[CHAPTER XXXIX]
In Which One Hundred and Seventy-Three Men of the "Rough and Tumble" are Plunged in the Gravest Peril of the Coast, Wandering Like Lost Beasts, and Some Drop Dead, and Some are Drowned, and Some Kill Themselves to be Done With the Torture They Can Bear No Longer
They kept close, a hundred and seventy-three living men, to start with, and then God knew how many!—kept close for comfort and safety; and they walked warily, drunk and stupid in the wind, in dread of lakes and blow-holes and fissures of water, and in living fear of crusts of snow, wind-cast over pitfalls. And they died fast in the dark. In Archie Armstrong's tortured mind childish visions of hell were revived—the swish and sad complaint of doomed souls, winging round and round and round in a frozen dark. It was like that, he thought.
Dawn delayed. It was night forever; and the dark was peopled—the throng stirred, and was not visible; and from the black wraiths of men, moving roundabout, never still, all driven round and round by the torture of the night, came cries of pain—sobbing and wailing, rage and prayer, and screams for help, for God's sake.
Many of the men wore out before dawn and were fordone: hands frozen, feet frozen, lips and throat frozen—heart frozen. And many a man dropped in his tracks, limp and spiritless as rags, and lay still, every man in his own drift of snow; and his soul sped away as though glad to be gone. Brothers, some, and fathers and sons—the one beating the other with frozen hands, and calling to him to rouse and stand up lest he die.
Dawn came. It was just a slow, dirty dusk. And day was no better than dusk. Still they walked blind and tortured in a frosty smother and driving whirlwind of snow. Hands frozen, feet frozen—and the cold creeping in upon the heart! They were numb and worn and sleepy. And there was no rest for them. To pause was to come into living peril—to rest was to sleep; and to sleep was death. Once more, then, when day was full broken, Archie and Billy came on Jonathan Farr and Toby.
The old man was sheathed in snow and frozen spindrift. A hairy old codger he was—icicles of his own frozen breath clinging to his long white beard and icicles hanging from his bushy brows. And he was beating Toby without mercy: for the lad would fall down, worn out, and whimper and squirm; and the old man would jerk and cuff him to his feet, and drive him on with cuffs from behind, stumbling and whimpering and bawling.
It was a sad task that he had, done in pity—thus to cuff the little lad awake and keep him moving; and Billy Topsail fancied that it was waste pain. It seemed to him that the lad must die in the gale, soon or late—no doubt about that, with stout men yielding to death roundabout. Billy thought that it would be better to let him sleep and die and suffer no more.