Chapter Nineteen.
An Odd Renewal of Acquaintance.
For three days the castaways lead a wretched life, in never-ceasing anxiety—for three nights, too, since all the savages are rarely asleep at any one time. Some of them are certain to be awake, and making night hideous with unearthly noises; and, having discovered this to be the time when the whites do their cooking, there are always one or two skulking about the camp fire, on the lookout for a morsel. The dogs are never away from it.
When will this horrid existence end? and how? Some change is sure to come when the absent members of the tribe return. Should they prove to be those encountered in Whale-Boat Sound, the question would be too easily answered. But it is now known that, although Ailikoleeps, they cannot be the same. The cause of their absence has also been discovered by the ever alert ears of Seagriff. The savages had heard of a stranded whale in some sound or channel only to be reached overland, and thither are they gone to secure the grand booty of blubber.
The distance is no doubt considerable, and the path difficult, for the morning of a fourth day has dawned, and still they are not back. Nor can anything be seen of them upon the shore of the inlet, which is constantly watched by one or more of the women, stationed upon the cranberry ridge.
On this morning the savages seem more restless and surly than ever, for they are hungrier than ever, and nearly famishing. They have picked the kelp-reef clean, leaving not a mussel nor limpet on it; they have explored the ribbon of beach as far as it extends, and stripped the trees of their fungus parasites till none remain. And now they go straying about, seeming like hungry wolves, ready to spring at and tear to pieces anything that may chance in their way.
“There’s an ugly look in their eyes, I don’t like,” said Seagriff, aside to the Captain, “specially in some of the old women. Wi’ them ’tair a thing o’ life or death when they get to starvation point, and that’s near now. One of ’em ’ud have to be sacrificed, ef not one of us. You hear how they’re cackling, wi’ thar eyes all the time turning towards us.”
By this time the old men, with most of the women, have drawn together in a clump, and are evidently holding council on some subject of general interest—intense interest, too, as can be told by their earnest speechifying, and the gesticulation that accompanies it. Without comprehending a word that is said, Seagriff knows too well what they are talking about; their gestures are too intelligible with the lurid glare in their ghoul-like eyes. All that he sees portends a danger that he shrinks from declaring to his companions. They will doubtless learn it soon enough.
And now he hears words that are known to him,—“ical-akinish” and “shiloké;” hears them repeated again and again. It is the black man, “the doctor,” who is doomed!
The negro himself appears to have a suspicion of it, as he is trembling in every fibre of his frame. He need not fear dying, if the others are to live. Rather than surrender him for such sacrifice, they will die with him in his defence.