An Antarctic Mystery (12 page)

"And we shall be of the number, captain."

"Yes—with the help of God! Cook did not hesitate to assert that
no one would ever venture farther than he had gone, and that the
Antarctic lands, if any such existed, would never be seen, but the
future will prove that he was mistaken. They have been seen so far
as the eighty-fourth degree of latitude—"

"And who knows," said I, "perhaps beyond that, by Arthur
Pym."

"Perhaps, Mr. Jeorling. It is true that we have not to trouble
ourselves about Arthur Pym, since he, at least, and Dirk Peters
also, returned to America."

"But—supposing he did not return?"

"I consider that we have not to face that eventuality," replied
Captain Len Guy.

The
Halbrane
, singularly favoured by the weather, sighted the New
South Orkneys group in six days after she had sailed from the
Sandwich Islands. This archipelago was discovered by Palmer, an
American, and Bothwell, an Englishman, jointly, in 1821-22. Crossed
by the sixty-first parallel, it is comprehended between the
forty-fourth and the forty, seventh meridian.

On approaching, we were enabled to observe contorted masses and
steep cliffs on the north side, which became less rugged as they
neared the coast, at whose edge lay enormous ice-floes, heaped
together in formidable confusion; these, before two months should
have expired, would be drifted towards the temperate waters. At that
season the whaling ships would appear to carry on the taking of the
great blowing creatures, while some of their crews would remain on
the islands to capture seals and sea-elephants.

In order to avoid the strait, which was encumbered with islets and
ice-floes, Captain Len Guy first cast anchor at the south-eastern
extremity of Laurie Island, where he passed the day on the 24th;
then, having rounded Cape Dundas, he sailed along the southern coast
of Coronation Island, where the schooner anchored on the 25th. Our
close and careful researches produced no result as regarded the
sailors of the
Jane
.

The islands and islets were peopled by multitudes of birds. Without
taking the penguins into account, those guano-covered rocks were
crowded with white pigeons, a species of which I had already seen
some specimens. These birds have rather short, conical beaks, and
red-rimmed eyelids; they can be knocked over with little difficulty.
As for the vegetable kingdom in the New South Orkneys, it is
represented only by grey lichen and some scanty seaweeds. Mussels
are found in great abundance all along the rocks; of these we
procured an ample supply.

The boatswain and his men did not lose the opportunity of killing
several dozens of penguins with their sticks, not from a ruthless
instinct of destruction, but from the legitimate desire to procure
fresh food.

"Their flesh is just as good as chicken, Mr. Jeorling," said
Hurliguerly. "Did you not eat penguin at the Kerguelens?"

"Yes, boatswain, but it was cooked by Arkins."

"Very well, then; it will be cooked by Endicott here, and you will
not know the difference."

And in fact we in the saloon, like the men in the forecastle, were
regaled with penguin, and acknowledged the merits of our excellent
sea-cook.

The
Halbrane
sailed on the 26th of November, at six o'clock in the
morning, heading south. She reascended the forty-third meridian;
this we were able to ascertain very exactly by a good observation.
This route it was that Weddell and then William Guy had followed,
and, provided the schooner did not deflect either to the east or the
west, she must inevitably come to Tsalal Island. The difficulties of
navigation had to be taken into account, of course.

The wind, continuing to blow steadily from the west, was in our
favour, and if the present speed of the
Halbrane
could be
maintained, as I ventured to suggest to Captain Len Guy, the voyage
from the South Orkneys to the Polar Circle would be a short one.
Beyond, as I knew, we should have to force the gate of the thick
barrier of icebergs, or to discover a breach in that ice-fortress.

"So that, in less than a month, captain—" I suggested,
tentatively.

"In less than a month I hope to have found the iceless sea which
Weddell and Arthur Pym describe so fully, beyond the ice-wall, and
thenceforth we need only sail on under ordinary conditions to Bennet
Island in the first place, and afterwards to Tsalal Island. Once on
that 'wide open sea,' what obstacle could arrest or even retard
our progress?"

"I can foresee none, captain, so soon as we shall get to the back
of the ice-wall. The passage through is the difficult point; it must
be our chief source of anxietys and if only the wind holds—"

"It will hold, Mr. Jeorling. All the navigators of the austral
seas have been able to ascertain, as I myself have done, the
permanence of this wind."

"That is true, and I rejoice in the assurance, captain. Besides, I
acknowledge, without shrinking from the admission, that I am
beginning to be superstitious."

"And why not, Mr. Jeorling? What is there unreasonable in
admitting the intervention of a supernatural power in the most
ordinary circumstances of life? And we, who sail the
Halbrane
,
should we venture to doubt it? Recall to your mind our meeting with
the unfortunate Patterson on our ship's course, the fragment of
ice carried into the waters where we were, and dissolved immediately
afterwards. Were not these facts providential? Nay, I go farther
still, and am sure that, after having done so much to guide us
towards our compatriots, God will not abandon us—"

"I think as you think, captain. No, His intervention is not to be
denied, and I do not believe that chance plays the part assigned to
it by superficial minds upon the stage of human life. All the facts
are united by a mysterious chain."

"A chain, Mr. Jeorling, whose first link, so far as we are
concerned, is Patterson's ice-block, and whose last will be Tsalal
Island. Ah! My brother! my poor brother! Left there for eleven
years, with his companions in misery, without being able to
entertain the hope that succour ever could reach them! And Patterson
carried far away from them, under we know not what conditions, they
not knowing what had become of him! If my heart is sick when I think
of these catastrophes, Mr. Jeorling, at least it will not fail me
unless it be at the moment when my brother throws himself into my
arms."

So then we two were agreed in our trust in Providence. It had been
made plain to us in a manifest fashion that God had entrusted us
with a mission, and we would do all that might be humanly possible
to accomplish it.

The schooner's crew, I ought to mention, were animated by the like
sentiments, and shared the same hopes. I allude to the original
seamen who were so devoted to their captain. As for the new ones,
they were probably indifferent to the result of the enterprise,
provided it should secure the profits promised to them by their
engagement.

At least, I was assured by the boatswain that such was the case, but
with the exception of Hunt. This man had apparently not been induced
to take service by the bribe of high wages or prize money. He was
absolutely silent on that and every other subject.

"If he does not speak to you, boatswain," I said, "neither
does he speak to me."

"Do you know, Mr. Jeorling, what it is my notion that man has
already done?"

"Tell me, Hurliguerly."

"Well, then, I believe he has gone far, far into the southern
seas, let him be as dumb as a fish about it. Why he is dumb is his
own affair. But if that sea-hog of a man has not been inside the
Antarctic Circle and even the ice wall by a good dozen degrees, may
the first sea we ship carry me overboard."

"From what do you judge, boatswain?"

"From his eyes, Mr. Jeorling, from his eyes. No matter at what
moment, let the ship's head be as it may, those eyes of his are
always on the south, open, unwinking, fixed like guns in position."

Hurliguerly did not exaggerate, and I had already remarked this. To
employ an expression of Edgar Poe's, Hunt had eyes like a
falcon's.

"When he is not on the watch," resumed the boatswain, "that
savage leans all the time with his elbows on the side, as motionless
as he is mute. His right place would be at the end of our bow, where
he would do for a figurehead to the
Halbrane
, and a very ugly one at
that! And then, when he is at the helm, Mr. Jeorling, just observe
him! His enormous hands clutch the handles as though they were
fastened to the wheel; he gazes at the binnacle as though the magnet
of the compass were drawing his eyes. I pride myself on being a good
steersman, but as for being the equal of Hunt, I'm not! With him,
not for an instant does the needle vary from the sailing-line,
however rough a lurch she may give. I am sure that if the binnacle
lamp were to go out in the night Hunt would not require to relight
it. The fire in his eyes would light up the dial and keep him
right."

For several days our navigation went on in unbroken monotony,
without a single incident, and under favourable conditions. The
spring season was advancing, and whales began to make their
appearance in large numbers.

In these waters a week would suffice for ships of heavy tonnage to
fill their casks with the precious oil. Thus the new men of the
crew, and especially the Americans, did not conceal their regret for
the captain's indifference in the presence of so many animals
worth their weight in gold, and more abundant than they had ever
seen whales at that period of the year. The leading malcontent was
Hearne, a sealing-master, to whom his companions were ready to
listen. He had found it easy to get the upper hand of the other
sailors by his rough manner and the surly audacity that was
expressed by his whole personality. Hearne was an American, and
forty-five years of age. He was an active, vigorous man, and I could
see him in my mind's eye, standing up on his double bowed
whaling-boat brandishing the harpoon, darting it into the flank of a
whale, and paying out the rope. He must have been fine to see.
Granted his passion for this business, I could not be surprised that
his discontent showed itself upon occasion. In any case, however,
our schooner was not fitted out for fishing, and the implements of
whaling were not on board.

One day, about three o'clock in the afternoon, I had gone forward
to watch the gambols of a "school" of the huge sea mammals.
Hearne was pointing them out to his companions, and muttering in
disjointed phrases,—

"There, look there! That's a fin-back! There's another, and
another; three of them with their dorsal fins five or six feet high.
Just see them swimming between two waves, quietly, making no jumps.
Ah! if I had a harpoon, I bet my head that I could send it into one
of the four yellow spots they have on their bodies. But there's
nothing to be done in this traffic-box; one cannot stretch one's
arms. Devil take it! In these seas it is fishing we ought to be at,
not—"

Then, stopping short, he swore a few oaths, and cried out, "And
that other whale!"

"The one with a hump like a dromedary?" asked a sailor.

"Yes. It is a humpback," replied Hearne. "Do you make out its
wrinkled belly, and also its long dorsal fin? They're not easy to
take, those humpbacks, for they go down into great depths and devour
long reaches of your lines. Truly, we deserve that he should give us
a switch of his tail on our side, since we don't send a harpoon
into his."

"Look out! Look out!" shouted the boatswain. This was not to
warn us that we were in danger of receiving the formidable stroke of
the humpback's tail which the sealing-master had wished us. No, an
enormous blower had come alongside the schooner, and almost on the
instant a spout of ill-smelling water was ejected from its blow-hole
with a noise like a distant roar of artillery. The whole foredeck to
the main hatch was inundated.

"That's well done!" growled Hearne, shrugging his shoulders,
while his companions shook themselves and cursed the humpback.

Besides these two kinds of cetacea we had observed several
right-whales, and these are the most usually met with in the
southern seas. They have no fins, and their blubber is very thick.
The taking of these fat monsters of the deep is not attended with
much danger. The right-whales are vigorously pursued in the southern
seas, where the little shell fish called "whales' food"
abound. The whales subsist entirely upon these small crustaceans.

Presently, one of these right-whales, measuring sixty feet in
length—that is to say, the animal was the equivalent of a hundred
barrels of oil—was seen floating within three cables' lengths of
the schooner.

"Yes! that's a right-whale," exclaimed Hearne. "You might
tell it by its thick, short spout. See, that one on the port side,
like a column of smoke, that's the spout of a right-whale! And all
this is passing before our very noses—a dead loss! Why, it's
like emptying money-bags into the sea not to fill one's barrels
when one can. A nice sort of captain, indeed, to let all this
merchandise be lost, and do such wrong to his crew!"

"Hearne," said an imperious voice, "go up to the maintop. You
will be more at your ease there to reckon the whales."

"But, sir—"

"No reply, or I'll keep you up there until to-morrow. Come—be
off at once."

And as he would have got the worst of an attempt at resistance, the
sealing-master obeyed in silence.

The season must have been abnormally advanced, for although we
continued to see a vast number of testaceans, we did not catch sight
of a single whaling-ship in all this fishing-ground.

I hasten to state that, although we were not to be tempted by
whales, no other fishing was forbidden on board the
Halbrane
, and
our daily bill of fare profited by the boatswain's trawling lines,
to the extreme satisfaction of stomachs weary of salt meat. Our
lines brought us goby, salmon, cod, mackerel, conger, mullet, and
parrot-fish.