Red Rooney: The Last of the Crew by R. M. Ballantyne (books to read for self improvement txt) 📖

mind to explain how matters stood, and claim protection, which she had no doubt they would grant. But some Eskimos, not less than many civilised people, are deeply imbued with superstition, and the bare idea of an invisible torngak pursuing her to the death—in the possibility of which she and Nunaga more or less believed—was too much for her. In fear and trembling she made up her mind to be silent, and submit to her fate. It need scarcely be added, so did her more timid companion.

“Where do you come from?” asked the leader of the party when they met.

“From the far-away there,” replied the wily wizard, pointing northward. “I do not ask where you come from.”

“Why not?” demanded the leader, in some surprise.

“Because I know already,” answered Ujarak, “that you come from the far-away there,” pointing southward; “and I know that, because I am an angekok. You have come from a spot near to the land where the Kablunets have settled, and you are bringing iron and other things to exchange with my kinsmen for horns of the narwhal and tusks of the walrus.”

Knowing as he did from rumour that Eskimos from the Moravian settlements were in the habit of travelling northward for the purposes of barter, (though they had not up to that time travelled so far north as his own tribe), and observing bundles of hoop-iron on the sledges, it did not require much penetration on the part of a quick mind like that of Ujarak to guess whence the strangers had come, and what their object was. Nevertheless, the leader and most of the party who had circled round the wizard and his sledge, opened their eyes in amazement at this smart statement of their affairs.

“My brother must indeed be a great angekok, for he seems to know all things. But we did not come from near the land where the Kablunets have built their huts. We have come from it,” said the matter-of-fact leader.

“Did I not say that?” returned Ujarak promptly.

“No; you said near it—whereas we came from it, from inside of itself.”

“Inside of itself must be very near it, surely!” retorted the wizard, with a grave look of appeal to those around him.

A laugh and nod of approval was the reply, for Eskimos appreciate even the small end of a joke, however poor, and often allow it to sway their judgment more powerfully than the best of reasoning—in which characteristic do they not strongly resemble some people who ought to know better? The matter-of-fact leader smiled grimly, and made no further objection to the wizard’s claim to correct intelligence.

“Now,” continued Ujarak, for he felt the importance of at once taking and keeping the upper hand, “my tribe is not far from here; but they are going away on a hunting expedition, so you must lose no time, else they will be gone before you arrive. They want iron very much. They have horns and tusks in plenty. They will be glad to see you. My torngak told me you were coming, so I came out a long way to meet you. I brought my wives and children with me, because I want to visit the Kablunets, and inquire about their new religion.”

He paused for a moment or two, to let his tissue of lies have full effect, but the very matter-of-fact leader took advantage of the pause to ask how it was that if he, Ujarak, had been told by his torngak of the coming of the trading party, he had failed to tell his tribe not to go on a hunting expedition, but to await their arrival.

“Ha! ho!” exclaimed several of the Eskimos, turning a sharp gaze upon the wizard, as much as to say, “There’s a puzzler for you, angekok!”

But Ujarak, although pulled up for a moment, was not to be overturned easily. “Torngaks,” he said, “do not always reveal all they know at once. If they did, angekoks would only have to listen to all they had to tell on every subject, and there would be an end of it; they would have no occasion to use their judgments at all. No; the torngaks tell what they choose by degrees. Mine told me to leave my tribe, and visit the Kablunets. On the way he told me more, but not all.”

This explanation seemed quite satisfactory to some, but not to all of them. Seeing this, the wizard hastened to turn their minds from the subject by asking how far it was to the land of the Kablunets.

“Four suns’ journey,” replied the leader.

“It is the same to the village of my kindred,” exclaimed Ujarak, getting quickly on his sledge. “I must hasten on, and so must you. Time must not be wasted.”

With a flourish of his whip, he started his team at full speed, scattering the Eskimos right and left, and scouring over the ice like the wind.

For a moment or two the leader of the band thought of pursuit, but seeing at a glance that none of his teams were equal to that of Ujarak, and feeling, perhaps, that it might be dangerous to pursue an angekok, he gave up the idea, and resumed his northward route.

For two days more the wizard continued his journey, encamping each night at sunset, eating his supper apart, making his bed of bearskins in the lee of a shrub or under the shelter of an overhanging cliff, and leaving his captives to make themselves comfortable as best they could on the sledge. This they did without difficulty, all of them being well accustomed to rough it, and having plenty of bear and deerskins to keep them warm. The dogs also contributed to this end by crowding round the party, with deep humility of expression, as close as they were allowed to come.

At the end of these two days an incident occurred which totally changed the aspect of affairs.

On the morning of the third day they started with the dawn, and drove steadily southward for a couple of hours. They had just traversed a small bay, and were close to the high cape which formed its southern extremity, when one of the bars of the sledge broke, rendering a halt necessary. Breaking the gloomy silence which he had so long maintained, the wizard spoke:

“Go,” he said, “cook some food under the cliffs there. I will mend the sledge.”

The women replied, not by words, but by the more emphatic method of at once obeying the order. Kabelaw seized and shouldered a large piece of raw seal’s flesh. Nunaga took up little Pussi with one hand, and the materials for producing fire with the other, and followed her companion. Tumbler brought up the rear, staggering under the weight of the cooking-lamp.

They had only a couple of hundred yards to go. In a few minutes Kabelaw was busy under the cliffs producing fire, in the usual Eskimo fashion with two pieces of dry wood, while her friend set up the lamp and sliced the meat. The children, inheriting as they did the sterling helpful propensities of their parents, went actively about, interfering with everything, in their earnest endeavours to assist.

“Isn’t he strange?” remarked Kabelaw, glancing in the direction of Ujarak, as she diligently twirled the fire-stick between her palms; “so different from what he was.”

“I think,” said Nunaga, pouring oil into the lamp, “that he is sorry for what he has done.”

“No; him not sorry,” said Tumbler, as he assisted Pussi to rise, for she had tripped and fallen; “him not sorry—him sulky.”

Kabelaw took no notice of this juvenile observation, but, blowing the spark which she had at last evoked into a flame, expressed some doubt as to Ujarak’s repentance, and said she had never seen him in a state of sorry-tude before. Whereupon Tumbler pertly rejoined that he had often seen him in a state of sulky-tude!

The damage to the sledge was slight. It was soon repaired, and the wizard brought it round with him to the spot where breakfast was being got ready.

This was the first time he had eaten with them since the flight began. His manner, however, was not much changed. He was still silent and gloomy, though once or twice he condescended to make a remark or two about the weather.

When a man talks upon the weather, the ice is fairly broken—even in Arctic regions—and from that well-nigh universal starting-point Ujarak went on to make a few more remarks. He did so very sternly, however, as though to protest against the idea that he was softening to the smallest extent.

“Nunaga,” he said, holding up a finger, “in two suns, or less, we shall arrive at the land where the Kablunets have built houses and settled down.”

We may explain that the wizard here referred to the Moravians, who had about that time sent out their first mission to Greenland. Of course he knew nothing of the object those self-sacrificing men had in view in thus establishing themselves in Greenland, only vague rumours having at that time reached his distant tribe. All he knew was that they were Kablunets, or foreigners, and that they had something mysterious to tell about the God of the Kablunets.

Nunaga received Ujarak’s information in silence, and waited for more.

“And now,” he continued, “I want you to say when you arrive there that you are my wife.”

“But I am not your wife,” returned Nunaga gently, yet firmly.

The wizard frowned, then he glared fiercely, then he looked sad, then there settled on his visage a sulky look which gradually faded away, leaving nothing but a simple blank behind. After that he opened his lips, and was about to speak, when Nunaga opened her pretty eyes to their widest, also her pretty mouth, and gave vent to a tremendous shriek, which, reverberating among the cliffs, caused all the creatures around her, canine and human, to leap electrically to their feet.

To account for this we must take the reader round to the other side of the cliff, at the foot of which the party sat enjoying their breakfast.

There, all ignorant of the human beings so near at hand, sauntered an enormous Polar bear. It seated itself presently on its haunches, and swayed itself gently to and fro, with its head on one side, as if admiring the Arctic scenery. There was not much more than a space of five hundred yards between the parties, but owing to the great promontory which formed an effectual screen between them, and the fact that the light air blew from the land to the sea, neither bear nor dogs had scented each other.

It seemed as if Bruin had only just got out of bed, for his little eyes blinked sleepily, his motions were exceedingly slow, and his yawns were frequent as well as remonstrative in tone. Doubtless bears, like men, dislike early rising!

Having gazed at the scenery long enough, and shaken off its lethargy to some extent, the bear began probably to think of food. Then it arose, sauntered round the promontory, and presented itself to the more than astonished gaze of Nunaga, who was the only one that chanced to sit facing in its direction.

The resulting shriek and its consequences seemed to have a petrifying effect on the animal, for it stood stock still for some moments, and simply gazed. This condition of things was instantly changed by three of the dogs breaking their traces, and rushing wildly at the animal. With two nimble pats of its great paws it sent two of the dogs into the air, almost killing them, while the third it dismissed, yelling hideously, with a bad tear in its flank.

Quick as thought, Ujarak set the other dogs free, and the whole pack ran open-mouthed at their natural foe, but another dog being promptly sent away howling, the rest were cowed, and confined themselves to barking furiously round their powerful foe.

Apparently this was an old bear, confident perhaps in its strength, and used, it might be, to dog-assaults, for it paid no further attention