Ticket No. "9672"

CHAPTER XIII.

Mean­while, Sylvius Hogg was has­ten­ing to­ward Bergen. His tena­cious na­ture and en­er­get­ic char­ac­ter, though daunt­ed for a mo­ment, were now re­assert­ing them­selves. He re­fused to cred­it Ole's death, nor would he ad­mit that Hul­da was doomed nev­er to see her lover again. No, un­til the fact was es­tab­lished be­yond a doubt, he was de­ter­mined to re­gard the re­port as false.

But had he any in­for­ma­tion which would serve as a ba­sis for the task he was about to un­der­take in Bergen? Yes, though we must ad­mit that the clew was of a very vague na­ture.

He knew mere­ly the date on which the bot­tle had been cast in­to the sea by Ole Kamp, and the date and lo­cal­ity in which it had been re­cov­ered from the waves. He had learned those facts through the let­ter just re­ceived from the Naval De­part­ment, the let­ter which had de­cid­ed him to leave for Bergen im­me­di­ate­ly, in or­der that he might con­sult with Help Bros., and with the most ex­pe­ri­enced sea­men of that port.

The jour­ney was made as quick­ly as pos­si­ble. On reach­ing Moel, Sylvius Hogg sent his com­pan­ion back with the kar­iol, and took pas­sage up­on one of the birch-​bark ca­noes that are used in travers­ing the wa­ters of Lake Finn. Then, at Tinoset, in­stead of turn­ing his steps to­ward the south--that is to say, in the di­rec­tion of Bam­ble--he hired an­oth­er kar­iol, and took the Hardan­ger route, in or­der to reach the gulf of that name in the short­est pos­si­ble time. From there, a lit­tle steam­er called the “Run” trans­port­ed him to the mouth of the gulf, and fi­nal­ly, af­ter cross­ing a net­work of fiords and in­lets, be­tween the is­lands and islets that stud the Nor­we­gian coast, he land­ed at Bergen on the morn­ing of the sec­ond of Ju­ly.

This old city, laved by the wa­ters of both the Logne and Hardan­ger, is de­light­ful­ly sit­uat­ed in a pic­turesque re­gion which would bear a strik­ing re­sem­blance to Switzer­land if an ar­ti­fi­cial arm of the sea should ev­er con­duct the wa­ters of the blue Mediter­ranean to the foot of the Alps.

A mag­nif­icent av­enue of ash trees leads to the town.

The hous­es, with their fan­tas­tic, point­ed gables, are as daz­zling in their white­ness as the habi­ta­tions of Ara­bi­an cities, and are all con­gre­gat­ed in an ir­reg­ular tri­an­gle that con­tains a pop­ula­tion of about thir­ty thou­sand souls. Its church­es date from the twelfth cen­tu­ry. Its tall cathe­dral is vis­ible from afar to ves­sels re­turn­ing from sea, and it is the cap­ital of com­mer­cial Nor­way, though sit­uat­ed off the reg­ular lines of trav­el, and a long dis­tance from the two cities which rank first and sec­ond in the king­dom, po­lit­ical­ly--Chris­tia­nia and Dron­theim.

Un­der any oth­er cir­cum­stances the pro­fes­sor would have tak­en great plea­sure in study­ing this im­por­tant city, which is Dutch rather than Nor­we­gian in its as­pect and man­ners. It had been one of the cities in­clud­ed in his orig­inal route, but since his ad­ven­ture on the Maristien and his sub­se­quent so­journ at Dal, his plans had un­der­gone im­por­tant changes.

Sylvius Hogg was no longer the trav­el­ing deputy, anx­ious to as­cer­tain the ex­act con­di­tion of the coun­try from a com­mer­cial as well as a po­lit­ical point of view. He was the guest of the Hansens, the debtor of Joel and Hul­da, whose in­ter­ests now out­weighed all else in his es­ti­ma­tion--a debtor who was re­solved to pay his debt of grat­itude at any cost, though he felt that what he was about to at­tempt for them was but a tri­fle.

On his ar­rival in Bergen, Sylvius Hogg land­ed at the low­er end of the town, on the wharf used as a fish-​mar­ket, but he lost no time in re­pair­ing to the part of the town known as the Tyske Bo­drone quar­ter, where Help, Ju­nior, of the house of Help Bros., resid­ed.

It was rain­ing, of course, for rain falls in Bergen on at least three hun­dred and six­ty days of ev­ery year; but it would be im­pos­si­ble to find a house bet­ter pro­tect­ed against the wind and rain than the hos­pitable man­sion of Help, Ju­nior, and nowhere could Sylvius Hogg have re­ceived a warmer and more cor­dial wel­come. His friend took pos­ses­sion of him very much as if he had been some pre­cious bale of mer­chan­dise which had been con­signed to his care, and which would be de­liv­ered up on­ly up­on the pre­sen­ta­tion of a for­mal or­der.

Sylvius Hogg im­me­di­ate­ly made known the ob­ject of his vis­it to Help, Ju­nior. He in­quired if any news had yet been re­ceived of the “Viking,” and if Bergen mariners were re­al­ly of the opin­ion that she had gone down with all on board. He al­so in­quired if this prob­able ship­wreck, which had plunged so many homes in­to mourn­ing, had not led the mar­itime au­thor­ities to make some search for the miss­ing ves­sel.

“But where were they to be­gin?” replied Help, Ju­nior. “They do not even know where the ship­wreck oc­curred.”

“True, my dear Help, and for that very rea­son they should en­deav­or to as­cer­tain.”

“But how?”

“Why, though they do not know where the 'Viking' foundered, they cer­tain­ly know where the bot­tle was picked up by the Dan­ish ves­sel. So we have one valu­able clew which it would be very wrong to ig­nore.”

“Where was it?”

“Lis­ten, my dear Help, and I will tell you.”

Sylvius Hogg then ap­prised his friend of the im­por­tant in­for­ma­tion which had just been re­ceived through the Naval De­part­ment, and the full per­mis­sion giv­en him to uti­lize it.

The bot­tle con­tain­ing Ole Kamp's lot­tery-​tick­et had been picked up on the third of June, about two hun­dred miles south of Ice­land, by the schooner “Chris­tian,” of Elsineur, Cap­tain Mos­sel­man, and the wind was blow­ing strong from the south-​east at the time.

The cap­tain had im­me­di­ate­ly ex­am­ined the con­tents of the bot­tle, as it was cer­tain­ly his du­ty to do, inas­much as he might-​have ren­dered very ef­fec­tu­al aid to the sur­vivors of the “Viking” had he known where the catas­tro­phe oc­curred; but the lines scrawled up­on the back of the lot­tery-​tick­et gave no clew, so the “Chris­tian” could not di­rect her course to the scene of the ship­wreck.

This Cap­tain Mos­sel­man was an hon­est man. Very pos­si­bly some less scrupu­lous per­son would have kept the tick­et; but he had on­ly one thought--to trans­mit the tick­et to the per­son to whom it was ad­dressed as soon as he en­tered port. Hul­da Hansen, of Dal, that was enough. It was not nec­es­sary to know any more.

But on reach­ing Copen­hagen, Cap­tain Mos­sel­man said to him­self that it would per­haps be bet­ter to trans­mit the doc­ument through the hands of the Dan­ish au­thor­ities, in­stead of send­ing it straight to the per­son for whom it was in­tend­ed. This would be the safest, as well as the reg­ular way. He did so, and the Naval De­part­ment at Copen­hagen prompt­ly no­ti­fied the Naval De­part­ment at Chris­tia­nia.

Sylvius Hogg's let­ter, ask­ing for in­for­ma­tion in re­gard to the “Viking,” had al­ready been re­ceived, and the deep in­ter­est he took in the Hansen fam­ily was well known. It was known, too, that he in­tend­ed to re­main in Dal some time longer, so it was there that the tick­et found by the Dan­ish sea-​cap­tain was sent, to be de­liv­ered in­to Hul­da Hansen's hands by the fa­mous deputy.

And ev­er since that time the pub­lic had tak­en a deep in­ter­est in the af­fair, which had not been for­got­ten, thanks to the touch­ing de­tails giv­en by the news­pa­pers of both con­ti­nents.

Sylvius Hogg stat­ed the case briefly to his friend Help, who lis­tened to him with the deep­est in­ter­est, and with­out once in­ter­rupt­ing him. He con­clud­ed his recital by say­ing:

“There is cer­tain­ly one point about which there can be no pos­si­ble doubt: this is, that on the third day of June, about one month af­ter the de­par­ture from Saint-​Pierre-​Miquelon, the tick­et was picked up two hun­dred miles south-​west of Ice­land.”

“And that is all you know?”

“Yes, my dear Help, but by con­sult­ing some of the most ex­pe­ri­enced mariners of Bergen, men who are fa­mil­iar with that lo­cal­ity, with the gen­er­al di­rec­tion of its winds, and, above-​all, with its cur­rents, will it not be a com­par­ative­ly easy mat­ter to de­cide up­on the route fol­lowed by the bot­tle? Then, by cal­cu­lat­ing its prob­able speed, and the time that elapsed be­fore it was picked up, it cer­tain­ly would not be im­pos­si­ble to dis­cov­er the spot at which it was cast in­to the sea by Ole Kamp, that is to say, the scene of the ship­wreck.”

Help, Ju­nior, shook his head with a doubt­ing air. Would not any search that was based up­on such vague in­di­ca­tions as these be sure to prove a fail­ure? The shipown­er, be­ing of a de­cid­ed, cool and prac­ti­cal turn of mind, cer­tain­ly thought so, and felt it his du­ty to say as much to Sylvius Hogg.

“Per­haps it may prove a fail­ure, friend Help,” was the prompt re­join­der; “but the fact that we have been able to se­cure on­ly vague in­for­ma­tion, is cer­tain­ly no rea­son for aban­don­ing the un­der­tak­ing. I am anx­ious that noth­ing shall be left un­done for these poor peo­ple to whom I am in­debt­ed for my life. Yes, if need be, I would not hes­itate to sac­ri­fice all I pos­sess to find Ole Kamp, and bring him safe­ly back to his be­trothed, Hul­da Hansen.”

Then Sylvius Hogg pro­ceed­ed to give a full ac­count of his ad­ven­ture on the Rjukan­fos. He re­lat­ed the in­trepid man­ner in which Joel and his sis­ter had risked their own lives to save him, and how, but for their time­ly as­sis­tance, he would not have had the plea­sure of be­ing the guest of his friend Help that day.

His friend Help, as we said be­fore, was an em­inent­ly prac­ti­cal man, but he was not op­posed to use­less and even im­pos­si­ble ef­forts when a ques­tion "of hu­man­ity was in­volved, and he fi­nal­ly ap­proved what Sylvius Hogg wished to at­tempt.

“Sylvius,” he said, “I will as­sist you by ev­ery means in my pow­er. Yes, you are right. How­ev­er small the chance of find­ing some sur­vivor of the 'Viking' may be, and es­pe­cial­ly of find­ing this brave Ole whose be­trothed saved your life, it must not be ne­glect­ed.”

“No, Help, no,” in­ter­rupt­ed the pro­fes­sor; “not if it were but one chance in a hun­dred thou­sand.”

“So this very day, Sylvius, I will as­sem­ble all the most ex­pe­ri­enced sea­men of Bergen in my of­fice. I will send for all who have nav­igat­ed or who are now nav­igat­ing the ocean be­tween Ice­land and New­found­land, and we will see what they ad­vise us to do.”

“And what they ad­vise us to do we will do,” added Sylvius Hogg, with­out an in­stant's hes­ita­tion. “I have the ap­proval of the gov­ern­ment. In fact, I am au­tho­rized to send one of its dis­patch-​boats in search of the 'Viking,' and I feel sure that no one will hes­itate to take part in such a work.”

“I will pay a vis­it to the ma­rine bu­reau, and see what I can learn there,” re­marked Help, Ju­nior.

“Would you like me to ac­com­pa­ny you?”

“It is not nec­es­sary, and you must be fa­tigued.”

“Fa­tigued! I--at my age?”

“Nev­er­the­less, you had bet­ter rest un­til my re­turn, my dear and ev­er-​young Sylvius.”

That same day there was a large meet­ing of cap­tains of mer­chant and whal­ing ves­sels, as well as pi­lots, in the of­fice of Help Bros.--an as­sem­blage of men who were still nav­igat­ing the seas, as well as of those who had re­tired from ac­tive ser­vice.

Sylvius Hogg ex­plained the sit­ua­tion briefly but clear­ly. He told them the date--May 3d--on which the bot­tle had been cast in­to the sea by Ole Kamp, and the date--June 3d--on which it had been picked up by the Dan­ish cap­tain, two hun­dred miles south-​west of Ice­land.

The dis­cus­sion that fol­lowed was long and se­ri­ous. There was not one of these brave men who were not fa­mil­iar with the cur­rents of that lo­cal­ity, and up­on the di­rec­tion of these cur­rents they must, of course, chiefly de­pend for a so­lu­tion of the prob­lem.

But it was an in­con­testable fact that at the time of the ship­wreck, and dur­ing the in­ter­val that elapsed be­tween the sail­ing of the “Viking” from Saint-​Pierre-​Miquelon, and the dis­cov­ery of the bot­tle by the Dan­ish ves­sel, con­stant gales from the south-​east had dis­turbed that por­tion of the At­lantic. In fact, it was to one of these tem­pests that the catas­tro­phe must be at­tribut­ed. Prob­ably the “Viking,” be­ing un­able to car­ry sail in the teeth of the tem­pest, had been obliged to scud be­fore the windy and it be­ing at this sea­son of the year that the ice from the po­lar seas be­gins to make its way down in­to the At­lantic, it was more than like­ly that a col­li­sion had tak­en place, and that the “Viking” had been crushed by a float­ing ice­berg, which it was im­pos­si­ble to avoid.

Still, in that case, was it not more than prob­able that the whole, or a part, of the ship's crew had tak­en refuge up­on one of these ice fields af­ter hav­ing placed a quan­ti­ty of pro­vi­sions up­on it? If they had re­al­ly done so, the ice­berg, hav­ing cer­tain­ly been driv­en in a north-​west­er­ly di­rec­tion by the winds which were pre­vail­ing at the time, it was not un­like­ly that the sur­vivors had been able to reach some point on the coast of Green­land, so it was in that di­rec­tion, and in those seas, that search should be made.

This was the unan­imous opin­ion of these ex­pe­ri­enced mariners, and there could be no doubt that this was the on­ly fea­si­ble plan. But would they find aught save a few frag­ments of the “Viking” in case the ves­sel had been crushed by some enor­mous ice­berg? Could they hope to ef­fect the res­cue of any sur­vivors?

This was more than doubt­ful, and the pro­fes­sor on putting the ques­tion per­ceived that the more com­pe­tent could not, or would not, re­ply. Still, this was no cause for in­ac­tion--they were all agreed up­on that point--but ac­tion must be tak­en with­out de­lay.

There are al­ways sev­er­al gov­ern­ment ves­sels at Bergen, and one of the three dis­patch-​boats charged with the surveil­lance of the west­ern coast of Nor­way is at­tached to this port. As good luck would have it, that very boat was now rid­ing at an­chor in the bay.

Af­ter mak­ing a note of the var­ious sug­ges­tions ad­vanced by the most ex­pe­ri­enced sea­men who had as­sem­bled at the of­fice of Help, Ju­nior, Sylvius Hogg went aboard the dis­patch-​boat “Tele­graph,” and ap­prised the com­man­der of the spe­cial mis­sion in­trust­ed to him by the gov­ern­ment.

The com­man­der re­ceived him very cor­dial­ly, and de­clared his will­ing­ness to ren­der all the as­sis­tance in his pow­er. He had be­come fa­mil­iar with the nav­iga­tion of the lo­cal­ity spec­ified dur­ing sev­er­al long and dan­ger­ous voy­ages from the Lof­fo­den Is­lands and Fin­mark to the Ice­land and New­found­land fish­eries; so he would have ex­pe­ri­ence to aid him in the hu­mane work he was about to un­der­take, as he ful­ly agreed with the sea­men al­ready con­sult­ed that it was in the wa­ters be­tween Ice­land and Green­land that they must look for the sur­vivors, or at least for some trace of the “Viking.” If he did not suc­ceed there, he would, how­ev­er, ex­plore the neigh­bor­ing shores, and per­haps the east­ern part of Baf­fin's Bay.

“I am all ready to start, sir,” he added. “My coal and pro­vi­sions are on board, my crew has been se­lect­ed, and I can set sail this very day.”

“Thank you, cap­tain,” replied the pro­fes­sor, “not on­ly for your prompt­ness, but for the very kind re­cep­tion you have giv­en me. But one ques­tion more: Can you tell me how long it will take you to reach the shores of Green­land?”

“My ves­sel makes about eleven knots an hour, and as the dis­tance from Bergen to Green­land is on­ly about twen­ty de­grees, I can count up­on ar­riv­ing there in less than a week.”

“Make all pos­si­ble haste, cap­tain,” replied Sylvius Hogg. “If any of the ship­wrecked crew did sur­vive the catas­tro­phe, two months have al­ready elapsed since the ves­sel went down, and they are per­haps in a des­ti­tute and even fam­ish­ing con­di­tion up­on some desert coast.”

“Yes, there is no time to lose, Mon­sieur Hogg. I will start this very day, keep my ves­sel go­ing at the top of her speed, and as soon as I find any trace what­ev­er I will in­form the Naval De­part­ment at Chris­tia­nia by a tele­gram from New­found­land.”

“God-​speed you, cap­tain,” replied Sylvius Hogg, “and may you suc­ceed.”

That same day the “Tele­graph” set sail, fol­lowed by the sym­pa­thiz­ing cheers of the en­tire pop­ula­tion of Bergen, and it was not with­out keen emo­tion that the kind-​heart­ed peo­ple watched the ves­sel make its way down the chan­nel, and fi­nal­ly dis­ap­pear be­hind the is­lands of the fiord.

But Sylvius Hogg did not con­fine his ef­forts to the ex­pe­di­tion un­der­tak­en by the dis­patch-​boat “Tele­graph.” On the con­trary, he was re­solved to mul­ti­ply the chances of find­ing some trace of the miss­ing “Viking.” Would it not be pos­si­ble to ex­cite a spir­it of em­ula­tion in the cap­tains of mer­chant ves­sels and fish­ing-​smacks that nav­igat­ed the wa­ters of Ice­land and the Faroe Is­lands? Un­ques­tion­ably. So a re­ward of two thou­sand marks was promised in the name of the gov­ern­ment to any ves­sel that would fur­nish any in­for­ma­tion in re­gard to the miss­ing “Viking,” and one of five thou­sand marks to any ves­sel that would bring one of the sur­vivors of the ship­wreck back to his na­tive land.

So, dur­ing the two days spent in Bergen Sylvius Hogg did ev­ery­thing in his pow­er to in­sure the suc­cess of the en­ter­prise, and he was cheer­ful­ly sec­ond­ed in his ef­forts by Help, Ju­nior, and all the mar­itime au­thor­ities. M. Help would have been glad to have the wor­thy deputy as a guest some time longer, but though Sylvius Hogg thanked him cor­dial­ly he de­clined to pro­long his stay. He was anx­ious to re­join Hul­da and Joel, be­ing afraid to leave them to them­selves too long, but Help, Ju­nior, promised him that any news that might be re­ceived should be prompt­ly trans­mit­ted to Dal.

So, on the morn­ing of the 4th, af­ter tak­ing leave of his friend Help, Sylvius Hogg re-​em­barked on the “Run” to cross the fiord of the Hardan­ger, and if noth­ing un­fore­seen oc­curred he count­ed on reach­ing the Tele­mark by the evening of the 5th.