A jacket was waved and—answered.
Next moment half-a-dozen swift kayaks or Eskimo boats were dashing from the shore to their rescue.
“Thank God!” said every man, and the tears rolled down the cheeks of many now, and half-choked them as they tried to speak.
But they clasped each other’s thin, cold hands, and looked the joy they could not utter.
They were Eskimos who had come to the rescue, and it was from the mainland they had come, and not from any iceberg, or even island.
Their joy was redoubled when they drew near and found Captain Blunt and their old shipmates waving their hands and hats to them from the snow-clad shore.
So happy a reunion no one can fully understand or appreciate except those who have been in the same sad plight, and saved as if by a miracle.
Longfellow, in his beautiful poem “The Secret of the Sea,” tells us how Count Arnaldos—
“Saw a fair and stately galley
Steering onward to the land.
“How he heard the ancient helmsman
Chant a song so wild and clear,
That the sailing sea-bird slowly
Poised upon the mast to hear,—
“Till his soul was filled with longing,
And he cried with impulse strong,
‘Helmsman! for the love of Heaven,
Teach me, too, that wondrous song.’
“‘Would’st thou so,’ the helmsman answered,
‘Learn the secrets of the sea?
Only those who brave its dangers
Comprehend its mystery.’”
Yes, reader, the sea hath many, many secrets. We may never know them all. Not even those who have been down to the sea in ships may fathom half the mysteries that everywhere surround them, or can ever hope to explain to those who dwell on land a tithe of what they know and feel.