“If that’s not the Barentz it’s her ghost!” exclaimed the captain.
“It’s a ship of her size, at all events,” observed the mate; “she looks as if she had spent a long time in the ice.”
The moment I heard this, my heart leapt with joy at the thought that we should find our brother David on board, until I recollected the cairn and the document he had left behind him. Could he, after all, have got on board his ship, or could he have been lost while she had escaped?
As the wind was very light a boat was lowered, and Andrew and I having jumped into her pulled away that we might as soon as possible learn what had happened. We were soon clambering up the stranger’s sides. On her deck stood a gaunt and famished crew. As our eyes ranged over their countenances we in vain sought that of our brother David.
“What ship is this?” was the first question we put.
“The Barentz,” answered her captain, stepping forward.
“Is David Ogilvy on board?” inquired Andrew.
“I regret to say that he is not,” answered the captain, at once quenching all our hopes. “He was on shore, when we were driven off the land and afterwards carried northward, where we were beset in the ice from which we have only just escaped. Had he been with us, the lives of some of our poor people would have been saved, and the health of all preserved.”
On hearing that our ship was the Hardy Norseman, the captain expressed his wish to come on board in our boat, all his own having been lost, or been rendered utterly unserviceable. I need not say that he received a warm welcome, while Captain Hudson promised to supply him and his crew with all the fresh provisions and antiscorbutics he could spare. The captain of the Barentz was much grieved on hearing of our fears of David’s fate. Still, as I looked at his ship, I could scarcely hope, in her battered condition, that she would reach port in safety.