As this remark called for no direct reply, Oblooria merely smiled-- indeed she more than smiled--but said nothing. It is just possible that Leo"s rendering of the phrase "off-and-on" into Eskimo may have sounded ridiculous.
However this may be, the two sat there for some time, absorbed and silent spectators of the chase.
"How long will they take to kill it?" asked Leo when he saw Grabantak thrust somewhere about the thirty-fifth spear into the victim.
"All day," answered Oblooria.
"All day!" repeated Leo in surprise.
"If they could lance him far in," said the girl, "he would die soon, but his flesh is thick and his life is deep down."
Leo relapsed into silence. The idea of remaining a mere spectator all day was distasteful to his active mind and body. He had almost made up his mind to ask one of the natives to lend him a kayak and change places, when a puff of wind sent a few cats-paws over the hitherto gla.s.sy sea.
He looked quickly in the direction whence it came, and observed a blue line on the horizon. It was a coming breeze. Ere long it touched them, blowing gently, indeed, but steadily. A glance upwards showed that it was steadier and stronger in the upper regions, and blew towards the south-east, in which direction the chase was being prosecuted with unflagging activity.
"If there was only enough," muttered Leo, "to take the kite up, I"d soon be alongside of the whale; come, I"ll try. Lend a hand, Oblooria."
The Eskimo girl had, during her voyage to Flatland, become so well acquainted with the operation of extending and setting up the kite, that she was able to lend effective a.s.sistance. In less than ten minutes it was expanded, and although Leo was nearly pulled into the water before he got fair hold of the regulator, while Oblooria was thrown down by an eccentric whisk of the tail, they managed at last to get it fairly over their heads, and soon sent it shooting upwards into the stronger air current above. Of course they began to rush over the sea at a pace that would have quickly left the best kayak in the fleet far astern, but Leo did not wish to act precipitately. He sat down in the bow to attend to the regulator, while Oblooria held the steering-oar.
"Keep her away a bit, Oblooria; starboard--I mean to _that_ side. So, we won"t spoil their sport too soon."
He pulled the regulator as he spoke, and eased the pace, while the Eskimo girl, with eyes glittering from expectancy and hope, turned the boat off to the right.
Leo seemed to be meditative at first, as if uncertain how to proceed.
Soon this condition of mind pa.s.sed. He let go the regulator, and, taking up the long whale lance with which he had been provided, examined its blade and point. The full force of the breeze filled the kite and carried them along at not less than ten miles an hour.
Hitherto the Eskimos had been so intent on their prey that they had no eyes for anything else. Again and again had the whale been pierced by the stinging harpoons, and the number of inflated sealskins which he was obliged by that time to drag down into the deep was so great that his dives had become more frequent and much shorter. It was obvious that the perseverance of his little foes would in the end overcome his mighty strength. It was equally evident, however, that there was still a great deal of fighting power left in him, and as some of the harpoons had come out while several of the floats had broken loose, there was just a possibility that he might yet escape if not vigorously followed up.
Suddenly one of the Eskimos was seen to drop his paddle and point with both hands to the sky, uttering at the same time a cry of surprise and alarm. There was no mistaking the cry. Every paddle ceased to dip, and every eye was turned to the sky. Of course every voice gave forth a howl!
"A mystery!" shouted Grabantak.
"An evil spirit!" cried Koyatuk.
"A new kind of bird!" roared Teyma.
At that moment a cry louder than ever arose. Leo"s boat was observed coming like a narwhal over the sea, with the foam flying from its bows!
The "new kind of bird," so they at first imagined, had let down a long thin tail, caught the boat of the white man, and was flying away with it!
Into the midst of them the boat rushed. They dashed aside right and left. Leo was standing in the bow. He moved not, spoke not, looked at no one, but stood up, bent a little forward, with a stern frown on his brow, his lips compressed, and the long lance held level in both hands as if in the act of charging.
"Catch hold of him!" yelled Grabantak as they flew past. As well might they have tried to catch a comet!
"Steer a little to the left," said Leo in a low tone.
Obedient, on the instant, the girl made a sharp stroke with the oar.
"Steady--so. Now, Oblooria, hold on tight for your life!"
They were going straight at the whale. Leo did not dare to think of the result of his intended attack. He could not guess it. He hoped all would be well. He had no time to think of _pros_ and _cons_. They were close to the victim. On it, now, sliding over its back, while the sharp lance entered its body with the full momentum of the charge,--deep down into its vitals! Blood flew out like a waterspout. The lance was torn from Leo"s grasp as he fell backwards. Oblooria leaped up, in wild excitement, dropped her oar, and clapped her hands. At that instant the stout traction-line snapped, and the boat remained fast, while the kite descended in a series of helpless gyrations into the sea. Next moment the whale went down in a convulsive struggle, and the boat, with its daring occupants, was whelmed in a whirlpool of blood and foam.
No cry proceeded from the Eskimos during this stupendous attack. They seemed bereft alike of voice and volition, but, on beholding the closing catastrophe, they rushed to the rescue with a united roar.
Before they could gain the spot, Leo was seen to emerge from the deep, dripping with pink and white foam like a very water-G.o.d. Oblooria followed instantly, like a piebald water-nymph. The boat had not been upset, though overwhelmed, and they had held on to it with the tenacity of a last hope.
Looking sharply round, as he gasped and swept the water from his eyes, Leo seized the oars, which, being attached to the boat, were still available, and rowed with all his might away from the approaching Eskimos as if he were afraid of being caught by them. They followed with, if possible, increased surprise at this inexplicable conduct.
They made up to him; some even shot ahead of him. Poor Leo was not a moment too soon in reaching his kite, for these people were about to transfix it with their whale-harpoons, when he dashed up and ordered them to desist.
Having rescued the miserable-looking thing from the sea and hastily folded it, he placed it in the bow. Then breathing freely, he began to look about him just as the whale came again to the surface in a dying flurry. It so chanced that it came up right under Grabantak"s kayak, which it tossed up end over end. This would not have been a serious matter if it had not, the next moment, brought its mighty tail down on the canoe. It then sheered off a hundred yards or so, leaped half its length out of the water, and fell over on its side with a noise like thunder and died.
Every one turned to the place where the chief"s kayak lay a complete wreck on the water. Its owner was seen swimming beside it, and was soon hauled into one of the women"s oomiaks. Evidently he had been severely hurt, but he would not admit the fact. With characteristic dignity he sternly ordered the fleet to lay hold of the whale and make for the sh.o.r.e.
"Tell him his arm is broken," said Leo that evening to Anders, after examining the chief"s hurts in the privacy of his own hut, "and let him know that I am a medicine-man and will try to cure him."
Grabantak received the information with a look of anger.
"Then," said he, "Amalatok must live a little longer, for I cannot fight him with a broken arm. Go," he added, looking full at Leo with something like admiration, "go, you have done well to-day; my young men want to make your nose blue."
The peremptory nature of the chief"s command forbade delay. Leo was therefore obliged to creep out of his hut, wondering intensely, and not a little uncomfortably, as to what having his nose made blue could mean.
He was quickly enlightened by Anders, who told him that the most successful harpooner in a whale hunt is looked on as a very great personage indeed, and is invariably decorated with what may be styled the Eskimo order of the Blue Ribbon.
Scarcely had he received this information, when he was seized by the young men and hurried into the midst of an expectant circle, where he submitted with a good grace to the ceremony. A youth advanced to him, made a few complimentary remarks, seized him by the right ear, and, with a little wet paint, drew a broad blue line across his face over the bridge of his nose. He was then informed that he had received the highest honour known to the Eskimos of the far north, and that, among other privileges, it gave him the right of marrying two wives if he felt disposed to do so! Accepting the honour, but declining the privilege, Leo expressed his grat.i.tude for the compliment just paid him in a neat Eskimo speech, and then retired to his hut in search of much-needed repose, not a little comforted by the thought that the chief"s broken arm would probably postpone the threatened war for an indefinite period.
That night ridiculous fancies played about his deerskin pillow, for he dreamed of being swallowed by a mad whale, and whisked up to the sky by a kite with a broken arm and a blue stripe across its nose!
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.
TELLS OF A WARLIKE EXPEDITION AND ITS HAPPY TERMINATION.
While these stirring events were taking place in Flatland, our friends in the Island of Poloe continued to fish and hunt, and keep watch and ward against their expected enemies in the usual fashion; but alas for the poor Englishmen! All the light had gone out of their eyes; all the elasticity had vanished from their spirits. Ah! it is only those who know what it is to lose a dear friend or brother, who can understand the terrible blank which had descended on the lives of our discoverers, rendering them, for the time at least, comparatively indifferent to the events that went on around them, and totally regardless of the great object which had carried them so far into those regions of ice.
They could no longer doubt that Leo and his companions had perished, for they had searched every island of the Poloe group, including that one on which Leo and the Eskimos had found temporary refuge. Here, indeed, a momentary gleam of hope revived, when Alf found the spent cartridge-cases which his brother had thrown down on the occasion of his shooting for the purpose of impressing his captors, and they searched every yard of the island, high and low, for several days, before suffering themselves to relapse into the old state of despair. No evidence whatever remained to mark the visit of the Eskimos, for these wily savages never left anything behind them on their war-expeditions, and the storm had washed away any footprints that might have remained in the hard rocky soil.
Amalatok--who, with his son and his men, sympathised with the Englishmen in their loss, and lent able a.s.sistance in the prolonged search--gave the final death-blow to their hopes by his remarks, when Captain Vane suggested that perhaps the lost ones had been blown over the sea to Flatland.
"That is not possible," said Amalatok promptly.
"Why not? The distance is not so very great."
"The distance is not very great, that is true," replied Amalatok. "If Lo had sailed away to Flatland he might have got safely there, but Blackbeard surely forgets that the storm did not last more than a few hours. If Lo had remained even a short time on this island, would not the calm weather which followed the storm have enabled him to paddle back again to Poloe? No, he must have thought the storm was going to be a long one, and thinking that, must have tried, again to face it and paddle against it. In this attempt he has perished. Without doubt Lo and Unders and Oblooria are in the land of spirits."
Eskimos of the far north, unlike the red men of the prairies, are p.r.o.ne to give way to their feelings. At the mention of the timid one"s name, Oolichuk covered his face with his hands and wept aloud. Poor Alf and Benjy felt an almost irresistible desire to join him. All the fun and frolic had gone completely out of the latter, and as for Alf, he went about like a man half asleep, with a strange absent look in his eyes and a perfect blank on his expressionless face. No longer did he roam the hills of Poloeland with geological hammer and box. He merely went fishing when advised or asked to do so, or wandered aimlessly on the sea-sh.o.r.e. The Captain and Benjy acted much in the same way. In the extremity of their grief they courted solitude.
The warm hearts of Chingatok and the negro beat strong with sympathy.