Left on Labrador Part 18

"So do I, Palmleaf," said Raed; "but then opinions differ, you know.

These Esquimaux are nothing but savages."

"Dey're berry ill-mannered fellars, sar, to make de best of dem. I wouldn't hev 'em roun', sar, stinkin' up de ship."

"I don't see that they smell much worse than a pack of n.i.g.g.e.rs,"

remarked Wade provokingly; at which the darky went back to the galley muttering.

"Wade, some of these big negroes will pop you over one of these days,"

said Kit.

"Well, I expect it; and who'll be to blame for that? We had them under good control: you marched your hired Canadians down among us, and set them 'free,' as you say; which means that you've turned loose a cla.s.s of beings in no way fit to be free. The idea of letting those ignorant n.i.g.g.e.rs vote!--why, they are no more fit to have a voice in the making of the laws than so many hogs! You have done us a great wrong in setting them free: you've turned loose among us a horde of the most indolent, insolent, l.u.s.tful _beasts_ that ever made a h.e.l.l of earth.

You can't look for social harmony at the South! Why, we are obliged to go armed to protect our lives! No lady is safe to walk half a mile unattended. I state a fact when I say that my mother and my sisters do not dare to walk about our plantation even, for fear of those brutish negroes."

"I think you take a rather one-sided view, Wade," said Raed.

"It's the only side I can see."

"Perhaps; but there is another side, nevertheless."

Here a tramping on the stairs was heard, and Weymouth came down, followed by a large Esquimau.

"He's been trying to make out to us that he's the chief, boss, sachem, or whatever they call it, of the crowd that was aboard yesterday,"

said Weymouth.

"What does he want?" the captain asked.

"Wants to _chymo_."

Raed made signs for him to sit down in the chair at the table and eat with us; which, after some hesitation, he did rather awkwardly, and with a great knocking of his feet against the chairs. He had on a gorgeous bearskin jacket, with the hood drawn over his head. His face was large; his nose small, and nearly lost between the fat billows of his cheeks; his eyes were much drawn up at the corners, and very far apart; and his mouth, a very wide one, was fringed about with stiff, straggling black bristles. The cast of his countenance was decidedly repulsive. Kit made signs for him to drink his coffee; but he merely eyed it suspiciously. I then helped him to a heavy spoonful of mashed potatoes. He looked at it a while; then, seeing us eating of it, plunged in his fingers, and, taking up a wad, thrust it into his mouth, but immediately spat it out, with a broad laugh, all over his plate and over the other dishes, and kept spitting at random.

"De nasty dog!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Palmleaf, rushing forward from the galley: "spit all ober de clean plates!"

The savage turned his eye upon the black, and, with a horrible shout, sprang up from his chair, nearly upsetting the table-shelf, and made a bolt for the stairway. We called to him, and followed as quickly as we could: but, before we were fairly on deck, he was over into his _kayak_, plying his paddle as if for dear life; and the more we called, the faster he _dug to it_.

Suddenly, as we were looking after him and laughing, the heavy report of cannon sounded from the southward. Looking around, we saw a large ship coming to below the islands, at a distance of about three miles.

A thrill of apprehension stole over us. Without a word, we went for our gla.s.ses. It was a large, staunch-looking ship, well manned, from the appearance of her deck. As we were looking, the English flag went up. We had expected as much.

"It's one of the Hudson-bay Company's ships," remarked Raed.

"Of course," said Kit.

"Not likely to be anything else," said the captain.

"I suppose you're aware that those fellows may take a notion to have us accompany them to London," remarked Raed.

"If they can catch us," Kit added.

"Persons caught trading with the natives within the limits of the Hudson-bay Company's chartered territory are liable to be seized, and carried to London for trial," continued Raed. "It's best to keep that point well in view. n.o.body would suppose that, in this age, the old beef-heads would have the cheek to try to enforce such a _right_ against Americans, citizens of the United States, who ought to have the inside track of everything on this continent. Still they may."

"It will depend somewhat on the captain of the vessel--what sort of a man he is," said Kit. "He may be one of the high and mighty sort, full of overgrown notions of the company's authority."

Another jet of white smoke puffed out from the side of the ship, followed in a few seconds by another dull _bang_.

"We'll stand by our colors in any case," remarked Capt. Mazard, attaching our flag to the signal halliards.

Raed and Kit ran to hoist it. Up it went to the peak of the bright-yellow mast,--the bonny bright stars and stripes.

"All hands weigh anchor!" ordered Capt. Mazard.

"Load the howitzer!" cried Kit. "Let's answer their gun in coin!"

While we were loading, the schooner was brought round.

Wade must have got in a pretty heavy charge; for the report was a stunner.

"Load again," said Kit; "and put in a ball this time. Let's load the rifle too."

The captain turned and regarded us doubtfully, then looked off toward the ship. "The Curlew" was driving lazily forward, and, crossing the channel between the island under which we had been lying and the ice-field, pa.s.sed slowly along the latter at a distance of a hundred and fifty or two hundred yards. We thus had the ice-island between us and the possibly hostile ship. With our gla.s.ses we now watched her movements attentively. A number of officers were on the quarter-deck.

"You don't call that a ship-of-war?" Wade said at length.

"Oh, no!" replied the captain; "though it is probably an armed ship.

All the company's ships go armed, I've heard."

"There!" exclaimed Kit. "They're letting down a boat!"

"That's so!" cried Wade. "They're going to pay us a visit sure!"

"They probably don't want to trust their heavy-laden ship up here among the islands," said the captain.

"It's their long-boat, I think," said Kit. "One, two, three, four, five!--why, there are not less than fifteen or twenty men in it! And _see there!_--weapons!"

As the boat pulled away from the side, the sun flashed brightly from a dozen gleaming blades.

"Cutla.s.ses!" exclaimed Raed, turning a little pale.

I am ready to confess, that, for a moment, I felt as weak as a rag.

The vengeful gleam of the light on hostile steel is apt, I think, to give one such a feeling the first time he sees it. The captain stood leaning on the rail, with the gla.s.s to his eye, evidently at his wits'

end, and in no little trepidation. Very likely at that moment he wished our expedition had gone to Jericho before he had undertaken it.

Raed, I think, was the first to rally his courage. I presume he had thought more on the subject previously than the rest of us had done.

The sudden appearance of the ship had therefore taken him less by surprise than it did us.

"It looks as if they were going to board us--if we let them," he said quietly. "That's the way it looks; isn't it, captain?"

"I should say that it did, decidedly," Capt. Mazard replied.

"Boys!" exclaimed Raed, looking round to us, and to the sailors, who had gathered about us in some anxiety,--"boys! if we let those fellows yonder board us, in an hour we shall all be close prisoners, in irons perhaps, and down in the hold of that ship. We shall be carried out to Fort York, kept there a month in a dungeon likely as any way, then sent to England to be tried--for daring to sail into Hudson Bay and trade with the Esquimaux! What say, boys?--shall we let them come aboard and take us?"

"No, sir!" cried Kit.