“Drat that there cat!” cried the old whaleman petulantly. “Jes the same I wish t’ blazes she was a-settin’ over to that there berg ’stead o’ on this here ship.”
For several days after the boys’ adventure on the iceberg the Narwhal bore steadily on. Several times she passed tiny rocky islets over which were clouds of screaming sea birds, and through their glasses the boys could make out the thousands and thousands of black and white birds that covered the rocks from sea to summit. There were great white gannets, big gray-and-white gulls, shining black cormorants, acres of swallow-tailed terns, row after row of closely packed auks, puffins, and guillemots. Even though the schooner was a mile or more from the rookeries, the harsh cries and screams of the countless birds came to the boys’ ears in raucous chorus.
“Say, I thought there were a lot of birds down at Tristan da Cunha,” said Jim. “But they weren’t a patch on these.”
“Why, there must be millions of them!” agreed Tom. “Wouldn’t it be fun to climb up there among ’em?”
Constantly in the schooner’s wake also were flocks of birds and many of these were strange to the boys. Some—big gray fellows with pearly white breasts and enormously long wings—Mr. Kemp told them were shearwaters. Others, that seemed constantly attacking the gulls and terns, and that looked like swift-winged hawks with spiked tails, they learned were jaegers and the captain told the boys these lived by robbing the other birds, and a few snowy white creatures that Tom thought were sheathbills were fulmar petrels, he was told.
By now the weather was cold, cheerless, and chilly and the boys were glad to don their winter clothes. Though the sun shone brightly, the wind was raw and had winter’s bite and sting to it and the spray felt like ice water as it dashed into the boys’ faces.
“Whew, but it’s cold!” cried Tom as he came on deck one morning, and buttoned his reefer and oilskins tighter. “Feels like midwinter. I wonder—oh, say, Jim! Look here!”
Fascinated, the two boys gazed about. On every hand, some within a few hundred yards, others a mile or two distant, still others mere ghostly forms upon the horizon, were scores of gleaming, shimmering, rainbow-tinted icebergs.
“Reckon there’s enough bergs to suit you!” exclaimed Captain Edwards. “I never seen so pesky many of ’em so far south this time o’ year. Must ha’ been a mighty cold winter up this way.”