Although their craft had been thus suddenly destroyed and lost, they were not left absolutely destitute, for each one, with that prompt mental activity which is usually found in people whose lives are passed in the midst of danger, had seized the bear-skin, deerskin, or fur bag on which he or she happened to be sitting, and had flung it on to the floes before leaping thereon; and Ippegoo, with that regard for internal sustenance which was one of his chief characteristics, had grasped a huge lump of seal’s flesh, and carried it along with him. Thus the whole party possessed bedding, and food for at least one meal.
Of course the meal was eaten not only cold but raw. In the circumstances, however, they were only too thankful, to care much about the style of it. Before it was finished daylight fled, the stars came out, and the aurora borealis was shooting brilliantly athwart the sky. Gradually the various members of the party spread their skins on the most level spot discoverable, and, with lumps of ice covered with bits of hide for pillows, went to sleep with what resembled free-and-easy indifference.
Two of the party, however, could not thus easily drop into happy oblivion. Red Rooney felt ill at ease. His knowledge of those Arctic seas had taught him that their position was most critical, and that escape would be almost miraculous, for they were eight or ten miles at least off the land, on a perishable iceberg, with an ice-encumbered sea around, and no means of going afloat, even if the water had been free. A feeling of gloom which he had not felt before, and which he could not banish, rendered sleep impossible; he therefore rose, and sauntered out of the cave.
Outside he found Angut, standing motionless near the edge of an ice-cliff, gazing up into the glorious constellations overhead.
“I can’t sleep, Angut,” said the seaman; “I suppose you are much in the same way?”
“I do not know. I did not try,” returned the Eskimo in a low voice; “I wish to think, not to sleep. Why cannot the Kablunet sleep?”
“Well, it’s hard to tell. I suppose thinking too much has something to do with it. The fact is, Angut, that we’ve got into what I call a fix, and I can’t for the life of me see how we are to get out of it. Indeed I greatly fear that we shall never get out of it.”
“If the Great Spirit wills that our end should be now,” said Angut, “is the Kablunet afraid to die?”
The question puzzled Rooney not a little.
“Well,” he replied, “I can’t say that I’m afraid, but—but—I don’t exactly want to die just yet, you see. The fact is, my friend, that I’ve got a wife and children and a dear old grandmother at home, and I don’t quite relish the idea of never seein’ them again.”