Chapter Eleven.
Encamped on the Islet.
It was with feelings of profound thankfulness and relief that Adolay landed on the first of the islets, and surveyed the chaotic though beautiful floes from which they had escaped.
And in truth Cheenbuk had required all his skill and experience more than once to avoid the dangers by which they had been beset, for, although the weather was perfectly calm and the ice nearly motionless, they had frequently to pass through channels so narrow that the slightest current might have caused a nip and obliged them to take hurried refuge on the floes, while, at other times, when compelled to pass rather close to the small bergs, lumps dropped into the water perilously near to them from the overhanging ice-cliffs.
“There has been some danger,” remarked the girl, turning to her protector.
“All is well when it ends well,” replied the Eskimo, nearly, but unconsciously, quoting Shakespeare. “But the danger was not very great, for if the ice had closed in we could have jumped on it, and carried the canoe to the nearest open water.”
“But what if a lump had dropped into the canoe and sunk it?” asked Adolay.
“We should have had to scramble on the floes and wait there till—till we died together.”
He said this with some degree of solemnity, for it was an uncomfortable reflection.
“I would prefer,”—she stopped suddenly, for in the haste of the moment she was going to have said—“that we should live together rather than die together,”—but maiden modesty, not unfamiliar even among savages, restrained her, and Cheenbuk, who was not observant in the matter of imperfect speech, took no notice of the abrupt pause.