Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England
RED ROONEY, BY R.M. BALLANTYNE.
A Tale of Eskimo (Innuit) Life in Greenland at the end of the
Eighteenth Century.
CHAPTER ONE.
THE LAST OF THE CREW.
LOST AND FOUND.
There is a particular spot in those wild regions which lie somewhere
near the northern parts of Baffin's Bay, where Nature seems to have set
up her workshop for the manufacture of icebergs, where Polar bears, in
company with seals and Greenland whales, are wont to gambol, and where
the family of Jack Frost may be said to have taken permanent possession
of the land.
One winter day, in the early part of the eighteenth century, a solitary
man might have been seen in that neighbourhood, travelling on foot over
the frozen sea in a staggering, stumbling, hurried manner, as if his
powers, though not his will, were exhausted.
The man's hairy garb of grey sealskin might have suggested that he was a
denizen of those northern wilds, had not the colour of his face, his
brown locks, and his bushy beard, betokened him a native of a very
different region.
Although possessing a broad and stalwart frame, his movements indicated,
as we have said, excessive weakness. A morsel of ice in his path, that
would have been no impediment even to a child, caused him to stumble.
Recovering himself, with an evidently painful effort, he continued to
advance with quick, yet wavering steps. There was, however, a strange
mixture of determination with his feebleness. Energy and despair seemed
to be conjoined in his look and action--and no wonder, for Red Rooney,
although brave and resolute by nature, was alone in that Arctic
wilderness, and reduced to nearly the last extremity by fatigue and
famine. For some days--how many he scarcely remembered--he had
maintained life by chewing a bit of raw sealskin as he travelled over
the frozen waste; but this source of strength had at last been consumed,
and he was now sinking from absolute want.
The indomitable spirit of the man, however, kept his weakened body
moving, even after the mind had begun to sink into that dreamy,
lethargic state which is said to indicate the immediate approach of
death, and there was still a red spot in each of his pale and hollow
cheeks, as well as an eager gleam of hope in his sunken eyes; for the
purpose that Red Rooney had in view was to reach the land.
It was indeed a miserably faint hope that urged the poor fellow on, for
the desolate shore of Western Greenland offered little better prospect
of shelter than did the ice-clad sea; but, as in the case of the
drowning man, he clutched at this miserable straw of hope, and held on
for life. There was the bare possibility that some of the migratory
Eskimos might be there, or, if not, that some scraps of their food--some
bits of refuse, even a few bones--might be found. Death, he felt, was
quickly closing with him on the sea. The great enemy might, perhaps, be
fought with and kept at bay for a time if he could only reach the land.
Encouraging himself with such thoughts, he pushed on, but again stumbled
and fell--this time at full length. He lay quiet for a few seconds. It
was so inexpressibly sweet to _rest_, and feel the worn-out senses
floating away, as it were, into dreamland! But the strong will burst
the tightening bands of death, and, rising once more, with the
exclamation, "God help me!" he resumed his weary march.
All around him the great ocean was covered with its coat of solid,
unbroken ice; for although winter was past, and the sun of early spring
was at the time gleaming on bergs that raised their battlements and
pinnacles into a bright blue sky, the hoary king of the far north
refused as yet to resign his sceptre and submit to the interregnum of
the genial sun.
A large hummock or ridge of ice lay in front of the man, blocking his
view of the horizon in that direction. It had probably been heaved up
by one of the convulsions of the previous autumn, and was broken into a
chaotic mass. Here he stopped and looked up, with a sigh. But the
sinking of the heart was momentary. Deep snow had so filled up the
crevices of the shattered blocks that it was possible to advance slowly
by winding in and out among them. As the ascent grew steeper the
forlorn man dropped on all-fours and crawled upwards until he reached
the top.
The view that burst upon him would have roused enthusiasm if his
situation had been less critical. Even as it was, an exclamation of
surprise broke from him, for there, not five miles distant, was the
coast of Greenland; desolate, indeed, and ice-bound--he had expected
that--but inexpressibly grand even in its desolation. A mighty tongue
of a great glacier protruded itself into the frozen sea. The tip of
this tongue had been broken off, and the edge presented a gigantic wall
of crystal several hundred feet high, on which the sun glittered in
blinding rays.
This tongue--a mere offshoot of the great glacier itself--filled a
valley full ten miles in length, measuring from its tip in the ocean to
its root on the mountain brow, where the snow-line was seen to cut
sharply against the sky.
For some minutes Red Rooney sat on one of the ice-blocks, gazing with
intense eagerness along the shore, in the hope of discerning smoke or
some other evidence of man's presence. But nothing met his disappointed
gaze save the same uniform, interminable waste of white and grey, with
here and there a few dark frowning patches where the cliffs were too
precipitous to sustain the snow.
Another despairing sigh rose to the man's lips, but these refused to
give it passage. With stern resolve he arose and stumbled hurriedly
forward. The strain, however, proved too great. On reaching the level
ice on the other side of the ridge he fell, apparently for the last
time, and lay perfectly still. Ah! how many must have fallen thus, to
rise no more, since men first began to search out the secrets of that
grand mysterious region!
But Red Rooney was not doomed to be among those who have perished there.
Not far from the spot where he fell, one of the short but muscular and
hairy-robed denizens of that country was busily engaged in removing the
skin from a Polar bear which he had just succeeded in spearing, after a
combat which very nearly cost him his life. During the heat of the
battle the brave little man's foot had slipped, and the desperately
wounded monster, making a rush at the moment, overturned him into a
crevice between two ice-blocks, fortunately the impetus of the rush
caused the animal to shoot into another crevice beyond, and the man,
proving more active than the bear, sprang out of his hole in time to
meet his foe with a spear-thrust so deadly that it killed him on the
spot. Immediately he began to skin the animal, intending to go home
with the skin, and return with a team of dogs for the meat and the
carcass of a recently-caught seal.
Meanwhile, having removed and packed up the bear-skin, he swung it on
his broad shoulders, and made for the shore as fast as his short legs
would carry him. On the way he came to the spot where the fallen
traveller lay.
His first act was to open his eyes to the uttermost, and, considering
the small, twinkling appearance of those eyes just a minute before, the
change was marvellous.
"Hoi!" then burst from him with tremendous emphasis, after which he
dropped his bundle, turned poor Rooney over on his back, and looked at
his face with an expression of awe.
"Dead!" said the Eskimo, under his breath--in his own tongue, of course,
not in English, of which, we need scarcely add, he knew nothing.
After feeling the man's breast, under his coat, for a few seconds, he
murmured the word "Kablunet" (foreigner), and shook his head mournfully.
It was not so much grief for the man's fate that agitated this child of
the northern wilderness, as regret at his own bad fortune. Marvellous
were the reports which from the south of Greenland had reached him, in
his far northern home, of the strange Kablunets or foreigners who had
arrived there to trade with the Eskimos--men who, so the reports went,
wore smooth coats without hair, little round things on their heads
instead of hoods, and flapping things on their legs instead of sealskin
boots--men who had come in monster kayaks (canoes), as big as icebergs;
men who seemed to possess everything, had the power to do anything, and
feared nothing. No fabrications in the _Arabian Nights_, or _Gulliver_,
or _Baron Munchausen_, ever transcended the stories about those
Kablunets which had reached this broad, short, sturdy Eskimo--stories
which no doubt began in the south of Greenland with a substratum of
truth, but which, in travelling several hundreds of miles northward, had
grown, as a snowball might have grown if rolled the same distance over
the Arctic wastes; with this difference--that whereas the snowball would
have retained its original shape, though not its size, the tales lost
not only their pristine form and size, but became so amazingly distorted
that the original reporters would probably have failed to recognise
them. And now, at last, here was actually a Kablunet--a _real_
foreigner in the body; but not alive! It was extremely disappointing!
Our sturdy Eskimo, however, was not a good judge of Kablunet vitality.
He was yet rubbing the man's broad chest, with a sort of pathetic pity,
when a flutter of the heart startled him. He rubbed with more vigour.
He became excited, and, seizing Red Rooney by the arms, shook him with
considerable violence, the result being that the foreigner opened his
eyes and looked at him inquiringly.
"Hallo, my lad," said Rooney, in a faint voice; "not quite so hard. I'm
all right. Just help me up, like a good fellow."
He spoke in English, which was, of course, a waste of breath in the
circumstances. In proof of his being "all right," he fell back again,
and fainted away.
The Eskimo leaped up. He was one of those energetic beings who seem to
know in all emergencies what is best to be done, and do it promptly.
Unrolling the bear-skin, which yet retained a little of its first
owner's warmth, he wrapped the Kablunet in it from head to foot, leaving
an opening in front of his mouth for breathing purposes. With his
knife--a stone one--he cut off a little lump of blubber from the seal,
and placed that in the opening, so that the stranger might eat on
reviving, if so inclined, or let it alone, if so disposed. Then,
turning his face towards the land, he scurried away over the ice like a
hunted partridge, or a hairy ball driven before an Arctic breeze.
He made such good use of his short legs that in less than an hour he
reached a little hut, which seemed to nestle under the wing of a great
cliff in order to avoid destruction by the glittering walls of an
impending glacier. The hut had no proper doorway, but a tunnel-shaped
entrance, about three feet high and several feet long. Falling on his
knees, the Eskimo crept into the tunnel and disappeared. Gaining the
inner end of it, he stood up and glared, speechless, at his astonished
wife.
She had cause for surprise, for never since their wedding-day had Nuna
beheld such an expression on the fat face of her amiable husband.
"Okiok," she said, "have you seen an evil spirit?"
"No," he replied.
"Why, then, do you glare?"
Of course Nuna spoke in choice Eskimo, which we render into English with
as much fidelity to the native idiom as seems consistent with the
agreeable narration of our tale.
"Hoi!" exclaimed Okiok, in reply to her question, but without ceasing to
glare and breathe hard.
"Has my husband become a walrus, that he can only shout and snort?"
inquired Nuna, with the slightest possible twinkle in her eyes, as she
raised herself out of the lamp-smoke, and laid down the stick with which
she had been stirring the contents of a stone pot.
Instead of answering the question, Okiok turned to two chubby and
staring youths, of about fifteen and sixteen respectively, who were
mending spears, and said sharply, "Norrak, Ermigit, go, harness the
dogs."
Norrak rose with a bound, and dived into the tunnel. Ermigit, although
willing enough, was not quite so sharp. As he crawled into the tunnel
and was disappearing, his father sent his foot in the same direction,
and, having thus intimated the necessity for urgent haste, he turned
again to his wife with a somewhat softened expression.
"Give me food, Nuna. Little food has passed into me since yesterday at
sunrise. I starve. When I have eaten, you shall hear words that will
make you dream for a moon. I have seen,"--he became solemn at this
point, and lowered his voice to a whisper as he advanced his head and
glared again--"I have seen a--a--Kablunet!"
He drew back and gazed at his wife as connoisseurs are wont to do when
examining a picture. And truly Nuna's countenance _was_ a
picture-round, fat, comely, oily, also open-mouthed and eyed, with
unbounded astonishment depicted thereon; for she thoroughly believed her
husband, knowing that he was upright and never told lies.
Her mental condition did not, however, interfere with her duties. A
wooden slab or plate, laden with a mess of broiled meat, soon smoked
before her lord. He quickly seated himself on a raised platform, and
had done some justice to it before Nuna recovered the use of her tongue.
"A Kablunet!" she exclaimed, almost solemnly. "Is he dead?"
Okiok paused, with a lump of blubber in his fingers close to his mouth.
"No; he is alive. At least he was alive when I left him. If he has not
died since, he is alive still."
Having uttered this truism, he thrust the blubber well home, and
continued his meal.
Nuna's curiosity, having been aroused, was not easily allayed. She sat
down beside her spouse, and plied him with numerous questions, to which
Okiok gave her brief and very tantalising replies until he was gorged,
when, throwing down the platter, he turned abruptly to his wife, and
said impressively--
"Open your ears, Nuna. Okiok is no longer what he was. He has been
born only to-day. He has at last seen with his two eyes--a Kablunet!"
He paused to restrain his excitement. His wife clasped her hands and
looked at him excitedly, waiting for more.
"This Kablunet," he continued, "is very white, and not so ruddy as we
have been told they are. His hair is brown, and twists in little
circles. He wears it on the top of his head, and on the bottom of his
head also--all round. He is not small or short. No; he is long and
broad,--but he is thin, very thin, like the young ice at the beginning
of winter. His eyes are the colour of the summer sky. His nose is like
the eagle's beak, but not so long. His mouth--I know not what his mouth
is like; it is hid in a nest of hair. His words I understand not. They
seem to me nonsense, but his voice is soft and deep."
"And his dress--how does he dress?" asked Nuna, with natural feminine
curiosity.
"Like ourselves," replied Okiok, with a touch of disappointment in his
tone. "The men who said the Kablunets wear strange things on their
heads and long flapping things on their legs told lies."
"Why did you not bring him here?" asked Nuna, after a few moments'
meditation on these marvels.
"Because he is too heavy to lift, and too weak to walk. He has been
starving. I wrapped him in the skin of a bear, and left him with a
piece of blubber at his nose. When he wakes up he will smell; then he
will eat. Perhaps he will live; perhaps he will die. Who can tell? I
go to fetch him."
As the Eskimo spoke, the yelping of dogs outside told that his sons had
obeyed his commands, and got ready the sledge. Without another word he
crept out of the hut and jumped on the sledge, which was covered with
two or three warm bearskins. Ermigit restrained the dogs, of which
there were about eight, each fastened to the vehicle by a single line.
Norrak handed his father the short-handled but heavy, long-lashed whip.
Okiok looked at Norrak as he grasped the instrument of punishment.
"Jump on," he said.
Norrak did so with evident good-will. The whip flashed in the air with
a serpentine swing, and went off like a pistol. The dogs yelled in
alarm, and, springing away at full speed, were soon lost among the
hummocks of the Arctic sea.
CHAPTER TWO.
DESCRIBES A RESCUE AND A HAPPY FAMILY.
While the Eskimos were thus rushing to his rescue, poor Red Rooney--
whose shipmates, we may explain at once, had thus contracted his
Christian name of Reginald--began to recover from his swoon, and to
wonder in a listless fashion where he was. Feeling comparatively
comfortable in his bear-skin, he did not at first care to press the
inquiry; but, as Okiok had anticipated, the peculiar smell near his nose
tended to arouse him. Drawing his hand gently up, he touched the object
in front of his mouth. It felt very like blubber, with which substance
he was familiar. Extending his tongue, he found that it also tasted
like blubber. To a starving man this was enough. He pulled the end of
the raw morsel into his mouth and began to chew.
Ah, reader, turn not up your refined nose! When you have been for
several months on short allowance, when you have scraped every shred of
meat off the very last bones of your provisions, and sucked out the last
drop of marrow, and then roasted and eaten your spare boots, you may
perhaps be in a position to estimate and enjoy a morsel of raw blubber.
Regardless of time, place, and circumstance, our poor wanderer continued
to chew until in his great weakness he fell into a sort of half slumber,
and dreamed--dreamed of feasting on viands more delightful than the
waking imagination of man has ever conceived.
From this state of bliss he was rudely awakened by a roughish poke in
the back. The poke was accompanied by a snuffing sound which caused the
blood of the poor man to curdle. Could it be a bear?
He was not left long in doubt. After giving him another poke on the
shoulder, the creature walked round him, snuffing as it went, and, on
reaching the air-hole already referred to, thrust its snout in and
snorted. Rooney turned his face aside to avoid the blast, but otherwise
lay quite still, knowing well that whatever animal his visitor might be,
his only hope lay in absolute inaction. Venturing in a few seconds to
turn his face round and peep through the opening, he found that the
animal was in very deed a large white bear, which, having found and
abstracted the remains of the blubber he had been chewing, was at that
moment licking its lips after swallowing it. Of course, finding the
morsel satisfactory, the bear returned to the hole for more.
It is easier to conceive than to describe the poor man's feelings at
that moment, therefore we leave the reader to conceive them. The
natural and desperate tendency to spring up and defend himself had to be
combated by the certain knowledge that, encased as he was, he could not
spring up, and had nothing wherewith to defend himself except his
fingers, which were no match for the claws of a Polar bear.
The blood which a moment before had begun apparently to curdle, now
seemed turned into liquid fire; and when the snout again entered and
touched his own, he could contain himself no longer, but gave vent to a
yell, which caused the startled bear to draw sharply back in alarm.
Probably it had never heard a yell through the medium of its nose
before, and every one must know how strong is the influence of a new
sensation. For some minutes the monster stood in silent contemplation
of the mysterious hole. Rooney of course lay perfectly still. The
success of his involuntary explosion encouraged hope.
What the bear might have done next we cannot tell, for at that moment a
shout was heard. It was followed by what seemed a succession of pistol
shots and the howling of dogs. It was the arrival of Okiok on the scene
with his sledge and team.
Never was an arrival more opportune. The bear looked round with a
distinct expression of indignation on his countenance. Possibly the
voice of Okiok was familiar to him. It may be that relations or friends
of that bear had mysteriously disappeared after the sounding of that
voice. Perhaps the animal in whose skin Rooney was encased had been a
brother. At all events, the increasing hullabaloo of the approaching
Eskimo had the effect of intimidating the animal, for it retired
quickly, though with evident sulkiness, from the scene.
A few seconds more, and Okiok dashed up, leaped from his vehicle, left
the panting team to the control of Norrak, and ran eagerly to the
prostrate figure. Unwrapping the head so as to set it free, the Eskimo
saw with intense satisfaction that the Kablunet was still alive. He
called at once to Norrak, who fetched from the sledge a platter made of
a seal's shoulder-blade, on which was a mass of cooked food. This he
presented to the starving man, who, with a look of intense gratitude,
but with no words, eagerly ate it up. The Eskimo and his son meanwhile
stood looking at him with an expression of mingled interest, awe, and
surprise on their round faces.
When the meal was ended, Red Rooney, heaving a deep sigh of
satisfaction, said, "Thank God, and thank _you_, my friends!"
There was reason for the increase of surprise with which this was
received by the two natives, for this time the foreigner spoke to them
in their own language.
"Is the Kablunet a messenger from heaven," asked Okiok, with increased
solemnity, "that he speaks with the tongue of the Innuit?"
"No, my friend," replied Rooney, with a faint smile; "I bring no message
either from heaven or anywhere else. I'm only a wrecked seaman. But,
after a fashion, you are messengers from heaven to _me_, and the message
you bring is that I'm not to die just yet. If it had not been for you,
my friends, it strikes me I should have been dead by this time. As to
my speaking your lingo, it's no mystery. I've learned it by livin' a
long time wi' the traders in the south of Greenland, and I suppose I've
got a sort o' talent that way; d'ye see?"
Red Rooney delivered these remarks fluently in a curious sort of Eskimo
language; but we have rendered it into that kind of English which the
wrecked seaman was in the habit of using--chiefly because by so doing we
shall give the reader a more correct idea of the character of the man.
"We are very glad to see you," returned Okiok. "We have heard of you
for many moons. We have wished for you very hard. Now you have come,
we will treat you well."
"Are your huts far off?" asked the seaman anxiously.
"Not far. They are close to the ice-mountain--on the land."
"Take me to them, then, like a good fellow, for I'm dead-beat, and stand
much in need of rest."
The poor man was so helpless that he could not walk to the sledge when
they unrolled him. It seemed as if his power of will and energy had
collapsed at the very moment of his rescue. Up to that time the fear of
death had urged him on, but now, feeling that he was, comparatively
speaking, safe, he gave way to the languor which had so long oppressed
him, and thus, the impulse of the will being removed, he suddenly became
as helpless as an infant.
Seeing his condition, the father and son lifted him on the sledge,
wrapped him in skins, and drove back to the huts at full speed.
Nuna was awaiting them outside, with eager eyes and beating heart, for
the discovery of a real live Kablunet was to her an object of as solemn
and anxious curiosity as the finding of a veritable living ghost might
be to a civilised man. But Nuna was not alone. There were two other
members of the household present, who had been absent when Okiok first
arrived, and whom we will now introduce to the reader.
One was Nuna's only daughter, an exceedingly pretty girl--according to
Eskimo notions of female beauty. She was seventeen years of age,
black-eyed, healthily-complexioned, round-faced, sweet-expressioned,
comfortably stout, and unusually graceful--for an Eskimo. Among her
other charms, modesty and good-nature shone conspicuous. She was in all
respects a superior counterpart of her mother, and her name was Nunaga.
Nuna was small, Nunaga was smaller. Nuna was comparatively young,
Nunaga was necessarily younger. The former was kind, the latter was
kinder. The mother was graceful and pretty, the daughter was more
graceful and prettier. Nuna wore her hair gathered on the top of her
head into a high top-knot, Nunaga wore a higher top-knot. In regard to
costume, Nuna wore sealskin boots the whole length of her legs--which
were not long--and a frock or skirt reaching nearly to her knees, with a
short tail in front and a long tail behind; Nunaga, being similarly
clothed, had a shorter tail in front and a longer tail behind.
It may be interesting to note here that Eskimos are sometimes named
because of qualities possessed, or appearance, or peculiar circumstances
connected with them. The word Nuna signifies "land" in Eskimo. We
cannot tell why this particular lady was named Land, unless it were that
she was born on the land, and not on the ice; or perhaps because she was
so nice that when any man came into her company he might have thought
that he had reached the land of his hopes, and was disposed to settle
down there and remain. Certainly many of the Eskimo young men seemed to
be of that mind until Okiok carried her off in triumph. And let us tell
you, reader, that a good and pretty woman is as much esteemed among the
Eskimos as among ourselves. We do not say that she is better treated;
neither do we hint that she is sometimes treated worse.
The Eskimo word Nunaga signifies "_my_ land," and was bestowed by Okiok
on his eldest-born in a flood of tenderness at her birth.
Apologising for this philological digression, we proceed. Besides Nuna
and Nunaga there was a baby boy--a fat, oily, contented boy--without a
name at that time, and without a particle of clothing of any sort, his
proper condition of heat being maintained when out of doors chiefly by
being carried between his mother's dress and her shoulders; also by
being stuffed to repletion with blubber.
The whole family cried out vigorously with delight, in various keys,
when the team came yelping home with the Kablunet. Even the baby gave a
joyous crow--in Eskimo.
But the exclamations were changed to pity when the Kablunet was assisted
to rise, and staggered feebly towards the hut, even when supported by
Okiok and his sons. The sailor was not ignorant of Eskimo ways. His
residence in South Greenland had taught him many things. He dropped,
therefore, quite naturally--indeed gladly--on his hands and knees on
coming to the mouth of the tunnel, and crept slowly into the hut,
followed by the whole family, except Ermigit, who was left to unfasten
the dogs.
The weather at the time was by no means cold, for spring was rapidly
advancing; nevertheless, to one who had been so reduced in strength, the
warmth of the Eskimo hut was inexpressibly grateful. With a great sigh
of relief the rescued man flung himself on the raised part of the floor
on which Eskimos are wont to sit and sleep.
"Thank God, and again I thank _you_, my friends!" he said, repeating the
phrase which he had already used, for the sudden change from despair to
hope, from all but death to restored life, had filled his heart with
gratitude.
"You are weary?" said Okiok.
"Ay, ay--very weary; well-nigh to death," he replied.
"Will the Kablunet sleep?" asked Nuna, pointing to a couch of skins
close behind the seaman.
Rooney looked round.
"Thankee; yes, I will."
He crept to the couch, and dropped upon it, with his head resting on an
eider-down pillow. Like a tired infant, his eyes closed, and he was
asleep almost instantaneously.
Seeing this, the Eskimos began to move about with care, and to speak in
whispers, though it was needless caution, for in his condition the man
would probably have continued to sleep through the wildest thunderstorm.
Even when baby, tumbling headlong off the elevated floor, narrowly
missed spiking himself on a walrus spear, and set up a yell that might
have startled the stone deaf, the wearied Kablunet did not move. Okiok
did, however. He moved smartly towards the infant, caught him by the
throat, and almost strangled him in a fierce attempt to keep him quiet.
"Stupid tumbler!" he growled--referring to the child's general and
awkward habit of falling--"Can't you shut your mouth?"
Curious similarity between the thoughts and words of civilised and
savage man in similar circumstances! And it is interesting to note the
truth of what the song says:--
"We little know what great things from little things may rise."
From that slight incident the Eskimo child derived his future name of
"Tumbler"! We forget what the precise Eskimo term is, but the English
equivalent will do as well.
When supper-time arrived that night, Okiok and Nuna consulted as to
whether they should waken their guest, or let him lie still--for, from
the instant he lay down, he had remained without the slightest motion,
save the slow, regular heaving of his broad chest.
"Let him sleep. He is tired," said Okiok.
"But he must be hungry, and he is weak," said Nuna.
"He can feed when he wakens," returned the man, admiring his guest as a
collector might admire a foreign curiosity which he had just found.
"Kablunets sleep sounder than Eskimos," remarked the woman.
"Stupid one! Your head is thick, like the skull of the walrus," said
the man. "Don't you see that it is because he is worn-out?"
Eskimos are singularly simple and straightforward in their speech. They
express their opinions with the utmost candour, and without the
slightest intention of hurting each other's feelings. Nuna took no
offence at her husband's plain speaking, but continued to gaze with a
gratified expression at the stranger.
And sooth to say Reginald Rooney was a pleasant object for
contemplation, as well as a striking contrast to the men with whom Nuna
had been hitherto associated. His brow was broad; the nose, which had
been compared to the eagle's beak, was in reality a fine aquiline; the
mouth, although partially concealed by a brown drooping moustache, was
well formed, large, and firm; the beard bushy, and the hair voluminous
as well as curly. Altogether, this poor castaway was as fine a specimen
of a British tar as one could wish to see, despite his wasted condition
and his un-British garb.
It was finally decided to leave him undisturbed, and the Eskimo family
took care while supping to eat their food in comparative silence.
Usually the evening meal was a noisy, hilarious festival, at which Okiok
and Norrak and Ermigit were wont to relate the various incidents of the
day's hunt, with more or less of exaggeration, not unmingled with fun,
and only a little of that shameless boasting which is too strong a
characteristic of the North American Indian. The women of the household
were excellent listeners; also splendid laughers, and Tumbler was
unrivalled in the matter of crowing, so that noise as well as feasting
was usually the order of the night. But on this great occasion that was
all changed. The feasting was done in dead silence; and another very
striking peculiarity of the occasion was that, while the six pairs of
jaws kept moving with unflagging pertinacity, the twelve wide-open eyes
kept glaring with unwinking intensity at the sleeping man.
Indeed this unwavering glare continued long after supper was over, for
each member of the family lay down to rest with his or her face towards
the stranger, and kept up the glare until irresistible Nature closed the
lids and thus put out the eyes, like the stars of morning, one by one;
perhaps it would be more strictly correct to say two by two.
Okiok and his wife were the last to succumb. Long after the others were
buried in slumber, these two sat up by the lamp-light, solacing
themselves with little scraps and tit-bits of walrus during the
intervals of whispered conversation.
"What shall we do with him?" asked Okiok, after a brief silence.
"Keep him," replied Nuna, with decision.
"But we cannot force him to stay."
"He cannot travel alone," said Nuna, "and we will not help him to go."
"We are not the only Innuits in all the land. Others will help him if
we refuse."
This was so obvious that the woman could not reply, but gazed for some
time in perplexity at the lamp-smoke. And really there was much
inspiration to be derived from the lamp-smoke, for the wick being a mass
of moss steeped in an open cup of seal-oil, the smoke of it rose in
varied convolutions that afforded almost as much scope for suggestive
contemplation as our familiar coal-fires.
Suddenly the little woman glanced at her slumbering household, cast a
meaning look at her husband, and laughed--silently of course.
"Has Nuna become a fool that she laughs at nothing?" demanded Okiok
simply.
Instead of replying to the well-meant though impolite question, Nuna
laughed again, and looked into the dark corner where the pretty little
round face of Nunaga was dimly visible, with the eyes shut, and the
little mouth wide-open.
"We will marry him to Nunaga," she said, suddenly becoming grave.
"Pooh!" exclaimed Okiok--or some expression equivalent to that--"Marry
Nunaga to a Kablunet? Never! Do you not know that Angut wants her?"
It was evident from the look of surprise with which Nuna received this
piece of information that she was _not_ aware of Angut's aspirations,
and it was equally evident from the perplexed expression that followed
that her hastily-conceived little matrimonial speculation had been
knocked on the head.
After this their thoughts either strayed into other channels, or became
too deep for utterance, for they conversed no more, but soon joined the
rest of the family in the realms of oblivion.
CHAPTER THREE.
OUR HERO AND HIS FRIENDS BECOME FAMILIAR.
It was a fine balmy brilliant morning when Red Rooney awoke from the
most refreshing sleep he had enjoyed for many a day, gazed thoughtfully
up at the blackened roof of the Eskimo hut, and wondered where he was.
There was nothing that met his eyes to recall his scattered senses, for
all the members of the family had gone out to their various avocations,
and one of them having thrust a sealskin into the hole in the wall which
served for a window the sun found admittance only through crevices, and
but faintly illumined the interior.
The poor man felt intensely weak, yet delightfully restful--so much so
that mere curiosity seemed to have died within him, and he was content
to lie still and think of whatever his wayward mind chose to fasten on,
or not to think at all, if his mind saw fit to adopt that course in its
vagaries. In short, he felt as if he had no more control over his
thoughts than a man in a dream, and was quite satisfied that it should
be so.
As his eyes became accustomed to the dim light, however, he began slowly
to perceive that the walls around him were made of rough unhewn stone,
that the rafters were of drift timber, and the roof of moss, or
something like it; but the whole was so thickly coated with soot as to
present a uniform appearance of blackness. He also saw, from the
position in which he lay, a stone vessel, like a primitive classical
lamp, with a wick projecting from its lip, but no flame. Several skulls
of large animals lay on the floor within the range of his vision, and
some sealskin and other garments hung on pegs of bone driven into the
wall. Just opposite to him was the entrance to the tunnel, which formed
the passage or corridor of the mansion, and within it gleamed a subdued
light which entered from the outer end.
Rooney knew that he saw these things, and took note of them, yet if you
had asked him what he had seen it is probable that he would have been
unable to tell--so near had he approached to the confines of that land
from which no traveller returns.
Heaving a deep sigh, the man uttered the words, "Thank God!" for the
third time within the last four-and-twenty hours. It was an appropriate
prelude to his sinking into that mysterious region of oblivion in which
the mind of worn-out man finds rest, and out of which it can be so
familiarly yet mysteriously summoned--sometimes by his own
pre-determination, but more frequently by a fellow-mortal.
He had not lain long thus when the tunnel was suddenly darkened by an
advancing body, which proved to be the mistress of the mansion.
Nuna, on thrusting her head into the interior, looked inquiringly up
before venturing to rise. After a good stare at the slumbering
Kablunet, she went cautiously towards the window and removed the
obstruction. A flood of light was let in, which illumined, but did not
awaken, the sleeper.
Cautiously and on tip-toe the considerate little woman went about her
household duties, but with her eyes fixed, as if in fascination, on her
interesting guest.
It is at all times an awkward as well as a dangerous mode of proceeding,
to walk in one direction and look in another. In crossing the hut, Nuna
fell over a walrus skull, upset the lamp, and sent several other
articles of furniture against the opposite wall with a startling crash.
The poor creature did not rise. She was too much overwhelmed with
shame. She merely turned her head as she lay, and cast a horrified gaze
at the sleeper.
To her great joy she saw that Red Rooney had not been disturbed. He
slept through it all with the placidity of an infant. Much relieved,
the little woman got up, and moved about more freely. She replenished
the lamp with oil, and kindled it. Then she proceeded to roast and fry
and grill bear ribs, seal chops, and walrus steaks with a dexterity that
was quite marvellous, considering the rude culinary implements with
which she had to deal. In a short time breakfast was prepared, and Nuna
went out to announce the fact. Slowly and with the utmost caution each
member of the family crept in, and, before rising, cast the same
admiring, inquiring, partially awe-stricken gaze at the unconscious
Kablunet. Okiok, Nunaga, Norrak, Ermigit, and Tumbler all filed in, and
sat down in solemn silence.
Okiok took Tumbler on his knee, so as to be ready to throttle him on the
shortest notice if he should venture to cry, or even crow.
But as the best of human arrangements often fail through unforeseen
circumstances, so the quietude was broken a second time that morning
unexpectedly. One of the hungry dogs outside, rendered desperate by the
delicious fumes that issued from the hut, took heart, dashed in, caught
up a mass of blubber, and attempted to make off. A walrus rib, however,
from Norrak's unerring hand, caught him on the haunch as he entered the
tunnel, and caused him to utter such a piercing howl that Red Rooney not
only awoke, but sat bolt upright, and gazed at the horrified Eskimos
inquiringly.
Evidently the seaman was touched with a sense of the ludicrous, for he
merely smiled and lay down again. But he did not try to sleep. Having
been by that time thoroughly refreshed, he began to sniff the scent of
savoury food as the war-horse is said to scent the battle from afar--
that is, with an intense longing to "go at it." Okiok, guessing the
state of his feelings, brought him a walrus rib.
Red Rooney accepted it, and began to eat at once without the use of
knife or fork.
"Thankee, friend. It's the same I'll do for yourself if you ever come
to starvation point when I've got a crust to spare."
Charmed beyond measure at hearing their native tongue from the mouth of
a foreigner, the stare of the whole party became more intense, and for a
few moments they actually ceased to chew--a sure sign that they were, so
to speak, transfixed with interest.
"My man," said Rooney, after a few minutes' intense application to the
rib, "what is your name?"
"Okiok," replied the Eskimo.
"Okiok," muttered the seaman to himself in English; "why, that's the
Eskimo word for winter." Then, after a few minutes' further attention
to the rib, "Why did they name you after the cold season o' the year?"
"I know not," said Okiok. "When my father named me I was very small,
and could not ask his reason. He never told any one. Before I was old
enough to ask, a bear killed him. My mother thought it was because the
winter when I was born was very cold and long."
Again the hungry man applied himself to the rib, and nothing more was
said till it was finished. Feeling still somewhat fatigued, Rooney
settled himself among his furs in a more upright position, and gave his
attention to the natives, who instantly removed their eyes from him, and
resumed eating with a will. Of course they could not restrain furtive
glances, but they had ceased to stare.
In a few minutes Okiok paused, and in turn became the questioner.
"No Kablunet ever came here before," he said. "We are glad to see you;
but why do you come, and why alone, and why starving?"
"Not very easy to answer these questions off-hand to the likes of you,"
said Rooney. "However, I'll try. You've heard of the settlements--the
traders--no doubt, in the far-off land over _there_?"
Rooney pointed to the southward, the direction of which he knew from the
position of the sun and the time of day, which latter he guessed
roughly.
The Eskimo nodded. From the special character of the nod it was evident
that he meant it to express intelligence. And it did!
"Well," continued Rooney, "you may have heard that big, big--tremendous
big--kayaks, or rather oomiaks, have come to that country, an' landed
men and women, who have built houses--igloos--and have settled there to
trade?"
At this his host nodded with such decision, and so frequently, as to
show that he not only knew of the Kablunet settlements, but was deeply
interested in them, and would be glad to know something more.
"Well, then," continued the sailor, "I came out from a great and rich
country, called England, in one o' these big tradin' canoes, which was
wrecked close to the settlements, and there I stayed with my mates,
waiting for another big kayak to come an' take us off; but no kayak came
for two winters--so that's the way I came to understand an' speak the
Eskimo--"
At this point, as if it could endure the stranger's voice no longer,
Tumbler set up a sudden and tremendous howl. He was instantly seized,
half strangled, metaphorically sat upon, and reduced to sobbing silence,
when the sailor resumed his narrative.
"All that time I was workin' off and on for the--"
He stopped abruptly, not having any words in the native language by
which to name the Moravian Missionaries. The Eskimos waited with eager
looks for the next word.
"Well, well," resumed Rooney, with a pathetic smile, "it _is_ a pity the
whole world don't speak one language. I was workin' for, for--these
Kablunets who have come to Greenland, (that's the name we've given to
your country, you must know)--who have come to Greenland, not to trade,
but to teach men about God--about Torngarsuk, the Good Spirit--who made
all the world, and men, and beasts."
At this point the interest of Okiok became, if possible, more intense.
"Do the Kablunets know God, the Good Spirit? Have they seen him?" he
asked.
"They haven't exactly seen Him," replied the sailor; "but they have got
a book, a writing, which tells about Him, and they know something of His
nature and His wishes."
Of course this reference to a book and a writing--which Rooney had
learned to speak of from the Moravians--was quite incomprehensible to
the Eskimo. He understood enough of what was said, however, to see the
drift of his visitor's meaning.
"Huk!" he exclaimed, with a look of satisfaction; "Angut will be glad to
hear this."
"Who is Angut?" asked the sailor.
The whole party looked peculiarly solemn at this question.
"Angut is a great angekok," answered Okiok, in a low voice.
"Oh! he is one of your wise men, is he?" returned Rooney, with an
involuntary shrug of his shoulders, for he had heard and seen enough
during his residence at the settlements to convince him that the
angekoks, or sorcerers, or wise men of the Eskimos, were mostly a set of
clever charlatans, like the medicine-men of the North American Indians,
who practised on the credulity and superstition of their fellow-men in
order to gain their own ends. Some of these angekoks, no doubt, were
partly self-deceivers, believing to some extent the deceptions which
they practised, and desiring more or less the welfare of their dupes;
but others were thorough, as well as clever, rogues, whose sole object
was self-interest.
"Well, then," continued Rooney, "after I'd been two winters with these
Kablunets, another big kayak came to the settlement, not to trade, nor
to teach about God, but to go as far as they could into the ice, and try
to discover new lands."
"Poor men!" remarked Okiok pitifully; "had they no lands of their own?"
"O, yes; they had lands at home," replied the sailor, laughing.
"Huk!" exclaimed several of the natives, glancing at each other with
quite a pleased expression. It was evident that they were relieved as
well as glad to find that their visitor could laugh, for his worn and
woe-begone expression, which was just beginning to disappear under the
influence of rest and food, had induced the belief that he could only go
the length of smiling.
"Yes," continued the sailor; "they had lands, more or less--some of
them, at least--and some of them had money; but you must know, Okiok,
that however much a Kablunet may have, he always wants more."
"Is he _never_ content?" asked the Eskimo.
"Never; at least not often."
"Wonderful!" exclaimed Okiok; "when I am stuffed with seal-blubber as
full as I can hold, I want nothing more."
Again the sailor laughed, and there was something so hearty and jovial
in the sound that it became infectious, and the natives joined him,
though quite ignorant of the exciting cause. Even Tumbler took
advantage of the occasion to give vent to another howl, which, having
something of the risible in it, was tolerated. When silence was
restored, the visitor resumed--
"I joined these searchers, as they wanted an interpreter, and we came
away north here. Nothing particular happened at first. We had a deal
of squeezing an' bumping in the ice of course, but got little damage,
till about six days back I think, or thereabouts, when we got a nip that
seemed to me to cut the bottom clean out o' the big kayak, for when the
ice eased off again it went straight to the bottom. We had only time to
throw some provisions on the ice and jump out before it went down. As
our provisions were not sufficient to last more than a few days, I was
sent off with some men over the floe to hunt for seals. We only saw
one, asleep near its hole. Bein' afraid that the sailors might waken
it, I told them to wait, and I would go after it alone. They agreed,
but I failed. The seal was lively. He saw me before I got near enough,
and dived into his hole. On returnin' to where I had left the men I
found a great split in the ice, which cut me off from them. The space
widened. I had no small kayak to take me across. It was too cold to
swim. The floe on which my comrades stood was driftin', along wi' the
big floe, where the rest of them were. The ice on which I stood was
fast. A breeze was blowin' at the time, which soon carried the pack
away. In an hour they were out of sight, and I saw them no more. I
knew that it was land-ice on which I stood, and also that the coast
could not be far off; but the hummocks and the snow-drift prevented me
from seein' far in any direction. I knew also that death would be my
portion if I remained where I was, so I set off straight for land as
fast as I could go. How long I've been on the way I can't tell, for I
don't feel quite sure, and latterly my brain has got into a confused
state. I had a small piece of seal meat in my pouch when I started.
When it was done I cut a strip off my sealskin coat an' sucked that. It
just kept body and soul together. At last I saw the land, but fell, and
should have died there if the Good Spirit had not sent you to save me,
Okiok--so give us a shake of your hand, old boy!"
To this narrative the natives listened with breathless attention, but at
the conclusion Okiok looked at the extended hand in surprise, not
knowing what was expected of him. Seeing this, Rooney leaned forward,
grasped the man's right hand, shook it warmly, patted it on the back,
then, raising it to his lips, kissed it.
Stupid indeed would the man have been, and unusually savage, who could
have failed to understand that friendship and good-will lay in these
actions. But Okiok was not stupid. On the contrary, he was brightly
intelligent, and, being somewhat humorous in addition, he seized
Rooney's hand instantly after, and repeated the operation, with a broad
smile on his beaming face. Then, turning suddenly to Tumbler, he
grasped and shook that naked infant's hand, as it sat on the floor in a
pool of oil from a lamp which it had overturned.