Ungava. Robert Michael Ballantyne
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When they can’t get a sea-horse they catch a white whale asleep, and wake him up after fastening the dan to his tail. I suppose they have conjurers or wizards among them, since Massan told us just now that poor Peter was—”
“Bah! gammon,” interrupted François with a smile, as he turned to the first speaker. “But tell me, Massan, what is a dan?”
“It’s a sort o’ float or buoy, lad, used by the Huskies, and is made out o’ the skin o’ the seal. They tie it with a long line to their whale spears to show which way the fish bolts when struck.”
“And did they use Peter’s skin for such a purpose?” inquired François earnestly.
“They did,” replied Massan.
“And did you see them do it?”
“Yes, I did.”
François gazed intently into his comrade’s face as he spoke; but Massan was an adept at what is usually called drawing the long bow, and it was with the most imperturbable gravity that he continued—
“Yes, I saw them do it; but I could not render any assistance to the poor child, for I was lying close behind a rock at the time, with an arrow sticking between my shoulders, and a score o’ them oily varmints a-shoutin’, and yellin’, and flourishing their spears in search o’ me.”
“Tell us how it happened, Massan. Let’s hear the story,” chorused the men, as they closed round their comrade.
“Well then,” began the stout backwoodsman, proceeding leisurely to fill his pipe from an ornamented bag that hung at his belt, “here goes. It was about the year—a—I forget the year, but it don’t matter—that we were ordered off on an expedition to the Huskies; ’xactly sich a one as they wants us to go on now, and—but you’ve heerd o’ that business, lads, haven’t you?”
“Yes, yes, we’ve heard all about it; go on.”
“Well,” continued Massan, “I needn’t be wastin’ time tellin’ you how we failed in that affair, and how the Huskies killed some of our men and burnt our ship to the water’s edge. After it was all over, and they thought they had killed us all, I was, as I said, lyin’ behind a great rock in a sort o’ cave, lookin’ at the dirty villains as they danced about on the shore, and took possession of all our goods. Suddenly I seed two o’ them carry Peter down to the beach, an’ I saw, as they passed me, that he was quite dead. In less time than I can count a hundred they took the skin off him, cut off his head, sewed up the hole, tied his arms and legs in a knot, blew him full o’ wind till he was fit to bu’st, an’ then hung him up to dry in the sun! In fact, they made a dan of him!”
A loud shout of laughter greeted this startling conclusion. In truth, we must do Massan the justice to say, that although he was much in the habit of amusing his companions by entertaining them with anecdotes which originated entirely in his own teeming fancy, he never actually deceived them, but invariably, either by a sly glance or by the astounding nature of his communication, gave them to understand that he was dealing not with fact but fiction.
“But seriously, lads,” said François, whose intelligence, added to a grave, manly countenance and a tall, muscular frame, caused him to be regarded by his comrades as a sort of leader both in action and in council, “what do you think of our bourgeois’ plan? For my part, I’m willing enough to go to any reasonable part o’ the country where there are furs and Indians; but as for this Ungava, from what Massan says, there’s neither Indians, nor furs, nor victuals—nothin’ but rocks, and mountains, and eternal winter; and if we do get the Huskies about us, they’ll very likely serve us as they did the last expedition to Richmond Gulf.”
“Ay, ay,” cried one of the others, “you may say that, François. Nothin’ but frost and starvation, and nobody to bury us when we’re dead.”
“Except the Huskies,” broke in another, “who would save themselves the trouble by converting us all into dans!”
“Tush, man! stop your clapper,” cried François, impatiently; “let us settle this business. You know that Monsieur Stanley said he would expect us to be ready with an answer to-night.—What think you, Gaspard? Shall we go, or shall we mutiny?”
The individual addressed was a fine specimen of an animal, but not by any means a good specimen of a man. He was of gigantic proportions, straight and tall as a poplar, and endowed with the strength of a Hercules. His glittering dark eyes and long black hair, together with the hue of his skin, bespoke him of half-breed extraction. But his countenance did not correspond to his fine physical proportions. True, his features were good, but they wore habitually a scowling, sulky expression, even when the man was pleased, and there was more of sarcasm than joviality in the sound when Gaspard condescended to laugh.
“I’ll be shot if I go to such a hole for the best bourgeois in the country,” said he in reply to François’ question.
“You’ll be dismissed the service if you don’t,” remarked Massan with a smile.
To this Gaspard vouchsafed no reply save a growl that, to say the best of it, did not sound amiable.
“Well, I think that we’re all pretty much of one mind on the point,” continued François; “and yet I feel half ashamed to refuse after all, especially when I see the good will with which Messieurs Stanley and Morton agree to go.”
“I suppose you expect to be a bourgeois too some day,” growled Gaspard with a sneer.
“Eh, tu gros chien!” cried François, as with flashing eyes and clinched fists he strode up to his ill-tempered comrade.
“Come, come, François; don’t quarrel for nothing,” said Massan, interposing his broad shoulders and pushing him vigorously back.
At that moment an exclamation from one of the men diverted the attention of the others.
“Voilà! the canoe.”
“Ay, it’s Monsieur Stanley’s canoe. I saw him and Monsieur Morton start for the swamp this morning.”
“I wonder what Dick Prince would have done in this business had he been here,” said François to Massan in a low tone, as they stood watching the approach of their bourgeois’ canoe.
“Can’t say. I half think he would have gone.”
“There’s no chance of him coming back in time, I fear.”
“None; unless he prevails on some goose to lend him a pair of wings for a day or two. He won’t be back from the hunt for three weeks good.”
In a few minutes more the canoe skimmed up to the wharf.
“Here, lads,” cried Mr Stanley, as he leaped ashore and dragged the canoe out of the water; “one of you come and lift this canoe up the bank, and take these geese to the kitchen.”
Two of the men instantly hastened to obey, and Stanley, with the gun and paddles under his arm, proceeded towards the gateway of the fort. As he passed the group assembled on the wharf, he turned and said—
“You’ll come to the hall in an hour, lads; I shall expect you to be ready with an answer by that time.”
“Ay, ay, sir,” replied several of the men.
“But we won’t go for all your expectations,” said one in an undertone to a comrade.
“I should think not,” whispered another.
“I’ll be hanged, and burnt, and frozen if I do,” said a third.
In the meantime Mr Stanley walked briskly towards his dwelling, and left the men to grumble over their troubles and continue their debate as to whether they should or should not agree to go on the pending expedition to the distant regions of Ungava.
Chapter Three.
Shows how Stanley deigned to consult with womankind—The opinions of a child developed—Persuasion fails—Example triumphs—The first volunteers to Ungava
On reaching his apartment, which was in an angle of