"Isle Aktok."—A Sea-Horse and a Sea-Horse Hunt.—In High Spirits.—Sudden Interruption of the Hunt.—A Heavy Gun.—The Race to the Ledge-Tops.—Too Late.—A Disheartening Spectacle.—Surprised by the Company's Ship.—The Schooner in Peril.—Capt. Hazard bravely waits.—The Flight of "The Curlew" amid a Shower of Balls.—The Chase.—Left on the Islet.—A Gloomy Prospect.—"What shall we have for Grub toate?"—Wild-Geese.—Egging.—"Boom!"—A Sea-Horse Fire.
"Isle Aktok."—A Sea-Horse and a Sea-Horse Hunt.—In High Spirits.—Sudden Interruption of the Hunt.—A Heavy Gun.—The Race to the Ledge-Tops.—Too Late.—A Disheartening Spectacle.—Surprised by the Company's Ship.—The Schooner in Peril.—Capt. Hazard bravely waits.—The Flight of "The Curlew" amid a Shower of Balls.—The Chase.—Left on the Islet.—A Gloomy Prospect.—"What shall we have for Grub toate?"—Wild-Geese.—Egging.—"Boom!"—A Sea-Horse Fire.
Toward night the wind changed to north, and thinned out the patch-ice, driving it southward, so that by ten o'clock, evening, we were able to get in our ice-anchors and make sail, continuing our voyage, and making about four knots an hour till nine o'clock next morning, when we were off a small island, the first of a straggling group on the south side of the strait. South-east of this islet was another large island, which we at first mistook for the south main, but, after comparing the chart, concluded that it was "Isle Aktok." To the north the mainland, with its fringe of ledgy isles, was in sight, distant not far from thirteen leagues. We had been bearing southward considerably all night, falling off from the wind, which was north-west. We were now, as nearly as we could reckon it up, a hundred and nineteen leagues inside the entrance of the straits at Cape Resolution. Raed and I werebelow making a sort of map of the straits, looking over the charts, etc., when Kit came running down.
"There's a sea-horse off here on the island!" said he.
"A sea-horse!" exclaimed Raed.
"A walrus!" I cried; for we had not, thus far, got sight of one of these creatures, though we had expected to find them in numbers throughout the straits. But, so far as our observation goes, they are very rare there.
Taking our glasses, we ran hastily up. Wade was looking off.
"Out there where the ice is jammed in against this lower end of the island," directed Kit.
The distance was about a mile.
"Don't you see that great blackbunchlying among the ice there?" continued he. "See his white tusks!"
Bringing our keen little telescopes to bear, we soon had himup under our noses,—a great, dark-hided, clumsy beast, with a hideous countenance and white tusks; not so big as an elephant's, to be sure, but big enough to give their possessor a very formidable appearance.
"Seems to be taking his ease there," said Wade. "Same creature that the old writers call amorse, isn't it?"
"I believe so," replied Raed.
"Wonder if our proper name,Morse, is from that?" said I.
"Shouldn't wonder," said Kit. "Many of our best family names are from a humbler origin than that. But we must improve this chance to hunt that old chap: may not get another. And it won't do, nohow, to come clean up here to Hudson Bay and not go sea-horse-hunting once."
"Right, my boy!" cried Raed. "Captain, we want to go on a walrus-hunt. Can the schooner be brought round, and the boat manned for that purpose?"
"Certainly, sir. 'The Curlew' is at your service, as also her boat."
"Then let me invite you to participate in the exercise," said Raed, laughing.
"Nothing would suit me better. But as the wind is fresh, and the schooner liable to drift, I doubt if it will be prudent for me to leave her so long. You have my best wishes for your success, however. I shall watch the chase with interest through my glass; and, better still, I will see that Palmleaf has dinner ready at your return.—Here, Weymouth and Donovan, let down the boat, and row these youthful huntsmen to yonder ice-bound shore!"
Ah! if we had foreseen the results of that hunt, we should scarcely have been so jocose, I fancy. Well, coming events are wisely hidden from us,they say; but, by jolly! a fellow could afford to pay well for a glimpse at the future once in a while.
Each of us boys took a musket and eight or ten cartridges. I'm not likely to forget what we took with us, in a hurry.
"We'll put the bayonets on, I guess," Kit remarked. "It's a big lump of a beast. These are just the things for giving long-range stabs with."
"Don't forget the caps!" cried Raed, already half way up the companion-way.
The wind was rather raw that morning: we put on our thick pea-jackets. Weymouth and Don were already down in the boat, which they had brought alongside.
"Here, Don, stick that in your waistband!" exclaimed Kit, who had come up last, tossing him one of our new butcher-knives.
"All right, sir!"
"Wish you would give me a musket," said Weymouth.
"You shall have one!" cried Wade, running back for it.
"Come, Guard!" shouted Kit. "Here, sir!" and the shaggy Newfoundland came bouncing down into the boat.
We got in and pulled off.
"Make for that little cove up above the ice where the sea-horse lies," directed Raed. "We'llland there, and then creep over the rocks toward him."
Kit caught up the extra paddle, and began to scull. We shot over the waves; we joked and laughed. Somehow, we were all as merry as grigs that morning.
Running into the cove, the boat was pulled up from the water, and securely fastened. Up at this end of the straits the tide did not rise nearly so high,—not more than eight or ten feet during the springs.
"Now whisht!" said Raed, taking up his musket. "Back, Guard! Still, or we shall frighten the old gentleman!"
"He was lying there all sedate when we slid into the cove," said Kit. "Asleep, I guess."
"We'll wake him shortly," said Wade. "But you say they are a large species of seal. Won't he take to the water, and stay under any length of time?"
"That's it, exactly," replied Kit. "We mustn't let him take to the water—before we riddle him."
"But they're said to have a precious tough hide," said I. "Perhaps we can't riddle so easy."
"Should like to see anything in the shape of hide that one of these rifle slugs won't go through," replied Kit.
"Sh-h-h!" from Raed, holding back a warning hand: he was a little ahead of us. "Creep upstill! Peep by me! See him! By Jove! he's wiggling off the ice! Jump up and shoot him!"
We sprang up, cocking our muskets, just in time to get a glimpse and hear the great seal splash heavily into the sea. Wade and Kit fired as the waters buried him; Guard rushed past, and Donovan bounded down the rocks, butcher-knife in hand.
"Too late!" exclaimed Raed.
We ran down to the spot. The water went off deep from the ice on which it had lain. It was nowhere in sight. Dirt and gravel had been scattered out on to the ice, and its ordure lay about. Evidently this was one of its permanent sunning-places.
"Get back among the rocks, and watch for him!" exclaimed Kit. "Only thing we can do now."
"I suppose so," said Raed.
We secreted ourselves a little back from the water behind different rocks and in little hollows, and, with guns rested ready to fire, waited for the re-appearance of the big seal. Five, ten, fifteen minutes passed; but he didn't re-appear much.
"I say," Wade whispered: "this is getting a little played!"
We were all beginning to think so, when ahorrible noise—a sound as much like the sudden bellow of a mad bull as anything I can compare it with—resounded from the other side of the island.
"What, for Heaven's sake, is that?" Kit exclaimed.
"Must be another of these sea-horses calling to the one over here," said Raed, after listening a moment.
"Let's work round there, then," I said.
The noise seemed to have been four or five hundred yards off. Keeping the dog behind us, we hurried round by the east shore to avoid climbing the higher ledges, which rose sixty or seventy feet along the middle of the islet. These bare, flinty ledges, when not encumbered by bowlders, are grand things to run on. One can get over them at an astonishing pace. Once, as we ran on, we heard the bellow repeated, and, on coming within twenty or thirty rods of where it had seemed to be, stopped to reconnoitre.
"Bet you, he's right under that high ledge that juts out over the water there," said Kit.
"Wait a moment," whispered Wade: "we may hear him again." And, in fact, before his words were well out, the same deep, harsh sound grumbled up from the shore.
"Under that ledge, as I guessed!" exclaimed Kit.
"Sounds like an enormous bull-frog intensified," Raed muttered.
We crept down toward the brink of the ledge, Kit and Wade a little ahead. Arriving at the crest, they peered over cautiously, and with muskets cocked.
"Here he is!" Kit whispered back of his hand.
We stole up. There, on a little bunch of ice not yet thawed off the shore, lay the unsuspecting monster,—a great brown-black, unwieldy body. There is no living creature to which I can easily compare it. I should judge it would have weighed a ton,—more perhaps; for it was immensely thick and broad: though the head struck me as very small for its bulk otherwise.
"Now, all together!" whispered Raed. "Aim at its body above and back of its forward flippers. Ready! Fire!"
We let drive. The great creature gave a hoarse grunt, and, raising itself on its finlike legs, floundered over into the sea.
"Round the ledge!" shouted Kit. "He won't get far, I don't believe!"
Guard was tearing down, barking loudly; and we had started to run, when, above the shouting and barking, the sudden boom of a cannon was heard.
"Hark!" cried Weymouth.
"Hold on, hold on, fellows!" Raed exclaimed.
"Wasn't that our howitzer?" Donovan asked. "Sounded like it."
"It's the cap'n firing, for a joke, to let us know he heard us," Weymouth suggested.
"Oh! he wouldn't do that," replied Raed.
"Of course he wouldn't!" exclaimed Donovan. "He ain't that sort of a man!"
"That's a summons!" said Wade, coming hurriedly back up the rocks; for he and Kit were a little ahead. "Put for the top of the ledges up here! We can see from there!"
We had got twenty yards, perhaps, when a second loud report made the rocks rattle to it.
"There's trouble!" exclaimed Wade at my heels, as we climbed up the steep side.
An undefinable fear had blanched all our faces. Scarcely had the echoes of the gun died out among the crags when another heavier report made the islet jar under our feet.
"Oh, there!" exclaimed Raed despairingly.
Donovan was a step ahead; but Kit and I sprang past him now. Another shelving incline of forty or fifty yards, and the blue sea burst into view over the rocks. My eyes burned in their sockets from the violent exertion. At first I saw only "The Curlew" with her great white sails both broadside to us, and our bright gay flag streaming out. A glance showed that she had been brought round, and that the sails wereflapping wildly. A jet of flame streamed out from her side; and, like a warning-call, the sharp report crashed on our ears, infinitely louder now we had gained the top. All this in a second.
"Why! what is it?" I exclaimed. Turning, I saw them all staring off to the west.
Heavens! there, under full sail, was a large ship not two miles off! How like the shadow of doom she loomed up! and how suddenly white the faces of Kit and Wade just beyond me looked! We had thought we were on the lookout for this very thing; and yet it seemed to us now a complete surprise. We were stunned.
Bang!A heavy cannon; and the water flew up in a long white streak far past "The Curlew" as the big shot went driving by. The ship was within a mile and a half of her, and we here on the islet three-fourths of a mile away! Yet there stood "The Curlew" motionless on the waves; and there stood Capt. Mazard, waving his hat for us, his glass glittering in his other hand.
"To the boat!" yelled Weymouth, leaping down the rocks. "He wouldn't go without us!"
"Stop!" shouted Raed. "It's no use! Don't you see how the ship's closing in?"
Then, catching off his cap, he waved it slowly toward the east. We saw the captain's glass go up to his eye. Again Raed motioned him to go.
Bang!A higher shot. It strikes a quarter of a mile ahead of the schooner, and goes skipping on. But the captain is still looking off to us, as if loath to desert us. A third time Raed waves his cap. He turns. Round go the booms. "The Curlew" starts off with a bound. The flag streams out wildly in the strong north-west wind.
Bang!That ball hits the sea a long way ahead of its mark. Even in these brief seconds the great shadowy ship has come perceptibly nearer. How she bowls along! We can see the white mass of foam at the bows as she rides up the swells.
A queer, lost feeling had come over me. In an instant it all seemed to have gone on at a far-past date. Looking back to that time now, I see, as in a picture, our forlorn little party standing there on the black, weathered ledges, gazing off,—Weymouth half a dozen rods down the rocks, where he had stopped when Raed called to him; Donovan a few rods to the right, shading his eyes with his hand; Raed with his arms folded tightly; Kit staring hard at the ship; Wade dancing about, swearing a little, with the tears coming into his eyes; myself leaning weakly on a musket, limp as a shoe-string; and poor old Guard whining dismally, with an occasional howl,—all gazing off at the rapidly-moving vessels.
"It was no use," Raed said, his voice seeming to break the spell. "We couldn't have got off to the schooner. See how swiftly the ship comes on! If the captain had waited for us to pull off, or even started up and let us go off diagonally, the ship would have come so near, that there would have been no escaping her guns. I don't know as there is now. If any of those shot should strike the masts, or tear through the sails, there would be no getting away.
"I want you to look at it just as I do," Raed continued; for we none of us had said a word. "If we had tried to get on board, 'The Curlew' would certainly have been captured, and we with her. Now she stands a chance of getting off."
Bang!What a tremendous gun! The large ship was getting off opposite. The report made the ledge tremble under us.
"Hadn't we better get out of sight?" Donovan said. "They may see us, and send a boat over here."
"No danger of that, I think," replied Raed. "They want to run the schooner down, and wouldn't care to leave their boat so far behind. This strong north-west wind favors them. Still I don't think they are gaining much. They're not going over ten or eleven knots. 'The Curlew' will beat that, I hope,—if none of those bigshots hit her," taking out his glass. "How beautiful she looks!"
"But, Raed," remarked Kit soberly, "they will chase her clean out the straits into the Atlantic, even if they do not capture her."
"They may."
"And she'll be rather short-handed for men," observed Donovan.
"That's too true."
"Then what are the chances of her getting back here for us?" cried Wade.
Bang!from the great white mass of bulging canvas now fairly opposite us. The smoke drifted out of her bows. We could hear the rattle of her blocks, the swash of the sea, and the roar of sails; and, quite distinct on the fresh breeze, the gruff commands to reload.
"Capt. Mazard won't leave us here if he lives and has his liberty," said Raed.
"Oh, he'll come back if he can!" exclaimed Donovan. "He's true blue!"
"But what if he can't," Kit observed quietly. "What a situation for us! Here we are a thousand miles from a civilized town or a civilized people, and in a worse than trackless wilderness! The season, too, is passing. The straits will soon be closed with ice."
"Only think of it!" Wade cried out,—"here on this frozen coast, with winter coming on! Ina month it will be severe weather here. We've nothing but our cloth clothing!"
Wade turned away; and for many minutes we were all silent.
Bang!
"Come, fellows!" Raed exclaimed at length. "This won't do! Wade has got the gloomiest side out! Come, rally from this! See, they're not gaining on the schooner! Look how she's bowling away! They haven't hit her yet. Kit! Wash! I say, fellows, it looks a little bad, I own. But never say die; or, if you must die,—why, die game. That's the doctrine you are always preaching, Kit. Isn't it, now? Tell me!"
"But to be frozen or starved to death among these desolate ledges!" muttered Kit.
"Is not a cheery prospect, I'll admit," Raed finished for him. "Rather trying to a fellow's philosophy, isn't it?"
Bang!
"She isn't hit yet," remarked Donovan, who had taken Raed's glass. "She slides on gay as a cricket. I can see the cap'n throwing water with the skeet against the sails to make 'em draw better."
"How, for Heaven's sake, did that ship come to get up so near before they saw her?" Kit exclaimed suddenly.
We looked off to the west. The dozenstraggling islets beyond us extended off in irregular order toward the north-west.
"I think," said Raed, "that the ship must have come up a little to the south of those outer islands. Our folks could not have seen her, then, till she came past."
"I don't call that the same ship that fired on us a week ago," Weymouth remarked.
"Oh, no!" said Kit. "That ship, 'The Rosamond,' can't more than have reached the nearest of the Company's trading-posts by this time."
"She probably spoke this ship coming out, and told them to be on the lookout for us," said Raed.
"Old Red-face doubtless charged them to give us particular fits," Kit replied.
"And they've got us in a tight place, no mistake," Wade remarked gloomily. "We're rusticated up here among the icebergs; sequestered in a cool spot."
Bang!
"Gracious! I believe that one hit 'The Curlew'!" Donovan exclaimed. "The captain and old Trull—I believe it's Trull—ran aft, and are looking over the taffrail!"
Kit pulled out his glass and looked. I had not taken mine, nor had Wade. The schooner was now three or four miles down the straits, and the ship was a good way past us.
"No great harm done, I guess," Kit said at length. "The captain ran down into the cabin, but came up a few moments after; and they are standing about the deck as before."
"As long as they miss the standing rigging, and don't hit the sails, there's no danger," Raed observed.
"That ship is a mighty fast sailer," Weymouth said.
"Ought to be, I should think," Donovan replied. "Look at the sail she's got on! They've been getting out studding-sails too. This strong gale drives her along like thunder!"
"I don't see that she gains," Raed remarked. "We shall see 'The Curlew' back here for us yet."
"Not very soon, I'm afraid," Wade said.
"Well, not to-night, I dare say," replied Raed.
"How long do you set it?" Kit asked, taking down his glass. "Suppose the captain is lucky enough to get away from them: how long do you think it will be before he will get back here for us?"
"That, of course, depends on how far they chase him," said Raed.
"They'll chase him just as far as they can," replied Kit. "Why not? It's right on their way home. They'll chase the schooner clean out the straits."
"The captain may turn down into Ungava Bay, on the south side of the straits," Raed replied.
"No, he won't do that," Kit contended. "That bay is full of islands, and choked with ice; and our charts ar'n't worth the paper they're made out on."
"Well, if he has to run out into the Atlantic, he may not be back for ten days."
"Ten days!" exclaimed Wade. "If we see him in a month, we need to think we're lucky."
Bang!
"That's a pleasant sound for us, isn't it, now?" Kit demanded,—"expecting every shot will lose us the schooner, and leave us two thousand miles from home on a more than barren coast!"
"I shall look for 'The Curlew' in ten days," Raed remarked. "And I don't think we had better leave here, to go off any great distance, till we feel sure she's not coming back for us. If she's not back in two weeks, I shall think we have got to shirk for ourselves."
"But how in the world are we to live two weeks here!" Wade exclaimed.
"Live by our wits," Kit observed.
"Looks as if we should have to give up coffee," Raed said, trying to get a laugh going.
"Why, I'm hungry now!" Wade cried out;"but I don't see anything to eat but ice and rocks!"
"It's half-past eleven," Kit announced, looking at his watch. "Seriously, what do you expect we can get hold of for grub, Raed?"
"Well, seals."
"Seals!" exclaimed Wade; "the oily, nasty trash!"
"Hunger may bring you to sing a different tune," Kit muttered. "I'm not sure that a seal's flipper might not be acceptable by to-morrow morning."
"There are plenty of kittiwakes and lumne and eiderducks about these islets," I suggested. "We can shoot some of them."
"And we can fish!" Weymouth exclaimed.
"Where's your hooks?" said Kit.
That question floored the fishing project.
"Well, we've got our muskets," replied Weymouth.
"How many cartridges in all?" Raed asked.
"Let's take account of them. They are like to be precious property."
"I've got eight," said Kit, counting them.
"I have seven," Wade announced.
"Six," said I.
"I took nine," Raed observed.
"You gave me five," reported Weymouth. "I have used one. Here's the other four."
"Thirty-four in all," said Raed. "Now, boys, these are worth their weight in gold to us. Not one must be wasted."
"My butcher-knife is like to come into good use." Donovan remarked, feeling the edge of it.
"Yes; and we've got our jack-knives too," said Kit.
"How about a fire?" Wade asked.
At that there were blank looks for a moment; till, with a queer grin, Donovan began to fumble in his waistcoat-pocket, and drew out, in close company with a rounded plug of tobacco, seven or eight grimy matches.
"Hurrah!" shouted Kit.
"You've allus been dippin' into me pretty strong about smokin'," said Don, looking around to Raed; "but you can't say that smokin' don't have its advantages sometimes."
"That's an argument for the weed that we can all appreciate at present, no mistake," Raed replied. "Don, keep hold of those matches, and see that they all strike fire, and I'll never preach to you again, so sure as my name is Warren Raedway."
Bang!A distantboomfrom the hated ship, now low down on the sea.
"The schooner is almost out of sight," said Kit. "She's a long way off. Perhaps it's thelast time we shall ever set eyes on her pretty figure!"
"Oh, not so bad as that, I hope!" cried Raed. "Don't go to getting poetical, Kit. How about dinner? That's of more consequence just now than poetry. Time enough to make verses on this rather awkward episode when we're safe in Boston. Make a proposal for dinner, somebody. Wade's starving."
"What say for the sea-horse!" exclaimed Donovan.
"Yes; how about that walrus?" Kit demanded.
"That sea-horse has got us into a fine scrape," muttered Wade. "It would have been better if we had left him undisturbed on his island."
"That's neither this nor there, now," said Kit. "Question arises, Can we eat him? Is it fit to eat? Did ever anybody hear of their being eaten?"
"The Huskies eat them, I believe," said Raed.
"The Huskies! Well, I mean civilized folks; ship's crews?"
Nobody knew.
"The best way will be to try it for ourselves," remarked Donovan. "But we don't know that we killed him yet. We didn't stop to find out, you know."
"Then that is clearly the next thing to do,"said Raed. "Let's go down to the boat, and take that round to the place where we fired at the second one."
"But how about the birds, the eider-ducks and kittiwakes?" said I. "We should find them more palatable than sea-horse—to begin with."
"Very well: you and Weymouth might go round the island to the left. It can't be more than a mile and a half or two miles. But do be prudent of your cartridges."
Boom!
Raed and Kit, with Wade and Donovan, then got into the boat, and pulled off round the islet to the right; while Weymouth and I, reloading our muskets, set off on our bird-hunt.
The west end of the island was considerably higher than the eastern portion. As we went on, we espied scores of little auks sitting upon the low cliffs.
"No use to waste powder on them," said Weymouth.
"But see there!" suddenly halting. "If those ain't geese, I'm mistaken,—out there on that gravel-flat, waddling along. Ain't those geese?"
Wild-geese they were, or, as some call them, Canada geese; nearly as large as our domestic geese, and of a gray slate-color. They did not seem to fear our approach much. We walked quietly up to fifty yards.
"I'll take that big gander," I said.
"All right," quoth Weymouth. "I'll take a goose."
We fired at them with a careful aim. Over went the gander and a goose. The rest flew with loud squallings, save one with a broken wing, which Weymouth rushed after, and pelted to death with stones.
"A pretty good haul!" he exclaimed, holding them up. "Weigh eight or ten pounds apiece. But I didn't expect to see wild-geese up here," he added.
We saw several flocks of them after that.
Half a mile farther round, we came upon a flock of razor-bills perched on the cliffs overhanging the water. They rose, and went croaking off toward the next islet, distant about three hundred yards, too quick for us to fire with caution.
"The sealers often get their eggs," Weymouth observed. "They're good fried, they say."
It then occurred to me that these eggs might be a very good and cheaply—as regarded ammunition—obtained article of food for us. Laying down our guns, we climbed up among the rocks, and spent nearly an hour searching for their nests. At length Weymouth found one with three eggs; and, a few moments after, two more. I had some doubt about the eggs being good so late in the season. There were plenty of emptynests about, looking as if there had been a brood raised already. These were doubtless second nests of pairs that had lost their first nests from the depredations of falcons, ravens, or perhaps foxes. To settle the point, we broke an egg: it looked sound. Weymouth then filled his cap with them.
Boom!
While climbing down to our muskets, I startled a canvas-backed duck sitting on a nest of eleven eggs. These I appropriated; and, before getting round to where we had fired on the sea-horse, Weymouth espied an eider-duck sitting on a shelf of the shore crags. From her we got five eggs of a beautiful pale-green color.
"No need of starving here, I should say," Weymouth remarked as we made our way along the ledges, pretty well laden with muskets, geese, and our caps full of eggs. "There won't be much bread, to be sure; but then a fellow can live on eggs and birds, can't he?"
"I hope so, Weymouth. Hard case for us if we can't."
"That's so. But don't you be down in the mouth about this scrape. I don't believe they'll catch 'The Curlew,' sir. Capt. Mazard will be back here, I think."
"I hope so."
Truly, I thought to myself, if this young sailor doesn't complain, and even tries to offer consolation to us who have got him in this predicament, it isn't for me to look glum about it; though I am bound to own that some of the most cheerless moments of my life were passed during the twenty-four hours succeeding the ominous appearance of the "Honorable Company's" ship.
A great shouting and heave-ho-ing told us of our near approach to where the rest of our party were; and, turning a bend of the crags, we discovered them all four tugging at a line.
"What are they dragging, I wonder?" Weymouth said to me. "Oh! I see. It's the sea-horse."
They were trying to pull the walrus up out of the water, where they had found him floundering about, fatally wounded with the slugs we had fired through his back. The sea about the rocks was discolored with his blood, and turbid with the dirt he had torn up. Donovan had slaughtered him with the butcher-knife; and, with the boat's painter noosed over the head of the carcass, they were now trying to draw it up on the ledge. Weymouth and I at once bore a hand; and it took all six of us, tugging hard, to get it up.
"What a mass of fat and flesh!" Kit exclaimed, puffing.
"I don't believe I could ever stomach it!" Wade groaned.
"We can offer you something better!" exclaimed Weymouth, holding up the geese. "What think of those fellows? Wild-geese! And look at these!" holding up his cap. "Nice fresh eggs!—to be had by the dozen! and nothing to pay, either!"
"Why, fellows, this is a sort of northern paradise!" cried Raed. "But what sticks me is how to cook those eggs and geese. I never could suck eggs."
"Just build a fire, and I'll show you how to cook 'em," Weymouth said.
"But what shall we have for fuel?" Kit demanded.
That was a staggerer.
Boom!It seemed as if those far-borne echoes would never die with the distance. A low, dismal, sullen sound! They gave us queer sensations. As each came rolling on the sea, our hearts would bound. Up to that moment, "The Curlew" had not been taken; but perhaps that shot had struck down her sails.
It was now half-past two. The vessels could hardly be less than twenty or twenty-five miles off. But there is nothing to absorb or deaden sound along those straits.
"Yes; where's your fuel?" demanded Wade.
We looked around: plenty of rocks, ice, and water, with a little coarse dirt, or gravel.
"Might burn the boat," Kit suggested.
"That seems too bad," said Raed. "Besides, how are we to get off the island here, supposing 'The Curlew' should not come back? or even suppose she should? She has no other boat."
"And we may want to go off to the other islands," I said.
"Well, if anybody can suggest anything better, I should like to hear it," replied Kit. "I don't want to burn the boat, I'm sure; but I can't see anything else that looks inflammable."
Neither could any of us, though we looked all around us very earnestly; till Donovan suddenly cried out,—
"Why not burn the old sea-horse?"
"Why, that's our victuals!" laughed Kit.
"I know it; but fire comes before victuals, unless you eat 'em raw like the Huskies."
"Will it burn?" Raed asked.
"Burn? yes. Why, on a sealer, they do all their trying-out the oil with a fire of seal-refuse. Why shouldn't it burn as well as a candle?"
"There's our wood-pile, then!" cried Raed, giving the carcass a kick. "Let's have a fire forthwith. Don, you slash out a hundred-weight or so."
"Don't cut the hide to pieces," Kit interposed: "we may want that to make a tent of."
Donovan whipped out his butcher-knife, and, stripping back the tough skin, cut out a pile of huge slices. Kit, meanwhile, got a piece of old thwart from the boat, and whittled up a heap of pine slivers. Two of the fat slices were then slit up into thin strips, and laid on the slivers. With great caution, Donovan struck a match on his jacket-sleeve. We all hovered around to keep off the wicked puffings of the wind. The slivers were lighted; they kindled: the fat meat began to sizzle; then caught fire from the pine; and soon a ruddy, spluttering flame was blazing with marvellous fierceness.
"Hurrah!" Kit shouted. "The first fire these grim old ledges have seen since they cooled their glowing, molten billows into flinty granite!"
The "Spider."—Fried Eggs.—The "Plates."—"Awful Fresh!"—No Salt.—Plans for getting Salt from Sea-Water.—Ice-Water.—Fried Goose.—Plans to escape.—A Gloomy Night.—Fight with a Walrus.—Another "Wood-Pile."—Wade Sick.—A Peevish Patient and a Fractious Doctor.—The Manufacture of Salt.
The "Spider."—Fried Eggs.—The "Plates."—"Awful Fresh!"—No Salt.—Plans for getting Salt from Sea-Water.—Ice-Water.—Fried Goose.—Plans to escape.—A Gloomy Night.—Fight with a Walrus.—Another "Wood-Pile."—Wade Sick.—A Peevish Patient and a Fractious Doctor.—The Manufacture of Salt.
We stood and warmed our hands. It felt comfortable,—decidedly so; for though the sun was high and bright, yet the north-west wind drovesmartly across the rocks above us. Currents of air fresh from the lair of icebergs can't be very warm ever. There was plenty of ice all about.
"Ready to cook those eggs, Weymouth?" Raed exclaimed. "You were going to furnish spider, kettle, or something of that sort, you know."
"Yes, sir; and all I'll ask is that some of you will be dressing a couple of those geese while I am gone. I've a mind to dine off goose to-day."
"Well, that's reasonable," said Donovan. "Go ahead, matey! Bring on your spider! We'll have the geese ready for it!"
"If you will go with me," Weymouth said, nodding over to where I was enjoying the fire. "Two may perhaps find what I want sooner than one."
I followed him.
"My idea is," said he, turning when we were off a few rods, "to get a flat,hollowingstone,—'bout as big over as a milk-pan, say; kind of hollowed out on the top side, just so grease won't run off it. We can set that up on small rocks, and let the fire run under. It'll soon get hot: then grease it, and break the eggs into it just as they do into a spider. You see?"
I saw it,—a very reasonable project. The only difficulty was to find such a stone. To do that we separated. Weymouth followed out alongthe shore, while I climbed up among the crags. There were plenty of flat rocks; but to find one sufficiently spider-shaped for our purpose was not so easy. At length I came upon one—a flake of felspar of a dull cream-color—hollowed enough on one side to hold a pint or upwards. But it was heavy: must have weighed fully a hundred pounds. I called to Weymouth: he was out of hearing. Nothing to do but carry it. So, after some mustering of my spare muscle, I picked it up, and, going along to a favorable spot, succeeded in getting down to the beach with it, whence I toiled along to our camp-fire. Weymouth had got there a little ahead of me with a flat stone worn smooth by the waves. It was not so thick as mine, nor so heavy: it was a sort of dark slate-stone. Forthwith a discussion arose as to the merits of the twospiders; which was finally decided in favor of the one I had found, from its being the whitest and cleanest-looking. Meanwhile Donovan had been feeding the fire so profusely, that all hands had been obliged to get back from it. Animal fat, like this of the walrus, makes an exceedingly hot flame. Three flat stones were set up edgewise, and the spider set on them. The flaming meat was then thrust under it so as to heat the spider. From its thickness, it took some minutes for it to become heated through; but, in the course of a quarter of an hour, Kit pronounced it ready. Weymouth cut out a chunkof walrus-blubber, with which he basted it, the melted fat collecting in a little puddle at the bottom.
"Now for the eggs!" he exclaimed.
Raed handed them to him, one by one; while he broke them on the edge of the butcher-knife, and dropped a half-dozen into the novel frying-pan.
"Better be getting your plates ready!" he shouted, turning them over with the knife to the tune of a mighty frizzling.
We all took the hint, and scattered to find flat stones for platters. 'Twas a singular assortment of kitchenware that we re-appeared with a few minutes later. Taking up the fried eggs with his knife, Weymouth tossed us each one, which we caught on ourplates. Another batch was then broke into the spider, fried, and distributed like the first.
"Now then!" cried Kit. "Draw jack-knives, and dine!"
Several mouthfuls were eaten in silence.
"What think of 'em?" Weymouth asked, casting a sly glance around. "How do they go?"
"Rather oily!" grumbled Wade.
"Awful fresh!" Kit complained.
"Not a dust of salt in this camp!" Raed exclaimed.
"We never can live without any salt," said I. "Nothing will relish so fresh as these eggs."
"But where's your salt coming from?" Kit demanded.
"Plenty of it in the sea," said Donovan. "Might boil down some of the salt water."
"If we only had a kettle to boil it in," Raed added.
"Well, there's the old tin dipper in the boat that we used to bail out the rain-water with," replied Don. "We could keep that boiling. Might boil away six or seven quarts by morning. That would give quite a pinch of salt."
"That's the idea!" said Kit. "Let's get it going as soon as we can. Wash it out, and dip it up two-thirds full of water, Don. I'll fix a way to set it over the fire."
Meanwhile Weymouth was frying another dozen of eggs.
"I think I can suggest a better way of evaporating the sea-water," remarked Raed as Donovan came up with the two-quart dipper of water. "You see that little hollow in the ledge just the other side of the fire: that will hold several pailfuls, probably. The fire on the rocks must make that warm: you see if it isn't, Wash."
I was on that side. The ledge for several yards from the blaze was beginning to get warmed up.
"We might brush that out clean," Raedcontinued, "and fill it with water. It will evaporate fast there, and leave its salt on the bottom of the hollow. We can move the fire along a little nearer to make the rocks hotter. I'm not sure that we could not make the water boil in there."
The place was brushed, and a dozen bumperfuls turned into the hollow, where it soon began to steam.
"That'll do it!" exclaimed Kit. "Never mind: we shall have salt by to-morrow!"
After eating the eggs, one of the geese, which Donovan and Raed had dressed, was cut up raw, and fried on the spider. We had sharpened appetites; and, had the morsels been flavored with salt, it would not have tasted bad. Wade tried dipping his in the bumper of sea-water,—with no great satisfaction to his palate, I inferred; for he did not repeat the experiment.
"How about drink?" Kit observed at length. "I don't suppose there's a spring on the island. I'm getting thirsty. What's to be done for water?"
"Have to melt ice," Raed replied. "There's ice along the shore, among the rocks."
Kit started off, and presently came back with a large lump. Bits of it were broken off and put in the bumper, and held over the fire. The water thus obtained and cooled with ice was not salt exactly. Still it was not, as has sometimes beenaffirmed, pure fresh water, by any means: it had a brackish taste.
The weather, which had been clear during the day thus far, began to foul toward evening. It was now after six. The wind had veered to the south-west. Wild, straggling fogs, with black clouds higher up, were running into the north-east. Damp, cold gusts blew in from the water.
"We shall have a chilly night," Wade said, shivering a little. "Rain and sleet before morning, likely as not."
We set about preparing for it. A little back from the fire a wall of rough stones was hastily thrown up to the height of three feet or over, and continued for ten or twelve feet, with both ends brought round toward the fire. We then got the boat up out of the water, and, by hard lifting, raised it bottom-up, and laid it on our semicircular wall. It thus formed a kind of shed large enough to creep under. But, not satisfied with this, Donovan fell to work with his butcher-knife, and, in the course of an hour, had cleaved the skin off both sides of the walrus down to where it rested on the rock. Then, using the hafts of the oars as levers, we rolled the carcass on one side. The hide was then skinned off underneath; when, on rolling the carcass clean over, we had the hide off in one broad, immensely-heavy sheet. Raed estimated it tocontain twenty square yards, reckoning the average girth of the walrus at twelve feet, and its length at fifteen feet. By means of the oars and thwarts as supports, the skin was then raised with the raw side up in tent form over the wall and boat, making shelter sufficient for us all to get under with comfort.
"Now let it storm, if it wants to!" cried Weymouth: "we've got a water-proof seal-skin at least!"
An arch of stones, with our spider set in the top, was then built over the fire to protect it from the weather.
"How long will this walrus last for firewood, suppose?" I asked.
"Oh! two or three days, for a guess," Donovan thought.
"After that, what?" said Wade.
"It's no use to trouble ourselves about that now," said Kit: "the Bible expressly forbids it. Besides, we've had trouble enough for one day. I'm for turning in and having a nap."
"Not much fun in turning in on a bare ledge, I fancy," Wade replied. "We shall miss our mattresses."
"A bare rock is a rather hard thing to bunk on, I do think," Raed remarked, peeping under the walrus-skin. "If we were in Maine, now, we should qualify that with a 'shake-down' ofspruce-boughs. Didn't see any thing of the evergreen sort among the rocks, did you, Wash?"
We had not. It then occurred to me that we had observed several little shrubs common to the mountains of Labrador, and known to naturalists as the Labrador tea-plant.
"Any thing is better than the bare rock," Raed remarked, when I spoke of this shrub; and we all sallied out to glean an armful.
While thus engaged, Wade and Kit espied a bed of moss in a hollow between the crags, a portion of which was dry enough for our purpose. After bringing an armful of the tea-plant, we made a trip to the moss-patch. What we could all bring at once piled upon the coarse shrubs made a bed by no means to be despised by—cast-aways.
"I presume there's no need of mounting guard or setting a watch here," Donovan said.
"How do we know that some party of Huskies or Indians has not been watching our movements all day?" Weymouth suggested.
"I don't think it likely," said Raed. "We may all venture to go to sleep, I guess, and trust to Guard to keep watch for us."
"I don't know about that," Kit remarked, patting the old fellow's head. "He's eaten so much of our woodpile, that he will be but a drowsy sentinel, I'm afraid."
The fire was replenished with blubber; and we all lay down on our mossy beds inside our fresh-smelling tent.
The sun must have been still high in the north-west; but so wild and dark were the clouds, that it had grown quite dark by nine o'clock. The damp wind-gusts sighed; the surf swashed drearily on the rocks. Despite all our efforts to bear up and seem gay, a weight of doubt and danger rested heavily on our spirits. "Where is 'The Curlew'now?" was the question that would keep constantly recurring, followed by a still more ominous query, "What would become of us if she should not return?"
"Isn't there a town out on the Atlantic coast of Labrador, a town or a village, settled by the Moravian missionaries?" Raed asked suddenly, after we had been lying there quietly for some minutes.
"Seems to me there is," Kit replied after a moment of reflection.
"There's one indicated on our geography-maps, I'm pretty sure, calledNain, or some such scriptural name. Don't you remember it, Wash?"
I did distinctly; and also another, either above or below it on the coast, called Hopedale, colonized by missionaries from South Greenland.
"Those Moravians are very good folks, I've heard," Wade said. "They're a very pious, Christian people. I have read, too, that they have succeeded in Christianizing many of the coast Esquimaux."
"Those Huskies must make queer Christians!" exclaimed Donovan.
"How far do you suppose it is out to those towns, Nain, say, from here, for a guess?" Raed asked a few minutes after.
"I was just thinking of that," said Kit. "Well, I should say four hundred miles."
"Not less than six hundred," said Wade.
I thought it as likely to be seven or eight hundred.
"That would be a good way to travel on foot," muttered Raed reflectively.
"Yes, it would," said Kit. "Still I shouldn't quite despair of doing it if there was no other way out of this."
"How long would it take us, do you suppose?" Raed asked after another pause. "How many miles a day could we make, besides hunting and getting our food?"
"Not more than twelve on an average," Kit thought.
"Suppose it to be seven hundred miles, that would take us near sixty days," Raed remarked; "seventy, counting out Sundays."
"We never could do that in the world!" Wade exclaimed. "It would take us till midwinter, in this country! We should starve! We should freeze to death!"
"Couldn't very well do both," Kit observed rather dryly.
"The journey would be well-nigh impossible, I expect," Raed remarked. "On getting in from the coast, we should probably meet with no sea-fowl, no seals: in fact, I hardly know what we should be able to get for game. I have heard that caribou-deer are common in Labrador; but they are, as we know from experience in the wilderness about Mount Katahdin, very difficult to kill. And then our cartridges!"
"We might possibly attach ourselves to some party of Esquimaux going southward," Kit suggested.
"And be murdered by them for our guns and knives," exclaimed Wade.
"Oh, no! not so bad as that, I should hope. But let's go to sleep now, and discuss this to-morrow."
There was something horrible to our feelings in this thought of our perfect isolation from the world. I think Wade realized it, or at least felt it, more than either of the other boys. Kit either didn't or wouldn't seem to mind it much after the first hour or two. Raed probably saw thechances of our getting away more clearly than any of us; but I doubt if he felt the wretchedness of our situation so keenly as either Wade or myself. He was always cool and collected in his plans, and not a little inclined to stoicism as regarded personal danger. These philosophical persons are apt to be so. What the most of folks feel badly about they laugh at: it is better so, perhaps. Yet pity and sympathy are good things in their way. They help hold society together; and are, I think it likely, about its strongest bonds of union. As for Weymouth and Donovan, they bore it all very lightly: indeed, they didn't seem to give the subject any great thought, farther than to exclaim occasionally that it was "rough on us," and a "tough one." Sailors always have a vein of recklessness in their mental processes. It comes from their manner of life,—its constant peril. They learn the uselessness of "borrowing trouble."
Once in the night I woke,—woke from a pleasant dream of home. For several seconds I was utterly bewildered; did not know where I was. Then it burst upon me; and such a wave of desolation and trouble broke with the realization, that the tears would start in spite of all shame. It was raining on the green hide overhead with a peculiarly soft patter. The strong odor of burning fat from the fire filled our rudetent; to which were added the fresh, sick smells from the great newly-butchered carcass of the walrus. The boys were sound asleep, breathing heavily. Guard roused up at our feet to scratch himself, then snuggled down again. The wind howled dismally, throwing down gusts of rain. It dripped and pattered off the skin-covering on to the boat and on to the rocks. Now and then a faint scream from high aloft declared the passage of some lonely seabird; and the ceaseless swash and plash of the sleepless sea filled out in my mind a picture of home-sick misery. It is no time, or at least the worst of all times, to reflect on one's woes in the night when just awakened from dreams: better turn over and go to sleep again. But I had not got that lesson quite so well learned then, and so lay cultivating my wretchedness for nearly an hour, picturing our future wanderings among these northern solitudes, and our final starvation. "Perchance," I groaned to myself, "in after-years, some party of adventurers may come upon our white bones, what the gluttons leave of them." I even went farther; for I was presuming enough to imagine that our melancholy disappearance might become the subject of some future ballad. How would it begin? What would they say ofme? What had I done in the world to deserve any thing by way of a line ofpraise or a tear of pity? Nothing that I could think of. At best, the ballad, if written at all (and of that I was beginning to have my doubts the more I thought it over), could but run,—