And in this view he was supported by Wade and the sailors. Indeed, I voted to keep them with us myself. To let them go seemed suicidal.
"But they may all starve here before spring," Raed urged. "That would be terrible!"
"Well, we must take measures to see that they don't starve," replied Kit. "Now's our chance to show them the advantages of our administration. To-morrow we must begin a regular autumnal hunt. Every seal and every bear, and such of the sea-fowl as have not already flown, we must capture for winter-store. We must keep them at it sharp. There's no need of starving, if we manage rightly. To-morrow we will begin a regular hunt,—send out hunting-parties every day. Whatever is brought in we will take charge of, and deal out as they need."
"In case they were like to starve, a lot of these worthless dogs could be killed for them to eat," said Donovan. "It wouldn't hurt my feelings to slaughter the whole pack of them."
"It no need to come to that, if we manage rightly," replied Kit.
Thus it was left. The only cause for immediate alarm was the ghastly fact, that we had only eleven cartridges remaining.
Toward evening it came on to snow. A dreary night settled down upon the island. But we lighted our Husky lamp [it would appear that they had procured a stone lamp from the Esquimaux], and made things as cheery as we could. For the past week we had given up sentinel-duty, save what Guard could do. There seemed no call for it. About ten we all lay down on our bear-skins, and, covering them over us, were soon comfortable. But, somehow, that night my head was full of dreams. I dreamed everything a fellow could well imagine, and a good many things no one ever could imagine awake. I went all over the stern experiences of the past two months. Again we were hunting bears in "Mazard's Bay." Again we were tossing amid the ice. At that stage of my fancies, the dogs probably got to fighting; for suddenly I was back on our desolate isle. It was mid-winter; cold! oh, how cold! The island was a mass of ice. Wutchee and Wunchee had frozen: we were all freezing. Suddenly one of the Company's ships hove in sight, sailing over the ice-fields, and began a bombardment of our island. They had found us at last, and now were about to shell us out, together with our miserable subjects. How their heavy guns roared! Their shells came dropping down with ruinous explosions. Then one came roaring into our tent. There was a moment of horrible suspense. The fuse tizzed. Bang! We were blown to atoms!
I started. It had waked me,—something had. The lamp gave a sickly light. Kit was getting up too; so was Wade. I was already on my feet, near where we had stacked our guns.
"Did you fire a musket?" Kit demanded.
"What did you fire at?" exclaimed Wade.