[CHAPTER XXIX]
In Which the Crew of the "Rough and Tumble" is Harshly Punished, and Archie Armstrong, Having Pulled the Wool Over the Eyes of Cap'n Saul, Goes Over the Side to the Floe, Where He Falls in with a Timid Lad, in Whose Company, with Billy Topsail Along, He is Some Day to Encounter His Most Perilous Adventure
Well, now, two days later, near dusk, with Archie Armstrong on the bridge, the Rough and Tumble was crawling northwest through the first ice of the floe. An hour of drab light was left of the day—no more. And it was mean ice roundabout—small pans and a naughty mess of slush. There was a hummock or two, it might be, and a clumper or two, as well; and a man might travel that ice well enough, sore pinched by need to do so. But it was foul footing for the weight of a full-grown man, and tricky for the feet of a lad; and a man must dance a crooked course, and caper along, or perish—leap from a block that would tip and sink under his feet to a pan that would bear him up until he had time and the wit to leap again, and so come, at last, by luck and good conduct, to a pan stout enough for pause.
It was mean ice, to be sure. Yet there was a fine sign of seals drifting by. Here and there was an old dog hood on a hummock; and there and here were a harp and a whitecoat on a flat pan. But the orders of Cap'n Saul were to "leave the swiles be"—to "keep the mouths o' the guns shut" until the Rough and Tumble had run up to the herd that was coming down with the floe.
"I'll have no swiles slaughtered in play," he declared.
A gun popped forward. It was from the midst of a crowd. And Cap'n Saul leaned over the bridge-rail.
"Who done that?" he demanded.
There was no answer.
"Mm-m?" Cap'n Saul repeated. "Who done that?"
No answer.