Fast in the Ice

Fast in the Ice, by R.M.
Ballantyne

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Title: Fast in the Ice Adventures in the Polar Regions
Author: R.M. Ballantyne
Release Date: November 15, 2007 [EBook #23492]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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THE ICE ***

Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England

Fast in the Ice
Adventures in the Polar Regions
by R.M. Ballantyne.

CHAPTER ONE.
One day, many years ago, a brig cast off from her moorings, and sailed
from a British port for the Polar Seas. That brig never came back.
Many a hearty cheer was given, many a kind wish was uttered, many a
handkerchief was waved, and many a tearful eye gazed that day as the
vessel left Old England, and steered her course into the unknown
regions of the far north.
But no cheer ever greeted her return; no bright eyes ever watched her
homeward-bound sails rising on the far-off horizon.
Battered by the storms of the Arctic seas, her sails and cordage
stiffened by the frosts, and her hull rasped and shattered by the ice of
those regions, she was forced on a shore where the green grass has little
chance to grow, where winter reigns nearly all the year round, where
man never sends his merchandise, and never drives his plough. There
the brig was frozen in; there, for two long years, she lay unable to move,
and her starving crew forsook her; there, year after year, she lay,
unknown, unvisited by civilised man, and unless the wild Eskimos [see
note 1] have torn her to pieces, and made spears of her timbers, or the
ice has swept her out to sea and whirled her to destruction, there she
lies still--hard and fast in the ice.
The vessel was lost, but her crew were saved, and most of them
returned to tell their kinsfolk of the wonders and the dangers of the
frozen regions, where God has created some of the most beautiful and
some of the most awful objects that were ever looked on by the eye of
man.
What was told by the fireside, long ago, is now recounted in this book.
Imagine a tall, strong man, of about five-and-forty, with short, curly
black hair, just beginning to turn grey; stern black eyes, that look as if
they could pierce into your secret thoughts; a firm mouth, with lines of
good-will and kindness lurking about it; a deeply-browned skin, and a
short, thick beard and moustache. That is a portrait of the commander

of the brig. His name was Harvey. He stood on the deck, close by the
wheel, looking wistfully over the stern. As the vessel bent before the
breeze, and cut swiftly through the water, a female hand was raised
among the gazers on the pier, and a white scarf waved in the breeze. In
the forefront of the throng, and lower down, another hand was raised; it
was a little one, but very vigorous; it whirled a cap round a small head
of curly black hair, and a shrill "hurrah!" came floating out to sea.
The captain kissed his hand and waved his hat in reply; then, wheeling
suddenly round, he shouted, in a voice of thunder:
"Mind your helm, there; let her away a point. Take a pull on these
foretopsail halyards; look alive, lads!"
"Aye, aye, sir!" replied the men.
There was no occasion whatever for these orders. The captain knew
that well enough, but he had his own reasons for giving them. The men
knew that, too, and they understood his reasons when they observed the
increased sternness of his eyes, and the compression of his lips.
Inclination and duty! What wars go on in the hearts of men--high and
low, rich and poor--between these two. What varied fortune follows
man, according as the one or the other carries the day.
"Please, sir," said a gruff, broad-shouldered, and extremely short man,
with little or no forehead, a hard, vacant face, and a pair of enormous
red whispers; "please, sir, Sam Baker's took very bad; I think it would
be as well if you could give him a little physic, sir; a tumbler of Epsom,
or some-think of that sort."
"Why, Mr Dicey, there can't be anything very far wrong with Baker,"
said the captain, looking down at his second mate; "he seems to me one
of the healthiest men in the ship. What's the matter with him?"
"Well,