Heralds of Empire

  CHAPTER XIII

  THE WHITE DARKNESS

  How much of those instructions we carried out I leave untold.Certainly we could not have been less grateful as guests than BenGillam's men were inhospitable as hosts. A more sottish crew of rakesyou never saw. 'Twas gin in the morning and rum in the afternoon andvile potions of mixed poisons half the night, with a cracking of thecook's head for withholding fresh kegs and a continual scuffle offighters over cheating at cards. No marvel the second officer floggedand carved at the knaves like an African slaver. The first night thewhole crew set on us with drawn swords because we refused to gamble thedoublets from our backs. La Chesnaye laid about with his sword and Iwith my rapier, till the cook rushed to our rescue with a kettle oflye. After that we escaped to the deck of the ship and lockedourselves inside Ben Gillam's cabin. Here we heard the weather-vanesof the fort bastions creaking for three days to the shift of ficklewinds. Shore-ice grew thicker and stretched farther to mid-current.Mock suns, or sun-dogs, as we called them, oft hung on each side of thesun. La Chesnaye said these boded ill weather.

  Sea-birds caught the first breath of storm and wheeled landward withshrill calls, and once La Chesnaye and I made out through the ship'sglass a vast herd of caribou running to sniff the gale from the crestof an inland hill.

  "If Radisson comes not back soon we are storm-bound here for thewinter. As you live, we are," grumbled the merchant.

  But prompt as the ring of a bell to the clapper came Pierre Radisson onthe third day, well pleased with what he had done and alert to keep twoof us outside the fort in spite of Ben's urgings to bring the French infor refreshments.

  The wind was shifting in a way that portended a nor'easter, and theweather would presently be too inclement for us to remain outside.That hastened M. Radisson's departure, though sun-dogs and the long,shrill whistling of contrary winds foretold what was brewing.

  "Sink me, after such kindness, I'll see you part way home! By the LordHarry, I will!" swore Ben.

  M. Radisson screwed his eyes nigh shut and protested he could notpermit young Captain Gillam to take such trouble.

  "The young villain," mutters La Chesnaye, "he wants to spy which way wego."

  "Come! Come!" cries Ben. "If you say another word I go all the waywith you!"

  "To spy on our fort," whispers La Chesnaye.

  M. Radisson responds that nothing would give greater pleasure.

  "I've half a mind to do it," hesitates Ben, looking doubtfully at us.

  "To be sure," urges M. Radisson, "come along and have a Christmas withour merry blades!"

  "Why, then, by the Lord, I will!" decides Gillam. "That is," he added,"if you'll send the marquis and his man, there, back to my fort ashostages."

  M. Radisson twirled his mustaches thoughtfully, gave the marquis thesame instructions in French as he had given us when we were left in theNew Englander's fort, and turning with a calm face to Ben, bade him getinto our canoe.

  But when we launched out M. Radisson headed the craft up-stream in thewrong direction, whither we paddled till nightfall. It was cold enoughin all conscience to afford Ben Gillam excuse for tipping a flask fromhis jacket-pouch to his teeth every minute or two; but when we wererested and ready to launch again, the young captain's brain was sobefuddled that he scarce knew whether he were in Boston or on HudsonBay.

  This time we headed straight down-stream, Ben nodding and dozing fromhis place in the middle, M. Radisson, La Chesnaye, and I poling hard tokeep the drift-ice off. We avoided the New Englander's fort by goingon the other side of the island, and when we shot past GovernorBrigdar's stockades with the lights of the Prince Rupert blinkingthrough the dark, Ben was fast asleep.

  And all the while the winds were piping overhead with a roar as fromthe wings of the great storm bird which broods over all that northland.Then the blore of the trumpeting wind was answered by a counter fuguefrom the sea, with a roll and pound of breakers across the sand of thetraverse. Carried by the swift current, we had shot into the bay. Itwas morning, but the black of night had given place to the whitedarkness of northern storm. Ben Gillam jerked up sober and grasped anidle pole to lend a hand. Through the whirl of spray M. Radisson'sfigure loomed black at the bow, and above the boom of tumbling wavescame the grinding as of an earthquake.

  "We are lost! We are lost!" shrieked Gillam in panic, cowering back tothe stern. "The storm's drifted down polar ice from the north andwe're caught! We're caught!" he cried.

  He sprang to his feet as if to leap into that white waste of seethingice foam. 'Twas the frenzy of terror, which oft seizes men adrift onice. In another moment he would have swamped us under the pitchingcrest of a mountain sea. But M. Radisson turned. One blow of his poleand the foolish youth fell senseless to the bottom of the canoe.

  "Look, sir, look!" screamed La Chesnaye, "the canoe's gettingice-logged! She's sunk to the gun'ales!"

  But at the moment when M. Radisson turned to save young Gillam, theunguided canoe had darted between two rolling seas. Walls of ice roseon either side. A white whirl--a mighty rush--a tumult of roaringwaters--the ice walls pitched down--the canoe was caught--tossedup--nipped--crushed like a card-box--and we four flung on the drenchingice-pans to a roll of the seas like to sweep us under, with a footingslippery as glass.

  "Keep hold of Gillam! Lock hands!" came a clarion voice through thestorm. "Don't fear, men! There is no danger! The gale will drive usashore! Don't fear! Hold tight! Hold tight! There's no danger ifyou have no fear!"

  The ice heaved and flung to the roll of the drift.

  "Hold fast and your wet sleeves will freeze you to the ice! Steady!"he called, as the thing fell and rose again.

  Then, with the hiss of the world serpent that pursues man to his doom,we were scudding before a mountain swell. There was the splinteringreport of a cannon-shot. The ice split. We clung the closer. Therush of waves swept under us, around us, above us. There came a crash.The thing gave from below. The powers of darkness seemed to close overus, the jaws of the world serpent shut upon their prey, the spirit ofevil shrieked its triumph.

  Our feet touched bottom. The waves fell back, and we were ashore onthe sand-bar of the traverse.

  "Run! Run for your lives!" shouted Radisson. Jerking up Gillam, whomthe shock had brought to his senses. "Lock hands and run!"

  And run we did, like those spirits in the twilight of the lost, withnever a hope of rescue and never a respite from fear, hand grippinghand, the tide and the gale and the driving sleet yelping wolfishly atour heels! Twas the old, old story of Man leaping undaunted as awarrior to conquer his foes--turned back!--beaten!--pursued by serpentand wolf, spirit of darkness and power of destruction, with the lightof life flickering low and the endless frosts creeping close to a heartbeating faint!

  Oh, those were giants that we set forth to conquer in that harshnorthland--the giants of the warring elements! And giants were neededfor the task.

  Think you of that when you hear the slighting scorn of the roughpioneer, because he minceth not his speech, nor weareth ruffs at hiswrists, nor bendeth so low at the knee as your Old-World hero!

  The earth fell away from our feet. We all four tumbled forward. Thestorm whistled past overhead. And we lay at the bottom of a cliff thatseemed to shelter a multitude of shadowy forms. We had fallen to aravine where the vast caribou herds had wandered from the storm.

  Says M. Radisson, with a depth of reverence which words cannot tell,"Men," says he, "thank God for this deliverance!"

  * * * * * *

  So unused to man's presence were the caribou, or perhaps so stupefiedby the storm, they let us wander to the centre of the herd, round whichthe great bucks had formed a cordon with their backs to the wind toprotect the does and the young. The heat from the multitude of bodieswarmed us back to life, and I make no doubt the finding of that herdwas God Almighty's provision for our safety.

  For three days we wandered with nothing to eat but wil
d birds done todeath by the gale. [1] On the third day the storm abated; but it wasstill snowing too heavily for us to see a man's length away. Two orthree times the caribou tossed up their heads sniffing the airsuspiciously, and La Chesnaye fell to cursing lest the wolf-pack shouldstampede the herd. At this Gillam, whose hulking body had wasted fromlack of bulky rations, began to whimper--

  "If the wolf-pack come we are lost!"

  "Man," says Radisson sternly, "say thy prayers and thank God we arealive!"

  The caribou began to rove aimlessly for a time, then they were off witha rush that bare gave us chance to escape the army of clicking hoofs.We were left unprotected in the falling snow.

  The primal instincts come uppermost at such times, and like the wildcreatures of the woods facing a foe, instantaneously we wheeled back toback, alert for the enemy that had frightened the caribou.

  "Hist!" whispers Radisson. "Look!"

  Ben Gillam leaped into the air as if he had been shot, shrieking out:"It's him! It's him! Shoot him! The thief! The traitor! It's him!"

  He dashed forward, followed by the rest of us, hardly sure whether Benwere sane.

  Three figures loomed through the snowy darkness, white and silent asthe snow itself--vague as phantoms in mist--pointing at us like wraithsof death--spirit hunters incarnate of that vast wilderness riding theriotous storm over land and sea. One swung a weapon aloft. There wasthe scream as of a woman's cry--and the shrieking wind had swept thesnow-clouds about us in a blind fury that blotted all sight. And whenthe combing billows of drift passed, the apparition had faded. We fourstood alone staring in space with strange questionings.

  "Egad!" gasped Radisson, "I don't mind when the wind howls like a wolf,but when it takes to the death-scream, with snow like the skirts of ashroud----"

  "May the Lord have mercy on us!" muttered La Chesnaye, crossinghimself. "It is sign of death! That was a woman's figure. It is signof death!"

  "Sign of death!" raged Ben, stamping his impotent fury, "'tis him--'tishim! The Judas Iscariot, and he's left us to die so that he may stealthe furs!"

  "Hold quiet!" ordered M. Radisson. "Look, you rantipole--who is that?"

  'Twas Le Borgne, the one-eyed, emerging from the gloom of the snow likea ghost. By signs and Indian words the fellow offered to guide us backto our Habitation.

  We reached the fort that night, Le Borgne flitting away like a shadow,as he had come. And the first thing we did was to hold a service ofthanks to God Almighty for our deliverance.

  [1] See Radisson's account--Prince Society (1885), Boston--BodleianLibrary.--Canadian Archives, 1895-'96.