“Draw yer knife, lad, and make it lively fer them screamin’ rascals. Their down is worth money and they’ve got blubber as thick as a seal’s. Give ’em no odds, I tell ye, my laddie.”
Magnus followed this advice promptly. He drew his knife, and fought with a will, thrusting and striking right and left, and hearing the great birds tumbling about him down the steep sides of the rock. He had been thus occupied for a few minutes when suddenly, to his unutterable amazement, a great blaze rose from the strand below, lighting up the barren wall of the cliff, and showing him how narrow the ledge was upon which he was sitting. It was a superb spectacle, too, to see the whirling host of gulls, auks, and cormorants eddying wildly about his head, the great black cliff looming up above him, and the spray of the surf spouting, with angry brawl, high up into the nocturnal air.
“Hurrah! lad,” yelled Grim, through the ear-splitting noise and confusion, “I war a blasted fool not to think on it. They be a-burnin’ the wreck.”
The descent was a much easier affair than the ascent; for the light of the fire below blazed up every now and then and enabled them to see where they were treading. They picked up between them several dozen birds, of nearly half as many varieties, and flung them down before the fire, where the company were now seated in comparative comfort, warming their stiffened limbs. Two of the boatmen were engaged in skinning the seals and cutting off the blubber, which, after squeezing out the blood, they flung into the fire. Soon the oil began to ooze out, and, flowing over the wood, burned with a clear and strong flame.
“I am going to make myself comfortable, fellows,” said Harry, who was looking very pale and chilly after his involuntary bath; “and if you don’t mind it, I’ll make a scarf of this big duck. She fits very nicely about my throat, though she won’t accommodate herself to the bow-knot. This little one I am going to stuff down my bosom. She feels so deliciously warm and downy! I tell you,” he went on, with emphasis, suiting his actions to his words, “I mean to patent this invention, when I get back home, as an infallible cure for rheumatism, toothache, consumption, chillblains, corns, and kidney disease. I am going to call it Winchester’s In-wincible Wivifier. That will sound well and catch the public eye. I was about ready to give up the ghost awhile ago, and now I feel quite jolly.”
He stretched himself luxuriously on the windward side of the fire, arranged half a dozen ducks and auks under his head as a pillow, and closed his eyes. Magnus and Olaf soon followed his example, each tying a big gull about his throat, and feeling a grateful warmth creeping through their half-frozen bodies. The men had the good luck to find a bunch of drift-wood large enough to keep the fire going until morning, and to satisfy their hunger they roasted a piece of seal-flesh, which, in spite of its oily flavor, tasted better than they had expected. When Grim saw that the boys were asleep he covered them carefully with his own oil-skin clothes, while he himself kept marching up and down on the beach to keep his blood in motion. After midnight the wind shifted suddenly to the west and fell off gradually, the clouds were scattered, and the moon sailed calmly through the dark-blue sky.
The three boys slept soundly after their terrible hardships, and the eastern sky was already bright with the dawn when they opened their eyes. The whole screaming colony of birds were again on the wing, and whirled about the projecting crags of the cliff with wild clamor. Several sails were already visible on the horizon and, as soon as signals of distress were hoisted, steered toward the island. Harry, who was ravenously hungry, made a courageous assault upon the roasted seal-flesh, but after two futile attempts declared that he was not sufficiently acclimated to relish such diet. If necessity compelled him, he preferred to roast his boots, and to use the seal-oil as gravy.
“What do you say you call this island?” he asked Grim, who was trotting at his side up and down on the sand.
“The Bird Island,” answered Grim.