that I was drowned, and living in an ice cave, fish fashion, at the bottom of the sea, when I was awakened by Scudds, who shook me, crying, “Wake up, skipper! she’s a-going to launch herself!”
I jumped to my feet, to find the doctor on deck, lecturing his nephew about the launching of ships, and pointing out the gradual slope down of the ice valley in which we lay.
“She’s shifted two foot!” said Scudds. “I felt her move!”
“Batten down the hatches!” I roared, seeing what was coming; and as soon as this was done, and the ship made water-tight, I gave fresh orders for every man to lash himself fast to the shrouds and belaying-pins, while I myself secured the doctor and his nephew, neither of them seeing the slightest danger in what was to come.
Hardly had I done this, than there was a strange creaking, scratching noise, as of iron passing over ice; and then we felt that the vessel was in motion, gilding down the horrible precipice toward the sea.
At first she moved very slowly, but gathering speed, she glided faster and faster, till, with a rush like an avalanche, she darted down the great ice slide, stem first, till, at the bottom, where the iceberg ended abruptly in a precipice forty or fifty feet high, she shot right off, plunging her bowsprit the next instant in the water, and then all was darkness.
The sensation of the slide down was not unpleasant; the rush through the air was even agreeable; but to dart down into the depths of the ocean like some mighty whale, was awful. There was a strange roaring and singing in the ears; a feeling of oppression, as if miles of water were over one’s head; a sense of going down, down, down into the depths that were like ink; and then, by degrees, all grew lighter and lighter, till, with a dart like a diving-bird, the stout iron steamer sprang to the surface, rolled for a minute or two with the water streaming from her scuppers, and then floated easily on the sea, with the iceberg half a mile astern.
“Bravo! – bravo, captain! Capitally done!” cried the doctor. “As fine a bit of seamanship as ever I saw; but you need not have made us so wet!”
“Thanky, sir!” I said, for I was so taken aback and surprised that I didn’t know what to say, the more so that Abram Bostock, Scudds, and the rest of them took their tone from the doctor, nodded their heads, and said, “Very well done, indeed!”
I didn’t believe it at first, till I had had the pump well sounded; but the ship was quite right, and as sound as ever, so that half an hour after we had made sail, and were leaving the iceberg far behind.
It was some time before I could feel sure that it wasn’t all a dream; but the cool way in which the doctor took it all served to satisfy me, and I soon had enough to take up my attention in the management of the ship.
For the next fortnight we were sailing or steaming on past floating ice, with the greatest care needed to avoid collision or being run down. Then we had foul weather, rain, and fog, and snowstorm, and the season seeming to get colder and colder for quite another fortnight, when it suddenly changed, and we had bright skies, constant sunshine night and day, and steamed slowly on through the pack ice.
The doctor grew more confidential as we got on, telling me of the jealousy with which he had watched the discoveries of other men, and how, for years, he had determined that Curley and Pole should be linked together. He said that there was no doubt about the open Polar Sea, and that if we could once get through the pack ice into it, the rest of the task was easy.
“But suppose, when we’ve got up there, we get frozen in, doctor?” I said.
“Well, what then?” he answered. “We can wait, till we are thawed out.”
“Perhaps all dead,” I said.
“Pooh, my dear sir! No such thing. Freezing merely means a suspension of the faculties. I will give you an example soon.”
“Well, Binny,” said Abram slowly, after overhearing these words, “I don’t want my faculties suspended; that’s all I’ve got to say!”
The next day we were working our way through great canals of clear water, that meandered among the pack ice. There were great headlands on each side, covered with ice and snow, and the solitude seemed to grow awful, but the doctor kept us all busy. Now it was a seal hunt; then we were all off after a bear. Once or twice we had a reindeer hunt, and supplied the ship with fresh meat. Bird shooting, too, and fishing had their turn, so that it was quite a pleasure trip when the difficulties of the navigation left us free.
Eighty degrees had long been passed, and still our progress was not stayed. We often had a bit of a nip from the ice closing in, and over and over again we had to turn back; but we soon found open water again, after steaming gently along the edge of the track, and thence northward once more, till one day the doctor and I took observations, and we found that we were eighty-five degrees north, somewhere about a hundred miles farther than any one had been before.
“We shall do it, Cookson!” cried the doctor, rubbing his hands. “Only five more degrees, my lad, and we have made our fame! Cookson, my boy, you’ll be knighted!”
“I hope not, sir!” I said, shuddering, as I thought of the City aldermen. “I would rather be mourned!”
“That’s a bad habit, trying to make jokes,” he said, gravely. “Fancy, my good fellow, making a pun in eighty-five degrees north latitude! but I’m not surprised. There is no latitude observed now, since burlesques have come into fashion. Where are you going, Cookson!”
“Up in the crow’s-nest, sir,” I said. “I don’t like the look of the hummocky ice out nor’ard.”
I climbed up, spy-glass in hand, when, to my horror, the doctor began to follow me.
“That there crow’s-nest won’t abear you, sir!” cried Scudds, coming to the rescue.
“Think not, my man?” said the doctor.
“Sure on’t!” said Scudds.
“Ah, well, I’m with you in spirit, Cookson!” he exclaimed.
And I finished my climb, and well swept the horizon line with my glass.
There was no mistaking it: ice, ice, ice on every side. The little canal through which we were steaming came to an end a mile farther on; and that night we were frozen in fast, and knew that there was not a chance of being set free till the next year.
The crew was divided into two parties at once, and without loss of time I got one set at work lowering yards, striking masts, and covering in the ship, while the others were busied with the preparation of the sledges.
Two days after, a party of ten of us, with plenty of provisions on our sledge, and a tent, started under the doctor’s guidance for the Pole.
It was very cold, but the sun shone brightly, and we trudged on, the doctor showing the value of his natural covering, though he was less coated with furs than we were.
He pointed out to me the shape of the land, and which was frozen sea; and at the end of two days, when we were in a wild place, all mighty masses of ice, he declared his conviction that there was, after all, no open Polar sea, only ice to the end.
We had had a bitter cold night, and had risen the next morning cold and cheerless; but a good hot cup of coffee set us right, and we were thinking of starting, when Scudds, who was with us, Abram being left in command, kicked at a piece of ice, saying, “That’s rum-looking stuff!”
“There’s
