Courage, True Hearts Part 21

It was all he could say. Yet the salt tears almost blinded him as he spoke.

"Oh, to be an artist!" exclaimed Frank once.

"An artist!" cried Duncan, almost scornfully. "What artist would dare to paint the golden gray and crimson splendour that unites both sea and sky into one living gorgeous whole? Oh, Frank, even Turner himself, were he here, would throw down his brush, and confess that he was a mere caricaturist."

But in a few weeks' time the sunsets were nil, and all, all was day.

Nor did it blow so high now.

Sometimes, indeed, the sea was as calm as a mill-pond, except where rippled in patches by huge shoals of the fry of certain kinds of fish that inhabit these seas.

And these were invariably followed by denizens of the deep that preyed upon them--dancing, leaping, cooing dolphins, for example.

Some of these latter were harpooned, and their dark red flesh made an excellent change of diet from the somewhat salt provisions, eggs, or penguin flesh.

Once or twice, while the weather was calm and the surface of the sea smooth and gla.s.sy, they came upon patches of yellow--banks they were, in fact, over which they were drifting.

Men were now kept constantly in the chains, and sometimes the danger was so great that the anchors were let go to wait for even the lightest breeze.

This might have delayed the voyage somewhat, but nevertheless it was not time wholly misspent, for where the bottom is near to the surface fish are always found in abundance. So boats would be lowered, and real good hand-line sport enjoyed.

In this old Pen partic.i.p.ated. But the first day he started fis.h.i.+ng he swam so fast and so far away, that those in the boat imagined they would never see him more.

Then little Johnnie began to weep.

"Oh, poll deah Pen! Oh, my ole mudder Sue," he cried. "He done gone away foh ebbermoh."

But Johnnie's "weeps" were quite a useless expenditure of lachrymal fluid. This was evident enough when Pen came racing back again with a great silvery fish held proudly aloft. He delivered this, and went back for another. And this again and again, till a breath of wind springing up, it was deemed advisable to return to the _Flora_, who was "t.i.tting"

at her anchor as if eager to be on the wing again.

That Pen loved the darkie was evident enough, for one day, when bent on to his line and hauling away with all his might, a huge bonito pulled the little lad right overboard, the strange bird went grunting and squawking round him in terrible distress.

Johnnie's position just then was not an enviable one, for although he could swim like a herring, there was many a monster shark hovering near that would have been pleased indeed to make a meal of the boy.

These sharks were sometimes caught, and although their flesh had no great flavour, parts of it served sometimes to eke out breakfast or supper.

There are dangers innumerable in those Antarctic seas, and one of the most terrible is that of striking on a sand-bank or running foul of a sunken rock. These not being on the chart, the navigator has to sail along literally with his life in his hand, trusting all to blind chance.

A bank does give some evidence before the s.h.i.+p gets on if there is an outlook in the foretop, and the cry of, "Below there! shoal water ahead!" is all too common. Next comes the shout of, "Ready about!

Stand by tacks and sheets!"

But the rock hides its awful head and gives no sign. The s.h.i.+p strikes, then backward reels, and mayhap sinks before there is time to provision, water, arm, man, and lower the boats.

Ice at last.

But the Antarctic sea was wonderfully open this season, and the ice loose.

It lay in streams of small pieces at first, athwart the world, as Jack termed it; athwart the s.h.i.+p's course, at all events, so these they had to sail through. The good _Flora_ was strong enough to negotiate them, but the battering and thumping along the vessel's sides, as heard below, was tremendous.

These ice streams became more and more numerous, and the pieces, or "berglets", got bigger and bigger, and, of course, more fraught with danger to the s.h.i.+p's vitality.

It grew appreciably colder too, but so slowly had they come into these regions of perpetual snow, that the change in temperature had no detrimental effect upon the health of either the officers or men.

It certainly had none on old Pen. In fact, the colder it got the more he seemed to like it. And now when waltzing with Johnnie, he used to sing in his own droll and dismal way.

Viking also believed in the cold, and the races and gambols he had up and down the deck, when he could induce anyone to throw a belaying-pin for him were wild in the extreme.

Moreover, he had a football, which Duncan had presented him with, and he got no end of fun out of this. He threw it in front of him, he hurled it along in front of him, and swung it about, and one day, when he fairly tossed it overboard, he made no bother about the matter, but rus.h.i.+ng astern, jumped right overboard after it, quite regardless of the fact that the s.h.i.+p was going on at the rate of eight knots an hour.

As quickly as possible she was hove to and a whaler lowered.

Vike was found quite a quarter of a mile astern--but he had stuck to his ball.

He dearly loved it, and, strangely enough, he put it to bed every night as children do their dolls, covering it carefully up with a corner of the rug on which he slept.

Icebergs at last. A good thing it was for the _Flora_, that there was but little wind, for to strike against one of these huge bergs--bigger many of them were than St. Paul's Cathedral--would have meant certain destruction.

Yet although the wind was often but light, a current seemed to run rapidly enough, and the huge unbroken waves towered high above them, and more than once they narrowly escaped disaster from a huge berg being hurled down upon the vessel as if by t.i.tanic force, as she wallowed in the trough of the sea.

Even sailing past to leeward of such ice as this took the wind for a time clean out of the sails.

Strangely enough, they reached the Antarctic Circle on Christmas day.

This was a sort of double event. Either would have been celebrated, but now both events must be rolled into one.

One would hardly imagine that King Christmas would venture into these lonely regions, but the old fellow is good-hearted, and where'er on earth a Briton goes there goes Christmas also.

Well, with the exception of Johnnie s.h.i.+ngles and the monkey--who, by the way, had been furnished with a brand-new scarlet flannel jacket to keep him cosy--there was not a soul on board who had not before leaving home been presented with a bunch of gay ribbons, by sweetheart or wife, to help to deck a great garland that was made, and hoisted high aloft and abaft on this auspicious morning.

Of course there were no turkeys!

Alas! there were no geese.

As for cooking an albatross--well, that has been tried before, and a more unsatisfactory dish I have never tasted. Fishy, oily, and as for downright toughness the wife of Beith with her iron teeth could make but a poor show in front of it.

But some splendid corn-beef took the place of more civilized dishes both fore and aft.

Then there was the pudding. Ah! that indeed!

And a splendid success this, or these, were. The cook went in that day for beating all previous records. And it was universally admitted that he did.

The _Flora M'Vayne_ was an almost temperate s.h.i.+p, that is, the men had to content themselves with one gla.s.s of rum each _per diem_, man-o'-war fas.h.i.+on. But on this bright Christmas day there was but little limit or stint. Only, to everyone's credit be it said, there was no excess.

The evening, up till two bells (9 o'clock), was spent in games, in yarning, in dancing, and fun.

Both Vike and old Pen had dined right heartily, and were in rare form.

One of the chief dances to-night was the Scots strathspey and reel, and Duncan had got his bagpipes in order for the occasion, and as he played the fun grew fast and furious.