Page:ONCE A WEEK JUL TO DEC 1860.pdf/420

412 and I went down to the floe-piece, and says I to Sands, ‘That’ll break off soon; it can’t stand the wash;’ for it was only about six feet through, quite new ice. So we went round the base of the pyramid, keeping as close in as possible, and holding on every step, for it was sloppy and slippy as possible.

‘Hist!’ says Sands; ‘listen.’

“I listened, and heard something different to the plash of the waves—more splash and splutter-like.

‘Seals,’ says Sands.

“And it was, too—three fine ones; they’d been regularly trapped like us. Their holes were up six or eight feet above them; they’d come through the holes and lay on the edges before the bit broke off the main pack and canted; so they slid down till they stopped where the berg began, in a place like the angle of the letter V. They stared at us, and we stared at them; but we soon gave over that; for we knocked ’em on the head.

“But the job was, what to do with them; so Sands and I went back, and got the boy’s hook; and with the bit of cord I’d got, we got ’em all three on the platform where the boy was.

“It got dark by this time, and we put off skinning them and cutting them up till next day.

“Next day we cut ’em up and skinned ’em.

‘I say, Stevens,’ says the youngster, ‘can’t you make some shoes out of the skin with the hair downwards on the soles; they’d have a better hold on the ice—and you can cut them into strips crossways, like this—see?’ And he scratched on the ice with his knife like this.

“We made them to go over the boot, and soon found we could walk about as easily again. The flesh we put in our ‘ice-chest,’ as Sands called it, for he laughed at everything now the boy was well.

“We made some oil, too, tho’ it was a tedious job, for we’d only got three pannikins; however, we turned one into a lamp with some shreds of the cotton shirt Sands had. Of course we could get a light with our gun-flints and damp powder; and then boiled it down half a pint at a time, and made a hole in the ice to keep it in; for if the water melted, it only went to the bottom of the hole and settled, while the oil floated.

“Five days went on, and the biscuit was all gone; so was the pork. We had nothing but the seal beef, but there was enough of that to last a month.

“That same evening, I says to Sands and the boy, ‘Look here, now; suppose anything passes at night, we can’t see it, and they can’t see us. Suppose we take watch and watch to look out; for there’s no knowing how long this game’s to last.’

‘Won’t last long,’ says Sands, ‘if it keeps this breeze from the south’ard; it’s melting fast day and night, and there’ll be nothing left in a week or two, when we get down into the sun; not much fear of crossing the line in this ship. I’ve left many a ship,’ says he, ‘but I never had a ship leave me like this seems to be going to.’

“He was right enough; the whole thing would melt before we could get off it. It kept rising out of the water more and more; for the air was warmer than the water a good deal, and it melted it fast.

‘Look here, Stevens; suppose anything does see us, they’ll give us as wide a berth as possible; you can’t make ’em hear a mile off, you know.’

‘No,’ said I, ‘but we can make ’em see three miles off.’

“So we set to work, and made three-lamps out of the skulls of the seals, and very good lamps they made too; a bit of old shirt made the wick, and then we had to cut a track to each lamp. We put them as near as we could guess to the four points of the compass, and lighted them next night; it was a pretty sight to see the reflection in the water; the ice being white showed the light beautifully. The oil lasted about six hours in each, for we didn’t have a big wick. The pannikin lamp we kept where we slept, and then had to go round to the others to see them all safe. We kept the wind off with blocks of ice.

“One night, it must have been on the 12th out, the boy was on the look-out, and came to me; ‘Stevens,’ says he, ‘I see a sail I think.’ I didn’t call out, ’cause of waking Sands, he seemed getting dull-like. I started up, and looked where he pointed, and, sure enough, there she was, about half a mile to wind’ard; the wind had shifted a little to the east. I shouted and waked Sands. Poor fellow! he was nearly mad, screaming and shouting frightfully.

‘I tell you what it is, Sands,’ says I. ‘You’re doing yourself no good by this—we must make ’em see us if we’re to do any good. Get some more of that shirt of yours for a bigger wick to this, and then go round to fetch the other lamps.’

“He got a bit of the shirt and we got the lamps together; it must have made ’em see I should have thought, but they didn’t seem to; and after about half an hour they steered away from us.

“You see it was about the last thing to think of that any one should be on an iceberg so far south as we were, and a berg’s a thing to steer clear of if you can.

“It gave us all a queer feeling when we lost sight of her. The boy and Sands cried. I saw it was no use being down-hearted about it, though I’m afraid I cursed the skipper of that vessel pretty much; so I made ’em take the lamps