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Wild Adventures round the Pole

by Gordon Stables · English · Gutenberg #38296 · 579,849 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Wild Adventures round the Pole

Author: Gordon Stables


        
Release date: December 13, 2011 [eBook #38296]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/38296

Credits: Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WILD ADVENTURES ROUND THE POLE ***




Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England




Wild Adventures round the Pole
The Cruise of the "Snowbird" Crew in the "Arrandoon"
By Gordon Stables
Published by Hodder and Stoughton, 27 Paternoster Row, London.
This edition dated 1883.

Wild Adventures round the Pole, by Gordon Stables.

________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________
WILD ADVENTURES ROUND THE POLE, BY GORDON STABLES.

CHAPTER ONE.

THE TWIN RIVERS--A BUSY SCENE--OLD FRIENDS WITH NEW FACES--THE BUILDING
OF THE GREAT SHIP--PEOPLE'S OPINIONS--RALPH'S HIGHLAND HOME.

Wilder scenery there is in abundance in Scotland, but hardly will you
find any more picturesquely beautiful than that in which the two great
rivers, the Clyde and the Tweed, first begin their journey seawards.  It
is a classic land, there is poetry in every breath you breathe, the very
air seems redolent of romance.  Here Coleridge, Scott, and Burns roved.
Wilson loved it well, and on yonder hills Hogg, the Bard of Ettrick--he
who "taught the wandering winds to sing"--fed his flocks.  It is a land,
too, not only of poetic memories, but one dear to all who can appreciate
daring deeds done in a good cause, and who love the name of hero.

If the reader saw the rivers we have just named, as they roll their
waters majestically into the ocean, the one at Greenock, the other near
the quaint old town of Berwick, he would hardly believe that at the
commencement of their course they are so small and narrow that
ordinary-sized men can step across them, that bare-legged little boys
wade through them, and thrust their arms under their green banks,
bringing therefrom many a lusty trout.  But so it is.

Both rise in the same district, within not very many miles of each
other, and for a considerable distance they follow the same direction
and flow north.

But soon the Tweed gets very faint-hearted indeed.

"The country is getting wilder and wilder," she says to her companion,
"we'll never be able to do it.  I'm going south and east.  It is
easier."

"And I," says the bold Clyde, "am going northwards and west; it is more
difficult, and therein lies the enjoyment.  I will conquer every
obstacle, I'll defy everything that comes against me, and thus I'll be a
mightier river than you.  I'll water great cities, and on my broad
breast I will bear proud navies to the ocean, to do battle against wind
and wave.  `Faint heart never won fair lady.'  Farewell, friend Tweed,
farewell."

And so they part.

This conversation between the two rivers is held fourteen hundred feet
above the level of the sea, and five score miles and over have to be
traversed before the Clyde can reach it.  Yet, nothing daunted, merrily
on she rolls, gaining many an accession of strength on the way from
streams and burns.

"If you are going seaward," say these burns, "so are we, so we'll take
the liberty of joining you."

"And right welcome you are," sings the Clyde; "in union lies strength."

In union lies strength; yes, and in union is happiness too, it would
seem, for the Clyde, broader and stronger now, glides peacefully and
silently onwards; or if not quite silently, it emits but a silvery
murmur of content.  Past green banks and wooded braes, through daisied
fields where cattle feed, through lonely moorlands heather-clad, now
hidden in forest depths, now out again into the broad light of day,
sweeping past villages, cottages, mansions, and castles, homes of serf
and feudal lord in times long past and gone, with many a sweep and many
a curve it reaches the wildest part of its course.  Here it must rush,
the rapids and go tumbling and roaring over the lynns, with a noise that
may be heard for miles on a still night, with an impetuosity that shakes
the earth for hundreds of yards on every side.

"I wonder how old Tweed is getting on?" thinks our brave river as soon
as it has cleared the rocks and rapids and pauses for breath.

But the Clyde will soon be rewarded for its pluck and its daring, before
long it will enter and sweep through the second city of the empire, the
great metropolis of the west; but ere it does so, forgive it, if it
lingers awhile at Bothwell, and if it seems sullen and sad as it dashes
underneath the ancient bridge where, in days long gone, so fierce a
fight took place that five hundred of the brave Covenanters lay dead on
the field of battle.  And pardon it when anon it makes a grand and
splendid sweep round Bothwell Bank, as if loth to leave it.  Yonder are
the ruins of the ancient castle--

  "Where once proud Murray held the festive board.
  *****
  But where are now the festive board,
  The martial throng, and midnight song?
  Ah! ivy binds the mouldering walls,
  And ruin reigns in Bothwell's halls.
  O, deep and long have slumbered now
  The cares that knit the soldier's brow,
  The lovely grace, the manly power,
  In gilded hall and lady's bower;
  The tears that fell from beauty's eye,
  The broken heart, the bitter sigh,
  E'en deadly feuds have passed away,
  Still thou art lovely in decay."

But see, our river has left both beauty and romance far behind it.  It
has entered the city--the city of merchant princes, the city of a
thousand palaces; it bears itself more steadily now, for hath not Queen
Commerce deigned to welcome it, and entrusted to it the floating wealth
of half a nation?  The river is in no hurry to leave this fair city.

"My noble queen," it seems to say, "I am at your service.  I come from
the far-off hills to obey your high behests.  My ambition is fulfilled,
do with me as you will."

But soon as the bustle and din of the city are led behind, soon as the
grand old hills begin to appear on the right, and glimpses of green on
the southern banks, lo! the tide comes up to welcome the noble river;
and so the Clyde falls silently and imperceptibly into the mighty
Atlantic.  Yet scarcely is the lurid and smoky atmosphere that hangs
pall-like over the town exchanged for the purer, clearer air beyond,
hardly have the waters from the distant mountains begun to mingle with
ocean's brine, ere the noise of ten thousand hammers seems to rend the
very sky.

Clang, clang, clang, clang--surely the ancient god Vulcan has
reappeared, and taken up his abode by the banks of the river.  Clang,
clang, clang.  See yonder is the _Iona_, churning the water into foam
with her swift-revolving paddles.  She has over a thousand passengers on
board; they are bound for the Highlands, bent on pleasure.  But this
terrible noise and din of hammers--they will have three long miles of it
before they can even converse in comfort.  Clang, clang, clang--it is no
music to them.  Nay, but to many it is.

It is music to the merchant prince, for yonder lordly ship, when she is
launched from the slips, will sail far over the sea, and bring him back
wealth from many a foreign shore.  It is music to the naval officer; it
tells him his ship is preparing, that ere long she will be ready for
sea, that his white flag will be unfurled to the breeze, and that he
will walk her decks--her proud commander.

And it is music--merry music to the ears of two individuals at least,
who are destined to play a very prominent part in this story.  They are
standing on the quarter-deck of a half-completed ship, while clang,
clang, clang, go the hammers outside and inside.

The younger of the two--he can be but little over twenty-three--with
folded arms, is leaning carelessly against the bulwarks.  Although there
is a thoughtful look upon his handsome face, there is a smile as well, a
smile of pleasure.  He is taller by many inches than his companion,
though by no means better "built," as sailors call it.  This companion
has a bold, brown, weather-beaten face, the lower half of it buried in a
beard that is slightly tinged with grey; his eyes are clear and
honest,--eyes that you can tell at a glance would not flinch to meet
even death itself.  He stands bold, erect, firm.  Both are dressed well,
but there is a marked difference in the style of their attire.  The
garments of the elder pronounce him at once just what he is,--one who
has been "down to the sea in ships."  The younger is dressed in the
fashionable attire of an English gentleman.  To say more were needless.
A minute observer, however, might have noticed that there was a slight
air of _neglige_ about him, if only in the unbuttoned coat or the
faultless hat pushed back off the brow.

"And so you tell me," said the younger, "that the work still goes
bravely on?"

"Ay, that it does," said his companion; "there have been rumours of a
strike for higher wages among the men of other yards, but none, I am
proud to say, in this."

"And still," continued the former, "we pay but a fraction of wage more
than other people, and then, of course, there is the extra weekly
half-holiday."

"There is something more, Ralph--forgive me if I call you Ralph, in
memory of dear old times.  You will always be a boy to me, and I could
no more call you Mr Leigh than I could fly."

Ralph grasped his companion by the hand; the action was but momentary,
but it showed a deal of kindly feeling.  "Always call me Ralph," he
said, "always, McBain, always.  When we are back once more at sea I'll
call you captain, not till then.  But what is the something more that
makes our men so happy?"

"Why, your kindly manner, Ralph boy.  You mix with them, you talk with
them, and take an interest in all their doings, and you positively seem
to know every one of them by name.  Mind you, that extra half-holiday
isn't thrown away: they work all the harder, and they are happy.  Why,
listen to them now."

He paused, and held up one hand.  From bows to stern of the vessel there
arose the sound of industry, incessant, continual; but high over the
clang of hammers and the grating noise of saws there arose the voice of
song.

"They sing, you see," continued McBain; "but they don't put down their
tools to sing.  But here comes old Ap.  What cheer, Mr Ap Ewen?"

Those of my readers who knew Ap as he was two or three years ago--the
little stiff figure-head of a fellow--would be surprised to see him now.
[_Vide_ "Cruise of the Snowbird."  Same Author and Publishers.]  He is
far more smartly dressed, he is more active looking, and more the man,
had taken him in hand.  He had caused him to study his trade of
boat-builder in a far more scientific fashion, with the result that he
was now, as our story opens, foreman over all the men employed on the
ship in which Ralph Leigh stood.

Indeed, McBain himself, as well as Ap, were good examples of what
earnest study can effect.  There is hardly anything which either boy or
man cannot learn if he applies his mind thereto.

"What cheer, Mr Ap Ewen?" said McBain.

"More hands wanted, sir," said Ap, pulling out his snuff-box and taking
a vigorous pinch.

"More hands, Ap?" exclaimed McBain.

"Ay, sir, ay; look you see," replied Ap, "you told me to hurry on, you
see, and on Monday we shall want to begin the saloon bulkheads."

"Bravo!  Ap, bravo! come to my office to-night at seven, and we'll put
that all straight."

"Thank you, sir," said Ap, touching his hat and retiring.

Ralph Leigh was owner of the splendid composite steamship that was now
fast nearing her completion.

She was not being built by contract, but privately, and McBain was head
controller of every department, and for every department he had hired
experts to carry on the work.  The vessel was designed for special
service, and therefore she must be a vessel of purity, a vessel of
strength.  There must not be a flaw in her, not a patch--all must be
solid, all must be good.  McBain had hired experts to examine everything
ere it was purchased, but he made use of his own eyes and ears as well.
The yard in which the ship was built was rented, and every bit of timber
that entered it was tested first, whether it were oak or teak, pine,
mahogany, or cedar; and the iron the same, and the bolts of copper and
steel, so that Captain McBain's work was really no sinecure.

"Well, then," said Ralph, "I've been over all the ship; I'm extremely
pleased with the way things are going on, so if you have nothing more to
say to me I'm off.  By the way, do the people still flock down on Friday
afternoons to look over the ship?"

"They do," replied McBain; "and poor old Ap, I feel sorry for him.  _He_
gets no Friday half-holiday; he won't let me stop, but he insists upon
remaining himself to show the people round."

"And the people enjoy it?"

"They do.  They marvel at our engines, as well they may.  The gear, so
simple and strong, that Ap and I invented for the shipping and
unshipping of the rudder, and the easy method we have for elevating the
screw out of the water and reducing the vessel to a sailing ship, they
think little short of miraculous.  They are astonished, too, at the
extraordinary strength of build of the ship.  Indeed, they are highly
complimentary to us in their general admiration.  But," continued
McBain, laughing aloud, "it would amuse you to hear the remarks of some
of these good, innocent souls.  The two 12-pounder Dalgrens are
universal favourites.  They pat them as if they loved them.  One girl
last Friday said `they just looked for a' the warld like a couple o' big
iron soda-water bottles.'  They linger in the armoury; old Ap shows them
our `express' rifles, and our `bone-crushers,' and the hardened and
explosive bullets: then he takes them to the harpoon-room and shows them
the harpoons, and the guns, and the electric apparatus, and all the
other gear.  They stare open-mouthed at the balloon-room and the
sledge-lockers, but when they come to the door of the torpedo-chamber
they simply hurry past with looks of awe.  It is currently reported that
we are bound for the very North Pole itself; I'm not sure we are not
going to bring it back home with us.  Anyhow, they say that as soon as
we reach the ice, we are to fill our balloons, attaching one to each
mast and funnel, and float away and away over the sea of ancient ice
until we reach the Pole."

Ralph laughed right merrily, and next minute he was over the side, with
his face set townwards, trudging steadily on to the railway-station.  It
was only a trifle over three miles; there were cabs to be had in
abundance, but what young man would ride if he had time to walk?

Ralph was going home.  Not to his fair English home far away in the
south, for ever since, in the early spring-time--and now it was autumn--
the keel of the ship--_his_ ship--had been laid, Ralph had taken up his
abode in a rustic cottage by the banks of a broad-bosomed lake in the
Highlands of Argyll.  Wild though the country was all around, it was but
four miles from the railway, and this journey he used to accomplish
twice or oftener every week, on the back of a daft-looking Welsh pony
that he had bought for the purpose.  Once on board the train, two hours
took him to the city, and thence a brisk walk to the building-yard.

He had watched, week after week, the gradual progress of his ship
towards completion, with an interest and a joy that were quite boyish.
He dearly loved to see the men at work, and listen to their cheerful
voices as they laboured.  Even the smell of the pine or cedar shavings
was perfume to Ralph, and the way he used to climb about and wander over
and through the ship, when she was little more than ribs, knees, and
beams, was quite amusing.

But he was nevertheless always happy to get back to his Highland home,
his books, his boat, and his fishing-rod.  She was a widow who owned the
humble cottage, but she was kind and good, and Ralph's rooms, that
looked away out over the lake, were always kept in a state of perfect
cleanliness.  The widow had one little daughter, a sweetly pretty and
intelligent child, over whose fair wee head five summers had hardly
rolled.  Jeannie was her name, Jeannie Morrison, and she was an especial
pet of Ralph's.  She and the collie dog always came gleefully down the
road to meet him on his return from the distant city, and you may be
perfectly sure he always brought something nice in his pocket for the
pair of them.

When tired of reading, Ralph used to romp with wee Jeannie, or take her
on his knee and tell her wonderful stories, which made her blue eyes
grow bigger and more earnest than ever as she listened.

In fact, Jeannie and Ralph were very fond of each other, indeed, and
every time he went to a romantic little island out in the lake to fish,
he took Jeannie in the stern of the boat, and the time passed doubly
quick.

"Oh, Mista Walph!  Mista Walph!" cried Jeannie, bursting into Ralph's
room one afternoon, clapping her hands with joy.  "Mista McBain is
coming; Capping McBain is coming."

"Yes," said Mistress Morrison, entering behind her little daughter.
"I'm sure you'll be delighted, sir, and so am I, for the captain hasn't
been here for a month."

Then Ralph got his hat, and, accompanied by the honest collie and his
favourite Jeannie, went off down the road to meet McBain and bid him
welcome to his Highland home.

CHAPTER TWO.

THE DINNER BY THE LAKE--RORY'S RUN ROUND AFRICA--THE RETURN OF THE
WANDERERS.

"When did you hear from Allan and Rory?" asked McBain that day, as they
were seated at dinner in the little Highland cottage.

Mrs Morrison had done her best to put something nice before them, and
not without success either--so thought Ralph, and so, too, thought his
guest.  At all events, both of them did ample justice to that noble lake
trout.  Five pounds did he weigh, if he weighed an ounce, and as red was
he in flesh as if he had been fed upon beet.  The juicy joint of
mountain mutton that followed was fit to grace the table of a prince--it
was as fragrant and sweet as the blooming heather tops that had brought
it to perfection.  Nor was the cranberry tart to be despised.  The
berries of which it was composed had not come over the Atlantic in a
barrel of questionable flavour--no, they had been culled on the dewy
braelands that very morning by the fair young fingers of wee Jeannie
Morrison herself.  The widow did not forget to tell them that, and it
did not detract from their enjoyment of the tart.  For drink they had
fragrant heather ale--home-brewed.

"When did I hear from Allan and Rory?" said Ralph, repeating McBain's
question; "from the first, not for weeks--he is a lazy boy; from the
latter, only yesterday morning."

"And what says Rory?" asked McBain.

"Oh!" replied Ralph, "his letter is beautiful.  It is twelve pages long.
He is loud in his praises of the behaviour of the yacht, as a matter of
course; but in no single sentence of this lengthy epistle does he refer
definitely to the health or welfare of anybody whatever."

"From which you infer--?"

"From which I infer," said Ralph, "that everybody is as well as Rory
himself--that my dear father is well, and Allan, and his mother, and his
sister Helen Edith.  He is a queer boy, Rory, and he encloses me a
couple of columns from a Cape of Good Hope paper, in which he has
written an epitome of the whole voyage, since they first started in May
last.  He calls his yarn `Right round Africa.'  He commences at Suez, a
place where even boy Rory, I should think, would fail to find much
poetry and romance; but they must have enjoyed themselves at Alexandria,
where Rory mounted on top of Pompey's Pillar, rode upon donkeys, and did
all kinds of queer things.  Well, they spent a week at Malta, with its
streets of stairs, its bells, its priests, its convents, and its
blood-oranges.  Rory missed trees and shade, though; he says Malta is a
capital place for lizards, or any animal, human or otherwise, that cares
to spend the day basking on the top of a stone.  He liked Tunis and
Algiers better, and he quite enjoyed Teneriffe and Madeira.  Then they
crossed over to Sierra Leone, and he launches forth in praise of the
awful forests--`primeval,' he calls them--and he says, in his own
inimitable Irish way, that `they are dark, bedad, even in broad
daylight.'  Then all down the strange savage West Coast they sailed;
they even visited Ashantee, but he doesn't say whether or not they
called on his sable majesty the king.  Of course they didn't miss
looking in at Saint Helena, which he designates a paradise in mid-ocean,
and not a lonely sea-girt rock, as old books call it.  Ascension was
their next place of resort.  That is a rock, if you like, he says; but
the sea-birds' eggs and the turtle are redeeming features.  And so on to
the Cape, and up the Mozambique, landing here and there at beautiful
villages and towns, and in woods where they picked the oysters off the
trees."

[Oysters growing on trees seems a strange paradox.  They do so grow,
however.  The mangrove-trees are washed by the tide, and to their
tortuous roots oysters adhere, which may be gathered at low water.]

"They really must be enjoying themselves," said McBain.

"That they are," Ralph replied, pulling out Rory's letter.  "Just listen
how charmingly he writes of the Indian Ocean--nobody else save our own
poetic Rory could so write:--`My dear, honest, unsophisticated Ralph,--
oh, you ought to have been with us as we rounded the Cape!  That
thunderstorm by night would have made even your somewhat torpid blood
tingle in your veins.  It was night, my Ralph; what little wind there
was was dead off the iron-bound coast, but the billows were mountains
high.  Yes, this is no figure of speech.  I have never seen such waves
before, and mayhap never will again.  I have never seen such lightning,
and never heard such thunder.  We remained all night on deck; no one had
the slightest wish to go below.  As I write our yacht is bounding over a
blue and rippling sea; the low, wooded shore on our lee is sleeping in
the warm sunlight, and everything around us breathes peace and quiet,
and yet I have but to clap my hand across my eyes, and once again the
whole scene rises up before me.  I see the lightning quivering on the
dark waves, and flashing incessantly around us, with intervals of the
blackest darkness.  I see the good yacht clinging by the bows to the
crest of the waves, or plunging arrowlike into the watery ravines; I see
the wet and slippery decks and cordage, and the awe-struck men around
the bulwarks; and I see the faces of my friends as I saw them then--
Allan's knitted brow, his mother's looks of terror, and the pale
features of poor Helen Edith.  There are nights, Ralph, in the life of a
sailor that he is but little likely ever to forget; that was one in mine
that will cling to my memory till I cease to breathe.'

"Don't you call that graphic?" said Ralph.

"I do," replied McBain; "give us one other extract, and then lend me the
letter.  I'll take it to town with me, and you can have it again when
you come up."

"Well," said Ralph, "he describes Delagoa Bay and the scenery all round
it so pleasantly, that if I hadn't an estate of my own in old England I
would run off and take a farm there; right quaintly he talks of the
curious Portuguese city of Mozambique; he is loud in the praises of the
Comoro Islands, especially of Johanna, with its groves of citrons and
limes, its feathery palm-trees, and its lofty mountains, tree-clad to
the very summits; and he could write a lordly volume, he says, on the
sultanic city of Zanzibar, where, it would seem, his adventures were not
like angels' visits--few and far between.  He has even fought with the
wild Somali Indians, and assisted at a pitched battle between Arabs and
a British cruiser.  Then he describes his adventures in the woods and in
the far-off hills and jungles, tiger-slaying; here is a serpent
adventure; here is a butterfly hunt.  Fancy butterflies as big as a
lady's fan, and of plumage--yes, that is the very word Rory makes use
of--`plumage' more bright than a noonday rainbow.

"Here again is a description of the great Johanna hornet, two inches
long, blue-black in colour, and so dreaded by the natives that they will
not approach within twenty yards of the tree these terrible insects
inhabit.  Here is a beetle as big as a fish, and as strong apparently as
a man, for he seizes hold of the top of the big pickle-jar into which
Rory wants to introduce him, and obstinately refuses to be drowned in
spirits; and here is a centipede as long as an adder, green,
transparent, deadly; tarantulas as big as frogs, hairy and horrible;
scorpions as big as crabs, green and dangerous as the centipedes
themselves, that run from you, it is true, but threaten you as they run.

"It is pleasant," continued Ralph, "to turn from his descriptions of the
awful African creepie-creepies, and read of the enchanting beauty of
some parts of the Zanzibar woods, the mighty trees mango-laden, the
patches of tempting pine-apples, through which one can hardly wade, the
curious breadfruit-trees, the pomolos, the citrons, the oranges, and the
guavas, that look and taste, says Rory, `like strawberries smothered in
cream.'  He dilates, too, on the beauty of the wild flowers, and the
brilliancy of the birds--birds that never sing, but flit sadly and
silently from bough to bough in the golden sunlight.  From the very
centre of this beautiful wood Rory, with masterly pen, carries you right
away to a lovely coral island in the Indian Ocean.

"`Although many, many miles in extent,' he tells us, `although it is
clothed in waving woods, although even the cocoa-nut palm waves high
aloft its luscious fruit, it is not inhabited by man.  Perhaps my boat
was the first that ever rasped upon its shore of silvery sand, perhaps I
was the first human being that ever lay under the shade of its
mangrove-trees or bathed in the waters of its sunny lagune.  My boat is
a skiff--a tiny skiff; our yacht lies at anchor off Chak-Chak, and I
have come all alone to visit this fairy-like island.  I left the ship
while the stars were still glittering in the heavens, long before the
sun leapt up and turned the waters into blood; and now I have rested,
bathed, and breakfasted, and am once more on board my indolent skiff.
Here in this bay, even half a mile from the shore, you can see the
bottom distinct and clear, for the water is as pellucid as crystal, and
there isn't a ripple on the sea.  And what do I gaze upon?--A submarine
garden; and I gaze upon it like one enchanted, the while my boat--
impelled by the tide alone--glides slowly on and over it.  Down yonder
are flowers of every shape and hue, shrubs of every variety of foliage,
coral bushes--pink, and white, and even black--rocks covered with
medusae of the most brilliant colours an artist could imagine, and
patches of white sand, strewn with living shells, each one more lovely
to look upon than another.  And every bush and shrub and flower is all
a-quiver with a strange, indescribable motion, which greatly heightens
their magical beauty; and why?  Because every bush and shrub and flower
is composed of a thousand living things.  But the larger creatures that
creep and crawl, or glide through this submarine garden are fantastic in
the extreme.  Monster crabs and crayfish, horny, abhorrent, and so
strange in shape one cannot help thinking they were made to frighten
each other; long transparent fishes, partly grayling partly eel; flat
fishes that swim in all kinds of ridiculous ways; some fishes that seem
all tail together, and others that are nothing but head.  And among all
the others a curious flat fish that swims on an even keel, and, by the
very brilliancy of his colours and gorgeous array, seems to quite take
the shine out of all the others.  Both sides of this fish are painted
alike; both sides of him are divided into five or six equal parts, and
each part is of a different colour--one is a marigold yellow, another
green, another brightest crimson, another steel grey, and so on.  Him I
dubbed the harlequin flounder.  Yes, Ralph, Shakespeare was right when
he said there are more things in heaven and earth than we dream of in
our philosophy, and he might have added there are more things in ocean's
depths, and stranger things, than any naturalist ever could imagine.'

"You see," said Ralph, folding Rory's funny letter, and handing it to
McBain, "that our friends are enjoying themselves; but you won't fail to
notice Rory's closing sentence, in which he says that, in the very midst
of all the brightness and beauty so lavishly spread around him, he is
ofttimes longing to visit once more the strange, mysterious regions
around the Pole."

"And you have never written a word to him about our new ship and our
purposed voyage?" inquired McBain.

"Never a word," cried Ralph, laughing.  "You see, I want to keep that a
secret till the very last.  Oh, fancy, McBain, how wild with glee both
Rory and Allan will be when they find that the splendid ship is built
and ready, and that we but wait for the return of spring to carry us
once more away to the far north again."

"I'd like to see Rory's face," said McBain, smiling, "when you break the
news to him."

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Just six weeks after this quiet little _tete-a-tete_ dinner on the bank
of the Highland lake, a very important-looking and fussy little tug-boat
come puff-puffing up the Clyde from seaward, towing in a large and
pretty yacht; her sails were clewed, and her yards squared, and
everything looked trig and trim, not only about her, but on board of
her.  The blue ensign floated proudly from her staff; her crew were
dressed in true yachting rig, and her decks were white as the driven
snow.

An elderly lady with snow-white hair paced slowly up and down the
quarter-deck, leaning lightly on the arm of a tall and gentlemanly man
of mature age.  In a lounge chair right aft, and abreast of the
binnacle, a fair young girl was reclining, book in lap, but not reading;
she was engaged in pleasant conversation with a youth who sat on a
camp-stool not far off, while another who leant upon the taffrail gazing
shorewards frequently turned towards them, to put in his oar with a word
or two.  He was taller than the former and apparently a year or two
older.  He was probably more manly in appearance and build, but
certainly not better-looking.  Both were tanned with the tropical sun,
and both were dressed alike in a kind of sailor uniform of navy blue.

"Yes, Rory," the girl was saying, "I must confess that I do feel glad to
get back again to Scotland, much though I have enjoyed our cruise and
all our strange adventures around that wild and beautiful coast.  Oh!  I
do not wonder at your being fond of the sea.  If I were a man I feel
sure I would be a sailor."

"And here we are," replied Rory, with pleasure beaming from his bright,
laughing eyes, "within three miles of Glasgow.  And, you know, Ralph is
here; how delighted he will be to meet us all again!  I really wonder he
did not come with us."

But Ralph was very much nearer to them at that moment than they had any
idea of.

"Helen Edith," cried Allan at that moment, "and you, Rory, do come and
have a look at this beautiful steam barque on the stocks."

Both Helen and Rory were by his side in a moment.

"She is a beauty indeed," said Rory, enthusiastically.  "There are lines
for you!  There is shape!  Fancy that craft in the water!  Look at the
beautiful rake that even her funnel has!  But is she a man-o'-war, I
wonder?"

"More like a despatch boat, I should say," said Allan.  "Look, she is
pierced for guns."

Allan was right about the guns, for just as he spoke a balloon-shaped
cloud of white smoke rose slowly up from her side, and almost
simultaneously the roar of a big gun came over the water and died away
in a hundred echoes among the rocks and hills.  Another and another
followed in slow and measured succession, until they had counted
fourteen.

"It is saluting they are," said Allan; "but they surely cannot be
saluting us; and yet there is no other craft of any consequence coming
up the water."

"But I feel sure," said Helen, "it is some one bidding us welcome.  And
see, they dip the flag."

The yacht's flag was now dipped in return, but still the mystery
remained unravelled.

But it does not remain so long.

For see, the yacht is now almost abreast of the new ship, and the decks
of the latter are crowded with wildly cheering men.  Ay, and yonder,
beside the flagstaff, is Ralph himself, with McBain by his side, waving
their hats in the air.

The good people on the yacht are for a minute rendered dumb with
astonishment, but only for a minute; then the air is rent with their
shouts as they give back cheer for cheer.

"Och! deed in troth," cried Rory, losing all control of his English
accent, "it's myself that is bothered entoirely.  Is it my head or my
heels that I'm standing on? for never a morsel of me knows!  Is it
dreaming I am?  Allan, boy, can't you tell me?  Just look at the name on
the stern of the beautiful craft."

Allan himself was dumb with astonishment to behold, in broad letters of
gold the words, "The Arrandoon."

CHAPTER THREE.

RETROSPECTION--RALPH'S HOME IN ENGLAND--A HEARTY IF NOT POETIC WELCOME.

Many of my readers have met with the heroes of this tale before [in the
"Cruise of the Snowbird," by the same Author and Publishers], but
doubtless some have not; and as it is always well to know at least a
little of the _dramatis personae_ of a story beforehand, the many must
in the present instance give place to the few.  They must either,
therefore, listen politely to a little epitomised repetition, or sit
quietly aside with their fingers in their ears for the space of five
minutes.  But, levity apart, I shall be as brief as brevity itself.

Which of our heroes shall we start with first?  Allan?  Yes, simply
because his initial letter stands first on the alphabetic list.

Allan McGregor is a worthy Scot.

We met him for the first time several years prior to the date of this
tale; met him in the company of his foster-father, met him in a wildly
picturesque Highland glen, called Glentruim, at the castle of Arrandoon.
It was midwinter; the young man's southern friends, Ralph Leigh and
Rory Elphinston, were coming to see him and live with him for a time,
and right welcomely were they received, all the more in that they had
narrowly escaped losing their lives in the snow.

Allan was--and so remains--the chieftain of his clan, his father having
died years before, sword in hand, on a bloodstained redoubt in India,
leaving to his only son's care an encumbered estate, a mother and one
daughter, Edith, or Helen Edith.

The young chief was poor and proud, but he dearly loved his widowed
mother, his beautiful sister, the romantic old castle, and the glen that
had reared him from his boyhood; and how he wished and longed to be able
to better the position of the former and the condition of the latter,
none but he could tell or say.  Allan was brave--his clan is
proverbially so; his soul was deeply imbued with the spirit of religion,
and, it must be added, just slightly tinged with superstition--a
superstition born of the mountain mists and the stern, romantic scenery,
where he had lived for the greater part of his lifetime.

Ralph Leigh was the son of a once wealthy baronet, and had just finished
his education.

Rory Elphinston was an orphan, who owned estates in the west of Ireland,
from which property, however, he seldom realised the rents.  Like Ralph,
Rory was fond of adventure, and ready and willing to do anything honest
and worthy to earn that needful dross called gold; and when, one
evening, McBain hinted at the wealth that lay ungathered in the
inhospitable lands around the Pole, and of the many wild adventures to
be met with in those regions, the relation fired the youthful blood of
the trio.  The boys clubbed together, as most boys might, and bought a
small yacht.  Small as she was, however, in her, under the able tuition
of McBain, they were taught seamanship and discipline, and they became
enamoured of the sea and longed to possess a larger ship, in which they
might go in quest of adventures in far-off foreign lands.

Now Ralph's father, poor though he was, was very fond--and perhaps even
a little proud--of his son; he would, therefore, not refuse him anything
in reason he could afford.  He rejoiced to see him happy.  The good
yacht _Snowbird_ was therefore bought, and in it our brave boys sailed
away to the far north.  The narrative of their adventures by sea and
land is duly recorded in "The Cruise of the Snowbird."  You may seek for
them there if you wish to read of them; if not, there is little harm
done.

The _Snowbird_ returned at last, if not really rich, yet with what
sailors call an excellent general cargo, quite sufficient for each of
them to realise a tolerably large sum of money from.  Every shilling of
his share Allan had expended in improving the glen, with its cottages
and sheep farms, and the dear old castle itself.  But, meanwhile, Ralph
had fallen into a large fortune, and found himself possessed of rich
estates, and a splendid old mansion in --shire, England.  He might have
married now, and settled quietly down for life as a country squire,
enjoying to the full all the pleasures and luxuries that health combined
with wealth are capable of bringing to their possessors.  Ah! but then
the spirit of the rover had entered into him; he had learned to love
adventure for the sake of itself, and to love a life on the ocean wave.

Loving a life on the ocean wave, he might, had he so chosen, have had a
very pleasant cruise with his friends, had he gone with them in their
run round Africa, alluded to in the last chapter of this tale; but, as
would be gleaned from the conversation recorded therein, he did not so
choose.  He and McBain had their little secret, which they kept well.
They were determined to turn explorers, so Ralph built a ship, built a
noble ship--built it without acquainting any one what service it was
intended for, and even his dear friends Ralph and Rory were to know
nothing about her until they, returned from their cruise in the tropics.
Ralph meant it all as a kindly and a glad surprise to them, for well
did he know how their hearts would bound with joy at the very thoughts
of sailing once more in quest of adventures.  Nor, as the sequel will
show, was he in one whit disappointed.

In character, disposition, and appearance my four principal heroes may
be thus summed up--I have already told you about Allan's:--

McBain--Captain McBain--was a hardy, fear-nothing, daring man, his mind
imbued with a sense of duty and with piety, both of which he had learned
at the maternal knee.

Ralph was a young Englishman in every sense of the word--tall, broad,
shapely, somewhat slow in action, with difficulty aroused, but a very
lion when he did march out of his den intent on a purpose.

Somewhat more youthful was Rory, smaller as to person, poetic as to
temperament, fond of the beautiful, an artist and a musician.  And if
you were to ask me, "Was he, too, brave?"  I should answer, "Are not
poets and Irishmen always brave?  Does not Sir Walter Scott tell us that
they laugh in their ranks as they go forward to battle--that they--

  "Move to death with military glee?"

Sir Walter, I may also remind those who live in the land o' cakes, says
in the same poem:

  "But ne'er in battlefield throbbed heart more brave
  Than that which beats beneath the Scottish plaid."

------------------------------------------------------------------------

So now we are back again at the place where we left off in the last
chapter, with the yacht being towed slowly past good Ralph's ship on the
stocks, and lusty cheers being exchanged from one vessel to the other.

Rory and Allan exchanged glances.  The faces of each were at that moment
a study for a physiognomist, but the uppermost feeling visible in either
was one of astonishment--not blank astonishment, mind you, for there was
something in the eyes of each, and in the smile that flickered round
their lips, that would have told you in a moment that Ralph's
nicely-kept secret was a secret no more.  Rory, as usual with natives of
green Erin, was the first to break the silence.

"Depend upon it," he said, nodding his head mirthfully, "it is all some
mighty fine joke of Ralph's, and he means giving us a pleasant
surprise."

"The same thought struck me," replied Allan, "as soon as I clapped eyes
on the word `_Arrandoon_.'"

"Oh?" chimed in Helen Edith, with her sweet, musical voice; "that is the
reason your friend would not come with us on our delightful voyage."

"That _was_ the reason," said Allan, emphatically, "because he was
building a ship of his own, the sly dog."

"But wherever do you think he means cruising to at all, at all?" added
Rory, with puzzled face.

"That's what I should like to know," said Allan.

And this thought occupied their minds all the way up to Glasgow; but
once there, and the ladies seen safely to their hotels, Rory and Allan
sped off without delay to visit this big, mysterious yacht; and they had
not been half an hour on board ere, as Rory expressed it, in language
more forcible than elegant.

"The secret was out entirely, the cat flew out of the bag, and every
drop of milk got out of the cocoa-nut."

Poor Ralph was delighted at the return of his friends from their long
cruise; and now that he had their company he had no longer any wish or
desire to remain in the vicinity of the _Arrandoon_; so giving up his
pretty Highland cottage, bidding a kindly adieu to the widow, kissing
wee weeping Jeannie, and promising to be sure to return some day, the
trio hurried them southwards, to spend most of their time at Ralph's
pleasant home, until the ship should be ready to launch.

Leigh Hall was a lordly mansion, possessing no very great pretensions to
architectural splendour, but beautifully situated among its woods and
parks on a high braeland that overlooked one of England's fairest lakes.
For miles you approached the house from behind by a road which, with
many a devious turning, wound through a rich but rolling country.  Past
many a rural hamlet; past many a picturesque cottage, their gables and
fronts charmingly painted and tinted by the hands of the magic artist
Time; past stately farms, where sleek cattle seemed to low kindly
welcome to our heroes as their carriage came rolling onwards, with here
a wood and there a field, and yonder a great stretch of common where
cows waded shoulder deep in ferns and furze, daintily cropping the green
and tender tops of the trailing bramble; and here a broad, rushy moor,
on which flocks of snowy geese wandered.

Alluding to the latter, says Rory, "Don't these geese come out prettily
against the patches of green grass, and how soft and easy it must be for
the feet of them!"

"They're preparing for Christmas," said Ralph.  Poet Rory gave him a
look--one of Rory's looks.  "There's never a bit of poetry nor romance
in the soul of you," he said.

"Except the romance and poetry of a well-spread table," said Allan,
laughing.

"And, 'deed, indeed," replied Rory, "there is little to choose betwixt
the pair of you; so what can I do but be sorry for you both?"

It was on a beautiful autumn afternoon that the three young men were now
approaching the manor of Leigh.  The trees that had been once of a
tender green, whose leaves in the gentle breath of spring had rustled
with a kind of silken _frou-frou_, were green now only when the sun
shone upon them; all the rest was black by contrast.  Feathery seedlings
floated here and there on the breeze that blew from the north.  This
breeze went rushing through the woods with a sound that made Rory, at
all events, think of waves breaking in mid-ocean, and even the fields of
ripe and waving grain had, to his mind, a strange resemblance to the
sea.  The rooks that floated high in air seemed to glory in the wind,
for they screamed with delight, baffled though at times they were--taken
aback you might say, and hurled yards out of their course.

It was only a plain farmer's autumn wind after all, but it made these
youthful sailors think of something else than baffled, rooks and fields
of ripening grain.

Now up through a dark oak copse, and they come all at once to one of the
old park gates.  Grey is it with very age, and so is the quaintly-gabled
lodge; its stones are crumbling to pieces.  And well suited for such a
dwelling is the bent but kindly-faced old crone who totters out on her
staff to open the ponderous gates.  She nods and smiles a welcome, to
which bows and smiles are returned, and the carriage rolls on.  A great
square old house; they come to it at last, so big and square that it did
not even look tall at a distance.  They drove up to what really appeared
the back of this mansion, with its stairs and pillars and verandahs, the
door opening from which led into the hall proper, which ran straight
through the manor, and opened by other doors on to broad green terraces,
with ribbon gardens and fountains, and then the braelike park, with its
ancient trees, and so on, downwards to the beautiful lake, with the
hills beyond.

Right respectfully and loyally was Ralph greeted by his servants and
retainers.  All this may be imagined better than I can describe it.

While Rory was marching through the long line of servants I believe he
felt just a little awed; and if, as soon as they found themselves alone,
Ralph had addressed himself to his guests in some such speech as
follows, he would not have been very much astonished.  If Ralph had
said, "Welcome, Ronald Elphinston, and you, my lord of Arrandoon, to the
ancient home of the Leighs!"  Rory would have thought it quite in
keeping with the poetry of the place.

Ralph did nothing of the kind, however; he pitched his hat and gloves
rather unceremoniously on a chair, and said, all in one breath and one
tone of voice, "Now, boys, here we are at last; I'm sure you'll make
yourselves at home.  We'll have fine times for a few weeks, anyhow.
Would you like to wash your hands?"

Well, if it was not a very poetic welcome, it was a very hearty one
nevertheless.

CHAPTER FOUR.

LIFE AT LEIGH HALL--THE LAUNCH OF THE "ARRANDOON"--TRIAL TRIPS--A ROW
AND A FIGHT--"FREEZING POWDERS."

As the owner of a large house, the head of a county family, and a landed
proprietor, there were many duties devolved upon Ralph Leigh when at
home, from which he never for a moment thought of shrinking.  Though a
great part of the day was spent in shooting, rowing, or fishing, the
mornings were never his own, nor the evenings either.  He had a knack of
giving nice dinners, and young though he was, he also possessed the
happy knack of making all his guests feel perfectly at home, so that
when carriages drew round, and it was time to start for their various
homes, everybody was astonished at the speed with which the evening had
sped away; and that was proof positive it had passed most pleasantly.

They kept early hours at Leigh Hall, and so they did at every house all
over the quiet, romantic country, and no doubt they were all the better
for it, and all the more healthy.

But our heroes must be forgiven, if, after the last guest had gone,
after the lights were out in the banqueting hall, and the doors closed
for the night, they assembled in a cosy, fire-brightened room upstairs,
all by their three selves, for a quiet confab and talk, a little
exchange of ideas, a little conversation about the days o' auld lang
syne, and their hopes of adventures in the far north, whither they were
so soon to sail.

About once a fortnight, McBain, whom we may as well call Captain McBain
now--Captain McBain, of the steam yacht _Arrandoon_--used to run down to
Leigh Hall to report progress; the "social hour," as Rory called it, was
then doubly dear to them all, and I'm not at all sure that they did not
upon these occasions steal half an hour at least from midnight.  You see
they were very happy; they were happy with the happiness of
anticipation.  They never dreamt of failure in the expedition on which
they were about to embark.

  "In the lexicon of youth, which fate reserves
  For a great manhood, there is no such word as--fail."

True, but had they known the dangers they were to encounter, the trials
they would have to come through, brave as they undoubtedly were, their
hearts might have throbbed less joyfully.  They had, however, the most
perfect confidence in each other, just as brothers might have.  The
friendship, begun long ago between them, cemented, during the cruise of
the _Snowbird_, in many an hour of difficulty and danger--for had they
not come through fire and death together?--was strengthened during their
residence at Leigh Hall.  Indeed, it would not be too much to say that
their affection for each other was brotherly to a degree.  Dissimilar in
character in many ways they were, but this same dissimilarity seemed but
to increase their mutual regard and esteem.  Faults each one of them
had--who on this earth has not?--and each could see those of the other,
if he did not always notice his own.  Says Burns--

  "O would some power the giftie gie us,
  To see ourselves as others see us,
  It would from mony a fautie free us."

Probably, individually they did not forget these lines, and so the one
was most careful in guarding against anything that might hurt the
feelings of the others.  Is not this true friendship?

But as to what is called "chaff," they had all learned long ago to be
proof against that--I'm not sure they did not even like it; Rory did, I
know; he said so one day; and on Allan asking him his reason, "My reason
is it?" says Rory; "sure enough, boys, chaffing metres with laughing;
where you find the chaff you find the laugh, and laughing is better to a
man than cod-liver oil.  And that's my reason!"

And Rory's romantic sayings and doings were oftentimes the subject of a
considerable deal of chaff and fun; so, too, was what the young Irishman
was pleased to call Ralph's English "stolidity" and Allan's Scottish
fire and intensity of patriotism; but never did the blood of one of our
boys get hot, never did their lips tighten in anger or their cheeks pale
with vexation.

Just on one occasion--which I now record lest I forget it--was boy Rory,
as he was still affectionately called, very nearly losing his temper
under a rattling fire of chaff from Allan and Ralph, who were in extra
good spirits.  It happened months after they had sailed in the
_Arrandoon_.  All at once that day Rory grew suddenly quiet, and the
smile that still remained on his face was only round the lips, and
didn't ripple round the eyes.  It was a sad kind of a smile; then he
jumped up and ran away from the table.

"We've offended him," said Allan, looking quite serious.

"I hope not," said Ralph, growing serious in turn.

"I'll go and look him up;" this from Allan.

"No, that you won't!" put in McBain.

"Leave boy Rory alone; he'll come to presently."

Meanwhile, ridiculous as it may seem, Rory had sped away forward to the
dispensary, where he found the doctor.  "Doctor, dear," cried Rory,
"give me a blue pill at once--a couple of them, if you like, for sure it
isn't well I am!"

"Oh!" said the surgeon, "liver a bit out of order, eh?"

"Liver!" cried Rory; "I know by the nasty temper that's on me that there
isn't a bit of liver left in me worth mentioning!  There now, give me
the pills."

The doctor laughed, but Rory had his bolus; then he came aft again,
smiling, confessing to his comrades what a ninny he had very nearly been
making of himself.  Just like Rory!

The bearing of our young heroes towards Captain McBain was invariably
respectful and affectionate; they both loved and admired him, and,
indeed, he was worthy of all their esteem.  In wealth there is power,
but in wisdom worth, and Ralph, Rory, and Allan felt this truth if they
never expressed it.  McBain had really raised himself to the position he
now held; he was a living proof that--

  "Whate'er a man dares he can do."

I will not deny, however that McBain possessed a little genius to begin
with; but here is old Ap, once but a poor boat-builder, with never a
spark of genius in him, superintending the construction of a noble ship.
In him we have an example of industry and perseverance pure and simple.

The _Arrandoon_ made speedy progress on the stocks, and the anxious day
was near at hand when she would leave her native timbers, and slide
gracefully and auspiciously it was to be hoped, into the smooth waters
of the Clyde.

That day came at last, and with it came thousands to view the launch.
With it came Mrs McGregor and Allan's sister; and the latter was to
break the tiny phial of wine and name the ship!

On the platform beneath, and closely adjoining the bows of the
_Arrandoon_, were numerous gentlemen and ladies; conspicuous among the
former was Rory.  He was full of earnest and pleasant excitement.
Conspicuous among the latter was Helen Edith.  She certainly never
looked more lovely than she did now.  The ceremony she was about to
engage in, in which, indeed, she was chief actress, was just a trifle
too much for her delicate nerves, and as she stood, bouquet in hand,
with a slight flush on her cheek and a sparkle in her eye, with head
slightly bent, she looked like a bride at the altar.  Rory stood near
her; perhaps his vicinity comforted her, as did his remarks, to which,
however, he met with but little response.

I am beginning to think that Rory loved this sweet child; if he did it
was a love that was purely Platonic, and it needed be none the less
sincere for all that.  As for Helen Edith--but hark!  A gun rings out
from the deck of the _Arrandoon_ causing every window in the vicinity to
rattle again, and the steeples to nod.  The gallant ship moves off down
the slip slowly--slowly--slowly, yes, slowly but steadily, swerving
neither to starboard nor larboard, quicker now faster still.  Will she
float?  Our heroes' hearts stand still.  McBain is pale and breathes
not.  She slows, she almost stops, now she is over the hitch and on
again, on--on--and on--and into the water.  Hurrah!  You should have
heard that cheer, and Rory shakes hands with Helen Edith, and
compliments her, and positively there are tears in the foolish boy's
eyes.  There was a deal of hand-shaking, I can assure you, after the
launch, and a deal of joy expressed, and if the truth be told, more than
one prayer breathed for the future safety of the _Arrandoon_ and her
gallant crew.  There was lunch after launch in the saloon of the new
yacht, at which Allan's mother presided with the same quiet dignity she
was wont to maintain at the castle that gave the ship its name.

McBain made a speech, and a good one, too, after Ralph had spoken a few
words.  Poor Ralph! speaking was certainly not his strong point.  But
there was no hesitancy about McBain, and no nervousness either, and
during its delivery he stood bolt upright in his place, as straight as
an arrow, and his words were manly and straightforward.  Allan felt
proud of his foster-father.  But Rory came next.  For once in his life
he hadn't the slightest intention of making anybody laugh.  But because
he tried not to, he did; and when Irish bull after Irish bull came
rattling out, "Och!" thinks Rory to himself, "seriousness isn't my forte
after all;" then he simply gave himself rein, and expressed himself so
comically that there was not a dry eye in the room, for tears come with
laughing as well as weeping.

There was a deal to be done to the _Arrandoon_--in her, on her, and
around her--after she was launched, before she was ready; but it would
serve no good purpose and only waste time to describe her completion,
for we long to be "steam up" and away to sea _en route_ for the starry
north.

She was a gallant sight, the _Arrandoon_, as she stood away out to sea,
past the rocky shores of Bute, bound south on her trial trip by the
measured mile.  Fifteen hundred tons burden was she, with tall and
tapering masts: lower, main, topgallant, and royal; not one higher; no
star-gazers, sky-scrapers, or moon-rakers; she wouldn't have to rake
much for the wind in the stormy seas they were going to.  Then there was
the funnel, such a funnel as a man with an eye in his head likes to see,
not a mere pipe of a thing, but a great wide armful of a funnel, with
the tiniest bit of rake on it; so too had the masts, though the
_Arrandoon_ did not look half so saucy as the _Snowbird_.  The
_Arrandoon_ had more solidity about her, and more soberness and
staidness, as became her--a ship about to be pitted against dangers
unknown.

Her figure-head was the bust of a fair and beautiful girl.

That day, on her trial trip, the ladies were on board; and Rory made
this remark to Helen Edith:

"The fair image on our bows, Helen, will soon be gazing wistfully
north."

"Ah! you seem to long for that," said Helen, "but," she added archly,
"mamma and I look forward to the time when she will be gazing just as
wistfully south again."

Rory laughed, and the conversation assumed a livelier tone.

Steamers, I always think, are very similar in one way to colts, they
require a certain amount of breaking in, they seldom do well on their
trial trip.  The _Arrandoon_ was no exception; she promised well at
first, and fulfilled that promise for twenty good miles and two; then
she intimated to the engineers in charge that she had had enough of it.
Well, this was a good opportunity of trying her sailing qualities, and
in these she exceeded all expectations.

McBain rubbed his hands with delight, for no yacht at Cowes ever sailed
more close to the wind, came round on shorter length, or made more knots
an hour.  He promised himself a treat, and that treat was to run out
some day with her in half a gale of wind, when there were no ladies on
board.  He would then see what the _Arrandoon_ could do under sail, and
what she couldn't.  He did this; and the very next day after he came
back he made the journey to Leigh Hall, and stopped there for a whole
week.  That was proof enough that the captain was pleased with his ship.

Early in the month of the succeeding February, the _Arrandoon_ lay at
the Broomielaw, with the blue-peter unfurled, steam up, all hands on
board, and even the pilot.  That very morning they were to begin their
adventurous voyage.  Ralph, Allan, and Rory would be picked up at Oban,
and the vessel now only awaited the arrival of McBain before casting off
and dropping down stream.

The Broomielaw didn't look pretty that morning, nor very comfortable.
Although the hills all around Glasgow were white with snow, over the
city itself hung the smoke like a murky pall.  There was mud under feet,
and a Scotch mist held possession of the air.  Here was nothing cheering
to look at, slop-shops and pawn-shops, and Jack-frequented dram-shops,
bales of wet merchandise on the quay, and eave-dripping dock-houses; nor
were the people pleasant to be among; the only human beings that did
seem to enjoy themselves were the ragged urchins who had taken shelter
in the empty barrels that lined the back of the warehouses; they had
shelter, and sugar to eat.  McBain thought he wouldn't be sorry when he
was safely round the Mull of Cantyre.

"Come on, Jack," cried one of these tiny gutter-snipes, rushing out of
his tub; "come on, here's a row."

There was a row; apparently a fight was going on, for a ring had formed
a little way down the street; and simply out of curiosity McBain went to
have a peep over the shoulders of the mob.  As usual, the policemen were
very busy in some other part of the street.

Only a poor little itinerant nigger boy lying on the ground, being
savagely kicked by a burly and half-drunken street porter.

"Oh!" the little fellow was shrieking; "what for you kickee my shins so?
Oh!"

McBain entered the ring in a very businesslike fashion indeed; he begged
for room; he told the mob he meant thrashing the ruffian if he did not
apologise to the poor lad.  Then he intimated as much to the ruffian
himself.

"Come on," was the defiant reply, as the fellow threw himself into a
fighting attitude.  "Man, your mither'll no ken ye when you gang home
the nicht."

"We'll see," said McBain, quietly.

For the next three minutes this ruffianly porter's movements were
confined to a series of beautiful falls, that would have brought down
the house in a circus.  When he rose the last time it was merely to
assume a sitting position, "Gie us your hand," he said to McBain.
"You're the first chiel that ever dang Jock the Wraggler.  I admire ye,
man--I admire ye."

"Come with me, my little fellow," said McBain to the nigger boy; and he
took him kindly by the hand.  Meanwhile a woman who had been standing by
placed a curious-looking bundle in the lad's hand, and bade him be a
good boy, and keep out of Jock the Wraggler's way next time.

"I'll see you a little way home, Jim," continued McBain, when they were
clear of the crowd.  "Jim is what they call you, isn't it?"

"Jim," said the blackamoor, "is what dey are good enough to call me.
But, sah, Jim has no home."

"And where do you sleep at night, Jim?"

"Anywhere, sah.  Jim ain't pertikler; some time it is a sugar barrel, an
oder time a door-step."

A low, sneering laugh was at this moment heard from the mysterious
bundle Jim carried.  McBain started.

"Don't be afeared, sah," said Jim; "it's only de cockatoo, sah!"

"Have you any money, Jim?" asked McBain.

"Only de cockatoo, sah," replied Jim; "but la!" he added, "I'se a puffuk
gemlam (gentleman), sah--I'se got a heart as high as de steeple, sah!"

"Well, Jim," said McBain, laughing, "would you like to sail in a big
ship with me, and--and--black my boots?"

"Golly! yes, sah; dat would suit Jim all to nuffin."

"But suppose, Jim, we went far away--as far as the North Pole?"

"Don't care, sah," said Jim, emphatically; "der never was a pole yet as
Jim couldn't climb."

"Have you a surname, Jim?"

"No, sah," replied poor Jim; "I'se got no belongings but de cockatoo."

"I mean, Jim, have you a second name?"

"La! no, sir," said Jim; "one name plenty good enough for a nigga boy.
Only--yes now I 'members, in de ship dat bring me from Sierra Leone last
summer de cap'n never call me nuffin else but Freezin' Powders."

McBain did not take long to make up his mind about anything; he
determined to take this strange boy with him, so he took him to a shop
and bought him a cage for the cockatoo, and then the two marched on
board together, talking away as if they had known each other for years.

Freezing Powders was sent below to be washed and dressed and made
decent.  The ship was passing Inellan when he came on deck again.  Jim
was thunderstruck; he had never seen snow before.

"La! sah," he cried, pointing with outstretched arm towards the hills;
"look, sah, look; dey never like dat before.  De Great Massa has been
and painted dem all white."

CHAPTER FIVE.

DANGER ON THE DEEP--A FOREST OF WATERSPOUTS--THE "ARRANDOON" IS
SWAMPED--THE WARNING.

"La la lay lee-ah, lay la le lo-O" So went the song on deck--a song
without words, short, and interrupted at every bar, as the men hauled
cheerily on tack and sheet.

Such a thing would not be allowed for a single moment on board a British
man-o'-war, as the watch singing while they obeyed the orders of the
bo'sun's pipe, taking in sail, squaring yards, or doing any other duty
required of them.  And yet, with all due respect for my own flag,
methinks there are times when, as practised in merchant or passenger
ships, that strange, weird, wordless song is not at all an unpleasant
sound to listen to.  By night, for instance, after you have turned in to
your little narrow bed--the cradle of the deep, in which you are nightly
rocked--to hear it rising and falling, and ending in long-drawn cadence,
gives one an indescribable feeling of peace and security.  Your bark is
all alone--so your thoughts may run--on a wild world of waters.  There
may not be another ship within hundreds of miles; the wind may be rising
or the wind may be falling--what do you care?  What need you care?
There are watchful eyes on deck, there are good men and true overhead,
and they seem to sing your cradle hymn, "La la lee ah," and before it is
done you are wrapt in that sweetest, that dreamless slumber that
landsmen seldom know.

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."

"They are all coming this way," said McBain; "fire only at those that
threaten us, and fire while they are still some distance ahead."

Meanwhile Ralph had come on deck, and joined his companions.  I do not
think that through all the long terrible hour that followed, either of
them spoke one word; although there was no sea on, and for the most part
no motion, they clutched with one hand rigging or shroud, and gazed
terror-struck at the awful scene ahead and around them.

They were soon in the very centre of what appeared an interminable
forest of waterspouts.  Few indeed have ever seen such a sight or
encountered so pressing a danger and lived to tell it.

The balloon-shaped heads of these waterspouts looked dark as midnight;
their shafts, I can call them nothing else, were immense pillars rising
out of gigantic feet of seething foam.  So close did they pass to some
of these that the yardarms seemed almost to touch them.  Our heroes
noticed then, and they marvelled at it afterwards, the strange
monotonous roaring sound they emitted,--a sound that drowned even the
noise of the troubled waters around their shafts.

[Such a phenomenon as this has rarely been witnessed in the Northern
Ocean.  It is somewhat strange that on the self-same year this happened,
an earthquake was felt in Ireland, and shocks even near Perth, in
Scotland.]

Old Magnus made good use of his guns on those that threatened the good
ship with destruction; one shot broke always one, and sometimes more,
probably with the vibration; but the thundering sound of the falling
waters, and the turmoil of the sea that followed, what pen can describe?

But, good shot as he is, Magnus is not infallible, else McBain would not
now have to grasp his speaking-trumpet and shout,--

"Stand by, men, stand by."

A waterspout had wholly, or partially at least, broken on board of them.
It was as though the splendid ship had suddenly been blown to atoms by
a terrible explosion, and every timber of her engulfed in the ocean!

For long moments thus, then her crew, half drowned, half dead, could
once more look around.  The _Arrandoon_ was afloat, but her decks were
swept.  Hundreds of tons of water still filled her decks, and poured out
into the sea in cataracts through her broken bulwarks; ay, and it poured
below too, at the fore and main hatchways, which had been smashed open
with the violence and force of the deluge.  The main-yard had come down,
and one whaler was smashed into matchwood.  I wish I could say this was
all, but two poor fellows lost for ever the number of their mess.  One
was seen floating about dead and unwounded on the deck ere the water got
clear; the other, with sadly splintered brow, was still clutching in a
death-grasp a rope that had bound a tarpaulin over a grating.

But away ahead appeared a long yellowish streak of clear sky, close to
the horizon.  The danger had passed.

All hands were now called to clear away the wreck and make good repairs.
The pumps, too, had to be set to work, and as soon as the wind came
down on them from the clear of the horizon, sail was set, for the fires
had been drowned out.

The wind increased to a gale, and there was nothing for it but to lay
to.  And so they did all that night and all next day; then the weather
moderated, and the wind coming more easterly they were able to show more
canvas, and to resume their course with something akin to comfort.

The bodies of the two poor fellows who had met with so sad a fate were
committed to the deep--the sailor's grave.

  "Earth to earth and dust to dust."

There was more than one moist eye while those words were uttered, for
the men had both been great favourites with their messmates.

Rory was sitting that evening with his elbows resting on the saloon
table, his chin on his hands, and a book in front of him that he was not
looking at, when McBain came below.

"You're quieter than usual," said McBain, placing a kindly hand on his
shoulder.

Rory smiled, forced a laugh even, as one does who wants to shake off an
incubus.

"I was thinking," he said, "of that awful black forest of waterspouts.
I'll never get it out of my head."

"Oh! yes you will, boy Rory," said McBain; "it was a new sensation,
that's all."

"New sensation!" said Allan, laughing in earnest; "well, captain, I must
say that is a mild way of putting it.  _I_ don't want any more such
sensations.  Steward, bring some nice hot coffee."

"Ay!" cried Ralph, "that's the style, Allan.  Some coffee, steward--and,
steward, bring the cold pork and fowls, and make some toast, and bring
the butter and the Chili vinegar."

Poor Irish Rory!  Like every one with a poetic temperament, he was
easily cast down, and just as easily raised again.  Ralph's wondrous
appetite always amused him.

"Oh, you true Saxon!" said Rory--"you hungry Englishman!"  But, ten
minutes afterwards, he felt himself constrained to join the party at the
supper table.

You see, reader mine, a sailor's life is like an April day--sunshine now
and showers anon.

"How now, Stevenson?" said McBain, as the mate entered with a kind of a
puzzled look on his face.

"Well, sir, we are, as you said, off the Faroes.  The night is precious
dark, but I can see the lights of a village in here, and the lights of a
vessel of some size, evidently lying at anchor."

"Then, mate," said the captain, "as we don't know exactly where we are,
I don't think we can do wrong to steam in and drop anchor alongside this
craft.  We can then board her and find out.  How is the weather?"

"A bit thick, sir, and seems inclined to blow a little from the
east-south-east."

"Let it, Stevenson--let it.  If the other vessel can ride it out I don't
think the _Arrandoon_ is likely to lose her anchors.  Hullo!  Mitchell,"
he continued, as the second mate next entered hat in hand, "what's in
the wind now, man?"

"Why, sir," said Mitchell, "I'm all ashore like, you see; I can't make
it out.  But here is a boat just been a-hailing of us, and the
passenger--there is only one, a comely lass enough--has just come on
board, and wants to see you at once.  Seems a bit cranky.  Here she be,
sir;" and Mitchell retired.

A young girl.  She was probably not over seventeen, fair-faced, and with
wild blue eyes, and yellow hair, dripping with dew, floating over her
shoulders.

"Stop the ship!" she cried, seizing McBain by the arm.  "Go no farther,
or her ribs will be scattered over the waves, and your bones will bleach
on the cliffs of the rocks."

"Poor thing!" muttered McBain.  "Oh, you heed me not!" continued the
girl, wringing her hands in despair.  "It will be too late--it will be
too late!  I tell you here is no harbour, here is no ship.  The lights
you see are placed there to lure your vessel on shore.  They are
wreckers, I tell you; they will--"

"By the deep three!" sung the man in the chains.

Then there was a shout from the man at the foretop.

"Breakers ahead!"

Then, "Stand by both anchors.  Ready about."

CHAPTER SIX.

A LIFE ON THE OCEAN WAVE--ON THE ROCKS--MYSTERY--A HOME ON THE ROLLING
DEEP.

Has the reader ever been to sea?  The first feeling that a landsman
objects to at sea is that of the heaving motion of the ship; to your
true sailor the cessation of that motion, or its absence under
circumstances, is disagreeable in the extreme.  To me there is always a
certain air of romance about the old ocean, and about a ship at sea; but
what can be less romantic than lying in a harbour or dull wet dock, with
no more life nor motion in your craft than there is in the slopshop
round the corner?  To lie thus and probably have to listen to the
grating voices and pointless jokes of semi-inebriated stevedores, as
they load or unload, soiling, as they do, your beautiful decks with
their dreadful boots, is very far from pleasant.  In a case like this
how one wishes to be away out on the blue water once more, and to feel
life in the good ship once again--to feel, as it were, her very heart
throb beneath one's feet!

But disagreeable as the sensation is of lying lifeless in harbour or
dock, still more so is it to feel your vessel, that one moment before
was sailing peacefully over the sea, suddenly rasp on a rock beneath
you, then stop dead.  Nothing in the world will wake a sailor sooner,
even should he be in the deepest of slumber, than this sudden cessation
of motion.  I remember on one particular occasion being awakened thus.
No crew ever went to sleep with a greater feeling of security than we
had done, for the night was fine and the ship went well.  But all at
once, about four bells in the middle watch,--

Kurr-r-r-r! that was the noise we heard proceeding from our keel, then
all was steady, all was still.  And every man sprang from his hammock,
every officer from his cot.

We were in the middle of the Indian Ocean, or rather the Mozambique
Channel, with no land in sight, and we were hard and fast on the dreaded
Lyra reef.  A beautiful night it was, just enough wind to make a ripple
on the water for the broad moon's beams to dance in, a cloudless sky,
and countless stars.  We took all this in at the first glance.  Safe
enough we were--for the time; _but_ if the wind rose there was the
certainty of our being broken up, even as the war-ship _Lyra_ was, that
gave its name to the reef.

At the first shout from the man on the outlook in the _Arrandoon_,
McBain rushed on deck.  "Stand by both anchors.  Ready about."  But
these orders are, alas! too late.  Kurr-r-r-r!  The stately _Arrandoon_
is hard and fast on the rocky bottom.

The ship was under easy sail, for although there was hardly any wind,
what little there was gave evident signs of shifting.  It might come on
to blow, and blow pretty hard, too, from the south-east or
east-south-east, and Mr Stevenson was hardly the man to be caught in a
trap, to find himself on a lee shore or a rock-bound coast, with a crowd
of canvas.  Well for our people it was that there was but little sail on
her and little wind, or, speedily as everything was let go, the masts--
some of them at least--would have gone by the board.

Half an hour after she struck, the _Arrandoon_ was under bare poles and
steam was up.

The order had been given to get up steam with all speed.  Both the
engineer and his two assistants were brawny Scots.

"Man!" said the former, "it'll take ye a whole hour to get up steam if
you bother wi' coals and cinders alone.  But do your best wi' what ye
hae till I come back."

He wasn't gone long ere he came staggering down the ladder again,
carrying a sack.

"It's American hams," he said; "they're hardly fit for anything else but
fuel, so here goes."

And he popped a couple into the fire.

"That's the style," he said, as they began to frizzle and blaze.  "Look,
lads, the kettle'll be boilin' in twa seconds."

"Thank you, Stuart," said McBain, when the engineer went on the bridge
to report everything ready; "you are a valuable servant; now stand by to
receive orders."

All hands had been called, and there was certainly plenty for them to
do.

It wanted several hours to high-water, and McBain determined to make the
best of his time.

"By the blessing of Providence on our own exertions, Stevenson," the
captain said, "we'll get her off all right.  Had it been high-water,
though, when we ran on shore, eh!"

Stevenson laughed a grim laugh.  "We'd leave her bones here," he said,
"that would be all."

The men were now getting their big guns over the side into the boats.
This would lighten her a little.  But as the tide was flowing, anchors
were sent out astern, to prevent the ship from being carried still
farther on to the reef.

"Go astern at full speed."

The screws revolved and kept on revolving, the ship still stuck fast.
The night was very dark, so that everything had to be done by the weird
light of lanterns.  Never mind, the work went cheerily on, and the men
sang as they laboured.

"High-water about half-past two, isn't it, Stevenson?" asked Captain
McBain.

"Yes, sir," the mate replied, "that's about the time, sir."

"Ah! well," the captain said, "she is sure to float then, and there are
no signs of your storm coming."

"There is hardly a breath of wind now, sir, but you never know in these
latitudes where it may come on to blow from next."

The cheerful way in which McBain talked reassured our heroes, and
towards eleven o'clock English Ralph spoke as follows,--

"Look here, boys--"

"There isn't a bit of good looking in the dark, is there?" said Allan.

"Well," continued Ralph, "figuratively speaking, look here; I don't see
the good of sticking up on deck in the cold.  We're not doing an atom of
good; let us go below and finish our supper."

"Right," said Allan; "and mind you, that poor girl is below there all
this time.  She may want some refreshment."

When they entered the saloon they found it empty, deserted as far as
human beings were concerned.  Polly the cockatoo was there, no one else.

"Well?" said the bird, inquiringly, as she helped herself to an enormous
mouthful of hemp-seed.  "Well?"

"What have you done with the young lady?" asked Allan.

"The proof o' the pudding--"

Polly was too busy eating to say more.  Peter the steward entered just
then, overhearing the question as he came.

"That strange girl, sir," he replied, "went over the side and away in
her boat as soon as the ship struck."

"Well, I call that a pity," said Allan; "the poor girl comes here to
warn us of danger and never stops for thanks.  It is wonderful."

"From this date," remarked Ralph, "I cease to wonder at anything.
Steward, you know we were only half done with supper, and we're all as
hungry as hunters, and--"

But Peter was off, and in a few minutes our boys were supping as quietly
and contentedly as if they had been in the Coffee-room of the Queen's
Hotel, Glasgow, instead of being on a lee shore, with the certainty that
if it came on to blow not a timber of the good ship _Arrandoon_ that
would not be smashed into matchwood.

But hark! the noise on deck recommences, the men are heaving on the
winch, the engines are once more at work, and the great screw is
revolving.  Then there is a shout from the men forward.

"She moves!"

"Hurrah! then, boys, hurrah!" cried McBain; "heave, and she goes."

[The word "hurrah" in the parlance of North Sea sailors means "do your
utmost" or "make all speed."]

The men burst into song--tune a wild, uncouth sailor's melody, words
extempore, one man singing one line, another metreing it with a second,
with a chorus between each line, in which all joined, with all their
strength of voice to the tune, with all the power of their brawny
muscles to the winch.  Mere doggerel, but it did the turn better,
perhaps, than more refined music would have done.

  In San Domingo I was born,
          _Chorus_--Hurrah! lads, hurrah!
  And reared among the yellow corn.
                  Heave, boys, and away we go.
  Our bold McBain is a captain nice,
          _Chorus_--Hurrah! lads, hurrah!
  The main-brace he is _sure_ to splice.
                  Heave, boys, and away we go.
  The Faroe Isles are not our goal,
                  Oh! no, lads, no!
  We'll reach the North, and we'll _bag_ the Pole,
                  Heave, boys, and away we go,
                          Hurrah!

"We're off," cried Stevenson, excitedly.  "Hurrah! men.  Hurrah! hurrah!
hurrah!"

The men needed but little encouragement now, though.  Round went the
winch right merrily, and in a quarter of an hour the bows were abreast
of the anchors.

"Now, steward," said the captain, "splice the main-brace."

The ration was brought and served, Ted Wilson, who was a moving spirit
in the 'tween decks, giving a toast, which every man re-echoed ere he
raised the basin to his head,--

"Success to the saucy _Arrandoon_, and our bold skipper, Captain
McBain."

The vessel's head was now turned seawards, and presently the anchors
that had been taken in were let go again, and fires banked.  The long
night wore away, and the dismal dawn came.  McBain had lain down for a
short time, with orders to be roused on the first appearance of
daylight.  Rory, anxious to see how the land looked, was on deck nearly
as soon as the captain.

A grey mist was lifting up from off the sea, and from off the shore,
revealing black, beetling crags, hundreds of feet high at the water's
edge, a sheer beetling cliff around which thousands of strange sea-birds
were wheeling and screaming, their white wings relieved against the
black of the rocks, on which rows on rows of solemn-looking guillemots
sat, and lines of those strange old-fashion-faced birds, the puffins.

The cliffs were snow-clad, the hills above were terraced with rocks
almost to their summits.  Between the ship and this inhospitable shore
lay a long, dangerous-looking reef of rocks.

"Ah!  Rory," said McBain, "there was a merciful Providence watching over
us last night.  Yonder is where we lay; had it come on to blow, not one
of us would be alive this morning to see the sun rise."

Rory could hardly help, shuddering as he thought of the narrow escape
they had had from so terrible a fate.

When steam was got up they went round the island--it was one of the most
southerly of the Faroes; but except around one little bay, where boats
might land with difficulty, it seemed impossible that human beings could
exist in such a place.  What, then, was the mystery of the previous
evening, of the fair-haired girl, of the lights inside the reef that
simulated those of a broad-beamed ship, of the lights like those of a
village that twinkled on shore?  The whole affair seemed strange,
inexplicable.  Now that it was broad daylight the events of the
preceding night, with its dangers and its darkness, had more the
similitude of some dreadful dream than a stern reality.

This same evening the anchor was let go in the Bay of Thorshaven, the
capital--city, shall I say?--of the Faroe Islands.  I am writing a tale
of adventure, not a narrative of travel, else would I willingly devote a
whole chapter to a description of this quaint and primitive wee, wee
town.  Our heroes saw it at its very worst, its very bleakest, for
winter still held it in thrall; the turf-clad roofs of its cottages,
that in summer are green with grass and redolent of wild thyme, were now
clad with snow; its streets, difficult to climb even in July, were now
stairs of glass; its fort looked frozen out; and its little chapel,
where Sunday after Sunday the hardy and brave inhabitants, who never
move abroad without their lives in their hands, worship God in all
humility--this little chapel stood up black and bold against its
background of snow.

Although the streamlets were all frozen, although ice was afloat in the
bay, and a grey and leaden sky overhead, our boys were not sorry to land
and have a look around.  To say that they were hospitably received would
be hardly doing the Faroese justice, for hospitality really seems a part
and parcel of the people's religion.  The viands they placed before them
were well cooked, but curious, to say the least of it.  Steak of young
whale, stew of young seal's liver, roast guillemot and baked auk; these
may sound queer as dinner dishes, but as they were cooked by the ancient
Faroese gentleman who entertained our heroes at his house, each and all
of them were brave eating.

Couldn't they stop a month? this gentleman, who looked like a true
descendant of some ancient viking, asked McBain.  Well then, a
fortnight? well, surely one short week?

But, "Nay, nay, nay," the captain answered, kindly and smilingly, to all
his entreaties; they must hurry on to the far north ere spring and
summer came.

The Faroese could give them no clue to the mystery that shrouded the
previous night.  They had never heard of either wreckers or pirates in
these peaceful islands.

"But," said the old viking, "we are willing to turn out to a man; we are
one thousand inhabitants in all--including the women; but even they will
go; and we have ten brave, real soldiers in the fort, they too will go,
and we will make search, and if we find them we will hang them on--on--"
the old man hesitated.

"On the nearest tree," suggested Rory with a mischievous smile.

The viking laughed grimly at the joke.

"Well," he said, "we will hang them anyhow, trees or no trees."

But McBain could not be induced to deviate from his set purpose, and
bidding these simple folk a friendly farewell, they steamed once more
out of the bay, passed many a strange, fantastic island, passed rocks
pierced with caves, and bird-haunted, and so, with the vessel's prow
pointing to the northward and west, they left the Faroes far behind
them.

Tremendous seas rolled in from the broad Atlantic all that night and all
next day, little wind though, and no broken water.  In the evening, in
the dog-watch, the waves seemed to increase in size; they were miles
long, mountains high; when down in the trough of the sea you had to look
up to their crests as you would to the summer's sun at noontide.
Indeed, those waves made the brave ship _Arrandoon_ look wondrous small.

McBain, somewhat to Stevenson's astonishment, made the man at the wheel
steer directly north.

"We're out of our course, sir," said the mate.

"Pardon me for a minute or two," replied the captain, half
apologetically, "we are now broadside on to these seas, I just want to
test her stability."

"Well, everything is pretty fast, sir," said the mate, quietly; "but if
the ship goes on her beam-ends don't blame me."

"Perhaps, Mr Stevenson, there wouldn't be much time to blame any one;
but I can trust my ship, I think.  Wo! my beauty."

The beauty didn't seem a bit inclined to "wo!" however.  She positively
rolled her ports under, and Rory confessed that the doldrums were
nothing to this.

Presently up comes Rory from below.

"Och! captain dear," he says, "my gun-case has burst my fiddle-case, and
I'm not sure that the fiddle herself is safe, the darling."

Next up comes Stevenson.  "Please captain," he says, "the steward says
his crockery is all going to smithereens, and the cook can't keep the
fire in the galley range, and Freezing Powders has broken the tureen and
spilt the soup, and--"

"Enough, enough," cried McBain, laughing; "take charge, mate, and do as
you like with her, I'm satisfied."

So down below dived the captain, the ship's head was once more turned
north-west, and a bit of canvas clapped on to steady her.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

SANDIE MCFLAIL, M.D.--"WHA WOULDNA' BE A SEA-BIRD?"--THE GIRL TELLS HER
STRANGE ADVENTURES--NIGHTFALL ON THE SEA.

There is one member of the mess whom I have not yet introduced, but a
very worthy member he is, our youthful doctor.  Poor fellow! never
before had he been to sea, and so he suffered accordingly.  Oh! right
bravely had he tried to keep up for all that.  He was the boldest
mariner afloat while coming down the Clyde; he disappeared as the ship
began to round the stormy Mull.  He appeared again for a short time at
Oban, but vanished when the anchor was weighed.  At Lerwick, where they
called in to take old Magnus Bolt on board, and ship a dozen stalwart
Shetlanders, the doctor was once more seen on deck; and it was currently
reported that when the vessel lay helpless on the reef, a ghostly form
bearing a strong resemblance to the bold surgeon was seen flitting about
in the darkness, and a quavering voice was heard to put this solemn
question more than once, "Any danger, men?  Men, are we in danger?"
This was the last that had been seen of the medico; but Rory found a
slate in the dispensary, into which sanctum, by the way, he had no right
to pop even his nose.  He brought this slate aft, the young rascal, and
read what was written thereon to Allan and Ralph, from which it was
quite evident that Sandie McFlail, M.D., of Aberdeen, had made a most
intrepid attempt to keep a diary.  The entries were short, and ran
somewhat thus:--

"February 9th.--Dropped away from the Broomielaw and steamed down the
beautiful Clyde.  Charming day, though cold, and the hills on each side
the river clothed in virgin snow.  Felt sad and sorrowful at leaving my
native land.  I wonder will ever we return, or will the great sea
swallow us up?  Would rather it didn't.  I wonder if _she_ will think of
me and pray for her mariner bold when the wind blows high at night, when
the cold rain beats against the window-panes of her little cot, and the
storm spirit roars around the old chimneys.  I feel a sailor already all
over, and I tread the decks with pride.

"Feb. 10th.--At sea.  The ocean getting rough.  Passed some seagulls.

"Feb. 11th.--Sea rougher.  Passed a ship.

"Feb. 12th.--Sea still rough.  Passed some seaweed.

"Feb. 13th.--Sea mountains high.  Passed--"

"And here," says Rory, "the diary breaks off all of a sudden like; and
all of a sudden the entries close; so, really, there is no saying what
the doctor passed on the 13th.  But just about this time, the mate tells
me, he was seen leaning languidly over the side, so--"

"Ho, ho!" cried McBain, close at his ear.  The captain had entered the
saloon unperceived by boy Rory, and had been standing behind him all the
time he was reading.  Ralph and Allan saw him well enough, but they, of
course, said nothing, although they could not refrain from laughing.

"Ho, ho, Rory, my boy!" says McBain; "ho, ho, boy Rory! so you're fairly
caught?"

"And indeed then," says Rory, jumping up and looking as guilty as any
schoolboy, "I didn't know you were there at all at all."

"Of that I am perfectly sure," McBain says, laughing, "else you wouldn't
have been reading the poor doctor's private diary.  What shall we do
with him, Ralph?  What shall he be done to, Allan?"

"Oh!" said Ralph, mischievously; "send him to the masthead for a couple
of hours.  Into the foretop, mind, where he'll get plenty of air about
him."

"No," said Allan, grinning; "give him a seat for three hours on the end
of the bowsprit.  Of course, Captain McBain, you'll let him have a
bottle of hot water at his feet, and a blanket or two about him.  He is
only a little one, you know."

"But now that I think of it," said McBain, "you are all the same, boys;
there isn't one of you a whit better than the other."

"Sure and you're right, captain," Rory put in, "for if I was reading,
they were listening, most intently, too."

"Well then, boys, I'll tell you how you can make amends to the honest
doctor.  Off you go, the three of you, and see if you can't rouse him
out.  Get him to come on deck and breathe the fresh air.  He'll soon get
round."

And off our three heroes went, joyfully, on their mission of mercy.

They found the worthy doctor in bed in his cabin, and forthwith set
about kindly but firmly rousing him out.  They had even brought Freezing
Powders with them, to carry a pint of moselle.

"I feel vera limp," said Sandie, as soon as he got dressed, "vera limp
indeed.  Well, as you say, the moselle may do me good, but I'm a
teetotaler as a rule."

"We never touch any wine," said Ralph, "nor care to; but this, my dear
doctor, is medicine."

Sandie confessed himself better immediately when he got on deck.  With
Allan on one side of him and big Ralph on the other, he was marched up
and down the deck for half an hour and more.

"Man! gentlemen!" he remarked, "I thought I could walk finely, but I'm
just now for a' the world like a silly drunken body."

"We were just the same," said Allan, "when we came first to sea--
couldn't walk a bit; but we soon got our sea-legs, and we've never lost
them yet."

The doctor was struck with wonder at the might and majesty of the waves,
and also at the multitude of birds that were everywhere about and around
them.  Kittiwakes, solons, gulls, guillemots, auks, and puffins, they
whirled and wheeled around the ship in hundreds, screaming and shrieking
and laughing.  They floated on the water, they swam on its surface, and
dived down into its dark depths, and no fear had they of human beings,
nor of the steamer itself.

"How happy they all seem!" said Rory; "if I was one of the lower
animals, as we call them, sure there is nothing in the wide world I'd
like better to be than a sea-bird."

"True for you," said Allan; "it's a wild, free life they lead."

"And they seem to have no care," said the doctor.  "Their meat is bound
to their heads; at any rate, they never have far to go to seek it.  When
tired they can rest; when rested they can fly again.  Then look at the
warm and beautiful coats they wear.  There is no wetting them to the
skin; the water glides off o' them like the rain from a duck's back.
Then think o' the pleasure o' possessin' a pair o' wings that can cleave
the air like an arrow from a bowstring; that in a few short days,
independent o' wind or waves or weather, can carry them from the cauld
north far, far awa' to the saft and sunny south.  Wha wouldna' be a
sea-bird?"

"Yes," reiterated Rory, stopping in front of the doctor; "as you say,
doctor, `Wha wouldna' be a sea-bird?'  But pardon me, sir, for in you I
recognise a kindred spirit, a lover of nature, a lover of the beautiful.
You and I will be friends, doctor--fast friends.  There, shake hands."

"As for Ralph and Allan," he added, with a mischievous grin, "'deed in
troth, doctor dear, there isn't a bit of poetry in their nature, and
they would any day far sooner see a couple of eider ducks roasted and
flanked with apple sauce, than the same wildly beautiful birds happy and
alive and afloat on the dark, heaving breast of the ocean.  It's the
truth I'm telling ye, doctor.  D'ye play at all?  Have you any favourite
instrument?"

"Weel, sir," the doctor replied, "I canna say that I'm vera much o' a
musician, but I just can manage to toot a wee bit on the flute."

"And I've no doubt," said Rory, "that you `toot' well, too."

The conversation never slackened for a couple of hours, and so well did
the doctor feel, that of his own free will he volunteered joining them
at dinner in the saloon.  McBain was as much surprised as delighted when
he came below to dine, and found that their new messmate, Sandie
McFlail, had at long last put in an appearance at table.

The swell on the sea was much less next morning; the wind had slightly
increased, and more sail had been spread, so that the ship was
moderately steady.  The rugged coast and strange, fantastic rocks of the
outlying islands of Iceland were in sight, and, half-buried in misty
clouds, the distant mountains could be dimly descried.

"Yonder," said the mate, advancing towards Captain McBain, glass in
hand,--"yonder is a small boat, sir, with a bit of a sail on her; she
has just rounded the needle rocks, and seems standing in for the
mainland."

"Well," said the captain, "let us overhaul her, anyhow.  There can be no
harm in that, and it may secure us a fresh fish or two for dinner."

In less than an hour the _Arrandoon_ had come up with this strange sail,
which at first sight had seemed a mere speck on the ocean, seen at one
moment and hidden the next behind some mountain roller.  The surprise of
our heroes may be better imagined than described, to find afloat in this
cockle-shell of a boat, with an oar shipped as a mast and a tartan plaid
as a main-sail, none other than the heroine of the wreckers' reef.
Seeing that she was in the power of the big ship, she made no further
attempt to get away, but, dropping her sail, she seized the oars,
paddled quietly and coolly alongside, and next moment stood on the
quarter-deck, with bowed head and modest mien, before Captain McBain.

The captain took her kindly by the hand, smiling as he said, "Do not be
afraid, my girl; consider yourself among friends--among those, indeed,
who would do anything in their power to serve you, even if they were not
already deeply in your debt, and deeply grateful."

"Ah!" she said, mournfully, "my warning came all too late to save you.
But, praised be God! you are safe now, and not in the power of those
terrible men, who would have spared not a single life of those the waves
did not engulf."

"But tell us," continued McBain, "all about it--all about yourself.
There is some strange mystery about the matter, which we would fain have
solved.  But stay--not here, and not yet.  You must be very tired and
weary; you must first have rest and refreshment, after which you can
tell us your tale.  Stevenson, see the little boat hauled up; and,
doctor, I place this young lady under your care; to-night I hope to land
her safely in Reikjavik; meanwhile my cabin is at her disposal."

"Come, lassie," said the good surgeon, laconically, leading the way down
the companion.

Merely dropping a queenly curtsey to McBain and our young heroes, she
followed the doctor without a word.

Peter the steward placed before her the most tempting viands in the
ship, yet she seemed to have but little appetite.

"I am tired," she said at length, "I fain would rest.  Long weary weeks
of sorrow have been mine.  But they are past and gone at last."

Then she retired, this strange ocean waif and stray, and so the day wore
gradually to a close, and they saw no more of her until the sun, fierce,
fiery, and red, began to disappear behind the distant snow-clad hills;
then they found her once more in their midst.

She had gathered the folds of her plaid around her, her long yellow hair
still floated over her shoulders, and her dreamy blue eyes were shyly
raised to McBain's face as she began to speak.

"I owe you some explanation," she said.  "My strange conduct must appear
almost inexplicable to you.  My appearance among you two nights ago was
intended to save you from the destruction that awaited you--from the
destruction that had been prepared for you by the Danish wreckers."

"Sir," she continued, after a pause, "I am myself a Dane.  My father was
parish minister in the little village of Elmdene.  Alas!  I fear he is
now no more.  Afflictions gathered and thickened around us in our once
happy little home, and the only way we could see out of them was to
leave our native land and cross the ocean.  In America we have many
friends who had kindly offered us an asylum, until happier days should
come again.  Our vessel was a brig, our crew all told only twenty hands,
and we, my brother, father, and myself--for mother has long since gone
up beyond--were the only passengers.

"All went well until we were off the northern Shetlands, when at the
dark, starry hour of midnight our ship was boarded and carried by
pirates.  Every one in the ship was put to the sword, saving my father
and myself.  My poor dear brave brother was slain before my eyes, but he
died as the Danes die--with his face to the foe.  My father was promised
his life if he would perform the ceremony of marriage between myself and
the pirate captain, who is a Russian, a daring, fearless fellow, but a
strange compound of superstition and vice--a man who will go to prayers
before scuttling a ship!  The object of this pirate was to seize your
vessel; he would have met and fought you at sea, but the easier plan for
him was to try to wreck you.  Fortune seemed to favour this bold design
of his.  The lights placed on shore, to represent a vessel of large
size, were part and parcel of his vile scheme.  But the darkness of the
night enabled me to escape and come towards you.  Then I feared to
return; but, alas! alas!  I now tremble lest my dear father has had to
pay the penalty of my rashness with his life."

[The story of the pirate is founded on fact.]

"But the ship--this pirate?" said McBain.  "We sailed around the island
next day but saw no signs of him?"

"Then," said the girl, "he must have escaped in the darkness,
immediately after discovering the entire failure of his scheme."

"And whither were you bound for when we overtook you, my poor girl?"
asked McBain.

"At Reikjavik," she replied, "I have an uncle, a minister.  He it was
who taught me all I know, while he was still at home in Elmdene--taught
me among other things the beautiful language of your country, which I
speak, but speak so indifferently."

"Can this be," said McBain, "the self-same pirate that attacked the
_Snowbird_?"

"The very same thought," answered Ralph, "was passing through my own
mind."

"And yet how strange that a pirate should, cruise in these far northern
seas?"

"She has less chance of being caught, at all events," Allan said.

"Ha?" exclaimed McBain, with a kind of grim, exultant laugh, "if she
comes across the _Arrandoon_, that chance will indeed be a small one.
She'll find us a different kind of a craft from the _Snowbird_."

The vessel was now heading directly for the south-east coast of Iceland.
Somewhere in there, though at present hidden by points of land and
rocky islets, lay the capital of Iceland, which they hoped to reach ere
midnight.

A more lovely land and seascape than that which was now stretched out
before them, it would indeed be difficult to conceive.  The sun had gone
down behind the western end of a long line of snow-clad mountains,
serrated, jagged, and peaked, but their tops were all rose-tipped with
his parting beams.  Above them the sky was clear, with just one speck of
crimson cloud; the lower land between was bathed in a purple mist,
through which the ice-bound rocks could dimly be discerned, while the
mantle of night had already been spread over the ocean.

It was "nightfall on the sea."

CHAPTER EIGHT.

A GALE FROM THE MOUNTAINS--DAYBREAK IN ICELAND--THE GREAT BALLOON
ASCENT--RORY'S YARN--THE SNOW-CLOUD--THE PIRATE IS SEEN.

A whole week has elapsed since the events transpired which I have
related in last chapter,--a week most interestingly if not always quite
pleasantly spent.  The _Arrandoon_ is lying before the quaint,
fantastical old town of Reikjavik, surrounded almost in every direction
by mountains bold and wild, the peaked summits and even the sides of
which are now covered with ice and snow.  For spring has not yet arrived
to unrivet stern winter's chains, to swell the rivers into roaring
torrents, and finally to carpet the earth with beauty.  The streams are
still frozen, the bay in which the good ship lies at her anchors twain,
is filled with broken pancake-ice, which makes communication with the
shore by means of boat a matter of no little difficulty, for oars have
to be had inboard or used as pressing poles, and boat-hooks are in
constant requisition.

Winter it is, and the country all around might be called dreary, were it
not for the ever-varying shades of colour that, as the sun shines out,
or anon hides his head behind a cloud, spread themselves over hill and
dale and rugged glen.  Oh! the splendour of those sunrises and sunsets,
the rose tints, the purples, the emerald greens and cool greys, that
blaze and blend, grow faint and fade as they chase each other among
mountains and ravines!  What a poor morsel of steel my pen feels as I
attempt to describe them!  Yet have they a beauty peculiarly their
own,--a beauty which never can be forgotten by those whose eyes have
once rested thereon.

The fair-haired Danish girl has been landed, and for a time has found
shelter and peace in the humble home of her uncle the clergyman.  Our
heroes have been on shore studying the manners and customs of the
primitive but hospitable people they find themselves among.

Several city worthies have been off to see the ship and to dine.  But
to-night our heroes are all by themselves in the saloon.  Dinner is
finished, nuts and fruit and fragrant coffee are on the table, at the
head of which sits the captain, on his right the doctor and Ralph, on
his left Allan and Rory.  Freezing Powders, neatly dressed, is hovering
near, and Peter, the steward, is not far off, while the cockatoo is busy
as usual, helping himself to tremendous billfuls of hemp-seed, but
nevertheless putting in his oar every minute, with a "Well, duckie?" or
a long-drawn "Dea-ah me!"

I cannot say that all is peace, though, beyond the wooden walls of the
_Arrandoon_, for a storm is raging with almost hurricane violence,
sweeping down from the hills with ever-varying force, and threatening to
tear the vessel from her anchorage.  Steam is up, the screw revolves,
and it taxes all the engineer's skill to keep up to the anchors so as to
avert the strain from them.

But our boys are used to danger by this time, and there is hardly a
moment's lull in the conversation.  Even Sandie McFlail, M.D. o'
Aberdeen, has already forgotten all the horrors of _mal-de-mer_; he even
believes he has found his sea-legs, and feels all over as good a sailor
as anybody.

"Reikjavik?" says Ralph; "isn't it a queer break-jaw kind of a name.  It
puts one in mind of a mouthful of exceedingly tough beefsteak."

"A gastronomic simile," says Rory; "though maybe neither poetical nor
elegant, sure, but truly Saxon."

"Ah! weel," the doctor says, in his quiet, thoughtful, canny way, "I
dinna know now.  Some o' the vera best poetry of all ages bears
reference to the pleesures o' the table.  Witness Horace's Odes, for
instance."

"Hear! hear!" from Allan; and "Horace was a brick!" from honest English
Ralph; but Rory murmurs "Moore?"

"But," continues the doctor, "to my ear there is nothing vera harsh in
the language that these islanders speak.  They pronounce the `ch' hard,
like the Scotch; their `j's' soft, like the Spanish; and turn their
`w's' into `v's.'  They pronounce church--kurk; and the `j' is a `y,' or
next thing to it.  `Reik' or `reyk' means smoke, you know, as it is in
Scotch `reek;' and `wik,' or `wich,' or `vik' means a bay, as in the
English `Woolwich,' `Sandwich,' etc, so that Reikjavik is simply `the
bay of smoke,' or `the smoking bay;' but whether with reference to the
smoke that hangs over the town, or the spray that rises mistlike from
the seething billows when the wind blows, I cannot say--probably the
former; and it is worthy of note, gentlemen, that some savage races far,
far away from here--the aborigines of Australia, for example--designate
towns by the term `the big smoke.'"

"How profoundly erudite you are, doctor!" says Rory.  "Now, wouldn't it
have been much better for your heirs and assigns and the world at large,
if you had accepted a Professorship of Antiquity in the University of
Aberdeen, instead of coming away with us, to cool the toes of you at the
North Pole, and maybe leave your bones to bleach beneath the Aurora
Borealis, eh?"

"Ha! there I have you," cries Sandie, smiling good-humouredly, for by
this time he was quite used to Rory's bantering ways,--"there I have
you, boy Rory; and it is with the profoundest awe and respect for
everything sacred, that I remind you that the Aurora Borealis never
bleached any bones; and those poor unfortunates who, in their devotion
for science, have wandered towards the mystery land around the Pole, and
there laid down their lives, will never, never moulder into dust, but,
entombed in the green, salt ice, with the virgin snow as their
winding-sheet, their bodies will rest in peace, and rest intact until
the trumpet sounds."

There was a lull in the conversation at this point, but no lull in the
storm; the waves dashed wildly over the ship, the wind roared through
the rigging, the brave vessel quivered from stem to stern, as if in
constant fear she might be hurled from the protection afforded by anchor
and cable, and cast helpless upon the rock-bound shore.

A lull, broken presently by a deep sigh from Freezing Powders.

"Well, duckie?" said Polly, in sympathising tones.

"Well, Freezing Powders," said McBain, "and pray what are you sighing
about?"

"What for I sigh?" repeated Freezing Powders.  "Am you not afraid
you'se'f, sah!  You not hear de wild winds roar, and de wave make too
much bobbery?  'Tis a'most enuff, sah, to make a gem'lam turn pale,
sah!"

"Ha! ha?" laughed Rory; "really, it'll take a mighty big storm, Freezing
Powders, to make you turn pale.  But, doctor," he continued, "what say
you to some music?"

"If you'll play," said the surgeon, "I'll toot."

And so the concert was begun; and the shriek of the storm spirit was
drowned in mirth and melody, or, as the doctor, quoting Burns, expressed
it,--

  "The storm without might roar and rustle,
  They didna mind the storm a whustle."

But after this night of storm and tempest, what a wonderful morning it
was!  The sun shot up amidst the encrimsoned mountain peaks, and shone
brightly down from a sky of cloudless blue.  The snow was everywhere
dazzling in its whiteness, and there was not a sigh of wind to raise so
much as a ripple on the waters of the bay, from which every bit of ice
had been blown far to sea.  Wild birds screamed with joy as they wheeled
in hundreds around the ship, while out in the bay a shoal of porpoises
were disporting themselves, leaping high in air from out of the
sparkling waters, and shrieking--or, as the doctor called it,
"whustling"--for very joy.

Every one on board the _Arrandoon_ was early astir--up, indeed, before
the sun himself--for there were to be great doings on shore to-day.  The
first great experimental balloon ascent and flight was about to be made.
Every one on shore was early astir, too; in fact, the greatest
excitement prevailed, and on the table-land to the right of, and some
little distance from, the town, from which the balloon was to ascend,
the people had assembled from an early hour, even the ladies of
Reikjavik turning out dressed in their gayest attire, no small
proportion of which consisted of fur and feathers.

The aeronaut was a professional, Monsieur De Vere by name.  McBain had
gone all the way to Paris especially to engage his services.  Nor had he
hired him at random, for this canny captain of ours had not only
satisfied himself that De Vere was in a scientific point of view a
clever man, but he had accompanied him in several ascents, and could
thus vouch for his being a really practical aeronaut.

Who would go with De Vere in this first great trip over the regions of
perpetual snow?  The doctor stepped forward as a volunteer, and by his
side was Rory.  Perhaps Allan and Ralph were rather lazy for any such
aerial exploit; anyhow, they were content to stay at home.

"We'll look on, you know," said Ralph, "as long as we can see you; and
when you return--that is, if ever you do return--you can tell us all
about it."

When all was ready the ropes were cast loose, and, with a ringing cheer
from the assembled multitude, up arose the mighty balloon, straight as
arrow from bow, into the blue, sunny sky.  Like the eagle that soars
from the peak of Benrinnes, she seemed to seek the very sun itself.

Rory and the surgeon, who had never been in a balloon before--nor even,
for the matter of that, down in a coalpit--at first hardly relished
their sudden elevation, but they soon got used to it.

Not the slightest motion was there; Rory could hardly credit the fact
that he was moving, and when at last he did muster up sufficient courage
to peep earthwards over the side of the car.

"Oh, look, doctor dear!" he cried; "sure, look for yourself; the world
is moving away from us altogether!"

And this was precisely the sensation they experienced.  Both the doctor
and Rory were inclined to clutch nervously and tremulously the sides of
the car in the first part of their ascent; but though the former was not
much of a sailor, somewhat to his surprise he experienced none of those
giddy feelings common to the landsman when gazing from an immense
height.  He could look beneath him and around him, and enjoy to the full
the strange bird's-eye landscape and seascape that every moment seemed
to broaden and widen, until a great portion of the northern island, with
its mountains, its lakes, its frozen torrents, its gulfs and bays and
islands, and the great blue southern ocean, even to the far-off Faroe
Isles, lay like a beautifully portrayed map beneath their feet.  The
grandeur of the scene kept them silent for long minutes; it impressed
them, it awed them.  It did more than even this, for it caused them to
feel their own littleness, and the might of the Majesty that made the
world.

De Vere himself seldom vouchsafed a single glance landwards; he seemed
to busy himself wholly and solely with the many strange instruments with
which he was surrounded.  He was hardly a moment idle.  The intense
cold, that soon began to benumb the senses of Sandie, seemed to have no
deterrent effect on his efforts.

"I must confess I do fell sleepy," said the worthy medico, "and I meant
to assist you, Mr De Vere."

"Here," cried the scientist, pouring something out of a phial, and
handing it to him, "drink that quick."

"I feel double the individual," cried Sandie, brightly, as soon as he
had swallowed the draught.

"Come," said Rory, "come, monsieur, _I_ want to feel double the
individual, too."

"No, no, sir," said De Vere, smiling, "an Irishman no want etherism; you
are already--pardon me--too ethereal."

Sandie was gazing skywards.

  "It is the moon,"--he was saying--"I ken her horn,
  She's blinkin' in the lift sae hie;
  She smiles, the jade! to wile us hame,
  But, 'deed, I doubt, she'll wait a wee."

"Happy thought!" cried Rory; "let us go to the moon."

"No," laughed the doctor; "nobody ever got that length yet."

"Oh, you forget, Mr Surgeon," said Rory,--"you forget entirely all
about Danny O'Rourke."

"Tell us, then, Rory."

"Troth, then," began Rory, in his richest brogue, "it was just like this
same.  Danny was a dacint boy enough, who lived entoirely alone with
Biddy his wife, and the pig, close to a big bog in old Oireland.
Sitting on a stone in the midst of this bog was Danny, one foine
summer's evening, when who should fly down but an aigle.  `Foine
noight,' says the aigle.  `The same to you,' says Danny, `and many of
them.'  `But,' says the aigle, `don't you see that it is sinking you
are?'  `Och! sure,' cries Danny, `and so it is.  I'll be swallowed up in
the bog, and poor Biddy and the pig will nivir set eyes on me again.
Och! och! what'll I do?'  `Git on to me back, troth,' says the aigle,
`and I'll fly you sthraight to your Biddy's door.'  `And the blessings
av the O'Rourkes be wid ye thin,' says Danny, putting his arms round the
aigle's neck, `for you are the sinsible bird, and whatever I'd have done
widout ye, ne'er a bit o' me knows.  But isn't it high enough you are
now, aroon?  Yonder is my cottage just down there.'  For," continued
Rory, "you must know that by this time the aigle had mounted fully a
mile high with poor Danny.  `Be quiet wid ye,' says the aigle, `or I'll
shake ye off me back entoirely.  Don't ye remember robbing my nest last
year?  _I_ do.  And it's niver a cottage you'll ever see again, nor
Biddy, nor the pig either.  It's right up to the moon I'm flying wid
ye.'  `What!' cries Danny, `to that bit av a thing like a raping-hook?
Och! and och! what'll become av me at all at all?'  But the moon got
bigger the nearer they came to it, and they found it a dacint size
enough when they got there entirely.  `Catch a howld av the end av the
raping-hook,' says the aigle, `or by this and by that I'll shake ye off
me shoulder.'  And so poor Danny had no ho' but just to do as he was
told, and away flew the aigle and left him.  While he was wondering what
he should do now, a stern voice behind him says, `Let go--let go the end
of the raping-hook, and be off wid ye back to your own counthry.'  `It's
hardly civil av you,' says Danny, `to ask me sich a thing.  Sure it is
few ever come to call on you anyhow.'  `Let go,' thundered the man o'
the moon; and he gave Danny just one kick, and off went the poor boy
flying into the air.  `It's killed I'll be,' says he to himself, `killed
entoirely wid the fall, and what'll become o' me wife Biddy and the pig
is more'n I can tell.'  But he fell, and he fell, and he fell, and he
never seemed to stop falling, till plump he alights right in the middle
o' the sea, and there he lay on the broad back av him, till a big lump
av a whale came and splashed him all over wid his tail.  But sure enough
the sea was only his bed, and the big whale turned out to be Biddy
herself, with the watering-pot, telling him to get up, for a lazy ould
boy, and feed the pig, and troth it was nothing but a dream after all.

"But where in the name of wonder are we now?" he continued, gazing
around.

It was a very natural question.  It had got suddenly dark.  They were
enveloped in a snow-cloud.  The brave balloon seemed to struggle through
it.

Ballast was thrown over, and up and out into the sunshine she rose
again, but what a change had come over her appearance--every rope and
length of her and the car itself and our bold aeronauts were covered
white with virgin snow.

"Monsieurs," said De Vere, "this is more than I bargained for.  We must
descend.  You see she has lost all life.  De lofely soul dat was in de
balloon seems to have gone.  We will descend."

Indeed the huge balloon was already moving slowly earthwards, and in a
minute more they were again passing through the snow-cloud.  Once clear
of this a breeze sprang up, or, to speak more correctly, they entered a
current of air, that carried them directly inland for many miles.  Tired
of this direction, the valve was opened, out roared the gas, and the
descent became more rapid, until the wind ceased to blow--they were
beneath the adverse current.  More ballast was thrown out, and her "way"
was stopped.

But see, what aileth our hero, boy Rory?  For some minutes he has been
gazing southwards over the sea, so intensely indeed that his looks
almost frighten the honest doctor.

"The glass, the glass," he hisses, holding round his hand, but not
taking his glance for a moment off the southern horizon.

The glass is handed to him, he adjusts it to his eye, and takes one
long, fixed look; and when he turns once more towards the doctor his
face is radiant with joy and excitement.

"It is she," he cried, "it is _she_, it is she!"

The doctor really looked scared.

"Man!" he said, "are ye takin' leave o' your wuts?  There, tak' a hold
o' my hand and dinna try to frighten folk.  There's never a `she' near
ye."

"It is _she_, I tell you," cried Rory again; "take the glass and look in
under the land yonder, and heading for Stromsoe.  It is the pirate
herself,--the pirate we fought in the _Snowbird_.  Hurrah! hurrah!"

CHAPTER NINE.

MOUNT HEKLA--THE GREAT GEYSER--A NARROW ESCAPE--THE SEARCH FOR THE
PIRATE--MCBAIN'S LITTLE "RUSE DE GUERRE"--THE BATTLE BEGUN.

"That puts quite another complexion on the matter," said Dr Sandy
McFlail, with a sigh of relief, when Rory explained to him that he had
spied the pirate, "quite another complexion, though, for the time bein'
ye glowered sae like a warlock that I did think ye had lost your reason;
so give me the glass, and I'll e'en take a look at her mysel'.

"Eh! sirs," he continued, with the telescope at his eye, "but she is a
big ship, and a bonnie ship.  But, Rory boy, just catch a hold o' my
coat-tails, and I'll feel more secure like.  I wouldn't wish to go heels
o'er head out o' the car.  A fine big ship indeed--square-rigged forward
and schooner-rigged aft; a vera judeecious arrangement."

"Now," cried Rory, "the sooner we are landed on old mother earth the
better.  Bend on to the valve halyards, De Vere.  Down with her."

"Sirs! sirs!" cried the doctor, in great alarm; "pray don't be rash.  Be
judeecious, gentlemen, be judeecious."

De Vere looked from one to the other, then laughed aloud.  He was
amused at the impetuosity of the Irishman and at the canniness of the
Scot.

A very pleasant little man was this De Vere to look at, black as to hair
and moustache, dark as to eyes; thoughtful-looking as a rule were these
eyes, yet oft lit up with fun.  He never spoke much, perhaps he
cogitated the more; he seldom made a joke himself, but he had a high
appreciation of humour in others.  Taking him all and all he gave you
the impression of one who would be little likely to lose his presence of
mind in a time of danger.

"Gentlemen," he said, quietly, "you will leave the descent in my hands,
if you please.  We are now, by my calculation, some ninety miles from
the city of Reikjavik.  You see beneat' you wild mountains, ice-bound
plains, frozen lakes, rivers and waterfalls, deep ravines and gorges,
but no sign of smoke, no life.  Shall I make my descent here?  Shall I
pull vat Monsieur Rory call de valve halyard?  Shall I land in de
regions of desolation?"

"Dinna think o't," cried Sandy.  "Never mind Rory; he is only a laddie."

"It's yourself that's complimentary," quoth Rory.

"Ah! ver' well," said De Vere; "I will go on, for since you have been
gazing on de ship, de current have change, and we once more get nearer
home."

An hour went slowly by.  Both the doctor and Rory were gazing at the
_far-off_ mountain, Hekla, that lay to the south and east, though
distant many miles.  The vast hill looked a king among the other
mountains; a king, but a dead king, being still and quiet in the
sunshine, enrobed in a shroud of snow.

Sandy was doubly engaged--he was talking musingly, and aloud; but at the
same time he was doing ample justice to the venison pie that lay so
confidingly on his knee, for Sandy was a bit of a philosopher in his own
quiet way.

"Mount Hekla," he was saying; "is it any wonder that these Norsemen,
these superstitious sons of the ancient Vikings, look upon it as the
entrance-gate to the terrible abode of fire and brimstone, gloom and
woe, where are confined the souls of the unhappy dead?  Hekla, round thy
snow-capped summit the thunders never cease to roll--"

"Hark," said Rory, holding up his hand; "talk about thunder, list to
that."

Both leant over the car and looked earthwards.  What could it mean, that
low, deep, long-continued thunderpeal?  Was a storm raging beneath them?
Yes, but not of the kind they at first imagined.  For see, from where
yonder hill starts abruptly from the glen, rise immense clouds of
silvery white, and roll slowly adown the valley.  The balloon hangs
suspended right above the great _geyser_, which is now in full eruption.

"It is as I thought," said De Vere; "let us descend a little way;" and
he opened the valve as he spoke.

The balloon made a downward rush as he did so, as if she meant to plunge
herself and all her occupants into the very midst of the boiling
cauldron.  The steam from the geyser had almost reached their feet; the
car thrilled beneath them, while the never-ceasing thunder pealed louder
and louder.

"My conscience!" roared honest Sandy, losing all control over himself;
"we'll be boiled alive like so many partans!"

[Partans: Scottish, crabs.]

De Vere coolly threw overboard a bag or two of sand, and the balloon
mounted again like a skylark.  And not too soon either, for, awful, to
relate, in his sudden terror Sandy had made a grab at the valve-rope, as
if to check her downward speed.  Had not Rory speedily pulled him back,
the consequences would have been too dreadful to think of.

De Vere only laughed; but he held up one finger by way of admonishing
the doctor as he said, "Neever catch hold of de reins ven anoder man is
driving."

"But," said Rory, "didn't you go a trifle too near that time, Mister de
Vere?"

"A leetle," said the Frenchman, coolly.  "It was noding."

"Ach! sure no," says Rory; "it was nothing at all; and yet, Mister de
Vere, it isn't the pleasantest thing in the world to imagine yourself
being played at pitch and toss with on the top of a mighty geyser, for
all the world like a nut-gall on the top of a twopenny fountain!"

Sandy resumed the dissection of his venison pie.  He would have a long
entry for his diary to-night, he thought.

Luck does not always attend the aeronaut, albeit fortune favours the
brave, and the current of air that was carrying the balloonists so
merrily back to Reikjavik, ceased entirely when they were still within
ten miles of that quaint wee place.  It was determined, therefore, to
make a descent.  Happily, they were over a glen.  Close by the sea and
around the bay were many small farms, and so adroitly did De Vere manage
to attach an anchor to the roof of an old barn, that descent was easy in
the extreme.

Perhaps the happiest man in the universe at the moment Sandy McFlail's
feet touched mother earth again was Sandy himself.  "Man!" he cried to
Rory, rubbing his hands and laughing with glee, "I thought gettin' out
meant a broken leg at the vera least, and I haven't even bled my nose."

There was some commotion, I can tell you, among the feathered inmates of
the barnyard when the balloonists popped down among them; as for the
farm folks, they had shut themselves up in the dwelling-house.  The
geese were particularly noisy.  Geese, reader, always remind me of those
people we call sceptics: they are sure to gabble their loudest at things
they can't understand.

But convinced at last that the aeronauts were neither evil spirits nor
inhabitants of the moon, the good farmer made them heartily welcome at
his fireside, and assisted them to pack, so that, by the aid of men and
ponies, they found themselves late that evening safely on board the
_Arrandoon_; and right glad were their comrades to see them again, you
may be sure, and to listen to a narration by Rory of all their
adventures, interlarded by Sandy's queer, dry remarks, which only served
to render it all the more funny.

But before they sat down to the ample supper that Peter had prepared for
them, Rory reported to the captain his great discovery.

McBain's eyes sparkled like live coals as he heard of it, but he said
little.  He sent quietly for the engineer and the mate.  "How soon," he
asked the former, "can you get up steam?"

"In an hour, sir--easy."

"That will do," said the captain.  "Mr Stevenson, when will the moon
rise?"

"She is rising now, sir."

"All right, Mr Stevenson.  Have all ready to weigh anchor in two hours'
time."

"Ay, ay, sir!"

The engineer still lingered.  "I _could_ get up steam in twenty
minutes," he said; "those American hams, sir--"

"Oh, bother the hams?" said the captain, laughing.  "No, no; we may be
glad of those yet when frozen in at the Pole.  Bear-and-ham pie,
engineer; how will that eat, eh?" and he bowed him kindly out.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

By two bells in the middle watch the good ship _Arrandoon_ was off the
needle rocks of the Portland Huck.  They stood up out of the water like
tall sheeted ghosts, with the moonlight and starlight shimmering from
their shoulders.  The sea was calm, with only a gentle heave on it; and
there were but a few snowy clouds in the sky skirting the southern
horizon, so the vessel ploughed along as beautifully as any sailor could
wish, with a steady, contented throb of engine and gride of screw,
leaving in her wake a long silvery line for the moonbeams to dance in.
Save the noise of the ship's working there was not another sound to be
heard, only occasionally a gull would float past overhead emitting a
strange and mournful cry.  What makes the sea-birds, I have wondered,
sometimes leave the rocks at the midnight hour, and go skimming alone
through the darkling air, emitting that weird and plaintive wail of
theirs?  It is a wail that goes directly to one's heart, and you cannot
help thinking they must be bereaved ones mourning for their dead.

Our heroes walked long on deck that night, talking quietly, as became
the hour, of the prospects of their having a brush with the pirate.  But
they got weary at last, and turned in.  Next morning they found the
decks wet and slippery, more clouds in the sky, a fair beam wind
blowing, and a trifle of canvas displayed.

After breakfast McBain called all hands aft.  In calm, dispassionate
language he told them the story of the poor girl who had risked her life
on their account, of her murdered brother and captive father, and of the
pirate he was about to try to find and capture.  Then he paused; and as
he did so every one of the crew turned eyes on Ted Wilson, who strode
forward.

"Captain," said Ted, firmly, "we didn't sign articles to fight, did we,
mates?"

"No," from all hands.

"_But_," continued Ted, "for such a captain as you be, and in such a
cause, we _will_ fight, every man Jack of us, as long as the saucy
_Arrandoon_ has a timber above the water.  Am I right, mates?"

A ringing cheer was all the reply, and Ted retired.

Now, reader, were I a landsman novelist I would very likely here make my
captain give the orders to "splice the main-brace," but I'm a sailor,
and I tell you this, boys, that British seamen never yet needed Dutch
courage to make them do their duty.

Captain McBain only waved a hand and said, "Pipe down."

An hour afterwards the crow's-nest was rigged and hoisted at the
main-truck, and either the mate or the captain was in it off and on the
whole day.  But no pirate appeared that day nor the next.  In the
evening, however, some fishermen boarded the _Arrandoon_, and reported
having seen a large barque, answering to the description of the
suspected craft, that same morning lying at anchor off Suddersoe, with
boats passing to and fro 'twixt ship and shore.

"It is my precious opinion, captain," said old Magnus Bolt, "that this
craft does a bit o' smuggling 'tween here and Shetland."

"And it is my precious opinion, my dear Magnus," said McBain, "that the
rascal doesn't care what he does so long as he lands the cash."

The _Arrandoon_ was now kept away for the island named by the honest
fishermen.  Not straight, however; McBain gave it a wide berth, and
passed it far to the west, and held on his course until many miles to
the southward.  In the morning it was "bout ship" and stand away north
and by east again.  They sighted the island about seven bells in the
morning watch.  Suddenly there was a hail from the crow's-nest.  It was
the captain's voice.

"Come up here, Magnus Bolt, if your old bones will let you, and see what
you shall see."

Magnus sprang up the rigging somewhat after the fashion of an antiquated
monkey, but with an agility no one would have given him credit for.

"It is she!" he shouted, after he had had a look through the long glass
in towards the iron-bound shores of the islands; "it is she! it is she!
Ha! ha! ha!" and he positively danced and chuckled with delight.

"You'll fight? you'll fight?" he gasped.  "Rather," replied McBain; "but
we'll run first.  She shall fire the first shot, and, Magnus, you shall
fire the second."

Half an hour afterwards, when our heroes came on deck to have their
morning look around, they stared at each other in blank astonishment.
The _Arrandoon_ looked as if she had just come out of a tornado and had
been dreadfully handled.  The foretop-gallant mast was down, the jibboom
inboard, the screw was hoisted up, the funnel itself had been unshipped
and was lashed to the deck, and the flag was flying at half-mast, as if
the vessel were in distress, or had death on board.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now let me, with one touch of the fairy wand the storyteller wields,
waft my readers on board the pirate herself.  Fear not, for we will stay
there but a brief space of time indeed.  The tall and by no means
unprepossessing form of the captain, armed _cap-a-pie_, is leaning
against the rudder-wheel, one spoke of which he holds.  His mate is by
his side, glass in hand, examining the _Arrandoon_, now only a few miles
off.

"Ha! ha!" says the latter; "it is the same big craft we tried to strand;
and she's had dirty weather, too--foretop-gallant mast and jibboom both
gone.  She is flying a signal of distress."

"Distress?  Eh?  Ha! ha! ha?" laughed the pirate.  "Isn't it funny?
She'll have more of it; won't she, matie mine?"

The mate laughed and commenced to sing--

  "`Won't you walk into my parlour?'
  Said the spider to the fly?"

"She's evidently a whaler, crow's-nest and all," he said.

"Well," said the captain, "we'll _w(h)ale_ her;" and he laughed at his
own stupid joke.

"I say there, old lantern-jaws," he bawled down the companion.

"I reckon," said a Yankee voice, "you alludes to this child."

"I do," cried the captain; "and look ye here.  We are going to fight and
so forth.  If we're like to be bested, scupper the old man at once.
D'ye hear?"

"Well, I guess I ain't deaf."

"Very well, then.  Obey, or a short shrift yours will be."

"Why, captain," said the mate, "she knows us.  She has put about, and is
bearing away to the nor'-nor'-west."

"Then hands up-anchor," cried his superior.  "Crowd all sail; she can't
escape us in her crippled condition."

"Ah! captain," the mate remarked, "had you taken my advice and given
that pretty but sly minx the _sack_, ere she gave you the _slip_, that
whaler would have been ours before now."

"Silence," roared the captain.  "On that subject I will not hear a word.
She shall be mine yet--or her father dies."

With the exception of the few sentences bawled down the companion, all
this was said in Danish, and my translation is a free one.

And so the chase commenced, and seawards before the pirate, in an
apparently crippled condition, staggered the _Arrandoon_.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

"How far do you intend to bring her out?" asked Allan.

"Ten miles clear of these islands, anyhow," replied McBain, "then she
won't be able to play any pranks with us.  Boys," continued McBain, a
few minutes afterwards, "I'm going to write letters--home."

There was nothing very unusual in the tone of his voice as he spoke
these words, but there was a meaning in them, nevertheless, that was
perfectly understood by our young heroes.  They were not long, then,
before they were each and all of them seated by the saloon table,
inditing, it might or might not be, the last communications to the loved
ones at home they _ever_ would pen.  They were performing a duty--a sad
one, perhaps, but still a duty; they were about to fight in a good
cause, doubtless, but the result of the battle was uncertain.  The
_Maelsturm_, for that was the name of the pirate, was better--or rather,
I should say, more copiously--manned than the _Arrandoon_, and though
not so large a ship, she had more guns; her crew too fought with halters
round their necks, and would therefore doubtless fight to the bitter
end.  The only advantage--and it was a great one--possessed by the
_Arrandoon_ was steam power.  Hours went by, and the chase was still
kept up.  It was six bells in the forenoon watch, and the _Maelsturm_
was hardly a mile astern.  Our men had already had dinner, and were all
in readiness--waiting, when, borne towards them over the wind-rippled
waters from the pirate ship, came the quick, sharp rattle of a
kettledrum.  One roll, two rolls, three.

"At last," said McBain, "they are beating to quarters."

A puff of smoke from the bow of the pirate, the roar of a gun, and
almost immediately after a round shot ricocheted past the quarter of the
_Arrandoon_.

The battle was begun.

CHAPTER TEN.

"DOWN WITH THE RED FLAG AND UP WITH THE BLACK!"--VICTORY--AN OLD
ACQUAINTANCE--HIE, FOR THE NORTH.

If the crew of the _Arrandoon_ needed any stimulus to fight the pirate,
beyond the short speech that their captain had made them, it certainly
was given them when the order was issued on board the latter craft,
"Down with the red flag and up with the black!" and the broad,
white-crossed ensign of merchant Denmark gave place to the hideous skull
and cross-bones flown by sea marauders of all nations.  She had rounded,
too, in order to fire her broadside guns, or this would hardly have been
visible.  Perhaps the pirates imagined it would strike sudden fear into
the hearts of those they had elected to consider their foes.  Hatred and
loathing it certainly inspired, but as to fear--well, in the matter of
scaring, British sailors are perhaps the most unsatisfactory class of
beings in the world.

For the next quarter of an hour the doings on board the _Arrandoon_, as
seen from the pirate's poop, must have considerably astonished--not to
say puzzled--the officers of that ship, for in that short space of time
what had appeared to be a sadly disabled vessel in distress, had hoisted
a funnel, lowered a screw, and, while sail was being taken in, moved
slowly away beyond reach of her guns.  Not for long was she gone,
however.  She rounded almost on her own length; then, bows on, back she
came, black and grim, athirst for vengeance.  But the pirate was no
coward, and broadside after broadside was poured into the advancing
ship, without eliciting a single shot save one.

This was the shot--the second shot--that McBain had promised Magnus.  It
went roaring through the air, crashed through the _Maelsturm's_ bulwarks
midships, and smashed a boat to flinders.

Magnus Bolt, or "Green," as he was better known, old as he was, was by
far the best shot in the ship.  He and Mitchell, the mate, a man of
eagle eye and firm of nerve, were the gunners proper, and fired every
gun in the fight that followed the second shot.  If it were a starboard
broadside they were there; if a port, they but crossed the deck to take
deadly aim and fire it.

"Remember, gunners," cried McBain, "we've got to take that ship, and not
to sink her; so waste not a shot between wind and water?"

On came the vessels, bow to bow, as arrow might meet arrow, and when
within two hundred yards of each other, the _Maelsturm_ heading north
and west, the _Arrandoon_ going full speed south and east, the pirate
delivered her broadside, and immediately luffed up and commenced firing
with her bow guns.  She could get no nearer the wind, however.  To go on
the other tack would be but to hasten the inevitable.

"Hard a port!  Ease her a little!  Steady as you go!" were the orders
from the quarter-deck of the _Arrandoon_.  "Small-arm men to fire
wherever head or hand is visible."

Now the _Arrandoon_ delivers her broadside as she again comes parallel
with the _Maelsturm_, whose sails are all a-shiver.  This just by way of
confusing her a little.  There is worse to come, for the order is now
given to double-shot the port Dalgrens with canister.  Away steams the
_Arrandoon_, and round goes the _Maelsturm_.  Ah! well he knows what the
foe intends, but he will try to outmanoeuvre her if he can.  But see!
the _Arrandoon_ is round again; there will be no escaping her this time.
Fire your bow guns, Mr Pirate; fire your broadside, you cannot elicit
a reply.

"Sta'board!" cries the captain; "starboard?" he signals, with his calm,
uplifted arm.  "Starboard still! steady now!"  Then, in a voice of
thunder, as they rounded the port quarter of the pirate, and, in spite
of all good handling, got momentarily broadside on to her stem, "Stand
to your guns--_Fire_!"

When the _Arrandoon_ forged ahead clear of the smoke, it was evident
from the confusion on board the _Maelsturm_, and the dishevelment of
running and standing rigging, that the havoc on her decks must have been
terrible.  She was not beaten, though, as a gun from her broadside soon
told.

"We'll end this," said the captain to Rory, by his side, who had
constituted himself clerk, and was coolly taking notes in the very thick
of the fight, while shot roared through the ship's rigging and sides,
men fell on all hands, and splinters filled the air.  "We'll end it in
the good old fashion, Rory.  Stand by to grapple with ice-anchors!
Prepare to board!"  Now Allan and Ralph, who had been below assisting
the surgeon, heard that word of command, and, just as the sides of the
two ships had grated together, after firing their last broadsides, they
were both, sword in hand, by their captain's side.

McBain and our heroes were the very first to leap on to the
blood-slippery decks of the pirate.  The crew of that doomed ship fought
for a time like furies--for a time, but only for a time.  In less than
five minutes every pirate on board was either disarmed or driven below,
and the _Maelsturm_ was the prize of the gallant _Arrandoon_, and her
captain himself lay bound on the quarter-deck.

But the commander of this pirate ship was the very last man on board of
her to yield.  Even when the battle was virtually ended, as fiercely as
a lion at bay he fought on his own quarter-deck, McBain himself being
his antagonist.  The latter could have shot him down had he been so
minded, but he was not the man to take a mean advantage of a foe.  The
pirate was taller than McBain, but not so well built nor so muscular.
They were thus pretty well matched, and as they fought, round and round
the quarter-deck, a more beautiful display of swordsmanship was perhaps
never witnessed.  Once the pirate tripped and fell, McBain lowered his
weapon until he had regained his feet, then swords clashed again and
sparks flew.  But see, the captain of the _Arrandoon_ clasps his
claymore double-handed; he uses it hatchet fashion almost.  He looks in
his brawny might as if he could fell trees.  The pirate cannot withstand
the shock of the terrible onslaught, but he makes up in agility what he
lacks in strength.  He is borne backward and backward round the
companion, McBain "showering his blows like wintry rain;" and now at
last victory is his, the pirate's sword flies into flinders, our captain
drops his claymore and springs empty-handed on his adversary, and next
moment dashes him to the deck, where he lies stunned and bleeding, and
before he can recover consciousness he is bound and helpless.

Ralph, Allan, and Rory, none of whom, as providence so willed it, are
wounded, and who had been silent spectators of the duel, now crowd
around their captain, and shake his willing hand.

"Heaven," says McBain, "has given the enemy into our hands, boys, but
there is now much to be done.  Let us buckle to it without a moment's
delay.  The wounded are to be seen to, both our own and the pirate's,
the decks cleared, and everything made shipshape, and, if all goes well,
we'll anchor with our prize to-morrow at Reikjavik."

"And the clergyman, captain, the clergyman, the poor girl's father?"
exclaimed Rory.

"Ay, ay, boy Rory," said McBain; "he is doubtless on the vessel.  We
will proceed at once to search for him."

If fiends ever laugh, reader, it must be with some such sound as that
which now proceeded from the larynx of the pirate captain; if fiends
ever smile, it must be with the same sardonic expression that now spread
itself over his features.  All eyes were instantly turned towards him.
He had raised himself to the sitting position.

"Ha! ha! ha!" he chuckled, while, manacled though his wrists were, he
drew his right forefinger rapidly across his throat, uttering, as he did
so, these words, "Your padre; ha! ha! dead--dead--dead."

His listeners were horrified.  What McBain's reply would have been none
can say.  It was not needed, for at that very moment, ere the exultant
grin had vanished from the wretch's face, there sprang on deck from the
companion a figure, tall and gaunt, clad from top to toe in skins.  He
knelt on the deck in front of the pirate, the better to confront him.

With forefinger raised, "he held him with his glittering eye," while he
addressed him as follows:

"Look here, Mister Pirate, I was going to use strong language, but I
won't, though I guess and calculate mild words are wasted on sich as
you.  The parson ain't dead; ne'er a hair on his reverend head.  Ye
thought I'd scupper him, didn't you, soon's the ship was taken?  Ye
thought this child was your slave, didn't ye?  Ha! ha! though, he has
rounded on ye at last, and if that bit of black rag weren't enough to
hang you and your wretched crew of cutthroats, here in front o' ye
kneels one witness o' your dirty deeds, and the other will be on deck in
a minute in the person o' the parson you thought dead.  How d'ye like
it, eh?" and the speaker once more stood erect, and confronted our
heroes.

"Seth!" they ejaculated, in one voice.

"Seth! by all that is marvellous!" said McBain, clutching the old man by
the right hand, while Rory seized his left, and Allan and Ralph got hold
of an arm each.

"Ah! gentlemen," said honest Seth--and there was positively a tear in
his eye as he spoke--"it's on occasions like these that one wishes he
had four hands,--a hand for every friend.  Yes, I reckon it is Seth
himself, and nary a one else.  You may well say wonders will never
cease.  You may well ask me how on earth I came here.  It war
Providence, gentlemen, and nuthin' else, that I knows on.  It war
Providence sent that cut-throat skipper to the land where you left me on
the _Snowbird_, though I didn't think so at the time, when they burned
and pillaged my hut and killed poor old Plunkett, nor when they carried
me a prisoner on board the _Maelsturm_.  They meant to scupper old Seth.
They did talk o' bilin' his old bones in whale oil, but they soon found
out he could heal a hole in a hide as well as make one, and so,
gentlemen, I've been surgeon-in-chief to this craft for nine months and
over.  Yes, it war Providence and nuthin' else, and I knew it war as
soon as I saw your ship heave in sight, the day they guessed they'd
wreck ye.  The parson's daughter, poor little Dunette, war on board
then.  I sent her to save ye; and when I heard your voice, Captain
McBain, on the reef, I felt sure it war Providence then, and I kind o'
prayed in my rough way that He might spare ye.  Shake hands, gentlemen,
again.  Bother these old eyes o' mine; they will keep watering."

And Seth drew his sleeve rapidly across his face as he spoke.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rory was a proud--boy, ahem! well, _man_, then, if you will have it so,
when that same afternoon he was put on board the _Maelsturm_, as captain
of her, with a picked crew from the _Arrandoon_, and with orders to make
all sail for Reikjavik.  McBain's last words to him were these,--

"Keep your weather eye lifting, Captain Roderick Elphinston.  Clap two
sentries on those ruffianly prisoners of yours, and let your men sleep
with their cutlasses by their sides and their revolvers under their
heads."

"Ay, ay, sir!" said Rory.

Rory allowed his crew to sleep, but he himself paced the deck all the
livelong night.  Occasionally he could see the lights of the _Arrandoon_
far on ahead; but towards morning the weather got thick and somewhat
squally, and at daylight the _Maelsturm_ seemed alone on the ocean.
Sail was taken in, but the ship kept her course, and just in the
even-glome Rory ran into the Bay of Reikjavik, and dropped anchor, and
shortly after a boat came off from the _Arrandoon_ with both Allan and
Ralph in it, to congratulate the boy-captain on the success of his,
first voyage as skipper-commandant.

Next day both the pirate vessel and her captor were show-ships for the
people--all the _elite_ and beauty of Reikjavik crowded off from the
shore in dozens to see them.  The dilapidated condition of the
_Maelsturm_, her broken bulwarks, rent rigging, and shivered spars,
showed how fierce the fight had been.  Nor were evidences of the
struggle wanting on board the _Arrandoon_, albeit the men had been hard
at work all the day making good repairs.

The dead were buried at sea; the wounded were mostly sent on shore.
Five poor fellows belonging to McBain's ship would never fight again,
and many more were placed for a time _hors de combat_.

As to the prisoners, they were transferred to a French ship that lay at
Reikjavik, and that in the course of a week sailed with them for
Denmark.  Seth and the officers of the _Arrandoon_ made and signed
depositions; and in addition to this, as evidence against the pirates,
the old clergyman and his daughter Dunette, now joyfully reunited, went
along with the Frenchman, while, with a crew from shore, the _Maelsturm_
left some days after.  The black flag had never been lowered, nor was it
until the day the pirate captain and many of his crew expiated their
long list of crimes on the scaffold at the Holms of Copenhagen.

Poor Dunette, the tears fell unheeded from her sad blue eyes as she bade
farewell to our heroes on the deck of the _Arrandoon_.  She did not say
good-bye to the surgeon, however--at least not there.  He had begged for
a boat, and accompanied her on board the vessel in which she was to
sail.  Have they a secret, we wonder?  Is it possible that our quiet
surgeon has won the heart of this beautiful fair-haired Danish maiden?
These are questions we must not seek answer to now, but time may tell.

Not until the pirate ship had left the bay, and the wounded were so far
convalescent as to be brought once more on board, did the old peace and
quiet settle down upon the good ship _Arrandoon_.  And now once more all
was bustle and stir; in a day or two they would start for the far north,
and bid adieu to civilisation--a long but not, they hoped, a last adieu.

The very evening before they sailed, a farewell party was given on board
the _Arrandoon_.  The decks were tented over with canvas lined with
flags, and the whole scene was gay and festive in the extreme.  Poetic
Rory could not have believed that there was so much female youth and
loveliness in this primitive little town of Reikjavik.  No wonder that
day was dawning in the east ere the last boat of laughing and merry
guests left for the shore.

Many and many a time afterwards, when surrounded by dangers innumerable,
when beset in ice, when engulfed in darkness and storm, in the
mysterious regions of the Pole, did they look back with pleasure to that
last happy night spent in the bay of Reikjavik.

But see, it is twelve o'clock by the sun.  Flags are floating gaily on
the fort, on the little church tower, and on every eminence in or near
the town, and the beach and snow-clad rocks are lined with an excited
crowd.  Hands and handkerchiefs are waved, and with the farewell cheers
the far-off hills resound.  Then our brave fellows man the rigging and
waft them back cheer for cheer, as the noble vessel cleaves the waters
of the bay, and stands away for the Northern Ocean.

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

THE VOYAGE RESUMED--A PLEASANT EVENING--"THOSE RUSHING WINDS"--THE
"ARRANDOON" GROWS SAUCY--THE DOCTOR SPREAD-EAGLED--A SCHOOL OF WHALES.

Ere the day had worn to a close, before the sun went down in a golden
haze, leaving one long line of crimson cloud, as earnest of a bright
to-morrow, the _Arrandoon_, steaming twelve knots to the hour, was once
more far away at sea, and the rugged mountains of Iceland could hardly
be descried.  As night fell a breeze sprang up, and as there was little
doubt it would freshen ere long--for it blew from the east-south-east,
and the glass had slightly gone down, with the mercury still concave at
top--Captain McBain gave orders for the fires to be banked, and as much
canvas spread as she could comfortably carry.

"Just make her snug, you know, Mr Stevenson," said McBain, "for the
night will be dark, and we may have more wind before the middle watch."

"And troth," said Rory to his companions, "if the ship is to be made
snug, I don't see why we shouldn't make ourselves snug for the night
too."

Ralph was gazing down through the skylight at the brilliantly-lighted
saloon, where Peter, with the aid of the assistant-steward and Freezing
Powders, was busy laying the cloth for dinner.

"I've just come from forward," replied Ralph, in raptures, "where I've
been sniffing the roast beef and the boiled potatoes; and now just look
below, Rory,--look how Peter's face beams with intelligent delight; see
how radiant Freezing Powders is; behold how merrily the flames dance on
that fire of fires in the stove, and how the coloured crystal shimmers,
and the bright silver shines on that cloth of spotless snow!  Yes, Rory,
you're right, boy--let us make ourselves snug for the night.  So down we
go, and dress our smartest--for, mind, boys, there is going to be
company to-night."

Yes, there was going to be company; five were all that as a rule sat
down to table in the grand saloon, but to-night the covers were laid for
five more, namely Stevenson, Seth, old Magnus, and Ap, and last, though
not least, De Vere, the French aeronaut.

The cook of the _Arrandoon_ had been chosen specially by Ralph himself.
Need I say, then, that he was an artist? and to-night he had done his
best to outshine himself, and, I think, succeeded.  I think, too, that
when Peter went forward, some time after the great joints had been put
on the table, and told him that everything was going on "as merrily as
marriage bells," and that the gentlemen were loud in their praises of
Ralph's cook, that that cook was about the happiest man in the ship.
Peter had not exaggerated a bit either, for everything did go off well
at this little dinner-party.  It would have done your heart good to have
seen the beaming countenances of little Ap, old man Magnus, and honest
trapper Seth; and to have noticed how often they passed their plates for
another help would have made you open your eyes with wonder--that is, if
you never had been to Greenland; but had you made the voyage North
Polewards even once, you would have known that of all countries in the
world that is just the place to give man or boy a healthy appetite.

When the cloth was removed and dessert placed upon the table they seemed
happier than ever, if that were possible, and smiles and jokes and
jocund yarns ere the order of the evening.  After every good story the
cockatoo helped himself to an immense mouthful of hemp-seed, and
cried,--

"Dea-ah me!  Well, well, but go on, _go on_--next."

And as to Freezing Powders, he was so amazed at many things he heard,
that more than a dozen times in one hour he had to refresh himself by
standing on his head in a corner of the saloon.

"Well, well, well!" said McBain, taking the advantage of a mere
momentary lull in this feast of reason and flow of soul, "and what a
strange mixture of nationalities we are, to be sure!  Here is our bold,
quiet Ralph, English to the spine--"

"And I," said Rory, "I'm Oirish to the chine."

"That you are," assented McBain; "and Allan and myself here are Scotch;
and if you look farther along the table there is Wales represented in
the form of cool, calculating, mathematical Ap; Shetland in the shape of
our brave gunner Magnus; France in the form of friend De Vere; and the
mightiest republic in the world in Seth's six feet and odd inches; to
say nothing of Africa standing on its head beside Polly's cage.
Freezing Powders, you young rascal, drop on to your other end; don't you
see you're making Polly believe the world is upside down? look at her
hanging by the feet with her head down!"

"Dat cockatoo not a fool, sah," said Freezing Powders; "he know putty
well what he am about, sah!"

"D'ye know," said Ralph, looking smilingly towards Seth, "it is quite
like old times to see Seth once more in the midst of us?"

"And oh!" said Seth, rubbing his hands, while a modest smile stole over
his wiry face, "mebbe this old trapper ain't a bit pleased to meet ye
all again.  Gentlemen, Seth and civilisation hain't been 'cquaintances
very long; skins seem to suit this child better'n the fine toggery ye've
rigged him out in.  But ye've made him feel a deal younger, and he
guesses and calculates he may die 'pectable yet."

I fear it was pretty far into the middle watch ere our friends parted
and betook themselves to their berths.  Two bells had gone--"the wee
short hoor ayont the twal"--when McBain rose from the table, this being
a signal for general good-nights.

"I'm going part of the way home with you, old man," he said to Magnus,
and with his arm placed kindly over his shoulder he left the saloon with
the brave wee Shetlander.  "Two turns on the deck, Magnus," he
continued, "and then you can turn in.  And so, you say, in all your
experience--and it has been very vast, hasn't it, my friend?"

"That it has, sir," replied Magnus.  "I may say I was born in these
seas, for the first thing I remember--when our ship went down under us
in the pack north of Jan Mayen--is my father, bless him! putting me in a
carpetbag for safety, to carry me on to the ice with him.  Yes, sir,
yes."

"And in all your experience," McBain went on, "you don't remember a
season likely to have been more favourable for our expedition to the
North Pole than the present?"

"I don't, sir--I don't," said little Magnus, "Look, see, sir, the frost
has been extreme all over the north.  In the Arctic regions the ice has
been all of a heap like.  It isn't yet loosened.  We haven't met a berg
yet.  Funny, ain't it, sir?--queer, isn't it, cap'n?"

"It is strange," said McBain; "and from this what do you anticipate?"

"Anticipate isn't the word, cap'n," cried Magnus, fixing McBain by the
right arm, stopping his way, and emphasising his words with wildfire
glints from his warlock eyes.  "Anticipate?--bah! cap'n--bah!  I'm old
enough to be your grandfather.  Ask me rather what I _augur_?  And I
answer this, I augur a glorious summer.  Ice loosened before May-Day.
Fierce heat south of England, and consequently rarefaction of the
atmosphere, and rushing winds from the far north to fill up the heated
vacuum--rushing winds to trundle the icebergs south before them--rushing
winds to split the packs, and rend the floes, and open up a passage for
this brave ship to the far-off Isle of Alba."

"Bless you, Magnus!  Give us your hand, my old sea-dad.  You always gave
me comfort, even when I was a boy in the wilds of Spitzbergen.  You
taught me to splice, and reef, and steer.  Bless you, Magnus!  I
couldn't have sailed without you."

"But stay, my son, stay," continued this weird little man, holding up a
warning finger; "those rushing winds--"

"Yes, Magnus?"

"They will bring danger on their wings."

"I'll welcome it, Magnus," laughed McBain.

"Those rushing winds will tear down on us, hurricane-high,
tempest-strong.  The great bergs, impelled by force of wind and might of
wave, will dash each other to atoms."

"All the better for us, Daddy Magnus," said the captain.

"Were your voice as loud as cannon's roar you will be as one dumb amid
the turmoil."

"Then I'll steer by signs," said McBain.

"Should our ship escape destruction, we will be enveloped by fogs,
encircled by a darkness that will be felt."

"Then we'll heave-to and wait till they evaporate.  But there, my good
Magnus, you see I'm not afraid of anything.  I'd be unworthy of such a
sea-dad as you if I were; so no more tragic airs, please.  Thou mindest
me, old Magnus, of the scene between Lochiel and the Wizard.

  "`Lochiel, Lochiel, beware of the day
  When the Lowlands shall meet you in battle array,'

"says the Wizard, and so on and so forth.

"`False wizard, avaunt!' replies Lochiel, and all the rest of it, you
know.  But, beloved Magnus, I don't _say_ `avaunt!' to you.  But just
see how the cold spray is dashing inboard.  So, not to put too poetic a
point on it, I simply say, `Go down below, old man, and don't get wet,
else your joints will ache in the morning with the rheumatiz.'"

The morning broke beautifully fine and clear, the reefs were shaken out
of the topsails, topgallant-sails and royals were set, and, indeed, all
the square cloth she could carry, and away went the _Arrandoon_ before
the wind, as happy, to all appearance, as the malleys and gulls that
seemed to play at hide-and-seek with her, behind the comb-crested seas
of olive-green.

Ralph and Allan, arm-in-arm, were marching rapidly up and down one side
of the quarter-deck, Rory and McFlail on the other, and ever and anon a
merry laugh from some one of them rang out bright and joyously on the
fresh frosty air.

Towards noon stunsails were set, and the _Arrandoon_ looked more like a
sea-bird than ever; she even seemed to sing to herself--so thought Rory
and so thought the doctor--as she went nodding and curtseying along over
the waves, with now a bend to starboard, and now a lean to port; now
lowering her bows till the seas ahead looked mountains high, and anon
giving a dip waterwards till her waist was wet with the seething spray,
and her lower stunsail-booms seemed to tickle the very breast of old
mother ocean.

The wind was increasing, and there were times when our boys had to pause
in their walk and grapple the mizzen rigging, laughing at each other as
they did so.

"Wo ho, my beauty?" said McBain.  "Mr Mitchell, I daresay we must take
in sail."

"I'm afraid so, sir," replies Mitchell; "but--" and here he eyes the
bellowing canvas--"it do seem a pity, sir, don't it?"

But here "my beauty" gives a vicious plunge forwards, elevating herself
aft like a kicking mare, and shipping tons of water over her bows.

"I don't want to be wicked," the ship seems to say, "and I don't want to
lose a spar, though I _could_ kick one off as easy as a daddy-longlegs
gets rid of a limb; but if you don't ease me a bit I'll--"

A bigger and more decided plunge into the sea, followed by a rising of
her jibboom zenithwards, and the water comes roaring aft in one great
bore, which seeks exit by the quarter-deck scupper-holes, and goes
tumbling down the companion ladder, to the indignation of Peter and the
disgust of Freezing Powders, who is standing on his head in an attitude
of contemplation, and ships a green sea down his nostrils.  Our heroes
leap in time on to the top of the skylight, and there sit grinning
delightedly as the waters go roaring past them, and floating thereon
evidence enough that the men had been preparing dinner when Neptune
boarded them, for yonder float potatoes and turnips and cabbages, to say
nothing of a leg of Highland mutton and a six-pound piece of bacon.

"Hands, shorten sail!"

But next day--so changeable is a sailor's life--the wind had all got
bottled up again or gone back to its cave; the sea was smooth as glass,
and steam was up, but the sky was still clear, and the sun undimmed by
the slightest haze.

Just before lunch came the first signs that ice was not far ahead.  The
_Arrandoon_ encountered a great "stream," as it is called, of deep,
snowy slush--I do not know what else to call it.  It stretched away
eastwards to westwards, as far as the eye from the crow's-nest could
reach, and it was probably nine or ten miles wide.  It lessened the good
ship's way considerably, you may be sure.  Her bows clove through it
with a brushing sound; her screw revolved in it with a noise like dead
leaves stirred by autumn winds.

"Losh!" cried Sandy, the surgeon, looking curiously overboard, "what's
this noo?  Wonders will never cease!"

"Och, sure!" replied Rory, mischievously, "you know well enough what it
is; it's only speaking for speaking's sake you are."

"The ne'er a bone o' ma knows, I do assure ye," said Sandy.

"Well, doctor dear," said Rory, "it is simply the belt, or zone, that
geographers call the `Arctic circle.'"

But Sandy looked at him with a pitying smile.  "Man--Rory?" he said,
"I'm no' so sea-green as you tak me to be.  I've a right good mind to
pu' your lugs.  Young men, sir, dinna enter Aberdeen University stirks
and come out cuddies?"

"Mon!" cried Rory, imitating Sandy's brogue, "if ye want to pu' my lugs
you'll hae to catch me first;" and off he went round the deck, with the
doctor after him.  But Ralph caught him, if Sandy couldn't, and handed
him over to justice.

"Now," cried the surgeon, catching him by the ear, "whistle, and I'll
let you free."

It is no easy matter to whistle when you want to laugh, but when Rory at
long last did manage to emit a labial note that passed muster as a
whistle, the doctor was as good as his word, and Rory was free.

Luncheon was barely finished, when down from the crow's-nest rang the
welcome hail, "Ice ahead!"

Our heroes rushed on deck, McBain was there before them, and when they
stepped on to the "lid" of the ship, as Sandy once called the deck, they
found the captain half-way up to the nest.

There wasn't a bit of ice to be seen from the deck.

"Hurrah for the foretop?" cried Rory, laying hold of a stay.  "Who's
coming?"

"I will!" cried Allan.

"I'm going below to finish lunch," said Ralph.

"I'll be safer on deck, I think," said the canny doctor.

But when Rory on the foretop struck an attitude of wonderment, and
pointing away ahead, exclaimed, in rapture, "Oh, boys, what a scene is
here!" the doctor thought he would give anything for a peep, so he
summoned up his courage and began to ascend the rigging, slowly, and
with about as much grace in his actions as a mud turtle would exhibit
under the like circumstances.

Allan roared, "Good doctor! good!  Bravo, old man!  Heave round like a
brick!  Don't look down."

Rory was in a fit of merriment, and trying to stifle himself with his
handkerchief.  Suddenly down dropped that handkerchief; and this was
just the signal four active lads were waiting for.  Up they sprang like
monkeys behind the surgeon, who had hardly reached the lubber-hole.
Alas! the good medico didn't reach it that day, for before you could
have said "cutlass" he was seized, hand and foot, and lashed to the
rigging, Saint Andrew's-cross fashion.

The surgeon of the _Arrandoon_ was spread-eagled, and Rory, the wicked
boy! had his revenge.

"My conscience!" cried Sandy; "what next, I wonder?"

"It's a vera judeecious arrangement," sung Rory from the top.

But the men were not hard on the worthy doctor, and the promise of
several ounces of nigger-head procured him his freedom, and he soon
regained the deck, a sadder and a wiser man.

They were quickly among the ice--not bergs, mind you, only a stream of
bits and pieces, of every shape and form, some like sheep and some like
swans, and some like great white oxen.  Here was a piece like a
milking-pail; here was a lump like a hay-cock; yonder a gondola; yonder
a boat; and yonder a couch on which the Naiades might recline and float,
or Ino slumber.

It was Rory who made the last remark.

"And by this and by that!" he exclaimed, "there is a Naiad on it now! or
it's Ino herself, by all that's amusing!"

"Away, second whaler!"--this from McBain.  "Get your rifle, boy Rory,
and jump on board and fetch that seal!"

Down rattled the boat from the davits, Rory in the bows; the next moment
she was off, and tearing through the glazed water as fast as sturdy arms
could row.  The seal took one look up to see what was coming.  Rory's
rifle rang out sharp and clear in the frosty air, and the poor seal
never lifted head again.

The ship was by this time a goodly mile ahead, but there she stopped;
then she went ahead again, rounded, and came back full speed to meet the
boat, for they on board could see a danger that Rory couldn't--couldn't,
did I say?  Ah! but he soon did, and, with the roar of a maelstrom, down
they came upon him--an enormous school of whales!

The men lay on their oars thunderstruck.  The sea around them seemed
alive with the mighty monsters.  How they plunged and ploughed and
snorted and blew!  The sea became roughened, as if a fierce wind was
blowing over it; pieces of ice as large as boats were caught on the
backs or tails of these brutes and pitched aside as one might a
football.

It occurred to Rory to fire at some of them.

"Stay, stay!" roared the coxswain; "if you love your life, sir, and care
for ours, fire not.  _You_ may never have seen a whale angry--I have.
Fire not, I beseech you!"

It was a strange danger to have encountered, and Rory and his boat-mates
were not sorry when it passed, and they once more stood in safety on the
deck of the _Arrandoon_.

But Rory soon regained his equanimity.

"Five hundred whales!" he cried; "and they were all mine, Ralph, 'cause
I found them!  Sure, they were worth a million of money?"

"So you've been a millionaire, Rory?" said McBain.  "Yes, worse luck!"
said Rory, in a voice of comic sadness, "a millionaire for a minute!"

CHAPTER TWELVE.

THE ISLE OF JAN MAYEN--RETROSPECTION--THE SEA OF ICE--THE DESERTED
VILLAGE--CARRIED OFF BY A BEAR--DANCING FOR DEAR LIFE.

What a tiny speck it looks in the map, that island of Jan Mayen, all by
itself, right in the centre of the great Arctic Ocean.  Of volcanic
origin it undoubtedly is--every mountain, rock, and hill in it--and
there is ample evidence that from yonder gigantic cone, that rises, like
a mighty sugar-loaf or the Tower of Babel itself, to a height of 6,000
feet sheer into the blue and cloudless sky, at one time smoke and flames
must oftentimes have burst, and showers of stones and ashes, and streams
of molten lava.

I have gazed on it by night, and my imagination has carried me back, and
back, and back, through the long-distant past, and I have tried to fancy
the sublimity of the scene during an eruption.

The time is early spring.  The long, dark winter has passed away; the
cold-looking, rayless sun rises now, but skirts hurriedly across a small
disc of southern sky, then speedily sinks to rest again, as though he
shuddered to gaze upon scenery so bleak and desolate.  The island of Jan
Mayen, with its ridgy hills and its one mighty mountain, is clad in
dazzling robes of virgin snow.  Its rocky and precipitous shores rise
not up, as yet, from the dark waters that in summer time wash round
them, but from the sea of ice itself.  As far as eye can reach, or north
or south, or east or west, stretches this immeasurable ocean of ice.
All flat and all snow-clad is it, like the wildest and loneliest of
Highland moorlands in winter, and its very flatness gives it an air of
greater lonesomeness, which the solitary hummocks here and there but
tend to heighten.  And through the short and dreary day one solitary
cloud has rested like a pall on the summit of the mountain.  But it is
midnight now: in the deep blue of the sky big, bright stars are shining,
that look like moons of molten silver, and seem far nearer than they do
in southern climes.  In the north the radiant bow of the Aurora is
spread out, its transverse beams glancing and glistering, spears of
light, that dance and glide and shimmer, changing their colours every
moment from green to blue or red, from pale-yellow to the brightest of
crimson.

And the silence that reigns over all this field of ice is one that
travellers have often experienced, often been impressed and awed by, but
never yet found words to describe.

Silence did I say?  Yes! but listen!  Subterranean thunders suddenly
break it--thunders coming evidently from the bosom of the great mountain
yonder, thunders that shake and crack and rend the very ice on which you
stand, causing the bergs to grind and shriek like monsters in agony.
The great cloud pall has risen higher and spread itself out, and now
hangs horizontally over half the island, black and threatening, its
blackness lit up ever and anon with flashes of lightning, sheet and
forked, while, peal after peal, the thunder now rolls almost without
intermission.

And onward and onward rolls the cloud athwart the sky, blotting out the
starlight--blotting out the beautiful Aurora--till the sea of ice for
leagues around is canopied in darkness.  But behold, over the
mountain-top the cloud gets lighter in colour, for immense volumes of
steam, solid sheets of water, and pieces of ice tons in weight, are
being belched forth, or hurtled into the air with a continued noise that
drowns the awful rhythm of the thunder itself.  Then flames follow,
shooting up into the sky many hundreds of feet, lighting up the scene
with a lurid glare, while down the snow-clad sides of the great cone
streams of fiery lava rush in fury, crimson, blue, or green.  And
gigantic rocks are precipitated into the air--rocks so large that, as
they fall upon the ice miles distant from the burning crater, they smash
the heaviest floes, and sink through into the sea.  Great stones, too,
are incessantly emitted, like balls of fire, that burst in the air, and
keep up a sound like that of the loudest artillery.

The sun will rise in due course, but his beams cannot penetrate the veil
of saturnine darkness that envelops the sea of ice.  And the fire will
rage, the thunders will roll, and showers of stones and ashes fall for
days, ay, mayhap for weeks or months, ere the mighty convulsion ceases,
and silence once more reigns in and around this island of Jan Mayen.

Towards this lonely isle of the ocean the _Arrandoon_ had been beating
and pushing her way for days; and she now lay, with clewed sails and
banked fires, among the flat but heavy bergs not five miles from it.
There was no water in sight, for the iceless ocean had been left far,
far astern, and the ship was now to all intents and purposes beset.  Yet
the ice was loose; it was not welded together by the fingers of King
Frost, and if it remained so, the difficulty of getting out into the
clear water again would be by no means insurmountable.

Our heroes, the doctor included, were all on deck, dressed to kill, in
caps of fur with ear lapels, coats of frieze with pockets innumerable,
with boots that reached over the knees, and each was armed with a rifle
and seal-club, with revolver in belt and short sheath-knife dangling
from the left side.

"And so," said the doctor, "this is the mighty sea of ice that I've
heard so much about!  Man! boys!  I'm no so vera muckle struck with it.
It is not unlike my father's peat moss in the dreary depths of winter.
Where are the lofty pinnacled bergs I expected to see, the rocks and
towers of ice, the green glistening gables, and the tall spires, like a
hundred cathedrals dang into one?"

"Ah!" said McBain, laughing, "just bide a wee, doctor lad, till we go
farther north, and if you don't see ice that will outdo your every dream
of romance, I'm neither Scot nor sailor.

"But what is this?" continued the captain.  "Who in the name of all that
is marvellous have we here?"

"I 'spects I'se Freezin' Powders, sah," was the reply of the little
negro boy.  "Leastways I hopes I is."  Here the urchin touched his cap.
"Freezin' Powders, at your service, sah--your under-steward and butler,
sah?"

"Well, my under-steward and butler," said McBain; "but whoever could
have expected to see you rigged out in this fashion--pilot suit, fur
cap, boots, and all complete?  Why, who dressed you, my little Freezin'
Powders?"

"De minor ole gem'lam," replied the boy; "but don't dey fit, sah?
Don't dey become dis chile?  Look heah, sah!" and Freezing Powders went
strutting up and down the quarter-deck, as proud as a pouter pigeon; and
finished off by presenting arms with his seal-club in front of his
good-natured captain.

"Well," said McBain, much amused, "you are a comical customer.  By `the
minor ole gem'lam' I suppose you mean honest Magnus?  But your English
is peculiar, youngster."

"My English is puffuk, sah!" replied the boy; "but lo! sah! suppose I
not have dis suit of close, I freeze, sah!  I no longer be Freezin'
Powders, 'cause I freeze all up into one lump, sah!  Now, sah, I can go
on shoh wid de oder officers."

"Ho! ho!" laughed McBain; "the _other_ officers.  It's come to that, has
it?  But," he added, turning to Allan and Rory, "you'll look after the
lad, won't you?"

"That will we," said both in a breath.

Here are the names of those who went on shore in Jan Mayen on this
memorable day--Allan, Ralph, Rory, Seth, and the doctor, with three
club-armed retainers, and lastly, Freezing Powders himself.

They were a merry band.  You could have heard them laughing and talking
when they were miles away from the ship.  They had to leap from one
piece of ice to another; but as the bergs were from forty to fifty feet
square--thus affording them a good run for their leaps--and as the
pieces were pretty closely packed, jumping was no great hardship.  When
now and then they came to a bit of water that required a tolerable
spring to get over, tall Ralph vaulted first, then brawny-chested Allan
pitched Freezing Powders after him, whom Ralph caught as easily as if he
had been a cricket-ball.

They landed on the island in a kind of bay, where the land sloped down
to the snow-clad beach.  Not far from the sea they were much surprised
to find the ruins of huts that had been.  No smoke issued therefrom now,
but there was ample proof that roaring fires had once burned in each
hut.  They were partly underground, and though built of wood and
sealskins they were thatched and fortified with snow.  The largest cot
of all was in the centre, and entering this they found a key to the
seeming mystery, for here were evidences of civilisation.  Pots and pans
stood on the empty hearth; a chair or two, a truckle bed, a deal table
and a book-cupboard, formed the furniture, and to cap all a written
document was found, which informed them that this village had been the
encampment for the summer months of a party of American walrus-hunters,
the captain of which had aided science by making innumerable
observations of a meteorological and scientific nature.

"I reckon," said Seth, "there ain't many parts o' the world where my
enterprising countrymen hain't shown their noses."

"All honour to them for that same," said Rory; "and troth, there isn't a
mightier nation on the face of the earth bar the kingdom of Ireland."

"Now, look here," said Allan, "this wee chap, Freezing Powders, will be
far too tired if he goes with us; and here, by good luck, is a frozen
ham in this enterprising Yankee's cupboard.  I move we light a fire,
hang it over it, and leave the little black butler as cook till we come
back."

"Bravo!" said Ralph.  "Allan, you're a brick.  You won't be afraid, will
you, Freezing Powders?"

"I stop and do de cookin', plenty quick," answered the boy, briskly.
"Freezin' Powders never was afraid of nuffin in his life."

So the fire was lighted--there was fuel enough in the hut to keep it
going for a month; then, leaving the boy to watch the ham, away went our
explorers, upwards and onwards, through the ruggedest glens imaginable;
winding round rocks and hills of ice and snow, they soon lost sight of
the primitive village, the distant ship, and the sea of ice itself.
They wandered on and on for miles, pausing often to allow Rory to make a
sketch of some more than usually wild and fantastic group of ice-clad
rocks or charming bit of scenery; but wherever they went, or whichever
way they turned, there loomed the great mountain cone of Jan Mayen above
them.

The scene was everywhere silent and desolate in the extreme, for not a
breath of wind was blowing, not a cloud was in the sky, and no sign of
life was there to greet them, not even a solitary gull or snowbird.

It wanted two good hours to sunset when they once more returned to the
deserted village, eager to test the flavour of the Yankee's ham, for
walking on the snow had given them the appetite of healthy hunters.

Their astonishment as well as horror may be imagined when, on entering
the hut, they found a scene of utter confusion.  The fire still burned,
it is true, and yonder hung the ham; but the table and chairs were
overturned, and the contents of even the rude bookcase scattered about
the floor.

_And Freezing Powders was gone_!

He had been carried off by a bear.  Of this there was plenty of
testimony, if only in the huge footprints of the monster, which he had
left in the snow.  Not very distinct were they, however, for the surface
of the snow was crisp and hard.  But Seth was equal to the occasion, and
at once--walking in a bee line, the trapper leading--they set out to
track the bear, if possible, to his lair.  The footprints led them
southwards and west, through a region far more wild than that which they
had already traversed.

For a whole hour they walked in silence, until they found themselves at
the top of a ravine, the rocks of which joined to form a sort of
triangle.  Half-roofed over was this triangle with a balcony of frozen
snow, from which descended immense icicles, on which the roof leant,
forming a kind of verandah.

Seth paused, and pointed upwards.  "The b'ar is yonder!" he whispered.
"Stay here; the old trapper's feet are moccasined, he won't be heard.
Gentlemen, Seth means to have that b'ar, or he won't come back alive!"

So leaving his companions, onwards, all alone, steals Seth.  A bear
itself could not have crept more silently, more cautiously along than
the trapper does.

Those left behind waited in a fever of almost breathless suspense.  The
doctor stretched out his arm and took gentle hold of Rory's wrist.  His
pulse was over a hundred; so was the doctor's own, and he could easily
hear his heart beat.

How slowly old Seth seems to move.  He is on hands and knees now, and
many a listening pause he makes.  Now he has reached the edge of the icy
verandah, and peers carefully over.  The bear is there, undoubtedly,
for, see, he gives one anxious glance at his rifle--it is a
double-barrelled bone-crusher.

Crang-r-r-r! goes the rifle, and every rock in the island seems to
re-echo the sound.  The reverberation has not ceased, however, when
there mingles with it a roar--a blood-curdling roar--that seems to shake
the very ground.  "Wah-o-ah! waugh! waugh! wah-o?" and a great
pale-yellow bear springs from the cave, then falls, quivering and
bleeding, on his side in the snow.

Our heroes rush up now.

"Any more of them?" cries Rory.

"Wall, I guess not," said the old trapper.  "Yonder lies the master;
I've given him a sickener; and the missus ain't at home.  But there is
suthin' black in thar, though!"

"Why," cried Allan, "I declare it is Freezing Powders himself!" and out
into the bright light stalked the poor nigger boy, staring wildly round
about, and seemingly in a dream.

"Ah, gem'lams!" he said, slowly, "so you have come at last!  What a
drefful, _drefful_ fright dis poor chile have got!  'Spect I'll nebber
get ober it; nebber no more!"

"Come along," said Ralph.  "Get on top of my shoulder.  That's the
style!  You can tell us all about it when we reach the village."

"Now," cried Allan, "look alive, lads, and whip old Bruin out of his
skin, and bring along his jacket and paws!"

When they did get back to the hut, and poor Freezing Powders had warmed
himself and discussed a huge slice of broiled ham and a captain's
biscuit, the boy got quite cheery again, and proceeded to relate his
terrible adventure.

"You see, gem'lams," he said, "soon as ebber you leave me I begin for to
watch de ham, and turn he round and round plenty much, and make de fire
blaze like bobbery.  Mebbe one whole hour pass away.  De flames dey
crack, and de ham he frizzle.  Den all to once I hear somebody
snuff-snuffing like, and I look round plenty quick, and dere was--oh!
dat great big awful bear--bigger dan a gator [alligator].  Didn't I
scream and run jus'!  And de bear he knock down de chairs and de tables,
and den he catchee me in his mouf, all de same I one small mouse and he
one big cat.  You see, gem'lam, he smell de ham.  `Dat bery nice,' he
tink, `but de nigga boy better.'  So he take dis chile.  He nebber have
take one nigga boy before dis, praps.  Den he run off wid me ober de
mountains.  He no put one tooth in me all de time.  When he come to de
cave he put me down and snuff me.  Den he say to himself, `I want some
fun; I make play wid dis nigga boy befoh I gobbles 'im up.'  So he make
me run wid his big foot, and when I run away den he catchee me again,
and he keep me run away plenty time, till I so tired I ready to drop.
[Greenland bears have been known to play this cat-and-mouse game with
seals before devouring them.]  All de same, I not want to be gobble up
too soon, gem'lams, so I make all de fun I can.  I stand on my head, and
I run on my four feet.  I jump and I kick, and I dance, and I sing to de
tune ob--

  "`Plenty quick, nigga boy,
  Plenty fast you run,
   De bear will nebber gobble you up
  So long's you make de fun.'

"Den de big, ugly yellow bear he berry much tickled, and he tink to
hisself, `Well,' he tink, `'pon my word and honah!  I nebber see nuffin
like dis before--not in all my born days!  I not eat dis nigga boy up
till my mudder come home.'  And all de time I make dance and sing--

  "`Quicker, quicker, nigga boy,
  Faster, faster go,
  Amoosin' ob de ole bear,
  Among de Ahtic snow.

  "`Jing-a-ring, a-ring-a-ring,
  Sich somersaults I frow,
  In all his life dis nigger chile
  Ne'er danced like dis befoh.'

"But now, gem'lams, I notice dat de bear he begin to make winkee-winkee
wid both his two eyes.  Den I dance all de same, but I begin to sing
more slow and plaintive, gem'lams--

  "`Oh!  I'm dreaming 'bout my mudder dear
  Dat I leave on Afric's shoh,
  And de little hut among de woods
  Dat I ne'er shall see no moh.

  "`Sierra-lee-le-ohney,
  Sierra-lee-leon,
  Ah! who will feed de cockatoo
  When I is dead and gone?'

"Dat song fix de yellow bear, gem'lams.  He no winkee no more now; he
sleep sound and fast, wid his big head on his big paws.  Den I sing one
oder verse, and I sleep, too, and I not hear nuffin more until de rifles
make de bobbery and de yellow bear begin to cough."

"Bravo!" cried Ralph, when Freezing Powders had finished his story.
"Now, Allan, lad, cut us all another slice of that glorious ham, and let
us be moving."

"Yes," said Allan.  "Here goes, then, for night is falling already, and
the captain will be longing to hear of our adventures."

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

MORE ABOUT FREEZING POWDERS--"PERSEVERANDO"--DINING IN THE SKY--THE
DESCENT OF THE CRATER.

A black man in a barrel of treacle is said by some to be emblematical of
happiness.  So situated, a black man without doubt enjoys a deal of
bliss, but I question very much if it equals the joy poor Freezing
Powders felt when he found himself once more safe on board the
_Arrandoon_, and cuddled down in a corner with his old cockatoo.  [It
may be as well to state here that neither the negro boy nor the cockatoo
is a character drawn at random; both had their counterparts in real
life.]  What a long story he had to tell the bird, to be sure!--what a
"terrible tale," I might call it!

As usual, when greatly engrossed in listening, the bird was busily
engaged helping himself to enormous mouthfuls of hemp-seed, spilling
more than he swallowed, cocking his head, and gazing at his little black
master, with many an interjectional and wondering "Oh!" and many a
long-drawn "De-ah me!" just as if he understood every word the boy said,
and fully appreciated the dangers he had come through.

"Well, duckie?" said the bird, fondly, when Freezing Powders had
concluded.

"Oh! der ain't no moh to tell, cockie," said the boy; "but I 'ssure you,
when I see dat big yellow bear wid his big red mouf, I tink I not hab
much longer to lib in dis world, cockie--I 'ssure you I tink so."

Freezing Powders was the hero for one evening at all events.  McBain
made him recite his story and sing his daft, wild songs more than once,
and the very innocence of the poor boy heightened the general effect.
He was a favourite all over the ship from that day forth.  Everybody in
a manner petted him, and yet it was impossible to spoil him, for he took
the petting as a matter of course, but always kept his place.  His
duties were multifarious, though light--he cleaned the silver and shined
the boots, and helped to lay the cloth and wait at table.  He went by
different names in different parts of the ship.  Ralph called him his
cup-bearer, because he brought that young gentleman's matutinal coffee,
without which our English hero would not have left his cabin for the
world.  Freezing Powders was message-boy betwixt steward and cook, and
bore the viands triumphantly along the deck, so the steward called him
"Mustard and Cress," and the cook "Young Shallots," while Ted Wilson
dubbed him "Boss of the Soup Tureen;" but the boy was entirely
indifferent as to what he was called.

"Make your games, gem'lams," he would say; "don't be afraid to 'ffend
dis chile.  He nebber get angry I 'ssure you."

When Freezing Powders had nothing in his hand his method of progression
forward was at times somewhat peculiar.  He went cart-wheel fashion,
rolling over and over so quickly that you could hardly see him, he
seemed a mist of legs, or something like the figure you see on a Manx
penny.

At other times "the doctor," as the cook was invariably called by the
crew, would pop up his head out of the fore-hatch and bawl out,--

"Pass young Shallots forward here."

"Ay, ay, doctor," the men would answer.  "Shalots!  Shalots!  Shalots!"

Then Freezing Powder's curly head would beam up out of the saloon
companion.

"Stand by, men!" the sailor who captured him would cry; and the men
would form themselves into a line along the deck about three yards
apart, and Freezing Powders would be pitched from one to the other as if
he had been a ball of spun-yarn, until he finally fell into the friendly
arms of the cook.

About a week after the bear adventure De Vere, the aeronaut, was
breakfasting in the saloon, as he always did when there was anything
"grand in the wind," as Rory styled the situation.

"Dat is von thing I admire very mooch," said the Frenchman, pointing to
a beautifully-framed design that hung in a conspicuous part of the
saloon bulkhead.

"Ah," said Allan, laughing, "that was an idea of dear foolish boy Rory.
He brought it as a gift to me last Christmas.  The coral comes from the
Indian Ocean; Rory gathered it himself; the whole design is his."

"It's a vera judeecious arrangement," said Sandy McFlail, admiringly.

The arrangement, as the doctor called it, was simple enough.  Three
pieces of coral, in the shape of a rose, a thistle, and shamrock,
encased--nay, I may say enshrined--in a beautiful casket of crystal and
gilded ebony.  There was the milk-white rose of England and the
blood-red thistle of Scotland side by side, and fondly twining around
them the shamrock of old Ireland--all in black.

Here was the motto underneath them--

"Perseverando."

"There is nothing like perseverance," said Allan.  "The little coral
insect thereby builds islands, ay, and founds continents, destined to be
stages on which will be worked out or fought out the histories of
nations yet unborn.  `Perseverando!' it is a grand and bold motto, and I
love it."

The Frenchman had been standing before the casket; he now turned quickly
round to Allan and held out his hand.

"You are a bold man," he said; "you will come with me to-day in de
balloon?"

"I will," said Allan.

"We vill soar far above yonder mountain," continued De Vere; "we vill
descend into the crater.  We vill do vat mortal man has neever done
before.  Perseverando!  Do you fear?"

"Fear?" said Allan; "no!  I fear nothing under the sun.  Whate'er a man
dares he can do."

"Bravely spoken," cried the Frenchman.  "Perseverando!  I have room for
two more."

"Perseverando!" says Rory.  "Perseverando for ever!  Hoorah!  I'm one of
you, boys."

Ralph was lying on the sofa, reading a book.  But he doubled down a
leaf, got up, and stretched himself.

"Here," he said, quietly, "you fellows mustn't have all the fun; I'll go
toe, just to see fair play.  But, I say," he added, after a moment's
pause, "I don't suppose there will be any refreshment-stalls down
there--eh?"

"No, that there won't," cried Allan.  "Hi!  Peter, pack a basket for
four."

"Ay, ay, sir?" said Peter.

"And, I say, Peter--" This from Ralph.

"Yes, sir," said the steward, pausing in the doorway.

"Enough for twenty," said Ralph.  "That's all, Peter."

"Thank'ee, sir," said Peter, laughing; "I'll see to that, sir."

It was some time before De Vere succeeded in gaining Captain McBain's
consent to the embarkation of his boys on this wild and strange
adventure, but he was talked over at last.

"It is all for the good of science, I suppose," he said, half
doubtfully, as he shook hands with ou

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