“That’s it, sir,” was the reply. “I ‘dressed ship’ at eight o’clock this morning in honour of my little Florrie’s birthday, and I hadn’t the heart to haul down the flags even when we found ourselves in such a precious pickle amongst the ice yonder. I thought that if so be it was God’s will that we was to go, we might as well go with the buntin’ still flying in Florrie’s honour as not.”
“And what success have you met with, captain?” asked Sir Reginald.
“Precious little, sir. We’ve been out now more’n a twelvemonth, and we’ve only killed three fish in all that time. Got jammed up here in the ice all last winter. I stayed in hopes of doin’ something in the sealing line, and only got some three hundred skins after all. It’s been a bad speculation for me. An old friend of mine came this way the year before last, and, the season being an open one and not much ice about, he reached as far north as Baffin’s Bay and through Jones’ Sound, fillin’ his ship with oil and bone in a single season. He was lucky enough to hit upon a spot where the sea was fairly alive with whales, and he filled the ship right up in that very spot. The fish seemed tame, as though they hadn’t been interfered with for years; and bein’ an old friend, as I said before, he gave me the latitude and longitude of the place as a great secret, and I’ve been trying to reach the spot ever since we came north, but have been kept back by the ice and the contrary winds. If I could get there, even now, it would make the trip profitable enough to serve my purpose; but I see no chance of it, and the men are getting disheartened.”
“Never mind, captain, cheer up; all may yet be well,” exclaimed the baronet. “We can’t drag your ship over the ice, but if there is only a passage for her we can drag her through it, and for little Florrie’s sake we will. If it is in our power to get you to the spot you wish to reach, you shall go there. Now, as the present open water affords an opportunity too good to be lost, return to your ship, secure our hawser in such a way that we may put a big strain upon it without damaging the vessel, and send a trustworthy hand aloft into the crow’s-nest to look out for the best channels. We will tow you to the northward as long as a channel can be found through the ice, and at seven o’clock I hope you will give us the pleasure of your company on board here to dinner, when we will drink ‘many happy returns of the day’ to Florrie in the best champagne the Flying Fish’s cellar affords.”
The captain of the whaler returned to his own ship in a state of such mingled astonishment and elation that his people were at first inclined to think he had suddenly gone demented. However, the order which he gave them to secure the towing hawser in such a manner as would enable the ship to withstand a heavy strain was intelligible enough; it told them that, with the assistance of their strange rescuers, a supreme effort was now to be made to reach those prolific fishing-grounds which had from the first been the goal of their voyage; and that, best of all, that effort was to be unaccompanied by any of the usual harassing labour of working the ship to windward through the ice, and they set to with a will. A sufficient length of the hawser was hauled on board to enable them to take a couple of turns round the barrel of the windlass and two more round the heel of the foremast, the eye of the hawser being further secured by tackles to every ring-bolt in the ship capable of bearing a good substantial strain; and then, the skipper himself going aloft to the crow’s-nest, the signal was given for the Flying Fish to go ahead.
Chapter Ten.
The “Humboldt” Glacier.
The two ships were at this time floating in a tolerably broad expanse of open water; but at a distance of some seven miles ahead the pack-ice stretched, apparently unbroken, across their track for miles. The skipper of the whaler, however, shouted down to them from his elevated perch the intelligence that a somewhat intricate but continuous channel extended through this ice in a northerly direction as far as the eye could reach. Toward this channel, then, away they went at a speed of something like sixteen knots per hour, the barque with her string of colours still fluttering bravely in defiance of the adverse gale, and the Flying Fish with the white ensign of the Royal Yacht Squadron, of which Sir Reginald was a member, streaming from her ensign staff in honour of little Florrie. It was a strange sight, even in that region of fantastic phantasmagoria, to see the two ships, one of which, moreover, wore such an unaccustomed shape, dashing rapidly along through the black foam-flecked water, with ice in every conceivable form heaped and piled around them, and their bright-hued flags fluttering against the dark and dismal background of a stormy sky; and the skipper of the whaler possesses to this day a spirited water-colour sketch of the scene, executed on the spot by the colonel, which he exhibits with becoming pride whenever he relates the story of his wonderful escape from the threatening icebergs.