Red Rooney by Robert Michael Ballantyne (best sci fi novels of all time txt) 📕

in diameter. There were little valleys extending into its interior, through which flowed rivulets, whose winding courses were broken here and there by cascades. In short, the berg resembled a veritable island made of white sugar, the glittering sun-lit slopes of which contrasted finely with its green-grey shadows and the dark-blue depths of its wide rifts and profound caverns.

The lead or lane of water ran to within fifty yards of this ice-island, so that Rooney had a splendid view of it, and, being of a romantic turn of mind, amused himself as the oomiak glided past by peopling the white cliffs and valleys with snow-white inhabitants. While he was thus employed, there occurred a sudden crashing and rending in the surrounding pack which filled him with consternation. It produced indeed the same effect on the Eskimos, as well it might, for the very catastrophe which they all dreaded was now taking place.

A slight swell on the sea appeared to be the originating cause, but, whatever it was, the whole surface was soon broken up, and the disintegrated masses began to grind against each other in confusion. At the same time the lead which the voyagers had been following grew narrower, and that so rapidly, that they had barely time to jump upon a mass of ice when the opening closed and crushed the oomiak and Okiok's kayak to pieces.

Angut and Simek had time to lift their kayaks on to the ice, but that, as it turned out, was of no advantage.

"Make for the berg," shouted Angut to the women, at the same time seizing the hand of Kunelik, who chanced to be nearest to him, and assisting her to leap from one heaving mass to another. Rooney performed the same act of gallantry for old Kannoa, who, to his surprise, went over the ice like an antique squirrel. Okiok took his own wife in hand. As for Pussimek, she did not wait for assistance, but being of a lively and active, as well as a stout and cheery disposition, she set off at a pace which caused her tail to fly straight out behind her, and made it difficult for Simek to keep up with her. Ippegoo and Arbalik, with the sons of Okiok, tried their best to save the two kayaks, for well they knew the danger of being left on the ice without the means of escaping; but the suddenness of the disruption, the width of the various channels they had to leap, and the instability of the masses, compelled them, after much delay, to drop their burdens and save themselves. They only managed to reach the berg with extreme difficulty.

"Thank God, all safe!--but we have had a close shave," exclaimed Rooney, as he held out his hand to assist Ippegoo, who was the last of the party to clamber up the rugged side of the berg from the broken floe-pieces which were grinding against it.

"I wish we could say with truth `All safe,'" was Okiok's gloomy response, as he surveyed the ice-laden sea; "we have escaped being crushed or drowned, but only to be starved to death."

"A living man may hope," returned Angut gravely.

"Ay, and where there is life," added Rooney, "there ought to be thankfulness."

"I would be more thankful," said Ippegoo, with a woe-begone expression, "if we had saved even a spear; but what can we do without food or weapons?"

"Do? my son," said Kunelik; "can we not at least keep up heart? Who ever heard of any good coming of groaning and looking miserable?"

"Right you are, old girl," cried Rooney, giving the mother of Ippegoo a hearty pat on the shoulder. "There is no use in despairing at the very beginning of our troubles; besides, is there not the Great Spirit who takes care of us, although we cannot see or hear Him? I believe in God, my friends, and I'll ask Him to help us now."

So saying, to the surprise of the Eskimos, the seaman uncovered his head, and looking upwards, uttered a few words of earnest prayer in the name of Jesus.

At first the unsophisticated natives looked about as if they expected some visible and immediate answer to the petition, but Rooney explained that the Great Spirit did not always answer at once or in the way that man might expect.

"God works by means of us and through us," he said. "We have committed the care of ourselves to Him. What we have now to do is to go to work, and do the best we can, and see what things He will throw in our way, or enable us to do, in answer to our prayer. Now, the first thing that occurs to me is to get away from where we stand, because that overhanging cliff beside us may fall at any moment and crush us. Next, we should go and search out some safe cavern in which we may spend the night, for we sha'n't be able to find such a place easily in the dark, and though it will be but a cold shelter, still, cold shelter is better than none--so come along."

These remarks of the sailor, though so familiar--perhaps commonplace--to us, seemed so just and full of wisdom to the unsophisticated natives, and were uttered in such an off-hand cheery tone, that a powerful effect was created, and the whole party at once followed the seaman, who, by this display of coolness, firmness, and trustfulness in a higher power, established a complete ascendancy over his friends. From that time they regarded him as their leader, even although in regard to the details of Eskimo life he was of course immeasurably their inferior.

They soon found a small cave, not far from the spot where they had landed--if we may use that expression--and there made preparation to spend the night, which by that time was drawing on.

Although their craft had been thus suddenly destroyed and lost, they were not left absolutely destitute, for each one, with that prompt mental activity which is usually found in people whose lives are passed in the midst of danger, had seized the bear-skin, deerskin, or fur bag on which he or she happened to be sitting, and had flung it on to the floes before leaping thereon; and Ippegoo, with that regard for internal sustenance which was one of his chief characteristics, had grasped a huge lump of seal's flesh, and carried it along with him. Thus the whole party possessed bedding, and food for at least one meal.

Of course the meal was eaten not only cold but raw. In the circumstances, however, they were only too thankful, to care much about the style of it. Before it was finished daylight fled, the stars came out, and the aurora borealis was shooting brilliantly athwart the sky. Gradually the various members of the party spread their skins on the most level spot discoverable, and, with lumps of ice covered with bits of hide for pillows, went to sleep with what resembled free-and-easy indifference.

Two of the party, however, could not thus easily drop into happy oblivion. Red Rooney felt ill at ease. His knowledge of those Arctic seas had taught him that their position was most critical, and that escape would be almost miraculous, for they were eight or ten miles at least off the land, on a perishable iceberg, with an ice-encumbered sea around, and no means of going afloat, even if the water had been free. A feeling of gloom which he had not felt before, and which he could not banish, rendered sleep impossible; he therefore rose, and sauntered out of the cave.

Outside he found Angut, standing motionless near the edge of an ice-cliff, gazing up into the glorious constellations overhead.

"I can't sleep, Angut," said the seaman; "I suppose you are much in the same way?"

"I do not know. I did not try," returned the Eskimo in a low voice; "I wish to think, not to sleep. Why cannot the Kablunet sleep?"

"Well, it's hard to tell. I suppose thinking too much has something to do with it. The fact is, Angut, that we've got into what I call a fix, and I can't for the life of me see how we are to get out of it. Indeed I greatly fear that we shall never get out of it."

"If the Great Spirit wills that our end should be _now_," said Angut, "is the Kablunet afraid to die?"

The question puzzled Rooney not a little.

"Well," he replied, "I can't say that I'm afraid, but--but--I don't exactly _want_ to die just yet, you see. The fact is, my friend, that I've got a wife and children and a dear old grandmother at home, and I don't quite relish the idea of never seein' them again."

"Have you not told me," said Angut, with a look of solemn surprise, "that all who love the Great Spirit shall meet again up there?" He pointed to the sky as he spoke.

"Ay, truly, I said that, and I believe that. But a man sometimes wants to see his wife and children again in _this_ life--and, to my thinkin', that's not likely with me, as things go at present. Have _you_ much hope that we shall escape?"

"Yes, I have hope," answered the Eskimo, with a touch of enthusiasm in his tone. "I know not why. I know not how. Perhaps the Great Spirit who made me put it into me. I cannot tell. All around and within me is beyond my understanding--but--the Great Spirit is all-wise, all-powerful, and--good. Did you not say so?"

"Yes, I said so; and that's a trustworthy foundation, anyhow," returned the sailor meditatively; "wise, powerful, and good--a safe anchorage. But now, tell me, what chances, think you, have we of deliverance?"

"I can think of only one," said Angut. "If the pack sets fast again, we may walk over it to the land. Once there, we could manage to live-- though not to continue our pursuit of Ujarak. _That_ is at an end."

In spite of himself, the poor fellow said the last words in a tone which showed how deeply he was affected by the destruction of his hope to rescue Nunaga.

"Now my friend seems to me inconsistent," said Rooney. "He trusts the Great Spirit for deliverance from danger. Is, then, the rescue of Nunaga too hard for Him?"

"I know not," returned Angut, who was, how ever, cheered a little by his friend's tone and manner. "Everything is mystery. I look up, I look around, I look within; all is dark, mysterious. Only on this is my mind clear--the Great Spirit is good. He cannot be otherwise. I will trust Him. One day, perhaps, He will explain all. What I understood not as a little boy, I understand now as a man. Why should there not be more light when I am an older man? If things go on in the mind as they have been going ever since I can remember, perfect light may perhaps come at last."

"You don't think like most of your countrymen," said Rooney, regarding the grave earnest face of his friend with increased interest.

There was a touch of sadness in the tone of the Eskimo as he replied--

"No; I sometimes wonder--for their minds seem to remain in the childish condition; though