“Thank you, sir, I have about done.”
“Meetuck, ye haythen, try a bit o’ the roast; do now, av it was only to plaaze me.”
Meetuck shook his head quietly, and, cutting a fifteenth lump off the mass of raw walrus that lay beside him, proceeded leisurely to devour it.
“The dogs is nothin’ to him,” muttered O’Riley. “Isn’t it a curious thing, now, to think that we’re all at sea a eatin’, and drinkin’, and slaapin’—or goin’ to slaape—jist as if we wor on the land, and the great ocean away down below us there, wid whales, and seals, and walrusses, and mermaids, for what I know, a swimmin’ about jist under whare we sit, and maybe lookin’ through the ice at us this very minute. Isn’t it quare?”
“It is odd,” said Fred, laughing, “and not a very pleasant idea. However, as there is at least twelve feet of solid ice between us and the company you mention, we don’t need to care much.”
“Ov coorse not,” replied O’Riley, nodding his head approvingly as he lighted his pipe; “that’s my mind intirely, in all cases o’ danger, when ye don’t need to be afeared, ye needn’t much care. It’s a good chart to steer by, that same.”
This last remark seemed to afford so much food for thought to the company that nothing further was said by anyone until Fred rose and proposed to turn in. West had already crawled into his blanket-bag, and was stretched out like a mummy on the floor, and the sound of Meetuck’s jaws still continued as he winked sleepily over the walrus meat, when a scraping was heard outside the hut.
“Sure, it’s the foxes; I’ll go and look,” whispered O’Riley, laying down his pipe and creeping to the mouth of the tunnel.
He came back, however, faster than he went, with a look of consternation, for the first object that confronted him on looking out was the enormous head of a Polar bear. To glance round for their firearms was the first impulse, but these had unfortunately been left on the sledge outside. What was to be done? They had nothing but their clasp-knives in the igloe. In this extremity Meetuck cut a large hole in the back of the hut intending to creep out and procure one of the muskets, but the instant the opening was made the bear’s head filled it up. With a savage yell O’Riley seized the lamp and dashed the flaming fat in the creature’s face. It was a reckless deed, for it left them all in the dark, but the bear seemed to think himself insulted, for he instantly retreated, and when Meetuck emerged and laid hold of a gun he had disappeared.
They found, on issuing into the open air, that a stiff breeze was blowing, which, from the threatening appearance of the sky, promised to become a gale; but as there was no apprehension to be entertained in regard to the stability of the floe, they returned to the hut, taking care to carry in their arms along with them. Having patched up the hole, closed the doors, rekindled the lamp, and crept into their respective bags, they went to sleep, for, however much they might dread the return of Bruin, slumber was a necessity of nature that would not be denied.