The Adventures of Billy Topsail

CHAPTER XXX

In Which Archie Armstrong and Billy Topsail Have an Exciting Encounter with a Big Dog Hood, and, at the Sound of Alarm, Leave the Issue in Doubt, While the Ice Goes Abroad and the Enemy Goes Swimming

HAIR seals, which come out of the north with the ice in the early spring, and drift in great herds past the rugged Newfoundland coast, returning in April, have no close, soft fur next the skin, such as the South Sea and Alaskan seals have. Hence, they are valued only for their blubber, which is ground and steamed into oil, and for their skin, which is turned into leather. They are of two kinds, the harp which is doubtless indigenous to the great inland sea and the waters above, and the hood, which inhabits the harsher regions of the farther north and east. The harp is timid, gentle, gregarious, and takes in packs to the flat, newly frozen, landward pans; the hood is fierce, quarrelsome and solitary, grimly riding the rough glacier ice at the edge of the open sea.

Thus the Dictator lay through the night with hood ice all about the sheltering berg.

"Hi, b'y! Get yarry (wide awake)!" cried the captain, in the morning.

Archie Armstrong was "yarry" on the instant, and he rolled out of his berth in hot haste, not at all sure that it was not time to leave a sinking ship in the boats. The hairy face of the old sealer, a broad, kindly grin upon it, peered at him from the door.

"Morning, skipper!"

"Mornin' t' you, sir. An' a fine mornin' 'tis," said the captain. "Sure a finer I never saw."

"What's become of the gale?"

"The gale's miles t' the sou'east – an' out o' sight o' these latitudes. We're packed in the lee o' the berg, an' fast till the wind changes. There's a family o' hoods, quarter mile t' starboard. Up, now, b'y! an' you'll go after them with a crew after breakfast."

When Archie reached the deck, the air was limpid, frosty and still. There was a blue sky overhead, stretching from horizon to horizon. A waste of ice lay all about – rough, close-packed, glistening in the sun. With the falling away of the wind the floe had lost its headway, and had crept softly in upon the open water. The ship was held in the grip of the pack, and must perforce remain for a time in the shadow of the berg, where shelter from the gale of the night had been sought. Save for the watch of that hour, the men were below, at breakfast. The "great white silence" possessed the sea. For the boy, this silence, vast and heavy, and the immeasurable area of broken ice, with its pent-up, treacherous might, was as awe-impelling as the gale and the night.

"What d'ye think, Mr. Ackell?" said the captain to the mate, when the two came up.

Ackell looked to the northeast. "We'll have wind by noon," he replied.

"'Tis what I think," the captain agreed. "Archie, b'y, you'll have a couple of hours, afore the ice goes abroad. Bowsprit 'll take the crew, an' you'll do what he tells you."

Ebenezer Bowsprit, with half a dozen cronies of his own choosing, led the way over the side, in high good humour. In the group on the deck stood Billy Topsail. He eyed Archie with frank envy as the lad prepared to descend to the ice; for to participate in the first hunt, generally regarded as pure sport, was a thing greatly to be desired. He was perceived by Archie, who was at once taken with a wish for company of his own age.

"Captain," the boy whispered, "let the other kid come along, won't you?"

"Topsail," the captain ordered, "get a gaff, an' cut along with the rest."

In five minutes, the boys had broken the ice of diffidence, and were chatting like sociable magpies, as they crawled, jumped, climbed, over the uneven pack. They were Newfoundlanders both: the same in strength, feeling, spirit, and, indeed, experience. The one was of the remote outports, where children are reared to toil and peril, which, with hunger, is their heritage, and must ever be; the other was of the city, son of the well-to-do, who, following sport for sport's sake, had made the same ventures and become used to the same toil and peril.

"'Tis barb'rous hard walkin'," said Billy.

"Sure," replied the other. "And they're getting away ahead of us."

Ebenezer Bowsprit and his fellows, with the lust of the chase strong upon them, were making great strides towards three black objects some hundred yards away. It was a race; for it is a tradition that he who strikes the first blow of the voyage will have "luck" the season through. The boys were hopelessly behind, and they stopped to look about them. It was then that Billy Topsail spied a patch of open water, to the left, half hidden by the surrounding ice. It was a triangular hole in the floe, formed by three heavy blocks, which had withstood the pressure of the pack.

"Look!" he cried.

A head, small and alert, raised upon a thick, supple neck, appeared. A moment later, a second head popped out of the water. They were hoods. The young one, the pup, must lie near. The boys stood stock still until the seals had clambered to the pack. Then they advanced swiftly. Billy Topsail was armed with a gaff, which is a pole shod with iron at one end and having a hook at the other; and Archie was provided with a sealing club. They came upon the dog hood before he could escape to the water. Perceiving this, and only on this account, he turned, snarling, to give fight.

"I'll take him!" cried Billy.

The hood was as big as an ox – a massive, flabby, vicious beast. He was furiously aroused, and he would now fight to the death, with no thought of retreat. He raised himself on his flippers and reared his head to the length of his long neck, as the boy, stepping cautiously, gaff poised, drew near.

"Get behind him," Billy shouted to Archie.

Billy advanced fearlessly, steadily, never for a moment taking his eyes from the hood's head. Upon that head, from the nose to the back of the neck, the tough, bladder-like "hood" was now inflated. It was a perfect protection; the boy might strike blow after blow without effect. The stroke must be thrust at the throat; and it must be a stroke swiftly, cunningly, strongly delivered. A furious hood, excited past fear, is a match for three men. The odds were against the lad. He had been carried away by his own daring.

But Billy made the thrust, and the seal received the point of the gaff on his hood, as upon a shield: then advanced on his flippers, by jerky jumps, snapping viciously. Archie cried out. But Billy had skipped out of harm's way, and had faced about, laughing. He returned to the attack, undismayed, though the seal reared to meet him, with bared teeth.

"Strike!" screamed Archie.

Teeth and flippers were to be feared, and Billy had drawn nearly within reach of both. He paused, waiting his opportunity. Archie could not contain his excitement.

"Strike!" he cried again.

Billy struck; but the blow had no force, for he slipped, overreached, lost his footing, and fell sprawling, almost within reach of his adversary's teeth. The seal snarled and drew back, startled. Then he advanced upon the boy, who had had no time to recover, much less to scramble out of his desperate situation.

It was for Archie to act. He leaped forward from his position behind the seal, struck the animal with full force upon the tail, and darted out of reach. The hood snorted, and turned in a rage to face his new assailant. Billy leaped to his feet, gaff in hand, and faced about, panting, but ready. He was preparing to attack again, when —

"What's that?" Archie cried in alarm.

It was the boom of the ship's gun, followed by an ominous, hollow crackling, which ran into the distance like a long peal of thunder. The floe seemed to be turning.

"'Tis goin' abroad!" Billy shouted. "Quick, b'y! T' the ship!"

The boys had been out of sight of the ship, hidden by a shoulder of the berg. They had not seen the flag of recall, which had been flying for ten minutes. Again they heard the report of the gun; and they saw Ebenezer Bowsprit and his men making shipwards with all speed. Billy was fully aware of the danger. With another warning cry to Archie, he started off on a run, turning from time to time to make sure that his companion was following.

The ice was nauseatingly unstable, grinding and shifting; but no open water had as yet appeared, though, at any moment, a lane might open up and cut off the retreat. The floe was feeling the force of a wind in the north, and was stirring itself from edge to edge. It would soon be shaken into its separate parts. But with Billy Topsail leading, the boys ran steadily over the heaving foothold, and in good time came to the ship, which the rest of the hunting party had already boarded.

Billy Topsail was laughing.

"I don't feel that way," said Archie, "we were in a good deal of danger."

Billy laughed louder.

"Well, we were, weren't we?" Archie demanded.

"Maybe," said Billy; "but you'll get used t' that!"

They were not a moment too soon, however; for the pack very quickly fell apart – thus opening a way for the escape of the Dictator. And meantime, the gallant old dog hood had followed the retreating figures with his eyes: after which, well satisfied with himself, he slipped into the water and went fishing.

CHAPTER XXXI

The Dictator Charges an Ice Pan and Loses a Main Topmast

"CAST loose!" was the order from the bridge.

The men scrambled to the berg and released the lines and ice-hooks. The pack was still loosening under the rising breeze. To the east, separating the sky from the ice, lay a long black streak – the water of the open sea; a clear way to the broad, white fields. Once free of the floe, the ship would speed northward to the Yellow Islands and Cape William coasts. In a day and a night, the weather continuing propitious, it would be, "Ho! for the ice. Ho! for the seals."

A lane of water opened up. "Go ahead," was the signal from the master on the bridge, and the ship moved forward, with her nose turned to the sea.

"Ha, Mr. Ackell!" exclaimed the captain, rubbing his horny hands. "Looks t' be a fine time, man. We'll make the Yellow Islands at dawn t'-morrow, if all goes well."

When the Dictator had followed the lane to within one hundred yards of free water, the advance was blocked by a great pan of ice, tight jammed in the pack on either side. So fast and vagrantly was the floe shifting its formation that what had been a clear path was now crossed by a mighty barrier. Here was no slob ice to be forged through at full steam, but a solid mass, like a bar of iron, lying across the path.

The ship was taken to the edge of the obstruction, and the captain and mate went forward to the bow to gauge the strength of it. When they came back to the bridge, the former had his teeth set.

"It's stiff work for the old ship," said the mate.

The captain growled as he pulled the signal lever for full speed astern.

"Take half a day to cut a way through," he said. "We'll ram it. Here, b'y," to Archie, "get off the bridge. You're in the way."

Archie joined Billy Topsail on the forward deck. Neither had yet experienced a charge on a pan of ice; but both had listened, open eyed, to the sealing tales of daring that had brought disaster.

"I feel queer," Archie remarked.

"Cap'n Hand," said Billy, as though trying to revive his faith in the old skipper, "he's a clever one. 'Tis all right."

"Make fast below," the captain shouted over the bridge rail.

The word was passed in a lively fashion. Tackle, boats, and all things loose, were lashed in their places, as if for a great gale.

"Stop!" was the next signal. Then: "Full speed ahead!"

The blow had been launched! A moment later, the Dictator was ploughing forward, charging the pan, which she must strike like a battering ram, and shiver to pieces. She was of solid oak, this good ship, and builded for such attacks; steel plates would buckle and spring under such shocks as she had many times triumphantly sustained. The men were silent while they awaited the event. There was not a sound save the hiss of the water at the ship's prows, and the chug-chug of the engines.

Archie caught his breath. His eyes were fixed on the fast vanishing space of water. The thrill of the adventure was manifest in Billy Topsail's sharp, quick breathing, and in his blue eyes, which were as though about to pop out of their sockets.

"Stop!"

The engines abruptly ceased their labour. Only a fathom or two of water lay ahead. The ship was about to strike. There was a long drawn instant of suspense. Then came the blow!

It was a fearful shock. The vessel quivered, crushed her way on for a space, and stopped dead, quivering still. A groan ran over her, from stem to stern, as though she had been racked in every part. The main topmast snapped and fell forward on the rigging with a crash.

A volley of cracks sounded from the ice, like the discharge of a thousand rifles, slowly subsiding. Dead silence fell and continued for a moment. Then the screw churned the water, and the ship backed off, sound, but beaten; for the pan of ice lay, unbroken and unchanged, in its place, with but a jagged bruise, where the blow had been struck.

"Aloft, there, some o' you, an' cut away that spar!" the captain shouted. "Bill, get below, an' see if she's tight. Here, you, Dickson, call the watch t' make sail. Mr. Girth," to the second mate, "take a crew t' the ice. Blast that pan in three places. Lively, now, every man o' you!"

Roaring subordinates, answering "Ay, ay, sirs!" rattling blocks and chains, the fall of hurried feet, cries of warning and encouragement, the engine's gasps: these sounds confounded the confusion, and continued it, while the ship, snorting like a frightened horse, was backed to her first position.

"He'll try it again," Archie gleefully observed to Billy.

The captain was pacing the bridge. Try it again? He was in a fever of impatience to be at it! It was as though the pan of ice were a foe needing only another and a heavier blow to be beaten down.

"Sure," said Billy, after a glance to the bridge, "he'll hit that pan till he smashes it, if it takes till Tibb's Eve!"

"Tibb's Eve?"

"Sure, b'y. Does you not know what that is? 'Tis till the end o' the world."

The ship was again to be launched against the pan. The second mate took the blasting crew to the ice in the quarter boat; and he lost no time about it, as the captain made sure. Up aloft went other hands to cut away the broken spar and loose the canvas. Work was carried on under the spur of the captain's harshened voice; for the captain was in a passion to prove the quality of his ship.

The ice picks were plied as fast as arms could swing them. Soon the mines were laid and fired. And when the dust of ice had fallen, and the noise of the explosion had gone rumbling into the distance, three gaping holes marked the pan at regular intervals from edge to edge.

"She's all tight below, sir," was the carpenter's report.

"Now, Mr. Ackell," said the captain, grimly, "in ten minutes we'll be free o' the ice, or – "

They made all sail. After a quiet word or two of command, forth the ship shot, heeling to the breeze, wind now allied with steam. Her course was laid straight for the jagged bruise in the pan. There was no stopping her now. The ice was cracked and shivered into a thousand pieces. The ship forged on, grinding the cakes to fragments, heaping them up, riding them down. She quivered when she struck, and strained and creaked as she crushed her way forward, but she crept on, invincible, adding inch to inch, foot to foot, until she swept out into the unclogged water.

Then she shook the ice from her screw, and ran grandly into the swelling sea.

"Hurrah!" the stout hearts roared.

"Hem – hem! Mr. Ackell," said the captain, with some emotion, "'tis a great ship!"

It occurred to Archie that night, while he sat munching hard biscuit with the captain before turning in, to ask a few questions about Tim Tuttle. What was the matter with the man? Why did he go about with a sneer or a frown forever on his face? Why was he not like all the rest of the crew? Why did the crew seem to expect him to "do" something? Why did the captain flush and bristle when Tuttle came near?

"Oh," the captain replied, with a laugh, "Tuttle had a fallin' out with me when we was young. I think," he added, gravely, "that he wronged me. But that's neither here nor there. I forgave him. The point is – an' I've often run across the same thing in my life – that he won't forgive me for forgivin' him. That's odd, isn't it? But it's true. An' he's aboard here t' make trouble; an' the men know that that's just what he came for."

"But what did you ship him for, captain, if you knew that?"

The captain paused. "Well," he said, "because I'm only a man, I s'pose. I couldn't help knockin' the chip off his shoulder."

"Do you think he can make trouble?"

"I'd like t' see him try!" the captain burst out, wrathfully.

Tuttle's opportunity occurred the next day.

CHAPTER XXXII

In Which Seals are Sighted and Archie Armstrong has a Narrow Chance in the Crow's-Nest.

AT peep o' dawn the Dictator made the Groais Island sealing grounds. The day broke late and dull. The sky was a dead gray, hanging heavily over a dark, fretful sea; and there was a threat of wind and snow in the air.

"Ice, sir!" said the mate, poking his head into the captain's cabin, his ceremony lost in his elation.

"Take her 'longside," cried the captain, jumping out of his berth. "What's it like?"

"Looks like a big field o' seal ice, sir."

"Hear that, b'y?" the captain shouted to Archie, who was sitting up in his berth, still rubbing his eyes. "A field o' ice! There'll be a hunt t'-day. Mr. Ackell, tell the cook t' send the breakfast up here. What's the weather?"

"Promisin' thick, sir."

When the captain and the boy went on deck, the ice was in plain sight – many vast fields, rising over the horizon continually, so that there seemed to be no end to it. From the crow's-nest it had been reported to the mate, who reported to the captain, that the spars of a three-masted ship were visible, and that the vessel was apparently lying near the ice. That was considered bad news – and worse news yet, when it was reported from the crow's-nest that she was flying the house-flag of Alexander Bryan & Company, the only considerable rival of the firm of Armstrong and Son.

"Oh, well," said the captain, making the best of it in a generous way, "there'll be 25,000 seals in that pack, an' out o' that we ought t' bag enough t' pay both of us for the day's work."

Archie caught sight of Billy Topsail, who was standing on the forward deck, gazing wistfully at him; so he went forward, and the two found much to say to each other, while the ship made for the ice under full steam. They fought the fight with the dog hood over again; and when Billy had acknowledged a debt to Archie's quick thought, and Archie had repudiated it with some heat, they agreed that the old seal had been a mighty fellow, and a game one, deserving his escape from continued attack. Then they abandoned the subject.

"Pretty hard work on the ice," Archie observed, sagely.

"Sure!" Billy exclaimed; for that had been clear to him all his life. "'Tis fearful dangerous, too. When my father was young, he was to the ice in a schooner, an' they got caught with the fleet in raftin' ice7 offshore, up Englee way. He saw six schooners nipped; an' they were all crushed like an egg, an' went down when the ice went abroad. His was the only one o' all the fleet that stood the crush."

"Think you'll share with the crew, Billy?"

"I want to," Billy said with a laugh. Then, soberly: "I want to, for I want t' get a skiff for lobster-fishin' in New Bay. They's lots o' lobsters there, an' they's no one trappin' down that way. 'Tis a great chance," with a sigh.

The captain beckoned Archie to the upper deck. "Tell me, now," he said, when the boy reached his side, "can you go aloft?"

"Yes," Archie answered, laughing scornfully. "I'm no landsman!"

"True word, if you're son of your father! Then get up with the bar'l man, an' take a trick at swatchin'. 'Tis cold work, but great sport."

"Swatching" is merely the convenient form for "seal watching." It appeared to Archie that to swatch with the barrel man must be a highly diverting occupation. He was not slow to mount the rope ladder to the masthead, and slip into the cask with the swatcher, who chanced to be Bill o' Burnt Bay and vociferously made him welcome.

"See anything yet?" asked the boy.

"I'll show you them swiles (seals) in a minute or two," Bill replied confidently.

Archie was closely muffled in wool and fur; but the wind, which was bitter and blowing hard, searched out the unprotected places, and in five minutes he was crouching in the cask for shelter, only too glad to find an excuse in the swatcher's advice.

"H-h-h-how l-l-long you been h-h-here?" he chattered.

"Sure, b'y," said Bill, with no suspicion of a shiver in his voice, "'tis goin' on two hours, now."