To add to my dismay at this unexpected rencontre, I perceived close by, some portions of a human body, half-devoured—red, raw, and appalling!
A horror came over me, suggesting that this victim might be either Paul Reeves or Hans Peterkin; and it was not until some time after, that I was assured, by fragments of the dress which remained, that the unfortunate was a Greenlander, whom they had crushed to death and dragged away. Pausing in their banquet, these savage brutes, which were of enormous size, uttered a hoarse growl, and while their black nostrils seemed to snuff the breeze, their deep-set eyes surveyed me ominously.
My gun had but a single barrel, thus if I killed one bear I might fall a prey to the other before there was time to reload; and if my first shot missed, my fate would be sealed by both, as they were certain to crush and devour me between them!
Turning, I fairly fled up the rocks towards the three pinnacles, pursued by the bears, whose progress was slow, as they were evidently gorged by their double repast on the dead man and the musk-ox.
Twice I stumbled in my flight, and fell heavily on my hands and face. My breath came thickly and fast, and my long seal-skin boots and overalls, which were strapped up to a waistbelt, greatly incommoded me; but love of life and dread of a horrible death are sharp incentives to exertion and activity; thus I struggled to gain a cleft in the rocks, from whence I might turn and shoot down these unwieldy monsters at vantage and at leisure, while they trotted laboriously after me, uttering a succession of deep and menacing growls.
I had left them nearly fifty yards behind, while clambering up the slope, terrified every instant lest by slipping on the ice-covered rocks I might roll down under their very paws. Already I was within twenty feet of the cleft, beyond which the dazzling gleam of the Aurora played, when a hoarser growl saluted my ears; and there—there—above me in the cleft—in the very haven I was toiling to reach, appeared a huge brown bear, squatted on his hams, licking his great red lips, and quietly waiting my approach!
Bewildered by this new enemy, taken in front and rear, for a moment I remained irresolute, with my rifle cocked, but not knowing which to shoot before I met the rest with my weapon clubbed; and now to add still more to my dismay and peril, a fourth bear appeared, advancing from another point!
The monster in the cleft above me, now began to utter hoarse and savage roars, in anticipation of my destruction, which seemed certain; for those northern bears are so cruel and rapacious, that the female secludes her cubs (of which she never has more than two at a litter) from the male, lest he should devour them during the first month of their blindness. I leave the reader to judge of my emotion on finding my single self opposed to four such antagonists; for the white Greenland bears are double the size of those melancholy looking brown brutes whom one may see dancing in the streets at home, being generally about twelve feet long.
I was blindly desperate, yet my heart did not entirely fail; and I felt forcibly "how an influence beyond our control lays its strong hand on every deed we do, and weaves its iron tissue of necessity."
Clambering up the flinty face of the rocks to elude the three, finding footing where, under circumstances less exciting, I might have found none, I ascended resolutely towards the bear which stood in the cleft snuffing the air, roaring, and showing his glistening teeth. Already his hot and fetid breath began to taint the air about me. I was within six feet of him, when, taking an aim there was no doubt would be true, I fired, and the conical ball pierced deeply into his vast chest.