The World of Ice by R. M. Ballantyne (e novels to read online TXT) 📖

Just as he ended, Fred waddled on, in the guise of an Esquimaux woman, and so well was he got up that the crew looked round to see if Aninga (who, with her husband, had been allowed to witness the play) was in her place. Fred had intentionally taken Aninga as his model, and had been very successful in imitating the top-knot of hair. The baby, too, was hit off to perfection, having been made by Mivins, who proved himself a genius in such matters. Its head was a ball of rags covered with brown leather, and two white bone buttons with black spots in the centre did duty for its eyes.

The first thing Whackinta did on coming forward was to deposit the baby on the snow with its head downwards by mistake, whereat it began to scream vociferously. This scream was accomplished by Davie Summers creeping below the stage and putting his mouth to a hole in the flooring close to which the baby’s head lay. Davie’s falsetto was uncommonly like to a child’s voice, and the effect was quite startling. Of course Whackinta tried to soothe it, and, failing in this she whipped it, which caused it to yell with tenfold violence. Thereafter, losing all patience, she covered its face and stuffed its mouth with a quantity of snow, and, laying it down on its back, placed a large block of ice on its head. This, as might be expected, had the desired effect, and the baby was silenced,—not, however, until Whackinta had twice called down the hole in a hoarse whisper: “That’ll do, Davie; stop, man, stop!” Then, sitting down on the hummock which Blunderbore had just left—and from behind which he was now eagerly watching her,—she began to weep.

Having given full vent to her feelings in a series of convulsive sobs, Whackinta addressed a lengthened harangue, in a melancholy tone of voice, to the audience, the gist of which was that she was an unfortunate widow; that two bears had fallen in love with her, and stolen her away from her happy home in Nova Zembla; and, although they allowed her to walk about as much as she chose, they watched her closely and prevented her escaping to her own country. Worst of all, they had told her that she must agree to become the wife of one or other of them, and if she did not make up her mind, and give them an answer that very day, she was to be killed and eaten by both of them. In order the more strongly to impress the audience with her forlorn condition, Whackinta sang a tender and touching ditty, composed by herself expressly for the occasion, and sang it so well that it was encored twice.

To all this Blunderbore listened with apparent rapture, and at length ventured to advance and discover himself, but the instant Whackinta saw him she fell on her knees and trembled violently.

“Spare me, good king,” she said; “do not slay me. I am a poor widow, and have been brought here by two bears against my will.”

“Woman,” said the Giant, “my name is Blunderbore. I am, as you perceive by my crown, a king, and I am a lonely man. If I kill the two bears you speak of, will you marry me?”

“Oh, do not ask me, good Blunderbore, I cannot! It is impossible. I cannot love you; you are—forgive me for saying it—too big, and fierce, and ugly to love.”

Blunderbore frowned angrily, and the audience applauded vociferously at this.

“You cannot love me! Hah!” exclaimed the Giant, glaring round with clenched teeth.

At this moment the Big Bear uttered an awful roar, Whackinta gave a piercing scream and fled, and Blunderbore hid himself hastily behind the hummock. The next moment the two bears bounded on the stage and began to gambol round it, tossing up their hind-legs and roaring and leaping in a manner that drew forth repeated plaudits. At length the Little Bear discovered the baby, and, uttering a frantic roar of delight, took it in its fore-paws and held it up. The Big Bear roared also of course, and, rushing forward, caught the baby by the leg, and endeavoured to tear it away from the Little Bear, at which treatment the poor baby again commenced to cry passionately. In the struggle the baby’s head came off, upon which the Little Bear put the head into its mouth and swallowed it. The Big Bear immediately did the same with the body; but its mouth was too small, and the body stuck fast and could not be finally disposed of until the Little Bear came to the rescue and pushed it forcibly down its throat. Having finished this delicate little morsel, the two bears rose on their hind-legs and danced a hornpipe together—Tom Singleton playing the tune for them on a flute behind the scenes. When this was done they danced off the stage, and immediately, as if in the distance, was heard the voice of a man singing. It came gradually nearer, and at last Buzzby, in the character of Ben Bolt, swaggered up to the foot-lights with his hands in his breeches pockets.

    “I’m a jolly, jolly tar,

    Wot has comed from afar,

    An’ it’s all for to seek my fortin,”

sang Buzzby. “But I’ve not found it yit,” he continued, breaking into prose, “and there don’t seem much prospect o’ findin’ it here anyhow. Wot an ’orrible cold place it is, ugh!”

Buzzby was received with enthusiastic cheers, for he was dressed in the old familiar blue jacket, white ducks, pumps, and straw hat set jauntily on one side of his head—a costume which had not been seen for so many months by the crew of the Dolphin that their hearts warmed to it as if it were an old friend.

Buzzby acted with great spirit and was evidently a prime favourite. He could scarcely recollect a word of his part, but he remembered the general drift of it, and had ready wit enough to extemporise. Having explained that he was the only survivor of a shipwrecked crew, he proceeded to tell some of his adventures in foreign lands, and afterwards described part of his experiences in a song, to which the doctor played an accompaniment behind the scenes. The words were composed by himself, sung to the well-known Scotch air, “Corn Riggs”, and ran as follows:—

“The Jolly Tar.

    “My comrades, you must know

    It was many years ago

I left my daddy’s cottage in the green wood O!

    And I jined a man-o’-war

    An’ became a jolly tar,

An’ fought for king and country on the high seas O!

        Pull, boys, cheerily, our home is on the sea.

        Pull, boys, merrily and lightly O!

        Pull, boys, cheerily, the wind is passing

free

        An’ whirling up the foam and water sky-high O!

 

    “There’s been many a noble fight,

    But Trafalgar was the sight

That beat the Greeks and Romans in their glory O!

    For Britain’s jolly sons

    Worked the thunder-blazing guns,

And Nelson stood the bravest in the fore-front O!

        Pull, boys, etcetera.

 

    “A roaring cannon shot

    Came an’ hit the very spot

Where my leg goes click-an’-jumble in the socket O!

    And swept it overboard

    With the precious little hoard

Of pipe, an’ tin, an’ baccy in the pocket O!

        Pull, boys, etcetera.

 

    “They took me down below,

    An’ they laid me with a row

Of killed and wounded messmates on a table O!

    Then up comes Dr Keg,

    An’ says, Here’s a livin’ leg

I’ll sew upon the stump if I am able O!

        Pull, boys, etcetera.

 

    “This good and sturdy limb

    Had belonged to fightin’ Tim,

An’ scarcely had they sewed it on the socket O!

    When up the hatch I flew,

    An’ dashed among the crew,

An’ sprang on board the Frenchman like a rocket O!

        Pull, boys, etcetera.

 

    “’Twas this that gained the day,

    For that leg it cleared the way—

And the battle raged like fury while it lasted O!

    Then ceased the shot and shell

    To fall upon the swell,

And the Union-Jack went bravely to the mast-head O!

        Pull, boys, etcetera.”

We need scarcely say that this song was enthusiastically encored, and that the chorus was done full justice to by the audience, who picked it up at once and zang it with lusty vehemence. At the last word Ben Bolt nodded familiarly, thrust his hands into his pockets, and swaggered off whistling “Yankee Doodle”. It was a matter of uncertainty where he had swaggered off to, but it was conjectured that he had gone on his journey to anywhere that might turn up.

Meanwhile Blunderbore had been bobbing his head up and down behind the hummock in amazement at what he heard and saw, and when Ben Bolt made his exit he came forward. This was the signal for the two bears to discover him and rush on with a terrific roar. Blunderbore instantly fetched them each a sounding whack on their skulls, leaped over both their backs, and bounded up the side of the iceberg, where he took refuge, and turned at bay on a little ice pinnacle constructed expressly for that purpose.

An awful fight now ensued between the Giant and the two bears. The pinnacle on which Blunderbore stood was so low that the Big Bear, by standing up on its hind-legs, could just scratch his toes, which caused the Giant to jump about continually, but the sides of the iceberg were so smooth that the bears could not climb up it. This difficulty, indeed, constituted the great and amusing feature of the fight, for no sooner did the Little Bear creep up to the edge of the pinnacle than the Giant’s tremendous club came violently down on his snout (which had been made of hard wood on purpose to resist the blows) and sent it sprawling back on the stage, where the Big Bear invariably chanced to be in the way, and always fell over it. Then they both rose, and, roaring fearfully, renewed the attack, while Blunderbore laid about him with the club ferociously. Fortune, however, did not on this occasion favour the brave. The Big Bear at last caught the Giant by the heel and pulled him to the ground; the Little Bear instantly seized him by the throat, and, notwithstanding his awful yells and struggles, it would have gone ill with Blunderbore had not Ben Bolt opportunely arrived at that identical spot at that identical moment in the course of his travels.

Oh! it was a glorious thing to see the fear-nothing, dare-anything fashion in which, when he saw how matters stood, Ben Bolt threw down his stick and bundle, drew his cutlass, and attacked the two bears at once, single-handed, crying “Come on,” in a voice of thunder. And it was a satisfactory thing to behold the way in which he cut and slashed at their heads (the heads having been previously prepared for such treatment), and the agility he displayed in leaping over their backs and under their legs, and holding on by their tails, while they vainly endeavoured to catch him. The applause was frequent and prolonged, and the two Esquimaux prisoners rolled about their burly figures and laughed till the tears ran down their fat cheeks. But when Ben Bolt suddenly caught the two bears by their tails, tied them together in a double knot, and fled behind a hummock, which the Big Bear passed on one side and the little Bear on the other, and so, as a matter of course, stuck hard and fast, the laughter was excessive; and when the gallant British seaman again rushed forward, massacred the Big Bear with two terrific cuts, slew the Little Bear with one tremendous back-hander, and then sank down on one knee and pressed his hand to his brow as if he were exhausted, a cheer ran from stem to stern of the Dolphin the like of which had not filled the hull of that good ship since she was launched upon her ocean home!

It was just at this moment that Whackinta chanced, curiously enough, to return to this spot in the course of her wanderings. She screamed in horror at the sight of the