Gordon Stables - Wild Adventures round the Pole

There was one man at least in every watch on board the Arrandoon , who usually led the song that accompanied the hauling on a rope, with a sweet, clear tenor voice; you could not have been angry with these men had you been twenty times a man-o’-war’s man.

It was about an hour after breakfast, and our boys were lazing below. For some time previous to the working song, there had been perfect silence on board – a silence broken only now and then by a short word of command, a footstep on deck, or the ominous flapping of the canvas aloft, as it shivered for a moment, then filled and swelled out again.

Had you been down below, one sign alone would have told you that something was going to happen – that some change was about to take place. It was this: when everything is going on all right, you hear the almost constant tramp, tramp of the officer of the watch up and down the quarter-deck, but this was absent now, and you would have known without seeing him that he was standing, probably, by the binnacle, his eyes now bent aloft, and now sweeping the horizon, and now and then glancing at the compass.

Then came a word or two of command, given in a quiet, ordinary tone of voice – there was no occasion to howl on this particular morning. And after this a rush of feet, and next the song, and the bo’sun’s pipe. Thus: —

Song . – “La la lee ah, lay la le lo-O.”

Spoken . – “Hoy!”

Boatswain’s Pipe . – “Whee-e, weet weet weet, wee-e.”

Song . – “La la lee ah, lay la le lo-O.”

Spoken . – “Belay!”

Boatswain’s Pipe . – “Wee wee weet weet weet weet, wee-e.”

Spoken . – “Now lads.”

Song . – “Lo ah o ee.”

Pipe . – “Weet weet!”

Then a hurry-scurrying away forward, a trampling of feet enough to awaken Rip van Winkle, then the bo’sun’s pipe encore .

Allan straightens his back in his easy-chair – he has been bending over the table, reading the “Noctes Ambrosianae” – straightens his back, stretches his arms, and says “Heigho!” Rory is busy arranging some beautiful transparent specimens of animalculae, not bigger than midges, on a piece of black cardboard; he had caught them overnight in a gauze net dragged astern. He doesn’t look up. Ralph is lying “tandem” on a sofa, reading “Ivanhoe.” He won’t take his eyes off the book, nor move as much as one drowsy eyelid, but he manages to say, —

“What are they about on deck, Rory?”

“Don’t know even a tiny bit,” says Rory.

“Rory,” continues Ralph, in a slightly louder key; “you’re a young man; run up and see.”

“Rory won’t then,” says Rory, intent on his work; “fag for yourself, my lazy boy.”

“Oh!” says Ralph, “won’t you have your ears pulled when I do get up!”

“Ha! ha!” laughed Rory, “you’ll have forgotten all about it long before then.”

“Freezing Powders!” roared Ralph.

The bright-faced though bullet-headed nigger boy introduced in last chapter appeared instantly. He was dressed in white flannel, braided with blue. Had he been a sprite, or a djin, he couldn’t have popped up with more startling rapidity. Truth is, the young rascal had been asleep under the table.

“Off on deck with you, Freezing Powders, and see what’s up.”

Freezing Powders was down again in a moment.

“Take in all sail, sah! and square de yard; no wind, sah! nebber a puff.”

It was just as Freezing Powders said, but there was noise enough presently, and puffing too, for steam was got up, and the great screw was churning the waters of the dark northern ocean into creamish foam, as the vessel went steadily ahead at about ten knots an hour. There was no occasion to hurry. When Rory and Allan went on deck, they found the captain in consultation with the mates, Mitchell and Stevenson.

“I must admit,” McBain was remarking, “that I can’t make it out at all.”

“No more can we,” said Stevenson with a puzzled smile. “The wind has failed us all at once, and the sea gone down, and the glass seems to have taken leave of its senses entirely. It is up one moment high enough for anything, and down the next to 28 degrees. There, just look at that sea and look at that sky.”

There was certainly something most appalling in the appearance of both. The ocean was calm and unruffled as glass, with only a long low heave on it; not a ripple on it big enough to swamp a fly; but over it all a strange, glassy lustre that – so you would have thought – could have been skimmed off. The sky was one mass of dark purple-black clouds in masses. It seemed no distance overhead, and the horizon looked hardly a mile away on either side. Only in the north it was one unbroken bluish black, as dark seemingly as night, from the midst of which every now and then, and every here and there, would come quickly a little puff of cloud of a lightish grey colour, as if a gun had been fired. Only there was no sound.

There was something awe-inspiring in the strange, ominous look of sea and sky, and in the silence broken only by the grind and gride of screw and engine.

“No,” said McBain, “I don’t know what we are going to have. Perhaps a tornado. Anyhow, Mr Stevenson, let us be ready. Get down topgallant masts, it will be a bit of exercise for the men; let us have all the steam we can command, and – ”

“Batten down, sir?”

“Yes, Mr Stevenson, batten down, and lash the boats inboard.”

The good ship Arrandoon was at the time of which I write about fifty miles south of the Faroes, and a long way to the east. The weather had been dark and somewhat gloomy, from the very time they lost sight of the snow-clad hills around Oban, but it now seemed to culminate in a darkness that could be felt.

The men were well drilled on board this steam yacht. McBain delighted to have them smart, and it was with surprising celerity that the topgallant masts were lowered, the hatches battened down, and the good ship prepared for any emergency. None too soon; the darkness grew more intense, especially did the clouds look threatening ahead of them. And now here and there all round them the sea began to get ruffled with small whirlwinds, that sent the water wheeling round and round like miniature maelstroms, and raised it up into cones in the centre.

“How is the glass now, Mr Stevenson?” asked McBain.

“Stands very low, sir,” was the reply, “but keeps steadily down.”

“All right,” said McBain; “now get two guns loaded with ball cartridge; have no more hands on deck than we want. No idlers, d’ye hear?”

“Ay, ay, sir.”

“Send Magnus Bolt here.”

“Now, Magnus, old man,” continued McBain, “d’ye mind the time, some years ago in the Snowbird , when you rid us of that troublesome pirate?”

“Ay, that I do right well, sir,” said this little old weasened specimen of humanity, rubbing his hands with delight. “It were a fine shot that. He! he! he! Mercy on us, to see his masts and sails come toppling down, sir, – he! he! he!”

“Well, I want you again, Magnus; I’d rather trust to your old eye in an emergency than to any in the ship.”

“But where is the foe, sir?”

“Look ahead, Magnus.”

Magnus did as he was told; it was a strange, and to one who understood it, a dreadful sight. Apparently a thousand balloons were afloat in the blue, murky air, each one trailing its car in the sea, balloons of terrible size, flat as to their tops, which seemed to join or merge into one another, forming a black and ominous cloud. The cars that trailed on the sea were snowy white.

“Heaven help us?” said Magnus, clasping his hands for just a moment, while his cheeks assumed an ashen hue. “Heaven help us, sir; this is worse than the pirate.”