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

Oppressed, and, as it were, boiling over, with this feeling, Angut, as we have said, started to his feet, to the no small alarm of the guilty man at his side. But the chief’s fears were dissipated when Angut spoke.

“Foolish fellow!” he said, turning with a blazing gaze to the heavy-faced man. “You talk like a child of what you do not understand. You ask to see God, else you won’t believe. You believe in your life, don’t you? Yet you have never seen it. You stab a bear, and let its life out. You know when the life is there. You have let it out. You know when it is gone. But you have not seen it. Then why do you believe in it? You do not see a sound, yet you believe in it. Do not lift your stupid face; I know what you would say: you hear the sound, therefore it exists. A deaf man does not hear the sound. Does it therefore not exist? That which produces the sound is there, though the deaf man neither sees nor hears, nor feels nor tastes, nor smells it. My friend, the man of God, says he thinks the cause of sound is motion in the air passing from particle to particle, till the last particle next my ear is moved, and then—I hear. Is there, then, no motion in the air to cause sound because the deaf man does not hear?

“O stupid-face! You say that God does not answer prayer, because you have asked and have not received. What would you think of your little boy if he should say, ‘I asked a dead poisonous fish from my father the other day, and he did not give it to me; therefore my father never gives me what I want.’ Would that be true? Every morning you awake hungry, and you wish for food; then you get up, and you find it. Is not your wish a silent prayer? And is it not answered every day? Who sends the seals, and fishes, and birds, even when we do not ask with our lips? Did these animals make themselves? Stupid-face! you say your soul is healthy. Sometimes you are angry, sometimes discontented, sometimes jealous, sometimes greedy. Is an angry, discontented, jealous, greedy soul healthy? You know it is not. It is diseased, and the disease of the soul is sin. This disease takes the bad forms I have mentioned, and many other bad forms—one of which is murder.”

Angut emphasised the last word and paused, but did not look at the robber beside him, for he knew that the arrow would reach its mark. Then he resumed—

“The Kablunet has brought to us the better knowledge of God. He tells us that God’s great purpose from the beginning of time has been to cure our soul-disease. We deserve punishment for our sins: God sent His Son and Equal, Jesus Christ, to bear our sins. We need deliverance from the power of sin: God sent His Equal—the Spirit of Jesus—to cure us. I believe it. I have felt that Great Spirit in my breast long before I saw the Kablunets, and have asked the Great Spirit to send more light. He has answered my prayer. I have more light, and am satisfied.”

Again Angut paused, while the Eskimos gazed at him in breathless interest, and a strange thrill—almost of expectation—passed through the assembly, while he continued in a low and solemn tone—

“Jesus,” he said, “saves from all sin. But,”—he turned his eyes here full on Grimlek—“He does not save in sin. Murder—foul and wicked murder—has been done!”

Grimlek grew pale, but did not otherwise betray himself. Reference to murder was no uncommon thing among his countrymen. He did not yet feel sure that Angut referred to the deed which he had so recently perpetrated.

“This day,” continued Angut, “I saw a band of Kablunet sailors—”

He got no further than that, for Grimlek attempted to spring up. The heavy hand of Angut, however, crushed him back instantly, and a spear-point touched his throat.

“Down with the villains!” shouted Rooney, laying the grasp of a vice on the neck of the man next to him, and hurling him to the ground.

In the twinkling of an eye the fifteen robbers were lying flat on their backs, with fingers grasping their throats, knees compressing their stomachs, and spear-points at their hearts; but no blood was shed. One or two of the fiercest, indeed, struggled at first, but without avail—for the intended victim of each robber was handy and ready to lend assistance at the capture, as if in righteous retribution.

It was of course a startling incident to those who were not in the secret. Every man sprang up and drew his knife, not knowing where a foe might appear, but Rooney’s strong voice quieted them.

“We’re all safe enough, Mr Egede,” he cried, as he bound Grimlek’s hands behind him with a cord. The Eskimos quickly performed the same office for their respective prisoners, and then, setting them up in a row, proceeded to talk over the massacre, and to discuss in their presence the best method of getting rid of the murderers.

“I propose,” said Okiok, whose naturally kind heart had been deeply stirred by the cowardly massacre which he had witnessed, “I propose that we should drown them.”

“No; drowning is far too good. Let us spear them,” said Kajo, who had become sober by that time.

“That would not hurt them,” cried a fierce Eskimo, smiting his knee with his clenched fist. “We must cut off their ears and noses, poke out their eyes, and then roast them alive—”

“Hush! hush!” cried Egede, stepping forward; “we must do nothing of the kind. We must not act like devils. Have we not been talking of the mercy of the Great Spirit? Let us be just, but let us temper justice with mercy. Angut has not yet spoken; let us hear what he will propose.”

Considering the energy with which he had denounced the murders, and the vigour with which he had captured Grimlek, Angut’s proposal was somewhat surprising.

“Kablunet,” he said, turning to the missionary, “have you not told me that in your Book of God it is written that men should do to other men what they wish other men to do to them?”

“Truly, that is so,” answered Egede.

“If I were very wicked,” continued Angut, “and had done many evil deeds, I should like to be forgiven and set free; therefore, let us forgive these men, and set them free.”

We know not with what feelings the robbers listened to the inhuman proposals that were at first made as to their fate, but certain it is that after Angut had spoken there was a visible improvement in the expression of their faces.

Considerable astonishment and dissatisfaction were expressed by the majority of the Eskimos. Even Egede, much though he delighted in the spirit which dictated it, could not quite see his way to so simple and direct an application of the golden rule in the case of men who had so recently been caught red-handed in a cold-blooded murder. While he was still hesitating as to his reply to this humane proposal, an event occurred which rendered all their discussion unnecessary.

We have said that fifteen robbers had been captured; but there were sixteen who had entered the camp and joined the meeting. One of these had, without particular motive, seated himself on the outskirt of the circle under the shadow of a bush, which shadow had grown darker as the twilight deepened. Thus it came to pass that he had been overlooked, and, when the mêlée took place, he quietly retreated into the brush-wood. He was a brave man, however, although a robber, and scorned to forsake his comrades in their distress. While the discussion above described was going on, he crept stealthily towards the place where the captives had been ranged.

This he did the more easily that they sat on the summit of a bank or mound which sloped behind them into the bushes. Thus he was able to pass in a serpentine fashion behind them all without being seen, and, as he did so, to cut the bonds of each. Their knives had been removed, else, being desperate villains, they might now have attacked their captors. As it was, when the cords of all had been cut, they rose up with a mingled yell of laughter and triumph and dashed into the bushes.

The hunters were not slow to follow, with brandished knives and spears, but their chief called them back with a Stentorian roar, for well he knew that his men might as well try to follow up a troop of squirrels as pursue a band of reckless men in the rapidly increasing darkness, and that there was nearly as much likelihood of their stabbing each other by mistake in the dark, as of killing or catching their foes.

When the hunters had again re-assembled in front of their chief man’s house, they found new cause of anxiety which effectually put to flight their annoyance at having been outwitted by the robbers.

This was the fact that, although night was coming on, the oomiak with the women had not returned.

Note. This is no fanciful speech. It is the substance of an actual speech made by a Greenlander to the Moravian brethren in 1737.