Left on Labrador Part 33

"I don't think it likely," said Raed. "We may all venture to go to sleep, I guess, and trust to Guard to keep watch for us."

"I don't know about that," Kit remarked, patting the old fellow's head. "He's eaten so much of our woodpile, that he will be but a drowsy sentinel, I'm afraid."

The fire was replenished with blubber; and we all lay down on our mossy beds inside our fresh-smelling tent.

The sun must have been still high in the north-west; but so wild and dark were the clouds, that it had grown quite dark by nine o'clock.

The damp wind-gusts sighed; the surf swashed drearily on the rocks.

Despite all our efforts to bear up and seem gay, a weight of doubt and danger rested heavily on our spirits. "Where is 'The Curlew' _now_?"

was the question that would keep constantly recurring, followed by a still more ominous query, "What would become of us if she should not return?"

"Isn't there a town out on the Atlantic coast of Labrador, a town or a village, settled by the Moravian missionaries?" Raed asked suddenly, after we had been lying there quietly for some minutes.

"Seems to me there is," Kit replied after a moment of reflection.

"There's one indicated on our geography-maps, I'm pretty sure, called _Nain_, or some such scriptural name. Don't you remember it, Wash?"

I did distinctly; and also another, either above or below it on the coast, called Hopedale, colonized by missionaries from South Greenland.

"Those Moravians are very good folks, I've heard," Wade said. "They're a very pious, Christian people. I have read, too, that they have succeeded in Christianizing many of the coast Esquimaux."

"Those Huskies must make queer Christians!" exclaimed Donovan.

"How far do you suppose it is out to those towns, Nain, say, from here, for a guess?" Raed asked a few minutes after.

"I was just thinking of that," said Kit. "Well, I should say four hundred miles."

"Not less than six hundred," said Wade.

I thought it as likely to be seven or eight hundred.

"That would be a good way to travel on foot," muttered Raed reflectively.

"Yes, it would," said Kit. "Still I shouldn't quite despair of doing it if there was no other way out of this."

"How long would it take us, do you suppose?" Raed asked after another pause. "How many miles a day could we make, besides hunting and getting our food?"

"Not more than twelve on an average," Kit thought.

"Suppose it to be seven hundred miles, that would take us near sixty days," Raed remarked; "seventy, counting out Sundays."

"We never could do that in the world!" Wade exclaimed. "It would take us till midwinter, in this country! We should starve! We should freeze to death!"

"Couldn't very well do both," Kit observed rather dryly.

"The journey would be well-nigh impossible, I expect," Raed remarked.

"On getting in from the coast, we should probably meet with no sea-fowl, no seals: in fact, I hardly know what we should be able to get for game. I have heard that caribou-deer are common in Labrador; but they are, as we know from experience in the wilderness about Mount Katahdin, very difficult to kill. And then our cartridges!"

"We might possibly attach ourselves to some party of Esquimaux going southward," Kit suggested.

"And be murdered by them for our guns and knives," exclaimed Wade.

"Oh, no! not so bad as that, I should hope. But let's go to sleep now, and discuss this to-morrow."

There was something horrible to our feelings in this thought of our perfect isolation from the world. I think Wade realized it, or at least felt it, more than either of the other boys. Kit either didn't or wouldn't seem to mind it much after the first hour or two. Raed probably saw the chances of our getting away more clearly than any of us; but I doubt if he felt the wretchedness of our situation so keenly as either Wade or myself. He was always cool and collected in his plans, and not a little inclined to stoicism as regarded personal danger. These philosophical persons are apt to be so. What the most of folks feel badly about they laugh at: it is better so, perhaps. Yet pity and sympathy are good things in their way. They help hold society together; and are, I think it likely, about its strongest bonds of union. As for Weymouth and Donovan, they bore it all very lightly: indeed, they didn't seem to give the subject any great thought, farther than to exclaim occasionally that it was "rough on us," and a "tough one." Sailors always have a vein of recklessness in their mental processes. It comes from their manner of life,--its constant peril. They learn the uselessness of "borrowing trouble."

Once in the night I woke,--woke from a pleasant dream of home. For several seconds I was utterly bewildered; did not know where I was.

Then it burst upon me; and such a wave of desolation and trouble broke with the realization, that the tears would start in spite of all shame. It was raining on the green hide overhead with a peculiarly soft patter. The strong odor of burning fat from the fire filled our rude tent; to which were added the fresh, sick smells from the great newly-butchered carca.s.s of the walrus. The boys were sound asleep, breathing heavily. Guard roused up at our feet to scratch himself, then snuggled down again. The wind howled dismally, throwing down gusts of rain. It dripped and pattered off the skin-covering on to the boat and on to the rocks. Now and then a faint scream from high aloft declared the pa.s.sage of some lonely seabird; and the ceaseless swash and plash of the sleepless sea filled out in my mind a picture of home-sick misery. It is no time, or at least the worst of all times, to reflect on one's woes in the night when just awakened from dreams: better turn over and go to sleep again. But I had not got that lesson quite so well learned then, and so lay cultivating my wretchedness for nearly an hour, picturing our future wanderings among these northern solitudes, and our final starvation. "Perchance," I groaned to myself, "in after-years, some party of adventurers may come upon our white bones, what the gluttons leave of them." I even went farther; for I was presuming enough to imagine that our melancholy disappearance might become the subject of some future ballad. How would it begin?

What would they say of _me_? What had I done in the world to deserve any thing by way of a line of praise or a tear of pity? Nothing that I could think of. At best, the ballad, if written at all (and of that I was beginning to have my doubts the more I thought it over), could but run,--

"Whilom in Boston town there dwelt a youth Who ne'er did well except in dying young."

That was as far as I could get with it: in fact, that was about all there was to be said by way of eulogy. The sea seemed to get hold of those two lines somehow, and kept repeating them with its eternal _swish-swash, swash-swish_.

The rain pattered it out in its heroic pentameters,--

_Pit-pat, pit-pat, pit-pat, pit-pat, pit-pat!_

_Pity-pat, pat-pit, pat-pit, pity-pit, pit-pat!_

All at once the regular rhythm of the sea was broken by a slight splash out of time. Instantly my morbid ear detected it, and I listened intently. Something was splashing along in the water.

"Sea-fowl," I hastily a.s.sured myself. No, that was not likely, either; for it was quite dark, and the sea rather rough.

"The Huskies trying to surprise us?" It might be. Something was certainly splashing the water very near. Why didn't Guard notice it?

Talk about a dog's keen ears!--there lay the Newfoundland snoring loudest of anybody! Just then a sc.r.a.ping sound, accompanied by a dull rattling of the shingle among the rocks, startled me afresh. We were being surprised, stole upon, by something, undoubtedly. Repressing a strong inclination to yell out, I arose softly, and peeped past the drooping, flapping side of the walrus-skin. The splashings were now still more distinct; and I saw, dimly through the rain and darkness, a large, dark object near the water. What could it be? A hundred fearful fancies darted into my mind. Then there came a gruff snort; and the great dusky form heaved up higher on the rocks, upon which lay the carca.s.s of the sea-horse. It seemed to be moving around it, making a dull, sc.r.a.ping noise. Suddenly a deep, horrid groan, ending in a prolonged bellow, burst on the damp air. Guard bounded up with a growl, and rushed out barking. Raed and Kit jumped up. They were all scrambling up. There was a moment of uncertain silence; then Kit cried,--

"Hollo! What was that?"

"Don't be scared," I said. "It's another walrus, I guess. Keep still; but get your guns ready."

"Another walrus, did you say?" muttered Raed, coming to look out.

"I think it's one come up to smell round the carca.s.s of the one we've killed."

"So it is!" exclaimed Raed. "Like as not, it's this one's mate. What a hideous noise!" for the huge creature was giving vent to the most terrific snortings and snufflings.

We could hear it b.u.t.t its head against the carca.s.s.

"It has come round here hunting for its mate," said Kit. "That's its way of showing grief, I suppose."

Guard was darting up to it, barking furiously: but the great beast did not at first seem to pay much attention to the dog; till on a sudden it turned, with another dreadful bellowing,--we thought the dog had bitten one of its tail flippers,--and came waddling after him, snorting, and gnashing its tusks. Guard fell back toward our shelter.

"Shoot him!" Raed exclaimed.

Kit and Donovan both fired at the monster; but, with ferocious snorts, it kept after the dog.

"Run!" shouted Weymouth. "Out of this!" for the dog was backing right in upon us.