In the smoky light of the rude interior of that Yakut hut, I saw at
first only Louis Noros, clothed in ragged woolen underwear, bending
over a rough table, sawing away with his sheath knife on a loaf of
hard black bread, while in a corner by themselves a number of Yakuts
were busy over the fire on their own supper. Noros glanced up on my
entrance, looked at me vacantly, and then resumed his hacking at the
hard bread. I waited a moment to see if he might recognize me, but as
he did not, I advanced, stretched out my hand, and said,
“Hello, Noros! Don’t you know me?”
Startled at being addressed in English, Noros dropped his knife, peered
intently in my face, and then fell on my neck, sobbing,
“My God, Mr. Melville, are _you_ alive?”
At this outburst, through the smoky room I saw Nindemann suddenly
lift himself on one elbow from a rough couch at the side and cry out
brokenly,
“Mr. Melville! We thought you were dead! That all hands on the
_Jeannette_ were dead except me and Noros! Louis and me thought we were
the only survivors—we were sure the whaleboat’s were all drowned as
well as the second cutter’s!”
Bending over Nindemann, too far gone to lift himself, while Noros clung
round my shoulders, I wept with them.
“No, boys,” I said gently, “the whole whaleboat’s crew is safe. And
they’re all overjoyed to know that you are too. But who died in your
boat, and where, for God’s sake, are the skipper and the rest of your
boat’s crew? I’ll go for them right away.”
“No use! They must be all gone by now!” sobbed out Nindemann feebly.
“Over three weeks ago, October 9th, the captain sent me and Louis south
to look for help, and they were nearly dead then; no food for seven
days and everybody frozen bad. We struggled to the south along the
river and were no more able even to crawl and nearly dead ourselves
when the natives found us twelve days after and carried us here.”
Nindemann’s choking voice broke hysterically. “Mr. Melville, we didn’t
want to come here, we wanted them to take us back! But we couldn’t make
anybody understand about the captain. And he was dying then. Now it’s
too late!” and falling back on his wooden couch, Nindemann wept like a
baby in my lap.
“Where are they now?” I asked sadly. “I’ll find them! Tell me; what
happened, boys?” and as I listened, the tears streamed down my
roughened cheeks as between them, Noros and Nindemann poured out the
story of the first cutter and its crew.