CHAPTER XII.

AN ICE CAVE AND ITS PRISONERS.

At first Wolfe hoped that Breeze had merely slipped and fallen, and for a minute waited anxiously for him to reappear. Then it occurred to him that his companion might have slid into the water, and that possibly he was even now drowning, or struggling in vain to regain a footing upon the treacherous surface. Thus thinking, he sprang to his oars, and pulling furiously, soon carried the dory to the other side of the iceberg, which was not a very large one. To his dismay he could discover no trace of his friend even here, and he now began to be seriously alarmed. He could see the whole side of the ice island as it rose, glittering and sparkling above him, in the light of the setting sun. It shone with all the colors of the rainbow, and was coldly, awfully beautiful to look upon, but nowhere did it offer to his view the faintest trace of a human presence.

This side was rugged, and so precipitous that it would be impossible for any one to gain a foothold upon it from a boat, much less from the water; all of which Wolfe noticed with a feeling of despair. As he examined the frigid mass above him more closely he noticed that, near its top, there seemed to be several platforms or terraces, and he determined to pull back to the landing-place and climb up and examine them. Rowing slowly around the other end of the berg, and scanning every foot of its surface in the vague hope of discovering something, he finally came again to the place where Breeze had left him. Here, with a heavy heart, he made his preparations to follow the course his friend had taken. Hauling the dory partially out of the water, so that there would be less danger of its being crushed by floating cakes, he jammed its anchor into a crack of the ice and pulled the anchor rope taut. Then, taking advantage of the occasional holes Breeze had cut in the ice with his hatchet, he began to climb towards the summit of the ridge.

When at last he reached it he dreaded to look around him; for this was his last hope, and if he should see nothing of his dorymate from here, he felt that he must indeed give him up for lost. At length he forced himself to gaze, slowly and carefully, in every direction about him. There was only the ice, the water, the sunset sky, and, sharply outlined against it, the _Vixen_, standing off and on beyond the floe, waiting for them.

Waiting for _them_, and he must return to her alone. This thought broke him down completely, and he groaned aloud in his distress. He knew now how strong a hold his sunny-faced young dorymate had gained upon his affections, and feeling that he had gone from his life forever, the whole world seemed as lonely and dreary and cold as the scene around him. In his misery he called out, “Breeze! oh, Breeze! come back to me.”

“Well, I’m coming as fast as I can,” answered a muffled voice so close to him that he started in affright, and came very near rolling down the incline he had just ascended. He trembled so that he could hardly speak; but he finally managed to call out, “Is that really you, Breeze? And where are you?” for, as yet, he could neither see his friend nor locate the spot from which his voice had come.

“Of course it’s me,” answered the voice, “and I’m down here in a hole with poor Hank. I wish you’d fetch the rope and throw one end of it down to me, for it’s mighty slow work cutting these steps, and I could get up by it a good deal quicker. We’ll want it for Hank, anyhow, because he’s hurt and can’t climb.”

The crest of the ridge on which Wolfe was seated--for he had not dared stand up as Breeze had done--was quite narrow, and sloped sharply down the opposite side from that up which he had come. This side was wet and very slippery, for the afternoon sun had been warm enough to melt the surface in places. A few feet below him the slope appeared to end with a short upward incline, beyond which the ice again fell away to the water.

In compliance with his friend’s request, Wolfe hurried back to the dory for the rope, with his heart as full of joyful emotions as a few minutes before it had been of sorrowful ones. He could not yet imagine what had happened to Breeze, nor in what sort of a place he was, and he hardly cared; the mere fact that he was alive was sufficient for the present.

He afterwards learned that the icy slope down the opposite side of the ridge ended abruptly about two feet above the short upward incline that, from his point of view, it had appeared to join; while between the two was a deep, narrow crevice, extending far down towards the heart of the berg. This crevice had originally been filled with snow, and in the angle between the two slopes there had collected, while the iceberg was still a part of some Greenland glacier, a bank of arctic sand. Attracting the heat of what little sunshine fell upon it, this material had gradually melted its way deep into the snow. Then water had flowed into the depression thus made, and moving the sand back and forth, had slowly enlarged the hole until it had finally become a deep crevice, with smooth walls of glare ice and a sandy bottom. No trap could have been better planned, and after waiting perhaps hundreds of years for its victims, it had caught two in one day. It would also have held on to them so long as the iceberg continued to float if Breeze had not happened to hold a hatchet in his hand when he nearly killed poor Hank Hoffer, and frightened as much as he hurt him by suddenly sliding down on top of him. He had done this without giving the slightest warning of his coming, about an hour after Hank had landed at the bottom of the crevice with a sprained ankle and no hope of ever getting out again.

After the first shock was over, and a few words of explanation had been exchanged between the two prisoners, Breeze had set to work to chop a series of footholds up the sides of the crevice, and to gradually make his way towards the top. Wolfe had heard the faint clicking sound of the hatchet, but imagined it to be the beating of small drift-ice against the base of the berg. When in his despair he called out the name of Breeze, the latter had nearly reached the top of the crevice, and was within twenty feet of where his dorymate sat, though still effectually concealed from his view.

When Wolfe again returned to the top of the ridge with the rope, Breeze had worked his way up so that his head could be seen above the edge of the crevice, and the friends gave each other a joyful greeting. After receiving the assurance that the other was not hurt, Wolfe said, “Did you say that Hank Hoffer was down there where you have just come from?”

“Yes, indeed he is, and pretty badly hurt. He is stiff with the cold too, and we must get him out as quick as we can.”

“I don’t see how we are going to do it if he can’t help himself,” said Wolfe. “Yes, I do too,” he added, after a moment’s thought. “But we must work fast, for it will soon be dark, and we don’t want to stay here all night. You just wait two minutes longer.”

With this he again made his way to the dory, took the anchor from the crack into which he had jammed it, thrust the blade of an oar down in its place, and made the dory fast to it. Then he carried the anchor to the top of the ridge, got the hatchet from Breeze by means of the rope which he let down to him, chopped a hole to receive a fluke of the anchor on his own side of the ridge, made the rope fast to it, and again tossed an end of the line to his companion.

First testing the strength of the rope and anchor thoroughly, he slid down to where Breeze was waiting, and the dorymates exchanged as warm a hand-clasp as though they had been separated for months instead of minutes.

All this time poor Hank had been groaning at the bottom of the crevice, and calling upon them to hurry. The rope was fortunately long enough to reach him, and Breeze, again descending to where he lay, knotted the end of it under his arms. While he was doing this Wolfe cut a few footholds on the face of the slope leading to the top of the ridge. Then Breeze came up, and the two athletic young fellows drew the almost helpless form of their shipmate slowly but steadily to where they stood. While Wolfe supported him there Breeze pulled himself, by the aid of the rope, to the top of the ridge, where he took in the slack of the line and fastened it anew to the anchor. Hank being thus secured against sliding back into the crevice, Wolfe left him, and joining Breeze, they together drew the sufferer to the top of the ridge. Slowly and carefully they helped him down the opposite side, and at last had the satisfaction of placing him safely in the bottom of the dory.

It was now quite dark, but they could still note the position of the _Vixen_ by the light of the “flare,” that was kept constantly burning on board for their guidance. They dreaded leaving their comparatively safe position and attempting to force their frail craft through the masses of moving ice that lay between them and the schooner. The thought of spending the night where they were was, however, still worse, and they decided to try and reach her.

As there was enough open water to row in for a while Wolfe took the oars, and Breeze busied himself with the rescued man. He rolled him in the blankets they had brought, rubbed his hands and limbs briskly, and offered him food. Hank declined this, but asked for water, saying that he was dying of thirst.

“Why didn’t you get a drink on the iceberg?” asked Breeze, in surprise. “I’m sure there was plenty of water there; or you might have eaten a bit of ice.” At the same time he got out their little keg of water and handed it to the sufferer.

“I didn’t suppose an iceberg was made of fresh ice,” replied Hank, eagerly seizing the keg and applying his lips to the bung-hole for a long drink. The next instant he dropped it, spat out the mouthful of water he had taken, and sank down in the bottom of the boat with a groan.

“What is the matter?” cried Breeze, picking up the keg. As Hank made no answer, he lifted it to his own lips and tasted of its contents. It was full of salt water.

There was no time then for questions or explanations, as the floes on either side of them began closing together so rapidly that the dory was in danger of being crushed between them. The boys sprang from the boat, and managed to drag it out on the ice, just as the drifting masses met with a shock that ground their edges to powder and nearly threw Breeze and Wolfe from their feet.

Then began a struggle similar to that which they had gone through in the morning, only with the danger increased a hundred-fold by the darkness. Now they dragged the dory by main strength over some great cake that lay squarely in their way, then, both in the boat, they used the oars as poles and pushed it along from piece to piece. Occasionally a submerged mass would rise beneath the boat, and it was only by the greatest activity that they prevented it from capsizing. Several times one or the other of them slipped into the icy water; but they always clung to the dory, and managed to pull themselves out.

But for the flare, that continued to blaze brightly from the schooner’s deck, they would have given over the struggle a dozen times. Hank could lend them no assistance, but lay, numbed and stupid, in the bottom of the boat, a dead-weight.

At last, when after a harder struggle than usual, on account of their exhaustion, they had again dragged the dory out on the ice, Breeze threw himself down in it exclaiming, “I’m about done for, Wolfe; and I’m afraid we’ve got to give it up.”

“I feel the same way myself,” said Wolfe, “I can’t pull another pound.”

The frigid breath of the ice-fields, penetrating their soaked garments, chilled them to the marrow, and they shook as with the ague. A short time longer of such exposure would have finished the story of these dorymates, and one more tale of death would have been added to the long list that saddens the history of the Banks fisheries. But their situation was not yet utterly hopeless. One brave spirit of that little group was not yet wholly prepared to yield itself beaten by the terrors that surrounded them.

After remaining a few minutes motionless and silent, Breeze shook off the numbness that was stealing over him, and endeavored to arouse his companions. Wolfe responded readily to his efforts, but it was a difficult matter to rouse Hank Hoffer. When at last he seemed able to understand them, Breeze said,

“We mustn’t give up yet, fellows. The schooner isn’t so very far off, and though we can’t drag the dory any farther, perhaps if we give a shout all together they may hear it on board and do something for us. The wind is blowing that way.”

Breeze remembered his experience in the seine-boat, off the capes of Delaware, and how the combined voices of its crew had saved them on that occasion.

The others were willing to try, and as Breeze gave the word they raised a cry so wild and shrill that they themselves were startled by it. Again and again they shouted until their voices were spent; but no sound came to them in reply. Still they sat shivering in the chill wind, and feeling the awful numbness again creeping over them, but with their eyes fixed upon the schooner’s light, that seemed so near and yet so immeasurably far from them.

All at once Wolfe started up, exclaiming, “There’s another light! see it, Breeze? A little one, between us and the flare. They’re coming for us! They’re coming for us!”

It was a faint wavering light, like that of a lantern, and often, as they watched, it disappeared, but always to appear again. Now it seemed to be going away from them, and again finding their voices, they raised once more the cry for help.

This time they fancied they heard an answer, and a little later were sure of it. Half an hour of alternate fear and hope passed, before, guided by their shouts, the rescuing party of four brave fellows from the schooner reached them. They had made but slow progress, dragging their dory over the broken ice, and not knowing but that each step might plunge them into the water; but never since hearing that first cry for help had they hesitated for a moment, or thought of turning back.

The meeting between the rescued and the rescuers was too joyful for description; but there was no time for words. The new-comers had found an unbroken floe extending from the schooner, which was made fast to the outer edge of it; but there was no certainty that it would remain unbroken from one moment to another, and they could not hasten back too quickly.

New strength came to Breeze and Wolfe with renewed hope, and they were able to aid in dragging the dories back.

In less than half an hour later they were once more safe on board the _Vixen_, and the whole crew was striving to see who could do the most for their comfort, and show them how fully the brave deed they had accomplished was appreciated.

They now learned that ever since darkness set in, those who came to their rescue had held themselves in readiness to set forth the moment they should find out in what direction to go, and that their very first cries for help were heard and answered.

Breeze and Wolfe were readily thawed out by hot drinks and blankets, so that they soon fell asleep, to awaken in the morning feeling but little the worse for their hardships. With Hank Hoffer the case was different. His hands and feet were frost-bitten, and besides having a badly sprained ankle, he was so prostrated by what he had suffered that he was confined to his bunk for many days, and never wholly recovered from his terrible experience.

He never could tell exactly how he escaped to the iceberg, after his dory had been crushed between it and the drifting cakes by which he was surrounded. He was able, however, to describe in vivid and forcible language his joy at sight of the schooner, his horror at losing his foothold and falling into the deep crevice while trying to signal her, and his fright when Breeze came sliding down on top of him. Towards Breeze and Wolfe his gratitude knew no bounds. He begged them to forgive him for the cruel tricks he had played upon them, and was never afterwards tired of sounding their praises.

In this taste of arctic trials and sufferings the dorymates thought they had met with adventures as strange as any they were likely to encounter. But their trip was by no means ended, and the Banks still held startling experiences in store for them, as they were to discover ere many days had passed.