“A living man may hope,” returned Angut gravely.
“Ay, and where there is life,” added Rooney, “there ought to be thankfulness.”
“I would be more thankful,” said Ippegoo, with a woe-begone expression, “if we had saved even a spear; but what can we do without food or weapons?”
“Do? my son,” said Kunelik; “can we not at least keep up heart? Who ever heard of any good coming of groaning and looking miserable?”
“Right you are, old girl,” cried Rooney, giving the mother of Ippegoo a hearty pat on the shoulder. “There is no use in despairing at the very beginning of our troubles; besides, is there not the Great Spirit who takes care of us, although we cannot see or hear Him? I believe in God, my friends, and I’ll ask Him to help us now.”
So saying, to the surprise of the Eskimos, the seaman uncovered his head, and looking upwards, uttered a few words of earnest prayer in the name of Jesus.
At first the unsophisticated natives looked about as if they expected some visible and immediate answer to the petition, but Rooney explained that the Great Spirit did not always answer at once or in the way that man might expect.
“God works by means of us and through us,” he said. “We have committed the care of ourselves to Him. What we have now to do is to go to work, and do the best we can, and see what things He will throw in our way, or enable us to do, in answer to our prayer. Now, the first thing that occurs to me is to get away from where we stand, because that overhanging cliff beside us may fall at any moment and crush us. Next, we should go and search out some safe cavern in which we may spend the night, for we sha’n’t be able to find such a place easily in the dark, and though it will be but a cold shelter, still, cold shelter is better than none—so come along.”
These remarks of the sailor, though so familiar—perhaps commonplace—to us, seemed so just and full of wisdom to the unsophisticated natives, and were uttered in such an off-hand cheery tone, that a powerful effect was created, and the whole party at once followed the seaman, who, by this display of coolness, firmness, and trustfulness in a higher power, established a complete ascendancy over his friends. From that time they regarded him as their leader, even although in regard to the details of Eskimo life he was of course immeasurably their inferior.
They soon found a small cave, not far from the spot where they had landed—if we may use that expression—and there made preparation to spend the night, which by that time was drawing on.