The dangerous situation was dramatic in the extreme. With the dying wind the sky cleared, the stars shone with keen brilliancy, the cold increased sharply to forty-five degrees below the freezing-point, while, as if in mockery of man's sorrows, the merry dancers flashed upward in dagger-shaped gleams wavering an instant and then vanishing, only to come again in new forms with ever-changing colors. To a mere observer it would have been a perfect picture of adverse arctic conditions, wonderful in its aspects and surpassingly beautiful to an artistic eye.
With relaxing pressures the great ice-ridges slowly decreasing in height fell apart, and the ship was again on her usual level, but rent fatally and making water fast. In vain did the whole crew strain at the pumps, while the outpouring water from the spouts froze on the deck as it fell—the water gained steadily and orders to save the cargo were given. The worn-out men worked frantically, dragging out bedding, food, clothing, medicines, guns, ammunition, sledges, boat furniture, and everything that could be of service for life on the floe. Best of all, for their comfort and amusement, they hoisted over the rail of the ship's galley heating-stoves, games, and books; they felled the masts for fuel and stripped the sails for house use. Fortunately the energetic seamen were able to strip the ship of all useful articles before she sank on October 22, 1869, in 70° 52′ north latitude, a few miles from the Greenland coast.
They now faced a situation of extraordinary if not of imminent peril. It was barely possible that they might reach the coast, six miles distant, but that was to face starvation, as everything must be abandoned for a cross-floe march. If the shore was reached it was well known to be ice-clad and desolate, as there were to be found neither natives nor land game along the narrow strips of rocky, ice-free beach which stretches from sea-glacier to sea-glacier on this seemingly accursed coast.
The only chances of life were in the shifting and uncertain forces of nature—a cold winter to keep the ice-field intact, a stormless season to save their floe from breaking up under pressures, and the usual Greenland current to set them to the south. With good fortune they might hope to get into open water seven months hence, when by their boats they could possibly reach the Danish settlements of West Greenland. But could they live seven months through a winter barely begun? At least they would do their best. They were fourteen men, all good and true, in health, skilled to the sea, inured to hardships and privations, accustomed to discipline, and inspired by a spirit of comradeship.
Their floe had been wasted at its edges by the enormous pressure, as well as by the action of the sea, so that they were thankful for Hegemann's foresight in placing the coal house remote from the ocean. All that sailor ingenuity could plan was now done to make life healthy and comfortable in their ark of safety. Outer snow walls were erected so that there was a free walk around the main house, giving also a place for the protection of stores against storms and shelter for daily exercise. From their flag-staff was displayed on fine days a flag, emblem of their love for their country, of their faith in themselves, and of aspiration and uplifting courage in hours of danger.
The hunt engaged their activities whenever signs of game were noted. Once a bear and her cub came from the land, and the mother was slain and added to their larder. An effort was made to keep the cub as a kind of pet. After a while she escaped and was caught swimming across a narrow lane of water. To keep her secure they fastened her to an ice-anchor, where she was at first very much frightened, but later she ate with avidity such meat as was thrown to her. To add to her comfort a snow house was built, with the floor strewed with shavings for her bed, but the record runs: "The young bear, as a genuine inhabitant of the arctic seas, despised the hut and bed, preferring to camp in the snow." Some days later she disappeared, and with the heavy chain doubtless sank to the bottom of the sea.
Nor were these castaways unmindful of the charms of arctic nature. Their narratives tell us of the common beauties around them—the snow-crystals glittering in the few hours of sunlight like millions of tiny diamonds. Night scenes were even more impressive, through wondrous views of the starry constellations and the recurring and evanescent gleams of the mystical aurora. Under the weird auroral light the white snow took at times a peculiar greenish tint, and with it, says an officer, "One could read the finest writing without trouble. One night it shone so intensely that the starlight waned and objects on our field cast shadows." But in its main aspects life on the ice-pack was full of dread in which nervous anxiety largely entered.
The barren peaks and rounded snow-capped land masses of the Greenland coast were usually in sight, and once they were astonished as they walked to see thousands of tiny leaves, possibly of the arctic willow, flying about them, signs of a snow-free fiord not far distant. Again the newly fallen snow for a considerable distance was covered with a reddish matter which Dr. Laube thought must be of volcanic origin carried through the air from Iceland two hundred miles away.
Of interest to the party were the visits of foxes, who came from the near-by land. Of the first it is said: "With tails high in air they shot over the ice-field like small craft sailing before the wind. For the first moment it seemed as if the wind had caught up a couple of large semicircles of whitish yellow paper and was wafting them along." One was shot as a specimen, but the later visitor in the middle of December was better treated. We are told that "the fox, white with a black-tipped tail, was particularly confiding, even bold. He scratched up the bear flesh buried in the snow, and carried it off to eat as we approached. He then quite unconcernedly took a walk on the roof of our house, and through the small window convinced himself as to what we were doing. Should we shoot it? No! It was a long time since we had seen such a fearless creature. At times we placed nets with a meat bait to tease him, but he always managed to get clear of them."