Red Rooney: The Last of the Crew

“I would venture at him even with a big stick,” said Simek.

“My friends,” said Rooney, with sudden animation, “listen to me. If you will promise me to keep very quiet, and not to follow me whatever may happen, I will show you how Kablunets overcome difficulties.”

Of course the Eskimos were ready to make any promises that might be required of them, and looked at their friend with surprise as he threw off his sealskin coat and tightened the belt round his waist. But they were still more surprised, when, without another word, he set off, in only shirt and trousers, to climb the valley of ice, and make for the spot where the bear sat in melancholy meditation.

While ascending, Rooney took care to avail himself of the rugged nature of the ice, so as to conceal himself entirely from the bear—though this was scarcely needful, for the animal’s back was turned towards the Kablunet, and his whole attention was concentrated on the gulls. As Rooney wore Eskimo boots—the soles of which are soft,—he made little or no noise in walking, and thus managed to gain the platform unperceived by the bear, though visible all the time to the Eskimos, to whom he looked little bigger than a crow on the height. Their delight, however, began to be tempered with anxiety when they saw the reckless man creep to within twenty yards of the monster, making use of the ice-blocks as it had done before him.

The intentions of the Kablunet were incomprehensible to his friends. Could it be that, ignorant of the strength of the beast and its tenacity of life, the foolish man hoped to stab it to death with a small knife? Impossible! And yet he was evidently preparing for action of some sort.

But Red Rooney was not quite so foolish as they supposed him to be. Having gained the nearest possible point to his victim, he made a sudden and tremendous rush at it. He knew that life and death were in the balance at any rate; but he also knew that to remain inactive on that iceberg would remove life out of the balance altogether. He therefore threw all his energy of soul and body into that rush, and launched himself against the broad back of the bear. It was an awful shock. Rooney was swift as well as heavy, so that his weight, multiplied into his velocity, sufficed to dislodge the wonder-stricken animal. One wild spasmodic effort it made to recover itself, and in doing so gave Rooney what may be called a backhander on the head, that sent him reeling on the ice.

Curiously enough, it was this that saved the daring man, for if he had not received that blow, the impetus of his attack would have certainly sent himself as well as the bear over the cliff.

As it was, the monster went over headlong, with a sort of compound shriek and howl that made the very ice-cliffs ring. Then, down he went—not head or feet first, or sideways, or any way, but every way by turns, and no way long. Indeed, he spun and, as it were, spurted down that mighty face of ice. Each instant intensified the velocity; each whirl increased the complex nature of the force. The ledge half-way down, from which the affrighted gulls fled shrieking, did not even check the descent, but with bursting violence shunted the victim out into space, through which he hurled till re-met by the terrific slope farther down, which let him glissade like a shooting star into indescribable ruin!

Enough of that bear was left, however, to render it worth while picking up the fragments. Shouting with laughter and yelling with glee, the Eskimos made for the spot where the mangled carcass lay. Soon after they were joined by the hero of the day.

“Food enough now for a moon, or more,” said Rooney, as he came up.

“Yes; and no need to beat the meat to make it tender,” responded Okiok, lifting and letting fall one of the limp legs of the creature, whose every bone seemed to have been smashed to pieces in the tremendous descent.

It was no doubt a considerable reduction of their satisfaction at supper that evening that they had to eat their bear-chops raw, not having the means of making fire; but they were not disposed to find fault with their good-fortune on that account. If they had only possessed two small pieces of wood with which to create the necessary friction, they could easily have made a lamp out of one of the bear’s shoulder-blades, and found oil enough in his own fat, while a tag of sealskin, or some other portion of clothing might have supplied a wick; but not a scrap of wood was to be obtained on that verdureless island. Okiok did indeed suggest that Norrak and Ippegoo, being both possessed of hard and prominent noses, might rub these organs together till they caught fire; but Norrak turned up his nose at the suggestion, and Ippegoo shook his head doubtfully.

In the circumstances, therefore, they obtained light at least for the purposes of vision by commencing supper long before sunset, and most of them continued it long after dark. Thus the second night was passed on the berg.

On the third day, the weather being still warm and calm, Angut, Simek, Okiok, and Rooney ascended, after their bear-breakfast, to the break-neck height from which that breakfast had been precipitated, for the purpose of taking a meteorological observation.

“It is quite plain to me,” said Rooney—who, being in some sort at sea, was, as it were, more at home than his companions—“it is quite plain to me that we have got fairly into the great Polar current, and are travelling in a sou’-sou’-west direction down Davis Straits.”

No doubt Rooney gave “sou’-sou’-west” in some sort of Eskimo jargon with which we are not acquainted. His lingual powers were indeed marvellous, and when simple words failed him he took refuge in compound phraseology.

“But,” asked Okiok, “how can you tell that we are going south? The mist is thick; we cannot see land.”

“Do you not see the small pieces of ice?” replied Rooney, pointing to the sea.

“Yes,” said the Eskimo; “they are going north faster than we are; that is all.”

“Why do they go north faster than we do?” asked Rooney.

“That I know not.”

“I will tell you, Okiok. It is because there is a surface current here flowing northward, and the small pieces of ice go with it because they are not deep. But this berg is very deep. There is far more of it below water than what we see above. Its bottom goes deep down into the under-current which flows south, and so it is being carried south—not north at all,—against the variable surface-currents, and it would go even against the wind if there was any. Do you understand?”

“Huk!” exclaimed the Eskimo, though he still looked perplexed.

“I have seen these bergs breaking from the great land-ice since I was a little boy,” said Angut, with earnest gravity, “and I have seen them float away and away till they vanished in the far-off. Can Ridroonee tell where they go to?”

“Truly I can. They are carried by currents out into the great sea—we call it the Atlantic,—and there they melt and disappear.”

“Then shall we disappear with this berg, if we don’t escape from it?” said Okiok, with a look so serious that it was almost humorous.

“That is the pleasant prospect in store for us, as you say,” returned Rooney; “but cheer up, lad. We intend to escape from it; so don’t let your heart sink, else your body won’t be able to swim.”

On the strength of this consolatory remark, the four men returned to the cave to recruit their energies and hopes on a fresh supply of the raw bear.

Chapter Twenty Two.

A Brief but Singular Voyage winds up with a Great Surprise

The calm which had fortunately prevailed since Angut and his friends found refuge on the iceberg was not destined to continue.

A smart breeze at last sprang up from the northward, which soon freshened into a gale, accompanied with heavy showers of snow, driving the party into the cave, where the cold was so severe that they were forced to take refuge in its deepest recesses, and to sit wrapped in their bearskins, and huddled together for warmth, as monkeys are sometimes seen on a cold day in a menagerie.

Being from the north, the wind not only intensified the cold, and brought back for a time all the worst conditions of winter, but assisted the great ocean current to carry the berg southward at a high rate of speed. Their progress, however, was not very apparent to the eyes of our voyagers, because all the surrounding bergs travelled in the same direction and at nearly the same speed. The blinding snow effectually hid the land from their view, and the only point of which they were quite sure was that their berg must be the nearest to the Greenland coast because all the others lay on their right hand.

Towards noon of the following day it was observed that the pack-ice thickened around them, and was seen in large fields here and there, through some of which the great berg ploughed its way with resistless momentum. Before the afternoon the pack had closed entirely around them, as if it had been one mass of solid, rugged ice—not a drop of water being visible. Even through this mass the berg ploughed its way slowly, but with great noise.

“There is something very awful to me in the sight of such tremendous force,” said Red Rooney to Angut, as they stood contemplating the havoc their strange ship was making.

“Does it not make you think,” returned the Eskimo, “how powerful must be the Great Spirit who made all things, when a little part of His work is so tremendous?”

Rooney did not reply, for at that moment the berg grounded, with a shock that sent all its spires and pinnacles tumbling. Fortunately, the Eskimos were near their cavern, into which they rushed, and escaped the terrible shower. But the cave could no longer be regarded as a place of safety. It did indeed shelter them from the immediate shower of masses, even the smaller of which were heavy enough to have killed a walrus; but at that advanced period of spring the bergs were becoming, so to speak, rotten, and liable at any moment to fall to pieces and float away in the form of pack-ice. If such an event had occurred when our Eskimos were in the cave, the destruction of all would of course have been inevitable.

“We dare not remain here,” said Angut, when the icy shower had ceased.

“No; we must take to the floes,” said Simek.

“Another shake like that,” remarked Okiok, “might bring the whole berg down on our heads.”

“Let us go, then, at once,” said Rooney; “the sky clears a little, so we’ll know how to steer.”

No one replied, for all were already engaged with the utmost activity making bundles of their bear-skins and as much of the bear-meat as the men could carry—each of the women taking a smaller piece, according to her strength or her prudence. The sailor followed their example in silence, and in a very few minutes they issued from the cavern, and made for the shore of the berg.

Some difficulty was experienced in scrambling over the chaotic masses which had been thrown up in front of them by the ploughing process before referred to. When they stood fairly on the floes, however, they found that, although very rough, these were sufficiently level to admit of slow travelling. They were in the act of arranging the order of march, when the berg slid off into deep water, and, wheeling round as if annoyed at the slight detention, rejoined its stately comrades in their solemn procession to their doom in more southerly seas.

“Just in time,” said Rooney, as they watched the berg floating slowly away, nodding its shattered head as if bidding them farewell. “Now then, ho! for the Greenland shore! Come, old Kannoa, I’ll take you under my special care.”

He took the old woman’s bundle from her as he spoke, and, putting his left hand under her right arm, began to help her over the frozen sea.

But poor old thing though she certainly was, that antiquated creature became a griggy old thing immediately, and was so tickled with the idea of the stoutest and handsomest man of the party devoting himself entirely to her, when all the younger women were allowed to look after themselves, that she could scarcely walk during the first few minutes for laughing. But it must be said in justification of the Eskimo men, that their young women were quite capable of looking after themselves, and would, indeed, have been incommoded as well as surprised by offers of assistance.

Rooney had spoken cheerily, though his feelings were anything but cheerful, for he knew well the extreme danger of their position, but he felt it a duty to do his best to encourage his friends. The Eskimos were equally well, if not better, aware of their danger, and took to the floes with resolute purpose and in profound silence—for true men in such circumstances are not garrulous.

A gleam of sunshine from a rift in the dark clouds seemed sent as a heavenly messenger to guide them. By it the Eskimos as well as the sailor were enabled to judge of the position of land, and to steer, accordingly, in what western hunters would call “a bee-line.” The great danger, of course, lay in the risk of the pack breaking up before they could reach the shore. There was also the possibility of the pack being a limited strip of floe-ice unconnected with the shore, which, if it had been so, would have decided their fate. In these circumstances they all pushed on at their best speed. At first the women seemed to get along as well as the men, but after a while the former showed evident symptoms of exhaustion, and towards dusk old Kannoa, despite Rooney’s powerful aid, fairly broke down and refused to walk another step. The seaman overcame the difficulty by raising her in his arms and carrying her. As he had not at that time quite recovered his full strength, and was himself pretty well fatigued, he was constrained to think pretty steadily of the old woman’s resemblance to his grandmother to enable him to hold out!

After another mile or so the mother of Arbalik succumbed, whereupon her son put his arm round her waist and helped her on. Then the pleasant little mother of Ippegoo broke down with a pitiful wail; but her son was unable to help her, for he was already undulating about like a piece of tape, as if he had no backbone to speak of. Okiok therefore came to her aid. As for the hardy spinster Sikogow, she seemed inexhaustible, and scorned assistance. Nuna was also vigorous, but her sons Norrak and Ermigit, being amiable, came on each side of her, and took her in tow before the breaking-down point was reached.

Thus they continued to advance until the darkness became so profound as to render further travelling impossible. The danger of delay they knew was extreme, but men must perforce bow to the inevitable. To advance without light over rugged ice, in which were cracks and fissures and hummocks innumerable, being out of the question, Rooney called a halt.