“Quick, jump in!” she cried, beginning to push off with her paddle.
Cheenbuk was on the point of accepting the invitation, but a thought intervened—and thought is swifter than the lightning-flash. He knew from slight, but sufficient, experience that the spouters could send only one messenger of death at a time, and that before another could be spouted, some sort of manipulation which took time was needful. If the Indian should get the manipulation over before the oomiak was out of range, any of the women, as well as himself, might be killed.
“No,” he cried, giving the boat a mighty shove that sent it out to sea like an arrow, “be off!—paddle!—for life! I will stop him!”
Old Uleeta did not hesitate. She was accustomed to obedience—even when there were no fire-spouters astern. She bent to her paddle with Arctic skill and vigour. So did her mates, and the oomiak darted from the shore while the Indian who had fired the shot was still agonising with his ramrod—for, happily, breech-loaders were as yet unknown.
Cheenbuk was quite alive to his danger. He rushed up the beach towards his foe with a roar and an expression of countenance that did not facilitate loading. Having left his spear in the body of the first Indian, he was unarmed, but that did not matter much to one who felt in his chest and arms the strength of Hercules and Samson rolled into one. So close was he to the Indian when the operation of priming was reached, that the man of the woods merely gave the stock of his gun a slap in the desperate hope that it would prime itself.
This hope, in the artillery used there at that time, was not often a vain hope. Indeed, after prolonged use, the “trade gun” of the “Nor’-west” got into the habit of priming itself—owing to the enlarged nature of the touch-hole—also of expending not a little of its force sidewise. The consequence was that the charge ignited when the trigger was pulled, and the echoes of the cliffs were once more awakened; but happily the Eskimo had closed in time. Grasping the barrel he turned the muzzle aside, and the ball that was meant for his heart went skipping out to sea, to the no small surprise of the women in the oomiak.
And now, for the second time since he had landed on those shores, was Cheenbuk engaged in the hated work of a hand-to-hand conflict with a foe!
But the conditions were very different, for Alizay was no match for the powerful Eskimo—in physique at least, though doubtless he was not much, if at all, behind him in courage.
Cheenbuk felt this the moment they joined issue, and on the instant an irresistible sensation of mercy overwhelmed him. Holding the gun with his right hand, and keeping its muzzle well to one side, for he did not feel quite certain as to its spouting capacities, he grasped the Indian’s throat with his left. Quick as lightning Alizay, with his free hand, drew his scalping-knife and struck at the Eskimo’s shoulder, but not less quick was Cheenbuk in releasing the throat and catching the Indian’s wrist with a grip that rendered it powerless.
For a minute the Eskimo remained motionless, considering how best to render his adversary insensible without killing him.