“Yes, sir, we is. Glad to go where you choose send us,” answered Oolibuck, whose broad, oily countenance lighted up with good-humour as he spoke.
“It will remind you of your trip with Captain Franklin,” continued Stanley, addressing Augustus.
“Me no like to ’member dat,” said the Esquimau, with a sorrowful shake of the head. “Me love bourgeois Franklin, but tink me never see him more.”
“I don’t know that, old fellow,” returned Stanley, with a smile. “Franklin is not done with his discoveries yet; there’s a talk of sending off another expedition some of these days, I hear, so you may have a chance yet.”
Augustus’s black eyes sparkled with pleasure as he heard this. He was a man of strong feeling, and during his journeyings with our great arctic hero had become attached to him in consequence of the hearty and unvarying kindness and consideration with which he treated all under his command. But the spirit of enterprise had been long slumbering, and poor Augustus, who was now past the prime of life, feared that he should never see his kind master more.
“Now I want you, lads, to get everything in readiness for an immediate start,” continued Stanley, glancing upwards at the sky; “if the weather holds, we shan’t be long off paying your friends a visit. Are both canoes repaired?”
“Yes, sir, they is,” replied Oolibuck.
“And the baggage, is it laid out? And—”
“Pardon, monsieur,” interrupted Massan, walking up, and touching his cap. “I’ve jest been down at the point, and there’s a rig’lar nor’-wester a-comin’ down. The ice is sweepin’ into the river, an’ it’ll be choked up by to-morrow, I’m afraid.”
Stanley received this piece of intelligence with a slight frown, and looked seaward, where a dark line on the horizon and large fields of ice showed that the man’s surmise was likely to prove correct.