Left on Labrador

Shot.-The Lower Savage Isles.-A Deep Inlet.-"Mazard's Bay."-A Desolate Island.-An Ice-Jam.-A Strange Blood-red Light.-Solution of the Mystery.

ow rapidly rose up like a curtain, twenty, thirty, fifty feet, leaving all clear below. We looked around us. The dark water was besprinkled with

hed Bonney. "Seems like

pt. Mazard, who had been bel

e on the port

our late consort a mile astern,-see and hear it too. Higher and higher rose the fog. The sky

ern shore was now three or four leagues distant. Fog and darkness hung over it. The bases of the mountains were black; but their tops glistened wi

it with his glass. "Is it possible that peo

hat's the Esquimaux bill of fare, I've heard, var

a mouthful of cooked victuals," said

them fierce and savage," remarked Wade:

rather good-natured set,

he added. "In dealing with them, it is well to have a good show of muskets, or a big gun or two showing its muzzle: makes 'em more civil.

up our howitzer, and rig a carriage

ought to get that up. I think it's about

h me is how to m

g I don't use now: we might make the gun fast to the top of it; then put some trucks on the bottom jus

aising or lowering the breech at will. The bed-pieces of the framework had been pierced for screws. It was, therefore, but a few minutes' work to bore holes in the top of the chest and drive the screws. Meanwhile the captain, who enjoyed the scheme as well as any of us, split open a

apt. Mazard, surveying it wit

that, Trull

ching the progress of the invention w

med the captain. "You're a military c

ee to confass I naver saw anything like it

on, and let's give i

diameter, and weighed not far from six ounces apiece. The breech was depressed. Raed poured in half a gill of the fine po

g to where a group of three or four lay basking on an

the first sho

inclined to se

l's getting impatien

nteered to shoot

e first shot," remarked Raed. "T

I should have done better had not Palmleaf just at that moment sang out, "Dinner, sar!" from behind. I pulled the trigger, however. There was a stunning crack; and so smart a recoil, that I was push

aimed Palmlea

seal?" recoverin

ly one who had

off into the w

rse it hit h

I detected an odious wink b

rking that we had better trig it behind before we fired, in fu

How to mount the howitze

r-wheeled gun-carriage

one out of those pl

will come with the

saw them out of sections of fift

rt," he added, and, as soon as

n Trull to help us on

The captain made the wheels and axles. The body was then spiked to them, and the howitzer lifted up and set on the carriage. By way of testing it, we then charged the piece with half a pint of powder, and fired it. The sharp, brassy report was reverberated from the dark mountains on the starboard side in a wonderfully disti

ame known on the chart as the "Lower Savage Isles." The course was changed five points, to pass them to the southward. By seven o'clock we were off abreast one of the largest of them. It was our intention to sta

nds," muttered the captain, with his glass to his eye, "I should rather be

iment was

the next," remarked Raed, who had been looking attentively for some

In half an hour we were up in the mouth of the channel. It was a rather narrow opening, not more than thirty-five or forty rods in

seven f

t! Bring

we did but drift lazily in. On each side, the islands presented black, bare, flinty crags, distant scarcely

exclaimed Capt. Mazard. "What a chasm th

atter arm was clear of ice, showing a dark line of water crooking off among numerous small islets; but the arm opening up to the north-east was jammed with ice. "The Curlew" went in leisurely to three hun

or north," remarked Capt. Mazard; "and even a sou'-weste

the vast mass of ice "packed" into the arm above us, it was not disagreeably chilly. The thermometer stood at fifty-nine degrees in our cabin. Indeed, were it

honk, honk," of numerous wild-geese from the islands; and, high overhead, the melancholy screams of "boatswains." Otherwise all was quiet. The watch was arranged among the sailors, and

shake aroused me. A strange, reddish glare fil

"Fire? It isn't fire

t fire," rep

hen," I said, g

e. It's only

r pity sake?" I dema

o you. Perhaps you'll know what it is. Won

. No matter about waking th

k fog seemed like a sea of magenta. The deck, the bulwarks, the masts, and even Donovan, standing beside me, looked as if baptized in blood. It was as light a

here. Thought I would just speak to you. Come on q

der you

nt on. "There must be a great fire som

oked at my watch. It was four minutes past one. Donovan wa

rn lights, Donov

ed as

it's t

hink so?" with a

no doub

akes a fu

oi

ral times before I ca

and still more like the flapping of a large flag in a moderate gale of wind. Occasionally there would be a soft snap, which was much like the snapping of a flag. I take the more pains to state this fact explicitly, because I am aware that the statem

, brightening and waning

other young gentlem

em what it is. See what

out of the companion-way, rubbing their eyes in gre

xclaimed. "Is t

dly, catching at the last

Kit. "It's nothing-n

" said Donovan, willing

shing about, lookin

up in the sky. But, by Jove! if you aren'

n," laughed Donovan, who great

n't suppose the day of judgment has come and cau

d Raed. "I have it: it's the aurora bore

d come to it as soon as

he captain. "Is that t

he thick fog. The aurora itself is miles above the fog, up in the sky and probab

ights were caused by electricit

ugh the air high up from the earth," replied

ust as wise as we were before," said Kit.

e captain, "I thoug

?" said Kit

legraph with," finished the

's that?" p

ptain confidently. "Why, it i

uff we telegraph with"-strikes me as being about the best one I ever heard. Kit and Raed, however, have got a theory,-which they expound very gravely,-to the effect that electricity and the luminiferous ether-that th

g and waning with alternate pale-crimson and blood-red flushes, we went back

Curlew;" and we were thus obliged to remain at our anchorage, which, in compliment to the captain, and after the custom of navigators, we named Mazard's Bay. As the inlet bore no na

of it," Kit remarked, as we

shore on the island," said Wade. "'Twould seem

ed. "See here, captain: here's a chap begging to

d Capt. Mazard.

s take some of those muskets along too. May get a

of these ledgy islets. There was absolutely no soil, no earth, on them. More than half the surface was bare as black sienite could be. Huge leathery lichens hung to the rocks in patches; and so tough were they, that one might pull on them with his whole strength without tearing them. In the crevices and tiny ravines between the ledges, there were vast beds of damp moss. In crossing these we went knee-deep, and once waist-deep, into it. The only plant I saw was a trailing shrublet, sometimes seen on high mountains in New England, and known to botanists as Andromeda of the heathworts. It had pretty blue-purple flowers, and was growing quite plentifully in sheltered nooks. Not a bird nor an animal was to be seen. Half an hour's climbing took us to the brown, weather-beaten sum

they've got such a breeze as that down there? Why, it doe

said Donovan. "How wild it seems

great river foaming among

shouted the captain, star

r way. What we had read of the high and violen

n the ledges overlooking the boat and the schooner. The tide had already risen ten or a dozen feet. The boat had floated up from the rock, and broken loose from the line. We could see it tossing and whirling half way out to the schooner. The whole inlet boiled like a pot, and roared l

groaned Capt. Mazard. "But,

at the wheel, tugging and turning,-to what purpose was not very evident. But they were doing their level best to save

arm of the inlet to the north-east. We turned instantly in that direction. The whole pack of ice, filling the arm for near a half-mile, was in

round from the north-e

the islands on the north side," said Raed,

s gigantic in all its aspects. To us, who expected every moment to see it borne forward and crush the schooner, it was appalling. But the sea filling in on the south, added to the narrowness of the arm, prevented the jam from rushing through; though a great deal of ice did float out, and, caught in the swirling currents, bumped pretty hard against the vessel's sides. The schooner swayed about heavily; b

ly thirty feet," said K

than it does down on the coast of Massachusetts or at Long

s accumulated, and pours into the straits with much more than ordinary violence. The same thing occurs in the Bay of Fundy, where they have very high ti

s attraction!" said Raed. "All this great mass of water-thirt

a distance of two hundred and thirt

traction of gravitation,-ho

n anyone,"

hich it causes, is exerted in opposition to the revolution of the earth on its axis, and that it will

said I; "or rather it would be all day on one

aughed Wade; "worse than they

ely to come in our time. According to a careful calculation, the length of the day i

bbs, to whom our present fix was of more intere

and there, and was now some twenty o

m for it," s

ope," said Kit. "Can't we d

the end of a line, and throw it

ng cod-lines with the heavy sinker

claimed Capt. Mazard

at old Trull is up to now," said Wade

hed. The first throw fell short, and the line was drawn in; the second and third went aside; but the fourth

ve you been having here?" said the capta

ere slat about! We went right up on it! Had to pay out six fathoms of

oner. Trull stood await

my betters," he began, with a

ng out of this?

ud,

ing the vessel along. The men had considerable difficulty in starting it off the bottom; and, on getting it up, one of the flukes was found to be chipped off,-bits as large as one's fist, probably from catching among jagged rocks at the bottom. We thought that this might also account for the tenacity with which the anchor held against the tide. Doubtless there were crevices and cracks, with great bowlders, scattered about