CHAPTER II. THE ICE-BOUND SHIP.

Far down in the Antarctic Ocean a good ship was battling with heavy seas and a head wind.

For weeks the whaler Albatross had been trying to make headway against the vigorous norther which constantly headed them off.

But a few weeks more remained for them to get into northern seas before the winter would set in.

Captain Hardy had spent one winter among the ice and snow of the Antarctic and had no desire to spend another.

The ship was loaded down with whale oil, and pecuniarily the cruise bid fair to be a tremendous success.

But provisions were getting low, and to be nipped in the ice again meant a horrible fate, nothing short of starvation.

Realizing this, it was little wonder that Captain Hardy paced the deck of his ship anxiously and studied the northern sky.

“Well, Jack Wallis!” he cried, in his bluff way, “it still blows, and, by Neptune, it looks likely to keep on. We can’t make seaway in such a wind. What are we going to do?”

Jack Wallis, the mate, was a tall, handsome fellow, with resolute blue eyes and Saxon complexion.

He was a favorite with the crew and brave as a lion.

But his face now was a trifle pale. He realized the danger of their position quite as well as did Captain Hardy.

He was not thinking of his own safety, but of those aboard the ship and their prospective fate as well as the peril of a certain very charming young lady on board. No other than Lucille Hardy, the captain’s daughter.

The captain had yielded against his will to Lucille’s pleadings to be allowed to come on the voyage.

He knew better than she did the mighty risk involved.

But he had finally yielded, it was true that Lucille was the light of the ship. The crew to a man worshipped and revered her.

Two years under the Southern Cross was a long while to remain away from home.

But Lucille had been happy even in the monotonous routine of ship life.

Now, however, when the prospect of being compelled to spend another winter in frozen latitudes confronted him Captain Hardy wished devoutly that he had left her at home.

All this prospect, so dreadful, might have been averted had they started a month earlier for home.

But striking a school of whales, the temptation to fill every barrel aboard had caused the captain to linger.

In an ordinary season, however, he would yet have succeeded in getting beyond the circle.

But it seemed as if the fates themselves held the north wind in their hands. It had grown in fury for weeks.

And now the cold had begun to set in.

Pack ice even showed itself, and the rigging was frozen at times, so that a block or stay could hardly be moved.

No wonder the captain was anxious.

“We must bend every sail!” he declared, “Unless we get out of here this week it is winter quarters, and——”

He did not finish the sentence.

Something like a groan escaped his lips.

But every day the wind grew stiffer and the Albatross labored harder.

It was certain that she would never make the northern seas. A gloom settled down over ship and crew.

The sailors, brave fellows all, could not help a murmur.

Many of them thought of their homes in the far North where dear ones were awaiting them. Alas! it looked as if they would never see them again.

Day by day the vessel lost headway.

Then one day the black clouds shut in from the north and there came an ice storm, the like of which they had never seen before.

There was little use to attempt to face the wind now.

All they could do was to keep the vessel steady and look out for a collision with drift ice.

The nights were long sieges, with trying to keep the ship from being stove. The days were rigid battles against the careering blasts.

Then the sun disappeared below the horizon. The Antarctic night had begun.

There was no longer any hope of reaching northern waters that year.

Winter quarters was the order. In a remarkably brief space of time the tossing, turbulent sea had become a solid mass of pack ice.

And in the midst of this her timbers grinding and wrenching with the strain lay the Albatross.

But soon the ice pack became motionless as the fearful cold contributed to make it solid.

Thus fixed in her icy bed the Albatross was to remain a fixture for seven long dreary months.

It was by no means a pleasant outlook. Yet the crew proceeded to make the best of it.

The rations were carefully reckoned up.

It was found that only with the most frugal of indulgence would they last until spring.

But yet there was a chance that game might be procured to some extent. Even then, however, it was remembered that after the ice pack should break up it would be three months before they could hope to reach a port.

Therefore the outlook was serious indeed.

Added to this was the almost absolute certainty of sickness.

Scurvy already threatened various members of the crew. Yet they did no yield to despair.

It was a common conviction that the only hope of escape consisted in clinging together, and this they did.

There was no mutiny, no recriminations, no quarrels. It was a common cause, and life was its stake.

Soon the Antarctic winter with all its fearful rigors had set in.

But they were quite comfortable aboard the ship, grouping about the furnace by the light of the oil lamps.

Outside the cold was at times so severe as to have almost precluded a human being living in the open air a moment.

But there were many of these spells, and fortunately they were not of long duration.

At times the thermometer would go up with a rush and the air became quite mild.

At such times they dared to venture away from the ship.

Hunts were organized and as game came out from the mainland to roam the ice pack there was always a chance of shooting something.

Foxes and rabbits, or Arctic hares were common. Occasionally an elk was seen, or a species of reindeer.

Seals were plenty, though rather difficult to hunt, and great flocks of ducks and geese at times flew over.

The party were getting along amazingly well when one day a fearful, thrilling catastrophe occurred.

Of course, none of the ship’s crew had ever penetrated further south, and knew nothing of the Antarctic continent.

That it might be inhabited was possible, but there was no record.

In the Arctic, Esquimaux lived contiguous to the Pole.

But in the Antarctic human life had never been found existent. Yet this was no evidence that it did not exist.

One day Captain Hardy and Jack proposed to go on a seal hunt four miles away toward the open sea.

They took two of the seamen—Jerry Mains and Adolph Sturgeson—with them. This left Second Mate Albert Stearns and six seamen aboard the craft.

Of course, Lucille remained aboard.

It was a fatal day.

Arrived at the sealing grounds the first catastrophe occurred. It was one never to be forgotten.

A seal was lanced by Sturgeson, very near the edge of the pack. The creature was killed, as the sailor believed.

But as he ventured near it suddenly it turned and attacked him.

Before Sturgeson could get out of the way it had fastened one of its tusks through the calf of his leg.

He was held a prisoner, and the agony was so intense that he shrieked for aid. He was seen by all three of his companions.

“My God!” cried Jack Wallis, with the utmost horror. “Poor Sturgeson is done for!”

“Don’t say that!” cried Captain Hardy, with anguish. “Save him!”

Jerry Mains was the nearest.

Seeing his companion in such deep trouble, he at once started for him. Out over the pack he ran.

The seal still hanging to his victim, was backing to the edge of the pack. A moment more and he would slide into the water.

Mains reached the spot the next moment. With a blow he killed the seal and then grasped Sturgeson’s hands.

But at that moment a fearful thing happened.

The section of ice upon which they were suddenly snapped and broke away from the main pack.

It drifted out into the black water. All might have been well even then had it not been for a phenomenon, almost always certain to occur.

There were huge, top-heavy peaks on the ice floe, which caused it to become unbalanced.

Suddenly it rocked violently, and then with a mighty vortex of waters keeled over and turned bottom side up, the heavy part of the berg sinking.

An awful cry of horror escaped Captain Hardy and Jack Wallis.

“My God, they are lost forever!” cried the young mate.

This was certainly true.

The two unfortunate men never rose. The bed of the deep Antarctic was their final resting place.

There was no more seal hunting that day. The grief and horror of the two survivors can well be imagined.

There was nothing to do but to return to the Albatross and report the mishap.

So back toward the ship they started. But as they came in sight of it, Captain Hardy remarked a peculiar circumstance.

“That is queer!” he exclaimed. “There is no smoke from the galley pipes. What does it mean?”

“They cannot have let the fire go out!” cried Jack.

The two men exchanged startled glances. Without a word they pressed forward.

And as they drew nearer the ice-bound ship no one came out to greet them. No one answered Jack’s hail.

All was as silent as death.

“What is the matter with them?” cried Captain Hardy. “Why on earth don’t they answer?”

Forward they pushed rapidly.

When twenty yards from the ship Jack Wallis paused with an awful cry of terror.

“Look!” he shrieked.

There about the ship’s gangway the snow had been fearfully trampled and it was a crimson color. Blood was the cause of this.

And upon the sides of the ship, upon the ladder and the rail all was blood. Over the rail Jack Wallis went.

And there upon the ship’s deck he saw the rigid figure of a man frightfully mutilated and frozen stiff in the bitter air.