The Husky Belles.—We-weandCaubvick.—"Abb," she said.—All Promenade.—Candy at a Discount.—"Pillitay, pillitay!"—Old Trull and the Husky Matron.—Gorgeous Gifts.—Adieu to the Arctic Beauties.
The Husky Belles.—We-weandCaubvick.—"Abb," she said.—All Promenade.—Candy at a Discount.—"Pillitay, pillitay!"—Old Trull and the Husky Matron.—Gorgeous Gifts.—Adieu to the Arctic Beauties.
None of their women had come off with them; and, while the party that had gone after the bear were busy skinning it, Raed brought up a roll of flannel, with half a dozen knives, and, holding them up, pointed off to the mainland and said, "Henne-lay." Whereupon they fell toheh-hehingafresh with cries of "Igloo, igloo!" Kit pointed to our boat, hanging from the davits at the stern, and then off to the shore, to inquire whether we should send it for them; but they shook their heads, and cried, "Oomiak, oomiak!"
"Do they mean for us to take the schooner up there?" asked the captain.
Raed pointed to the deck, and then off to the shore, inquiringly. No, that was not it; though they still cried "Oomiak!" pointing off to the shore.
"Oomiakis a boat of their own, I guess," said Kit; "different from thekayak. They called 'The Curlew'oomiak-sook, you know."
"Tell them to bring some of their children along too," said Wade.
"Well, what's the word for child?" Raed inquired.
We none of us knew.
"Try pappoose," suggested the captain.
"Pappoose," said Raed, pronouncing it distinctly, and pointing off as before. "Henne-lay—pappoose."
But they only looked blank.Pappoosewas evidently a new word for them. We then resorted to various expedients, such as holding our hands knee-high and hip-high; but the requisite gleam of intelligence could not be inspired. So, with another repetition of the wordhenne-lay, we started off a delegation of eight or nine after the female portion of the settlement.
While they were gone, the six who had gone to slaughter the bear came back, bringing the hide and a considerable quantity of the meat. Bits were distributed among the crowd, and eaten raw and reeking as if a delicacy. Wechymoedthe bear-skin from them for a bar of iron.
In about an hour a greatta-yar-r-r-ingfrom the shoreward bespoke the embarkation of theladies; and, with our glasses, we could make out a large boat coming off, surrounded bykayaks.
"That's theoomiak," said Kit. "Looks like quite a barge."
"Don't lose your hearts now," laughed the captain. "Should hate to have an elopement from my ship here."
"I think Wade is in the most danger," said Raed. "He's very susceptible to Northern beauties. We must have an eye to him."
"Beware, Wade!" cried Kit. "Don't be led astray! Steel your heart against the seductive charms of these Husky belles! Remember how the hopes of your family are centred! What would your mother say? Your father would be sure to disinherit you! How would your sisters bear it?"
"Hold on, fellows!" exclaimed Wade. "This isn't quite fair, nor honorable,—making fun of ladies behind their backs."
"Right, sir!" cried Raed. "Spoken like a true son of the South! Ah! you did always outrank us in gallantry. No discount on it. Had your heads been as true as your hearts, the result might have been different. But here come the ladies. We must do our prettiest to please 'em, or we are no true knights. By the by, we resemble the wandering knight-errants not a little, I fear."
"Only their object was adventure, while ours is science," added Kit.
"Scientific knights!" laughed Wade. "Well, the world moves!"
Theoomiakwas now within fifty yards.
"Let's give 'em a salute!" exclaimed Kit. "Roll the ball out of the howitzer!"
"Oh! I wouldn't; it may scare 'em," said Raed.
"No, it won't. Where's a match?"
Bangwent old brassy out of the stern.
It did startle them, I fancy. Something very much like a feminine screech rose in theoomiak. It was quickly hushed up, though, with no fainting, but any quantity ofheh-heh-ingandyeh-yeh-ingfrom the fat beauties.
"Now give 'em two more from the muskets—two at a time—when they come under the side!" shouted Kit. "Hobbs, you and Don first! Ready!—fire!"
Crack, crack!
"Now Weymouth and Corliss!"
Crack, crack!
"There! I now consider their arrival properly celebrated. And here they are under the bows! Pipe the side for the ladies, captain!"
"Bless me!" exclaimed Raed; "how are we to get 'em aboard? Can't climb a line, I don't expect."
"Wouldn't do to give 'em the ratlines!"exclaimed Kit; "might entangle their pretty feet. What's to be done, captain?"
"I—give—it—up!" groaned Capt. Mazard. "Hold! I have it: the old companion-stairs,—the ones we had taken out. They are stowed away down in the hold."
"Just the thing!" cried Raed; "the very essence of gallantry!"
"Corliss, Bonney, and Hobbs," shouted the captain, "bear a hand at those old stairs,—quick! Don't keep ladies waiting!"
The old stairs were hurried up, and let down from the side. The captain stood ready with a stout line, which he whipped around the top rung, and then made fast to the bulwarks. "That'll hold 'em," said he.
Theoomiakwas then brought up close, and the foot of the stairs set inside the gunwale. Theoomiakwas about twenty-seven feet in length by six in width. Like thekayaks, it was covered with seal-skin; or perhaps it might have been the hide of the walrus. The framework was composed of both bone and wood tied and lashed together. This was the women's boat, and was rowed by them. The only man in it was a hideous, wrinkled old savage, who sat in the stern to steer.
"Two, four, six, eight, ten, twelve, and an odd one," counted Raed. "Invite 'em up, captain."
Capt. Mazard got up on the bulwarks with a line in his hand, and, holding it down over the stairs, began to bow and make signs to them to come up. Perhaps they had not intended to actually come on board; or perhaps, like their fairer sisters in other lands, they wanted to be coaxed a little. At first they discreetly hesitated, glancing alternately up at us, then round to their swarthy countrymen in thekayaks. The most of them were seemingly young. There was but one really ugly face; while four or five were evidently under fifteen. The women were not quite so swarthy and dark as the men, and wore their hair longer. Several of them had it pugged up behind. The captain and Raed now redoubled their gestures of invitation. The Esquimau men on board also began to jabber to them; at which, first two, then another, and another, stood up, and with broad smiles essayed to mount the stairs. Kit was standing close to me.
"Now, which are the prettiest ones?" he whispered. "Which are the belles? Let's you and I secure thebellesaway from Raed and Wade. Those two back in the stern next to old ghoul-face—how do those strike you? Aren't those the beauties? They've got on the prettiest fur, anyway. Only look at those white gloves!"
The two Kit had pointed out were, as well as we could judge, the fairest of the bevy.
"I believe Wade's got his eye on one of them!" muttered Kit. "We'll oust him, though. Crowd along sharp when those two come up. Elbow Wade out of the way. I'll push against you, and we'll squeeze him up against the rail."
The others followed the first two, coming up the steps, taking the captain's hand, and jumping off the rail to the deck. Our two came last.
"Now's our time!" exclaimed Kit; and, making a bold push, we got in ahead of the unsuspecting Wade, who immediately saw the sell, and turned away in great disgust.
"I'll pay you for that!" muttered he.
But, having got face to face with the fur-clad damsels, we were not a little perplexed how to make their acquaintance; for they were staring at us with their small black eyes very round and wondering.
"Try a great long smile," said Kit.
We smiled very hard and persistently for some seconds. It seemed to mollify their wonder somewhat.
"Keep it up," Kit advised: "that'll bring 'em."
We kept it up, smiling and bowing and nodding as gayly as we could; and were presently rewarded by seeing faint reflections of our grins on their dusky faces, which rapidly deepened into as broad a smile as I ever beheld. They hadvery tolerably wide mouths, with large white teeth. Having got up a smile, we next essayed to shake hands with them according to good old New-England custom. Their white gloves were of some sort of bird-skin, I think, and fitted—well, I've seen kid gloves worn that didn't fit a whit better. How to commence a conversation was not so easy; since we knew not more than a dozen words of their language, and could not frame these into sentences. So we began by making them each a present of a jack-knife. These were accepted with a great deal of broad smiling. Kit then showed them how to open the knives. At that one of the girls reached down to her boot; and, thrusting her hand into the leg of it (for their boots had remarkably large legs, coming up to the knee, and even higher), she fished out a little bone implement about four inches long, and resembling a harpoon. Near the centre of it was a tiny hole, in which there was knotted a bit of fine leathern string. It was plain that she meant to give it to one or the other of us. Kit held out his hand for it with a bow.
"Kina?" he asked, taking it. ("What is it?")
"Tar-suk," said the girl. "Tar-suk-apak-pee-o-mee-wanga;" which was plain, to be sure.
Meanwhile the other was industriously fumbling in her boot, and pretty quick drew out a boneimage representing a fox, as I have always supposed. This was for me.
"Kina?" I asked.
"Bossuit," was the reply.
This was also pierced with a hole through the neck; and, on my hooking it to my watch-guard, the other girl fell to laughing at her companion, who also laughed a little confusedly, and with a look, which, in a less dusky maiden, might have been a blush. Just what importance they attach to these trinkets and to the wearing of them we could merely guess at.
"I wonder what their names are," said Kit. "How can we find out? Would they understand by our using the wordkina, do you suppose?"
"Try it."
Kit then pointed to the one who was talking with me, and said "kina" to the other. She did not seem to understand at first: but, on a repetition of the question, replied, "We-we;" at which her companion looked suddenly around. Then they talked with each other a moment.We-we, as I afterwards learned, meantwhite goose. I then put the same question toWe-we, pointing to the other.
"Caubvick," she replied.
Just then Wade passed us; and, lo! he had a white-gloved damsel on his arm, promenading along the deck as big as life.
"What's her name?" cried Kit.
"Ikewna," he replied over his shoulder.
How he had found out he would never tell us; perhaps in the same manner we had done.
"I declare, Wade's outdoing us!" exclaimed Kit. "But we can promenade too."
I then pointed to Wade andIkewna, and then toWe-weand myself, offering my arm.
"Abb," she said; and we started off.
Kit andCaubvickfollowed. After all, walking with an Esquimau belle is not so very different from walking with a Yankee girl: only I fancy it must have looked a little odd; for, as I have already stated, they wore long-legged boots with very broad tops coming above the knee, silver-furred seal-skin breeches, and a jacket of white hare-skin (the polar hare) edged with the down of the eider-duck. These jackets had at least one very peculiar feature: that was nothing less than a tail about four inches broad, and reaching within a foot of the ground. I have no doubt they were instyle: still they did look a little singular, to say the least.
Meanwhile the others were not idle spectators, judging from the loud talking,yeh-yeh-ing, and unintelligible lingo, that resounded all about. We saw Raed paying the most polite attentions to a very chubby, fat girl with a black fur jacket and yellow gloves.
"What name?" demanded Kit as we promenaded past.
"Pussay," replied Raed, trying to look very sober.
The wordpussaymeans a seal; and in this case the name was not much misplaced.We-we(white goose) was, to my eye, decidedly the prettiest of the lot;Caubvickcame next; and, as we promenaded past Wade, we kept boasting of their superior charms as compared withIkewna. Our two both wore white jackets; while Wade's wore a yellow one, of fox-skin.
"How about refreshments!" cried Wade at length. "We ought to treat them, hadn't we?"
"That's so," said Raed. "Captain, have the goodness to call Palmleaf, and bid him bring up a box of that candy."
The captain came along.
"Didn't you see the rumpus?" he asked.
"Rumpus?"
"Yes; when Palmleaf came on deck just after the women came on board. They were afraid of him. He came poking his black head up out of the forecastle, and rolling his eyes about. If he had been the Devil himself, they couldn't have acted more scared. I had to send him below out of sight, or there would have been a general stampede. The men are afraid of him. I don't understand exactly why they should be."
None of us did at the time; but we learned subsequently that the Esquimaux attribute all their ill-luck to a certain fiend, or demon, in the form of a huge black man. We have, therefore, accounted for their strange fear and aversion to the negro on that ground. They thought he was the Devil,—their devil. So Hobbs brought up the candy. Raed passed it round, giving each of our visitors two sticks apiece. This was plainly a new sort of treat. They stood, each holding the candy in their hands, as if uncertain to what use it was to be put. Raed then set them an example by biting off a chunk. At that they each took a bite. We expected they would be delighted. It was therefore with no little chagrin that we beheld our guests making up the worst possible faces, and spitting it out anywhere, everywhere,—on deck, against the bulwarks, overboard, just as it happened. The most of them immediately threw away the candy; thoughWe-weandCaubvick, out of consideration for our feelings perhaps, quietly tucked theirs into their boot-legs. There was an awkward pause in the hospitalities. Clearly, candy wouldn't pass for a delicacy with them.
"Try 'em with cold boiled beef!" exclaimed the captain.
Luckily, as it occurred, Palmleaf had lately boiled up quite a quantity. It was cut up in smallpieces, and distributed among them; and, at the captain's suggestion, raw fat pork was given the men. This latter, however, was much too salt for them: so that, on the whole, our refreshments were a failure. It is doubtful if they liked the cooked meat half so well as they did the raw, reeking flesh of the bear.
By way of making up for the candy failure, we gave them each two common tenpenny nails, and two sticks of hardwood the size we burned in the stove. With these presents they seemed very well pleased, particularly with the wood. But, on finding we were disposed to give, the most of them were not at all modest about asking for more. A general cry of "Pillitay" ("Give me something") arose. We gave them another stick of wood all round; at which their cries were redoubled. In short, they treated us very much as some earnest Christians do the Lord,—asked for everything they could think of. Old Trull was especially pestered by one woman, who stuck to him with a continuous whine of "Pillitay, pillitay!" He had already given her his jack-knife, and now borrowed it to cut off several of the brass buttons on his jacket. But so far was she from being satisfied with this sacrifice, that she instantly beganpillitayingfor the rest of them. The old man thought that this was carrying the thing a little too far.
"Ye old jade!" he exclaimed, out of all patience. "Ye'd beg me stark naked, I du believe!"
But still the woman with outstretched hand cried "Pillitay!" Finally the old chap in pure desperation caught out his tobacco to take a chew. Eying her a moment, he bit it off, and put the rest in her hand with a grim smile. The woman, following his example, forthwith bit off a piece, and chewed at it for a few seconds, swallowing the saliva; then turned away sick and vomiting. She didn'tpillitayhim any more.
To the honor of maidenhood, I may add thatWe-we,Caubvick,Ikewna, andPussaywere exceptions to the general rule of beggary. They asked us for nothing. Something seemed to restrain them: perhaps the attentions we had shown them. Be that as it may, they fared the better for it. Wade led off by givingIkewnaa broad, highly-colored worsted scarf, which he wrapped in folds about her fox-jacket, covering it entirely, and giving her a verydistinguélook. Not to be behind, Kit and I gave toWe-weandCaubvickthree yards of bright-red flannel apiece; also a red-and-black silk handkerchief each to wear over their shoulders, and two massive (pinchbeck) breast-pins. These latter articles did make their little piercing black eyes sparkle amazingly.
How long they would have stayed on board, Heaven only knows,—all summer, perhaps,—hadnot the captain given orders to have the schooner brought round. The moment the vessel began to move, they were seized with a panic, lest they should be carried off from home. The men were over into theirkayaksinstantly. Having got rid of them, "The Curlew" was again hove to, while theoomiakwas brought under the stairs. We bade a hasty farewell to the Husky belles, and handed them into their barge. On the whole, we were not much sorry to be rid of them; for though they were human beings, and some of the young girls not without their attractions, yet it was humanity in a very crude, raw state. In a word, they were savages, destitute to a lamentable extent of all those finer feelings and sentiments which characterize a civilized race. The roughest of our Gloucester lads were immeasurably in advance of them; and Palmleaf, but recently a lash-fearing slave, seemed of a higher order of beings.
They were gone; but they had left an odor behind. We had to keep Palmleaf burning coffee on a shovel all the rest of the evening; and, for more than a month after, we could smell it at times,—a "sweetsouvenirof our Husky beauties," as Wade used to put it.
There is something at once hopeless and pitiful about this people. There is no possibility of permanently bettering their condition. Born andliving under a climate, which, from the gradual shifting of the pole, must every year grow more and more severe, they can but sink lower and lower as the struggle for existence grows sharper. There is no hope for them. Their absurd love of home precludes the possibility of their emigrating to a warmer latitude. Pitiful! because, where-ever the human life-spark is enkindled, his must be a hard heart that can see it suffering, dying, without pity.
The Husky Chief.—Palmleaf Indignant.—A Gun.—Sudden Apparition of the Company's Ship.—We hold a Hasty Council.—In the Jaws of the British Lion.—An Armed Boat.—Repel Boarders!—Red-Face waxes wrathful.—Fired on, but no Bones Broken.
The Husky Chief.—Palmleaf Indignant.—A Gun.—Sudden Apparition of the Company's Ship.—We hold a Hasty Council.—In the Jaws of the British Lion.—An Armed Boat.—Repel Boarders!—Red-Face waxes wrathful.—Fired on, but no Bones Broken.
By the time we had fairly parted from our Esquimau friends it was near eleven o'clock,P.M.,—after sunset. Instead of standing out into the straits, we beat up for about a mile along the ice-field, and anchored in thirteen fathoms, at about a cable's length from the island, to the east of the ice-island. The weather had held fine. The roadstead between the island and the main was not at present much choked with ice. It was safe, to all appearance. We wanted rest. Turning out at three and half-past three in themorning, and not getting to bunk till eleven and twelve, made an unconscionable long day. Once asleep, I don't think one of us boys waked or turned over till the captain stirred us up to breakfast.
"Six o'clock, boys!" cried he. "Sun's been up these four hours!"
"Don't talk about the sun in this latitude," yawned Raed. "I can sit up with him at Boston; but he's too much for me here."
While we were at breakfast, Weymouth came down to report akayakcoming off.
"Shall we let him come aboard, sir?"
"Oh, yes!" said the captain.
"Let's have him down to breakfast with us for the nonce!" cried Kit. "Here, Palmleaf, set an extra plate, and bring another cup of coffee."
"And see that you keep out of sight," laughed the captain: "the Huskies don't much like the looks of you."
"I tink I'se look as well as dey do, sar!" exclaimed the indignant cook.
"So do I, Palmleaf," said Raed; "but then opinions differ, you know. These Esquimaux are nothing but savages."
"Dey're berry ill-mannered fellars, sar, to make de best of dem. I wouldn't hev 'em roun', sar, stinkin' up de ship."
"I don't see that they smell much worse than apack of niggers," remarked Wade provokingly; at which the darky went back to the galley muttering.
"Wade, some of these big negroes will pop you over one of these days," said Kit.
"Well, I expect it; and who'll be to blame for that? We had them under good control: you marched your hired Canadians down among us, and set them 'free,' as you say; which means that you've turned loose a class of beings in no way fit to be free. The idea of letting those ignorant niggers vote!—why, they are no more fit to have a voice in the making of the laws than so many hogs! You have done us a great wrong in setting them free: you've turned loose among us a horde of the most indolent, insolent, lustfulbeaststhat ever made a hell of earth. You can't look for social harmony at the South! Why, we are obliged to go armed to protect our lives! No lady is safe to walk half a mile unattended. I state a fact when I say that my mother and my sisters do not dare to walk about our plantation even, for fear of those brutish negroes."
"I think you take a rather one-sided view, Wade," said Raed.
"It's the only side I can see."
"Perhaps; but there is another side, nevertheless."
Here a tramping on the stairs was heard, andWeymouth came down, followed by a large Esquimau.
"He's been trying to make out to us that he's the chief, boss, sachem, or whatever they call it, of the crowd that was aboard yesterday," said Weymouth.
"What does he want?" the captain asked.
"Wants tochymo."
Raed made signs for him to sit down in the chair at the table and eat with us; which, after some hesitation, he did rather awkwardly, and with a great knocking of his feet against the chairs. He had on a gorgeous bearskin jacket, with the hood drawn over his head. His face was large; his nose small, and nearly lost between the fat billows of his cheeks; his eyes were much drawn up at the corners, and very far apart; and his mouth, a very wide one, was fringed about with stiff, straggling black bristles. The cast of his countenance was decidedly repulsive. Kit made signs for him to drink his coffee; but he merely eyed it suspiciously. I then helped him to a heavy spoonful of mashed potatoes. He looked at it a while; then, seeing us eating of it, plunged in his fingers, and, taking up a wad, thrust it into his mouth, but immediately spat it out, with a broad laugh, all over his plate and over the other dishes, and kept spitting at random.
"De nasty dog!" ejaculated Palmleaf, rushingforward from the galley: "spit all ober de clean plates!"
The savage turned his eye upon the black, and, with a horrible shout, sprang up from his chair, nearly upsetting the table-shelf, and made a bolt for the stairway. We called to him, and followed as quickly as we could: but, before we were fairly on deck, he was over into hiskayak, plying his paddle as if for dear life; and the more we called, the faster hedug to it.
Suddenly, as we were looking after him and laughing, the heavy report of cannon sounded from the southward. Looking around, we saw a large ship coming to below the islands, at a distance of about three miles. A thrill of apprehension stole over us. Without a word, we went for our glasses. It was a large, staunch-looking ship, well manned, from the appearance of her deck. As we were looking, the English flag went up. We had expected as much.
"It's one of the Hudson-bay Company's ships," remarked Raed.
"Of course," said Kit.
"Not likely to be anything else," said the captain.
"I suppose you're aware that those fellows may take a notion to have us accompany them to London," remarked Raed.
"If they can catch us," Kit added.
"Persons caught trading with the natives within the limits of the Hudson-bay Company's chartered territory are liable to be seized, and carried to London for trial," continued Raed. "It's best to keep that point well in view. Nobody would suppose that, in this age, the old beef-heads would have the cheek to try to enforce such arightagainst Americans, citizens of the United States, who ought to have the inside track of everything on this continent. Still they may."
"It will depend somewhat on the captain of the vessel—what sort of a man he is," said Kit. "He may be one of the high and mighty sort, full of overgrown notions of the company's authority."
Another jet of white smoke puffed out from the side of the ship, followed in a few seconds by another dullbang.
"We'll stand by our colors in any case," remarked Capt. Mazard, attaching our flag to the signal halliards.
Raed and Kit ran to hoist it. Up it went to the peak of the bright-yellow mast,—the bonny bright stars and stripes.
"All hands weigh anchor!" ordered Capt. Mazard.
"Load the howitzer!" cried Kit. "Let's answer their gun in coin!"
While we were loading, the schooner was brought round.
Wade must have got in a pretty heavy charge; for the report was a stunner.
"Load again," said Kit; "and put in a ball this time. Let's load the rifle too."
The captain turned and regarded us doubtfully, then looked off toward the ship. "The Curlew" was driving lazily forward, and, crossing the channel between the island under which we had been lying and the ice-field, passed slowly along the latter at a distance of a hundred and fifty or two hundred yards. We thus had the ice-island between us and the possibly hostile ship. With our glasses we now watched her movements attentively. A number of officers were on the quarter-deck.
"You don't call that a ship-of-war?" Wade said at length.
"Oh, no!" replied the captain; "though it is probably an armed ship. All the company's ships go armed, I've heard."
"There!" exclaimed Kit. "They're letting down a boat!"
"That's so!" cried Wade. "They're going to pay us a visit sure!"
"They probably don't want to trust their heavy-laden ship up here among the islands," said the captain.
"It's their long-boat, I think," said Kit. "One, two, three, four, five!—why, there are not lessthan fifteen or twenty men in it! Andsee there!—weapons!"
As the boat pulled away from the side, the sun flashed brightly from a dozen gleaming blades.
"Cutlasses!" exclaimed Raed, turning a little pale.
I am ready to confess, that, for a moment, I felt as weak as a rag. The vengeful gleam of the light on hostile steel is apt, I think, to give one such a feeling the first time he sees it. The captain stood leaning on the rail, with the glass to his eye, evidently at his wits' end, and in no little trepidation. Very likely at that moment he wished our expedition had gone to Jericho before he had undertaken it. Raed, I think, was the first to rally his courage. I presume he had thought more on the subject previously than the rest of us had done. The sudden appearance of the ship had therefore taken him less by surprise than it did us.
"It looks as if they were going to board us—if we let them," he said quietly. "That's the way it looks; isn't it, captain?"
"I should say that it did, decidedly," Capt. Mazard replied.
"Boys!" exclaimed Raed, looking round to us, and to the sailors, who had gathered about us in some anxiety,—"boys! if we let those fellowsyonder board us, in an hour we shall all be close prisoners, in irons perhaps, and down in the hold of that ship. We shall be carried out to Fort York, kept there a month in a dungeon likely as any way, then sent to England to be tried—for daring to sail into Hudson Bay and trade with the Esquimaux! What say, boys?—shall we let them come aboard and take us?"
"No, sir!" cried Kit.
"Not much!" exclaimed Donovan. "We'll fight first!"
"Capt. Mazard," continued Raed, "I'm really sorry to have been the means of placing you in such a predicament. 'The Curlew' will undoubtedly be condemned if seized. They would clap a prize-crew into her the first thing, and start her for England. But there's no need of giving her up to them. That's not a ship-of-war. We've got arms, and can fight as well as they. We can beat off that boat, I'll be bound to say: and as for their ship, I don't believe they'll care to take her up here between the islands; and if they do,—why, we can sail away from them. But, for my own part, I had rather fight, and take an even chance of being killed, than be taken prisoner, and spend five months below decks."
"Fight it is, then!" exclaimed the captain doggedly.
By this time the boat was pulling up thechannel to the north of the ice-field, within a mile of us.
"We might crowd sail, and stand away to the north of the islands here," I argued.
"Yes; but we don't know how this roadstead ends farther on," replied Raed.
"It may be choked up with ice or small islets," said Kit. "In that case we should run into a trap, where they would only have to follow us to be sure of us. We might abandon the schooner, and get ashore; but that would be nearly as bad as being taken prisoner—on this coast."
"Here's clear sailing round this ice-field," remarked the captain. "My plan is to keep their ship on the opposite of it from us. If they give chase, we'll sail round it."
"But how about their boat?" demanded Wade.
"We must beat it off!" exclaimed the captain determinedly.
"Then we've not a moment to lose!" cried Raed.—"Here, Donovan! help me move the howitzer to the stern.—Kit, you and Wash and Wade get up the muskets and load them. Bring up the cartridges, and get caps and everything ready."
The howitzer went rattling into the stern, and was pointed out over the taffrail. The big rifle followed it. To the approaching boat their muzzles must have looked a trifle grim, I fancy. Matches and splints were got ready, as well aswads and balls. The muskets were charged, and the bayonets fixed. The schooner was kept moving gradually along at about the same distance from the ice. Bonney was stationed at the wheel, and Corliss at the sheets. Old Trull stood by the howitzer. The rest of us took each a musket, and formed in line along the after-bulwarks. Palmleaf, who in the midst of these martial preparations had been enjoying a pleasant after-breakfast snooze, was now called, and bade to stand by Corliss at the sheets. His astonishment at the sight which the deck presented to his lately-awakened optics was very great; the greater, that no one would take the trouble to answer his anxious questions.
The boat had now come up to within a quarter of a mile. With cutlasses flashing, and oars dipping all together, they came closing in with a long, even stroke.
"We don't want them much within a hundred yards of us," said Capt. Mazard in a low tone.
"I'll hail them," replied Raed, taking the speaking-trumpet, which the captain had brought along.
The crisis was close at hand. We clutched the stocks of our rifles, and stood ready. There was, I am sure, no blenching nor flinching from the encounter which seemed imminent. We could see the faces of the men in the boat, the red face ofthe officer in the stern. The men were armed with carbines and broad sabers. They had come within easy hail.
"Present arms!" commanded Capt. Mazard in clear tones.
Eight of us, with our rifles, stood fast.
"Repelboarders!"
Instantly we dropped on one knee, and brought our pieces to bear over the rail, the bayonets flashing as brightly as their own.
"Boat ahoy!" shouted Raed through the trumpet.
"Ahoy yourself!" roared the red-faced man in the stern. "What ship is that, anyway?"
This was rather insulting talk: nevertheless, Raed answered civilly and promptly,—
"The schooner-yacht 'Curlew' of Portland."
"Where bound? What are you doing here?"
"Bound on a cruise into Hudson Bay!" responded Raed coolly; "for scientific purposes," he added.
"Scientific devils!" blustered the officer. "You can't fool us so! You're in here on a trading-voyage. We saw akayakgo off from you not an hour ago."
Not caring to bandy words, Raed made no reply; and we knelt there, with our muskets covering them, in silence. They had stopped rowing.and were falling behind a little; for "The Curlew" plowed leisurely on.
"Why don't you heave to?" shouted the irate commander of the boat. "I must look at your papers! Heave to while I come alongside!"
"You can't bring that armed boat alongside of this schooner!" replied Raed. "No objections to your examining our papers; but we're not green enough to let you bring an armed crew aboard of us."
"Then we shall come withoutletting! Give way there!"
But his men hesitated. The sight of our muskets, and old Trull holding a blazing splinter over the howitzer, was a little too much even for the sturdy pluck of English sailors.
"Bring that boat another length nearer," shouted Raed, slow and distinctly, "and we shall open fire on you!"
"The devil you will!"
"Yes, we will!"
At that we all cocked our muskets. The sharp clicking was, no doubt, distinctly audible in the boat. The officer thundered out a torrent of oaths and abuse; to all of which Raed made no reply. They did not advance, however. We meant business; and I guess they thought so. Our stubborn silence was not misconstrued.
"How do I know that you're not a set ofpirates?" roared the Englishman. "You look like it! But wait till I get back to 'The Rosamond.' and I'll knock some of the impudence out of you, you young filibusters!" And with a parting malediction, which showed wonderful ingenuity in blasphemy, he growled out an order to back water; when the boat was turned, and headed for the ship.
"Give 'em three cheers!" said Kit.
Whereupon we jumped up, gavethreeand a big groan; at which the red face in the stern turned, and stared long and evilly at us.
"No wonder he's mad!" exclaimed Raed. "Had to row clean round this ice-field, and now has got to row back for his pains! Thought he was going to scare us just about into fits. Got rather disagreeably disappointed."
"He was pretty wellset up, I take it," remarked the captain. "Had probably taken a drop before coming off. His men knew it. When he gave the order to 'give way,' they hung back: didn't care about it."
"They knew better," said Donovan. "We could have knocked every one of them on the head before they could have got up the side. It ain't as if 'The Curlew' was loaded down, and lay low in the water. It's about as much as a man can do to get from a boat up over the bulwarks. They might have hit some of us with their carbines;but they couldn't have boarded us, and they knew it."
"You noticed what he said about knocking the impudence out of us?" said Wade. "That means that we shall hear a noise and have cannon-shot whistling about our ears, I suppose."
"Shouldn't wonder," said Kit.
"Have to work to hurt us much, I reckon," remarked the captain. "The distance across the ice-island here can't be much under two miles and a half."
"Still, if they've got a rifled Whitworth or an Armstrong, they may send some shots pretty near us," said Wade.
"The English used to kindly send you Southern fellows a few Armstrongs occasionally, I have heard," said Raed.
"Yes, they did,—just by way of testing Lincoln's blockade. Very good guns they were too. We ought to have had more of them. I tell you, if they have a good twenty-four-pound Armstrong rifle, and a gunner that knows anything, they may give us a job of carpenterwork—to stop the holes."
"We might increase the distance another quarter of a mile," remarked Kit, "by standing off from the ice and making the circle a little larger."
"We'll do so," said the captain. "Port the helm, Bonney!"
During the next half-hour the schooner veered off two or three cables' lengths. We watched the boat pulling back to the ship. It was nearly an hour getting around the ice-island. Finally it ran in alongside, and was taken up. With our glasses we could see that there was a good deal of running and hurrying about the deck.
"Some tall swearing going on there!" laughed Kit.
"Now look out for your heads!" said Raed. "They are pointing a gun! I can see the muzzle of it! It has an ugly look!"
Some five minutes more passed, whenpuffcame a little cloud of smoke. We held our breaths. It gives a fellow a queer sensation to know that a deadly projectile is coming for him. It might have been four seconds, though it seemed longer, when we saw the ice fly up rapidly in three or four places half a mile from the schooner as the ball came skipping along, and, bounding off the edge of the ice-field, plunged into the sea with a sullensudge, throwing up a white fountain ten or a dozen feet high, which fell splashing back. We all felt immensely relieved.
"That didn't come within three hundred yards of us," said Kit.
"They'll give her more elevation next time," said Wade. "I don't believe that was an Armstrong slug, though: it acted too sort of lazy."
"Look out, now!" exclaimed Raed. "They are going to give us another!"
Puff—one—two—three—four! The ball struck near the edge of the ice-field, rose with a mighty bound twenty or thirty feet, and, describing a fine curve, struck spat upon the water; and again, rose, to plunge heavily down into the ocean two hundred feet off the port quarter.
"That was better," said Raed. "They are creeping up to us! The next one may come aboard!"
"But that's nothing more than an ordinary old twenty-four-pounder," said Wade. "Bet they haven't got a rifled gun. Lucky for us!"
"I wish we had a good Dahlgren fifty-pound rifle!" exclaimed Kit: "we would just make them get out of that quick! Wouldn't it be fun to chase them off through the straits here, with our big gun barking at their heels!"
"There they go again!" shouted the captain. "Look out!"
We caught a momentary glimpse of the shot high in air, and held our breaths again as it came whirling down with a quickthudinto the sea a few hundred feet astern, and a little beyond us.
"Gracious!" cried Kit. "If that had struck on the deck, it would have gone down, clean down through, I do believe!"
"Not so bad as that, I guess," said the captain."That heap of sand-ballast in the hold would stop it, I reckon."
"Think so?"
"Oh, yes!"
There was real comfort in that thought. It was therefore with diminished apprehension that we saw a fourth shot come roaring down a cable's length forward, and beyond the bows, and, a few seconds after, heard the dull boom following the shot. The report was always two or three seconds behind the ball.
They fired three more of the "high ones," as Kit called them. None of these came any nearer than the fourth had done. Then they tried another at a less elevation, which struck on the ice-field, and came skipping along as the first had done; but it fell short.
"Old Red-face will have to give it up, I guess."' said Kit. "He wants to hit us awfully, though! If he hadn't a loaded ship, bet you, we should see him coming up the channel between the islands there, swearing like a piper."
"In that case we would just 'bout ship, and lead him on a chase round this ice-island till he got sick of it," remarked the captain. "'The Curlew' can give him points, and outsail that great hulk anywhere."
"He's euchred, and may as well go about his business," laughed Weymouth.
"And that's just what he's concluding to do, I guess," said Donovan, who had borrowed my glass for a moment. "The ship's going round to the wind."
"Yes, there she goes!" exclaimed Wade.
"Possibly they may bear up through the channel to the west of the ice-island," said Raed.
"Hope he will, if he wants to," remarked Capt. Mazard. "Nothing would suit me better than to race with him."
In fifteen or twenty minutes the ship was off the entrance of the channel; but she held on her course, and had soon passed it.
"Now that old fellow feels bad!" laughed Kit. "How savage he will be for the next twenty-four hours! I pity the sailors! He will have two or three of them 'spread-eagled' by sunset to pay for this, the old wretch! He looked just like that sort of a man."
"I wonder what our Husky friends thought of this little bombardment!" exclaimed Wade, looking off toward the mainland. "Don't see anything of them."
"Presume we sha'n't get that old 'sachem' that saw Palmleaf to visit us again in a hurry," said Kit.
We watched the ship going off to the south-west for several hours, till she gradually sank from view.
"Well, captain," said Raed, "you are not going to let this adventure frighten you, I hope."
"Oh, no! I guess we can take care of ourselves. Only, in future, I think we had better keep a sharper lookout, not to let another ship come up within three miles without our knowing it."
It was now after four o'clock,P.M.Not caring to follow too closely after the company's ship, we beat back to our anchorage of the previous evening, and anchored for the night.
Saw nothing more of the Esquimaux; and, early the next morning, sailed out into the straits, and continued on during the whole day, keeping the mountains of the mainland to the northward well in sight at a distance of eight or ten miles, and occasionally sighting high islands to the south of the straits.
By five o'clock, afternoon, we were off a third group of islands on the north side, known as the "Upper Savage Isles." During the evening and night we passed them a few miles to the south,—a score of black, craggy islets. Even the bright light of the waning sun could not enliven their utter desolation. Drear, oh, how drear! with their thunder-battered peaks rising abruptly from the ocean, casting long black shadows to the eastward. Many of them were mere tide-washed ledges, environed by ice-fields.
About nine o'clock, evening, the ice-patches began to thicken ahead. By ten we were battering heavily among it, with considerable danger of staving in the bows. The foresail was accordingly taken in, and double reefs put in the mainsail. The weather had changed, with heavy lowering clouds and a rapidly-falling thermometer. Nevertheless we boys turned in, and went to sleep. Experience was beginning to teach us to sleep when we could. The heavy rumble of thunder roused us. Bright, sudden flashes gleamed through the bull's-eyes. The motion of the schooner had changed.
"What's up, I wonder?" asked Kit, sitting up on the side of his mattress.
Another heavy thunder-peal burst, rattling overhead. Hastily putting on our coats and caps, we went on deck, where a scene of such wild and terrible grandeur presented itself, that I speak of it, even at this lapse of time, with a shudder; knowing, too, that I can give no adequate idea of it in words. I will not say that I am not glad to have witnessed it; but I should not want to see it again. To the lovers of the awfully sublime, it would have been worth a journey around the earth. It seemed as if all the vast antagonistic forces of Nature had been suddenly confronted with each other. The schooner had been hove to in the lee of an ice-field engirdling one ofthe smaller islets, with all sail taken in save the jib. Weymouth was at the wheel; the captain stood near him; Hobbs and Donovan were in the bow; Bonney stood by the jib-halliards. On the port side the ice-field showed like a pavement of alabaster on a sea of ink, contrasting wildly with the black, rolling clouds, which, like the folds of a huge shroud, draped the heavens in darkness. On the starboard, the heaving waters, black as night, were covered with pure white ice-cakes, striking and battering together with heavy grindings. The lightnings played against the inky clouds, forked, zigzag, and dazzling to the eye. The thunder-echoes, unmuffled by vegetation, were reverberated from bare granitic mountains and naked ice-fields with a hollow rattle that deafened and appalled us; and, in the intervals of thunder, the hoarse bark of bears, and their affrighted growlings, were borne to our ears with savage distinctness. Mingled with these noises came the screams and cries of scores of sea-birds, wheeling and darting about.
It was half-past two, morning.
"What a fearfully grand scene!" exclaimed Wade.
And I recollect that we all laughed in his face, the words seemed so utterly inadequate to express what, by common consent, was accorded unutterable. An hour later, the blackness of the heavenshad rolled away to the westward, a fog began to rise, and morning light effaced the awful panorama of night.
By six o'clock the fog was so dense that nothing could be seen a half cable's length, and continued thus till afternoon, during which time we lay hove to under the lee of the ice. But by two o'clock a smart breeze from the north lifted it. The schooner was put about, and, under close-reefed sails, went bumping through the interminable ice-patches which seem ever to choke these straits. The mountains to the northward showed white after the squalls of last night; and the seals were leaping as briskly amid the ice-cakes as if the terrific scenery of the previous evening had but given zest to their unwieldy antics.