CHAPTER XXI.

CAPE FAREWELL.

For three days our course was encumbered by masses of broken ice, which seemed to crowd upon and follow us; thus the brig was constantly being put about or thrown in the wind, backing and filling to avoid the large floes and calves, as those treacherous pieces of sunken or detached ice which suddenly rush to the surface are named. To avoid the lesser floes, we had often to carry a warp to a large one, and track along its side. The cheerful voice of Hartly might always be heard encouraging the faint and weary on these occasions.

"Now, my lads—tally on! bowse away upon the guess-warp!"

"Hurrah!" the men would answer, as they pulled together vigorously.

"Once more we are afloat, Jack," said he to me, on the third morning. "I began to fear we should berth all our ship's company in the ice that lay on the starboard bow; but now we may sit cosily in the cabin, as of yore, and learn how her head lies by the tell-tale compass that swings in the skylight."

Again at sea, our sick recovered as if by a miracle; but still many antidotes against scurvy were requisite before we could haul up for the long voyage that lay between us and St. John. I caught a few fish, and they formed a delicious change for Cuffy's fricasees of odious blubber, served up half cold in a greasy mess-kid.

Once more there was a reckoning to keep. For a few cloudy days we had merely kept a dead one, by log and compass; but on making a solar observation, Hartly and Reeves found that they were many hundred miles eastward of where they expected to be; and this was a circumstance over which they had no control.

It is well-known that a current which comes down Davis' Straits eddies round the east coast of Greenland. By this we had been borne towards its western shore with great rapidity.

In 1818, the Anne, of Poole, when beset by an ice-field, was thus drifted at the rate of two hundred and twenty miles per day!

Early on the morning of the fourth day, the sea was pretty clear of floes; but a dense and dusky fog-bank came down like a curtain, and seemed to float upon the water, about twenty miles from us. We had suffered considerably in our besetting, and by concussions among the floes; so, as the morning was calm and sunny, Hartly had all hands at work, tarring, painting, and repairing our various damages. A spare jib-boom was shipped, and it was soon taut with its heel-rope and jib-guys; our rudder was finally repaired, and two new staysails were being bent, when there was a cry of "land" from aloft.

"Land in sight!" shouted Hans Peterkin, who was out on the arm of the fore-topgallant yard, repairing something.

"Lad!—where?" asked Hartly, snatching his telescope from the companion.

"On the lee quarter, sir."

"You must have deuced good eyes, Hans," said the captain, sweeping along the fog-bank with his glass; "for nothing like land can I see!"

"The bank is rising, sir," replied the Orcadian, as he sat jauntily astride his lofty perch, and pointed to the east. "I see either an island or headland."

Even while he spoke, the dense mountain of vapour, behind which the morning sun was shining, rose slowly from the surface of the sea, and with the naked eye we could see, at the far horizon, a low dark streak, that ended in a bluff or promontory Hartly sharply closed his telescope.

"Luff, Paul—keep your luff," said he; "lie closer to the wind, while I prick off our place on the chart." He hurried below; but soon returned, saying, "That is either Cape Farewell, or I am bewitched."

"Off the coast of Greenland?" said I.

"No, on the coast of Greenland," he replied, laughing. "And now, as the ice and current have driven us so near it in spite of our teeth, we may as well stand in for the shore, and get some fresh provisions, before bearing up for Newfoundland."

A careful examination of the chart proved that we had drifted, or been driven (in our endeavours to avoid the floes) to latitude 59° 48' North, and were in longitude 43° 54' West of Greenwich, consequently, the land we saw was undoubtedly Cape Farewell, a lofty promontory which forms the most southern extremity of Greenland.

With considerable satisfaction we stood in towards the shore, in the hope of obtaining supplies from some of the Moravian settlements.

About four hours after, some of the natives who were fishing came about us in their strange boats, which are made of whalebone covered with seal-skin, and shaped like a weaver's shuttle, so that they may be rowed any way.

By sunset we were close upon the land, and came to anchor several miles north of the cape in a little cove of Nennortalik, or the Isle of Bears, where, as Reeves said jestingly, we had no groundage to pay for letting go our cable; and there the wondering population of the little Moravian colony received us with acclamation. The canvas was handed and most of the crew were allowed to go on shore, with instructions to return with as much scurvy-grass as they could collect; for with this herb, like Baffin, the voyager of old, Hartly proposed to brew scurvy-beer for his patients.

CHAPTER XXII.

THE MUSK-OX.

Rejoicing that we trod on firm land once more, Paul Reeves, Hans Peterkin, and I set off to shoot on the great Island of Sermesoak, which is divided from the mainland of Greenland by the Fin Whale Strait, while Hartly arranged with the Danish resident at the village for such supplies of fresh food as a place so poor could afford.

Leaving the Isle of Bears, we ran our boat into a creek called Cunninghame's Haven, from John Cunninghame, a Scotsman, who was Admiral of Denmark, and who, on his return from Davis' Straits, in 1605, appeared off Greenland with three ships, and carried away some of the natives, whom he presented to Christian IV., together with a chain weighing twenty-six ounces, formed of fine silver, found by him among the rocks at a place still named Cunninghame's Fiord.

With all our anxiety to add to the fresh provisions on board, we were not without a desire to encounter some of the bears with which one always associates the name of Greenland; and ere twenty-four hours elapsed, I was certainly gratified to the fullest extent in that way.

The people of Sermesoak were then in consternation, owing to the depredations of a fierce herd of Bruins which had crossed the strait from the mainland, and devoured many of their children, dogs, and reindeer.

These bears are as revengeful and subtle as they are savage. "Some years ago," says a traveller, "the crew of a boat belonging to a ship in the whale-fishery shot at a bear and wounded it. The animal immediately uttered the most dreadful howl, and ran along the ice towards the boat. Before he reached it a second shot hit him; this, however, served but to increase his fury. He presently swam to the boat, and in attempting to get on board, placed one of his fore-feet on the gunnel; but a sailor, having a hatchet in his hand, cut it off. The animal still continued to swim after them, till they arrived at the ship; several shots were fired at him which took effect, but on reaching the ship he ascended to the deck; and the crew having fled into the shrouds, he was actually pursuing them thither when a shot laid him lifeless on the deck."

Allured by the odour of the seal oil, they had surrounded and broken into the dwellings of the natives in herds, and devoured them in their beds; and numerous stories of these terrible raids were told to Hans (who knew something of the language) by the people of Sermesoak, as we set out on our expedition.

We shot several white hares, and consigned them to a large canvas bag which Hans had slung over his shoulder. In our sporting ardour we penetrated several miles into the country, and in making a détour to beat up for nobler game, I lost my companions among the furze-covered rocks of a ravine. Dusk was coming on, and, wearied with halloing, I sat down to look around me. I was quite alone and in a strange place, but more safe and comfortable in every way than when I was alone on the ice-floe. Though in a foreign and barbarous country, this reflection set my mind completely at ease.

A wild and dreary scene lay around me.

Mountains piled on mountains of stern rock rose on every side, covered with snow unmarked by footstep, track, or road. No trees were growing there and no verdure was visible, save some patches of short grass and moss where the wind had torn the snow from the rocky surface. It seemed as if the icy breath of the Northern Sea, when it swept through the Fin Whale Strait, destroyed all vegetable nature; and as for the flowers of spring, one might as well have looked for them on an iceberg.

Why that country was named the Greenland, Heaven only knows!

In 1610, Jonas Pool, a whaling captain, called it King James' Newland, from James VI. of Scotland; but that name was soon forgotten.

Above me impended a bluff of sullen aspect, the rifts of which formed the eyrie of myriads of white sea-gulls and birds like the great Solan goose of the Scottish isles; and these were whirring, screaming, and booming on their broad pinions, as they came home from the shore.

As the shadows deepened, even these sounds ceased, and nothing met the ear but the croak of a lonely raven which sat on a granite boulder.

Far away in distance, down below me, stretched the headlands which jutted into the deep blue waters of the Whale Strait—starting up in fantastic pinnacles and precipitous ridges, like the towers and turrets of crumbling castles. These walls of rock were black and sombre, though their summits were crowned by eternal snow.

From the mountains the sleet and melting snows of ages have long since washed away every grain of earth; hence, no verdure can spring there, and their rugged fronts present the most harsh and singular outlines. The higher ridges are rendered inaccessible by glaciers; and when the snows melt from their gloomy lichened fronts, long and silvery runnels, that seem like threads in the distance, trickle down the precipices; then winter comes again, converting these runnels into ice, which splits and rends the hardest rock to fragments, that roll with the sound of thunder down the steep glaciers into the valleys below.

Leaning on my gun, I was surveying this wild and dreary scene, and careless alike of the cold and the coming night, was lost in reverie, when a sound aroused me, and on looking up, I saw close by an animal of strange form, such as I had never seen before, even in a menagerie.

It was larger than a pony, but had singularly short limbs, which were almost entirely concealed by the long dark hair that covered all its body, and reached nearly to the ground. It had a short tail, and large crooked horns of powerful aspect, with a mass of hair like a horse's mane hanging beard-wise under its throat.

A very strange sensation comes over one on beholding an unknown animal for the first time, and on this musk-ox—for such it was—approaching, with its large projecting eyes glaring, and while shaking those formidable horns, by which it can encounter and slay the bear and walrus, astonishment soon gave place to alarm, and I regretted more than ever the absence of my two comrades.

The ox was only a pistol-shot distant, so, with my heart beating quickly—as I knew not what the sequel might be—I levelled my gun, and fired full at its head. The animal uttered a bellowing roar, bounded furiously forward, and fell motionless on its side.

The ball had pierced its brain.

With a thousand echoes, the report of my gun rang among the hills of rock, peak after peak seeming to catch the sound and toss it from one to the other, until it died away on the wind that blew through the Fin Whale Strait.

I was not without hope that the sound might reach Reeves and Hans Peterkin, and guide them towards me; but I hoped in vain.

The ox I had slain was one of the largest of the Musk species, and might have weighed, perhaps, seven hundredweight. It would, I knew, prove a most acceptable addition to our scanty stores on board the Leda; moreover, I was not a little vain of having slain, by a single ball, an animal so large and so little known by Europeans; but how to get it conveyed to the brig, or how to guide any of our crew to the spot where it lay, were puzzling queries.

I observed that at the distance of a hundred yards from it, there rose a steep and rugged rock, cleft into three singular peaks, so lofty as to be visible from a great distance. Conceiving this to be a sufficient landmark, I reloaded my gun, and resolved, if possible, to discover Cunninghame's Haven, where our boat lay. Without a track, a road, or native to guide me, I toiled over the steep and rugged mountains, and through ravines and hollows half filled with drifted snow, steering my way by the stars in that direction which I conceived might lead me to our boat.

To enhance the wildness and gloomy grandeur of the scenery, there now came a wondrous and fan-shaped light over all the clear cold blue of the northern sky—a glorious Aurora Borealis. This light, sent by Heaven to cheer the lone denizens of that frozen wilderness, spread a rich and wavering glow over all the northern firmament, playing in streaks or lines that alternately faded away, and resumed their dazzling brilliance. These alternations fill with awe the simple Greenlander, who calls them the Merry Dancers, and who deems,

"By the streamers that shoot so bright,
The spirits are riding the Northern light."

At times, the whole sky seemed a blaze of diamond-like light, tinged with rainbow hues, and in front of these, the stern rocks, crags, and mountains stood forth in sharp black outline. Ever and anon, an electrical meteor shot athwart the sky, leaving, as these falling stars always do, a train of momentary light.

Frequently the long streamers played across this luminous white radiance as if a mighty fan were being opened and shut, or like the spokes of some revolving wheel whose axle was at the Pole. Then a burst of glory would open in the zenith, and for a moment every feature in the desolate landscape and the far-stretching vista of the Whale Strait between its walls of rocks would be distinctly visible.

Alone in that sterile solitude, I gazed upon the Aurora with emotions of mingled awe and wonder, turning again and again to the north, as I stumbled over rocks and frozen snow piles in my efforts to discover a path that led to Cunninghame's Haven; so the result was this—that after more than an hour of toil, I found that I had been proceeding in a circle, and came back to the place from whence I had set out, the bluff with the three pinnacles, at the foot of which my musk-ox was lying; but there a very singular scene presented itself, for my property had already been converted into a banquet by two denizens of the wilderness.

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE FOUR BEARS.

On first approaching, I imagined that a heap of snow had fallen from the upper rocks on the dead ox, and advanced so close that I was only twenty paces from it before discovering in my supposed snow-heap two enormous white bears who were rending the body asunder with their giant claws as one might rend a chicken, and were devouring it with all the gusto of an appetite whetted by the frosty air.

To add to my dismay at this unexpected rencontre, I perceived close by, some portions of a human body, half-devoured—red, raw, and appalling!

A horror came over me, suggesting that this victim might be either Paul Reeves or Hans Peterkin; and it was not until some time after, that I was assured, by fragments of the dress which remained, that the unfortunate was a Greenlander, whom they had crushed to death and dragged away. Pausing in their banquet, these savage brutes, which were of enormous size, uttered a hoarse growl, and while their black nostrils seemed to snuff the breeze, their deep-set eyes surveyed me ominously.

My gun had but a single barrel, thus if I killed one bear I might fall a prey to the other before there was time to reload; and if my first shot missed, my fate would be sealed by both, as they were certain to crush and devour me between them!

Turning, I fairly fled up the rocks towards the three pinnacles, pursued by the bears, whose progress was slow, as they were evidently gorged by their double repast on the dead man and the musk-ox.

Twice I stumbled in my flight, and fell heavily on my hands and face. My breath came thickly and fast, and my long seal-skin boots and overalls, which were strapped up to a waistbelt, greatly incommoded me; but love of life and dread of a horrible death are sharp incentives to exertion and activity; thus I struggled to gain a cleft in the rocks, from whence I might turn and shoot down these unwieldy monsters at vantage and at leisure, while they trotted laboriously after me, uttering a succession of deep and menacing growls.

I had left them nearly fifty yards behind, while clambering up the slope, terrified every instant lest by slipping on the ice-covered rocks I might roll down under their very paws. Already I was within twenty feet of the cleft, beyond which the dazzling gleam of the Aurora played, when a hoarser growl saluted my ears; and there—there—above me in the cleft—in the very haven I was toiling to reach, appeared a huge brown bear, squatted on his hams, licking his great red lips, and quietly waiting my approach!

Bewildered by this new enemy, taken in front and rear, for a moment I remained irresolute, with my rifle cocked, but not knowing which to shoot before I met the rest with my weapon clubbed; and now to add still more to my dismay and peril, a fourth bear appeared, advancing from another point!

The monster in the cleft above me, now began to utter hoarse and savage roars, in anticipation of my destruction, which seemed certain; for those northern bears are so cruel and rapacious, that the female secludes her cubs (of which she never has more than two at a litter) from the male, lest he should devour them during the first month of their blindness. I leave the reader to judge of my emotion on finding my single self opposed to four such antagonists; for the white Greenland bears are double the size of those melancholy looking brown brutes whom one may see dancing in the streets at home, being generally about twelve feet long.

I was blindly desperate, yet my heart did not entirely fail; and I felt forcibly "how an influence beyond our control lays its strong hand on every deed we do, and weaves its iron tissue of necessity."

Clambering up the flinty face of the rocks to elude the three, finding footing where, under circumstances less exciting, I might have found none, I ascended resolutely towards the bear which stood in the cleft snuffing the air, roaring, and showing his glistening teeth. Already his hot and fetid breath began to taint the air about me. I was within six feet of him, when, taking an aim there was no doubt would be true, I fired, and the conical ball pierced deeply into his vast chest.

Maddened by pain, Bruin made a wild bound at me, but missed his mark, as I crouched low; so he rolled, dead I suppose, to the bottom of the rocks, in his progress tumbling over one of those which were in pursuit of me. Springing into the cleft he had so lately occupied, I hastened to reload, and defend my position, for only one brute at a time could assail me, unless there were, as I feared, others among the rocks in my rear.

Now what were my emotions on discovering that in my exertions, while struggling up the rocks, the strap of my shot-belt had given way, and that I had lost it, with all my ammunition!

A wild perplexity filled my heart, and a cold perspiration burst over my temples; but at that moment of desperation a happy thought occurred to me.

Remembering that I had a long clasp-knife, which opened and shut with a spring, I applied it in bayonet-fashion to my rifle, and with my handkerchief lashed it hard and fast to the muzzle and ramrod head. This was barely accomplished, when one of the bears had its fore-paws on the edge of the rock whereon I stood, and by the light of the stars I could see his fierce red eyes, his long white teeth, and enormous claws, while burying my impromptu bayonet thrice in his great broad breast, and then the blood flowed darkly over his pure white coat. The wounds were not deep enough to kill him at once, so uttering roar after roar, the infuriated bear scraped away with his hind feet, making vigorous but ineffectual efforts to reach me, till by a furious kick I drove one of his paws off the ledge of rock. The other relaxed immediately, and then Bruin rolled like a great featherbed to the bottom, about thirty feet below, where he moved no more.

But in a moment a second bear took his place. Emotion almost exhausted me; but in my confusion when charging him, fortunately my knife was thrust into his right eye. He uttered a hideous cry, between a bellow of rage and a moan of agony, and fell down the rocks—also dead!

The weapon had evidently penetrated to the brain, and killed him.

A wild and joyous glow now filled my heart. It was a triumphant emotion, a lust for destruction and revenge, after the terror I had endured; and I believe that had a whole army of bears appeared, I should, without fear, have encountered them—one by one.

Uttering a "hurrah" just as the fourth bear arrived at my feet, I was about to charge him as I had done the others when—oh, terror!—the knotting of my handkerchief gave way, and the knife dropped from the muzzle of my gun, and fell to the bottom of the rocks.

Clubbing the weapon, I rained a torrent of blows upon the great head of this new assailant, which seemed the largest and most ferocious of them all, as he probably had neither partaken of the poor Greenlander or of that most unlucky musk-ox, the slaying of which had no doubt brought me into this perilous predicament; but my blows fell on his fur-covered skull as harmlessly as they would have fallen on a bale of cotton.

Furiously I struck with butt and barrel at his broad black nose and great round paws, the deadly claws of which grasped the rock with the tenacity of iron hooks. Bruin uttered neither roar nor other sound, but concentrating all his energies, drew up his hams, made a vigorous spring, and in a moment I was dashed to the ground—his hot and horrible breath was in my nostrils and on my face, while his weight pressed me down as he prepared to hug or crush me to death. But now a gun-shot rang between the rocks of the deep chasm, and I found myself suddenly freed. Pierced through the heart by a single well-aimed ball, the bear rolled over me dead, a quivering mass of flesh and fur!

So severely was I stunned by the shock of Bruin's attack, and so confused by the whole combat, that some minutes elapsed before I had sufficient strength or breath to thank my preserver, to whom I might as well have spoken in Greek or Choctaw, as he proved to be a poor Greenlander who had never heard a word of English before.

CHAPTER XXIV.

WOLMAR FYNBÖE.

After various efforts to make ourselves mutually understood, he said something in a kind of jargon which resembled German, and as I had learned that language at home for commercial rather than literary purposes, we contrived to converse, though not with great fluency, using grimaces and signs when words failed us, which was a circumstance of frequent occurrence.

He informed me that he had been searching for a friend who came forth to hunt for a musk-ox, which had been seen in their district, and who he feared had fallen a victim to its horns or the bear's paws.

"I shot the musk-ox," said I; "and as for your friend, I fear your surmises are only too correct, for the half-devoured remains of a dead man are lying at the foot of these rocks just now."

He hurried to the base of the precipice, where I was too exhausted to follow him, and by the sounds of rage and lamentation which preceded his return, I was assured that his friend or kinsman had been the victim of these rapacious brutes. This comforted me, however, with the conviction that the remains were neither those of Paul Reeves nor old Peterkin, our second mate.

But, meantime, where were they?

The Greenlander rejoined me, with my shot-belt and gory knife, which he found among the rocks. He thanked me for so amply avenging his friend's death on his destroyers, and proceeded at once to calculate the value of the four skins and eight hams of the bears. He invited me to his house, which he said was not far off, adding that his name was Wolmar Fynböe; that he was a merchant who exported to Europe seal-skins, the horns of the sea-unicorn, whalebone, and blubber; bartering these, and the skins of blue and white foxes, hares, and bears, for knives and guns, shot, tobacco, barley, beer and brandy, &c.; that he had once been as far as Kiobenhaven,[*] but did not like the manners of the kablunaet (foreigners), who were but half men when compared to the Greenlanders; for national vanity is a great characteristic of these poor people, as it is of many others even less civilized.

[*] Copenhagen.

Like the Lapps, he wore a long pelisse of untanned reindeer skin, having a hood like a friar's cowl attached thereto, and buttons of walrus teeth. His hose, boots, and breeches, which were all in one, were of the same material, but decorated at the sides by bunches of thongs and tufts of white bearskin. Thus, but for his fair complexion, he might have passed very well for an Esquimau of the Labrador coast.

I gladly committed myself to his guidance.

We soon reached his house, a dwelling of singular aspect, built on the slope of a snow-covered hill which overlooked the Fin Whale Strait, on the waters of which the rays of the northern Aurora were still playing with wondrous beauty; and from thence he dispatched some of his men to bring home the remains of his friend, the dead bears, and the head of the musk-ox.

We were received at the door by an old servant, a woman of fearful aspect, also dressed in skins; but these were adorned by stripes of red and blue leather to indicate her sex. She was aged, and being of "the old school"—for there is one there, even in Greenland—she was tattooed as completely as if she had been a denizen of Nootka Sound. Aloft in her hand, which resembled a crow's talons, she held a lamp to light us into an inner apartment, where Wolmar Fynböe introduced me to his daughters, two girls dressed in skins; but these were neatly adorned with variously-coloured leather, especially about the moccassins which encased their trim legs. Their dresses were cut low at the neck, either to reveal its whiteness (for females have vanity even in that region of ice), or to display their under garments, which were formed of the skins of little birds, ingeniously preserved, sewn together, and worn with the soft feathers next the skin.

Wolmar Fynböe was the tallest man in Greenland, yet he measured only five feet; and though deemed handsome, he had all the peculiarities of his race—to wit, a paunchy figure, a broad flat visage, of a brown brick-dust colour; small eyes, thick lips, and coal-black locks, that waved upon his shoulders like those of a gnome. Nevertheless, his daughters Grethe and Alfa had rather regular features, clear complexions, and long brown hair, their mother having been a woman of Iceland.

They were preparing a supper of grod (Danish), a species of food made of oats or barley, and eaten with butter and milk, when their father's entrance with a stranger—a being more seldom seen than mermaids and gnomes, by common report—startled them so much, that some time elapsed before they could resume their occupation, and swing upon the fire the great pot-stone kettle containing the aforesaid grod with my assistance—in proffering which I won the hearts of all, politeness to females being rather a rarity on the shore of the Fin Whale Strait.

The large fire burned brightly and cheerily, being composed of drift-wood; for upon that barren coast, in addition to the stranded wrecks of Scottish and Russian whalers, are found at times the spoil of the Great Gulf Stream, the palmettoes of South America, and, covered with weeds and barnacles, the vast logs that whilome cast the shadows of their foliage on the lovely Bay of Honduras. By this strange current the spoils of Virginia and Carolina are also cast on the shores of Iceland, and by it the main-mast of H.M.S. Tilbury, which was burned in Jamaica, was thrown upon the western coast of Scotland.

After having fed so long upon the spoils of the ice—the odds and ends of seals and blubber—I made a veritable banquet with the worthy merchant and his two daughters. Then we had the luxury of hot brandy-and-water thereafter—the Ganymede who served us being, ugh! the old tattooed woman.

I have mentioned that the mansion of Weimar Fynböe presented a curious aspect, but this arose from the circumstance of its being (as he informed me) built from the remains of an old whale-ship of large dimensions, which had been cast away in the Fin Whale Strait about one hundred and fifty years ago. Her ribs and timbers formed the roof and uprights of the walls; on these the outer and inner sheathing were bolted or pegged anew, and filled-in between with moss and turf. The lockers in which her cabin stores had been placed were our seats, the beds were her berths; the room of the fur-clad Grethe and Alfa was merely separated from ours by an old bulkhead, in the centre of which a cabin door was hinged. The four stern-windows were framed into the wall, a luxury, a piece of splendour, in Greenland, where the casements are usually formed of the entrails of seals and dolphins dried, and neatly stitched together. Some faded charts were nailed on the wall as pictures. An old musket or two, and a pinchbeck watch, were nearly all that now remained of the spoil found in the ship, which had been deserted by her crew; but from none of these relics could her name or country be discerned, though I supposed her to have been English from the circumstance of a Bible and little book in that language having been found in her by the grandfather of Wolmar Fynböe, who built his house from her materials.

The "little book" Wolmar showed me. It was a curious black-letter pamphlet, printed at London in the time of Charles II., and in Dutch types. I took a particular fancy for it, as it contained the relation of a perilous voyage performed by a ship which belonged to the Seven United Provinces.

Wolmar Fynböe offered to barter it for the horns of the musk-ox; but I assured him that he was welcome alike to the entire head, the bears' skins, and hams to boot. To this he agreed at once, conceiving, probably, that one who parted so readily with spoil did not deserve to possess any; so I retired with my literary acquisition (the contents of which I shall give to the reader elsewhere), begging Wolmar Fynböe to have me summoned betimes in the morning, as I was most anxious to reach Cunninghame's Haven, and rejoin my friends on board the Leda.

CHAPTER XXV.

ADIEU TO THE REGION OF ICE.

Next morning I was up early, my bed not being exactly so luxurious as I could have wished; and there was about everything that overpowering odour of blubber which pervades a Greenland household. For breakfast, Grethe brought in a gaily-painted Muscovite bowl, full of warm milk, and a hot barley-cake, made by Alfa. Her father soon after brought my gun, cleaned and oiled; and then bidding adieu in rather symbolical language to his daughters, we set forth into the clear, cold atmosphere of the young May morning—for we were now in what is deemed in kindlier climes the second month of summer—but as yet no sun was visible.

Far away in distance stretched the Fin Whale Strait, towards Kalla Fiord, which opens into the Icy Sea; its broken scenery, its splintered crags, its lofty bluffs and pinnacles, exhibiting the most singular combinations of light and shadow in the yellow blaze of the yet unrisen sun. The summits seemed tipped with fire, while the bases which rose sheer from the still, deep waters of the waveless strait were dark and sombre as ebony.

Waveless it truly was, save where broken by the knoblike head of a blackfin-whale, as he swam against the wind, and blew clouds of water into the air.

As we proceeded, I could perceive that Wolmar Fynböe, though merry and good-humoured, like all Greenlanders was deeply imbued with superstitions dark and gloomy as those of the Scandinavian Edda. Leaning on his hunting-spear, he pointed to a rock in the strait, saying that his mother's sister Alfa (from whom he named his youngest daughter) was wont to see a handsome young merman seated thereon, every time she came to the beach to gather shell-fish or dry nets.

"A merman!" I reiterated, believing that I had not heard him correctly.

"A merman," continued Fynböe, emphatically. "His curling beard was green, and his features, like those of the Innuit (Greenlanders), were as soft and pleasing as his manner was mild and persuasive. He took her by the hand, and after their fourth meeting led her under the sea, where she lived with him at the bottom of the Fin Whale Strait for a great many years, and never grew less beautiful, though she frequently pined for the dwelling of her mother, whom at times she could behold from the windows of her watery home, every summer when the ice-floes floated out to sea, and the young whales came to play about the headlands in the sunny waves.

"One summer came, but the old woman appeared no more on the slope of the hill; and then Alfa knew that her sorrowing mother had gone to the Island of the Dead.

"Alfa dwelt with the merman, till one night as he was sporting about in the moonbeams amid the waters of the strait, Grön Jette, the wild huntsman, who once in every year comes over the sea at midnight out of Denmark, slew him by a blow of his lance, as he sped with his yelling hounds and fierce black horses over land and ocean towards the north, where the bright streamers were dancing.

"The spell was thus broken; and the young girl found herself turned suddenly into an old woman, seated on the same rock where, twenty years before, the merman had wooed and won her; but now seven well-grown children with fish-tails, and hair that was half green like her husband's and half golden like her own, were swimming about in the flood before her, weeping for her return. So, to rejoin them, she plunged in and was drowned—for the spell of the merman's presence was no longer around her. Next day I found her body floating in the strait, and by a string of crystals round her neck, knew her to be the sister my mother had lost twenty years before. We bore her to the Island of the Dead; and as we use no coffins, like the red-haired Danes, we heaped up stones to hide her from view; but a bear swam off from Sermesoak, tore our gathered heap asunder, and devoured her!"

Wolmar Fynböe rehearsed this strange story with the utmost good faith; for he was simple enough to believe that Torngarsück, the God of Greenland—a spirit which, though no larger than one's thumb, at times assumes the form of a gigantic white bear—dwelt at the bottom of the Whale Strait, with his wife the Demon of Evil, guarded by droves of narwhals and ferocious seals, and surrounded by vast lamps filled with train-oil, in which the sea-birds swam by night.

With many a strange story of witches, and conflicts with whales, walruses, and with devils that sailed through the air and changed themselves into snowdrifts to overwhelm belated hunters, he beguiled the way, until we reached Cunninghame's Haven, where I found Paul Reeves and Hans Peterkin awaiting me in considerable anxiety, and irresolute whether to put off for the Bear Isle and report to Hartly that I had been lost, or to return once more in search of me.

I now gave the honest Greenlander two crown pieces, as neck amulets for each of his daughters (among whose descendants they may become heirlooms for ages), and bidding him farewell, we stepped into our boat, which was well stocked with game—a large white bear, a pile of hares, and several brace of birds shot by the two mates. Then we shoved off to join the Leda, and Wolmar Fynböe, ever and anon pausing to look after us, slowly ascended the cliffs, assisted by his harpoon-shaped hunting spear, and at last disappeared on the path to his half-barbarous and wholly secluded home.

In two hours after, we reached the Leda, which had her courses loose, a signal for sea. Our quota of provisions proved a very acceptable addition to those obtained by Hartly from the Danish resident.

"Bravo, Jack!" said he, as we hoisted the bear on board, "our victualling department is complete now, and if this wind holds we shall weigh an hour before sunset."

"But the victualling—of what does it consist?"

"The dainties—the luxuries of Greenland!"

"Indeed," said I, doubtfully.

"In exchange for a few hundred seal-skins, and some kegs of rancid blubber, we have got pickled bear's flesh, bull-heads, gulls and belugas, salmon-trout, and reindeer tongues, hares and partridges in pickle, with a few tubs of whortleberries, preserved in oil. We shall have the white bear in the cabin to ourselves."

"Why?"

"Sailors won't eat white bear hams?"

"But why?"

"They assert that the flesh makes their hair grey. We have also a cask of sorrel preserved in blubber."

"Ugh! of course; but for what purpose?"

"As a preservative against scurvy. And now up blue-peter, man the windlass, and heave short on the anchor!"

We sailed an hour before sunset; and ere the pale white moon rose from the sea, the jagged pinnacles of Sermesoak and the stormy bluff of Cape Farewell were melting into the brilliant sky astern, while our sailors sang cheerily as they hoisted the working anchor on board, unbent the chain-cable and stowed it in the tier. The month being May we had the light of the sun nearly all night, though in the daytime he only rises thirty-three degrees above the horizon.

However, we lit our binnacle lamps when he set, the sails were trimmed for a south-west course, and now we fairly bore away into the mighty ocean, and bade adieu for ever to the REGION OF ICE.

CHAPTER XXVI.

A SHARK.

For the fourth time during our rambling voyage, the Leda was again free and under sail upon the blue and boundless sea.

I cannot describe the emotions of joy with which, after our recent long imprisonment amid the waste of ice we gazed upon its buoyant ripples shining in the sun of May. Its broad vast bosom of resplendent blue—a blue so indicative of immensity—that spread far away beyond the dim horizon, flecked with tiny floes of ice, seemed as the mirror wherein we could trace the future.

It was freedom, it was the high road to our homes, to sunshine and the genial south. Everything was set that would draw—royals, flying jib, and studding-sails, as we bore on with a breeze, which, though keen, cold, and cutting, enabled us soon to leave the clime of frost and suffering, bears and icebergs far astern.

On the second day we passed a ship waterlogged and dismasted, battered, and abandoned. Her boats, bulwarks, and everything had been swept from her decks. We bore down upon her, but there was no sign of life on board, so we hauled our wind again and left her to drift, where she would no doubt prove a prize, on the sterile coast of Greenland.

One day a shark followed us with singular pertinacity, eluding every shot we fired at his black dorsal fin from our rifles and sealing guns, till Hans Peterkin, who was skilful in the use of the harpoon, evidently wounded the monster by a well-directed blow over our stern quarter, after which our enemy disappeared. Old Hans exulted considerably in his victory, but awoke that night in the midst of a frightful dream, and alarmed all his shipmates by crying out that a shark was devouring him.

"Take care, Hans," grumbled Tom Hammer, as he turned in his hammock, annoyed on being roused from a sound sleep, "don't be falling overboard, for it is my belief that Jack Shark is in the dead water astern yet, looking out for his revenge."

This passed as a joke at the time, but next day it had a singular sequel.

We were almost becalmed. From being light and variable, the wind had nearly died away. The sea was smooth as if oil covered all its surface; the listless canvas hung asleep, or flapped heavily as the masts swayed to and fro, the reef points pattering, as the Leda rolled lazily on the long glassy ridges that swelled up and shone in the meridian sun.

Amid the general apathy which such a state of matters produces on board of a ship, we were roused by the cry of "a dolphin alongside;" and though these fish are generally met in droves, when the waves are breaking and the wind blowing fresh, one was seen rising and sinking, as if sporting in the sunshine.

Immediately Hans appeared on the bowsprit, armed with his Orkney harpoon, a long spear pointed with barbed iron. Rapidly he bent the line to the foreganger of his weapon, and grasping it, with a handful of slack in his right hand, he slid under the bowsprit, and along the martingale stays which are stretched taut to the end of the jib-boom. Clasping the vertical spar of the martingale with his left arm, he took a steady aim at the dolphin, and launched his harpoon with all his strength.

The stroke was followed by a shout from the crew, who crowded into the bows and forerigging, for poor Hans had overstruck himself, and after swinging violently round the martingale, fell into the sea, missing the dolphin, which instantly disappeared.

"My dream—oh, my dream!" cried old Hans in terror, as he rose floundering and sputtering to the surface.

Then came the appalling cry of "A shark! a shark!" and in the very place where the dolphin sank, the short crooked fin of this great monster of the deep was seen making straight towards Hans, who, though an expert swimmer, a hard-a-weather salt, accustomed to all the hardships and terrors of Ultima Thule and his native Orcades, was struggling wildly for life, having got entangled in the slack line of his harpoon.

"Captain Hartly—man overboard! a rope—a rope!"

"Cut away the life-buoy!"

"Lower away the stern-boat!"

Such were the cries on every hand, while the current soon swept Peterkin past the brig, till he was nearly fifty yards astern.

Old Hans uttered a cry of despair, echoed by a groan from all, and sank!

Regardless of the shark, which was then double the distance of Hans from us, Hartly, who had rushed on deck at the first alarm, with the rapidity of thought, threw off his coat, knotted a line round his waist, lowered himself into the mainchains, and joining the palms of his hands together in the cut-water fashion of a diver, urging the while his agile body by a sharp push from the chain-plate, sprang into the sea, and vanished amid the ripples. Then in half minute or less he reappeared with Hans, whose grey locks he grasped firmly, as he cast upward a glance of mingled hope and terror—hope of aid from his crew, and terror of the monster, which was shooting towards them; for though the ring of Mother Jensdochter was to save him from drowning, the good dame omitted all mention of sea-lawyers.

"Down with the stern-boat!" cried Reeves.

In a moment the falls were cast loose and the boat was lowered from the davits, manned, and shoved off with a rapidity which nothing but the discipline of the crew and their love for Hartly could have ensured! Save those in the boat, all held their breath—all were paralysed by the scene, and our complete inability to aid or to protect our friends. However, the splashing of the half-drowned Hans somewhat scared the monster, and kept him off.

The boat soon reached the spot; they were drawn on board, and just in time, for the shark's nose was close to Hans' heels, while a hearty hurrah greeted him and his gallant preserver.

Ere the boat was again dangling at the stern davits, the shark, which had now recovered his surprise and the alarm Hans' splashing had occasioned him, was seen darting furiously to and fro in search of a victim; and but for the celerity of our boat's crew, one or other must have perished in his horrible jaws. Though the shark has rarely the power to bite a man in two, he can strip the flesh from his body in such a manner, that death is sure to follow.

The wind freshened after this, and the ship's course was resumed; but as night came on, the studdingsails and royals were taken in. Hans appeared in very low spirits after his recent adventure, so Hartly excused him from deck duty for that night. Then, as we sat over our grog in the cabin, the deck being in charge of Tom Hammer, Hartly said—

"By the bye, Jack, you said something of finding an old printed yarn about a shipwreck in Skipper Fynböe's house in Greenland."

"Yes—a queer old story it seems."

"Let us have it, then; read it aloud. Cuffy, trim the lamps; bring another case-bottle from the locker, and shut the cabin door. Pass word for Mr. Reeves and Hans Peterkin to step down—Mr. Manly is about to spin us a yarn."

I soon produced my little story-book, of which (as it was an authentic narrative) I shall give the exact title; though I prefer to rehearse the contents in my own manner, as the language and spelling of its author are somewhat quaint and antiquated.

It was called "The Wonderfull and Tragical! Relation of a Voyage from the Indies, printed at the Black Raven, in Duck Lane, A.D. 1684."

The substance thereof was as follows.

CHAPTER XXVII.

THE FATAL VOYAGE OF THE HEER VAN ESTELL.

It was in the month of August, 1670, that the barque De Ruyter, bearing the flag of the Seven United Provinces (then under their High Mightinesses the States General) and named after Michael Adrian de Ruyter, Admiral of Holland—the same valiant mariner who beat the English, burned Chatham, and bombarded Tilbury—left the port of Pernambuco, in Peru, for Rotterdam, tacking carefully to avoid the shoals and rocks which made the Portuguese of old name it the "Mouth of Hell"—Inferno-bocca—hence its present corrupted name.

She was manned by Captain Koningsmarke and sixteen seamen; she carried four brass guns, and had her stern decorated by the lions, spotted sable and gules, which form the arms of Rotterdam. Her mate was an Englishman named Carpinger, a brave and skilful seaman.

As passengers, she had the Heer Van Estell, his wife Gudule, their two little children, Erasmus and Cornelius, with Dame Trüdchen, their faithful old nurse. The Heer was a native of the Low Countries, who, after a long residence in the Dutch colony at Brazil, had amassed a magnificent fortune, and risen to be a Director of the Company of the Great Indies, a dignity which no one could attain unless he vested twelve thousand guilders in the old stock. Now, having amassed all the wealth he deemed desirable, with his wife and children—little curly-haired Erasmus, whom he had named after the great philosopher of Rotterdam (towards whose statue in the Bürger-platz he gave a thousand rix-dollars), and chubby little Cornelius, whom he had named after Cornelius de Witt, who, with his brother, was so barbarously assassinated by William of Orange (and afterwards of England)—he was returning to his native city to spend his days in peace and quiet, with the three beings whom he loved most on earth.

The day was cloudless and clear, the wind was fair, but light, and while the bark, with all her canvas set, from her flying-jib to her spanker, and with the colours of the Seven Provinces flying at her gaff-peak, passed in safety the flat sandbanks of St. Antonio, and that long reef which receives the full force of the sea, and guards the town of Recife, the tall and portly Heer, with his beautiful wife and chubby little ones beside him, sat in a cushioned chair on the warm deck, enjoying a long pipe of tobacco with all the ease and complacency that became a wealthy Hollander and Director of the Great India Company.

Without any emotion, save joy that he was returning, he saw the hill of Olinda, the tall slender spires of the town, and the grim batteries of Cinco Pontas, melt in the distance astern, as the De Ruyter bore away into the Western Ocean.

For more than a month the voyage was delightful and prosperous; but adverse winds came anon, and storms too; and Captain Koningsmarke was blown out of his course; moreover, he lost his reckoning, as the sky remained obscured by clouds, and for weeks both quadrant and sextant were used in vain.

His anxiety and that of the Heer became great, for provisions were becoming scarce—so much so that, ere long, all on board received but a scanty allowance. Then Van Estell and Dame Gudule beheld with secret agony the roses fading from the cheeks of their children, their pretty faces becoming blanched, and their once round forms attenuated.

Week after week rolled anxiously, mournfully away!

Still the winds were adverse, and still the De Ruyter tacked and tacked again, like the fabled ship of Vanderdecken, but without meeting a craft that might assist them, till at last there fell a death-like calm upon the sea; and then, for many, many days under a hot sun, and in the breathless nights that followed, the helpless vessel lay like a log, with her blocks and cordage rattling, and her loose canvas flapping until it was frittered and frayed on the blistering yards and masts, while the sea chafed her rusting chain-plates and the pitch boiled from her planking—yet "she lay so that, for several weeks, they could scarcely tell whether they were forwarded a league's space."

And now a deadly pest broke out on board—a malignant fever, which covered its victims with livid blotches, like the spotted lions, gules and sable, on the ship's stern; and among those who perished were Koningsmarke, the captain, and eight of his crew. They were thrown overboard, and for days their bodies remained in sight, with fishes sporting about them, and obscene birds of the sea lighting on them, as they floated on its still and waveless surface.

Provisions were now dealt out more sparingly than ever. Strong men grew wan, and gaunt, and feeble; for as their strength failed and hope faded, so did their spirit die within them; and then even the most superstitious ceased to whistle for wind.

At last they were reduced to a half biscuit and single morsel of meat per day; the latter failed, and then the half biscuit; and now they looked grimly and terribly in each other's hollow visages and bloodshot eyes, while wondering what was to become of them, for although lines had long hung overboard, the sea had refused to yield them fish.

"To wait with hope is nothing, but to wait with DESPAIR is worse than death!"

So did the Heer Van Estell wait, and his wife Gudule—now no longer the beautiful Gudule, for she was wan, wasted, and sinking, having given her pittance of food for several days to sustain her little ones. All his wealth, all the riches acquired by years of prudence in the Indies, would the unhappy Van Estell have given gladly to purchase a single biscuit, to sustain for one day more the lives of those he loved so well.

At last little Erasmus and Cornelius died, passing away without pain or a murmur, having become of late too weak even to weep for food.

They passed away, and the Heer and his wife remained by the pretty corpses as if transformed to stone!

Four days passed after this—still no food—no hope—no wind in the air, no ship upon the sea!

Gudule could not consent to cast her dead children into its mighty depth; but anon she repented of it bitterly, for the eight seamen who remained, after a long conference on the forecastle, and frequently casting glances aft towards the cabin—glances like those of wolves—came in a body, and demanded that the dead children should be surrendered to them as food!

The entreaties and tears of the parents were vain. The Heer (now shorn of his strength) and his miserable helpmate were thrust into their cabin, while the wasted bodies of their children were borne away and laid on the drum of the capstan, where they were cut to pieces by the cook's knife, and then devoured raw. Hunger seemed to make the sailors insane, and able to overcome all aversion for food so unnatural; but whether it was that they ate immoderately, or that with satiety came a horror of their meal, I know not, but they were immediately assailed by a dreadful sickness, which left their bodies weaker than ever.

Gudule lay in a stupor on her bed, but the Heer loaded his pistols, though scarcely knowing for what purpose; and exerting all his strength, he contrived to burst open the cabin door and stagger on deck, when the crew, whom the hunger of another day assailed again, had just concluded the last of a second dreadful banquet—a banquet on his children!

On the capstan there lay the head of one. It had the fair curly locks of little Erasmus.

"Oh, madness and agony!" groaned the miserable Van Estell, as he took it in his tremulous hands, kissed it tenderly thrice, and slowly and solemnly dropped it into the glassy sea.

He could not weep—his hot dry eyes refused a tear, but groans burst from his overcharged breast and parched lips, and he swooned on the deck. There he lay, and so another day passed. When he recovered it was about the time of midnight, and a full round moon was shining on that now neglected ship of death and of despair.

The atmosphere was mild and warm.

The Heer stole into the cabin, and saw that his poor, sad, childless wife lay very still and motionless. Tremblingly he drew near, lest she might be dead; for then he had resolved to cast her and himself into the sea, lest her fair form might also be devoured by the madmen on deck. But she was in a soft sleep, dreaming, perhaps, that her lost little ones were alive, and seated by her side in a palm grove of Peru, listening to the voice of the campanero, or sweet bell-bird of Brazil. The deep slumber that follows long hours of mental and bodily suffering had fallen upon her.

The poor man wept and kissed her tenderly, but at that moment the mate, George Carpinger, entered, and roughly ordered him to come forward to the capstan head, where he and his comrades were deliberating on what was to be done next.

Heer Van Estell assured himself that his pistols were still in his pocket, that they were primed and loaded, and then he obeyed. As these nine men stood round the capstan, they resembled spectres rather than human beings, when the cold lustre of the moon fell on their pallid visages and bloodshot eyes that glared wildly from out their sunken sockets.

Eleven persons were still on board, namely, the Heer, his wife and servant, the mate, and seven seamen; it was evident that one must be sacrificed to prolong the existence of the rest, and mentally they resolved that whoever became the victim, should be cooked, lest the flesh might sicken them again......

CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE FATAL VOYAGE—HOW THEY CAST LOTS.

"I am aware," says the author of Antonina, "of the tendency in some readers to denounce truth itself as improbable, unless their own personal experience has borne witness to it." In this spirit, some may denounce the fatalities of the Heer's voyage as improbabilities, though the hideous circumstance of human beings in extremity of hunger destroying each other for food, has been too well and too terribly established in many instances—such as the wreck of the French frigate Medusa; when the British frigate Nautilus was lost on a solitary rock in the Mediterranean; during the famine on board the American ship Peggy; and on many other occasions.

But to resume our little quarto.

The mate conducted the Heer Van Estell to the capstan, where the starving seamen stood in a silent group, and then he informed him in a hoarse whisper—

"That unless they contrived a means of furnishing themselves with food, they must all die of starvation; it was impossible for them to subsist for another day. That there were eleven persons on board, and they had come to the resolution of determining by lot who should die that the rest might live."

"Eleven on board!" reiterated the Heer, faintly, for his poor wife Grudule was one of these.

"Eleven," added a seaman named Adrian Crudelius, with a wild glare in his eye; "if one dies, ten may live. Bring your wife on deck, sir; she must take her chance with the rest. There must be no distinction here."

"Nay," said George Carpinger, "we may excuse her presence, and so spare her some of this horror; but her husband shall draw for her."

"Sirs," replied the poor Heer, "I thank you. Even here she finds the privileges of her sex accorded her."

Then with tremulous hands the mate tore a sheet of paper into eleven pieces, and numbered them from one to eleven. He folded and placed them in his hat. It was then agreed that he who drew number one was to die, and that he who drew number two was to be the executioner. After shaking the fatal pieces of paper, amid a silence that was awful—the silence of horror—for food or want, death or life, were on the issue, every glassy eye was fixed, each nether jaw relaxed, while with hot and feverish hands that trembled, they drew forth their lots—the Heer taking two in succession. He opened them hastily, smote his forehead, uttered a wailing cry, and reeled against the capstan.

He had drawn numbers "one" and "two," so it was the lot of him to die, and by the hand of Grudule, or vice versâ!

The unhappy seamen had scarcely foreseen a chance so terrible as this. Carpinger urged that the wife should be spared, or that lots should be cast once more; but those who by risking their fate had escaped death, were loth to tempt it again, and with sullen murmurs declined. Propping himself against the capstan, the unfortunate Van Estell summoned all his energies, and thus addressed them:—

"My good companions in misery, you have seen our sorrow and despair for the loss of our dear little children; and though I know that death would be a relief and refuge to my poor Grudule, neither she nor I can perish by the other's hand. Thus I offer myself freely and willingly as the victim and sacrifice. When I am dead, I charge you—I pray you be kind unto her. Conduct her to her friends, her home, her country, and be assured that if ever you are happy enough to see the waters of the Maese, and the old spires of Rotterdam, she will have wealth enough to reward you all. May Heaven bless you! Gudule, farewell—my poor Gudule!"

At these words he drew a pistol from his pocket, shot himself through the head, and fell flat on the deck. Some appeared stunned by the whole affair, but two threw themselves upon the yet quivering body like wild animals, and sucked up the blood that oozed from it.

In the weird light of the moon, that bloody deck, that silent group and fallen corpse, presented an awful scene to Gudule Van Estell, who tottered from her cabin, being roused by the sound of the pistol; but now Carpinger the mate, Adrian Crudelius, and her old nurse, bore her back into the cabin, and fastened the door to prevent her seeing the dreadful scene that was sure to ensue, when the famished men, in their voracity and fury, almost tore the clothes from the body of the Heer, being rendered more mad than ever by the contents of a single case-bottle of Geneva which had been discovered. They hewed the body to pieces, cast its head into the sea, and again the horrible repast commenced—a repast which rendered two raving mad, for with loud yells they sprang overboard and disappeared.

All the rest became insane, save the mate and Adrian Crudelius, who endeavoured to control their extravagance. One proposed to scuttle the ship, or set her on fire, that all might perish together; another raved and blasphemed Heaven for withholding the wind; a third denounced the craft as being under a spell, and thus fixed to one part of the sea, from whence she would never stir till her timbers rotted and her planks opened; and all, save the mate, were unanimous that next time the wife of the Heer, upon whom one of the lots had fallen, should perish for their sustenance if a sail came not in sight.

That day passed as others had done; the glassy sea without a ripple, the hot sun overhead, the sails flapping against the masts; the banner of the Seven Provinces, inverted as a sign of distress, hanging listlessly downward from the gaff-peak; the sky without a cloud, the horizon without a sail, and the hearts of the cannibals on board the De Ruyter without hope!

Gudule Van Estell was still surviving. The kind mate had caught a couple of mice; these he gave to the nurse, who cooked them in secret for her mistress and herself. But now, towards evening, four of the crew, who were bereft of reason, approached her cabin door, and were attempting to force it open, for the purpose of dragging her to the capstan head, when George Carpinger, armed with a cutlass, rushed forward, and drove them back.

They soon procured arms, and howling like wild animals, attacked him, staggering the while like drunken men with weakness. Crudelius now joined the mate, and there ensued a conflict in which two were slain, and their bodies were cast overboard by the survivors, who were already so glutted by their horrible food as to have no desire for more.

By the noon of the next day, all had perished by exhaustion, save the mate and the Dame Van Estell.

Night was coming on, and the poor solitary seaman was sitting on the windlass in a species of stupor, when an unusual coolness in the atmosphere roused his attention, and, with a sailor's instinct, he felt the coming breeze.

First there came a gentle catspaw upon the darkening water, then a ripple, and now a whitening of the wave-tops at a distance. He stretched his tremulous hands towards them, and wept in joy!

Anon, clouds came banking up in dense masses to leeward, and rain—blessed rain! began to fall, while the wind of heaven blew the long neglected rigging out in bands, and filled the flapping sails.

A brace of lazy gulls suddenly appeared wheeling about; and a bird—a land bird—perched on the end of the studding-sail boom alongside.

The haggard eyes of Carpinger swept the horizon, and saw afar off a spark, which he at first supposed to be a star, but, ere long, discovered to be a light; yet whether it shone on board of a ship, or on the shore, he knew not; so he lashed the helm, and rushing to the lifts and braces, strove to trim the sails and shape the vessel's course towards it.

The bunting began to shake at the gaff-peak; ere long it floated out upon the wind, while a wake whitened astern, a bubble rose under the bows, and the De Ruyter walked through the water as of yore.

The breeze continued, and next morning she was close in upon a bleak, rugged, and mountainous coast, which proved to be the Lizard Point in Cornwall, the most southern promontory of England.*

* It must be borne in mind that the mouth of the Channel was less frequented by shipping in 1670, than now.

George Carpinger had the Dame Van Estell conveyed ashore in the stern-boat, together with a casket of valuable jewels; and the De Ruyter, after drifting about the coast, escaping the Cornish wreckers, who deemed a wreck "a Godsend," was taken into Plymouth and sold. Gudule Van Estell was afterwards conveyed to Rotterdam, where she found herself one of the wealthiest widows in the city; and as a reward to George Carpinger for defending her life so valiantly in the fated De Ruyter, she bestowed her hand and guilders upon him.

"They lived long and happily together; and he died Burgomaster of Rotterdam in 1720, when Anne was Queen of Britain."

——————

"So ends this story," said I.

Hartly filled his glass of grog, and emptied it in silence.

Then I could perceive that the perusal of the history of this fatal voyage had a most unpleasant effect upon all who heard it, for Reeves, Hartly, and Hans Peterkin, frequently recurred to it afterwards.

"That little black pamphlet came from a wrecked ship," said Hartly, one day—"'a fated craft'—I can't help wishing you had never brought it on board, Jack."

"Why?" I asked.

"It is such a devil of a horse-marine yarn about these Dutchmen eating each other."

"How?"

"I always think about it."

"I can easily put it out of existence by stuffing it under a kettle in the cook's galley; it may aid Cuffy in cooking the dinner."

"No, no," said he, hastily, "that would be worse."