So severely was I stunned by the shock of Bruin's attack, and so confused by the whole combat, that some minutes elapsed before I had sufficient strength or breath to thank my preserver, to whom I might as well have spoken in Greek or Choctaw, as he proved to be a poor Greenlander who had never heard a word of English before.
CHAPTER XXIV.
WOLMAR FYNBÖE.
After various efforts to make ourselves mutually understood, he said something in a kind of jargon which resembled German, and as I had learned that language at home for commercial rather than literary purposes, we contrived to converse, though not with great fluency, using grimaces and signs when words failed us, which was a circumstance of frequent occurrence.
He informed me that he had been searching for a friend who came forth to hunt for a musk-ox, which had been seen in their district, and who he feared had fallen a victim to its horns or the bear's paws.
"I shot the musk-ox," said I; "and as for your friend, I fear your surmises are only too correct, for the half-devoured remains of a dead man are lying at the foot of these rocks just now."
He hurried to the base of the precipice, where I was too exhausted to follow him, and by the sounds of rage and lamentation which preceded his return, I was assured that his friend or kinsman had been the victim of these rapacious brutes. This comforted me, however, with the conviction that the remains were neither those of Paul Reeves nor old Peterkin, our second mate.
But, meantime, where were they?
The Greenlander rejoined me, with my shot-belt and gory knife, which he found among the rocks. He thanked me for so amply avenging his friend's death on his destroyers, and proceeded at once to calculate the value of the four skins and eight hams of the bears. He invited me to his house, which he said was not far off, adding that his name was Wolmar Fynböe; that he was a merchant who exported to Europe seal-skins, the horns of the sea-unicorn, whalebone, and blubber; bartering these, and the skins of blue and white foxes, hares, and bears, for knives and guns, shot, tobacco, barley, beer and brandy, &c.; that he had once been as far as Kiobenhaven,[*] but did not like the manners of the kablunaet (foreigners), who were but half men when compared to the Greenlanders; for national vanity is a great characteristic of these poor people, as it is of many others even less civilized.
[*] Copenhagen.