the following extraordinary story was told to me some years ago by the commander of a steamship in which i was making a voyage for my health. the captain, who, as we shall see, had himself shared in the experience he related, began his tale thus:—
“a good many years ago i was in capetown, having been forced by illness to quit my post as second mate of a large ship bound to bombay. a fortnight after the ship sailed, i recovered my health and was fit for work.
“in those days capetown was without docks; nor does this carry the memory very far back, either. colonial progress is the foremost of the miracles of our century. you visit some antipodean shore after a few years and note a growth of docks, piers, warehouses, an expansion of suburbs, a magical embracing of the hillsides by roof upon roof of charming villas, as at natal, for example; and whilst you look, you shall think it rational to hold that more than a century has gone to the creation of this noble scene of civilization, and that the little struggling village you remember arriving at a few years before, with its dockless bay[160] and its three or four small ships blistering under the eye of a roasting sun at their poor moorings alongside a rustic wooden wharf, was an imagination of your slumber.
“i was entirely dependent upon my profession. sickness had heavily taxed my slender purse, and i was exceedingly anxious, when i was well enough for work, to obtain a situation. ships brought up in the bay in those days, and discharged for the most part in lighters. the spacious breast of waters would offer again and again a grander show than is ever likely to be seen there in these or succeeding times. there was no suez canal; steam was by no means plentiful. all the trading to the east was by way of the cape, and nearly everything bound round agulhas looked into table bay for refreshment.
“i remember one of those mornings whilst i was hunting for a berth, that i counted a hundred and ten vessels at anchor in table bay. to be sure, i have witnessed as much as five hundred ships straining at their ground tackle at one time in the downs. but that forest of spars had a wide area to distribute itself over in the waters streaming from the south foreland down to the stretch that lies abreast of sandwich. the hundred odd craft in table bay made a more imposing sight than the downs picture, thanks, perhaps, to the solemn and magnificent scenery of mountain, whose lofty, silent terraces seemed, in the colossal sweep of them, to swell and thicken the ships into a stately,[161] rocking crowd, and they lay in a tall mass of symmetric spires, the rigging of one knitting that of another past her, and the bright wind was painted with the colours of a dozen nations.
“i stood at the head of a little jetty or pier. was there nothing to find me a berth worth six pounds a month in all that gallant huddle of gleaming sides and coppered flanks? the water trembled like molten brass under the sun to the coral-white line of the opposite shore, where the land went away in strange hues of rusty red and sickly green, carrying the eye into the liquid blue distance in which hung a hundred miles off a range of magnificent mountains like pale gold in the far light, their sky-lines as clean cut in the full and even splendour of that magical climate as the top of table mountain, close at hand.
“i was watching a malay fishing-boat sliding through the water with an occasional burst of spray off her weather bow, which arched a little rainbow for her to rush through, when i was accosted. i turned. it was the port-captain or harbour-master. i cannot remember the term by which his office was distinguished. he had sailed with my father some years earlier, and i had met him on two occasions in england. he had done me some kindness whilst i lay ill in lodgings in capetown, and had assured me of his willingness to help me to find a ship when i should be well enough to go to sea. he was a scotchman, with a hard, weather-coloured face, and a dry, arch expression of eye.
[162]
“‘d’ye see anything to fit ye?’ said he.
“‘ay,’ said i, ‘plenty.’
“‘well, now,’ said he, ‘you’re the very mon i was thinking of not half an hour ago. i was in adderley street, and met a captain who was here last year. his name’s huddersfield. he’s in charge of a colonial trader from a south american port, with a small consignment for this place, and is bound for sydney, new south wales, where his little ship’s owned, chiefly, i believe, by himsel’.’
“‘is there room for me in her?’
“‘well, yes, i think you’ll stand a chance. she lost her chief officer overboard when six days’ sail from this port, and she’s got to ship another man. take my advice and go aboard this evening and see the captain. he’s ashore till five or six o’clock.’
“‘which is the vessel?’
“he pointed to a large three-masted schooner that was lying within a hundred strokes of an oar almost abreast of us. she looked an exceedingly fine craft. a large dutch indiaman was rolling upon the swell of the sea within a few cables’ length astern of her, and just ahead rode a russian auxiliary frigate, very heavily sparred, with great gleaming windows in her stern, and a net-work of gilding on either quarter, so that the blue brine under her counter flashed as to the dart of a sunbeam whenever she lightly swayed; yet the schooner held her own in all points as a picture of beauty, and was not to be dwarfed. the gilded buttons of her trucks[163] shone high in the azure of that afternoon; she was painted white, and a gleam of dark red, like some cold wet flash of sunset, broke from her metalled bends whenever she was moved by the inflowing heave of the water.
“i lingered by the shore for the remainder of the afternoon, watching the people coming and going from and to the shipping, until i fancied, indeed i was certain, that the man i wanted, dressed in white clothes and a wide-brimmed straw hat, had been put aboard the schooner by her own boat.
“when i got on board i found the little ship a very noble, flush-decked vessel, with a clear sweep of sand-bright, yacht-like plank running from the taffrail to the ‘eyes’; the brass-work was full of the stars of the western sunshine. the glass of her skylights was dark and shining. her ropes were flemish coiled, as though, indeed, she had been a man-of-war. everything was clean and neat. i guessed she was about three hundred tons burden. her crew had knocked off for the day and were lounging about the windlass, two or three of them stripped to the waist washing themselves. they had a colonial air. this might have been owing to their dress of check shirt, open at the breast, no braces, here and there moleskins, and here and there a cabbage-tree hat.
“the second mate, a man whose name i afterwards ascertained was curzon, was walking in the gangway smoking a pipe. i inquired if captain huddersfield was[164] on board. he asked me what my business was, as though suspicious of a visit from a stranger after working hours. i was about to explain the reason that had brought me to the schooner, when captain huddersfield himself emerged through the little companion way, and stepped on deck, pausing a moment with the sharp of his hand to his brow to gaze in the direction of capetown.
“he was a tall, gentlemanly-looking person, thickly bearded, the hair of a rich auburn; the skin of his face was much burnt by the sun; his eyes were of a liquid blue, and when he approached and directed them at me i seemed to find something glowing and tender in them, as though he were an enthusiast, a man of strange, perhaps high, but always honest imaginings; a dreamer. he of all the men that ever i had met at sea the least corresponded in appearance with the received image of the nautical man, who, forsooth, whether in fiction or on the stage, must needs be a fraud from the landgoing point of view if he be not purple with grog blossoms, with eyes dim and staring with drink, with legs bent like the prongs of a pitch fork, and charged to the throat with a forecastle vocabulary incommunicable even by initials!
“i must say of captain huddersfield that never afloat or ashore had i before beheld in any man a more placid, benevolent expression of countenance. his age seemed about forty.
“‘that’s the captain,’ said the second mate.
“i lifted my cap and walked up to him. in a few[165] words i told my business, adding that i held not only a chief mate’s, but a master’s certificate of competency. he eyed me critically but with kindness, and nodded with something of gravity on my mentioning the name of the port-captain. after we had exchanged a few sentences, he took me into the cabin, a bright, breezy little interior, aromatic with a quantity of plants which had evidently been recently brought aboard, and cheerful with mirrors and pictures, as though, in short, this gentleman was in the habit when he went to sea of carrying his parlour with him; and bidding me be seated, he asked a number of questions, all which i saw with much pleasure, by the expression of his face, i answered to his satisfaction.
“the interview ended in his offering me the post of mate of the schooner on a lump wage for the run to sydney, and early next morning i went on board with my chest, and took up my quarters in the cabin.
“i regarded this securing of a post as a fine stroke of luck, and was mighty thankful. plentiful as was the shipping in table bay, i had suspected ever since i went ashore, a sick man, that my chance of getting a situation aft was small; that, in short, i should be obliged to get clear of the cape by offering myself as a hand. a trip to sydney was just to my liking, for amongst the ships there i should find no difficulty in procuring a berth owing to the gold craze which was emptying vessels of their crews, from mate to boy, before they were fairly berthed.
[166]
“four days after i had signed the schooner’s articles, we weighed and stood out of the bay. we were just in time to escape the thrashing of a furious south-easter which came whipping and howling down table mountain, out of the magnificent milk-white softness of vapour that half veiled the grand height, sinking and lifting upon it. a wide surface of water was whitened by this strange local gale. the limits of the wind were sharply and extraordinarily defined by a line of foam, inside of which all was savage popple and boiling commotion, the ships in it straining wildly, their loose gear curving, their bunting roaring; whilst outside all was of a midsummer serenity, the water rolling like knolls of polished quicksilver, tarnished here and there by light breathings of wind which delicately stretched the sails of the malay boats, and sent them glancing through it, till the catspaw died out into a roasting trance of burnished brine.
“we were, as i have said, a three-masted schooner, square-rigged forward, with an immense hoist of lower-mast for a square foresail, and a length of flying jibboom that made us all wings from the golden gleam of the figure-head to the tack of the flying jib. i had never before been shipmate with fore and aft canvas. all my knowledge of the sea had been picked up under square yards. there was nothing i could not do with a full-rigged ship, nor need a square-rigger and an old hand be charged with egotism for saying so. but when it came to boom-mainsails and gaff-foresails, and ropes[167] and rigging with unfamiliar names, i could only idly look on for awhile. but i did not doubt i should be able to quickly learn everything necessary to be known, and, meantime, when we were well out at sea, with the high african land upon our port quarter, blue in the air, with distant mountains trembling towards their summits into silver, and the mighty southern ocean stretching over our bows away down to the white silence of the antarctic parallels, i watched the behaviour of the schooner with interest.
“the breeze was abeam, the whole hot distance of the rich blue ocean was in it, there was no land for hundreds of leagues to break or hinder it; the schooner leaned over and flashed her sheathing at the northern sun, and stretched along the deep with the look of a flying hare. the white water poured aft from her shearing stem, her riband of wake sparkled to midway the horizon in a soaring and sinking vein of silver full of frost-like lights and wreaths of foam bells. it was like yachting, and i reckoned upon a quick run to sydney.
“from the hour of my coming aboard officially, captain huddersfield exhibited a very friendly, almost cordial disposition. he was a man of good education, a sailor first of all, but a gentleman also, not highly varnished perhaps, wanting in the airs and graces of the drawing-room, but abundantly possessed of those qualities which, when glazed and brightened by shore-going observance and habit, cause men to be esteemed for their breeding and bearing. he had a regard for[168] me, i think, because, like himself, i was not wholly a copy of the dramatic and romantic notions of the sailor. i neither swore nor drank. i was ever of opinion that it did not follow, because a man got his living under the commercial flag of his country, he must needs cultivate all qualities of blackguardism as a condition of his calling. i could not for the life of me understand why an officer in the merchant service should not be able to behave himself on board ship and ashore with as lively a sense of his duty and obligations as a gentleman as if he wore the buttons of the state.
“possibly my friend, the port-captain at capetown, had prejudiced huddersfield in my favour. then again, though he lived in sydney, he was an englishman born; his native county was mine, and this little circumstance alone, all those watery leagues away from the old home, was enough to establish a bond between us. nevertheless, i did not observe that he was very communicative about his own affairs. for the first few days until the furious weather set in, we often conversed, but i never found that our chats left me with any knowledge of his past or of his business; as, for instance, how long he had lived in new south wales, the occasion that had despatched him there, what his commercial interests were outside his schooner, whether he was married, and so forth.
“it breezed up ahead after we had been at sea a few days. the cambrian looked well to windward, but she was still points off her course. then again the great[169] agulhas stream set us to leeward, and our progress was slow. on the 22nd day of the month, we then being four days out from table bay, the weather blackened on a sudden in an afternoon in the north, the lightning streamed like cataracts of violet flame on those sooty sierras of storm, the thunder rolled continuously, but it was not till the edge of the electric stuff, black as midnight, was over our mastheads, with sea and sky dim and frightful as though beheld in the deep shadow of a total eclipse of the sun, that the hurricane took us.
“it came along in a note of thunder, sharp-edged with the continuous shrieking of wind; the sea boiled under it and raced with the diabolic outfly in a high white wall of water. it swept upon us with a flash in a whole sky-full of salt smoke, and the air was like a snow-storm with the throb and flight of the yeast; the trifle of canvas that had been left exposed vanished as a puff of steam would. the schooner lay over till her starboard shear poles were under, and then it was deep enough to drown a man in the lee scuppers.
“it was doubtful for some time whether she would right, and i was clawing my way forward with some dim hope of getting at the carpenter’s chest for an axe for the weather laniards, when the noble little craft suddenly rose buoyant, with the long savage yell of the gale in her rigging as she thrashed her lofty spars to windward.
“after this she made fairly good weather of it, but for three days we lay under bare poles, sagging[170] helplessly to leeward in the trough of that mighty ocean. the weather then moderated; within six hours of the breaking of the gale it was blowing a gentle wind out of the north-east; the sun shone brightly and the schooner flapped leisurely along her course under all plain sail and over a large but fast subsiding swell.
“during the time of violent weather captain huddersfield had seemed much depressed in spirits. i had attributed his dejection to the peril of those hours. we were a small ship for that tall southern surge. moreover his risk in the vessel might be large for all i knew. i could not guess how gravely i misjudged one of the manliest intelligences that ever informed a sailor.
“we were seated alone at dinner on the first day of fine weather. he said, after regarding me steadfastly for some moments—
“‘do you attach any meaning to dreams?’
“‘i do not,’ i answered.
“‘but when they recur?’ said he.
“‘no,’ said i, ‘not though they should recur for a month of sundays.’
“‘do you know of any superstitions in connection with dreams?’ he asked.
“‘i remember,’ said i, ‘an old woman once told me that to dream of a smooth sea is a sign of a prosperous voyage, but of a rough sea a stormy and unprofitable one.’
“he shook his head with a little impatience, without smiling.
[171]
“‘then, again,’ said i, taxing my memory to oblige him, for this sort of talk was sad stuff to my way of thinking, ‘a sailor once told me that if you dream of a dolphin you’re bound to lose your sweetheart. and the same man said that to dream of drowning was a promise of good luck. the hopefullest of all sea-dreams, i believe, is the vision of an anchor. ’tis a fact,’ said i, finding myself thoughtful for a moment, ‘that i dreamt of an anchor the night before i received a letter from an uncle containing a cheque for two hundred pounds—the only money i ever received from a relative in all my life.’
“he was silent for a while, and then said, speaking in a very serious voice—
“‘for three nights running the same odd vision has troubled me. i have thrice dreamt that i was becalmed in an icy atmosphere of antarctic darkness. the stars rode brilliantly, but they made no light. regularly through this black atmosphere there sounded, in a note of sighing, human with articulation, and yet resembling the noise made by the whale when it spouts its fountain, these mysterious words: “try for her in fifty!” “try for her in fifty!” over and over again it so ran: “try for her in fifty!” now, to have dreamt this once would be nothing; twice makes it remarkable; the third time of the same vision must affect even the most wooden of minds with a spirit as of conviction. i don’t believe in dreams any more than you do, yet there ought to be some sort of meaning in the repetition of one, in such a[172] haunting cry repeated on several occasions of slumber as, “try for her in fifty!”’
“‘well, sir, it’s strange,’ i exclaimed, ‘and that’s about the amount of it. i’ve somewhere heard of men rescued in a starving state from a desolate island through a dream. the captain’s nephew was the dreamer, i think. the same vision troubled him three times, as yours did. he was a young frenchman, and the dream made him importunate. the skipper shifted his helm to oblige the lad, and on sighting the island or rock found a little company of gaunt selkirks upon it.’
“thus we reasoned the matter awhile; he conversed as though he was worried at heart; when i went on deck, however, i flattered myself i had left him with an easier mind.
“he did not afterwards in that day refer to the subject, nor next morning when he came out of his cabin soon after sunrise, did he tell me that he had again been troubled in his sleep by that mysterious haunting cry, sounding across the black cold ocean of his dreams like the noise made by a whale, when it spouts its fountain to the stars in some midnight hush.
“a few days after we had had that talk i have just repeated, almost immediately on making eight bells by our sextant, a man on the forecastle hailing the quarter-deck bawled out that there was a small black object on the lee bow. captain huddersfield levelled the telescope, and said the thing was a ship’s quarter-boat with a man standing up in her. the weather was quiet at[173] this time, the breeze a light one. the schooner was rippling leisurely forward with an occasional flap of her canvas that flashed a light as of the sun itself into the blue air all about the masts. the junction of sea and sky was in haze, with here and there a dim blue shadow of cloud poised coast-like upon the horizon.
“i took the glass from the captain and made out a boat with a mast but no sail. the figure of a man stood erect, and one arm hooked the mast. we shifted our helm, and presently had the boat alongside.
“two men were in her. one lay motionless under the thwarts. the other, though erect on his feet, had barely strength to catch the rope’s end that was flung. the boat was of the ordinary pattern of ship’s quarter-boat. whilst we leaned over the side looking down into her, the captain said—
“‘what is the name written in the stern-sheets there?’
“my sight was good. i answered, ‘prairie chief.’
“he started, and turned pale, with a look of astonishment and horror, but said nothing.
“meanwhile, the two men were being got aboard. one was lifeless, and his looks seemed to tell of his having been frozen rather than starved to death. they were both dressed in the plain garb of the merchant sailor. the one that lived was assisted forward and disappeared in the forecastle in the company of two or three sympathizing seamen of our crew. nothing so appeals to the humanity of the british sailor as the[174] misery that is expressed by the open boat. in this case no appeal could have been more complete. i jumped into the little craft in obedience to the captain’s orders and overhauled her, and found nothing to eat or drink. her cargo was an empty beaker and some fragments of canvas which appeared to have been chewed. the very heart within me sickened at the story of anguish that was silently related by those dusky, dough-like lumps of canvas. we hoisted the boat aboard. the weather permitted us to do that, and she was too good and useful a boat to lose.
“in the afternoon we buried the body of the dead, nameless seaman; nameless, because it seemed that the other was incapable of relating his story; pain and famine had paralyzed the tongue in his mouth. the captain read the service; his manner was so subdued, his whole demeanour expressed him as so affected, that you would have supposed he was burying some dear friend or near relative. i had often attended a burial service at sea, but never one more impressive than this. all the desolation of the mighty deep seemed to have centred, as in a very spirit, in the lifeless body that lay stitched in a hammock in the gangway.
“when the body was overboard the captain walked to the boat we had hoisted in, and stood with his first look of amazement and grief, musing upon, or rather staring at the name prairie chief painted in the stern-sheets. he then went to his cabin. when he again made his appearance some time afterwards he was[175] extraordinarily reserved and gloomy. throughout the watches he would ask if the man was better. i do not recollect that he addressed another word to me than that question.
“next forenoon, some time about eight bells, the man was sufficiently recovered to come aft. i stood beside captain huddersfield, sextant in hand, whilst he talked to him. he said his name was james dickens, and that he had been an able seaman aboard the barque prairie chief. the ship was from london bound to sydney. south of the cape they met with very heavy weather from the northward, which hove them to and drove them south; it was so thick the captain could not get an observation. the wind slackened and the captain made sail, defying the thickness; he was impatient and had already made a long passage, and was resolved, happen what might, to ‘ratch’ north for a clear sky. in the middle of the day, when the smother upon the sea was so thick that the flying-jibboom end was out of sight from the wheel, a loud and fearful cry of ‘ice right ahead!’ rang from the forecastle. the wheel was revolved, every spoke, with the fury of despair, by the helmsman; but the ship’s time was come, and there was nothing in seamanship to manœuvre her clear of her fate. she telescoped into the ice and went to pieces.
“this, dickens said, had happened about ten days before we fell in with the boat. the disaster was not so frightfully sudden but that there was time for some to escape. a number of people, said the man, got upon[176] the ice. amongst them were the captain, his wife, and a female passenger. dickens particularly noticed these people, that is, the commander and the two women. he and three others drifted away in a boat. the barque went to pieces aloft when she struck; he was sure that none others saving himself and the three men escaped in the boats. it was in the middle of the day when the ship ran into the berg, and the darkness happened so quickly after the disaster that he was unable to tell much of what followed. two of his companions died whilst they were adrift and their bodies were dropped overboard.
“whilst dickens told his story i watched the captain. his features were knitted into an expression of consternation, yet he never once interrupted the man. when the sailor had made an end of his story, huddersfield said, in a slow level voice—
“‘was your commander captain smalley?’
“‘yes, sir.’
“‘was one of the female passengers mrs. huddersfield?’
“‘it was her name, sir.’
“the captain turned his eyes upon me and cried, with a sudden wild toss of his hands that somehow gave an extraordinary pathos to his words and looks, ‘she is my wife!’
“nothing was said for some moments. i was at a loss for speech. it was the same as hearing of the death of one beloved by the person you are with when[177] the news is given to him; what can you say? presently i said to the man—
“‘did you sight any ships whilst you were adrift?’
“‘nothing, sir.’
“‘but won’t the ice you ran into,’ said i, ‘be well within the limits of the ocean fairway?’
“he could not answer me this.
“‘how far south did you drift?’
“he did not know.
“‘if they are on the ice is it too late to rescue them, sir?’ i inquired, addressing the captain, after another pause.
“he seemed too distracted by grief to heed my question.
“‘i had hoped,’ he said, speaking in short breathings and broken sentences, ‘to find her safe at sydney on my arrival there; she went home last year on a visit to her mother. it was arranged that captain smalley, an old friend, should bring her out. ten days ago,’ he muttered to himself, ‘ten days ago.’ he covered his eyes with his hand, then looking vacantly at his sextant, went to the rail and seemed to stare out to sea into the south.
“i was about to question dickens afresh when the captain rounded upon us in a very flash of white face and wild, eager manner.
“‘try for her in fifty!’ he cried, looking at me, but as though he saw some one beyond me.
“i viewed him with silent surprise. the very[178] memory and therefore the meaning of the words he now pronounced had gone out of my head, and i did not understand him.
“‘try for her in fifty!’ he repeated. ‘i know what it means.’
“he went in a sort of a run to the wheel, and brought the schooner’s head to a due southerly course, whilst he shouted in tones vibrating with the excitement that seemed like mania in the man then, with the workings of his face—i say he shouted for sail to be trimmed for the course he had brought the schooner to, and the seamen fled about the decks to my commands, alert and willing, but as astonished as i was. when sail had been trimmed the captain called to mr. curzon to keep her steady as she went, and requested me to follow him below.
“he stood beside the table and leaned upon it; his agitation was so extreme that i thought to see his mother in his eyes. his breathing continued distressingly laboured for some time; indeed, the emotions and passions which tore him appeared to have arrested the faculty of speech. at last he exclaimed in a voice low with religious awe, yet threaded too with a note of triumph that instantly caught my ear—
“‘do you now guess the meaning of that dream which was three times dreamt by me?’
“still i was at a loss and made no answer.
“‘try for her in fifty!’ he exclaimed. ‘that was the cry i told you about. you remember the sentence, surely?’
[179]
“‘yes, clearly now, sir, that you recall it.’
“‘come, let’s work out the latitude,’ he said, ‘and we’ll find that iceberg’s situation. my heart’s on fire. oh!’ he cried, but softly, in a tone that thrilled through me, ‘my wife is dear to me. i pray, i pray! we may not be too late.’
“i still failed to grasp what was in his mind, and suspected that his reason had been a little weakened by the shock of the news he had received. when we had worked out our observations he exposed the chart he used to prick off the ship’s course on, and mused upon it, and measured angles and distances.
“‘it is at this season,’ said he, ‘that the ice breaks away out of the south and comes in fleets of bergs thickly crowding north. there’s been heavy weather. we’ll not allow for a larger drift than a league a day. try for her in fifty. that’s it. that will put the berg when the prairie chief struck it in about fifty-one.’
“i thought now i began to understand him.
“‘you mean fifty-one degrees of south latitude?’
“‘of course i do,’ he answered.
“i measured the distance due south from the place where our ship then was, and made it a few hundred miles—i forget the figure.
“‘it’s a short run,’ said he, looking at the chart. ‘the boat did it in ten days, and that’s not above three knots an hour.’ i was silent. ‘i shall strike the parallel of fifty degrees,’ he continued, after a pause, ‘then run away east. if i sight nothing i shall head[180] back. i’ll find her—under god,’ he added, removing his cap, and glancing upwards with an expression of rapt devotion.
“this was an extraordinary undertaking, prompted as it was by an impulse bred of the imagination of a mind in slumber, yet by no means irrational, seeing that it was certain, if the seaman dickens reported aright, there was a shipwrecked company upon an iceberg within a few days’ sail.
“the crew were briefly told that captain huddersfield’s wife had been aboard the prairie chief, and that the schooner was going to seek the survivors of the wreck. it will be supposed, however, that no hint was dropped as to the mysterious voice which had spoken in the whisper of a giant in the captain’s dream. curzon, the second mate, said that apart from the heavy odds against our falling in with the particular iceberg we wanted, there was the certainty, should we strangely enough encounter the mass of ice, of our finding the people dead of cold and starvation. i answered there was no certainty about it, and quoted several instances of astonishing deliverances from floating bodies of ice as recorded in the old marine chronicles.
“not until the fourth day did we strike the latitude of 50°, in which time we saw no ice. the ocean was of a marvellous rich blue, the heavens a deep and thrilling violet, with coasts of swelling white vapour of a rusty bronze in their brows lying upon the glass-like line of the horizon. we now headed due east; the[181] sailors thought our quest was ended! throughout the glittering frosty hours—the wind blew with a piercing breath down here—captain huddersfield kept a look-out. he was for ever crossing the deck to peer ahead, and again and again, slinging a binocular glass over his shoulder, he would go aloft on to the little fore-royal-yard, where he stayed till the bitter cold drove him down.
“at midnight on this day we sighted a large ice-island, pale as alabaster under the moon, and shortened canvas to approach it. we hove-to till the grey of the dawn, when the rising sun gave us a magnificent picture of a floating mountain bristling with pinnacles, a principality of turrets and castellated eminences, majestic in solitude. the man dickens said it was not the berg. we sailed round it, keeping a sharp look-out for the loose ice, and then observing no signs of life, save a number of birds, proceeded.
“this same day we fell in with five different bergs, of various sizes, all of which we approached, and carefully examined; but to no purpose. then for some long hours we encountered no more ice; but all this while we sailed steadily on the parallel of 50° s., making a due east course.
“and now comes the amazing part of this tale. i went on deck at midnight to take charge of the schooner. on walking to the side as my custom was, and gazing steadily ahead—a corner of the moon at this time hung in the sky over the port-quarter—i beheld a dim[182] faintness right ahead, a delicate gleam like some mysterious reflection of light in a looking-glass in a darkened room. a man came along from the forecastle, and sung out in a quiet voice that there was ice ahead. i bade him rout out dickens; it was his watch below, but whenever ice was reported we had him up, and stationed him on the forecastle to keep a look-out as the one and only man in the vessel who would know the berg we were in search of. i then ran to the companion hatch and called to the captain, who was lying upon a locker below, and he immediately arrived.
“the wind was scanty, and our speed through the water scarcely four knots, but hardly had day broken—the ice-island being then about a mile distant—when dickens, who had remained on the forecastle throughout the dark hours, shrieked out—
“‘the iceberg, sir!’
“it was a fine morning, the sea quiet, the wind a nipping air out of the south-west; the sun shone full upon the iceberg, and flashed it into a great moon-white floating heap, scored with ravines and gorges. the swell rushed in thunder into deep caverns. i saw many gothic archways with birds flying in them; the mass was like a city of alabaster, the home of sea spirits, of ocean fowl of mighty pinion; the surf boiled in thunder on the windward points. i observed a shelf of the dead-white crystal sloping very gently like a beach into the wash of the water, and whilst i was gazing at it[183] the captain, who was working away at the berg with a telescope, cried out fiercely; then growing inarticulate, he put the glass into my hand, gaping at the ice, and pointing to it.
“i levelled the glass, and immediately distinguished a structure, contrived, as i presently saw, of the galley of a ship, and a quantity of wreckage. it stood in a great split in the ice, within musket-shot of the beach, and whilst i looked smoke rose from it.
“‘there is life there!’ i cried out.
“we hauled in, and then with the naked eye clearly perceived several figures making signs to us. when we were as close as prudence permitted, the long-boat was got over, and the captain and five men, one of them being dickens, pulled away towards the berg. i stood off to improve my offing, and being full of the business of the schooner, had little opportunity to remark what passed on the ice-island.
“by-and-by the boat returned; she looked to be full of people. when she was alongside i saw two women in her. one was locked in the embrace of captain huddersfield; he had wrapped her in his coat, and held her to his heart. both women were lifted over the side; three of the men were also handed up. the others managed to crawl on deck unaided. there were seven men and two women. they afterwards told us that fifteen in all had gained the ice.
“the wife of the captain of the prairie chief—he[184] was amongst those who had perished—died before our arrival in sydney. mrs. huddersfield, a stronger woman, quickly recovered, and was walking the deck in the sun, leaning on her husband’s arm, within a week of her rescue.”
