Left on Labrador Part 31

We saw several flocks of them after that.

Half a mile farther round, we came upon a flock of razor-bills perched on the cliffs overhanging the water. They rose, and went croaking off toward the next islet, distant about three hundred yards, too quick for us to fire with caution.

"The sealers often get their eggs," Weymouth observed. "They're good fried, they say."

It then occurred to me that these eggs might be a very good and cheaply--as regarded ammunition--obtained article of food for us.

Laying down our guns, we climbed up among the rocks, and spent nearly an hour searching for their nests. At length Weymouth found one with three eggs; and, a few moments after, two more. I had some doubt about the eggs being good so late in the season. There were plenty of empty nests about, looking as if there had been a brood raised already.

These were doubtless second nests of pairs that had lost their first nests from the depredations of falcons, ravens, or perhaps foxes. To settle the point, we broke an egg: it looked sound. Weymouth then filled his cap with them.

_Boom!_

While climbing down to our muskets, I startled a canvas-backed duck sitting on a nest of eleven eggs. These I appropriated; and, before getting round to where we had fired on the sea-horse, Weymouth espied an eider-duck sitting on a shelf of the sh.o.r.e crags. From her we got five eggs of a beautiful pale-green color.

"No need of starving here, I should say," Weymouth remarked as we made our way along the ledges, pretty well laden with muskets, geese, and our caps full of eggs. "There won't be much bread, to be sure; but then a fellow can live on eggs and birds, can't he?"

"I hope so, Weymouth. Hard case for us if we can't."

"That's so. But don't you be down in the mouth about this sc.r.a.pe. I don't believe they'll catch 'The Curlew,' sir. Capt. Mazard will be back here, I think."

"I hope so."

Truly, I thought to myself, if this young sailor doesn't complain, and even tries to offer consolation to us who have got him in this predicament, it isn't for me to look glum about it; though I am bound to own that some of the most cheerless moments of my life were pa.s.sed during the twenty-four hours succeeding the ominous appearance of the "_Honorable Company's_" ship.

A great shouting and heave-ho-ing told us of our near approach to where the rest of our party were; and, turning a bend of the crags, we discovered them all four tugging at a line.

"What are they dragging, I wonder?" Weymouth said to me. "Oh! I see.

It's the sea-horse."

They were trying to pull the walrus up out of the water, where they had found him floundering about, fatally wounded with the slugs we had fired through his back. The sea about the rocks was discolored with his blood, and turbid with the dirt he had torn up. Donovan had slaughtered him with the butcher-knife; and, with the boat's painter noosed over the head of the carca.s.s, they were now trying to draw it up on the ledge. Weymouth and I at once bore a hand; and it took all six of us, tugging hard, to get it up.

"What a ma.s.s of fat and flesh!" Kit exclaimed, puffing.

"I don't believe I could ever stomach it!" Wade groaned.

"We can offer you something better!" exclaimed Weymouth, holding up the geese. "What think of those fellows? Wild-geese! And look at these!" holding up his cap. "Nice fresh eggs!--to be had by the dozen!

and nothing to pay, either!"

"Why, fellows, this is a sort of northern paradise!" cried Raed. "But what sticks me is how to cook those eggs and geese. I never could suck eggs."

"Just build a fire, and I'll show you how to cook 'em," Weymouth said.

"But what shall we have for fuel?" Kit demanded.

That was a staggerer.

_Boom!_ It seemed as if those far-borne echoes would never die with the distance. A low, dismal, sullen sound! They gave us queer sensations. As each came rolling on the sea, our hearts would bound.

Up to that moment, "The Curlew" had not been taken; but perhaps that shot had struck down her sails.

It was now half-past two. The vessels could hardly be less than twenty or twenty-five miles off. But there is nothing to absorb or deaden sound along those straits.

"Yes; where's your fuel?" demanded Wade.

We looked around: plenty of rocks, ice, and water, with a little coa.r.s.e dirt, or gravel.

"Might burn the boat," Kit suggested.

"That seems too bad," said Raed. "Besides, how are we to get off the island here, supposing 'The Curlew' should not come back? or even suppose she should? She has no other boat."

"And we may want to go off to the other islands," I said.

"Well, if anybody can suggest anything better, I should like to hear it," replied Kit. "I don't want to burn the boat, I'm sure; but I can't see anything else that looks inflammable."

Neither could any of us, though we looked all around us very earnestly; till Donovan suddenly cried out,--

"Why not burn the old sea-horse?"

"Why, that's our victuals!" laughed Kit.

"I know it; but fire comes before victuals, unless you eat 'em raw like the Huskies."

"Will it burn?" Raed asked.

"Burn? yes. Why, on a sealer, they do all their trying-out the oil with a fire of seal-refuse. Why shouldn't it burn as well as a candle?"

"There's our wood-pile, then!" cried Raed, giving the carca.s.s a kick.

"Let's have a fire forthwith. Don, you slash out a hundred-weight or so."

"Don't cut the hide to pieces," Kit interposed: "we may want that to make a tent of."

Donovan whipped out his butcher-knife, and, stripping back the tough skin, cut out a pile of huge slices. Kit, meanwhile, got a piece of old thwart from the boat, and whittled up a heap of pine slivers. Two of the fat slices were then slit up into thin strips, and laid on the slivers. With great caution, Donovan struck a match on his jacket-sleeve. We all hovered around to keep off the wicked puffings of the wind. The slivers were lighted; they kindled: the fat meat began to sizzle; then caught fire from the pine; and soon a ruddy, spluttering flame was blazing with marvellous fierceness.

"Hurrah!" Kit shouted. "The first fire these grim old ledges have seen since they cooled their glowing, molten billows into flinty granite!"

CHAPTER XII.

The "Spider."--Fried Eggs.--The "Plates."--"Awful Fresh!"--No Salt.--Plans for getting Salt from Sea-Water.--Ice-Water.--Fried Goose.--Plans to escape.--A Gloomy Night.--Fight with a Walrus.--Another "_Wood-Pile._"--Wade Sick.--A Peevish Patient and a Fractious Doctor.--The Manufacture of Salt.

We stood and warmed our hands. It felt comfortable,--decidedly so; for though the sun was high and bright, yet the north-west wind drove smartly across the rocks above us. Currents of air fresh from the lair of icebergs can't be very warm ever. There was plenty of ice all about.

"Ready to cook those eggs, Weymouth?" Raed exclaimed. "You were going to furnish spider, kettle, or something of that sort, you know."

"Yes, sir; and all I'll ask is that some of you will be dressing a couple of those geese while I am gone. I've a mind to dine off goose to-day."

"Well, that's reasonable," said Donovan. "Go ahead, matey! Bring on your spider! We'll have the geese ready for it!"