CHAPTER XVIII.
A CHANGE OF BASE.--BUILDING A SNOW-HUT.--THE VIEW FROM THE BERG.--ASTRANGE MEETING.
Breakfast over, all decided to remove at once to the higher ice of thevast floe occupied by the seals. There were a number of reasons why thisplace was chosen, but the principal ones were, that it would be likelyto be sought by sealers, would supply them for a long time with food andfire, and would stand almost any pressure and a heavy sea, without"breaking up."
The boat was accordingly loaded with the weapons, tools, and bedding,and run over the intervening ice with very little difficulty, althoughit took a good half hour to ascend the ice-slopes, which were steep andslippery. Returning, the party took each a seal-skin, with the hair sidedown, and loading them with the remaining decoys, fragments of wood, theEsquimaux lamp and its chimney, and a part of the fir boughs, returnedagain to their new location.
Some convulsion of the ice, had strewed the shores of this field withpiles of young field-ice about a foot thick, and with this materialRegnar at once commenced operations. While Peter rapidly split off cakesabout a foot wide and two or three long, La Salle and Waring slid themalong the ice to Orloff, who, furnished with the other axe and a pail ofwater, rapidly built them into walls a foot thick and eight feet square.A dash of water soon froze the blocks together, and as the material wasnear at hand, in the course of the forenoon walls five feet in height,with a single narrow entrance, had been raised. At this height theblocks were ordered to be made two feet square, and of but half thethickness.
These were laid flatways, with their edges not quite plumb with theoutside edge of the wall, and being frozen into place, left an uncoveredspace about five feet six inches square. Returning to the old berg, theparty took down the shooting-box from the top of the cave, and fillingit with the remaining boughs, and a part of the seal-skins, blubber,&c., regained the floe, and unloading the box, placed it as a roof onthe new dwelling. A single layer of "ice-bricks," as Waring termed them,was placed around its edge, and being thoroughly wetted, formed a strongand weather-proof joining; and shoveling the _debris_ from the interior,the lamp was set up and lighted, the twigs spread thickly over the icyfloor, and bringing in their few household goods, the party, tired andhungry, sat down to a lunch of hard bread and weak coffee.
A final trip of all hands brought over the remainder of their birds,blubber, and skins, much being drawn back on the bottom of the float,which, although lessened in width nearly a foot, still retained both itsrunners, and made quite a decent sledge.
The wind still blew from the north-west, and the pack began to showevidences of the pressure of the large body of ice to windward; but LaSalle and Orloff, although much fatigued, still thought it best to tryto get a survey of the scene from the great berg a little over a mileaway. Keeping on the leeward side of the floes, they reached its basewithout difficulty, and without delay sought a place to ascend.Fortunately a large stream of fresh water from above, had worn a deepgulch in the huge wall, and up this our adventurers managed to climb,although more than once each had to use his axe to cut steps in theglassy ice.
Once on the top of the berg, however, they felt repaid for theadditional fatigue of their journey and ascent. Below them to the east,the floes were like those they had traversed, covered with seals, andabout twenty miles away the highlands of Amherst Island showed plainlyin the crimson light of the declining sun.
ON THE TOP OF THE BERG THEY FELT REPAID FOR THE FATIGUEOF THEIR JOURNEY AND ASCENT. Page 256.]
To the north and west all was ice, and in neither direction could eithersee any signs of the presence of man. To the southward the pack seemedmore open, and as they watched, they saw the leads grow wider, and thepools becoming more frequent.
"We are passing the islands fast," said Regnar, "and by to-morrow willbe well to the south-east of Deadman's Island. Let us descend, for itgrows colder every moment."
Turning, they sought the gulch, only pausing a moment to view the pondwhich fed the streams, which poured continuously from the sides of thisgreat ice-island. It occupied a large depression in the centre of theberg, and was estimated by Regnar to occupy an area of at least sixacres.
As they turned to go, Regnar's eye caught sight of a floe at the foot ofthe berg.
"Are not those dead seals yonder?" said he. "It seems to me that I seepiles of dead bodies, and skins hung on the pinnacles, and then--yes,there is a flag on a pole."
Hastily descending, the two friends ran at full speed to the floe. Itproved to be as Regnar had said. There were hundreds of slaughteredseals, and it was evident that, as far as the eye could reach, the workof death had been complete.
Still something had occurred to prevent the hunters from securing theirrich booty, for huge piles of skins, with their adhering blubber, werescattered over the ice, and near one was planted firmly in the floe aboat-hook, with a small flag at the top. Regnar drew it from the ice,and looked searchingly at flag and shaft; the pennon was of crimson,without lettering or private signal, but on the pole was scorched indeep, black characters, the legend "Str. Mercedes."
"Here has been a good day's work, probably by that steamer whose smokewe saw the other day," said La Salle; "doubtless she was afraid of beingnipped by this ice in the last southerly gale, and made off in time toavoid it. If so, she will be back again after her cargo, when the icegets south of the islands."
"Is that a seal, Charley?"
The words were simple, but the tone was so unlike the usual voice of thespeaker, so tinged with awe and doubt, that La Salle felt a chilltraverse his frame as he turned to see what had provoked the question.
Regnar stood on the brink of the only pool of open water in sight,gazing earnestly at a floating object in the centre, which appeared atfirst sight like a dead seal, but a second glance at the shape and sizeof the body revealed the corpse of a man clad in a seal-skin coat, andfloating on its face.
"It is some poor fellow who has been drowned in passing from one cake toanother," said La Salle, gravely. "Let us examine the body; perhapsthere are papers or valuables on it, which will identify it, or be ofvalue to its friends. At all events, we can give it a more Christiansepulture to-morrow."
Regnar gave no answer, but stood motionless as if turned into stone.
"Come, Regnar! wake up, man! Surely you are not afraid of a poorlifeless body. Bear a hand with that boat-hook, or, if you don't care totouch it, hand it to me."
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Starting as if from a trance, Regnar extended the long boat-hook andgently drew the body to the shore, where La Salle, making a loop of therope they carried, dropped it over the head and shoulders, and drawingit tightly under the arm-pits, gave one end to Regnar.
"His pockets are turned inside out," said La Salle.
"The man has been murdered," almost whispered the lad. "See what aterrible wound there is in the skull."
"Let us land him, any way, Regnar. We will get him upon the ice, andto-morrow we can come down here and look into the matter. Gently, now;that's right. Great Heavens! Regnie, lad, are you mad?"
As the body was landed, turning slowly over on its back, exposing a facehandsome even in death, Regnar started, glanced curiously at thefeatures, and dropping the line, raised the boat-hook, and with everymuscle and feature alive with rage and fury, seemed about to transfixthe senseless body of the dead. Then a change came over him; he loweredhis arm, dropped the useless weapon, and burst into tears.
"Come, Regnie, you are worn out, and it is growing late; let us hastenback to our new hut. To-morrow we can return and look after this poorstranger."
"Stranger! He is no stranger to me. For two years I have sought him inboth hemispheres, urged on by the love of my only relative whom hebetrayed, and hatred of him which could end but with his life or mine.My fondest hope was to find him, my dearest wish to lay him dead at myfeet; and thus we meet at last."
"This, then, is the man you have sought, and for this you have hiddenyour true character from all men. Is this the gift by which you w
ere togain, and I to lose?" said La Salle.
"Ask me no more to-night," said the boy, whose powers of self-control,were only less marvellous than the innate force of his intense nature."We have none too much light for our homeward way, and to-morrow's sunmay help us to learn more of the cause of his death, and our own duty inthe premises. We will say nothing to our friends of this dreadfulmatter, and at early dawn we will set off alone to return here;" andtaking the boat-hook and his weapons, Orloff set off with his usual firmstep and tireless energy.
It was nearly dusk when they reached the floe, and saw at some hundredsof feet distant the moving lantern that told that Peter and Waring wereanxious about the safety of their friends. La Salle hardly dared trusthis voice, but Orloff uttered his well-known halloo; and of the four whowere gathered in that dwelling of ice, the most cheerful and kindly, washe whose dead enemy lay gazing with stony eyeballs at the wintry skies,amid a golgotha of animal butchery, with the dark impress of arifle-bullet in the centre of his forehead.
That night the cold north-wester died away, and a gentle breeze began toblow from the south. The tired Indian and the delicately-nurturedmerchant's son slept side by side on their leaf-strewn floor, and evenLa Salle, excited and surprised as he had been, at last fell into abroken slumber. But when all were asleep, and no human eye could pryinto his secret sorrows, Regnar seated himself by the flaring lamp, anddrawing from his breast a locket, took from it a small folded paper, anda closely-curled ringlet of yellow hair, such as St. Olave, the warriorsaint of Norway, laid in the lap of the fair Geyra, princess ofVendland.
With many a kiss, passionate and sorrowful, he greeted the hiddenlove-treasures, and many a falling tear dimmed the bold eyes, and wetthe ruddy cheeks of the youthful watcher, as late into the night he satgazing into the flaring flame of that element, in which many a sorrowfulheart, in its agony, seems to find a parallel of the torture it endures,and to find a saddened pleasure in the contemplation. But at last thewatcher turned to his rude couch, and only the radiance of the lamp,diffused through the opaline walls of the hut, gave evidence of thepresence of human beings in that desolate, wave-borne, wind-driven,desert of ice.