speak.
"We are well-nigh starved, and I thought we should never get back," hesaid at length.
"Where are our shipmates? Why haven't they come?" I asked.
"I'll tell you all about it when we have had some food and rest. Canyou give us something to eat?"
"Plenty," I answered, leading him and Hans into the hut, while Ewen andCroil unharnessed the poor dogs, who looked well-nigh famished. Ewengave them some bears' flesh, and they devoured it with a greedinesswhich showed that they had gone long without a meal.
We soon had some slices of meat frying on our stove and some snowmelting. After the two weary travellers had eaten, and drank some hotcoffee, Sandy gave us the alarming intelligence that he had been unableto reach the camp. On arriving at the edge of the land-ice, what washis dismay to discover a wide gap between it and the field in the midstof which our friends were encamped, and which was in motion driftingsouthward. Still, hoping that it might again come in contact with theland-ice, he determined to move in the same direction. He caught sightindeed of a flag and what he took to be a portion of the wreck, thoughat so great a distance that he did not suppose the sound of his rifle,which he fired off, would be heard. No object indeed would have beengained had it been so, as it would have been impossible for one party tocommunicate with the other. For two days he followed the floe, but thedistance between it and the land-ice increased. At length the ice overwhich he was travelling became so rough that he could proceed nofurther; he lost sight of the floe and its living freight, and wasreluctantly compelled to return for want of food. One of the dogs gavein and it was killed and eaten. The last morsels had been consumed theday before he and Hans reached the hut. Their joy at finding us stillthere may be imagined, for had we by any chance fallen in with nativesand accompanied them to the south, they fully expected to perish.
As soon as the meal was over, the two weary travellers lay down tosleep. Croil imitated their example, while Ewen and I sat up by thelight of the lamp, I mending clothes and my friend engaged in preparinga small tub for holding bear's grease to serve us for fuel. Ourconversation naturally took a melancholy turn. The thought that thefloe on which were my brother and his companions might be dashed topieces, and that they would perish miserably, was painful in theextreme. We thought more of them, indeed, than of ourselves, though ourposition was truly perilous. Our only shelter during the intense coldof an Arctic winter was an ice hut. Hitherto the bears we had shot hadafforded us food and fuel; but they might take their departure, and weshould then have no other food on which to depend, until the return ofspring should enable us to kill walruses and seals. No ships, even inthe summer, were likely to penetrate so far north, for few whalers hadgot so near the pole as the _Hardy Norseman_ had done, and destructionhad overtaken her.
"Still I have heard that people have wintered in Nova Zembla andSpitzbergen, even with fewer means of supporting themselves than wepossess," observed Ewen. "We must not despair, Hugh, but trust in God;Sandy's return to us is greatly to our advantage; for with his harpoon,when our powder is expended, he will be able to kill seals, and furnishus with food."
"I am thinking of my brother Andrew, and the hopelessness of findingDavid," I replied.
"But we do not know that he and the rest of the party are lost, and ifyour brother David is alive he may still make his escape wherever he maybe."
At last Ewen and I, having trimmed the lamp that it might keep alight,and maintain sufficient warmth in the hut, carefully closed the door andlay down to sleep.
There was no necessity for keeping a watch as was the case on the floe,nor had we the dread of an attack from hostile natives, for no humanbeings were likely to come near us. We should have been heartily readyto welcome any Esquimaux should they find us out.
I awoke at the usual hour, just before day-break, and getting up trimmedthe lamp which had almost gone out, and set to work to prepare breakfastfor my companions.
After a time I called up Ewen and Croil, but we allowed Sandy and Hansto sleep on, keeping the breakfast ready to give them the moment theyshould awake. It was noon before they opened their eyes, when havingtaken the food we offered them they fell asleep again. It was severaldays, indeed, before they got over the fatigue of their journey.
Sandy, when once himself again, was as anxious as any of us to makepreparations for passing the winter. We talked of pushing southward toseek a more level region, but the lofty hills in the distance, withoutthe appearance of any spot on which we could land, made us hesitate. Asthe days were now only of three hours' duration, we feared that weshould not have light for more than a very short journey, and it wasimpossible to endure the cold for any length of time after the sun hadgone down. We had already a good supply of bear's meat, but it wasimportant to get more. Our store we had buried in a pit close to thehut, so that no roving bears could get at it. They are in no wayparticular, and would quite as readily feast on the flesh of theirrelatives as on any other meat. We had frequently seen their tracksmade during the night close outside the hut, but they must have takentheir departure, like spirits of another world, before dawn. They werenot as hungry at this time of the year as they would be further on, whenno seals were to be caught and the deer and other animals had migratedsouthward. At length the sun sank beneath the horizon, not again torise until the end of a long winter's night. The cold too had become sointense that we could only keep ourselves warm in the hut with the doorclosed and the lamp alight, but then it was almost too hot. We had,therefore, to make a window through which we could admit fresh air,without the necessity of opening the door; but when there was any windwe were obliged to fill up the aperture with snow, for the smallestorifice admitted a draught of air which pierced the hand like a needlewhen held up to it. The poor dogs had to be taken inside, for though wehad built kennels for them close to the hut, there was a great risk oftheir being carried off by bears while we were asleep. Those "monarchsof the realms of ice," as they are poetically called, had scented usout, and scarcely an hour passed but one made his appearance. Sometimesthey got off, though we killed no inconsiderable number, thus adding toour stock of food, while their skins enabled us to make our beds as warmas we could desire. At length, however, they became more daring andtroublesome, so that none of us could go out of the hut alone lest weshould be carried off.
We had expended by this time so much of our powder that we had resolvedto use no more of it until the return of spring, when we should requireit on our journey southward.
How the winter went by I can scarcely describe. We had no books, butwere never idle, being always employed in manufacturing articles withour knives, either from bones or pieces of drift-wood, or making shoesand clothing from the bears' skins.
We were thus employed, having opened the window to admit some fresh air,and a few rays of the returning light of day, when, looking up, whatshould I see but the snout of a bear poked through the aperture,evidently enjoying the odours arising from some steaks frying on ourstone.
Not at all disconcerted by the shouts we raised, for the sake of gettingthe savoury morsels, he began scraping away at the snow walls, in which,with his powerful claws, he could speedily have made an alarming breach.
Sandy, jumping up with his harpoon, which he had been polishing, in hishand, darted it with all his might at the bear. Fortunately his weapondid not stick in the animal's throat, or he might, I confidentlybelieve, have pulled down the whole structure in his struggles.
Uttering a roar of pain, the bear started back. His roar was repeatedby several other bears outside, who must have joined it from sympathy,echoed by the dogs from the inside, who jumped about eager to attacktheir foes.
Ewen was about to open the door, when Sandy stopped him.
"Let us see how many of these gentlemen there are outside, for I've anotion there are more than we should wish to tackle," he observed.
He and I looked out of the window, when we saw no less than three hugebears close to the hut, while the fellow we had w
ounded and severalothers were visible further off, watching the proceedings of theirfriends, whose evident intention it was to break in if they could, toeat the savoury steaks we were cooking, and us into the bargain.Notwithstanding our intention of not using our fire-arms, we must eitherkill the baars if we could not drive them off, or run the risk of beingtorn to pieces by them.
As they seemed resolved to pull our hut down for the sake of getting atus, we loaded our fire-arms and prepared for the defence of ourfortress. Sandy desired me to take my post at the window, and to shootdown as many as I could, while he with the rest of the party opened thedoor and sallied out to attack the invaders. I advised him, however, towait and see the result of my shots, unless the bears should actuallybegin to tear down the walls. Taking aim at the nearest, I fired. Thethick smoke prevented me for some seconds from seeing the effect of myshot. Great was my