, and before they couldget into the water I had managed to intercept about a dozen of them.Thus far I thought myself very lucky; but, as the poet Burns says,

  'The best laid schemes o' mice and men Gang aft a-gley, And leave us naught but grief and pain For promised joy,'--

  so it fell out with me. The seals, of course, all rushed towards thewater as fast as they could go, the moment they saw me coming. But I gotup with them in time, and struck one on the nose, killing it, and was inthe act of striking another, when a huge fellow that was big enough tohave been the father of the whole flock, too badly frightened to mindwhere he was going, ran his head between my legs, and, whipping up myheels in an instant, landed me on his back, in which absurd position Iwas carried into the sea before I could recover myself. Of course I sunkimmediately, and dreadfully cold was the water; but, rising to thesurface in a moment, I was preparing to make a vigorous effort to swimback to the ice, when another badly frightened and ill-mannered seal, asI am sure you will all think, plunged into the sea without once lookingto see what he was doing, and hit me with the point of his nose fairlyin the stomach.

  "I thought now for certain that my misfortunes were all over, and thatmy end was surely come. However, I got my head above the surface oncemore, and did my best to keep it there; but my hopes vanished when Iperceived that I was at least twenty feet from the edge of the ice. Itwas as much as I could do to keep my head above water, without swimmingforward, so much embarrassed was I by my heavy clothing, the greatcold, and the terrible pains (worse than those of colic) caused by theseal hitting me in the stomach. I am quite certain that this would havebeen the last of John Hardy's adventures, had not one of my companions,seeing me going overboard on the back of the seal, rushed to my rescue.He threw me his line for dragging seals (the end of which I had barelystrength to catch and hold on to), and then he drew me out as one wouldhaul up a large fish.

  John Hardy takes a Ride without meaning it.]

  "I came from the sea in a most sorry condition, as you can well imagine.My mouth was full of salt water. I was so prostrated with the cold thatI could scarcely stand, and my pains were so great that I shouldcertainly have screamed had I not been so full of water that I couldnot utter a single word. But I managed, after a while, to get all thewater spit out, and then, after drawing into my lungs a few good longbreaths of air, I felt greatly refreshed. I could still, however, hardlystand, and was shivering with the cold. But I found that I had strengthenough to stagger back to the ship, where I was greeted in a manner farfrom pleasant.

  "The sailors looked upon my adventure as a great joke, never onceseeming to think how near I was to death's door, and the mate simplycried out 'Overboard, eh? Pity the sharks didn't catch him!' It wasclear enough that this red-faced tyrant would show me no mercy; andwhen, pale and cold and panting for breath, I asked him for leave to gobelow for a while, he cried out, 'Yes, for just five minutes. Be lively,or I'll warm your back for you with a rope's end.'

  "The prospect of a 'back warming' of this description had the effect tomake me lively, sure enough, although I was shivering as if I wouldshake all my teeth out, and tumble all my bones down into a heap. Assoon as I reached the deck, the mate cried out again for me to 'belively,' and when he set after me with an uplifted rope's end, his faceglaring at me all the while like a red-hot furnace, you may be sure Iwas quite as lively as it was possible for me to be, and was over theship's side in next to no time at all, and off after seals again. Aftera while I got warmed up with exercise, and this time, being morecautious, I met with no similar misadventure, and soon came in draggingthree seals after me. The mate now complimented me by exclaiming, 'Why,look at the lubber!'

  "We continued at this seal-hunting for a good many days, during which weshifted our position frequently, and made what the sealers called a good'catch.' But still the barrels in the hold of the ship were not muchmore than half of them filled with oil, when a great storm set in, and,the ice threatening to close in upon us, we were forced to geteverything aboard, to cast loose from the ice-field, and work our waysouth into clear water again, which we were fortunate enough to dowithout accident. But some other vessels which had come up while we werefishing, and were very near to us, were not so lucky. Two of them werecaught by the moving ice-fields before they could make their escape, andwere crushed all to pieces. The crews, however, saved themselves byjumping out on the ice, and were all successful in reaching othervessels, having managed to save their boats before their ships actuallywent down. It was a very fearful sight, the crushing up of thesevessels,--as if they were nothing more than eggshells in the hand.

  "This storm lasted, with occasional interruptions, thirteen days, butthe breaks in it were of such short duration that we had littleopportunity to 'fish' (as seal-catching is called) any more. Weapproached the ice several times, only to be driven off again before wehad fairly succeeded in getting to work, and hence we caught very fewseals.

  "By the time the storm was over the season for seal-fishing was nearlyover too; so we had no alternative, if we would get a good cargo of oil,but to go in search of whales, which would take us still farther north,and into much heavier ice, and therefore, necessarily, into even greaterdanger than we had hitherto encountered. Accordingly, the course of thevessel was changed, and I found that we were steering almost due north,avoiding the ice as much as possible, but passing a great deal of itevery day. The wind being mostly fair, and the ice not thick enough atany time to obstruct our passage, we hauled in our latitude very fast."

  "Excuse me, Captain Hardy," here interrupted William, "what is haulingin latitude?"

  "That's for going farther north," answered the Captain. "Latitude isdistance from the equator, either north or south, and what a sailormakes in northing or southing he calls 'hauling in his latitude,' justas making easting or westing is 'hauling in his longitude.'"

  "Thank you, Captain," said William, politely, when he had finished.

  "Is it all clear now?" inquired the Captain.

  "Yes," said William, "clear as mud."

  "Clear as mud, eh! Well, that isn't as clear as the pea-soup was theyused to give us on board the _Blackbird_, for that was so clear that, ifthe ocean had been made of it, you might have seen through it all theway down to the bottom; indeed, one of the old sailors said that itwasn't soup at all. 'If dat is soup,' growled he, 'den I's sailed fortytousand mile trough soup,'--which is the number of miles he was supposedto have sailed in his various voyages.

  "But no matter for the soup. The days wore on none the less that thesoup was thin, and still we kept going on and on,--getting farther andfarther north, and into more and more ice. Sometimes our course was muchinterrupted, and we had to wait several days for the ice to open; thenwe would get under way again, and push on. At length it seemed to methat we must be very near the North Pole. It was a strange world we hadcome into. The sun was shining all the time. There was no night atall,--broad daylight constantly. This, of course, favored us; indeed,had there been any darkness, we could not have sailed among the ice atall. As it was, we were obliged to be very cautious, for the ice oftenclosed upon us without giving us a chance to escape, obliging us to getout great long saws, and cut out and float away great blocks of the ice,until we had made a dock for the ship, where she could ride with safety.We had many narrow escapes from being crushed.

  "At first, when we concluded to go after whales, there were severalvessels in company with us. At one time I counted nine, all in sight atone time; but we had become separated in thick weather; and whether theyhad gone ahead of us, or had fallen behind, we could not tell. However,we kept on and on and on; where we were, or where we were going, I, ofcourse, had not the least idea; but I became aware, from day to day,that greater dangers were threatening us, for _icebergs_ came in greatnumbers to add their terrors to those which we had already in theice-fields. They became at length (and suddenly too) very numerous, andnot being able to go around them on account of the field-ice, which wason either side, we entered right amongst them. The atmosphere wassomewhat foggy at the time, and it seemed as if the icebergs chilled thevery air we breathed. I fairly shuddered as we passed the first opening.The ice was now at least three times as high as our masts, and verylikely more than that, and it appeared to cover the sea in everydirection. It seemed to me that we were going to certain destruction,and indeed I thought I read a warning written as it were on the bergsthemselves. Upon the corner of an iceberg to the left of us there stooda white figure, as plain as anything could possibly be. One hand of thisstrange, weird-looking figure was resting on the ice beside it, whilethe other was pointing partly upwards toward heaven, and backwardstoward the south whence we had come. I thought I saw the figure move,and, much excited, I called the attention of one of the sailors to it.'Why, you lubber,' said he, 'don't you know that the sun melts the iceinto all sorts of shapes. Look overhead, if there isn't a man's face!' Ilooked up as the sailor had directed me, and, sure enough, there was aman's face plainly to be seen in the lines of an immense tongue of icewhich was projecting from the side of a berg on the right, and underwhich we were about to pass.

  "I became now really terrified. In addition to these strange spectralobjects, the air was filled with loud reports, and deep, rumblingnoises, caused by the icebergs breaking to pieces, or masses splittingoff from their sides and falling into the sea. These noises came atfirst from the icebergs in front of us; but when we had got fairly intothe wilderness of ice which covered the sea, they came from every side.It struck me that we had passed deliberately into the very jaws ofdeath, and that from the frightful situation there was no escape.

  "I merely mention this as the feeling which oppressed me, and which Icould not shake off. Indeed, the feeling grew upon me rather thandecreased. The fog came on very thick, settling over us as if it wereour funeral shroud. Some snow also fell, which made the air still moregloomy. The noises were multiplying, and we could no longer tell whencethey came, so thick was the air. We were groping about like a travellerwho has lost his way in a vast forest, and has been overtaken by thedark night.

  "It seemed to me now that our doom was sealed,--that all our hope wasleft behind us when we passed the opening to this vast wilderness oficebergs; and the more I thought of it, the more it seemed to me thatthe figure standing on the corner of the iceberg where we entered,whether it was ice or whatever it was, had been put there as a warning.How far my fears were right you shall see presently.

  "The fog, as I have said, kept on thickening more and more, until wecould scarcely see anything at all. I have never, I think, seen so thicka fog, and it was with the greatest difficulty that the ship was keptfrom striking the icebergs. Then, after a while, the wind fell awaysteadily, and finally grew entirely calm. The current was moving usabout upon the dead waters; and in order to prevent this current fromsetting us against the ice, we had to lower the boats, and, making linesfast to the ship and to the boats, pull away with our oars to keepheadway on the ship, that she might be steered clear of the dangerousplaces. Thus was made a slow progress, but it was very hard work. Atlength the second mate, who was steering the foremost boat, which I wasin, cried out, 'Fast ice ahead.' Now 'fast ice' is a belt of ice whichis attached firmly to the land, not yet having been broken up ordissolved by the warmth of the summer. This announcement created greatjoy to everybody in the boats, as we knew that land must be near, and weall supposed that we would be ordered to make a line fast to the ice,that we might hold on there until the fog cleared up and the wind cameagain. But instead of this we were ordered by the mate to pull away fromit. And then, after having got the vessel, as was supposed, into a good,clear, open space of water,--at least, there was not a particle of icein sight,--we were all ordered, very imprudently, as it appeared toevery one of us, to come on board to breakfast.

  "We had just finished our breakfast, and were preparing to go on deck,and then into the boats again, when there was a loud cry raised. 'Iceclose aboard! Hurry up! Man the boats!' were the orders which I heardamong a great many other confusing sounds; and when I got on deck, Isaw, standing away up in the fog, its top completely obscured in thethick cloud, an enormous iceberg. The side nearest to us hung over froma perpendicular, as the projecting tongue on which I had before seen theman's face. It was very evident that we were slowly drifting upon thisfrightful object,--directly under this overhanging tongue. It was afearful sight to behold, for it looked as if it was just ready tocrumble to pieces; and indeed, at every instant, small fragments werebreaking off from it, with loud reports, and falling into the sea.

  "We were but a moment getting into the boats. The boat which I was inhad something the start of the other two. Just as we were pulling away,the master of the ship came on deck, and ordered us to do what, had thered-faced mate done an hour before, would have made it impossible thatthis danger should have come upon us. 'Carry your line out to the fastice,' was the order we received from the master; and every one of us,realizing the great danger, pulled as hard as he could. The 'fast ice'was dimly in sight when we started, for we had drifted while atbreakfast towards it, as well as towards the berg. Only a few minuteswere needed to reach it. We jumped out and dug a hole, and planted theice-anchor. The ship was out of sight, buried in the fog. A faint voicecame from the ship. It was, 'Hurry up! we have struck.' They evidentlycould not see us. The line was fastened to the anchor in an instant, andthe second mate shouted, 'Haul in! haul in!' There was no answer but'Hurry up! we have struck.' 'Haul in! haul in!' shouted the second mate,but still there was no answer. 'They can't hear nor see,' said he,hurriedly; and then, turning to me, said, 'Hardy, you watch the anchorthat it don't give way. Boys, jump in the boat, and we'll go nearer theship so they can hear.' The boat was gone quickly into the fog, and Iwas then alone on the ice by the anchor,--how much and truly alone youshall hear.

  "Quick as the lightning flash, sudden as the change of one second toanother, there broke upon me a sound that will never leave my ears. Itwas as if a volcano had burst forth, or an earthquake had instantlytumbled a whole city into ruins. A fearful shock, like a suddenexplosion, filled the air. I saw faintly through the thick mists themasts of the ship reeling over, and I saw no more;--vessel and icebergand the disappearing boat were buried in chaos. The whole side of theberg nearest the vessel had split off, hurling thousands and hundreds ofthousands of tons of ice, and thousands of fragments, crashing down uponthe doomed ship. Escape the vessel could not, nor her crew, the shockcame so suddenly. The spray thrown up into the air completely hideverything from view; but the noise which came from out the gloom toldthe tale.

  "Presently there was a loud rush. Great waves, set in motion by thecrumbling iceberg, with white crests that were frightful to look upon,came tearing out of the obscurity, and, perceiving the danger of mysituation, I ran from it as fast as I could run. And I was just in time;for the waves broke up the ice where I had been standing into a hundredfragments, and crack after crack opened close behind me.

  "I had not, however, far to run before I had reached a place of safety,for the force of the waves was soon spent. And when I saw what hadhappened, I fell down flat upon the ice, crying, 'Saved, but for what?to freeze or starve! O that I had perished with the rest of them!'

  "So now you see that I was really and truly _cast away in the cold_. Inalmost a single instant the ship which had borne me through what hadseemed great perils was, so far as appeared to me, swallowed up in thesea,--crushed and broken into fragments by the falling ice, and everyone of my companions was swallowed up with it. And there I was on anice-raft, in the middle of the Arctic Sea, without food or shelter,wrapped in a great black, impenetrable fog, with the prospect of alingering death staring me in the face."

  * * * * *

  The Captain here paused as if to take breath, for he had been talkingvery fast, and had grown somewhat excited as he recalled this terriblescene. The eyes of the children were riveted upon him, so deeply werethey interested in the tale of the shipwreck; and it was some timebefore any one spoke.

  "Well!" exclaimed William at last, "that was being cast away in the coldfor certain, Captain Hardy. I had no idea it was so frightful."

  "Nor I," said Fred, evidently doubting if Captain Hardy was really theshipwrecked boy; but Alice said not a word, for she was lost in wonder.

  "I should not have believed it was you, Captain Hardy," continuedWilliam, "if you had not been telling the story yourself, this veryminute; for I cannot see how you should ever have got out of thatscrape. It's ever so much worse than going into the sea on the seal'sback."

  The Captain smiled at these observations of the boys, and said: "It wasa pretty bad scrape to get into, and no mistake; but through the mercyof Providence I got out of it in the end, as you see; otherwise Ishouldn't have been here to tell the tale; but how I saved myself, andwhat became of the rest of the crew, you shall hear to-morrow, for it isnow too late to begin the story. The evening is coming on, and yourparents will be looking for you home; so good by, my dears. To-morrowyou must come down earlier,--the earlier the better, and if there's anywind we'll have a sail." And now the children once more took leave ofthe ancient mariner, with hearts filled with thanks, which they couldnever get done speaking, and with heads filled with astonishment thatthe Captain should be alive to tell the tale which they had heard.