Cast Away in the Cold Part 16

In a moment the old man appeared to have quite satisfied himself about the matter, for he started off as fast as he could go:--

"I didn't tell you anything about the fort we built, nor the time we had provisioning it,--did I?" said he.

"No," answered William, "nothing about a fort."

"Then there's the broken end of the yarn at last," and the old man took his finger from his forehead and stopped feeling for it.

"Well, it was a good long time," continued the Captain, "before the bears finished the old narwhal; but, finding how much they were occupied in that quarter, we went to our storehouses, and brought all our stores away, and stowed them close to the mouth of the hut, thinking that, if they were discovered, we should there be better able to protect them.

"First of all, however, we built up two solid snow-walls, about three feet apart, and as high as our heads, directly on a line with the entrance to our hut, so that when we went outside we walked right between them. Then, behind these walls, we piled all the birds, seal-flesh and eggs that we had for food, and all the blubber (now frozen quite hard) that we had for fuel,--the former on the right-hand side (going out), and the latter on the left. Having done this, we covered the whole over with snow several feet deep; and, as a still further protection against our enemies the bears, we built up a great wall all around in front of the hut where there were no high rocks.

Through this wall we left only one small hole to crawl through when we went out; and, when we came inside, we carefully closed it up with some large blocks of snow. But we did not go outside much, being afraid; and at length, when one of the bears was discovered prowling about very near the hut, we drew within our fortification, closed the opening in the wall as tightly as possible, and were prepared for a siege.

"At first we did not sleep much, being all the time fearful of attack; but gaining courage as we found, day after day, that the bears did not come to molest us, we at length fell asleep both together; and it was while we were thus asleep that the bears discovered us. Before either of us awoke, they had actually scaled the wall of our snow-fort, and advanced to where our food and fuel were stowed, close to the mouth of the hut, and were tearing through the snow to get at it.

"We were, naturally enough, much alarmed, not so much on our own immediate account, as on account of our stores, for the bears would, we knew very well, not be likely to trouble us so long as there was anything else to eat; but then they might just as well eat us first, and the stores afterward, as to eat the stores first; for then we must surely starve and freeze, which would be quite as bad.

"Fully sensible of our unhappy condition, and the first feeling of alarm having pa.s.sed over, we began seriously to speculate upon what we should do; for something had to be done, and that very quickly.

"I looked out through the window, and there were the bears all crowded together in the narrow pa.s.sage; and one of them had already got among the frozen ducks, which were tumbling in the snow about his feet, and he had one in his mouth, crunching away at it in such a manner as to leave no doubt that he was either very hungry or was in a violent hurry; growling all the while,--'Ung, ung, ung,'--with each crunch he gave, to keep away the other two bears. This bear was much the largest of the three; the smallest one was not, as I said before, larger than a Newfoundland dog,--not larger than Port or Starboard. Thus you see not only what a destructive, but what a selfish, beast he was.

"From alarm we now got to be angry, as we observed the liberties these bears were taking with our food, and the little ceremony they made of eating up, in this wholesale manner, what had cost us so much hard labor to get, and upon which our very lives now depended.

"I seized 'Old Crumply' in very desperation, and asked the Dean if he would follow me. 'What!' exclaimed he, 'you don't mean to attack them?'

'That's just what I am going to do,' said I; 'and, if you can do anything with "The Delight," now's your chance.' 'I'll stand by you,'

said the Dean, grasping his weapon; 'better to be killed outright by the bears than to let them starve us to death, and then very likely kill us afterwards.'

"Desperate as was our condition, I could not help being amused by the Dean's way of putting the matter,--'first starved to death, and then killed'; and I think this little speech, turned in that happy way, did a great deal to stiffen up my courage.

"I crawled out through the doorway of the hut (which I have told you was not high enough for us to stand upright in), and, upon coming near the end of it, there was the bear within three feet of me. His head was turned away, and his nose was all buried up in the snow; for he had just swallowed a duck, and was getting a fresh one, so that he did not see me. My heart seemed to be in my mouth,--so close to the dreadful monster,--so ferocious and fearful did he appear as I looked up at him.

Had I been alone, I think I should have retreated; but here was the Dean behind me, and I was ashamed to back out, having gone thus far.

Summoning all my courage, therefore, I brought forward my spear, grasped it with both hands, and plunged it with all my force into the animal's neck, just behind the lower jaw and below the ear.

"It was a fortunate stroke. I had evidently, by chance, cut some great blood-vessel, for the blood spouted from the wound in a regular stream.

The bear dropped his duck very quickly, I can tell you. He was probably never so much astonished in all his life before. I had come upon him so stealthily, and he was so absorbed in what he was about, that he had never once suspected the presence of an enemy, but thought himself, no doubt, a very lucky bear to find such a dinner ready caught for him, and was quite as little concerned about who the owner might be as most people would be if they found a bag of gold.

"But I caused him to sing another tune than to be constantly going 'Ung, ung, ung,' to frighten off the little bears, for he roared with terror, so that you might have heard him half a mile; and, finding that he could not wheel around as quickly as he wanted to, he roared again, louder than before, which sounded so dreadful that I drew back into the hut quite instinctively, and thus lost the opportunity to give him another thrust, which I might very well have done, in the side. When he had got wheeled round, he rolled over the other two bears, and the three together, all roaring in a dreadful way, rolled against the snow-wall of our fort, and broke it down; and now, as soon as they could scramble to their legs again, they hurried away through the snow down into the valley,--the smallest one trying hard to keep up, and whining piteously all the while, as if he were afraid something terrible was coming to catch him; and now, just as we had done before, when we had, with our shouts, frightened the bears away when they had first come to disturb us, we ran after them, little thinking of danger, in the excitement of the moment.

"We found that the bear I had wounded held straight down the valley, as was easily told by the red streak he left behind him on the snow. The other two turned to the right, and ran over in the direction of the old narwhal.

"Following the red streak, we came soon down to the beach; and then climbing over the rough ice which the tide had piled up, we were quickly upon the frozen sea, hurrying on as fast as we could go. Indeed, no feeling of fear ever crossed our minds; for the great quant.i.ty of blood that the bear left behind him somehow or other went to convince us, without much reflection, that the bear must be dead, and that we should presently come upon him.

"While hurrying on at this rate, our spirits received as sudden a check as they had on a previous occasion; for we did at length come upon the bear, sure enough, and, forgetting all our courage immediately, we wheeled about in great alarm, and ran back towards the hut as fast as we could go.

"Finding, however, that we were not pursued, we turned about again; and, proceeding more cautiously this time, we came, in a little while, in sight of the bear again, very near where he was before; but now he was clearly by no means a formidable enemy; for he was going along very slowly, and making a crooked track, as if he was drunk. Directly he fell over; and, in a little while afterwards, we went up to him, and found him dead,--having bled to death from the wound I had given him.

"You may easily imagine how rejoiced we were; for now we had an enormous supply of food, and a fine bear-skin besides; so I lost no time in unlas.h.i.+ng the knife-blade from the end of 'Old Crumply,' and with this we began to butcher him. It was a very cold and tedious operation; but we got through with it at last, and then, burying all of the flesh in the snow except a small piece that we wanted for supper, we returned to the hut, dragging the skin after us, the Dean whistling, all the way, 'Bonaparte crossing the Alps,' which he had picked up, as he told me, from a Frenchman in Havana.

"While we were coming up the valley towards the hut, in this lively state of mind, the Dean stopped suddenly, and said: 'Suppose, Hardy, the other two bears have taken a notion to come back'; and he was right; for we came presently in sight of one of them, very near the hut, and making directly for it. As soon as he saw us, however, he ran away. So we took a good laugh at his expense, and, thinking the other one must be near him, though not in sight, we proceeded on our way. Fortunately, however, before seeing the bear, we halted long enough to secure the knife-blade again on the end of 'Old Crumply'; and it was well that we did this, for, when we arrived at the broken wall where the bears had made their way out, much to our surprise, we came right upon the other bear, close up to the mouth of the hut, busy swallowing a duck. This was the smallest of the three bears, and he could not have been more than a year or so old. No sooner did he hear us than he, like the other one, became alarmed; but, seeing us in the road by which he had entered, he did not try to escape in that way, nor did he appear to have the least idea that he had only to charge upon us to see how quickly he would clear the pa.s.sage; for, instead of doing this, he instantly rushed forward, and plunged into our hut, no doubt thinking that would lead to a place of safety.

"I do not exactly know by what motive I was impelled, but I suppose the same that governed me on several other occasions; that is, a general one belonging to almost all human beings, and, indeed, to most animals, that is, to chase whatever runs away, and to run away from whatever chases.

"At any rate, I rushed up to the doorway of the hut, I believe without any idea at all in my head, and without giving much thought about it, and had like to have got into a great sc.r.a.pe; for the bear, having found that the hut gave him no chance of escape, had turned about, and was coming out again. I was wholly unprepared for him, so hasty had I been.

I could not run, and therefore, quite mechanically, I hit him in the face with the sharp point of 'Old Crumply,' which sent him back into the hut again, and made him roar in an awful manner, as if he were half killed. I knew I must have hit him on some tender spot,--the eye, it proved to be afterwards, so he was half blind as well as half dead.

"It was very unfortunate that I had not let him go, or killed him outright; for we could now hear him tearing everything to pieces in our hut, trying to find a place of escape. The wall between our sleeping-place and our closet was first knocked over, as he scrambled about; and there was no doubt that our pots and lamps were all broken to pieces. It was like a great roaring bull in a china shop, and we wished many times that he was only out and off; and, if he had only known, our minds upon the subject, a compromise would have been speedily made, and the beast might have gone scot-free on condition of his doing no further mischief.

"The bear was not long in discovering the window. Now, the window being very small, it was evident that, if he attempted it, he would do us a great damage, for he could only pa.s.s through by knocking down some part of the wall. No sooner, therefore, had his head appeared in that quarter, than the Dean charged him most gallantly with the 'Delight,'

and gave him such a tremendous blow on the nose that he was glad enough to draw his head in again, which he did with a great cry. Then he became quiet for a while, as if meditating what course it was best for him now to pursue.

"Availing myself of this little pause, I exchanged weapons with the Dean, and, fixing the harpoon-head on the end of the 'Delight,' I tied the other end of the line which was fast to it around a large stone that lay across the doorway of the hut. This I did because I thought there might be a possible chance of catching the bear; and that, if we could only get him to run out, I might harpoon him as he pa.s.sed, and the stone would hold him until we could find some way of despatching him.

"No sooner had these preparations been made than the bear was again in motion; and now he gave a roar that seemed loud enough to have rattled the whole hut down about his ears. This time he had clearly tried the chimney, and had not only scattered the burning moss and fat all about the hut, but had set himself on fire into the bargain; for a great volume of smoke came out through the window, which smelled of burning hair.

"The screams of the bear were now pitiful to hear, and in very desperation he once more tried the window, when the Dean quickly gave him a crack with 'Old Crumply,' which sent him back again.

"Grown now utterly reckless, he bolted right through the door. I was ready for him, standing on the top of the pa.s.sageway and on the stone to which the harpoon line was made fast. As the bear came under me, I let drive with the harpoon, and stuck him in the back. And then away he dashed like a fiery demon, plunging through the snow, smoking and blazing all over. He had evidently rolled all about in our burning fat and moss, as bits of burning moss were sticking to him, setting his hair all on fire, and no doubt scorching his skin to a degree that must have made a dive into the snow very comfortable indeed.

"As soon as he had run out all the line, the stone under my feet, instead of holding fast, gave way, pitching me after the bear, and turning me quite upside down. I landed head-foremost in a snow-bank. The burning bear went rus.h.i.+ng and roaring away, dragging the big stone after him; but not far, however, for he fell over and died directly,--no doubt partly from fright, but chiefly, perhaps, from his wounds and his severe burns.

"Having got rid of the bear, we gave him no further thought for the present, but rushed into the hut to see what mischief he had done there.

The smoke was at first so thick that we were almost smothered by it. Our cloth coats and part of our fur bedding were all mixed up with the burning moss upon the floor, and were being rapidly destroyed. As we had feared, the pots and lamps were all broken; and, in short, the inside of the hut was in a most sorry state.

"It was a long time before we fully repaired all the damage the bear had done, and we suffered much inconvenience and discomfort before we replaced our pots, cups, and lamps. When we had, however, at last done all this, we were not sorry that the bears had come to disturb us, but on the other hand were rather rejoiced; for we were now in all respects just as comfortable as ever, and had besides a great warm bear-skin to sleep on, and one more variety of food added to our list, and that, too, in such large quant.i.ty that there was no fear of our coming to want very soon."

Seeing that the ancient mariner showed signs of breaking off at this stage of the story, Fred spoke up, and wanted to know more about the bear that had set fire to himself.

"O, it don't much matter about him," replied the Captain. "When we had looked after the hut, and had got the fire put out, and found leisure then to go after the bear, he was dead enough, as I said before; but much of the hair was singed off him as nicely almost, in some places, as if he had been shaved, so that the skin was of little use to us, and we only used the flesh, which we soon grew very fond of; for this bear, as I have said before, was a young one, and his flesh was tender."

"What became of the other bear?" asked William, curious to reach the end of the bear story.

"We never saw anything more of him, nor heard anything more of him either," answered the Captain; "and indeed we were never troubled any more with bears at all in that way, but thereafter lived in peace.

"That is to say, we lived in peace so far as the bears were concerned; but the cold and the darkness were now at their greatest, and the winds blew sometimes with such violence that we were often greatly terrified.

Indeed, the storms at one time were so constant and so fearful that we could scarcely stir out of doors. Up to this period the weather had been mostly calm and very favorable to our course of life; but, as the winter began to turn towards the spring, all this was changed.

"Yet we could not but feel thankful for the great privilege of good weather with which Providence had so far blessed us. Had the storms raged in the autumn and early winter as they did now, we should have been quite unable to provide for our wants, and we must have starved.

But now our needs were abundantly supplied, and we had little occasion for going abroad unless we wanted to and the weather was favorable. Once only did we experience any serious danger from the weather; and this, like most evils that befall all human beings, was due to our own imprudence.

"There being a bright moon, and the air being nearly calm and not unusually cold, we were tempted to take a long walk; and, attracted by one object after another that was upon the frozen sea over which we were walking,--here an iceberg of peculiar formation or remarkable size, there a snow-drift of singular form,--we found ourselves at last several miles away from our hut.

"When we turned about at length to retrace our steps, we discovered that the northern sky, which we now faced (for we had walked out in a southerly direction), showed stormy symptoms, and very quickly afterward a severe gale of wind broke over the island and the desolate sea, and we found ourselves overwhelmed with drifting snow.

"The sky was for the most part cloudless, and no snow fell from the heavens, but the light snow that lay upon the ice was picked up, as it were, by the wind, and whirled through the air in a manner as beautiful as it was terrible; for the drift coming in streams, with the rus.h.i.+ng wind, lashed our faces, torturing us in a terrible manner, chilling us through and through, and almost overpowering us. Then an aurora borealis burst out before us, as if the heavens were on fire,--and from the top of our little island the snow came whirling above our heads in constant streams, that went circling about in a most fantastic way.