Red Rooney: The Last of the Crew Part 31

The moon rose at last, and revealed the sheet of gla.s.sy ice which had previously disconcerted Ujarak. Angut also beheld it with much concern, and went on foot to examine it. He returned with an anxious look.

"They have crossed," he said moodily, "but the ice has cracked much, and my sledge is, I fear, heavier than theirs."

"We can walk, you know, and so lighten it," said Rooney.

"No; it is only by a dash at full speed that we can do it. Will my friend run the risk?"

"He would not be your friend if he were not willing," returned the seaman gravely; "but what about Kannoa? It's not fair to risk her life."

"We cannot leave her behind," said Angut, with a perplexed glance at the cowering figure on the sledge. "She could not return to the village on foot. That would be greater risk to her than going on with us."

At this point the old woman looked up with a sort of pleasant grin, and croaked--

"Kannoa is not heavy. Take her with you. She is quite willing to live or die with Angut and Ridroonee."

With a slight smile the Eskimo resumed his place and whip. Rooney patted Kannoa on the head as he sat down beside her, and called her a "brave old girl."

Another moment, and the dogs were out on the gla.s.sy plain, galloping as well as they could, and yelping as much from fear of the rending and bending ice as the cracking whip.

They had not advanced twenty yards when one of the sledge-runners broke through. This brought them to a sudden halt. Next moment the sledge went down, and Angut found himself struggling with the dogs in the sea.

Fortunately Rooney, being near the back part of the sledge, was able to roll off in a sort of back-somersault before the vehicle was quite submerged. Even in the act he did not forget Kannoa. He made a blind grasp at her in pa.s.sing, but found her not, for that remarkable woman, at the first alarm, and being well aware of what was coming, had sprawled off at the rear, and was already on the ice in safety.

The two now set to work to rescue Angut and the dogs. The former had cut the latter free from the sledge, so that it was not difficult to haul them out along with their master. For it must be remembered that, although the thin ice had failed to bear the sledge, it was sufficiently strong to support the individuals singly.

To get the sledge out of the water was, however, a matter of much greater difficulty, but they accomplished it in the course of an hour or so. The process of doing this helped to dry Angut's garments, which was fortunate. It was also fortunate that the sharp spring frost, which had set fast the s.p.a.ce of open water, had by that time given way, so that there was no fear of evil consequences from the ducking either to dogs or man.

But now came the serious question, What was to be done?

"It is of no use trying it again," said Angut, in a frame of mind amounting almost to despair.

"Could we not send Kannoa back with the sledge, and you and I make sail after them on foot?" asked Rooney.

Angut shook his head despondingly.

"Of no use," he said; "they have the best dogs in our village. As well might a rabbit pursue a deer. No; there is but one course. The land-ice is impa.s.sable, but the floes out on the sea seem still to be fast. If they break up while we are on them we shall be lost. Will Ridroonee agree to take old Kannoa back to her friends, and I will go forward with the sledge alone?"

"What say you, Kannoa?" asked Rooney, turning to the old woman with a half-humorous look.

"Kannoa says she will live or die with Angut and Ridroonee," she replied firmly.

"You're a trump!" exclaimed the seaman in English. Then, turning to the Eskimo--

"You see, Angut, it's impossible to get rid of us, so up anchor, my boy, and off we go seaward. The truth is, I ought to feel more in my element when we get out to sea."

Seeing that they were resolved, Angut made no further objection, but, directing the dogs' heads away from the land, flourished his long whip over them, and set off at as break-neck a pace as before over the seaward ice-floes.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

A TERRIBLE ENCOUNTER, DISASTROUS RESULTS, AND SINGULAR TERMINATION.

Let us return now to the wizard and his captives.

After travelling for several days at the utmost possible speed, the guilty man began to feel at ease as regarded pursuit, and commenced to advance at a more reasonable rate, giving the poor dogs time for sufficient rest, and going out once or twice on the floes to procure fresh supplies of seal-flesh for himself and his party.

The thaw which had by that time set steadily in had not broken up the old ice to the southward, so that no more thin ice or open water was met with. But although he had thus begun to take things more easily, Ujarak did not by any means waste time. The wretched man was very morose, even savage, insomuch that he would scarcely reply to the questions which were timidly put to him at times by the women. It was evident that he repented of his hasty flight, and no doubt was rendered desperate by the reflection that the matter was by that time past remedy.

One morning, on rounding one of those bluff precipitous capes which jut out from the western coast of Greenland into Baffin's Bay, they came unexpectedly in sight of a band of Eskimos who were travelling northwards.

Ujarak pulled up at once, and for some moments seemed uncertain what to do. He had not yet been observed, so that there was a possibility of turning aside, if he were so disposed, and hiding among the rugged ma.s.ses of ice which lined the bottom of the cliffs. Before he could make up his mind, however, on the subject, a loud shout from the Eskimos showed that he had been observed.

Turning sharply, and with a savage scowl, to the women, he said in a low voice--

"If you say that I have run away with you, I will kill you and the children."

A smile of contempt flickered on the face of Kabelaw at the moment.

Observing it, the wizard added--

"There will be no escape for _you_. Your death will be certain, for even if these people were to kill me, and carry you back to the village, my torngak would follow you and kill you."

He said no more, for he knew well that he had said enough.

At first sight of the Eskimo band, Kabelaw's heart had leaped for joy, because she at once made up her mind to explain how matters stood, and claim protection, which she had no doubt they would grant. But some Eskimos, not less than many civilised people, are deeply imbued with superst.i.tion, and the bare idea of an invisible torngak pursuing her to the death--in the possibility of which she and Nunaga more or less believed--was too much for her. In fear and trembling she made up her mind to be silent, and submit to her fate. It need scarcely be added, so did her more timid companion.

"Where do you come from?" asked the leader of the party when they met.

"From the far-away _there_," replied the wily wizard, pointing northward. "I do not ask where _you_ come from."

"Why not?" demanded the leader, in some surprise.

"Because I know already," answered Ujarak, "that you come from the far-away _there_," pointing southward; "and I know that, because I am an angekok. You have come from a spot near to the land where the Kablunets have settled, and you are bringing iron and other things to exchange with my kinsmen for horns of the narwhal and tusks of the walrus."

Knowing as he did from rumour that Eskimos from the Moravian settlements were in the habit of travelling northward for the purposes of barter, (though they had not up to that time travelled so far north as his own tribe), and observing bundles of hoop-iron on the sledges, it did not require much penetration on the part of a quick mind like that of Ujarak to guess whence the strangers had come, and what their object was.

Nevertheless, the leader and most of the party who had circled round the wizard and his sledge, opened their eyes in amazement at this smart statement of their affairs.

"My brother must indeed be a great angekok, for he seems to know all things. But we did not come from _near_ the land where the Kablunets have built their huts. We have come _from_ it," said the matter-of-fact leader.

"Did I not say that?" returned Ujarak promptly.

"No; you said near it--whereas we came from it, from inside of itself."

"Inside of itself must be very near it, surely!" retorted the wizard, with a grave look of appeal to those around him.

A laugh and nod of approval was the reply, for Eskimos appreciate even the small end of a joke, however poor, and often allow it to sway their judgment more powerfully than the best of reasoning--in which characteristic do they not strongly resemble some people who ought to know better? The matter-of-fact leader smiled grimly, and made no further objection to the wizard's claim to correct intelligence.

"Now," continued Ujarak, for he felt the importance of at once taking and keeping the upper hand, "my tribe is not far from here; but they are going away on a hunting expedition, so you must lose no time, else they will be gone before you arrive. They want iron very much. They have horns and tusks in plenty. They will be glad to see you. My torngak told me you were coming, so I came out a long way to meet you. I brought my wives and children with me, because I want to visit the Kablunets, and inquire about their new religion."

He paused for a moment or two, to let his tissue of lies have full effect, but the very matter-of-fact leader took advantage of the pause to ask how it was that if he, Ujarak, had been told by his torngak of the coming of the trading party, he had failed to tell his tribe _not_ to go on a hunting expedition, but to await their arrival.