Red Rooney: The Last of the Crew by R. M. Ballantyne (free e books to read .txt) 📕

around him were made of rough unhewn stone, that the rafters were of drift timber, and the roof of moss, or something like it; but the whole was so thickly coated with soot as to present a uniform appearance of blackness. He also saw, from the position in which he lay, a stone vessel, like a primitive classical lamp, with a wick projecting from its lip, but no flame. Several skulls of large animals lay on the floor within the range of his vision, and some sealskin and other garments hung on pegs of bone driven into the wall. Just opposite to him was the entrance to the tunnel, which formed the passage or corridor of the mansion, and within it gleamed a subdued light which entered from the outer end.

Rooney knew that he saw these things, and took note of them, yet if you had asked him what he had seen it is probable that he would have been unable to tell—so near had he approached to the confines of that land from which no traveller returns.

Heaving a deep sigh, the man uttered the words, “Thank God!” for the third time within the last four-and-twenty hours. It was an appropriate prelude to his sinking into that mysterious region of oblivion in which the mind of worn-out man finds rest, and out of which it can be so familiarly yet mysteriously summoned—sometimes by his own pre-determination, but more frequently by a fellow-mortal.

He had not lain long thus when the tunnel was suddenly darkened by an advancing body, which proved to be the mistress of the mansion.

Nuna, on thrusting her head into the interior, looked inquiringly up before venturing to rise. After a good stare at the slumbering Kablunet, she went cautiously towards the window and removed the obstruction. A flood of light was let in, which illumined, but did not awaken, the sleeper.

Cautiously and on tip-toe the considerate little woman went about her household duties, but with her eyes fixed, as if in fascination, on her interesting guest.

It is at all times an awkward as well as a dangerous mode of proceeding, to walk in one direction and look in another. In crossing the hut, Nuna fell over a walrus skull, upset the lamp, and sent several other articles of furniture against the opposite wall with a startling crash. The poor creature did not rise. She was too much overwhelmed with shame. She merely turned her head as she lay, and cast a horrified gaze at the sleeper.

To her great joy she saw that Red Rooney had not been disturbed. He slept through it all with the placidity of an infant. Much relieved, the little woman got up, and moved about more freely. She replenished the lamp with oil, and kindled it. Then she proceeded to roast and fry and grill bear ribs, seal chops, and walrus steaks with a dexterity that was quite marvellous, considering the rude culinary implements with which she had to deal. In a short time breakfast was prepared, and Nuna went out to announce the fact. Slowly and with the utmost caution each member of the family crept in, and, before rising, cast the same admiring, inquiring, partially awe-stricken gaze at the unconscious Kablunet. Okiok, Nunaga, Norrak, Ermigit, and Tumbler all filed in, and sat down in solemn silence.

Okiok took Tumbler on his knee, so as to be ready to throttle him on the shortest notice if he should venture to cry, or even crow.

But as the best of human arrangements often fail through unforeseen circumstances, so the quietude was broken a second time that morning unexpectedly. One of the hungry dogs outside, rendered desperate by the delicious fumes that issued from the hut, took heart, dashed in, caught up a mass of blubber, and attempted to make off. A walrus rib, however, from Norrak’s unerring hand, caught him on the haunch as he entered the tunnel, and caused him to utter such a piercing howl that Red Rooney not only awoke, but sat bolt upright, and gazed at the horrified Eskimos inquiringly.

Evidently the seaman was touched with a sense of the ludicrous, for he merely smiled and lay down again. But he did not try to sleep. Having been by that time thoroughly refreshed, he began to sniff the scent of savoury food as the war-horse is said to scent the battle from afar—that is, with an intense longing to “go at it.” Okiok, guessing the state of his feelings, brought him a walrus rib.

Red Rooney accepted it, and began to eat at once without the use of knife or fork.

“Thankee, friend. It’s the same I’ll do for yourself if you ever come to starvation point when I’ve got a crust to spare.”

Charmed beyond measure at hearing their native tongue from the mouth of a foreigner, the stare of the whole party became more intense, and for a few moments they actually ceased to chew—a sure sign that they were, so to speak, transfixed with interest.

“My man,” said Rooney, after a few minutes’ intense application to the rib, “what is your name?”

“Okiok,” replied the Eskimo.

“Okiok,” muttered the seaman to himself in English; “why, that’s the Eskimo word for winter.” Then, after a few minutes’ further attention to the rib, “Why did they name you after the cold season o’ the year?”

“I know not,” said Okiok. “When my father named me I was very small, and could not ask his reason. He never told any one. Before I was old enough to ask, a bear killed him. My mother thought it was because the winter when I was born was very cold and long.”

Again the hungry man applied himself to the rib, and nothing more was said till it was finished. Feeling still somewhat fatigued, Rooney settled himself among his furs in a more upright position, and gave his attention to the natives, who instantly removed their eyes from him, and resumed eating with a will. Of course they could not restrain furtive glances, but they had ceased to stare.

In a few minutes Okiok paused, and in turn became the questioner.

“No Kablunet ever came here before,” he said. “We are glad to see you; but why do you come, and why alone, and why starving?”

“Not very easy to answer these questions off-hand to the likes of you,” said Rooney. “However, I’ll try. You’ve heard of the settlements—the traders—no doubt, in the far-off land over there?”

Rooney pointed to the southward, the direction of which he knew from the position of the sun and the time of day, which latter he guessed roughly.

The Eskimo nodded. From the special character of the nod it was evident that he meant it to express intelligence. And it did!

“Well,” continued Rooney, “you may have heard that big, big—tremendous big—kayaks, or rather oomiaks, have come to that country, an’ landed men and women, who have built houses—igloos—and have settled there to trade?”

At this his host nodded with such decision, and so frequently, as to show that he not only knew of the Kablunet settlements, but was deeply interested in them, and would be glad to know something more.

“Well, then,” continued the sailor, “I came out from a great and rich country, called England, in one o’ these big tradin’ canoes, which was wrecked close to the settlements, and there I stayed with my mates, waiting for another big kayak to come an’ take us off; but no kayak came for two winters—so that’s the way I came to understand an’ speak the Eskimo—”

At this point, as if it could endure the stranger’s voice no longer, Tumbler set up a sudden and tremendous howl. He was instantly seized, half strangled, metaphorically sat upon, and reduced to sobbing silence, when the sailor resumed his narrative.

“All that time I was workin’ off and on for the—”

He stopped abruptly, not having any words in the native language by which to name the Moravian Missionaries. The Eskimos waited with eager looks for the next word.

“Well, well,” resumed Rooney, with a pathetic smile, “it is a pity the whole world don’t speak one language. I was workin’ for, for—these Kablunets who have come to Greenland, (that’s the name we’ve given to your country, you must know)—who have come to Greenland, not to trade, but to teach men about God—about Torngarsuk, the Good Spirit—who made all the world, and men, and beasts.”

At this point the interest of Okiok became, if possible, more intense.

“Do the Kablunets know God, the Good Spirit? Have they seen him?” he asked.

“They haven’t exactly seen Him,” replied the sailor; “but they have got a book, a writing, which tells about Him, and they know something of His nature and His wishes.”

Of course this reference to a book and a writing—which Rooney had learned to speak of from the Moravians—was quite incomprehensible to the Eskimo. He understood enough of what was said, however, to see the drift of his visitor’s meaning.

“Huk!” he exclaimed, with a look of satisfaction; “Angut will be glad to hear this.”

“Who is Angut?” asked the sailor.

The whole party looked peculiarly solemn at this question.

“Angut is a great angekok,” answered Okiok, in a low voice.

“Oh! he is one of your wise men, is he?” returned Rooney, with an involuntary shrug of his shoulders, for he had heard and seen enough during his residence at the settlements to convince him that the angekoks, or sorcerers, or wise men of the Eskimos, were mostly a set of clever charlatans, like the medicine-men of the North American Indians, who practised on the credulity and superstition of their fellow-men in order to gain their own ends. Some of these angekoks, no doubt, were partly self-deceivers, believing to some extent the deceptions which they practised, and desiring more or less the welfare of their dupes; but others were thorough, as well as clever, rogues, whose sole object was self-interest.

“Well, then,” continued Rooney, “after I’d been two winters with these Kablunets, another big kayak came to the settlement, not to trade, nor to teach about God, but to go as far as they could into the ice, and try to discover new lands.”

“Poor men!” remarked Okiok pitifully; “had they no lands of their own?”

“O, yes; they had lands at home,” replied the sailor, laughing.

“Huk!” exclaimed several of the natives, glancing at each other with quite a pleased expression. It was evident that they were relieved as well as glad to find that their visitor could laugh, for his worn and woe-begone expression, which was just beginning to disappear under the influence of rest and food, had induced the belief that he could only go the length of smiling.

“Yes,” continued the sailor; “they had lands, more or less—some of them, at least—and some of them had money; but you must know, Okiok, that however much a Kablunet may have, he always wants more.”

“Is he never content?” asked the Eskimo.

“Never; at least not often.”

“Wonderful!” exclaimed Okiok; “when I am stuffed with seal-blubber as full as I can hold, I want nothing more.”

Again the sailor laughed, and there was something so hearty and jovial in the sound that it became infectious, and the natives joined him, though quite ignorant of the exciting cause. Even Tumbler took advantage of the occasion to give vent to another howl, which, having something of the risible in it, was tolerated. When silence was restored, the visitor resumed—

“I joined these searchers, as they wanted an interpreter, and we came away north here. Nothing particular happened at first. We had a deal of squeezing an’ bumping in the ice of course, but got little damage, till about six days back I think, or thereabouts, when we got a nip that seemed to me to cut the bottom clean out o’ the big kayak, for when the ice eased off again it went straight to the bottom. We had only time to throw some provisions on the ice and jump out before it went down. As our provisions were not sufficient to last more than a few days, I