In the Misty Seas: A Story of the Sealers of Behring Strait

"It's no use," said Niven hoarsely. "I can't do any more. Shout if you can, though we'd be out of sight before they could get the other boat over."

They made the most noise they could, but it is difficult to shout when exhausted by a strenuous effort, and it is more than possible that the splash of the sea and sighing of the wind drowned their strained voices. Nor is the low dusky shape of a boat easy to discern from a ship's deck on a hazy night. In any case, there was no answer, and for a minute the lads watched the three tall spars and strip of hull that rose black against the moon slide away from them – and that was the last they ever saw of the Aldebaran. Then another gust brought down the haze again, and while the smoky greyness drifted past them they were alone.

"I can scarcely pull," said Niven. "Do you think we could fetch ashore?"

"I don't," said Appleby with grim directness. "Still, we can try, and it's the only thing we can do."

They rowed for about twenty minutes, the splashing strokes growing slower while the plunging grew sharper, and then stopped again as the haze thinned a little. The blink of the barque's riding light was no longer perceptible, nor could they see anything of the shore.

"Well?" said Niven dejectedly.

Appleby laughed, though his voice was not mirthful and there was a curious tremor in it. "You wanted to leave the Aldebaran– and I fancy you've got your wish," he said. "We're blowing out from land, and there's quite a sea getting up."

"Yes," groaned Niven. "That's plain enough. What are we going to do?"

"I don't know," said Appleby. "It's not blowing much, and the proper thing would be to keep her lying head to with the oars until the morning. Then we'd see the land. If we kept pulling easy she wouldn't drift very much. The difficulty is that we're not fit to do it."

"No," said Niven decisively. "No more rowing for me. That's not going to work, anyway. What's the next best thing?"

"Make a sea anchor with the mast and sail and a piece of iron hanging from it, and lie to it with a long cable," said Appleby who had been reading some of Lawson's books.

"Rot again!" said Niven. "We haven't got any iron, and the few yards of rope forward wouldn't be half enough."

"Then," said Appleby with a little hollow laugh, "we can only let her drift, unless the sea gets too big for it. I don't feel like rowing any more myself."

They threw the oars in, and sat down out of the wind on the floorings, feeling very lonely, for an hour or so. The gig was long and narrow with only a few inches of her bottom in the water, and the wind did what it would with her. Now it drove her sideways, now it whirled her round, and all the while the dark slopes of water rose higher and the night grew colder. At last when a little splash of brine fell on Appleby's face he rose to his knees and saw a yellow flicker with a green blink beneath it swinging towards them through the haze.

"Get your oar out – quick! There's a steamer coming up," he said.

Niven obeyed him, but it was another thing to pull the oar. Their tired arms had stiffened, and it is somewhat difficult to row in tumbling water. The wind would also blow the gig's head round in spite of them, and little frothy splashes came in over the bow, but the lights were growing brighter, and when at last they stopped rowing a big, shadowy bow was forging through the water close in front of them.

Twice they sent up a breathless shout, while the bow drew out into a length of dusky hull. They could see the double row of deckhouses showing dimly white, and the big, black funnel high above them, but only the thumping of engines answered their cry, and in another moment the boat reeled and plunged as the steamer's stern went by. Then a little seething rush of foam lapped in over the gunwale, and Niven groaned.

"The brutes – they could have heard us if they had wanted to," he said with hoarse unevenness, and Appleby saw what was going to happen by the way his comrade flung in his oar.

"Hold up!" he said sternly. "Shake it off, and stiffen your back, Chriss. If you're going to give up we can't do anything."

"It can't make any difference," said Niven with hopeless apathy. "You know as well as I do that we can do nothing now."

It was not astonishing that his courage should desert him. He was worn out, and already the gig was taking more than splashes in over her gunwale, for they had blown well out from land and the freshening breeze had raised a little frothing sea in the more open water. It appeared very possible that the craft would roll over presently. Appleby, however, though very near it, was not quite beaten yet.

"That's where you're wrong," said he. "We can get a little sail on her and keep her running. There's not sea enough to hurt her when she's going before it, and we're tolerably sure to pick up a ship or see the land to-morrow."

It was a relief to have something to do, and Niven felt a very little easier in mind when they had stepped the mast, half-hoisted the sail and baled the boat dry. She ran well as long, flat-floored boats do, and, though there was usually a sea that looked unpleasantly big following close behind her, no more water came on board. Niven lay on the floorings by his comrade's feet where the stern kept the wind and spray off him, and Appleby sat at the tiller doing his best to keep the boat before the sea, and watching the froth swirl past her. It raced forward faster than they were travelling, rose above the gunwale on either hand, and then surged on into the darkness and was lost again. He had only this and the chill of the wind that swept over his shoulder to guide him, and by and by, when the gig swerved a little, in place of seething past, the foam lapped into her. Then Niven would stir himself and bale to free the boat of the water before more came on board her. He had, however, no great difficulty in doing it, because a buoyant craft of that kind will, so long as one can keep her straight, run before a tolerably nasty sea without shipping much water, but both lads knew they were driving four or five miles further from the land every hour.

They saw no more steamers, and very little of anything beyond the streaks of froth that went hissing by. Sometimes for a few minutes the moon shone through, but the silvery radiance was promptly blotted out by the haze again, and Appleby grew steadily colder and stiffer at the tiller. He was also getting drowsy, though he knew that if he relaxed his vigilance for a moment and let the gig swerve as she lurched forward with a sea the next would fill her to the gunwales or roll her over. At last when his head would droop a little in spite of his efforts, Niven, who was looking aft just then, rose half-upright.

"Hallo!" he said excitedly. "There's something coming up astern."

Appleby, with every nerve quivering, glanced over his shoulder, which was not wise of him, and saw a tall, dusky shape rush out of the darkness. Then the boat shot up to windward a little, and her weather gunwale was lost in a rush of foam.

"Bale!" he shouted, as he felt the chilly water splash about his ankles.

Niven grasped the baler, for there was evidently no time to lose, but as he did so a banging and rattling came out of the darkness, and a hoarse cry reached them.

"Down sail, and pull her up to us!"

Appleby let the sheet fly, and scrambled forward, and in another moment the flapping sail fell into the boat.

Then while the gig lurched perilously and they struggled to get the oars out a shadowy blur of thrashing canvas swept past them and stopped close ahead. After that he only remembered rowing savagely until a low dark hull that plunged and rolled swayed down upon the boat and smote her heavily. A man sprang down apparently with a rope, another leaning over the bulwarks clutched Niven and dragged him up, and Appleby, who did not quite know how he got there, found himself standing on a little schooner's deck. Somebody was speaking close beside him.

"She's twenty feet, anyway, and there's nowhere we could stow her."

"Then you can let her go," said another man. "Box her round with the staysail, Donegal. She'll fall off now. Let draw, and out with the main-boom again!"

There was no sharpness in the man's voice, and he spoke with a drawl, but Appleby had never seen sail handled as quickly on board the Aldebaran. Here and there a dark object hauled on a rope, and then with a swing to leeward and a swift upward lurch the schooner was on her way again. He did not fancy the vessel was a trader, because she seemed too fast and small for that, and while he wondered what her business might be the man who had spoken touched him.

"Come right along, and we'll have a look at you," he said.

Appleby and Niven followed him into the little house under the mainboom, the floor of which was below the level of the deck, and stood still with the water trickling from them while a lamp swung above them. A little stove burned in one corner, the place seemed very hot, while a curious odour pervaded it. Then Appleby's eyes rested on the man who sat down at one end of the little swing table. He was tall and lanky, and his face was lean, while his skin was the colour of new leather, and a ponderous hand rested on the table in front of him. His hair was slightly grizzled, and there was something that suggested resolution in the set of his lips and the shape of his chin. There was, however, a little smile in his eyes, which were very keen.

"Sit you down," he said. "Kind of cold night for a picnic, and you were making good time for Yokohama when we saw you first."

The lads obeyed him, and the man thumped upon the beam above him when Niven sank huddled into a corner and closed his eyes. Then there was a cold draught as a skylight opened and a man looked in. "Wanting anything?" he said.

"Tell Brulée to worry round and raise a pint or two of coffee – hot," said the man at the table, who glanced at Appleby. "Your partner's played out, but we'll fix him in a minute."

"Are you the skipper of this schooner, sir?" asked Appleby.

The man nodded. "That's just what I am – Ned Jordan of Vancouver, British Columbia, though I kind of figure it's me that's conducting this meeting. It was about the picnic you were going to tell me."

Appleby felt reassured, for the man's voice was good-humoured, though he fancied it would not be advisable to trifle with him.

"There wasn't any picnic, sir," he said. "We didn't come out for pleasure."

"No," said Jordan dryly. "I didn't figure there was. Those things you've got on don't look quite like a city lad's outfit. Still, I was wondering if you were going to put it that way."

Appleby flushed a trifle, for he guessed the man's thoughts. "What do you fancy we are?" said he.

Jordan smiled dryly. "It's me that's asking the questions, but I'm quite open to tell you. You're two English lads from the big barque off Port Parry, and I figure you got tired of her."

"We didn't run away from her," said Appleby.

"Well," said Jordan with a trace of grimness, "whether you did or didn't don't count for much with me, but I've no use for crooked talking on board this packet. Better tell me what started you off for Japan, and put it as straight as you can."

Appleby told his story, and Jordan glanced at Niven, who had opened his eyes again. "You would tell it the same way, too?"

"Of course," said Niven angrily. "Still, I'm not going to do it since you don't believe him."

There was a little gleam in Jordan's eyes, and, as he looked at them in turn, they found his gaze somewhat embarrassing. "Still, you're not worrying because you can't get back?" he said.

"No," said Appleby. "I'm uncommonly glad I can't."

Jordan nodded. "Not much to eat, and plenty kicks?" he said, as a man came in. "Well, here's the coffee, and I figure you could worry through a little grub as well. Whatever they fed you with on board the barque, they didn't make you fat."

He laid a fresh loaf, butter, and a can of meat upon the table, and the lads did not wait for a second invitation, while it was a good many minutes later when Appleby laid his knife down with a little sigh of content.

"We have got to thank you, sir, but it's time we asked where the schooner's going to, and when you can put us ashore?" he said.

Jordan nodded, and pointed to the northern half of the compass fixed in the skylight above him. "That's where she's going – up there into the ice and fog where the fur seals live," he said. "As to the other question, we could land you in Vancouver when the season's over. We're away five or six months as the usual thing."

"But that would never do for us," said Niven with dismay.

"No?" said Jordan dryly. "Well, you see, I wasn't thinking of you very much. I didn't ask you to come here, and there are a few other men as well as myself I've got to suit on board this packet."

Appleby stared at him in silence for a space. "But you can't take us away north unless we are willing to go," said he. "You could haul her on a wind, and put us ashore on the west coast of Vancouver Island to-morrow. My friend's father would pay you well for doing it."

Again the expression Appleby had noticed crept into Jordan's eyes. "Well," he said with a little laugh, "I figure I can, and if I put you ashore on the beach you'd starve in the bush. Now, I don't quite like the way you're talking, because while there's no kicking on board the Champlain, we've no use for more than one skipper – and that's me. When you've got that into your head we'll go on a little. Says you, 'The other lad's father will pay you.' Well, I don't know him, and he's living six thousand miles away, while if he'd sense enough to raise dollars he could heave away, he'd never have sent his son to sea. That's quite plain to me."

"My father is a rich merchant, and a clever one," said Niven indignantly. "The value of a good many schooners like this one wouldn't be much to him."

"Then," said Jordan with a grim smile, "it's quite clear you don't take after him. Folks of that kind know when talking's not much use to them, but it's time we got ahead a little. We were nigh a month behind when we started from Vancouver, and with five boats way up before me, I'm not stopping one hour for anybody, and the Champlain is going north like a steamer while this breeze lasts. You've heard all I've got to tell you as to that. Now it might be two or three months before I could put you on board anything coming south, and in the meanwhile I've got to give you clothes and feed you, while, as I want all the dollars I've got, to do it for nothing wouldn't be square to me. So since you came on board the Champlain, I'm wanting your word that you'll stay there until we get back to Vancouver. You'll get half a man's share in what we make, if we find you useful and willing, and that seems to me a square offer."

Appleby looked at Niven. "It can't be helped – and we couldn't be worse off than we were in the Aldebaran," he said. "There's no use in telling him any more about your father."

Niven sat silent a little, and then nodded. "We'll come, sir," he said.

"Then," said Jordan, "it's a deal. Now those things of yours aren't quite fit to go sealing in, and you can take these along. Stickine will show you how to fix them up to-morrow."

He took out several curiously smelling garments from a cupboard, and shouted, "Stickine!" and in another minute the lads went out on deck and down a hatchway with a big silent man who grinned at them reassuringly.

CHAPTER VIII

THE 'CHAMPLAIN,' SEALER

A streak of sunlight that crept warm across his face and then swung away again awakened Appleby next morning, and for a moment or two he lay still staring about him in dreamy wonder. The Aldebaran'sdeckhouse was held together by little iron beams, and in place of these great square timbers and ponderous knees ran into the vessel's framing above his head. There was something curiously unfamiliar about them. Then he saw that a long shelf, divided into wooden bunks, extended beyond the one he lay in, and there were more of them on the opposite side of the vessel. Between lay a space of shadow save where a shaft of sunlight came down through an opening, and Appleby remembered suddenly when as he watched it swing to and fro he felt a quick rise and fall which was very different from the long upward lurch of the Aldebaran. Reaching over he laid his hand on Niven's shoulder.

"Turn out! It's eight bells, and they're tacking ship," he said.

Niven was out of his bunk in a moment, and a burst of hoarse laughter greeted him, when he stood swaying, half-awake, on the deck, in the scantiest of attire, with dismay in his face.

"What's – what's all this?" he said. "Wherever have I got to?"

"Well," said the man called Stickine they had seen in the cabin, "I guess it isn't the Aldebaran. Now, hadn't you better get some of those things on to you?"

Niven struggled into the garments the man pointed to, while Appleby sat on the edge of his bunk and grinned at him, and a group of men sitting in the shadow with plates upon their knees watched them both curiously. There were five or six of them, and all had bronzed faces that had been darkened by frost and ice blink, as well as sun and wind, and there was, he fancied, a difference between these men and any he had seen on board the Aldebaran. He came to know them later – as a few gentlemen who watched affairs of State in Vladivostock, Washington, and Ottawa did – as very daring seamen and fearless free lances, who now and then came home rich with fur seal pelts from the misty seas, in spite of the edicts and gunboats of three great nations. In the meanwhile he saw they were getting a much better breakfast than that usually sent forward on board the Aldebaran, and there was an air of good-humoured comradeship about them. Appleby had by this time got into his trousers, and one of the group stood up when he dropped to the deck.

"Clear away for firing practice with the turret gun!" he said.

Niven stared at him a moment, and then guessing what was meant laughed a little. "No," he said "you've missed it this time."

"Be easy while I try him," said another man, and then slammed his hand down on the table. "Eyes front. 'Tinshun company!"

"Wrong again!" said Appleby who, remembering the warships at Port Parry, surmised that they were taken for lads who had quitted their nation's service without permission.

"Sure, an' how was I to know, when the woods is thick with them!" said the seaman glancing round at his comrades deprecatingly. "Then 'tis watch your topsail leaches and mainsail haul, again."

"Yes," said Appleby, grinning, "now you've got it. If you'd had any sense you'd have seen we were too thin for navy lads, and too young for the marines."

There was a chuckle, and the man, who had twinkling blue eyes, stretched out an inviting arm. "Then come along, darling, and ate," he said.

They sat down on a chest, and one of the company gave each of them a can of very good coffee, and pointing to the great piece of fish in a frying-pan tossed a loaf in their direction.

"Ned Jordan will see you earn it, so you needn't be afraid," he said.

Appleby helped himself, and Niven laughed when he saw that the men were watching him admiringly. "They feed you well out here," he said. "We didn't get soft bread and halibut for breakfast on board the Aldebaran."

"This," said a grinning man, "is a great country. Now I'm going to raise you, Donegal. The lad's with me."

The man he spoke to turned with a sparkle in his eyes, and the sun that shone down the hatch glinting on his coppery hair.

"This," he said, "is not a country – 'tis the sea, an' the place ye come from is made up of the leavings of the old one. 'Tis the dumping-ground for all them we've no use for yonder – bankrupts, suicides and green-and-red-blind sailors. When a gintleman in my country is too big a nuisance to his neighbours, the boys sind the hat round and prisint him wid a ticket for Canadaw."

He brought out the last word with the accentuation of the French Canadian; but the big, lean sailorman only grinned at him. "An'," he said, "fwhat was ut brought you here thin, Donegal?"

Donegal laughed softly. "A hare," said he. "She would come an' sit on the turf-wall winking – impudent at me, an' with one of the guns that was out in '98 in the cabin, what would anny man of intilligince do? She was a good gun if ye gave her time and had something sthrong to lean her on, but the magistrate – an' me owing him tin pound rint – did not agree with me. There was no Ground Game Act thin, an' ye tuck the chances when ye went shooting in my counthry. Would ye be finding the lads another loaf – one is no use to them – Brulée, and now Mainsail Haul, was it the mate or the skipper who did not agree with ye?"

Appleby realized that speech was direct here and he must hold his own. "I fancy you all know how I came here, by this time, as well as I do," he said, glancing towards Stickine. "That man was about the cabin when I told my story – and they bring you a joint when you're through with your second course in the old country."

"Hear him!" said Donegal. "Sure now, for a sailorman, 'tis Stickine that romances tremenjous, an' he told us the other one was an earl's son from the old country. 'Turn the Champlain round and put me ashore – at once. What's the value of ten schooners to the father av me?' says he."

Niven looked somewhat foolish, but Appleby laughed. "Well, there was an Emperor's relative who went to sea in a merchant ship not very long ago," he said.

Donegal shook his head solemnly. "The man was mad. All thim royal families but our one is," he said.

"In the meanwhile I'd like to know a little more about where we're going and what we're going to do, now I'm one of you," said Niven. "You see, I couldn't ask the skipper too many questions."

"'Tis his condescending modesty," said Donegal. "'One of you,' says he! Sure, 'tis ten years it would take to make a man of ye, an' it takes ten more to make a man into a sealer. Stickine, will ye enlighten the son av the ducal earl?"

Niven fidgeted, for he realized that education is not everything, and that even in speech he had not shown himself the seaman's equal; but Stickine tapped on the table. "It works out like this," he said; "we're going to hear the bear growl, and the eagle scream, and if it's a white-flag gunboat, put a pinch of salt right on the beaver's tail."

"Russia," said Niven, "and America, the beaver's Canada, but what have the gunboats to do with the seals?"

"Sure," said Donegal, "'tis plain they did not teach ye very much at school. Now, the seal, ye will observe, lives most of his time where no man can get at him in the lonely sea, but wanst in the year he crawls out on the rocks of St. Paul and St. George, up in the Behring Sea, and when it is not convenient for ye to find him there ye may call at one or two reefs in Russian water or the Copper Islands."

"Well," said Niven, "where do the warships come in?"

"'Tis patient as well as modest ye are," said the sealer. "Now, 'tis not discreet of a youngster to hurry a grown man, an' that they would have taught ye wid the thick end of a gun whin ye were in the marines!"

"I was never in the marines," said Niven a trifle hotly, and Donegal sighed.

"Sure," he said, "'tis a pity, but I will prolong the discussion. Now, by the laws of the three nations ye may kill the seals at sea, though they will not help ye to find them, that being left – with other things – to the sealerman's devices, an' the sea, ye will remember, is not the sea until it's more than three miles from land."

"That's a little mixed," said Appleby, glancing at the rest of the company.

"No," said Donegal. "'Tis reason. When you are inside the three miles you are in Russia, America, or Canada, because that's just how far a big gun could blow the head off ye."

"There was once an American who figured it was ten," said Stickine dryly.

"Fighting Bob!" said somebody, and there was a hoarse guffaw, during which Donegal said quietly, "An' the lashings of dollars it cost him."

"Now, 'tis strictly prohibited to any one but the American company that rints them Pribyloff islands to kill the seals on land, an' if ye come too close on others I could tell of the Russians are not kind to ye. There was wanst a fifty-year-old schooner came home manned by starving men, an' they'd ate the last tail of the rats aboard her. 'Twas that or Siberia with them, but Stickine will tell ye the tale again."