The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras Read Online

Johnson was charged with lighting the mine; the fuse was calculated to burn half an hour before exploding the powder. Hence Johnson had plenty of time to get back to the ship; indeed, within ten minutes he was at his post.

The crew were all on deck; the day was dry and tolerably clear; the snow was no longer falling; Hatteras, standing on the deck with Shandon and the doctor, counted the minutes on his watch.

At thirty-five minutes after eight a dull explosion was heard, much less deafening than had been anticipated. The outline of the mountains was suddenly changed, as by an earthquake; a dense white smoke rose high in the air, and long cracks appeared in the side of the iceberg, of which the upper part was hurled to a great distance, and fell in fragments about the Forward.

But the way was by no means free yet; huge lumps of ice were suspended upon the neighboring icebergs, and their fall threatened to close the exit.

Hatteras saw their situation in a flash of the eye.

"Wolston!" he shouted.

The gunner hastened to him.

"Captain!" he said.

"Put a triple charge in the forward gun, and ram it in as hard as possible!"

"Are we going to batter the iceberg down with cannon-balls?" asked the doctor.

"No," answered Hatteras. "That would do no good. No balls, Wolston, but a triple charge of powder. Be quick!"

In a few moments the gun was loaded.

"What is he going to do without a ball?" muttered Shandon between his teeth.

"We'll soon see," answered the doctor.

"We are all ready, Captain," cried Wolston.

"Well," answered Hatteras. "Brunton!" he shouted to the engineer, "make ready! Forward a little!"

Brunton opened the valves, and the screw began to move; the Forward drew near the blown-up iceberg.

"Aim carefully at the passage!" cried the captain to the gunner.

He obeyed; when the brig was only half a cable-length distant, Hatteras gave the order,—

"Fire!"

A loud report followed, and the fragments of ice, detached by the commotion of the air, fell suddenly into the sea. The simple concussion had been enough.

"Put on full steam, Brunton!" shouted Hatteras. "Straight for the passage, Johnson!"

Johnson was at the helm; the brig, driven by the screw, which tossed the water freely, entered easily the open passage. It was time. The Forward had hardly passed through the opening, before it closed behind it.

It was an exciting moment, and the only calm and collected man on board was the captain. So the crew, amazed at the success of this device, could not help shouting,—

"Hurrah for John Hatteras!"

CHAPTER XIV.

THE EXPEDITIONS IN SEARCH OF FRANKLIN.

Wednesday, the 21st of May, the Forward resumed her perilous voyage, making her way dexterously through the packs and icebergs, thanks to steam, which is seldom used by explorers in polar seas; she seemed to sport among the moving masses; one would have said she felt the hand of a skilled master, and that, like a horse under a skilful rider, she obeyed the thought of her captain.

The weather grew warmer. At six o'clock in the morning the thermometer stood at 26°, at six in the evening at 29°, and at midnight at 25°; the wind was light from the southeast.

Thursday, at about three o'clock in the morning, the Forward arrived in sight of Possession Bay, on the American shore, at the entrance of Lancaster Sound; soon Cape Burney came into sight. A few Esquimaux came out to the ship; but Hatteras could not stop to speak with them.

The peaks of Byam Martin, which rise above Cape Liverpool, were passed on the left, and they soon disappeared in the evening mist; this hid from them Cape Hay, which has a very slight elevation, and so is frequently confounded with ice about the shore, a circumstance which very often renders the determination of the coast-line in polar regions very difficult.

Puffins, ducks, and white gulls appeared in great numbers. By observation the latitude was 74° 1', and the longitude, according to the chronometer, 77° 15'.

The two mountains, Catherine and Elizabeth, raised their snowy heads above the clouds.

At ten o'clock on Friday Cape Warrender was passed on the right side of the sound, and on the left Admiralty Inlet, a bay which has never been fully explored by navigators, who are always hastening westward. The sea ran rather high, and the waves often broke over the bows, covering the deck with small fragments of ice. The land on the north coast presented a strange appearance with its high, flat table-lands sparkling beneath the sun's rays.

Hatteras would have liked to skirt these northern lands, in order to reach the sooner Beechey Island and the entrance of Wellington Channel; but, much to his chagrin, the bank-ice obliged him to take only the passes to the south.

Hence, on the 26th of May, in the midst of a fog and a snow-storm, the Forward found herself off Cape York; a lofty, steep mountain was soon recognized; the weather got a little clearer, and at midday the sun appeared long enough to permit an observation to be taken: latitude 74° 4', and longitude 84° 23'. The Forward was at the end of Lancaster Sound.

Hatteras showed the doctor on the chart the route he had taken and that which he was to follow. At that time the position of the brig was interesting.

"I should have liked to be farther north," he said, "but it was impossible; see, here is our exact position."

The captain pointed to a spot near Cape York.

"We are in the middle of this open space, exposed to every wind; into it open Lancaster Sound, Barrow Strait, Wellington Channel, and Regent's Inlet; here, of necessity, come all northern explorers."

"Well," answered the doctor, "so much the worse for them; it is indeed an open space, where four roads meet, and I don't see any sign-post to point out the right way! What did Parry, Ross, and Franklin do?"

"They didn't do anything in particular; they let themselves be governed by circumstances; they had no choice, I can assure you; at one time Barrow Strait would be closed against one, and the next year it would be open for another; again the ship would be irresistibly driven towards Regent's Inlet. In this way we have at last been able to learn the geography of these confused seas."

"What a strange region!" said the doctor, gazing at the chart. "How everything is divided and cut up, without order or reason! It seems as if all the land near the Pole were divided in this way in order to make the approach harder, while in the other hemisphere it ends in smooth, regular points, like Cape Horn or the Cape of Good Hope, and the Indian peninsula! Is it the greater rapidity at the equator which has thus modified things, while the land lying at the extremity, which was fluid at the beginning of the world, could not condense and unite as elsewhere, on account of slower rotation?"

"That may be, for there is a reason for everything, and nothing happens without a cause, which God sometimes lets students find out; so, Doctor, find it out if you can."

"I shall not waste too much time over it, Captain. But what is this fierce wind?" added the doctor, wrapping himself up well.

"The north-wind is the common one, and delays our progress."

"Still it ought to blow the ice toward the south, and leave our way free."

"It ought to, Doctor, but the wind doesn't always do what it ought to. See, that ice looks impenetrable. We shall try to reach Griffith Island, then to get around Cornwallis Island to reach Queen's Channel, without going through Wellington Channel. And yet I am anxious to touch at Beechey Island to get some more coal."

"How will you do that?" asked the astonished doctor.

"Easily; by order of the Admiralty, a great amount has been placed on this island, to supply future expeditions, and although Captain MacClintock took some in 1859, I can assure you there is still some left for us."

"In fact, these regions have been explored for fifteen years, and until certain proof of Franklin's death was received, the Admiralty always kept five or six ships cruising in these waters. If I'm not mistaken, Griffith Island, which I see in the middle of the open space, has become a general rendezvous for explorers."

"True, Doctor, and Franklin's ill-fated expedition has been the means of our learning so much about these parts."

"Exactly; for there have been a great many expeditions since 1845. It was not till 1848 that there was any alarm about the continued non-appearance of the Erebus and the Terror, Franklin's two ships. Then the admiral's old friend, Dr. Richardson, seventy years of age, went through Canada, and descended Coppermine River to the Polar Sea; on the other side, James Ross, in command of the Enterprise and the Investigator, sailed from Upernavik in 1848, and reached Cape York, where we are now. Every day he threw overboard a cask containing papers telling where he was; during fogs he fired cannon; at night he burned signal-fires and sent off rockets, carrying always but little sail; finally, he wintered at Leopold's Harbor in 1848-49; there he caught a large number of white foxes; he had put on their necks copper collars on which was engraved a statement of the position of the ship and where supplies had been left, and he drove them away in every direction; then, in the spring, he explored the coast of North Somerset on sledges, amid dangers and privations which disabled nearly all his men.