“Perseverando!” said Allan.
“The Perseverance!” cried the skipper. “I know the ship, a Peterheader. Last time I saw her she had got in the nips, and was lying keel up on the ice, yards and rigging all awry of course; and, bother her, I hope she’ll lie there till Silas Grig gets a voyage (a cargo), then when the Scotia is full ship, the Perseverance can get down off the shelf, and cabbage all the rest. Them’s my sentiments. But come below, gentlemen, come below; there is room enough in the cabin of the old Scotia for every man Jack o’ ye. Come below.”
Silas was right. There was room, but not much to spare, and, squeezed in between Allan and McBain, poor Rory was hardly visible, and could only reach the table with one hand.
The cabin of this Greenlandman can be described with a stroke of the pen, so to speak. It was square and not very lofty—a tall man required to duck when under a beam; the beams were painted white, the bulkheads and cabin doors—four in number—were grey picked out with green. One-half at least of the available space was occupied by the table; close around it were cushioned lockers; the only other furniture was the captain’s big chair and a few camp-stools, a big square stove with a roaring fire, and a big square urn fixed on top thereof, which contained coffee, had never been empty all the voyage, and would not be till the end thereof. I suppose a bucket of water could hardly be called furniture, but there it stood close to the side of the stove, and the concentric rings of ice inside it showed the difficulty everybody must experience who chose to quench his thirst in the most natural way possible.
Above, in the hollow of the skylight, hung a big compass, and several enormously long sealer’s telescopes.
“No rum, gentlemen?” said Silas; “well, you do astonish me; but you’ll taste my wife’s green ginger wine, and drink her health?”
“That we will,” replied McBain, “and maybe finish a bottle.”
“And welcome to ten,” said Silas; “and the bun, steward, bring the bun. That’s the style! My wife isn’t much to look at, gentlemen, but, for a bun or o’ drop o’ green ginger, I’ll back her against the whole world.”
After our heroes had done justice to the bun, and pledged the skipper’s good lady in the green ginger, that gentleman must needs eye them again and again, with as much curiosity as if they had been some new and wonderful zoological specimens, that he had by chance captured.
“All the way to the North Pole!” he muttered. “Well, well, but that does get over Silas.”