CHAPTER IV

THE AGREEMENT DRAWN UP AND SIGNED

“Is it not a grand sight, sir?” he said. “How near and how brightly these stars and planets burn! It seems as if one could touch them with one’s rifle or fishing-rod. And the aurora-gleams—the positive magnetism that comes from the far-off Southern Pole—how beautiful their transparency of colours! Those ribbons of light seem to me like living things. And in the stillness of this early morning do you not hear them talking? Shsh—shs—shs—shs! Oh, sir, is it not God Himself who is speaking there—the God of power, the God we know so little of, the God whom in our pride of knowledge we sometimes venture to impugn, to correct, to criticize! Forgive me, sir, for speaking thus before an older man than myself. But oh, sir, there is a glamour about that sky, about these northern solitary wilds, which gets around the heart and soul, and makes one feel one is really face to face with the Creator—Maker not alone of this puny earth, but of yonder universe—of infinity itself!”

He scarcely gave Captain Brace time to reply.

“Down in one’s bunk,” he continued, “one belongs to this world. Up here among the stars and aurora one is with God. But down below last night, sir, I was thinking of my father, my mother, and sister. To say that I was not longing a little for home would be to insinuate that I was more than a young man. Yet my resolution has not been one whit shaken. When I can do something that no one else has ever yet done, or at least made an attempt to do this something, the prodigal son will return to his father’s house; not till then. My father is a very Napoleon of finance. In that line I may never, can never, hope to equal him, nor do I desire to do so. Yet I may become a great explorer, and help to add to the world’s fund of knowledge for the world’s benefit.

“I had made up my mind never to finger a frank of those two millions, but I shall, and will gladly, spend one million, if need be, for the furtherance of a plan I have in view, and have well thought out. It is an ambitious one, sir. I feel I ought to blush even to mention it.”

“You need not, young sir, if it be honourable,” said Brace.

Ingomar, as we may continue to call him, had been walking up and down the deck so rapidly, that it was difficult to keep pace with his gigantic strides.

But he hove to now suddenly, and confronted the captain.

“Listen,” he said. “The Americans have done as much as any other nation save Britain to solve the mystery that hangs around the Pole yonder. The veil will soon be raised. I would go farther; I would venture to aid in the attempts that are now about to be made by you Britishers and by the Germans, to wrench its secrets from the Great Unknown, from the Antarctic itself, to force it to tell what it knows of the story of the earth.”

“The ambition,” said the captain, “is a noble one, certainly, and even I have had thoughts of bringing the knowledge I have gained in regions round our own North Pole to bear upon the South. Indeed, I was almost thinking of joining the expedition when I got home.”

“But I,” said Ingomar, “would not join any expedition. No, no, sir, and a thousand ‘No’s.’ I should fit out my own. And if I were to die in the attempt, why, I should die in a worthy cause; and to youth death does not seem so very dreadful if surrounded by a halo of noble adventure.

“And would you believe it,” he went on, “while in my lonesome igloo over the hills yonder, I have for months been forming all my plans for future operation. I would rather lay these before older and more skilled and scientific men than myself, and all I should do, all the honour I might obtain, would be that of finding the money for the expedition.

“Well, now, it may seem an abrupt question to ask, but I think that as long as a fellow keeps a clear brain and a good look-out ahead, abruptness is no great sin. Can you, then, or will you, sell me your ship?”

“This barque is not my own, alas! or, after having been so singularly unfortunate in ‘making a voyage,’[B] and presuming that you are sincere, I would gladly do so on the understanding that my services as master mariner of the Walrus should be retained. But come down below. The fire is well alight, and we can talk uninterruptedly for a good hour yet before the others turn out.”

Although the acquaintance with each other of these two men was so very recent, there was a something—call it by any scientific name you please—that seemed to draw them together.

Captain Mayne Brace was very favourably impressed by the prodigal son, as he would insist upon calling himself. The coincidence that had brought them together was certainly strange, but Fate moves in a mysterious way, and Brace determined to take advantage of the meeting between Ingomar and himself.

He candidly opened his mind to the young millionaire.

“I am bound,” he said, “to do all I can to secure a good voyage during the spring fishery. Nothing could prevent me from attempting this for the benefit of my owners; and if I must return ‘a clean ship,’ then I shall have to steel my nerves to encounter my owners. The ship is well—too well—insured, and it was hinted to me that if I failed in making a paying voyage, no questions would be asked if I cast her away. There would be little chance of that, for even after a rough-and-tumble life at sea for so many years, I have a little honour left me, a clean heart, and a clear conscience.

“But, Mr. Armstrong——”

“Call me not Armstrong yet, sir—just Ingomar, and hang the ‘Mr.’”

“Well, Ingomar, I have no doubt my owners would be willing to sell the Walrus, and therefore, if you choose now to sign articles, I shall rate you as harpooner, and shall be perfectly willing to ship for you, before we leave these regions, the Yak-Yaks, the dogs, and young bears you say would be necessary to make our expedition a success.

“We are a sturdy ship and good sailer, and we have plenty of room, if we do not make a voyage, for you and your pets.”

“You have made me very happy, sir. Let us make the agreement at once.”

“Just one moment, young sir. You have told me that the Walrus will be the auxiliary vessel carrying extra stores, the dogs, the Yak-Yak hunters, sledges, etc., and that you would build or buy and fit out a special ship for the actual scientific exploration. Now, I am a plain man—under what flag should we sail?”

“The Stars and Stripes?” said Ingomar.

This was more like a question than an answer, and Brace replied sturdily—

“No, sir. I will sail under no flag except the British.

But,” he added, half regretfully, “if you succeed in purchasing this good barque—and a better never sailed to the Sea of Ice—she will belong to you, and you can hoist your Stars and Stripes; only——”

“I understand,” said Ingomar, “and honour your sentiment. Well, you must be captain of the Walrus, that is clear. But everything else must be made clear, and I am certain we will not quarrel about the flag displayed.”

He considered a moment.

“Let us have the two in one,” he said. “Not one beneath the other, else we should quarrel worse than ever.”

He laughed at his own quaint notion, as he added—

“Why not have the two flags tacked together, so that their united ensign should show from one side the Bird of Freedom—the eagle, and on the other your British batch of Lions?”

It was Captain Brace’s turn to laugh now, and he did so right heartily.

“‘Pon my soul,” he said, “the conceit is a good one. I see that you and I, sir, are united, anyhow—just as the British and the Americans should ever be.”

Then the agreement was drawn up and signed by both, and so this memorable interview came to a close.

“I feel so happy now, captain,” said young Ingomar, “that—that I could cry.”

“Rather an original method of showing happiness, isn’t it?”

“Rather effeminate, anyhow. But now I feel at home here; and within the last four and twenty hours my prospects in life have brightened, and my sky is clear; the star of hope is shining as brightly as the Pole star yonder. I’m young, you see, sir, and—— Well, I can’t help that, can I, Captain Brace? But I don’t mean to fail, anyhow.”

“No; and you have nothing to be ashamed of, Ingomar. As to failure—

* * * * *

True to time—in fact, a little before it—the Yak-Yaks were seen returning to the barque, yelling and whooping, the dogs stretched out, and apparently hugging the snow as they sped onwards like a hairy hurricane across the level stretch of bay.

It was arranged that Nick and Nora both should accompany this tour inland, but as they could not be expected to keep pace with these trained Arctic dogs, one was taken up into Captain Brace’s sledge, and the other with the boys themselves in Ingomar’s.

Food was not forgotten, you may be well sure, nor tobacco and knickknacks for the natives.

The journey was a long one, and many a halt had to be made on hill-tops, and even in the valleys beneath.

No one who has not travelled in a real Eskimo well-appointed dog-sleigh can have the faintest notion of the speed obtained on good snow.

To-day it seemed as if the drivers were bent upon making a record, and it was one that I would defy any motor-car to make over the same track. The dogs needed to rest now and then, to lie down and pant a little, and refresh themselves by gulping down mouthfuls of the pure snow that was within easy reach.

Then they were fit again once more.

Though it was but little past one o’clock p.m., the sun was already going down when the halt for luncheon was called; and it need hardly be said that under so bracing a sky our travellers made each a hearty meal.

They were high up on a rounded hill, and the view all around from the rugged mountains of the west to the east, where lay the rough and rugged sea of ice, was indescribably beautiful.

Even the Yak-Yaks themselves seemed impressed with the transcendent loveliness of this marvellous Arctic sunset, and those moments of such stillness and silence that one might have heard a snowflake fall.

It was night and starlight before they reached the Eskimo village.

A moon by this time had risen solemnly over the hills, and flooded all the country with its strange, mysterious light—- a light the like of which I have seen in no land save the Arctic, a light that seems mystic and positively holy.

All the inhabitants turned out to welcome our heroes, and a wild, strange welcome it was.

This was a wandering tribe, and consequently a more brave and fearless people than the inhabitants of the igloo villages around the coast.

But they were safe; and they looked upon Ingomar as their sun-king, as in their musical, labial language they expressed it.

This tribe might have numbered altogether some six or seven hundred souls, and I may as well tell the truth about them—they never fished for blubber themselves, but levied blackmail on their humbler and more industrious neighbours who lived along the shores of gulfs and bays.

They had very large stores of frozen blubber, however, thousands of skins, and plenty of stored fish, and flesh of every sort, from seagulls’ to whales’.

Stimulants in the shape of rum or brandy I do not believe they ever tasted, but they seemed all the more happy in consequence.

Ingomar strode round among them, and even the children ran towards him to kiss his hand. Nay, more, the very dogs danced about him, but “down-charged” whenever he lifted his hand.

It was a queer sight to see the splendid jet-black Newfoundland standing close by his Nora’s side and defying the whole howling pack, turning his head sideways now and then to give Nora a lick, as much as to say, “Don’t be afraid, my dear; they’re only ignorant savages. I could fight them six at a time.”

The night was to be one of hard frost; but these nomads, much to our heroes’ astonishment, lit a great fire of ancient pine wood, which they had excavated from a hillside not far off, and so John Frost was defied for once.

The arrival of real “Eengleeshmen” at their winter camp was an event that no one would ever forget.

Though, in a manner of speaking, warlike in comparison to the ordinary Eskimos, these Yak-Yaks seemed very gentle and tractable, and did all in their power to entertain their guests. They sang queer little musical ditties, and the men and women joined in every chorus, clapping knees and brows with their palms in quite a funny way.

Then some of the head hunters gave a kind of dramatic performance, spear-armed; and even Charlie and Walter could see that this represented every phase of a great bear-hunt, even to the slaying of Bruin, and the death of one of the hunters.

Then Ingomar himself took the snowy stage, and if he had been listened to with the same rapt attention in New York that he was to-night by these semi-savages, the probability is that he never would have left his own country.

Ingomar’s igloo was a very large one, and in it burned two huge lamps, giving plenty of heat and light. There was no smoke, because that which arose from the oil was carried right up through, and though all the whites slept here in their bear and seal-skins, there was not a particle of discomfort felt.

And all slumbered well till eight o’clock next morning.

The fire was now replenished, and smoked fish made a right dainty addition to the breakfast. The menu was certainly not so extensive as that of a Glasgow or London hotel, but our heroes sat down to it with hearty appetites, and that is more than most people can boast of in gloomy London town.

A surprise was awaiting them this morning, of which Ingomar had given the visitors no previous hint.

CHAPTER V

THE SHIP’S BEARS: GRUFF, AND GROWLEY, AND GRUMPEY, AND MEG

The surprise was this: no fewer than four young Greenland bears[C] were led forth, and attached or harnessed to a hugely large sledge, and seemed so perfectly quiet and well broken, that neither Charlie nor Walt hesitated for a moment to take their seats.

This sleigh could accommodate as many as ten men.

But these bears, although they moved not with half the rapidity of a team of dogs, never varied their pace, and never needed rest until they had covered a distance of not less than twelve miles.

Both the Newfoundlands had been shut up in an igloo. This was a precautionary measure, for although the bears never attempted to molest the Yak-dogs, they might not have objected to a mouthful or two of fine, fresh Newfoundland.

And the end of it all was that Captain Mayne Brace considered himself quite justified in purchasing these noble animals, for if anything came of the proposed Antarctic expedition, there was no reason why they should not be taken south with the force.

The days grew longer and longer now, fresh snow fell, softer winds began to blow, and at long last, with noises that are indescribable, the ice all around began to crack and break with the force of great waves that rolled in beneath them from the Eastern ocean.

Previous to this, however, peace had been established between the Yak-Yaks and the Teelies. The former had encamped close to the bay, and plenty of provisions and necessaries having been landed, Humpty Dumpty himself was left in charge of the whole—a kind of white king, in fact, who considered himself of no small importance. He had orders to keep the peace until the Walrus should return after the spring fishing.

The sun was now shining nineteen hours out of the twenty-four, and soon it would rise not to set again for months; and so one glorious morning sail was set, and the Walrus, scorning the lesser baybergs, went ploughing her way slowly seawards, and in good time reached the whaling grounds.

If Captain Mayne Brace had come to these northern seas merely for sport and pleasure, he might have had plenty of both. There were seals enough, though rather scattered; there were bears in abundance, strolling defiantly on their native ice, or buffeting the billows in search of pastures new; there were bladder-noses, sharks in scores—oh, in shoals sometimes—walruses on the ice and in the water, lonely unicorns, and those marvellous narwhals that go plunging about, and always seem to be going somewhere on particular business, but never getting there. Yet glorious times of it the beasts have for all that when they reach shoal water, and can spear with their wonderful weapons the flat fish and skates that there do dwell. For my own part I should rather like to be a narwhal for a month or two in summer. Hammer-headed sharks, too, there were, those hideous zygænas, and birds in millions; but, alas, for Brace’s pretty barque and her greedy owners, hardly ever was a true Greenland whale seen or tackled.

And so when the season was waxing to a close, and these monster whales had babies of their own with which they departed southward to warmer seas, for their children’s sake, Captain Brace determined one morning that it was time to bear up once more for Britain’s shores.

Of course the men were down-hearted, because many of them had families to provide for, and did not want to return with empty pockets. But “better luck next” is the motto of your Arctic sailor; and when Brace, their well-beloved skipper, told them that there was considerable probability that many of them—if they chose to volunteer—would be engaged for an expedition to the Southern Pole, they regained heart, and made the welkin ring with their lusty cheers.

When the Walrus arrived at last at Incognita Bay, and the anchor was let go in a cosy corner, as near to the shore as they could venture with safety, preparations were immediately commenced, first, for the shipment of huge blocks of fresh-water ice, and afterwards, for the embarkation of the dogs and Yak-Yaks they were to take southwards with them.

The bears were going to be the great difficulty. They were splendidly trained, it is true. But then they were but young; and who could say that they might not, when at sea, kick over the traces, eat their Yak-Yak keepers, and become frantically unmanageable?

The whole of the fo’cas’le was turned into a huge bear-den for their accommodation, and seal-meat in abundance was lowered into an ice-tank, that, during their long voyage, they might not starve.

It was a happy thought of Slap-dash, a brave Innuit and chief keeper of the bears, to have trained three of the Yak-dogs to sleep with his monster pets. The bears had become very fond of these, and growled a good deal at each other over them at night, but never actually fought.

But for these honest dogs the shipment of the Bruins would have presented far greater difficulties.

I must describe how this shipment was actually effected. To have roped the poor beasts would have rendered them savage, and this would have been rather indiscreet, to say the least. So a large raft was constructed, as well as a sort of inclined plane of wood, similar to a horse’s ladder. This last was made fast to the fo’cas’le bulwark above, while the other end was held in its place, on the sea below, by means of floats and beams from the ship’s water-line.

The three pet dogs, the bears’ favourites, were easily got on to the raft, and the Bruins followed. The Innuit himself kept feeding them as they were being towed all the way to the ship, and while the raft was made fast to the inclined plane. Then up sprang Slap-dash, and called the dogs to follow.

“Oh,” said the biggest bear, whose name was Gruff, “if that’s your game, here’s for after.”

And up he went.

In less time than it takes me to write these lines all the lot were comfortably caged.

They were not quite satisfied with their lot to begin with, however.

They had never been to sea or on board ship before in their lives, though they had been permitted to swim about the bay many times and oft, and even to stalk seals for themselves. But to be placed in a den with strong iron stanchions before it, was a trifle more than they had bargained for.

Slap-dash was a very good master to them, however, and tried to comfort them in every way that he could. And so did the dogs.

Before I go any further let me mention that bears are almost, if not quite, as sagacious, in their own way, as cats. Yet the ways of bears are a little peculiar, and as pets—well, they are not altogether satisfactory. The reason is this: they are treated without any tact on board ship, and teased and tormented for the pleasure of hearing them growl or cough or roar. On the ice a bear simply regards a man as something to eat—not so nice, of course, as a seal, but, anyhow, a change. And so they go for the human biped when hungry—I mean when the bear is hungry. Men chase bears and kill them for sport or for their skins and paws. Bears chase men because they are wholesome eating, especially if fat, and almost everybody does get fat in the Arctic regions.

As a parlour pet, a Greenland bear would hardly be suitable for a boy, and if the boy were to take him out for an airing, say, in a city park—well, there would be fewer city babies about before he got his pet back home again.

A young Polar bear, with whom I was shipmate once upon a time, pawed me in fun one day, and the barque giving a bit of a lee lurch, I fell. Instead of waiting till I got up out of the scuppers, the young rascal went for my leg, and I had to wriggle out of one sea-boot and skip. I never saw that boot again, so I imagine he devoured it. On the whole, then, if you hanker after a white ice-bear as a pet, you had better think of probable consequences, for his immense size makes him an awkward customer in many ways.

But, mind this, the Polar bear is to be won by kindness, and when so won, he will never harm you, but always make a point of swallowing the other boy. And that is really very good of the bear, especially if the other boy has been nasty with you some time before this.

It took all the tact of which the brave Innuit was possessed to get those beautiful bears settled down in their quarters, but it was soon evident enough that they were going to be real ship’s pets.

A little doubtful at first they were as to Walter’s and Charlie’s intentions when the boys brought them biscuits and tit-bits from the cabin. Instinct seemed to account for this. Bears become much sooner attached to savages than they do to white men, for whenever the latter appear, their principal object seems to be to torment and torture or get fun out of the animals they subdue. Savages are, as a rule, far more kind to the animals than those creatures who call themselves Christians, but are not.

It was not long, however, before the bears began to take a different view of the pale-faces on board. They might, they seemed to think, turn out better than they looked, although tradition or something else told them that it was those very bipeds who had hunted and chased and killed with fire-sticks (guns) their ancestors from time immemorial, and who added insult to injury by placing them in barrels and casks with bars in front for men to torture and boys to tease during the long and terrible voyage to Britain.

Before a week was over, the bears had quite settled down in their quarters. They had come to the conclusion that nobody here intended to do them any harm. Perhaps they had heard kind and thoughtful Captain Brace give orders that no one should molest them. Over and above this, the wise animals had soon found out that the food was better than any they had ever had on shore, and that ship’s biscuit is even more toothsome than white-man steak.

Besides, every forenoon they were allowed out to have a run round the decks under the guardianship of the brave Innuit Slap-dash. A most fearless fellow was this same Innuit, and in intellect as well as in every manly quality infinitely above his fellows.

But whenever the bo’s’n piped, “Bears to dance and play. Out of the way all you lads as doesn’t want to be ’ugged,” most of the crew who weren’t on shore dived down below and pulled the hatches to. But several who wanted to see the fun, took to the rigging and to the main top or fore.

Nick also went below, and took his wife with him.

“There’s too much bear there for us to eat, Nora,” Nick seemed to say. “Besides, my dear, discretion is the better part of valour.”

The bears’ names were Gruff, and Growley, and Grumpey, and Meg.

And Growley was Gruff’s wife, and Grumpey had married Meg, so to speak.

But Gruff ruled the roost, and would have nailed the roast, too, had he got a chance.

Whenever they were let out of their den, they used to shuffle right away aft all in a row, with their noses in the air and sniffing—ten yards by two of solid bear.

The boys were already on top of the skylight, with bones and biscuits and all things good and tasty; and the bears stood alongside with great open mouths to be fed. It was Gruff’s privilege to have the very last bite, and then to take his wife away; but if Growley did not follow immediately, Gruff went back and gave Growley a wallop with his great paw that landed her in the lee-scuppers.

Then the fun began. All sorts of fun, in fact. They ran and they danced, and stood on end and played at leap-frog, coughing and roaring all the time like a dozen steam-hooters. Gruff had a habit of standing on his head and then rolling clean over. When his body came down with a thud on the deck, the ship shivered as if a green sea had struck her.

This was merely one of Gruff’s tricks, for the little darling thought of something fresh every morning, and some of these I shall take the liberty of mentioning further on.

In three weeks’ time the good ship was ready to take her leave, and a very sad parting it was indeed for the Yak-Yaks and Teelies left behind.

Brace gave them a banquet on shore, which went far to assuage their grief, however. It was a huge cauldron of thick pea-soup, with lumps of fat pork and beef in it, and flanked with biscuits. The dessert was a couple of barrels of red herrings and a barrel of raw potatoes. These were scattered broadcast among the crowd, and to witness that scrambling and tumbling match would have wrung the tears of laughter from a coal-carter’s horse.

When all sail was set and the Walrus began to warm to her work under the influence of a ten-knot breeze, the rigging was manned, and three lusty cheers given for the simple, friendly savages they were leaving behind in the land of perpetual snow, and whom they could never expect to see again.

And down the wind from the tribes on shore came a long-drawn, falsetto cry of farewell. It was meant for a cheer, but sounded more like the moaning of a wintry wind.

END OF BOOK I

BOOK II

UNDER THE SOUTHERN CROSS

CHAPTER I

“AND NOW,” HE SAID, “’TIS DO OR DIE”

He was returning a clean ship. As a clean ship he had to meet his owners. He knew what that would mean. There would be no banquets in his honour at the end of this voyage, as there had been last time when he returned to Hull a bumper ship, with thousands of tons of oil below, with bings of skins on deck even, and bergs of fresh-water ice heaped ’twixt main and fore, enough to gladden the eyes of every hotel-keeper in the City, and with a lovely young Polar bear as a gift to the Lady Mayoress. No wishing him further health and fortune, no men to carry him shoulder-high to the dining-hall. Sic transit gloria mundi when a Greenland captain returns a clean ship, to meet with cold looks and taunts and sneers.

Honest Mayne Brace was not sure that he could face all this, so he put boldly into Lerwick, and let go the anchor opposite this quaint old town.

Everybody wanted a rest anyhow. Ingomar himself was longing to stretch his legs on shore, and the boys to ride madly over the moors on untrained and untameable Shetland ponies.

I believe the brave Yak-Yak men, with their thirty beautiful but daft dogs, and Slap-dash, with his four bears, would have all gone on shore together if invited, and taken the town by storm.

But Brace himself, with the young millionaire, went on shore, and took immediate possession of the telegraph office.

Every one knew good Brace, and lifted his hat to him, and welcomed him back from the land of ice and snow, and would fain have stopped him to chat, but he went hurrying on.

The postmaster himself shook hands effusively, and to him Brace was obliged to talk for a few minutes.

“I want you, Mr. Bryan, to let myself and my young friend here, in your presence of course, wire for a short time. It is on secret business of the greatest importance, and you know, Bryan, I am an adept at working the wires.”

The postmaster was pleased, delighted, he said; and down sat Brace, Ingomar standing by and looking amused.

The Arctic skipper summoned his owners at the Hull end, and requested them to wire him, through the medium of a confidential clerk.

When all was ready, he told them briefly the story of his misadventures, and asked for advice.

The reply was somewhat as follows, when boiled down.

“Curses on your ill luck! But why did you not obey our secret instructions?”

“Hadn’t the heart nor the conscience.” Thus the reply. “Requires more nerve than I have to do a thing of that kind. Would rather not stand in a felon’s dock.”

“You’re a fool.” This from Hull. “You have all but ruined your owners. We must sell the Walrus now, and at once.”

Well, this was just the kind of message Brace half expected. And, when he read it, he burst into a joyous, hearty “Ha, ha, ha!” in which Ingomar readily joined.

Had this been the telephone, they might easily have heard that laugh at Hull. But a laugh that is merely wired is a very cold kind of an article.

“There is a gentleman,” wired Brace, “whom I know, that wants a strongly built craft to cruise around Tierra del Fuego. He is in Lerwick now, and might be tempted to buy the Walrus, at a price.”

“Tempt him, then, and be hanged to you,” was clicked through.

The return clicking spelt out, “He will give two-thirds of original price, if you will dock the ship for complete repairs at Hull.”

There was a long pause now. A consultation was being held. That was evident.

Then the wire rattled off, “A bargain! We will confirm our telegram by letter to-night. Good-bye, Brace, till we see you.”

“Good-bye, owners. Trust no ill feeling. Will lie here a week.”

Then Brace got up, and Ingomar and he shook hands.

“I have a great respect for you, Captain Brace,” said Ingomar. “To look at your jolly British face, I would not have credited you with such thorough business tact and judgment. Why, it is downright Americano!”

“Thank you; and now we’ll go and dine.”

“One minute, my friend. Who should my banker be in London? Thanks. Well, I’ll write a line to mine in New York, and they’ll soon make business straight for us in old England. Ah! my dear old father will know I’ve turned up again, and that my pride is softened will be shown by the fact that I am drawing on my pile for £200,000. I’m like the Germans, sir. There is no use going to war unless you’ve got the sinews and nerve, and we are going to war with the Antarctic Pole. There is nothing to be done without cash in this world.”

Brace’s first mate, with Charlie and Walt, came on shore soon, and all repaired to the chief hotel, and no schoolboys could have enjoyed “a blow-out” more thoroughly than these five enjoyed their first dinner on land, after so long and so dreary a time in Arctic seas.

For one of the chief pleasures in a sailor’s life lies in the getting back to the bonnie green shores of Britain again, after months or years of sailing on far-off foreign seas.

It was the sweet summer time now in the Shetland Isles, and our young folks enjoyed themselves as only young folks can.

They went fishing from boats and from the rocks, which are everywhere most fantastic and lovely, forming many a little lonely cave, where, on the golden sand, bask seals in blinks of sunshine.

The sea in spring and summer is nearly always blue, the breezes are balmy and bracing, and the uplands and inlands all carpeted o’er with the rarest and prettiest of wild flowers. Wild birds, too, are here, especially sea-birds, whose happy voices mingle musically with the song of the waves.

But I think that Charlie and Walt enjoyed more than anything else the bare-back rides they had on daft and droll little Shetland ponies, with Nick and his Nora doing their best to keep up with them, which they could only do by taking all kinds of cross-cuts, and meeting their masters where least expected.

I think it was a happy thought of Ingomar’s to buy and take off with them two of those ponies to assist the work of Antarctic exploration.

But come to think of it, when, weeks after this, the Walrus, now the property of young Ingomar, steamed into Hull, she was more of a floating menagerie than anything else.

The owners were less sulky than Brace had expected. They really did give a dinner, not only to the captain and his officers, but to all hands as well; and one of them, in a hearty speech, said, among other complimentary things, that he was sure he but expressed the sentiments of his colleagues when he told Captain Mayne Brace, whose services they were all too soon to lose, that a more clever, genial, or braver officer never steered a barque to the Polar seas. He hoped that all would join him in drinking his health, and wishing him success and safety all along on the venturesome voyage he was about to embark upon.

And all did.

* * * * *

It took the whole of the autumn and winter to build and fit out the new Arctic explorer Sea Elephant, for the Walrus was going to act more as store-ship and tender to the Sea Elephant than anything else. She was to be under the command of Captain Mayne Brace himself, and would take out the Yak-Yaks, the bears, and dogs, as well as an extra supply of everything that was likely to be needed during the long and terrible voyage and journey into the regions of the Great Unknown.

Captain Mayne Brace knew well what these regions were, for he had himself taken part in a German expedition that had gone out many years before, and had noted the deficiencies thereof.

So it was he alone who superintended everything.

Though aided nobly by his mate, and even his old bo’s’n and his Arctic spectioneer, it was no easy task that he had set himself to perform. They were going to a great snow-clad continent, on which there are neither houses nor towns any more than there are in the moon, and everything in the shape of repairs to engines, to interior, or to any part or portion of the ship, must be done by the artificers, mechanics, and engineers whom he must carry.

Many a long month’s thought and calculation this gave him, and many a long journey also, to and fro in the train, for Dundee itself was to have the honour of building and fitting out the Sea Elephant.

Captain Mayne Brace had no children of his own. He used to say that he never could see any fun in a sailor marrying, who was here to-day and away to-morrow, bound for the back of Bellfuff—wherever that may be—with only a plank or two betwixt him and eternity, and liable any day or hour to have to make a sudden call at the door of Davy Jones’ Locker.

Ingomar quite agreed with him as to the inadvisability of leaving widows behind them to mourn their loss for the rest of their lives.

“Mourn for the rest of their lives? Eh? Humph!” That was Captain Brace’s reply. And proof enough, too, I think, that he was not likely to run the risk of wrecking his barque of life on the reefs and rocks of matrimony.

But Brace had been a saving man though no niggard, and therefore he did not begrudge taking Walt and Charlie with him, to see the beauties of bonnie Dundee whenever school terms permitted.

The companionship of such a man as Captain Brace was indeed a liberal education in itself for them. For even during their holidays he would never suffer them to be altogether idle, and he was, when time admitted, their tutor in everything pertaining to the working of a ship.

The Dundee shipbuilders were honest. They considered that their reputation was quite hung on gimbals with regard to the laying down and building

of the Sea Elephant, especially under the supervision of such an officer as Captain Brace, who would not permit a plank, beam, or knee to be used that was not as sound as bronze.

The manning and officering of the Sea Elephant was another matter for much thought.

She would be when finished about 700 tons, and would carry provisions for three whole years. Every pound or parcel of these would be from the best firms, and hermetically sealed with such care that there would be no danger of anything going wrong should it have to be kept for many years.

I cannot spare space to describe in detail all the articles of food and drink which the two vessels would carry between them, nor their armour. As to the latter, independently of ordinary rifles and ammunition, they had specially built tanks for explosives of tremendous power; and these, I may inform you, were so packed for safety that even if the ship was in flames above them, there could be no danger of catastrophe.

The uses these would be put to we shall see anon, but there was a skilled artificer in charge of them, a man of the name of Macdonald, who had worked in dynamite factories since his boyhood—a steady, sober, long-headed Scot, whose rating was to be Captain of Explosives (Captain X. he was called for short).

The Sea Elephant was going to war, it is true, but it was war with Nature’s forces, for the age has at last come in which Man is master here below.

Ingomar was in constant and loving correspondence with his mother and sister. He wrote to his father, too, but told him nothing about his intention of disappearing from the civilized world for a time. All he said was, that he was embarking upon an honest though daring enterprise, which, he trusted, would, if he were successful, restore him once more to his father’s favour. If he succeeded, then, he would return, the prodigal son to his father’s house; if he failed, that father would never hear of him any more.

The captain of the Sea Elephant was an officer of high repute in the United States Navy, who had seen service in the Polar regions. His name, Bell.

Mr. Curtis was second in command, and belonged to the British Royal Navy. He was a young fellow of barely six and twenty, and with all the dash and go your true-born Englishman and sailor always possesses. From the first he and Ingomar were the greatest friends.

The crew were all tried men, Arctic or icemen, as they are called—English, Scots, Finns, and Norwegians.

“Be good to mother,” was Ingomar’s very last postscript to Sissie. “Don’t believe me dead whatever you hear till thrice twelve months are past and gone.”

Poor Ingomar, he was nothing if not romantic!

They sailed, those two ships, both upon the same day from a port in the English Channel, but with so little fuss, and so little newspaper reporting, that hardly anybody save the nearest and dearest relatives of officers and crew witnessed their departure.

It was not until they were out and away leagues and leagues from the chalky cliffs of England, not indeed until the August sun had set, that Ingomar, as he stood on the quarter-deck of the sturdy Walrus, heaved a sigh of relief, and turned to shake hands with bold Mayne Brace.

“Thank God, captain,” he said, “the trouble, the worry, the fuss, is over at last. How soundly I shall sleep to-night!”

The skipper laughed as he rubbed his hands in glee.

“And now,” he said, “’tis do or die.”

CHAPTER II

A GIANT OF THE SOUTHERN SEAS

Milton the mate was the only man missing from the Walrus. He had been appointed to the Sea Elephant as second lieutenant, and was very proud indeed of the honour, for this splendid barque was to all intents and purposes the flag-ship. Her commander—Captain Bell, of the United States Navy—had seen much service in the Arctic, while Curtis, first lieutenant, was a daring and very clever young fellow, specially lent from the British Royal Navy for the expedition. He was, as a sailor, your beau-ideal of a Navy man, and Navy men, you know, are warranted to go anywhere and do anything. Although Curtis was a most exemplary officer, a botanist and hydrographer, with a penchant for meteorology, he was the reverse of proud. One doesn’t look for, nor expect, pride in a true gentleman, and although Arnold Curtis came of a very ancient English family, and had blue blood in his veins, and though he had reached the very advanced age of twenty and five, he was out-and-out a boy at heart, and had never been much more happy than when in the cricket-field or making one in a game of footer. At such times, hydrography and meteorology and all the rest of the sciences, except that which was needed for the game, were banished, and he was a boy all over, from his fair hair and laughing blue eyes right away down to his shoes or boots.

Months and months before the two ships sailed, Ingomar and he had been inseparable, while Charlie and Walt often dined with him on board the Sea Elephant.

Well, I was going to say that Captain Bell, or the “Admiral,” as he was more often called, was, like most of his crew, a thorough iceman. The crew were chiefly Americans, and every man Jack of them had braved dangers innumerable on the sea of ice before this.

On the flag-ship were three well-known men of science—a Scot, a German, and an Englishman, but they were just as jolly as anybody. I will not permit my reader to associate long faces, solemnity, and humdrumness with scientists.

Let me add that the British and American flags in this enterprise, instead of being tacked and tagged together as at first proposed, were hoisted, when any occasion demanded their hoisting, one at the peak and another at the fore, or main, as the case might be.

Almost every hour during the voyage to Gibraltar the two barques kept as close together as possible. But here, after a farewell dinner, they parted, the flag-ship bearing up for the Suez Canal, to cruise and make scientific but brief observations all the way down through the Indian Ocean, until she should meet once again with the Walrus at the lonesome and wildly rugged island of Kerguelen, which lies further than 50° South, and in 70° East longitude, or, roughly speaking, about midway ’twixt the Cape of Good Hope and New Zealand.

Both ships carried as much coal as possible, but each had a noble spread of canvas, and so steam was never up while the wind blew fair. The Trades carried the Walrus well and fairly towards the equator, and when these began to fail them, the order was given to get up steam. So no time was lost, the chief object being to get into far Southern seas as soon as possible, and to commence therein the true work of the expedition.

Ingomar had one great, one only ambition. It was to make a noble record that should eclipse that of every nation which had attempted before this, the circumnavigation of the Southern Pole.

The finding of the real pole, as people phrase it, was something which might certainly be dreamt of but never probably accomplished. Yet manly ambition is a noble thing. Let us aim high. If we fire an arrow at the moon, we shall not hit it, but we shall hit a mark far higher than if we had fired at a bush of furze or broom.

I’m afraid that neither Charlie nor Walter cared a very great deal for science for science’s own sake, but they would certainly relish the adventures connected therewith, and all the strange scenes and creatures they were bound to see.

As for young Armstrong, or Ingomar as he still preferred to be called, he chose to consider himself of very little account indeed.

“I am neither a sailor nor a naturalist, nor anything else,” he said one day rather mournfully down in the saloon. “I love Nature, I appreciate beauty, but I’d rather be able to reef topsails or take my trick at the wheel.”

“But, my dear young sir,” said the captain, smiling, “you have found the sinews of war.”

“Found the cash? I have,” he laughed somewhat sarcastically. “Yes, and you may well say I found it. Paddy O’Flynn found a pair of tongs—at the fireside—and got into trouble about it. And I—well, I hadn’t even the honour and glory of making the money we’re spending. I can sing a song, spin a yarn, or recite a piece, and there my utility ends. Why, Humpty Dumpty is a deuced sight more of a real man than I am.”

Charlie and Walt laughed aloud. The idea of comparing himself with Humpty Dumpty seemed very ridiculous!

Long, long ago, crossing the line in a sailing ship used to be a very dreary affair indeed. The doldrums were always a drawback. Is there any real British boy, I wonder, who does not know what is meant by the “doldrums”? If so I trust he will get into them some of these days, in a brig or schooner. It will be an experience he is not likely to forget. His barque may be any time, from two or three weeks to a month, in crossing the line, for the wind may be nil. It may come in puffs or cat’s-paws from any direction of the compass, or, if you ask a sailor how it is, he may tell you discontentedly, that it is straight up and down like a cow’s tail.

Meanwhile the sea is as calm as Farmer Hodge’s mill-dam, a sea of oil, or glycerine, or mercury, but it is a sea of great, round, rolling waves all the same. The ship’s motion, therefore, is just about as disagreeable as could well be imagined; there is no “forwardness” about it. Now you go up, up, up, now you go down, down, down. Sea-legs are little good, and in your progress along the deck, if you do not succeed in getting hold of something, then just as often as not you shall find yourself on your back in the scuppers. You could not say “lee-scuppers,” you know, because there is no lee about it, and no windward either. You laugh when the other fellow falls, and perhaps the smile has hardly vanished when down you go yourself. Discomfort is no name for the doldrums. Fiddles are on the table at every meal, of course, but these do not prevent minor accidents, such as finding the fowl you were about to carve squatting on your lap, the potatoes chasing each other all over the floor, your plate of delicious pea-soup upside down on your knees, or your best white breeches soaked with black coffee.

Of course there are strange birds to be seen, and flying fish, and porpoises, and sharks, and, on rare occasions, the sea-serpent himself, but this doesn’t comfort you, with the thermometer over 95° and the pitch boiling in the seams.

On this voyage there was a pretty commotion, when, one evening, Neptune himself, King of the Ocean, with his bodyguard, his lady wife, and his barber, came on board. It was a pretty bit of acting altogether. Ingomar had consented to play Neptune in order to be let off, for he had never crossed the line before, and a splendid Neptune he made, while squat, droll little Humpty Dumpty was the wife. Ten in all had to submit to the terrible ordeal of shaving—an iron hoop was the razor, a tar-brush spread the horrid lather—and the grizzly embrace of Neptune’s bearded wife, to say nothing of the bath to close up with. Neither Charlie nor Walter, who were the first victims, seemed to like it; but when all was over, and they hurried into their dry pyjama suits, they enjoyed the fun as much as anybody else. The whole wild scene was lit up with electric gleams, blue and red and green, with music galore.

The drollest part of the business was this. Gruff the bear, wondering what all the row was about, managed to scramble up from his ice-tank in which he now lived below, and, accompanied by his wife, put in an appearance just as the fun was waxing fast and furious. The fun grew faster and still more furious after this, especially when Gruff capsized Neptune’s throne, and tried to hug Neptune’s wife.

While attempting to escape, Humpty Dumpty went heels over head into the great sail-berth, and Gruff and his wife jumped in next with a coughing roar that shook the ship from bowsprit to binnacle.

This ended the shaving-match, but Slap-dash managed to lead his pets away at last, and then the dancing commenced. The music was faultless and beautiful, but the dancing was—droll, to say the least. Then after the main-brace had been spliced, the affair resolved itself into a concert, and finally a yarn-spinning contest.

But everybody was happy, and that was the best of it.

* * * * *

Long before the ship had rounded the Cape, and stretched east and south away for Kerguelen, bears and Eskimo dogs were quite acclimatized, and most excellent sailors.

The sea had tamed the bears till they were as harmless as kittens, and just about as playful, though in a larger, more lumpy way.

They had become very friendly, too, with all the dogs, and all the Yak-Yaks, and even with the crew.

The Shetland ponies, however, were never permitted to come out of their comfortable quarters when Gruff, and Growley, and Grumpey, and Meg were at their gambols, shuffling round and round the deck with the dogs at their heels, positively playing at leap-frog with their monster yellow companions.

The king of the whole menagerie was Wallace—a most beautiful and intelligent long-haired sable-and-white Scotch collie. He, however, when the fun was going on, always took his perch on the top of the capstan, from which he barked his orders, and seemed to conduct the gambols and fun. Yet sometimes he got so excited and playful that he must jump off his perch and mingle for awhile himself with the strange revellers.

It was a long voyage to Kerguelen, but on the whole a very happy one, and so accustomed by this time were our heroes to stormy winds and raging seas, that the wildest gales did not terrify them, for every one on board, from the captain downwards, had the greatest confidence in the sea-going qualities of the good old Walrus.

It was a long voyage to Kerguelen, but they weren’t there just yet; and long before its rugged rocks and hills hove in sight, they experienced a spell of such fearful weather as one seldom meets even in southern seas.

It was dark and wild and fearsome!

Dark, owing to the immensity of the cloud strata above and around, which brought the horizon almost close aboard—a mingled chaos of driving mist and moving water; wild with the terrible force of the wind, which was fully five and ninety miles an hour, and fearsome from the height of the foam-crested waves, and the black abysses into which the Walrus ever and anon plunged, remaining almost motionless for long seconds, while the seas made a clean breach over her.

Captain Mayne Brace himself confessed he had never seen the barometer sink lower.

Every stitch of sail that could be spared was at first taken in, and the ship was battened down; for when the first squall struck her, the Walrus had been in a beam wind, with no fires lit. Orders were now issued to get up steam with all speed, for the gale was from the E.N.E., and although the Walrus lay to, she was being driven rapidly out of her course.

Things reached a crisis when the chief engineer—a sturdy, business-looking Scot—made his way aft as best he could, and reported to the captain that something had gone wrong with the engines.

“We have broken down?” asked Mayne Brace, anxiously.

“I wouldn’t go so far as that, sir,” replied Mr. Watson, cautiously. “Something’s out of gear, and it will be quite impossible to put matters straight till the storm abates and we find ourselves on a level keel.”

“All right, Mr. Watson. You’ll do your best, I know, and so will we.”

And Watson scrambled forward once more, smiling and happy.

The storm, a few hours after this, was at its very height.

Well for all hands was it that the Walrus was sturdily built, tough, and strong, a ship that had weathered many and many a tempest in the frozen North, and could hold her own amidst the wildest waves of the great Antarctic Ocean.

It had been early in the day when the storm came on, but long hours flew by without the slightest signs of its abating.

The noise both above and below in the saloon where Ingomar and the boys were trying to take it easy beside the stove, was fearful. On the deck snow and hail added to the confusion, and when suddenly the vessel entered a stream of small pieces of drifting ice, the heavy rattling bombardment of the ship’s sides rendered all conversation quite impossible.

A dark and starless night followed, but the first strength of the storm was somewhat abated, and when day broke lazily in the east, glimmering red through the froth of the seas, it had settled into a steady gale, which lasted for days and days, and prevented the barque from keeping her course.

In these strange Southern seas sudden changes in the state of the weather are the rule rather than the exception; and so one morning, after quickly veering round to the south’ard, the wind fell almost to calm, and with stu’nsails ’low and aloft, the good ship now bore up for Kerguelen, from which lone isle of the ocean she could not now be very far distant.

The sun shone brightly once again, and every one on board felt happy and hopeful.

To add to their joy, the engineer had managed to repair the machinery, which he vowed was now stronger than ever, so in a few more hours sail was taken in, and every heart was beating time to the pleasant old rick-racket of whirling wheels and revolving screw.

“Land ahead, sir!”

This from the man who was swinging high aloft in the crow’s-nest.

The mate went into the foretop to have a look at it through his glass.

One glance was enough.

“This is no land,” he told the skipper, “but a huge iceberg, that must have floated very far indeed out of its course.”

Then all hands crowded the deck to feast their eyes on the strange sight.

Not a soul on board this ship that had not beheld ice in every shape seen in high Northern altitudes, but none so remarkable in formation as this giant of the Southern seas.

CHAPTER III

FIRST ADVENTURES ON THE ICE

But this great iceberg was far indeed from a usual sight. How it had become detached from the vast sea-wall far farther south and floated northwards, almost into the latitude of Kerguelen itself, was, of course, a matter of mere conjecture. The currents of the oceans and the winds had doubtless drifted it hither and thither, for months, if not years; seas had beaten against its sheer and lofty sides, and hollowed strange arches therein; but the everlasting snows that covered it, and rose into cones and peaks high above, were probably as white now as, or even whiter than, when it first broke loose and became a rover on the ocean’s breast. And the very currents that had wafted it thither might in time carry it south again, to join its fellows, and tell the strange story of its wanderings and all the marvels it had seen.

The description of an iceberg of this size, or of any size, in fact, is one of the most difficult and unsatisfactory tasks that an author can attempt.

This one—this vast “gomeril” of ice and snow—might well have been taken for an island at first sight. For it was fully a mile in length, presenting to the astonished eyes of the Walrus’s people a long, glittering wall of blue and violet fully two hundred feet in height. The white hummocks towered far back and above the cold cliff edge. At one side it shelved slowly down towards the sea-level in a long cape, or tongue, and upon this, if anywhere, it would be possible to land.

When the Walrus had ventured so near that the hills above disappeared, and only the gleaming sides were visible, glittering in the spring sunshine, an order was given to stop ship, and not one whaler only, but two, were called away to “board” the mysterious iceberg, as the spectioneer phrased it.

The sea was very calm and blue, and only a longwaved swell was visible on its clear surface, a swell which, when it rushed into the caves and broke into foam in the darkness, elicited ever and anon a longdrawn moan or roar—a deep diapason, in fact, a musical blending of every note of an octave, from this mighty organ on which Father Neptune himself was playing and to which he sang.

This marvellous sea-song, however, melted away almost into silence as the boats reached the outlying tongue of ice on which they were to be drawn up.

It must not be supposed that the scene presented to our heroes, as they were being rowed towards the island-iceberg, was one of desolation.

The sun above them was shining to-day with unusual splendour and glittering on the ocean, which was a beautiful study in brightest blue and silver. High in the air circled and screamed flocks of beautiful sea-gulls, among which were cormorants and skuas, and many a bird resembling those to be met with in the far-off regions around the Northern pole.

Away to the eastward a whale had revealed his black back and head, and the steam from his blowholes rose like fountains into the sky. Farther off was another, and many strange seals raised their shoulders high above the water, to gaze with liquid eyes resplendent, and wonder who or what they might be that were thus invading their lonely and silent domains.

Some of these very seals—chiefly sea-leopards they were—had landed on the ice-foot to slumber in the sunshine.

As the first boat, which contained Ingomar and our boys, swept round towards the landing-place, they noticed to their astonishment that the whole brae-side of the monster berg was covered with what at first sight appeared to be a crowd of daintily dressed schoolboys in long black coats, orange neckties, black caps, and waistcoats of dazzling white. These were all in motion, and were bobbing and bowing to each other or shaking hands as they moved about for all the world like people in a garden-party.

Only these were not people, but king penguins. They are just about the drollest birds, taking them all round, that there are on the surface of the earth or on the face of the waters thereof.

Penguins are of several species, the largest and rarest being what are called emperor penguins, and stand about four feet high. I say stand, because they are so built that walking on one end or resting statue-like on their tails suits them best. The flippers of these are about fifteen inches long, and, when not in use, hang down by their sides in a very awkward-like manner. Their beaks are of great strength and length, and they know how to use them if you interfere too much with them.

I have never known an emperor penguin or a king penguin—next in size to his imperial majesty—have the slightest respect for human beings. They never think of running away if you go amongst them. They cannot fly, because they have no real wings. But they can waddle, and they can paddle either on the snow or in the water.

When the ground on which these strange birds are travelling all in a row is somewhat rough, they cannot do more than about a mile an hour; even this seems very serious work for them. But when they get among soft or smooth snow, down they flop on their breasts, out go the flippers, and they toboggan along over the surface with great speed.

In the water, above or below it, they dart along at the rate of knots. I believe that if the sharks want a nice bit of penguin to eke out a dinner of small fish, they have to swim exceedingly fast to find it.

Sharks, however, are not quite so common in these far Southern seas as they are about the Polar regions of the North. Food is scarcer, and this fact easily accounts for their absence.

* * * * *

When the boats had been called away to proceed to the examination of that great berg, it was not only the officers and crew who felt unwonted exhilaration, but every animal on board as well. The Eskimo dogs happened to be up having their run at the time, as usual under the supervision of the honest collie Wallace; while Nick and Nora stood proudly aloof on the quarter-deck.