第9章

The Waiting Place"HOW DID YOU manage with the rest of that rough voyage on the Minerva?" I asked.

"I shall be glad to explain to you," said Captain Littlepage, forgetting his grievances for the moment."If I had a map at hand I could explain better.We were driven to and fro 'way up toward what we used to call Parry's Discoveries, and lost our bearings.

It was thick and foggy, and at last I lost my ship; she drove on a rock, and we managed to get ashore on what I took to be a barren island, the few of us that were left alive.When she first struck, the sea was somewhat calmer than it had been, and most of the crew, against orders, manned the long-boat and put off in a hurry, and were never heard of more.Our own boat upset, but the carpenter kept himself and me above water, and we drifted in.I had no strength to call upon after my recent fever, and laid down to die;but he found the tracks of a man and dog the second day, and got along the shore to one of those far missionary stations that the Moravians support.They were very poor themselves, and in distress; 'twas a useless place.There were but few Esquimaux left in that region.There we remained for some time, and I became acquainted with strange events.

The captain lifted his head and gave me a questioning glance.

I could not help noticing that the dulled look in his eyes had gone, and there was instead a clear intentness that made them seem dark and piercing.

"There was a supply ship expected, and the pastor, an excellent Christian man, made no doubt that we should get passage in her.He was hoping that orders would come to break up the station; but everything was uncertain, and we got on the best we could for a while.We fished, and helped the people in other ways;there was no other way of paying our debts.I was taken to the pastor's house until I got better; but they were crowded, and Ifelt myself in the way, and made excuse to join with an old seaman, a Scotchman, who had built him a warm cabin, and had room in it for another.He was looked upon with regard, and had stood by the pastor in some troubles with the people.He had been on one of those English exploring parties that found one end of the road to the north pole, but never could find the other.We lived like dogs in a kennel, or so you'd thought if you had seen the hut from the outside; but the main thing was to keep warm; there were piles of bird-skins to lie on, and he'd made him a good bunk, and there was another for me.'Twas dreadful dreary waitin' there; we begun to think the supply steamer was lost, and my poor ship broke up and strewed herself all along the shore.We got to watching on the headlands; my men and me knew the people were short of supplies and had to pinch themselves.It ought to read in the Bible, 'Man cannot live by fish alone,' if they'd told the truth of things;'taint bread that wears the worst on you! First part of the time, old Gaffett, that I lived with, seemed speechless, and I didn't know what to make of him, nor he of me, I dare say; but as we got acquainted, I found he'd been through more disasters than I had, and had troubles that wa'n't going to let him live a great while.

It used to ease his mind to talk to an understanding person, so we used to sit and talk together all day, if it rained or blew so that we couldn't get out.I'd got a bad blow on the back of my head at the time we came ashore, and it pained me at times, and my strength was broken, anyway; I've never been so able since."Captain Littlepage fell into a reverie.

"Then I had the good of my reading," he explained presently.

"I had no books; the pastor spoke but little English, and all his books were foreign; but I used to say over all I could remember.

The old poets little knew what comfort they could be to a man.I was well acquainted with the works of Milton, but up there it did seem to me as if Shakespeare was the king; he has his sea terms very accurate, and some beautiful passages were calming to the mind.I could say them over until I shed tears; there was nothing beautiful to me in that place but the stars above and those passages of verse.

"Gaffett was always brooding and brooding, and talking to himself; he was afraid he should never get away, and it preyed upon his mind.He thought when I got home I could interest the scientific men in his discovery: but they're all taken up with their own notions; some didn't even take pains to answer the letters I wrote.You observe that I said this crippled man Gaffett had been shipped on a voyage of discovery.I now tell you that the ship was lost on its return, and only Gaffett and two officers were saved off the Greenland coast, and he had knowledge later that those men never got back to England; the brig they shipped on was run down in the night.So no other living soul had the facts, and he gave them to me.There is a strange sort of a country 'way up north beyond the ice, and strange folks living in it.Gaffett believed it was the next world to this.""What do you mean, Captain Littlepage?" I exclaimed.The old man was bending forward and whispering; he looked over his shoulder before he spoke the last sentence.