Ungava by R. M. Ballantyne (good non fiction books to read TXT) 📖

This man had only watched at the seal-hole a couple of hours, but the natives frequently sit behind their snow walls for the greater part of a day, almost without moving hand or foot.

Having witnessed this capture, Annatock drove on until the most of his countrymen were left behind. Suddenly he called to the dogs to halt, and spoke in a deep, earnest tone to his nephew, while both of them gazed intently towards a particular quarter of the sea. Edith looked in the same direction, and soon saw the object that attracted their attention, but the only thing it seemed like to her was an enormous cask or barrel.

“What is it?” said she to Peetoot, as Annatock selected his largest spear and hastened towards the object.

Of course Edith received no reply save a broad grin; but the little fellow followed up this remark, if we may so call it, by drawing his fingers through his lips, and licking them in a most significant manner. Meanwhile Annatock advanced rapidly towards the object of interest, keeping carefully behind hummocks of ice as he went, and soon drew near enough to make certain that it was a walrus, apparently sound asleep, with its blunt snout close to its hole, ready to plunge in should an enemy appear.

Annatock now advanced more cautiously, and when within a hundred yards of the huge monster, lay down at full length on his breast, and began to work his way towards it after the manner of a seal. He was so like a seal in his hairy garments that he might easily have been mistaken for one by a more intellectual animal than a walrus. But the walrus did not awake, and he approached to within ten yards. Then, rising suddenly to his feet, Annatock poised the heavy weapon, and threw it with full force against the animal’s side. It struck, and, as if it had fallen on an adamantine rock, it bounded off and fell upon the ice, with its hard point shattered and its handle broken in two.

For one instant Annatock’s face blazed with surprise; the next, it relapsed into fifty dimples, as he roared and tossed up his arms with delight at the discovery that the walrus had been frozen to death beside its hole!

This catastrophe is not of unfrequent occurrence to these elephants of the northern seas. They are in the habit of coming up occasionally through their holes in the ice to breathe, and sometimes they crawl out in order to sleep on the ice, secure, in the protection of their superabundant fat, from being frozen—at least easily. When they have had enough of sleep, or when the prickling sensation on their skin warns them that nothing is proof against the cold of the Polar Seas, and that they will infallibly freeze if they do not make a precipitate retreat to the comparatively warm waters below, they scramble to their holes, crush down the new ice with their tusks and thick heads, and plunge in. But sometimes the ice which forms on the holes when they are asleep is too strong to be thus broken, in which case the hapless monster lays him down and dies.

Such was the fate of the walrus which Annatock was now cutting up with his axe into portable blocks of beef. For several days previous to the thaw which had now set in, the weather had been intensely cold, and the walrus had perished in consequence of its ambitious desire to repose in the regions above.

Not far from the spot where this fortunate discovery had been made, there was a large sheet of recently-formed black ice, where the main ice had been broken away and the open water left. The sheet, although much melted by the thaw, was still about three inches thick, and quite capable of supporting a man. While Annatock was working with his back to this ice, he heard a tremendous crash take place behind him. Turning hastily round, he observed that the noise was caused by another enormous walrus, the glance of whose large round eyes and whose loud snort showed clearly enough that he was not frozen like his unfortunate companion. By this time the little boy had come up with Edith and the sledge. So Annatock ordered him to take the dogs behind a hummock to keep them out of sight, while he selected several strong harpoons and a lance from the sledge. Giving another lance to Peetoot, he signed to Edith to sit on the hummock while he attacked the grisly monster of the deep.

While these preparations were being made, the walrus dived; and while it was under water, the man and the boy ran quickly forward a short distance, and then lay down behind a lump of ice. Scarcely had they done so when the walrus came up again with a loud snort, splashing the water with its broad, heavy flippers—which seemed a sort of compromise between legs and fins—and dashing waves over the ice as it rolled about its large, unwieldy carcass. It was truly a savage-looking monster, as large as a small elephant, and having two tusks of a foot and a half long. The face bore a horrible resemblance to that of a man. Its crown was round and bulging, its face broad and massive, and a thick, bristling moustache—rough as the spines of a porcupine—covered its upper lip, and depended in a shaggy dripping mass over its mouth. After spluttering about a short time it dived again.

Now was Annatock’s time. Seizing a harpoon and a coil of line, he muttered a few words to the boy, sprang up, and running out upon the smooth ice, stood by the edge of the open water. He had not waited here more than a few seconds when the black waters were cleft by the blacker head of the monster, as it once more ascended to renew its elephantine gambols in the pool. As it rose, the Esquimau threw up his arm and poised the harpoon. For one instant the surprised animal raised itself breast-high out of the water, and directed a stare of intense astonishment at the man. That moment was fatal. Annatock buried the harpoon deep under its left flipper. With a fierce bellow the brute dashed itself against the ice, endeavouring in its fury to reach its assailant; but the ice gave way under its enormous weight, while Annatock ran back as far as the line attached to the harpoon would permit him.

The walrus, seeing that it could not reach its enemy in this way, seemed now to be actually endued with reason. It took a long gaze at Annatock, and then dived. But the Esquimau was prepared for this. He changed his position hastily, and played his line the meanwhile, fixing the point of his lance into the ice, in order to give him a more effective hold. Scarcely had he done so than the spot he had just left was smashed up, and the head of the walrus appeared, grinning and bellowing as if in disappointment. At this moment Peetoot handed his uncle a harpoon, and, ere the animal dived, the weapon was fixed in his side. Once more Annatock changed his position; and once again the spot on which he had been standing was burst upwards. It was a terrible sight to see that unearthly-looking monster smashing the ice around it, and lashing the blood-stained sea into foam, while it waged such mortal war with the self-possessed and wary man. How mighty and strong the one! how comparatively weak and seemingly helpless the other! It was the triumph of mind over matter—of reason over blind brute force. But Annatock fought a hard battle that day ere he came off conqueror. Harpoon after harpoon was driven into the walrus; again and again the lance pierced deep into its side and drank its life-blood; but three hours had passed away before the dead carcass was dragged from the deep by the united force of dogs and man. During this terrible combat Edith had looked on with such intense interest that she could scarcely believe her eyes when she found, from the position of the sun, that the day was far advanced. It was too late now to think of cutting up the carcasses without assistance, so Annatock determined to return home and tell his countrymen of his good fortune.

It is a custom among the Esquimaux to consider every animal that is killed as the common property of all—the successful hunter being entitled to all the titbits, besides his portion of the equal dividend; so that Annatock knew he had only to give the signal, and every able-bodied man in the village, and not a few of the women and children, would descend like vultures on the spoil. Jumping into his sledge, he stretched out his exhausted frame at full length beside Edith, and committed the whip to Peetoot.

“I’m so glad,” cried Edith, with a beaming face, “that we have killed this beast. The poor people will have plenty to eat now.”

“Ha! ha! ha!” roared Peetoot, giving increased emphasis to each successive shout, and prolonging the last into a yell of delight, as he cracked the ponderous whip from side to side like a volley of pistolry.

“O Peetoot!” exclaimed Edith, in a remonstrative tone, as the sledge swayed to and fro with the rate at which they were sweeping over the plain, “don’t drive so fast; you will kill the poor dogs!”

“Ho! ho! ho-o-o! Eeduck!” roared the boy, aiming a shot at the leader’s left ear, and bringing the thick end of the whip down on the flanks of the six hindmost dogs.

Thus, amid a volley of roars, remonstrances, yells, yelps, and pistolry, Edith and her friends scoured over the frozen sea, and swept into the Esquimau camp like a whirlwind.