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Steve Young, a fiction by George Manville Fenn |
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Chapter 15. A Tale Of The Winter Cold |
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_ CHAPTER FIFTEEN. A TALE OF THE WINTER COLD The shore looked more attractive the next morning, probably from the fact that all on board the _Hvalross_ had had a most enjoyable supper of fresh meat, and afterwards a long--what Steve called day's--night's rest; so that every one was on the alert and eager to carry out the captain's orders. So as not to lose time steam was got up at once, and Captain Marsham explained his intentions, which were to go up the west coast until stopped by the ice, and on the way search the different fiords and bays for signs of the lost party. Failing to find them, he said that they would return to their starting-point, and then proceed in the same way southward, and round to the east coast, and ascend that. "I don't think it is a question of scouting along the land in the search," said the captain, "but of being here, for it must be a matter of accident our finding them. We shall of course build up a cairn wherever we touch, with a paper in it telling when we landed and the direction we take, in case they come here after we have gone." "And you will go on hunting and fishing as we touch at place after place?" "Certainly, until we have filled the tanks. That will enable me to prolong my journey, and, if necessary, repeat it next year." Steve looked at the captain in horror, but said nothing; and directly after a cairn had been built at the most conspicuous point of the entrance to the fiord, and a letter left in a meat canister inside, the _Hvalross_ slowly steamed out, and advanced northward, entering fiord after fiord, and searching vainly. There were always the same forbidding cliffs capped with snow, masses of ice piled up, and the ravines filled with glaciers, and here and there inlets whose entrances were completely frozen up, and not likely to be open for a month. But there was no sign of cairn or signal-post. No human being had left a trace of landing there, and the journey north was continued. "Why, Johannes," said the captain on the second evening, after they had spent about a couple of hours in shooting wild fowl to replenish the larder and keep the men in good health with plenty of fresh provisions, "I thought as soon as we reached this wild region we should find deer, bears, and walrus in abundance; and here we have been touching at place after place for two days, and not seen a single animal since we shot the deer." "No, sir; it is a matter of accident," replied the Norseman. "There are plenty; but every year they get farther away, for they are hunted so much that they shun the places where vessels come." Their words came plainly to where Steve was busy with a glass; for, after the shooting was over, and the men in one of the boats had collected all the slain to hand over to the cook, who immediately made Watty Links discontented by setting him to pluck the birds, the lad had ascended to the crow's-nest to have a look round. It was very wonderful, that outlook to Steve; but it seemed to him awful and depressing. It was so silent and so strange that at times even the continuous daylight caused him to feel a sensation of shrinking, especially when seen through the telescope; for there were moments when he felt as if he were passing into some far-off, weird wonderland, a land of solemn silence, where life could not exist; and at such moments he would take his eye from the glass, and look down at the men on deck and see signs of human creatures being near to carry off the strange sensation. He had just been passing through one of these fits; for it was evening, and though broad daylight, with the sun shining, there was a peculiarity in the sky to northward, a something he could not well have explained, which made him feel that night was at hand. And as he leaned against the side of the crow's-nest he listened to what was said on deck, and then once more gazed to the northward, following the line of coast, and then giving a start; for a few miles only from where they were gliding onward he saw unmistakably that their journey in that direction was at an end. He carefully adjusted the glass so as to make sure, and found that it was so: the icy barrier was jammed tight on to the land, and on following it to the westward it extended in one solid wall right away till it was lost in the distance. Sweeping back to the coast, he searched carefully to see if there were any opening or fiord by which they could pass onward; but there was not a sign, and he was just about to announce his discovery, when he caught sight of something about a mile away, standing out plainly on a low headland, with the black face of a large cliff behind to throw it up so clearly that he wondered why he had not seen it at the first. Steve Young. "At last!" he said, with his heart beating violently and a curious choking sensation rising to his throat. For there, looking dim now as he glanced through the glass once more, was a wooden cross, evidently set up as a signal, the first trace of human occupation of that solemn, solitary land; and it was some moments before his emotion would let him hail the deck. "Ahoy there!" he shouted; then exultantly, but in a tone of voice which did not sound like his own, "Ice right ahead, and a signal showing about a mile away!" "What!" shouted Captain Marsham. "Stop a minute; I'll come up." He ran to the shrouds, and began to climb rapidly and as actively as either of the men till he was close beneath the great cask. "Don't stir, my boy," he said; "I'll find room for both. Now then," he continued, as the trap beneath their feet was closed, "where's the signal?" "Follow the coast-line for about a mile," cried Steve eagerly, as he handed the glass, "and you will see a great black cliff with hardly a scrap of snow upon it. Then, low down on a piece of level ground--" "I have it!" cried the captain; "a large post." His tone of eager satisfaction changed to one that was very solemn and grave: "It is a cross, Steve," he said. "Yes, a great wooden cross. Don't you think they set it up there as a signal?" "I think some one set it up there as a sign, my boy," said Captain Marsham gravely. "And that some one is living there?" cried Steve. The captain did not answer, but changed the direction of the glass. "Yes," he said; "there is the pack, fast for another month, unless we have a storm to break it up. We'll go on a mile or two, and then turn back. Come along down." He began to descend at once, and Steve followed, wondering at his manner, and feeling sad now; for he concluded that, from his experience and knowledge of such matters, the captain felt that they had reached Spitzbergen too late to save their friends alive. As soon as the deck was reached orders were given to increase the speed a little, Johannes joining the captain on the bridge to keep a careful look-out for danger where there was none, for the water was perfectly clear of rocks and deep right up to the cliffs; so that a quarter of an hour later they were abreast of the cross, a boat was lowered, and Captain Marsham was rowed ashore. Steve was the first to leap upon the rocks, and then the little party made their way up a slope to the level patch on which stood the rough sign, and, in addition, two more, which had not been perceived till they were close up; while of greater interest still, close under the perpendicular black cliff, some four or five hundred feet high, was a low, square, wooden hut, built up of old ship's timbers. They made at once for this, leaving the singularly shaped wooden crosses; and once more a feeling of awe crept over Steve, and he whispered to the captain asking him if he thought it was their friends. "Oh no," was the quick reply. "Didn't you understand? The remains of some Russian party. The crosses told that." Steve felt relieved, and curiosity had begun to take the place of the shrinking sensation he had felt on seeing that the woodwork was grey and mossy, much of it greatly decayed, and that the rough door had fallen away from its hinges and lay across the opening which it had been used to close. The timbers had been caulked with moss, and no doubt had had snow piled up against them, to keep out the penetrating cold, while the nearly flat roof was covered with stones. All this was seen almost at a glance as they paused by the door, and then the captain stooped his head and entered the low, cabin-like place, followed by the doctor and Steve. The place was fairly extensive inside, and fitted up with a long, low, stone bench, upon which lay quantities of dry sea-weed, the whole having evidently been used for the occupants' bed. In the middle of the hut was an arrangement of stones, with a roughly contrived flue, which had formed a kind of stove for heating and cooking, and in it still lay a quantity of ashes and some charred fragments of oak that must have been bits of ships' timber. That was all visible at first; but in the darkest part of the hut, farthest from the door, the low, bench-like erection was piled with sea-weed apparently, till they drew closer and found that there were several mouldy bear-skins, from which the hair had rotted, and which came away in fragments upon being touched. It was Steve who gave a tug at one of the skins, and, throwing the pieces down, he was about to drag another one right off, when the captain checked him. "Let him rest," he said gravely; and Steve started back as he realised the fact that he was disturbing the resting-place of the dead. He looked at the captain in horror as if to question him with his eyes, and the answer came. "Yes, some unfortunate Russian party, evidently left to winter here, and they died off one by one. Let us go and look at the crosses." It was with a sensation of relief that they all stood out once more in the soft, bright sunshine, and breathed the clear, cold air, which came fresh from the ice-fields; and soon after they stopped before the crosses, beneath which were the resting-places of five unfortunate men. "There is the history written plainly enough," said Captain Marsham in a low voice, as if talking to himself. "These were the party of six left here to collect skins during the winter, to be fetched away the next season. One man died, and his kindly-hearted companions laboriously made that rough, wooden coffin, and dug a few inches into this icy rock for its reception. They covered it with these stones to guard it from wild beasts, and put up this elaborate timber with its three cross-pieces, cut in Russian characters as we see. Then another died, and his four companions treated him nearly the same as the first; there was as much care taken to bury him, and the cross is nearly as grand as the first. The third man died, and the survivors were not able to do so much; the grave is more shallow, the coffin rougher, and there is only one cross-piece. Then we have here the fourth man's resting-place--very shallow, and only an upright post, with his initials, two letters roughly scored by a feeble hand, by one of the two survivors. Then look at this." He took a few steps to where Steve shrinkingly saw a hollow in which, barely covered by small pieces of rock and ice, lay the remains of a man, from which all turned without a word. For it wanted no words to tell how he had pined and died, and been dragged to his last resting-place by his feeble companion, the last of the party, so helpless now that he could not chip out a grave, but was fain to lay his dead companion in a natural rift, and slowly pile over him little pieces of the stone and ice around; then crawl back into the hut to lie there, covered by the skins, waiting for the dawn to come after the long, long wintry night, and bring with it the hopes of rescue which came too late. The Norseman who had stood by the graves with his cap in his hands went softly away on tip-toe to the boat, and the captain said sadly: "There is something very awful as well as grand up here in these solitudes. Poor fellows! What a history they have left behind! Steve, lad, it is a painful sight for you." "Yes," said the boy huskily, and his voice shook as he looked up apologetically at the speaker. "I can't help it--makes me feel quite ill and weak; for when I think of it all, and of those who must have been hoping they would return like some one we know, I feel as if I could sit down and cry." "Hah!" ejaculated the doctor; and as the others looked at him he sharply turned away his face. "Yes, it is very sad," said the captain briskly; "but we will not take that view of the case, my lad. Let's only be thankful that you were wrong in your ideas. Our friends would be better provided than these poor fellows were, and I have always a strong feeling that we shall find them alive and well." An hour later they had been right up, pretty close to the barrier of ice which stopped further progress to the north; and as there was a pleasant breeze from the north-east, sail was set, the fires damped, and away they went southward toward the fiord where the deer had been shot in the valley. This was reached late the next evening, and they landed to try for more deer, an adventure attended with so much success that on the following day, when they began to sail southward, they had twelve fine, fat deer lying in the hold in ice, and another in the hands of the cook for present use. "Seems rather wholesale, doesn't it?" said Steve to the doctor. "Yes, my boy; but meat will keep for years in this climate if once frozen; and," he added with a laugh, "you must make your hay when the sun shines." "And freeze it afterwards," said Steve, smiling. _ |
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