"Get the jolly-boat over, Mr. Sweers," said the captain, "and take a hand with you, and go and have a look at that craft there; and if you can board her, do so, and bring away her log-book, if you come across it. The newspapers sha'n't say that I fell in with such an object as that and passed on without taking any notice."
I caught Mr. Sweers' eye. "You'll do," said he, and in a few minutes he and I were pulling away in the direction of the ice, I in the bow and he aft, rowing fisherman fashion, face forward. The schooner had backed her yards on the fore when she was within a mile of the berg, and we had not far to row. Our four arms made the fat little jolly-boat buzz over the wrinkled surface of the green, cold water. The wreck—if a wreck she could be called—lay with her decks sloping seawards upon an inclined shelf or beach of ice, with a mass of rugged, abrupt stuff behind her, and vast coagulated lumps heaped like a Stonehenge at her bows and at her stern. When we approached the beach, as I may term it, Salamon Sweers said:
"I'll tell you what: I am not going to board that craft alone, Kerry. Who's to tell what's inside of her? She may have been lying twenty years, for all we know, frozen up where it's always day or always night—where everything's out of the order of nature, in fact; and rat me if I'm going to be the first man to enter her cabin."
"I'm along with you," said I.
"So you are, David," said he, "and we'll overhaul her together, and the best way to secure the boat'll be to drag her high and dry"; and as he said this, the stem of the boat touched the ice, and we both of us jumped out, and, catching hold of her by the gunwale, walked her up the slope by some five times her own length, where she lay as snug as though chocked aboard her own mother, the schooner.
Sweers and I stood, first of all, to take a view of the barque—for a barque she was: her topgallantmasts down, but her topsail and lower yards across, sails bent, all gear rove, and everything right so far as we could see, saving that her flying jib-boom was gone. There was no need to look long at her to know that she hadn't been one of Franklin's ships. Her name and the place she hailed from were on her stern: the President, New Bedford. And now it was easy to see that she was a Yankee whaler. Her sides bristled with cranes or davits for boats, but every boat was gone. The tackles were overhauled, and the blocks of two of them lay upon the ice. She was a stout, massive, round-bowed structure, to all appearances as sound as on the day when she was launched. She was coppered; not a sheet of metal was off, not a rent anywhere visible through the length and breadth of the dingy green surface of it.
We first of all walked round her, not knowing but that on the other side, concealed from the landing-place by the interposition of the hull, some remains of her people might be lying; but there was nothing in that way to see. We united our voices in a loud "Hallo!" and the rocks re-echoed us; but all was still, frozen, lifeless.
"Let's get aboard," said Mr. Sweers, gazing, nevertheless, up at the ship's side with a flat face of reluctance and doubt.
I grasped a boat's fall and went up hand over hand, and Sweers followed me. The angle of the deck was considerable, but owing to the flat bilge of the whaler's bottom, not greater than the inclination of the deck of a ship under a heavy press of canvas. It was possible to walk. We put our legs over the rail and came to a stand, and took a view of the decks of the ship. Nothing, saving the boats, seemed to be missing. Every detail of deck furniture was as complete as though the ship were ready for getting under way, with a full hold, for a final start home. Caboose, scuttle-butts, harness-cask, wheel, binnacle, companion-cover, skylight, winch, pumps, capstan—nothing was wanting; nothing but boats and men.
"Is it possible that all hands can be below?" said Sweers, straining his ear.