Acting On These Considerations, We All
Three Turned In; And For The Next Half-Dozen Hours I Lay
Dreaming Of A Great Funeral Among Barren Mountains, Where
White Bears In Peers' Robes Were The Pall-Bearers, And
A Sea-Dragon Chief-Mourner.
When we came on deck again,
the northern extremity of Iceland lay leagues away on
our starboard quarter, faintly swimming through the haze;
up overhead blazed the white sun, and below glittered
the level sea, like a pale blue disc netted in silver
lace.
I seldom remember a brighter day; the thermometer
was at 72 degrees, and it really felt more as if we were
crossing the line than entering the frigid zone.
Animated by that joyous inspiration which induces them
to make a fete of everything, the French officers, it
appeared, wished to organize a kind of carnival to
inaugurate their arrival in Arctic waters, and by means
of a piece of chalk and a huge black board displayed from
the hurricane-deck of the "Reine Hortense," an inquiry
was made as to what suggestion I might have to offer in
furtherance of this laudable object. With that poverty
of invention and love of spirits which characterise my
nation, I am obliged to confess that, after deep reflection,
I was only able to answer, "Grog." But seeing an extra
flag or two was being run up at each masthead of the
Frenchman, the lucky idea occurred to me to dress the
"Foam" in all her colours. The schooner's toilette
accomplished, I went on board the "Reine Hortense," and
you cannot imagine anything more fragile, graceful, or
coquettish, than her appearance from the deck of the
corvette, - as she curtsied and swayed herself on the
bosom of the almost imperceptible swell, or flirted up
the water with her curving bows. She really looked like
a living little lady.
But from all such complacent reveries I was soon awakened
by the sound of a deep voice, proceeding apparently from
the very bottom of the sea, which hailed the ship in the
most authoritative manner, and imperiously demanded her
name, where she was going, whom she carried, and whence
she came: to all which questions, a young lieutenant,
standing with his hat off at the gangway, politely
responded. Apparently satisfied on these points, our
invisible interlocutor then announced his intention of
coming on board. All the officers of the ship collected
on the poop to receive him.
In a few seconds more, amid the din of the most unearthly
music, and surrounded by a bevy of hideous monsters, a
white-bearded, spectacled personage-clad in bear-skin,
with a cocked hat over his left ear-presented himself in
the gangway, and handing to the officers of the watch an
enormous board, on which was written
"LE PERE ARCTIQUE,"
by way of visiting card, proceeded to walk aft, and take
the sun's altitude with what, as far as I could make out,
seemed to be a plumber's wooden triangle. This preliminary
operation having been completed, there then began a
regular riot all over the ship.
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