Wild Life in the Land of the Giants Part 25

Half a dozen rifles rang out in the still air, dusky forms sprang up in the canoes and fell to rise no more. Again and again our guns spread death in their ranks, and the nearer they came the hotter they had it.

We had spears in the boats, boarding pikes and axes. Would we have to use them? For a moment it seemed likely. All sail was set, and almost every hand was free for a tulzie that, if it came, would indeed be a terrible one.

One more telling volley. Would they now draw off? Yes, for over the water from the wreck came a mingled shout and yell. The canoes at once were stopped. Greed did what our guns had failed to accomplish. Murder and revenge are sweet to a savage, but tobacco and rum are sweeter still.

In ten minutes time we and our dusky foes were far apart indeed, the savages having a grand canoe race back to the wreck, we dancing away over the waves and heading straight for the east.

"Thank Heaven," said Ritchie, fervidly, "they're gone."

"Do you think we could have beaten them off, Ritchie?" I asked.

"One can never tell how things will go in a hand-to-hand fight. Not as ever I've been in many, but, bless your innocent soul, lad, I've come through so much. I came to close quarters once on the African sh.o.r.e with a crowd o' canoes just like that. I could have sworn we'd have beaten them off easy. And so we might have done, if our boats had continued on an even keel. But that wasn't their game. No, they threw themselves like wild cats on one gunwale, and over we went. They had us in the water; and by the time a boat shoved off from the _Wasp_ and came to our a.s.sistance, there was hardly a man among us left to tell tales."

"That was fearful!"

"Ye see--haul aft the main sheet a bit--you see, sir, mostly all savages has their own ways o' fightin', their own tactics as you might say.

Drat 'em all, I say."

"You don't believe in the n.o.ble savage?" said Jill.

"Not same's they make 'em nowadays, sir. 'Cause why, we white men have spiled them. And now we want to kill 'em all off the face o' the earth.

It's just like an ignorant old party having a dog for a pet. He's everything at first, and the very cat takes liberties with him, till one day he snaps. It's only natural, but what does the ignorant old party do?--why puts him in a bag and drowns him. It's the same wi' the savage: the white man has spoiled him, and now he thinks he'd better get rid of him entirely. Well, young gentlemen, by your leave I'll have a smoke. You've got the compa.s.s all right, Mr Jill? Thank ye. 'Cause if the weather changes for the worst, then--"

"Hush, hush. Why you _are_ a pessimist!"

"I don't know that s.h.i.+p. But never mind. You don't smoke?"

"N-no," said Jill, "not yet."

"Let me catch him at it," I said.

"What have ye got under the sail, sir?"

"Why, the dogs," said Jill, laughing. "You didn't think I was going to leave them, did you? Look here." He lifted the corner of the sail as he spoke, and there, sure enough, were Ossian the n.o.ble Scottish deerhound, and Bruce the collie.

"Mind," continued Jill, "both o' these would have done a little fighting if the worst had come to the worst."

The wind held steadily from the west and by north, and blew stiff after a time, but the boats sailed dry--neither were far distant from the other--and everything was as comfortable as could be expected under the sad circ.u.mstances.

"If there doesn't come any more north in it than this," said Ritchie, with a glance skyward, "it'll do. But, you see, we ought to be heading up Famine Reach now."

"What a name!" said Jill.

"Ay, and there is a sad and terrible story to it too, that some day I may perhaps tell you."

The afternoon wore slowly away, neither Jill nor I saying much; Ritchie, with his old-world yarns, doing nearly all the talking, and indeed it was a treat to listen to him. There was nothing of the nature of what are called sailor's yarns about Ritchie's talk, but an air of truthfulness in every sentence. Many a time by the galley fire in the dear lost _Salamander_, when asked by some of the men to "spin 'em a yarn," Ritchie would reply--

"If I thinks on anything as has really happened, I'll tell that. Mind ye, men," he would add, "I'm going on for fifty. That ain't a spring chicken, and I've knocked about so much and seen such a deal, that if I tells all the truth an' n.o.bbut the truth, why I'll be seventy afore I'm finished. By that time I reckon it'll be time to clear up decks to enter the eternal port."

Now, being senior officer, I really was in charge of the boat, still I determined to take advice in everything from Ritchie, as in duty bound, he being my superior by far and away both in age and experience, and I may add in wisdom.

So, when near sundown, I asked him if the men should eat, he shook his head and said--"Not yet awhile."

I did not feel easy in my mind at the answer, nor at his presently relapsing into silence, pulling harder at his pipe than usual without seeming to enjoy it, and casting so many half-uneasy glances skywards.

I feared that we were not yet out of danger. Jill had gone to sleep in the bottom of the boat, and somehow this also made me nervous and uneasy. I drew the sail over him with the exception of his face, and there he lay snug enough to all appearance, his head pillowed on the collie's shoulder. I could not help wondering to myself where he was in his dreams. At home, I could have wagered two to one--two turnips to a leg of mutton, for instance.

Presently his features became pained, set and rigid, and his hands were clutched in the sail, while he moaned or half screamed like one in a nightmare.

Ritchie noticed it too.

"Call his name. Call his name, sir. That's allers the way to bring 'em out of it."

Well, desperate diseases need desperate remedies, so I did call his name--in full too.

"_Rupert Domville Ffoljambe-Foley Jillard Jones_" I shouted, so loud that the other boats must have thought I was hailing them.

Jill sat bolt upright, looking bewildered.

Ossian and Bruce jumped up and barked.

The men all laughed, and no wonder.

"Well," said Ritchie, "blow me teetotally tight if ever in all my born days I 'eard sich a name as that 'afore. Why 'twould wake old Rip himself. After that I think the men better have 'alf a biscuit and a bite o' bacon. It'll do 'em good--after that."

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

LOST IN THE SNOWSTORM--WHAT WE SAW IN THE FOREST.

We all felt "heartier," as Ritchie phrased it, after our dainty morsel of supper. The pork, of course, was new, and, sailor fas.h.i.+on, we dipped our biscuits in the sea, to give them a relish, before we ate them.

The dogs shared just as if they had been part of the crew. So they were for that matter.

The wind fell off as the sun sank behind the snowy mountains, fell off and off, till we were becalmed. Then I gave the orders--

"In sail," and "out oars."

After spanking along under sail for so long a time as we had done, to be reduced to rowing seems dreary work. However, there is nothing like the sea for teaching one patience, so we did not murmur.

The sunset was gorgeous enough, in all conscience, and played all sorts of fantastic tricks of colouring among the snowy cliffs, peaks, and glaciers, making a picture such as few artists could, if they would, produce on canvas, or would dare to if they could.

As we had nothing else to do, Jill and I sat silently staring at the ever changing sky, with as much inward pleasure as ever child gazed upon the flowers in a kaleidoscope.

Even after the sun had set entirely, the sky was wondrous in its beauty.

It seemed to me as if the artist Nature, whom we all try to copy, were mixing her colours to commence some great new work, and that the sky was her palette.