The Walrus Hunters: A Romance of the Realms of Ice by R. M. Ballantyne (books to read now .TXT) đź“•
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- Author: R. M. Ballantyne
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After some palaver it was agreed that the execution of Cheenbuk should be postponed to the following day, and that a sentinel should be posted beside him during the night to make sure that he did not manage to undo his fastenings and escape.
On hearing this decision arrived at, Adolay crept back into the bush and hastened to her mother’s tent.
“They have fixed to kill him, mother,” she exclaimed, anxiously, on entering.
“I expected that, and I’m sorry,” returned Isquay, “but we cannot help it. What can women do? The men will not mind what I say. If only Nazinred was here they would listen to him, but—”
“Yes, they always listen to father,” interrupted the girl, with an anxious frown on her pretty brows, “but as father is not here you must do what you can for the man.”
“You are very fond of him!” said the squaw with a keen look at her daughter.
“Yes, I am very fond of him,” replied Adolay with an air of unblushing candour, “and I think, mother, that you should be fond of him too.”
“So I am, girl, so I am, but what can I do?”
“You can go and tell the story to the old chief. He is not hard, like some of the young men. Perhaps he may help us.”
Isquay shook her head, but nevertheless agreed to try her influence with the old man, and went out for that purpose.
Meanwhile Adolay, who had not herself much faith in her mother’s advocacy of the poor Eskimo’s cause, resolved upon a separate course of action. Throwing a blanket over her head and shoulders, she started for the place where Cheenbuk stood, scornfully regarding the little boys who surrounded and insulted him by flourishing knives and hatchets close to his defenceless nose. They did not, however, dare to touch him, as the time had not yet arrived for actual torture.
Running forward, Adolay, who was a favourite with the young people, drove them back.
“Keep clear of him,” she cried with a fierce glare in her eyes—which was wonderfully realistic, considering that it was a mere piece of acting—“I want to speak to him—to terrify him—to fill him with horror!”
This was quite to the taste of the wretched little creatures, who fell back in a semi-circle and waited for more.
“Can you understand my speech?” she demanded as she turned on Cheenbuk with flashing eyes.
The Eskimo thought he had never seen such magnificent eyes before, and wished much that they would look on him more kindly.
“Yes,” he replied, “I understand a little.”
“Listen, then,” cried Adolay in a loud tone, and with looks more furious than before. “You are to die to-morrow.”
“I expected it would be to-night,” replied Cheenbuk calmly.
“And you are to be tortured to death!” At this the boys set up a howl of delight. At the same time the girl advanced a step nearer the captive, and said in a low voice hurriedly:
“I will save you. Be ready to act—to-night.” The softened look and altered tone opened the eyes of the captive. Although the blanket partially concealed Adolay’s face, Cheenbuk at once recognised the girl whose mother he had saved the previous spring.
“I am awake!” he said quietly, but with a glance of bright intelligence.
“Yes, you are doomed to die,” continued Adolay, when the boys’ howling had subsided, “and if you are to be tortured, we will all come to see how brave you are.”
As she said this she went close up to the captive, as if to make her words more emphatic, and shook her little fist in his face. Then—in a low voice—“You see the cliff behind me, with the dead tree below it?”
“Yes.”
“Run for that tree when you are free—and wait.”
Turning round, as though her rage was satisfied for the time being, Adolay left the spot with a dark frown on her face.
“Leave him now, boys,” she said in passing. “Give him time to think about to-morrow.”
Whether it was the effect of this advice, or the fact that the shades of evening were falling, and a feeding-time was at hand, we cannot say, but in a short time Cheenbuk was left to his meditations. He was, however, quite within sight of several of the lodges. As the daylight gradually faded a young brave left his tent, and, shouldering his gun, went to the place where the captive was bound. Examining the bonds to make sure that they were secure, the youth carefully renewed the priming of his weapon, shouldered it, and began to pace to and fro. His mode of proceeding was to walk up to the captive, take a look at him, turn round, and walk about thirty or forty yards away from him, and so on to and fro without halt or variation for upwards of two hours. During all that time he uttered no word to the Eskimo.
Cheenbuk, on his part, took no notice whatever of his guard, but stood perfectly still and looked with calm, lofty indifference over his head—which he was well able to do, being a considerably taller man.
As the night advanced the darkness deepened, and the poor captive began to entertain serious misgivings as to his prospects. Would the girl try to carry out the plan, whatever it was? Yes, he had not the slightest doubt on that head, because, somehow, she had inspired him with a confidence that he had never felt in woman before. But would she be able to carry out her plan? That was quite another question. Then, the darkness had become so intense that he could barely see the outline of the cliff towards which he was to run, and could not see the dead tree at all. Moreover, it occurred to him that it would be impossible even to walk, much less to run, over unknown and perhaps rough ground in darkness so great that he could hardly see the trees around him; and could only make out the whites of the sentinel’s eyes when he came close up.
It was therefore with a feeling of relief that he at length observed a faint glow of light in the sky, which indicated the rising of the moon.
Soon afterwards a dark figure was seen approaching. It was Alizay, the blood-thirsty brave, who had come to relieve guard.
The first thing that the new sentinel did was carefully to examine the cords that bound the captive to the tree, and tie one or two additional knots to make him more secure. Then he turned to the other Indian, and asked sharply:—
“Has he been quiet?”
“Quiet as the tree to which he is bound.”
“Has he uttered speech?”
“No.”
“Good. You may go. I will watch him till morning: after that he will need no more watching.”
Alizay looked sharply at the Eskimo while he uttered these words, perhaps to ascertain whether he understood their drift, but Cheenbuk’s visage was immovable, and his eyes were fixed, as if in meditation, on the moon, which just then was beginning to rise over the cliffs and shed a softened light over the Indian village.
The new sentinel shouldered his gun and began his vigil, while the other left them.
But other ears had listened to the concluding words of Alizay.
The tree to which the Eskimo was bound stood close to the edge of the bush, or underwood. In front of it was an open space, up and down which the sentinel marched. Had the Indian dreamed of a traitor in the camp he would not have deemed the captive’s position as secure as it should be, but the idea of any one in the village favouring a contemptible eater-of-raw-flesh never once entered his imagination.
Nevertheless, Adolay was in the bush behind the tree, and not only heard his words, but saw his movements. Watching her opportunity when the sentinel had just turned and was marching away from the tree, she cut, with a scalping-knife, the cord that bound Cheenbuk’s right arm and placed the knife in his hand. Almost at the same moment she slipped back into the bush.
Cheenbuk made no attempt, however, to free himself. The sentinel’s beat was too short to permit of his doing so without being observed. He therefore remained perfectly motionless in his former attitude.
It was a trying moment when the Indian approached to within a couple of feet and looked him straight in the face, as was his wont at each turn. But Cheenbuk was gifted with nerves of steel. His contemplation of the moon was so absorbing, that a civilised observer might have mistaken him for an astronomer or a lunatic. Alizay suspected nothing. He turned round, and the Eskimo allowed him to take about five paces before he moved. Then, with the speed of lightning, he ran the sharp blade down his side, severing all his bonds at one sweep.
Next moment he was free, but he instantly resumed his former position and attitude until his guard was within a yard of him. Then he sprang upon him, dropped the knife and seized him by the throat with both hands, so tightly that he was quite incapable of uttering a cry.
Alizay made a vigorous struggle for life, but he had no chance with the burly Eskimo, who quickly decided the fight by giving his adversary a blow with his fist that laid him insensible on the ground.
Springing over his prostrate form he ran straight for the cliff that Adolay had pointed out to him, leaping over fallen trees, and across what looked like young chasms, in a state of reckless uncertainty as to whether he would plunge into ponds or land at the bottom of precipices. With a feeling of absolute confidence that the girl with the lustrous eyes would not have told him to run where the feat was impossible, he held on until he reached the bottom of the cliff and stood beside the dead tree unhurt, though considerably winded.
There he resolved to wait according to orders. To most ordinary men, waiting, when they are filled with anxiety, is much more trying than energetic action. But Cheenbuk was not an ordinary man, therefore he waited like a hero.
Meanwhile Adolay, having seen the Eskimo fairly in grips with the sentinel, ran swiftly back towards the village, intending, before going to Cheenbuk at the cliff, to let her mother know what she had done, and what she still purposed to do—namely to embark with the Eskimo in a birch-bark canoe, guide him across the small lake that lay near the village, and show him the rivulet that would lead him into the Greygoose River. But she had not gone far, when, on turning a bush, she almost ran into the arms of a young Indian girl named Idazoo, an event which upset all her plans and perplexed her not a little—all the more that this girl was jealous of her, believing that she was trying to steal from her the affections of Alizay, whom she regarded as her own young man!
“Why run you so fast?” asked the girl, as Adolay stood panting before her. “Have you seen a bad spirit?”
“Yes, I have seen a bad spirit,” answered Adolay, (thinking of Alizay), “I have seen two bad spirits,” she added, (thinking of Idazoo). “But I cannot stop to tell you. I have to—to—go to see—something very strange to-night.”
Now it must be told that Idazoo was gifted with a very large bump of curiosity, and a still larger one, perhaps, of suspicion. The brave Alizay, she knew, was to mount guard over the Eskimo captive that night, and she had a suspicion that Adolay had taken advantage of that fact to pay the captive—not the Indian, oh dear no!—a visit. Unable to rest quietly in her tent under the powerful influence of this idea, she resolved to take a walk herself—a sort of moonlight ramble as it were—in that direction. As we have seen, she met
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