Cast Away in the Cold Part 19

CHAPTER XVII.

A very Peculiar Person appears and disappears, and the Castaways are filled alternately with Hope and Fear.

"How long we slept I have not the least idea. It may have been a whole day, or it may have been two days. It was not a twenty years' sleep, (how we wished it was!) like that of Rip Van Winkle, yet it was a very long sleep; and, indeed, neither of us cared how long it lasted, we were so heartbroken about what seemed to be the greatest misfortune that had yet happened to us. If we woke up at any time, we went to sleep again as quickly as possible, not caring at all to come back any sooner than was necessary to the contemplation of our miserable situation,--never reflecting for a moment that the situation had not been changed in the least by the unknown man who had appeared and disappeared in such a mysterious way. But the sight of him had brought our thoughts freshly back to the world from which we had been cut off,--a world with human beings in it like ourselves; and it was not unnatural, therefore, that we should be made miserable by the event. And so we slept on and on, and thus we drowned everything but our dreams, which are everywhere very apt to be most bright and cheering in the most gloomy and despondent times.

Such, at least, was the case with me; and if I could have kept dreaming and dreaming on forever, about pleasant things to eat, and pleasant people talking to me, I should have been quite well satisfied.

"Thus you see what a great number of ups and downs we had,--sometimes being cheerful and fully resigned, then again buried in the very depths of despair. Sometimes we felt real pleasure in the life to which we had become so well accustomed; and it seemed to us, as we chatted together in our warm and well-lighted hut, that, since every necessary want was well supplied, and we were entirely free from care, we should be well satisfied to continue in that situation all our lives. We had, in truth, few troubles and few anxieties. Food, fuel, and clothing we possessed in abundance, and no fears crossed our minds that they would ever fail us.

"But this satisfactory state of mind, so natural at times, was apt to be broken up by a very slight occurrence,--unusual fatigue, a restless sleep, a severe storm confining us to the hut for many days together, or by the disappointment we so often experienced when an object which we had confidently believed to be a ship proved to be but an iceberg. Nor was this more unnatural than that we should at times be perfectly happy and well contented. Thus are we all made, and thus are we all, at times, inconsistent; being often unhappy when there is no a.s.signable cause, and often experiencing the sense of great happiness, under circ.u.mstances apparently the most distressing.

"You will see, therefore, that there is but one way for any of us to preserve an even temper and uniform disposition; that is, I mean, always to be cheerful, never despondent, ever hopeful; and this can only be attained by always feeling the real presence of G.o.d with us; when we meet with disappointment, to say in our hearts, 'Well, it was not the will of G.o.d,' or, if we meet with what seems great good fortune, 'It is the will of G.o.d that we do some good work, and therefore he has thus blessed us.' Thus only can we be truly happy. With this feeling there is always consolation in distress. It begets charity, and love, and confidence, and gentleness; it makes the heart light and the face cheerful, and the life like a sunbeam gladdening where it goes. That's what the love of G.o.d does.

"These thoughts are suggested to me by the experiences that the Dean and I were having at the time I speak of. How much more happy we should have been, had we felt always as I have last described! we should then never have been cast down, but should have been always hopeful,--never wishing to sleep on and on, and thus drown sorrow. We should not have felt as we did now when the strange man had come from the frozen sea and disappeared again.

"Well, to come back to the story, we were not allowed to sleep as long as we wanted to. Our sleep was indeed brought to an end very suddenly. I was first startled by a great noise, and then, springing up, much alarmed, I aroused the Dean, who was a sounder sleeper even than myself.

"'What's the matter?' cried he.

"'Didn't you hear a noise?' I asked.

"'No!' answered the Dean; 'nothing more, at least, than a church-bell, and that was in my sleep,'--which was clear enough.

"Presently I heard the noise again, and this time it seemed to proceed from something not far off. It was now the Dean's turn to be amazed.

"'Did you hear?' I asked again.

"'Yes,' said the Dean, holding his breath to listen.

"Again the strange sound was repeated.

"'Is it the wind?'

"'How can it be? the wind does not make a noise like that!'

"'Can it be a bear?'

"'No! it cannot be a bear!'

"'A fox? perhaps it is a fox!'

"'No, listen! there it is again.'

"The sound was louder now, and nearer to the hut. Again and again it was repeated,--nearer now and more constant; then a footfall on the crusted snow.

"'It is a man! the bear-hunter has come back again!' spoke the Dean, throwing up his hands.

"Again the noise was heard; again the footfall creaked upon the snow.

"'The bear-hunter, it must be!' cried the Dean, again.

"'O, I pray that it is so!' I added, earnestly.

"Again the voice was heard. I answered it. The answer was returned, and with the answer came a heavier and more rapid creaking of the footfalls on the snow.

"We rushed from the hut into the open air without another moment's loss of time, and without saying another word; and there, not ten yards away, stood the very man who had pa.s.sed us on the sledge,--the bear-hunter of the frozen sea.

"And a strange-looking creature he was, to be sure. There was not the least sign of alarm or fear about him; but, on the contrary, he was looking mightily pleased, and was talking very fast in a language of which the Dean and I could neither of us understand a single word. When he was not talking he was laughing, and his enormous mouth was stretched almost from ear to ear. '_Yeh, yeh!_' he went, and I went that way too, by way of answer, which seemed greatly to delight him. He was dressed all over in furs, and looked very wild; but, as he kept _yeh-yeh_-ing all the time, we were not afraid. As he came up to us, we greeted him very cordially; but he could no more understand what we said than we could understand him. He talked very much, and gesticulated a great deal, pointing very often in one particular direction with his right hand. Then he cried, 'Mick-ee, mick-ee!' and pointed to the beach below, towards which we followed him. There we found a sledge and seven dogs; and now we understood very certainly, if we had any doubts before, that this was the man and these were the dogs that had pa.s.sed us, following the bear.

"The man tried his best to explain to us the whole affair, talking very rapidly; but we could not gather from what he said more than our eyes told us already, for on the sledge we soon discovered a large bear-skin, all b.l.o.o.d.y and folded up, and some large pieces of bear's meat. The dogs were tied some distance from the sledge, and were securely fastened by their traces to a heavy stone, which I was very glad of, for the wolfish-looking beasts were snarling at each other, and fighting, and howling at us continually,--seeming all the while to wish themselves loose, that they might fly upon us, and tear us to pieces.

"If we could not understand the hunter's words, we made out by his signs, after a while, that he had seen us when he pa.s.sed in pursuit of the bear. After overtaking and capturing the animal, he turned about upon his track to look for us, and, finding our footmarks at last, he had followed us to the hut, calling loudly, as he neared us, to attract our attention, for he could not find us easily,--our hut was so buried up in snow.

"After being fully satisfied with the inspection of the dogs and sledge, and what there was upon it, we all three went up to the hut.

"It would be difficult to describe our visitor. I have said that he was wholly dressed in furs. His pantaloons were made of bear-skins reaching to the knees, where they met the boots, which were made of the same materials. His underclothing was made of birds' skins, like our own, and he wore a coat of fox-skins, with a heavy hood covering up the head completely. On his hands he wore mittens made of seal-skins, with warm dog-skin for an inside lining, and his stockings were of the same. So you see no part of him was exposed but his face, which was quite dark, or, rather, copper-colored (something darker than a North American Indian), and it was very broad and very round. The nose was very small and very flat, and the eyes were small and narrow. His hair was jet black, long and tangled, and was cut straight across the forehead. He had but little beard,--only a few black, wiry-looking bristles growing on his upper lip and on the tip of his chin. You would hardly suppose that such a creature could be anything but savage and repulsive; yet this he did not seem to be at all; on the contrary he appeared like the most amiable fellow that ever was seen.

"He sat down before the fire on one of the big stones we used for stools, and the Dean and I sat one on either side of him; and I can never tell you how strange it seemed to be sitting there with another human being besides ourselves, after all that time spent without ever seeing anybody but each other. It was like a dream. We could hardly realize that it was true, as there we sat, staring at the strange man in wonder and astonishment.

"And all this time we were speculating about him,--where he came from, where he was going to, what relation did he hold to the world from which we had come in the _Blackbird_, could he tell us where we were, would he take us from the island, would he rescue us from this dreary life.

"O, how much we would have given for a few words from him that we could understand! How rejoiced we would have been to have these questions answered! Answering them, however, he might be even then, for anything we knew to the contrary; for he scarcely left off talking a single instant, but away he rattled as lively as a magpie and just as intelligibly. We could make nothing at all out of what he said, any more than I could of the hieroglyphics I have since seen on the stones of Egypt, until he put his hand to his mouth, at the same time throwing his head back a little, and repeating, several times, '_Me drink.u.m, Me drink.u.m._'

"This very much surprised us, as we knew that he was asking for water, which having been given him, he then said, '_Me eatum_', signifying that he was hungry. We lost no time, therefore, in preparing him a hearty meal of ducks and bear's meat, which he appeared to think very fine.

Then he had a great deal to tell us about something that he called '_Oomeaksuak_', the meaning of which we could not make out; but, as he pointed in a particular direction, we thought he meant the place where he lived. We could not understand from him what his name was; so, as we had to speak of him to each other constantly, we called him at once 'Eatum,' as that was the word he used most. He amused us very much with his frequent repet.i.tion of it, and with the enormous quant.i.ties of food he took into his stomach after he did repeat it; for he only had to say, '_Me eatum_' to get as much food as he wanted. It soon got to be quite a joke with us, and when he said, '_Me eatum_' we all three fell, not only to feeding, but to laughing besides.

"Finding himself in such good quarters, Eatum manifested no disposition to leave them; but, after he had taken a sound sleep, he had a great deal to say about '_mickee_', as before; and since he made a great many motions, as if using a whip (pointing all the while towards the beach), we concluded that he must mean something about his dogs, which we found to be true, for '_mickee_' in his language means dog, as we afterwards discovered. As soon as we had settled this, we all went out of the hut again, and went down and brought the bear's meat and skin on the sledge up to the hut, and then we fastened the dogs near by. After being fed, they all lay down and went to sleep on the snow. These dogs were very large and strong animals; and the seven could draw a very heavy load,--I should think that the whole seven could draw as much as a small horse.

"Eatum seemed to have been quite exhausted with long hunting when he came to us, and he did very little but eat and sleep for several days.

His nose had been a little touched by the frost, but he scorched some oil, and rubbed it on as we would ointment, and cured it very quickly.

"After he had eaten and slept to his entire satisfaction, he appeared to grow more lively, and showed a great deal of curiosity about our hut and furniture, and hunting implements, being highly pleased with every new thing he saw. It was very surprising to see how nearly like his own many of our things were,--our lamp and pot and cups, for instance, and also our clothing. Our harpoon (the 'Dean's Delight') was almost exactly a match for his.

"It was a great drawback to our satisfaction that we could not understand him or he us, but little by little we got over part of this difficulty; for, upon discovering that he used one particular word very often, I guessed that he must be asking a question. The word was '_Kina_'; so once when he used it he was pointing to our lamp, and I said 'lamp' at a venture, whereupon, after repeating it several times, he appeared to be much gratified, and then said, '_Kolipsut_', and this I repeated after him, which pleased him again. Then I knew that '_Kina?_' meant 'What is it?' or 'What's this?' so after that we _kina_-ed everything, and got on finely. We, of course, learned more rapidly than Eatum, picking up a great many words from him; and, having both of us good memories, we got to be able to make him understand us a little in the course of time; and as fast as we learned we taught him, and he got to know some of our language, in which we encouraged him. 'Me speak.u.m much bad,' he would say sometimes, which was very true; but so long as we understood him it made little matter.

"And now it was that we got to find out how he had picked up the few words such as _me drink.u.m_, _me eatum_, and so on, that he had used at first; for he gave us to know that we were not a long way from where ships came every year, and that some of his people saw the ships when they pa.s.sed, and sometimes went aboard of them. 'Ship' was what he meant by '_Oomeaksuak_', which word he had at first used so often. He had frequently been aboard of an _Oomeaksuak_, he said.

"Now this was great news for us, and we began at once to devise means of escape from the island. We made Eatum understand as much of what we wanted as possible. All this time I must not neglect to mention, however, that Eatum was of the greatest service to us; for when the weather was good he would fasten his dogs to the sledge, and all three of us would go out together on the sea to hunt,--Eatum driving. It was very lively sport; and sometimes, when the ice was very smooth and the snow hard, we went very fast, almost as fast as a horse would run, even with the three of us upon the sledge. The sledge, by the way, I must tell you, was made out of bits of bones, all cunningly lashed together with seal-skin thongs. Once we were caught in a severe gale a good way from home, and had to make a little house to shelter ourselves from it out of snow; and in this, with our furs on, we managed to sleep quite comfortably, and remained there about twenty-four hours before the weather would permit us to go on again.

"While in the snow hut we had a lamp to give us light and warmth; and this lamp (which was Eatum's) was made like ours, and Eatum made a spark, and started a flame, and kept it burning just as we had done,--the tinder being the down of the willow blossom (which he carried wrapped up in several layers of seal-skin), with moss for wick and the blubber for fuel. The pot in which he melted snow for water, and cooked our supper, was made, like ours, of soapstone.

"When the storm broke, we left the snow hut, and set out for the island; catching two seals by the way, and in the very same manner, too, that the Dean and I had done long before we ever knew there was such a person as Eatum in the world. We were much disappointed at not discovering any bears, and so were the dogs.

"But not many days afterward, the weather being fine, we went out upon the sea a great way, and were rejoiced to come across a bear's track, which Eatum said was very fresh. No sooner had the dogs seen it than away they started upon it; and over the ice and snow--rough and smooth, right upon the track--they ran as fast as they could go.

"The bear had been sleeping behind an iceberg, and we had come upon him so suddenly that he had not time even to get out of sight, and we saw him almost as soon as we had discovered the track. '_Nen-ook, nen-ook!_' cried Eatum, pointing towards the bear; and there he was, sure enough, running as fast as he could. But, no matter how fast he ran, we went still faster; and it could not have been an hour before we overtook him. Then Eatum leaned forward and untied his dogs, letting them run ahead while the sledge stopped. In a few minutes the dogs had brought the bear to bay,--surrounding the huge wild beast, and flying at his sides, and tormenting him in a very fierce manner. But I always observed that they took good care to keep away from his head, for if he should get a chance at one of them, and hit him with his huge paws, he would mash him flat enough, or knock him all into little bits.

"While the dogs were worrying the bear we got out our weapons,--the Dean his 'Delight,' I 'Old Crumply,' and Eatum a spear made of a narwhal horn, and looking, for all the world, just like 'Old Crumply's' twin brother. Then we rushed up to the bear, Eatum leading; and fierce though the animal looked, and awfully as he roared, we closed right in upon him, and quickly made an end of him. Then we drove off the dogs, and tied them to a hummock of ice, while we butchered the dead animal and secured the skin and what meat we wanted, after which we allowed the dogs to gorge themselves. Being now too full to haul, we had to let them lie down and sleep, while we built a snow hut, and, crawling into it, got a good rest. Then we returned to the island, mighty well satisfied with ourselves.