“While this fight was going on I might have shot the animal through the heart with great ease, for it was quite near to me, and when it got up on its hind legs its broad chest presented a fine target. It was difficult to resist the temptation to fire, but I wished to see the native manner of doing the thing from beginning to end, so did not interfere. I was rewarded for my self-denial.
“Half an hour later, while we were dragging the carcass toward the brig, we came unexpectedly upon another bear. Myouk and Meetek at once grasped their lances and ran forward to attack him. I now resolved to play them a trick. Besides my rifle I carried a large horse-pistol in my belt. This I examined, and, finding it all right, I followed close at the heels of the Eskimos. Bruin got up on his hind legs as before, and the two men advanced close to him. I stopped when within thirty yards, cocked my rifle, and stood ready. Myouk was just going to thrust with his lance when—bang! went my rifle. The bear fell. It was shot right through the heart, but it struggled for some time after that. The natives seemed inclined to run away when they heard the shot, but I laughed and made signs of friendship. Then I went close up and shot the bear through the head with my pistol. This affair has filled my savage companions with deep respect for me!”
These two bears were the last they obtained that winter; but as a good supply of meat had been obtained from the Eskimos, they were relieved from anxiety for the time, and the health of the men began to improve a little. But this happy state of things did not last till spring. These sorely tried men were destined to endure much suffering before the light of the sun came back to cheer their drooping spirits.
Chapter Eleven.
Christmas Time—Death—Return of Light and Hope—Disasters and Final Deliverance.
Christmas came at last, but with it came no bright sun to remind those ice-bound men of our Saviour—the “Sun of Righteousness”—whose birth the day commemorated. It was even darker than usual in Refuge Harbour on that Christmas-day. It was so dark at noon that one could not see any object more than a few yards distant from the eyes. A gale of wind from the nor’-west blew the snow-drift in whirling ghost-like clouds round the Hope, so that it was impossible to face it for a moment. So intense was the cold that it felt like sheets of fire being driven against the face! Truly it was a day well fitted to have depressed the heartiest of men. But man is a wonderful creature, not easy to comprehend! The very things that ought to have cast down the spirits of the men of the Hope were the things that helped to cheer them.
About this time, as I have said, the health of the crew had improved a little, so they were prepared to make the most of everything. Those feelings of kindliness and good-will which warm the breasts of all right-minded men at this season of the year, filled our Arctic voyagers to overflowing. Thoughts of “home” came crowding on them with a power that they had not felt at other times. Each man knew that on this day, more than any other day of that long, dark winter, the talk round a well-known hearth in Merry England would be of one who was far, far away in the dark regions of ice and snow. A tear or two that could not be forced back tumbled over rough cheeks which were not used to that kind of salt water; and many a silent prayer went up to call down a blessing on the heads of dear ones at home.
It blew “great guns outside,” as Baker said, but what of that? it was a dead calm in the cabin! It was dark as a coal-hole on the floes. What then? it was bright as noon-day in the Hope! No sun blazed through the skylight, to be sure, but a lamp, filled with fat, glared on the table, and a great fire of coal glowed in the stove. Both of these together did not make the place too warm, but there were fur-coats and trousers and boots to help defy the cold. The men were few in number and not likely to see many friends on that Christmas-day. All the more reason why they should make the most of each other! Besides, they were wrong in their last idea about friends, for it chanced, on that very day, that Myouk the Eskimo paid them a visit—quite ignorant of its being Christmas, of course. Meetek was with him, and so was Oomia, and so was the baby—that remarkably fat, oily, naked baby, that seemed rather to enjoy the cold than otherwise!