VERNANIA: The Celebrated Works of Jules Verne in One Edition. Жюль Верн

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СКАЧАТЬ “hares, foxes, and bears are accustomed to the climate; I believe the late tempest is the cause of their disappearance; but with the south winds they’ll soon come back. Ah! if you said reindeers or musk-oxen it would be a different thing.”

      “But it appears those, too, are found in troops in Melville Island,” replied the doctor; “that is much further south, I grant you; when Parry wintered there he always had as much game as he wanted.”

      “We are not so well off,” said Bell; “if we could only get plenty of bear’s flesh I should not complain.”

      “Bears are very difficult to get at,” answered the doctor; “it seems to me they want civilising.”

      “Bell talks about the bear’s flesh, but we want its fat more than its flesh or its skin,” said Johnson.

      “You are right, Johnson; you are always thinking about the fuel.”

      “How can I help thinking about it? I know if we are ever so careful of it we’ve only enough left for three weeks.”

      “Yes,” replied the doctor, “that is our greatest danger, for we are only at the beginning of November, and February is the coldest month of the year in the Frozen Zone; however, if we can’t get bear’s grease we can rely on that of the seals.”

      “Not for long, Mr. Clawbonny,” answered Johnson. “They’ll soon desert us too; either through cold or fright, they’ll soon leave off coming on to the surface of the ice.”

      “Then we must get at the bears,” said the doctor; “they are the most useful animals in these countries: they furnish food, clothes, light, and fuel. Do you hear, Dick?” continued he, caressing his friend; “we must have a bear, so look out.”

      Dick, who was smelling the ice as the doctor spoke, started off all at once, quick as an arrow. He barked loudly, and, notwithstanding his distance, the sportsmen heard him distinctly. The extreme distance to which sound is carried in these low temperatures is astonishing; it is only equalled by the brilliancy of the constellations in the boreal sky.

      The sportsmen, guided by Dick’s barking, rushed on his traces; they had to run about a mile, and arrived quite out of breath, for the lungs are rapidly suffocated in such an atmosphere. Dick was pointing at about fifty paces from an enormous mass at the top of a mound of ice.

      “We’ve got him,” said the doctor, taking aim.

      “And a fine one,” added Bell, imitating the doctor.

      “It’s a queer bear,” said Johnson, waiting to fire after his two companions.

      Dick barked furiously. Bell advanced to within twenty feet and fired, but the animal did not seem to be touched. Johnson advanced in his turn, and after taking a careful aim, pulled the trigger.

      “What,” cried the doctor, “not touched yet? Why, it’s that cursed refraction. The bear is at least a thousand paces off.”

      The three sportsmen ran rapidly towards the animal, whom the firing had not disturbed; he seemed to be enormous, and without calculating the dangers of the attack, they began to rejoice in their conquest. Arrived within reasonable distance they fired again; the bear, mortally wounded, gave a great jump and fell at the foot of the mound. Dick threw himself upon it.

      “That bear wasn’t difficult to kill,” said the doctor.

      “Only three shots,” added Bell in a tone of disdain, “and he’s down.”

      “It’s very singular,” said Johnson.

      “Unless we arrived at the very moment when it was dying of old age,” said the doctor, laughing.

      So speaking, the sportsmen reached the foot of the mound, and, to their great stupefaction, they found Dick with his fangs in the body of a white fox.

      “Well, I never!” cried Bell.

      “We kill a bear and a fox falls,” added the doctor.

      Johnson did not know what to say.

      “Why!” said the doctor, with a roar of laughter, “it’s the refraction again!”

      “What do you mean, Mr. Clawbonny?” asked the carpenter.

      “Why, it deceived us about the size as it did about the distance. It made us see a bear in a fox’s skin.”

      “Well,” answered Johnson, “now we’ve got him, we’ll eat him.”

      Johnson was going to lift the fox on to his shoulders, when he cried like Bell—“Well, I never!”

      “What is it?” asked the doctor.

      “Look, Mr. Clawbonny—look what the animal’s got on its neck; it’s a collar, sure enough.”

      “A collar?” echoed the doctor, leaning over the animal. A half wornout collar encircled the fox’s neck, and the doctor thought he saw something engraved on it; he took it off and examined it.

      “That bear is more than twelve years old, my friends,” said the doctor; “it’s one of James Ross’s foxes, and the collar has been round its neck ever since 1848.”

      “Is it possible?” cried Bell.

      “There isn’t a doubt about it, and I’m sorry we’ve shot the poor animal. During his wintering James Ross took a lot of white foxes in his traps, and had brass collars put round their necks on which were engraved the whereabouts of his ships, the Enterprise and the Investigator, and the store magazines. He hoped one of them might fall into the hands of some of the men belonging to Franklin’s expedition. The poor animal might have saved the lives of the ship’s crews, and it has fallen under our balls.”

      “Well, we won’t eat him,” said Johnson, “especially as he’s twelve years old. Anyway, we’ll keep his skin for curiosity sake.” So saying he lifted the animal on his shoulders, and they made their way to the ship, guided by the stars; still their expedition was not quite fruitless: they bagged several brace of ptarmigans. An hour before they reached the Forward, a phenomenon occurred which excited the astonishment of the doctor; it was a very rain of shooting stars; they could be counted by thousands, like rockets in a display of fireworks. They paled the light of the moon, and the admirable spectacle lasted several hours. A like meteor was observed at Greenland by the Moravian brothers in 1799. The doctor passed the whole night watching it, till it ceased, at seven in the morning, amidst the profound silence of the atmosphere.

CHAPTER XXVI

      THE LAST LUMP OF COAL

      Table of Contents

      It seemed certain that no bears were to be had; several seals were killed during the days of the 4th, 5th, and 6th of November; then the wind changed, and the thermometer went up several degrees; but the snowdrifts began again with great violence. It became impossible to leave the vessel, and the greatest precaution was needed to keep out the damp. At the end of the week there were several bushels of ice in the condensers. The weather changed СКАЧАТЬ