The answer was not effusive, but Jordan, who saw the little darker flush
that crept into the bronzed faces and the slow clenching of a brown hand
here and there, appeared contented. He knew that he had but to lead and
the men would follow.
"Well," he said grimly, "if we've any kind of fortune we'll be there
to-morrow."
He nodded to them, and when he went up the ladder Donegal gleefully
thumped Montreal on the shoulder.
"It's you and me that's spoiling--just spoiling for to-morrow," he said,
and made a run at Appleby who was grinning at him. "And you knew it and
never told. Sure I saw ye kicking Mainsail Haul. It's me that would be
caressing ye wid a rope end, me darling."
Appleby swung himself up the ladder. "Sure, 'tis no sensible man would
go looking for a row when he could run away," he said.
Donegal shook his fist at him. "Ye will stop up there where it's nice
and fresh," he said. "No man can be sensible always. 'Twould not be
good for him."
Next day they raised a gray blur above the horizon, and Jordan, when he
saw it, headed out to sea again. Then he laid the _Champlain_ to, and it
was not until dusk was creeping across the waters that they edged in
towards the land again. The time passed very slowly, and the men were
for the most part unusually silent, though there was a curious
anticipation in their faces, and Montreal sat very grim and quiet
rubbing out a rifle. It occurred to the lads who watched him now and
then that it would not be nice to be the Russians who had ill-used his
brother if he came across them.
There was no moon, and the sky was dimmed by driving haze when they
pulled ashore, three boatloads of them with rifles, clubs and knives,
and no man spoke when they sprang out waist-deep in the long white wash
that went seething up the beach. Two stayed behind to watch the boats,
and with the stones rattling beneath them the rest went on. Appleby and
Niven, who limped painfully, followed too, because Jordan had apparently
been too much occupied to notice them. It seemed to the lads that
anybody who might be listening must hear the noise they made a mile
away, but the sea frothed and roared upon the beaches close behind, and
when they wound beneath the face of a crag another sound grew louder.
It was the voice of the big bull seals, and while they blundered over
the slippery ledges the lads could dimly see that every shelf of rock
was packed with curious shadowy objects. Some of them were shambling
forward, some lying still with heads held up, but all were roaring,
piping, bleating at once, and the din they made was indescribable.
Suddenly two of them flopped over a ledge and came shambling towards the
men, one of whom stepped aside, while Appleby, starting a little at the
sight of the half-seen shapeless thing heading for him, swung up his
club. It looked very big as it came on through the semi-darkness.
Somebody, however, laughed and grabbed his arm.
"He's not going to hurt you, sonny, if you get out of his way," a voice
said. "Just a bull seal they've shoved out of the rookery. He'll go
back and pull one of the rest of them out presently."
The seal flopped away into the shadow or into the sea, and the men
finding better footing went on more rapidly, until when Jordan signed to
them they stopped breathless on the crest of a rise. Beneath them in
the dimness the sea frothed whitely, and a swarm of shadowy objects were
apparently shuffling down the slope between.
"Holluschackie!" said Jordan dryly. "It's quite likely we'll take a few
of them along. Get the lie of the place into you, boys. You might want
to find the boats handy when you come back again."
The lads looked round with the others, but there was very little to see.
A low black rise ran up into the haze in front of them, and here and
there they caught the glimmer of a patch of snow. All round the
darkness seemed closing in, and out of it came the boom of the sea on
the beaches and a doleful wail of wind, for the seals were almost quiet
again. Appleby could feel his heart beating and his temples throbbing
as he wondered what that dimness hid.
"It reminds me of the night we stole Jimmy's duck," said Niven, but his
voice was not quite the same as usual. "It will be something to look
back upon."
"Oh, yes," said Appleby dryly. "So long as we do it on board the
schooner. It wouldn't be quite so nice to remember it in Siberia."
"If I couldn't talk of anything more cheerful I'd shut my mouth tight!"
said Niven, who felt the chilly darkness growing curiously unpleasant.
He fancied he could have made a dash at an armed loghouse as well as the
rest, but this slow crawling in on an unknown enemy was a very different
and much more disconcerting affair.
Just then Jordan raised his hand, and they went on again, blundering
over a boulder here and there, and now and then splashing through a
little slushy snow, but still there was only sliding haze about them and
in front grey obscurity, until the lads commenced to wonder whether they
would go tramping on the whole night through. At last, however, they
stopped again on the summit of another rise, and Appleby grasped Niven's
arm when he made out the dim blink of a light in the fog. The men
murmured together, and Jordan seemed to be speaking, but Appleby did not
hear what he said. He could only watch the light, while Niven
afterwards admitted that he could recollect very little but a feverish
desire to get what they had to do over.
Once more the men wont on, a little quicker now, while the soft patter
of their feet and the rattle of a rifle as one of them stumbled seemed
horribly distinct in the stillness. Nobody, however, appeared to hear
them, and at last when the dim outline of a house rose blackly against
the night the pace grew faster, until it became a run, and the lads saw
the line of shadowy figures split up left and right. Then they heard
Jordan's voice.
"In with you. You know what you have to do!"
Appleby's fears seemed to fall from him, and it was with a wild desire
to shout that he followed the rest at a breathless run, while Niven
floundered along a few paces behind him. The house rose higher and
blacker, and still nobody seemed to hear them until a dog commenced
growling as they swept round to the rear of it, and stood apart on
either side when Montreal with his rifle-butt beat upon the door.
There was a cry of surprise inside, a sound of voices, and footsteps
that stopped again, while a deep growl made answer when Montreal once
more beat upon the door. Then he stepped back and swung up his rifle.
"No time for fooling, boys," he said. "In she goes."
Appleby saw the weapon whirl high, and another shadowy man standing with
the muzzle of his rifle pointed at the door. Then it came down
crashing, there was a rush of feet, and he went in with the rest over
the shattered door.
A glare of light shone into his eyes, there was a savage growl and a
flash as something sprang straight at the foremost of them. A smear of
acrid smoke filled the passage, but Appleby fancied he saw a big
sealing-club whirl up, and the dog went down, for next moment he
stumbled over something that felt soft beneath him. Then with somebody
running before them they burst into a room, and the lads long remembered
the picture that met them.
Two men who had apparently fled along the passage stood sullenly at the
further end of it, and two more who had evidently dragged a table into a
corner behind it. They were less than half-dressed, but one who was
tall with blue eyes and straw-coloured hair had on a partly buttoned
naval uniform. A pistol glinted in his hand, and an inch or two of
blue-grey steel shone at his belt. The other man's face was sallow, but
he was unarmed, and there was a curious glint in his little dark eyes as
he watched the sealers.
For a moment they stood looking at each other, and then another door on
the opposite side of the room was driven open and Jordan, rifle in hand,
came in. Behind him came Stickine and Donegal. More sealers in shaggy
furs and greasy canvas trooped in, but still the blue-eyed officer stood
apparently unconcerned. Then Jordan dropped his rifle-butt and held up
his hand.
"When I want a man to do anything I'll tell him," he said, and turned
gravely to the officer. "You can put that thing down. Nobody's going
to hurt you. Can you talk any English?"
The officer who, Appleby surmised, was from the Baltic coast, made a
sign of comprehension. "A little--but more easy the French," he said.
"Then," said Jordan dryly, "we'll get ahead. Fetch Brulee in,
Stickine."
While Stickine went out the officer laid down his pistol, and with a
little deprecatory gesture straightened his uniform and drew tight his
belt. Then, to Appleby's astonishment, he took out a little silver box
and shook a few cigarettes out from it on to the table. He did not seem
in any way disturbed, though the faces of the big bronzed sealers who
carried clubs and rifles were very grim as they watched him. This was
almost a shock to Appleby, who had hitherto half-instinctively believed
that quiet fearlessness and resolute composure in times of stress and
peril were only to be expected from Englishmen. Yet here was a Russian
helpless in the hands of men whom he knew had a bitter grievance against
him and his comrades, and if he felt the slightest fear of them it was
at least imperceptible. Appleby was, however, to discover later on that
while some lands are considerably more pleasant to live in than others
the fact that he was born in England or Russia, or elsewhere, after all
makes no great difference in the qualities that become any man.
Then he saw that Stickine had returned, and the officer was speaking.
"What you make here, Captain?" he said, getting out the words with
evident difficulty.
"He's too slow," said Jordan. "Ask him if he has more men anywhere
around, Brulee."
"Two of them at the huts, and 'bout a dozen natives," was the answer.
Jordan nodded, and Montreal stepped forward, his face grey and set, and
his fingers trembling on his rifle. "I guess it's 'bout time I did some
talking too," he said "Ask if he has seen my brother."
"Get right back until you're wanted. It's me that's running this show,"
said Jordan. "Ask him if they've got an Englishman there, Brulee."
The officer made a little gesture of assent. "They have one who works,"
he said.
"Send for him right now," said Jordan sternly. "Four of my men will go
along in case there's any blundering."
The dark-skinned man slipped out from behind the table, and when he went
out with four of the sealers behind him the blue-eyed officer held out
the little box.
"You will do me the pleasure, Captain," he said in French.
Jordan smiled dryly. "No, thanks," he said. "I've no great use for
these things, and I don't know that I'm open to take anything of that
kind from you just now."
The Russian, who seemed to understand him, laughed a little. "With
permission," he said, and lighted a cigarette. "Now you can tell me
what you come for, Captain."
"You can tell him 'bout Motter, Brulee. Two of you will keep a look-out
outside there," said Jordan, and crossing over sat down on the table.
Then there followed a very anxious interval, and Appleby fancied by the
way the men glanced towards the door that they were as expectant as he
was himself. Now and then one of them moved restlessly, and the lads
could hear the crackle of the stove and the moan of the wind about the
building. They caught very little of Brulee's narrative, but long
afterwards the scene returned to them, and they could see Jordan sitting
very still, with an impassive bronzed face beneath his fur cap, on the
table, and the blue-eyed officer languidly watching him while the smoke
of the cigarette drifted between them. It also seemed to both the lads
that if either of the men let his fear or anger master him a much more
deadly vapour would whirl in thicker wreaths about the lonely building.
Brulee seemed disposed to make the most of his opportunity, but he
stopped at last, and the officer nodded to Jordan comprehendingly.
"_Lache_. _Infame_! It was not my affair," he said in French.
After that there was silence, until a tramp of feet grew nearer, and a
murmur rose from the anxious men when a voice came out of the darkness
hoarse and exultant, "We've got him."
Then, with Montreal and another man in front of them, the sealers came
in, and there was once more a murmur when the first two stopped close by
Jordan, who held out his hand.
"And you're Tom Allardyce?" he said.
The man's hand seemed to shake as he grasped the skipper's, and his eyes
grew a trifle hazy when the rest grinned at him encouragingly and
Montreal patted his shoulder.
"Yes," he said. "I was cast away up here 'most two years ago."
"Sit down," said Jordan quietly, with a glance at the Russian officer.
"Tell us all about it. Don't worry, and go slow. I've a reason for
wanting to know."
The man sat down, and there was another little murmur when the sealers
saw his lined and haggard face, for there was on it the stamp of hunger
and suffering. His hands were clawlike, and there was a great scar upon
his forehead.
"It's good to see you, boys," he said, and his voice died away hoarsely.
Then he turned to Jordan. "You're going to take me back with you?"
Jordan laughed a little. "Oh, yes," he said. "Look at the boys. I
guess they're not going to let me leave you, if I wanted to."
The lurking fear died out of Allardyce's eyes. "Well," he said, "I was
cast away--me and an Indian and Stetson, sealing from the old St.
Michael. 'Twas back there on the eastern reefs we came ashore, and when
I got him out Stetson's head was crushed in. That left me and the
Indian, and the Russians sent us west when the gun-boat came. I don't
know how long they kept us yonder, but one night when they sent us down
the coast on a schooner me and the Indian got away from her. The boat
was a good one, and, for it was blowing fresh, we ran back north before
the wind I don't know where, and lived with the natives ashore until the
Indian got drowned in an ice crack while we starved through that winter.
There's lots of things I don't seem to remember, but I got blown off in
a skin boat at last, and when I'd lived most of a week on nothing a
schooner fetched me here."
It was a very disjointed story, but the sealers could fill in the cold
and hunger of those terrible wanderings which Allardyce, whose face
spoke more plainly for him, left out. Brulee rendered it into French,
and Jordan turned to the officer.
"Your people take away a white man's liberty and leave him to rot
without a hearing?" he said.
The Russian made a little deprecatory gesture. "The Department is
slow--or perhaps it is occupied, and he ran away too soon. One waits
the instructions, and if the papers do not come--what would you?
Sometimes a man is forgotten."
"Did you ever see this man before, Allardyce?" asked Jordan.
"No," said the sealer. "Not until he came here with the gun-boat a week
ago."
Jordan nodded, and pointed to the dark-skinned man. "Have the folks here
ill-treated you?"
"No," said Allardyce. "I had to work for them, and I was glad I had,
but they never did no harm to me."
Jordan turned once more to the Russians. "I guess," he said grimly,
"that was quite fortunate for all of you. Now, how long have you been
working for them, Allardyce?"
"Since soon after the ice broke up. When that was I don't quite know."
"Well," said Jordan dryly, "we'll fix up the thing. I've had to come
here with my schooner for this man, and I'll charge my time to you at
forty dollars the day besides what Motter stole from me. We'll figure
he has been working here two months, anyway, and he'd have got 'bout two
dollars and a half for every day of it in our country. Then there's the
months you kept him on the other coast without giving him a show to make
out his innocence, and his damaged feelings. That will run to five
hundred dollars, anyway, and it's very moderate. You can't do things of
that kind to a Canadian without it costing something. Still, the
trading folks aren't going to lose anything, because the Government's
bound to pay them. Now, have you got any roubles with you?"
"Very few," said the dark-skinned man in French. "We pay the natives in
provisions."
Jordan nodded. "Then I'll work it out in seals," he said. "Now I'm
wanting that pistol and your sword from you."
The blue-eyed officer laid his hand upon the blade. "You can have my
word--a six hour's truce--but this only in one way."
"Well," said Jordan with a little laugh, "I guess I can trust you,
because we've got your men's rifles, and I'll leave enough of the boys
to take care of you. Montreal, you'll stop with four of them, and the
rest will come along with me. It's going to take a good many
holluschackie to square this deal."
The Russian nodded, and lighted another cigarette, and the lads went out
with the rest into the misty night.
*CHAPTER XX*
*THE NEXT MEETING*
The men stopped at last at the head of the slope to the sea, and the
lads discovered that the task before them was a good deal less simple
than they had fancied. There were the seals--they could see them dimly
lying in groups on the shingle or shambling about--but it became evident
that their destruction could not be undertaken in a haphazard fashion,
for Jordan sent two of the men to work round between them and the sea.
"We'll give them 'bout ten minutes, boys, and then start in. I'm
entitled to so many skins, but I've no use for spoiling the whole herd,"
he said.
Here and there a man beat his hands while they waited, for the night was
cold, others lighted their pipes, and Niven, who was glad to rest his
wrenched foot, sat down.
"Why don't we go straight in and club them?" he asked Stickine.
"It wouldn't be the square thing," said the Canadian. "A seal knows a
good deal, and if we killed 'bout half of them among the rest, those
that got away would tell the others, and it would be a long while before
they came back to this beach again."
"But seals only do things instinctively," said Niven.
Donegal, who was standing close by, laughed as he asked, "And what is
instinct, anyway?"
Niven appeared to have some difficulty in finding an answer, and Appleby
grinned at him. "Better tell him you don't know," he said.
Donegal nodded. "Nor any one else, but the holluschackie have brains in
their heads, as ye will see before this conthract's through. And what
were they given brains for if 'twas not to make use av them? 'Tis the
vanity of ignorance would have ye believe there's no sense in the
wondherful things in the sea. Sure, Donovitch and his Indians could tell
ye better."
This was a new point of view to Appleby, but being aware that his sealer
comrades had seen more of the denizens of the waters than all the city
men who lectured and wrote about them put together he made no answer.
"Then when are we going to club them?" asked Niven.
"When we've drawn out those we want and driven them nice and slow to a
handy place," said Stickine.
Before they had time for further questions Jordan spoke to Stickine, and
spreading out they floundered down the slope and then closed in on the
seals. The latter made no very great effort to avoid them, and when
they had driven them together Jordan separated those he wanted from the
rest.
"We'll take these along," he said.
Then while most of the herd went flopping down the slope in a hurry to
the sea the men urged the rest slowly towards the higher ground, pushing
one here and there with their feet, or prodding them with their rifles.
It was dark, but the lads could see the seals more or less plainly,
though it would have puzzled either of them to describe their
progression. They did not walk, they did not crawl, but every move set
their blubber-coated bodies quivering, and nothing more appropriate than
flopping occurred to Niven. They also went faster than he fancied they
could have done, though the men seemed desirous not to hurry them, and
when he asked, Stickine told him the reason.
"If you make them hot before you club them, they'll spoil their pelts,"
he said. "You could strip the fur right off a seal that had been run
too hard with your fingers."
They went on, and when now and then one of the seals made a futile
endeavour to get away, or stopped, and, raising itself in a curious
fashion, gazed at its persecutors, the lads commenced to be sorry for
them. They also felt a squeamishness that was almost too much for them
when at last, after they and the seals had rested a little, the men set
about the slaughter. After the first few minutes both lads slipped away,
for the sight of the limp, quivering bodies and whirling clubs almost
sickened them, but they dare not go too far, and the thud of the
crushing blows followed them. Niven had seen Donovitch stand over his
victims and beat their heads in, and the recollection of it remained
with him.
"Of course you can't have seal-skins without killing seals, but they
seemed so harmless--and I wish I hadn't come," he said.
His regret was even stronger when Jordan called him, and very much
against his wishes he helped to roll round the horribly smelling, greasy
bodies while the others flayed them. At every clutch his fingers sank
in the warm, shaking blubber, and when at last the work was over his
face was white and he shivered from revulsion. It was daylight now, and
the men stood about him dabbled here and there with blood, and foul with
grease all over, while he fancied that one could have smelt them from
the schooner.
"It's beastly," he said to Appleby. "I feel as if I'd eaten no end of
things that didn't agree with me."
Then Jordan sent two men back for the Russian officer, and nodded to him
when he came.
"I want you to see what we've got. We're 'bout square now," he said.
The officer glanced down at the slaughtered holluschackie with a little
gesture of disgust. Then he laughed as he said in French, "It is not my
affair. I see you again one day, Captain, and it is perhaps different
then."
Brulee made this plain, and Jordan smiled. "If you do it's quite likely
I can show as good a fist as you. Anyway, we're going off now, and I'll
bid you good-morning. You'll find your men's rifles down there on the
beach when you want them."
In another half-hour they were pulling off to the schooner, and when
they sat at breakfast in the hold Stickine grinned at the lads.
"Feeling any better now?" he said. "You don't like clubbing
holluschackie?"
"No," said Appleby with a little shiver of disgust. "I've been wondering
whether it's not going to make trouble for Jordan, too, because somebody
will, in all probability, send on the demand to Canada if those folks
ask their Government to pay the damage."
Stickine smiled dryly. "It's not quite likely that they will," he said.
"The fellows who're responsible do some kind of curious things, and
neither they nor the sealers have much use for talking. 'Pears to me
that more than one Government is getting tired of us, and the Russian
department bosses want a man who knows how to keep out of trouble. If
he gets worrying them they're quite likely to find another use for him.
Of course, there'll be some writing, but Ned Jordan only took what he
was entitled to when he might have swept the island, and it isn't going
to suit anybody to drag Tom Allardyce in."
Appleby could not decide then or afterwards whether Stickine was right,
but it seemed to him that there was a good deal of reason in his
opinion. In any case he had little leisure to consider the affair just
then, for Jordan called them up on deck to hoist the topsails, and they
spent most of that day watching for a wind. It was as usual dim and
hazy, and the lads fancied that Jordan was a trifle anxious, for he
swept the sea with his glasses as they rolled slowly east. Appleby was
also within hearing when he drew Stickine away from the rest.
"We're in a kind of fix," he said. "There's nothing the Russians
wouldn't do to square up the deal with us, and that fellow we left
behind will be pulling all he's worth for Motter's to turn the gun-boat
loose. If I'd figured we were going to have this weather I'd have set
his boat adrift. Send an Indian to the cross-trees to keep a look-out
for her."
The wind came, almost too much of it, in the afternoon, and at dusk the
_Champlain_ was lying as close as she could to it with her lighter
canvas stowed, and a nest of reefs to leeward. The lads could see the
white foam flying and the whirling clouds of spray, and were wondering
whether the schooner could weather them on that tack when the Indian
aloft stretched out his hand, and somebody shouted--
"Boat close in with the surf."
Appleby went up the masthoops, and could just make out something that
swung into sight now and then against the whiteness of the surf behind
it. It was, he surmised, a boat, and he saw that Jordan was watching
her under the main-boom.
"The Russian!" he said. "It don't seem sense to let her get that close
in with the rocks to lee."
"Somebody waving!" said Stickine, who had taken up the glasses.
"They're used up, and can't pull her out against the sea."
There was silence for at least another minute, while the men stared at
the whirling spray and the dusky object that was hove up every now and
then, and Niven shivered a little, for he could guess what would happen
to worn-out men, hurled upon those fangs of rock by the frothing sea.
The reefs would mangle them out of human semblance, in all probability.
Then Jordan glanced to weather at the big froth-tipped slopes of water
that rolled up towards them, and shook his head solemnly.
"We can't let them drown," he said. "Get your maintopsail up, but let
it lie below the gaff, and shake loose the outer jib. We'll want them
when we come to beat her out again."
"Square away?" asked Montreal at the helm.