THE HOME OF THE EIDER DUCK.
“We remained almost three days in our crystal retreat, gathering eggs at the rate of 1,200 a day. Outside the storm raged without intermission, and our egg-hunters found it difficult to keep their feet; but a merrier set of gourmands than were gathered within never surfeited in genial diet.” It was the 18th of July before the ice allowed them to depart. In launching the Hope she was precipitated into the sludge below, carrying away rail and bulwark, tumbling their best shot-gun into the sea, and, worst of all, their kettle—soup-kettle, paste-kettle, tea-kettle, water-kettle, all in one—was lost overboard. For some days after they made fair progress.
A little later and matters had not improved. The ice was again before them in an almost unbroken mass. “Things grew worse and worse with us,” says Kane; “the old difficulty of breathing came back again, and our feet swelled to such an extent that we were obliged to cut open our canvas boots. But the symptom which gave me most uneasiness was our inability to sleep. A form of low fever which hung by us when at work had been kept down by the thoroughness of our daily rest. All my hopes of escape were in the refreshing influences of the halt.
“It must be remembered that we were now in the open bay, in the full line of the great ice-drift to the Atlantic, and in boats so frail and unseaworthy as to require constant baling to keep them afloat.
“It was at this crisis of our fortunes that we saw a large seal floating—as is the custom of these animals—on a small patch of ice, and seemingly asleep. It was an ussuk, [pg 252]and so large that I at first mistook it for a walrus. Signal was made for the Hope to follow astern, and, trembling with anxiety, we prepared to crawl down upon him.
“Petersen, with the large English rifle, was stationed in the bow, and stockings were drawn over the oars as mufflers. As we neared the animal our excitement became so intense that the men could hardly keep stroke. I had a set of signals for such occasions, which spared us the noise of the voice; and when about three hundred yards off the oars were taken in, and we moved on in deep silence with a single scull astern.
“He was not asleep, for he reared his head when we were almost within rifle-shot; and to this day I can remember the hard, careworn, almost despairing expression of the men’s thin faces as they saw him move: their lives depended on his capture.
“I depressed my hand nervously, as a signal for Petersen to fire. M’Gary hung upon his oar, and the boat, slowly but noiselessly sagging ahead, seemed to me within certain range. Looking at Petersen, I saw that the poor fellow was paralysed by his anxiety, trying vainly to obtain a rest for his gun against the cut-water of the boat. The seal rose on his fore-flippers, gazed at us for a moment with frightened curiosity, and coiled himself for a plunge. At that instant, simultaneously with the crack of our rifle, he relaxed his long length on the ice, and, at the very brink of the water, his head fell helpless to one side.
“I would have ordered another shot, but no discipline could have controlled the men. With a wild yell, each vociferating according to his own impulse, they urged both boats upon the floes. A crowd of hands seized the seal, and bore him up to safer ice. The men seemed half crazy: I had not realised how much we were reduced by absolute famine. They ran over the floe, crying and laughing, and brandishing their knives. It was not five minutes before each man was sucking his bloody fingers, or mouthing long strips of raw blubber.
“Not an ounce of this seal was lost. The intestines found their way into the soup-kettles without any observance of the preliminary home processes. The cartilaginous parts of the fore-flippers were cut off in the mêlée and passed round to be chewed upon; and [pg 253]even the liver, warm and raw as it was, bade fair to be eaten before it had seen the pot. That night, on the large halting-floe, to which, in contempt of the dangers of drifting, we happy men had hauled our boats, two entire planks of the Red Eric were devoted to a grand cooking-fire, and we enjoyed a rare and savage feast....