CHAPTER XV.
COASTING.
The current was now losing its power, and Godfrey, dipping his hand intothe water and then putting it to his lips, found that it was distinctlybrackish, and congratulated himself upon having laid in a stock of waterwhen he did. After Luka had slept for six hours, Godfrey roused him.
"Now, Luka, you must take my place and steer; move very carefully elsewe shall capsize her. That is it. Now, if there is any change you leanforward and touch me; I shall wake in a moment. If the sail should shiftover to the other side all you have got to do is to shift this sheet toits fastening on that side. With this light wind jibing does not matterat all, but if the wind freshens wake me at once."
For a quarter of an hour Godfrey watched to see that Luka steeredsteadily, then he worked himself down in the cockpit and closed hiseyes. It did not seem to him that he had been asleep long when Lukatouched him.
"I would not have woke you," Luka said; "but the land seems going rightaway from us."
Godfrey sat up. "So it is, Luka! I should not be surprised if that isthe extreme northern point. Of course it may be only a deep bay, but atany rate we must see." He looked at his watch, "Why, I have been asleepnearly seven hours. Now, Luka, you had better haul the boat alongside,and see about cooking. We forgot to try those onions yesterday. Cut oneup small and put it in the pan with the meat. By the by, you had bettertie a piece of cord to those four bears' hams, and let them towoverboard for two or three hours. The water must be quite salt now, andwhen you take them out we will rub a little fresh salt into them. Theyought to keep well then."
As soon as Luka had got into the boat--Jack jumping in with him, as healways made a point of superintending the cooking operations--Godfreytook his place in the stern, jibed the sail, which had before been onthe port quarter, over to starboard, brought her head somewhat to thenorth of west, and hauled in the sheet. Lying over till the water nearlytouched her gunwale, the light little craft would have gone speedilyalong had it not been for the drag of the boat astern. This, however,towed lightly, for she was loaded with but a very small proportion ofthe weight she would carry. Godfrey judged, by the objects on the shore,that they could not be going along less than three miles an hour. In sixhours the land trended away due south, and he knew that they had nowreached the first of the two deep bays they would have to pass beforereaching the northern extremity of the Cape. He kept on his course, andan hour later, with the exception of the low coast nearly astern, noland was to be seen. Luka, who was paddling steadily, looked round. Hehad such implicit confidence in his companion that he was quite sure theboat was keeping the right course, but he had a vague sense ofuneasiness at seeing nothing but sea around him.
"How do you know which way to go?" he asked.
"I know that by keeping on the same way we were going past the lastland, we shall strike the coast again on the other side of this bay. Ithink it is twenty or thirty miles across. I can tell the way by thewind in the first place, and in the second place by the position of thesun. You see it is over my right shoulder at present; there is the markof my shadow on the side. I have got to keep it about there, making someallowance for the change in the position of the sun."
Luka understood this. "But suppose the wind was to change?" he said.
"I should know it by the position of the sun. You see at present itcomes nearly due south, and is blowing almost straight towards the sun;but if it were very cloudy, or at night when I could not see the sun, Ishould not be able to tell. Then after holding on till I felt sure thatwe were well past the mouth of this bay, I should put her about on theother tack, and should be sure to come upon the land sooner or later.Anyhow, even in the darkest night we should know if the wind had goneround to the north, as it would be so much colder. Besides, there isnever a great shift of wind like that without knowing it; the one windis sure to drop, and there would be something like a dead calm beforethe other set in. Anyhow, with a bright sun and a steady wind like thiswe cannot go wrong, and you will see land ahead in seven or eighthours."
It was less than six hours when Godfrey saw the low land ahead, and theywere presently coasting along it again with the wind free, for they werenow running but little to the west of north. Thirty miles farther therewas another break in the coast.
"That was a first-rate map I made the tracing from," Godfrey said; "thecoast-line is most accurately marked. Now we have another run of aboutthe same distance as the last, then there is about fifty miles almostdue north, then we shall be round this other Cape."
They made the passage safely across, although it took them longer thanthe first, for the wind dropped lighter, and they had both to use theirpaddles.
"We have just done it in time, Luka, and that is all. If we had beenhalf an hour later there would be nothing for it but to anchor. Look atthat white cloud on the water; that is a fog; we are only just in time.I am heading for that cove. Paddle hard, Luka, or it will be on us nowbefore we get there."
They had just entered the cove, which was forty or fifty feet wide, andran as many yards into the land, when the fog rolled over them.
"It is like a wet blanket," Godfrey said; "it is thirty or forty degreescolder than it was a minute back. Paddle very slowly and carefully now,Luka, and dip your paddle deeply in. I want to go as far up this creekas I can; but I don't want to run ashore."
Very gently they paddled on until Godfrey felt the ground at a depth ofabout three feet. "That will do nicely," he said. "Now I will drop theanchor over."
The anchor was one of Ostjak manufacture. It consisted of a long, flat,narrow stone weighing about six pounds; to each of the flat sides werelashed two pieces of fir, about an inch and a half in diameter. Theyprojected a few inches below the stone, and were cut off just below abranch of about an inch in diameter and eight or ten inches long. Thesebranches, when growing, bent downwards and slanted at an angle closelyresembling that of the fluke of an anchor with the upright. The whole,therefore, was an excellent imitation of an anchor with four flukes, twoon each side, the stone serving as a weight. This was thrown out of thebow of the canoe, and a couple of fathoms of line let out. Then Godfreyhauled up the larger boat and fastened it alongside. They could justmake out the outline of the shore about fifteen feet on either side ofthem.
"We must take to our fur jackets again, Luka; my teeth are chattering,and after working as hard as we have been doing for the last three orfour hours it won't do to get a chill. I am as hungry as a hunter; wehad breakfast at five o'clock by my watch, and it is three now."
Luka soon lit the fire in the boat. The provisions in the canoe hadbeen finished two days before, as they had been obliged to throwoverboard what they had not eaten owing to its having become unfit foruse. The food, however, wrapped up in furs in the boat was still solidlyfrozen. They cut a couple of fish out of the mass and placed them in thefrying-pan; stuck a wooden skewer through some pieces of bear's meat andheld them in the flame, and hung the bear's hams, as they did each timethey cooked, in the smoke of the fire.
"We must try to get some more fish next time we set sail, Luka. I amsure we passed through several shoals of fish by the swirling of thewater."
It was thirty-six hours before the fog cleared off, swept away by asouth-westerly wind. As they had nothing to do but to eat and sleepduring this time, they got up their anchor and hoisted their sail themoment the fog cleared off, and in eighteen hours reached the sharppoint of the Cape. Rounding this, Godfrey said:
"Now, Luka, we are at the mouth of the Gulf of Obi. It is nearly twohundred miles, according to this map, to the opposite side, and wedaren't try to make that; besides, the wind has been getting more to thewest and would be right in our teeth, for you see by this tracing theopposite point of land is a good bit to the south of west. There isnothing for it but for us to keep along this shore for something like ahundred and fifty miles. We can lay our course well with this wind. Thegulf won't be more than eighty miles wide there, and we can strikeacross and coast down the opposite bank. I
t seems a long way round, butwe shall do it as quickly as we should beating right across in the teethof this wind. I doubt if we could do that at all with this craft behindus."
Fortunately the wind was not high, or they could not have ventured out,as a heavy swell would have set in from the other side of the gulf.They kept their course within half a mile of the shore.
"What are those black things on that low point?" Godfrey asked. "I canhear them barking. They must be tremendously big dogs, if they aredogs."
"They are seals," Luka said; "they go right up the rivers in summer, andthe Samoyedes and Yuruks kill great numbers on the coast. They eat theflesh and sell the teeth for ivory."
"Well, we don't want them at present," Godfrey said; "but if we fallshort of food we will see whether we can kill some. At present the greatthing is to get on."
Night and day the canoe kept on her way. Except when Godfrey was asleepLuka did not steer, for he did not like the management of the sail,especially now that the boat at times heeled over a great deal with thebeam wind. He himself took his sleep by fits and starts two or threehours at a time, and except when cooking, paddled away assiduously.Twice Godfrey was lucky enough to bring down some ducks when a flockswept past the boat within shot. They had, too, a supply of fresh fish,for Godfrey now always had two lines out towing astern, with some whitegeese feathers fastened to the hooks as bait. Ordinarily they caughtnothing, but they passed through several large shoals of fish, and atthese times they pulled them out as fast as they could haul in and letgo the lines, sometimes bringing in three or four at a time, as therewere six hooks on each line. These fish were herrings, and they formed awelcome change. Luka had never seen one before, for although theypenetrate for some distance up the great rivers, they never ascend tothe upper waters. Jack, too, benefited greatly, for of late he had beenkept on somewhat short rations, as they had now been reduced to the fourhalf-cured bear's hams and a comparatively small stock of frozen food.
On the fifth day after rounding the cape the wind, which had beengradually getting lighter, dropped altogether, and for the next two daysboth of them worked steadily with their paddles.
"We must have made a good two hundred miles," Godfrey said; "and wecould safely venture to strike across in such quiet weather as this, butthere is a river marked on the chart as coming in somewhere here, and Iwant to find it if I can. There is water enough for another week, but itbegins to taste horribly of skin, and besides that it has a considerablemixture of ashes. I am sure we must be very close to it; indeed,according to my calculation of two hundred miles, we ought to havepassed it already. Anyhow, we will keep on until we get there."
Godfrey was not far out, for late in the day they saw an opening of somefifty yards wide in the bank. They at once made for it, and entering it,paddled along as near the bank as they could go to avoid the current.Godfrey tasted the water from time to time, and after paddling for twohours pronounced it perfectly sweet.
"We will land here, Luka. I am sure we both want to stretch our limbs abit and have a rest. Look about for a good place to land; the banks aretoo steep to be able to get the big canoe up, but we can carry theother--it is light enough now."
They presently found a place where a portion of the bank had fallen inand left a gap. Here they landed, moored the large canoe to the shoreand carried the other up the bank. An exclamation of pleasure broke fromGodfrey at the wide expanse of bright green dotted with flowers. Jackwas exuberant in his delight, circling round and round like a wildthing, barking loudly and occasionally throwing himself down to roll.The two paddles were driven firmly into the ground, the sail unlacedfrom the yard, which was lashed to the paddles as a ridge-pole, overwhich the sail was thrown. The furs were taken out of the boat andspread in the tent.
"We will have a cup of tea, Luka, and then turn in for twelve hours'sleep. I am sure we deserve it."
After a long rest they woke thoroughly refreshed; then, while Luka waslighting a fire, Godfrey went down to the river, stripped, and had ashort swim, the water being too cold to permit his stopping more thantwo or three minutes in it. When they had had breakfast he said:
"Now, Luka, do you go down to the boat, take the firewood out, and thensluice the boat thoroughly with water and get it perfectly clean. By thetime you have done that I shall be back, and we will then lift her outof the water and turn her bottom upwards to dry thoroughly. Then we willmelt down some of that bear fat we saved and give her a thorough rubbingwith it. But we will leave that job until to-morrow; it will takefour-and-twenty hours for her to dry. I am going out with my gun to seewhat I can shoot. The whole place seems full of birds, though they aremostly small ones; still I might come across something better. You hadbetter keep Jack with you."
Godfrey's expedition was not a very successful one. He brought back fourgrouse and a dozen small birds, which he had killed with a single shot,firing into the thick of a flock that flew by overhead. The grouse wereroasted for dinner, and Godfrey found to his satisfaction that Luka hadbaked a pile of cakes, this being the first time they had tasted breadfor a fortnight, as it demanded more time and attention than they couldspare to it in the boat. Luka told him that several flights of blackduck had passed up the river while he had been at work at the boat, andvolunteered to grease the boat next day if Godfrey would try to get ashot at them.
"It will be of no use my trying to shoot them on the river," Godfreysaid, "as I should have no means of picking them up; and I can tell youI found the water too cold this morning to care about stripping andswimming out for them. I will have another try on the plain. I saw fouror five deer to-day, but only the first passed within shot, and as I hadnot a bullet in the gun he got off without my firing at him. I will tryto-morrow if I can't stalk one."
Accordingly the next day Godfrey set out. After an hour's walking he sawthree deer. He worked round very cautiously so as to get a clump ofbushes between him and them, and then crawled up to it and lookedthrough. They were a hundred and fifty yards away, and he had noconfidence in his gun at that distance. He stood for some time thinking,and then remembered he had read that on the American plains the deerwere often decoyed into coming close up to the hunter by working upontheir curiosity. He drew his ramrod out from his gun, put the cap hewore--which was the fur one with tails--on to the end of it, pushed thisthrough the bushes, and began to wave it to and fro. The deer caughtsight of it immediately, and stood staring at it for a minute or two,ready to bound away should the strange object seem to threaten danger.As nothing came of it, they began to move towards it slowly and withhesitation, until they gathered in a group at a distance of not morethan fifty yards.
Godfrey, while waving the cap with one hand, was holding his gun inreadiness with the other. Feeling sure that he could not miss the marknow, he gently lowered the cap and raised his gun to his shoulder.Slight as was the movement it startled the deer; but as they turned tofly he fired both barrels at the shoulder of the one nearest to him, andhad the satisfaction of seeing it fall, while its companions dashed awayover the plain. He ran up to the fallen animal and found that it wasalready dead, both bullets having struck it in the region of the heart.He proceeded to cut off the head and the lower part of the legs, openedand cleaned it, and was then able to lift it on to his shoulder. As heneared the tent Jack came tearing along to meet him with loud barks ofwelcome.
"Yes, I have got food for you for some time, Jack, though it does notseem to me that you do much to earn it."
Luka was at work greasing the boat. Godfrey called him up on to thebank.
"We must try and do something to preserve the meat, Luka."
"Shall we rub it with salt, Godfrey?"
"We can spare some salt, but not much. It would never do to be leftwithout that. We can do well enough without bread, but we can't dowithout salt."
"Smoke it well," Luka said.
"We might try that, but I am afraid those hams are beginning to go."
"Not smoke enough, Godfrey."
"No, I suppose not."
r /> "They must have plenty, lots of smoke."
"Well, there is plenty of wood to make smoke with."
"We must keep it close," Luka said. "We ought to smoke it for two days."
"We can keep it close enough by cutting some poles and making a circulartent with the sail. It will spoil its whiteness, but that is of no greatconsequence. You had better leave the boat for the present, Luka, andcome with me and cut poles and boughs for the fire."
Taking hatchets they started out and presently cut eight poles ten feetlong.
"Now which is the best wood for smoking it with?"
"Pine makes the best smoke next to oak."
"There are plenty of stunted pines about, and I should think some ofthis aromatic shrub with it would be good. I will make up two bigbundles of that, and we will take them and the poles back first; then wewill cut some pine boughs."
As all these were obtained within a few hundred yards of the camp, theyhad soon materials for their fire. The poles were then stuck in a circleand lashed together at the top, the sail taken down and wrapped roundit. It was not large enough, but by adding the storm-sail and the hideof the deer the covering was made complete. Then a number of sticks weretied from pole to pole across it. The deer-flesh was then cut up intostrips of about a foot long, three or four inches wide, and half an inchthick; and these were hung over the sticks until the whole of the deerwas so disposed of. The three remaining bear's hams were also hung up,and a fire of the pine-wood was then with some difficulty lighted andsome of the sweet-smelling shrub laid on it. Godfrey, who had undertakenthis part of the business while Luka went back to the boat, crawled outfrom the tent almost blinded.
"By Jove!" he said as he closed the aperture, "if it is as bad as thatnow that it is only just lighted, the meat ought to be smoked as dry asa chip by to-morrow."
Godfrey had nothing to do now but to watch the smoke rising from theopening at the top of the tent, opening the entrance a little wheneverit slackened, drawing the sticks together with the iron ramrod, andthrowing on a fresh armful of the fuel. Having finished greasing theboat, Luka did the same to the canoe. They spent the next twenty-fourhours in alternately sleeping, collecting drift-wood on the river-bank,and attending to the fire, which had to be watched carefully, and somedry splinters added from time to time to get the green wood to keepalight. Every hour or two a piece of meat was taken out and examined,and in thirty hours from the time of lighting the fire Luka pronouncedthat it was done. The strips had shrivelled to half their formerthickness and were almost black in colour.
"They will give us plenty of work for our teeth, Luka," Godfrey said."They look almost like shoe-leather, but perhaps they will be betterthan they look. I once tasted some smoked reindeer tongues--at leastthey called them reindeer tongues, but I do not suppose they were--andthey were first-rate. Now there is nothing more to do; let us get readyfor another start."
The sail was taken off and the poles chopped into five-feet lengths.
"We will lay them in the bottom of the boat, Luka, four longways andfour crossways. As there are sixteen of them, that will make the topline five or six inches above the floor. Then we will lay our firewoodon them. In that way it won't get wet with the water, and, what is quiteas important, it won't dirty the water."
This was done. The flour and deer's flesh were stowed on similarplatforms fore and aft of the firewood and covered with skins. Sometwelve buckets of water were then baled in. What remained of the frozenprovisions was inspected; but it was agreed that as it had alreadymelted a good deal, it would not be eatable much longer, and as they hadfood enough to last for some time, it was of no use keeping it. It wastherefore broken up, Jack was allowed to eat as much as he wanted, andthe rest was left. When everything was packed the canoe was carried downand placed in the water, and they took their places; Jack jumped onboard, and a fresh start was made.
As soon as they emerged from the small river, they struck out straightfrom the land. The wind was light and from the north, and both tooktheir paddles. Their four days' rest had done them good, and the canoe,under the influence of sail and oar, went fast through the water.
"Twenty-four hours ought to take us across," Godfrey said. "The gulflooks from eighty to ninety miles across at the point where the riverruns into it. We must head rather to the south, for there is sure to bea current out in the middle, as the Obi is a big river."
It was, however, thirty hours before they reached the oppositeshore--Godfrey accounting for the difference on the supposition that thestream must have been a good deal stronger than they expected, and musthave drifted them down a long way. They found, indeed, that even inshorethey were passing the land at a rate of nearly two miles an hour.
"That is all the better, Luka, for with this north wind our sail will beno good to us. We may as well get it down at once and stow it. Theshores are muddy, I see; so we shall not hurt the canoe if we shoulddrift up against it. That is a comfort, for we can both go to sleep. Iam sure, after thirty hours' paddling with only two or three longeasies, we deserve a rest. First of all we must have a meal. One doesnot know whether to call it dinner or supper when there is no night andwe sleep just when we are tired."
They had caught eight or ten fish as they came across, passing through agreat shoal of herrings. In half an hour the kettle was boiling over thefire, the fish were hissing and crackling in the frying-pan over it, anda strip of deer's flesh, with the ramrod run through it, was frizzling.It was pronounced excellent. There was a slight aromatic bitterness thatgave a zest and flavour to it, and the flesh inside was by no means sotough as Godfrey had expected to find it. When all three of the voyagershad satisfied their hunger, the brands were as usual extinguished, theembers thrown overboard; then returning to the canoe, they lay down,and were in a very few minutes fast asleep. They slept for six hours,and when they woke the land was no longer in sight.
"It is lucky there is no fog," Godfrey said, "and that we have the sunto act as a compass. We can't be many miles out. We won't make straightfor shore, Luka; we will head about north-west, so as to edge ingradually. There must be a good deal of current here, and it will behelping us along."
In an hour the low line of coast was visible, and they then headed stillmore to the north.
"There must be a good three-mile-an-hour current here," Godfrey observedpresently. "We are going along first-rate past the shore. It took usover five days to come up. At this rate we shall go down in two."
They paddled steadily for twelve hours, stopping once only to cook ameal. Then they went close inshore again, had supper, and slept. Whenthey woke they found they were still within a mile of the shore, and thecurrent was now taking them along no more than a mile an hour.
"The gulf must be wide here, Luka. I don't think we should gain anythingby going out four or five miles farther, so we will keep about as weare. We ought to be at the point by the end of to-day's work. We weretwo hundred miles up. I expect we drifted down five-and-twenty miles incrossing, and we must have passed the land at a good five miles an houryesterday; so that we ought not to be more than thirty or forty milesfrom the point, for this peninsula does not go as far north as the otherby twenty or thirty miles."
After eight hours' paddling they found themselves at the mouth of a deepbay.
"That is all right," Godfrey said, examining his tracing. "That land onthe farther side of the bay is the northern point of the gulf. We willpaddle across there and anchor by the shore for to-night. To-morrow weshall have a long paddle, for it is seventy or eighty miles nearly duewest to a sheltered bay that lies just this side of Cape Golovina. Onceround that, we have nearly four hundred miles to go nearly due southinto Kara Bay. This long tongue of land we are working round is calledthe Yamal Peninsula. Once fairly down into Kara Bay, we shall leaveSiberia behind us, and the land will be Russia."
They struck across the bay, and landed under shelter of the cape. Theland was higher here than any they had before met; and after their sleepGodfrey took his gun, accompanied by
Jack, and ascended the hill.
"It is rum," he said to himself, as he gazed over the wide expanse ofsea to the north, "that this should be one sheet of ice in the winter. Ido not like the look of those clouds away to the north. I think we aregoing to have either a fog or a gale. We won't make a move till we see.This coast seems rocky, and it won't do to make along it unless we havesettled weather."
He returned and told Luka, and then wandered away again, as he had seenthat birds were very plentiful, and he returned in three hours to theboat with a dozen grouse, six ptarmigan, and a capercailzie. Godfrey wasnow a good shot, and the birds, never having been disturbed by theapproach of man, were so tame that he had no difficulty whatever inmaking a bag. As he went down to the boat he congratulated himself thatthey had not made a start, for the sky was now overcast, and the windwas already blowing strongly.
"We will have some bread to-day, Luka. These birds deserve something toeat with them, and our flour is holding out well. We have not eatenabove twenty pounds since we started. I wish we had some yeast orsomething to make it rise. By the by I have an idea. Don't mix thattill I come back, Luka."
Here, as when he landed on the Yenesei, he had seen numbers of roughnests on the ground, the birds being so tame that they often did not flyoff even when he passed quite close to them. He returned to a spot wherehe had seen these nests quite thick, and had no difficulty in collectinga large number of little eggs of a great variety of colour.
"I expect about two out of every three are bad," he said. "We shall haveto break them singly to find out the good ones. Fancy making a cake ofsparrows' eggs!"
Upon breaking them he found that not more than one in five was good.Still there were quite enough for the purpose. The frying-pan was usedas a basin, and in this he made a sort of batter of eggs and flour. Bythe time he had done this four of the grouse were nearly roasted. Hepoured the batter into the empty kettle, melted some deer's fat in thepan, and then poured in the batter again. Then he washed out and filledthe kettle, and placed it upon the fire.
"Now, by the time the water is boiling, Luka, the batter and the grousewill be cooked. That is what we call a Yorkshire pudding at home; itwill go splendidly with the birds."
The pudding turned out really good, and they enjoyed the meal immensely,Jack having the bones of the four birds for his share, together with thesolitary fish they had caught the day before. By the time they hadfinished they were glad to get up their tent, which they pitched withthe entrance close to the fire, for even in the sheltered spot wherethey were fierce gusts of cold wind swept down upon them. The canvas ofthe tent was fastened down by heavy stones placed upon it, the fursbrought in, and everything made snug. For three days the storm raged.
"It is a nuisance losing so much time," Godfrey said. "It was somewhereabout the middle of June when we started, and there are only threemonths of open weather here. Every day is of importance. I sha'n't somuch mind when we get to the mouth of the Petchora, for I heard from oneof the Russians in the prison that canoes often go as far as that fromArchangel to trade, so I shall feel when I get there that we are gettinginto civilized regions. It is about four hundred miles from Kara Bay, sothat we have a good eight hundred miles to travel before we get there.We can certainly paddle forty miles a day by sticking to it steadily;but allowing for another stoppage of four days, and we can't allow lessthan that, that will be a fortnight. How long have we been now, Luka?There is nothing to count time from."
Luka shook his head.
"Well, it is somewhere above three weeks," Godfrey went on; "so that bythe time we get to the mouth of the Petchora, it will be the last weekin July. That will give us a couple of months; but I fancy we can'tcount much on the weather in September. Still, if the canoes go fromArchangel to Petchora and back, we ought to be able to do it fromPetchora, for the distance from there to Archangel is a good deal lessthan from the mouth of the Yenesei to the Petchora. There is one thing,if the weather gets very bad on the way, or we get laid up by badweather for a long time on the way to Petchora, we can go up the river,I hear, to a place called Ust Zlyma, and from there go overland toArchangel. It is about two hundred or two hundred and fifty milesacross, and we could walk that in ten days. I am quite sure that weshould not be suspected of being anything but what we look; and atArchangel there is sure to be a British consul, and he would put us upto the best plan of getting out of the country. However, there will beplenty of time to see about that as we get on."
The wind fell on the morning of the fourth day, but it would be somehours before the sea would have gone down sufficiently for them to makea start. Godfrey again went out shooting, this time accompanied by Luka.
Godfrey was as fortunate as he had been before, shooting threecapercailzie and nineteen grouse; while Luka brought down with hisarrows four capercailzie, which he found sitting on stunted trees. Ontheir way back to the boat they collected a great quantity of eggs, andcame upon a rabbit warren.
"Do not shoot," Luka said, as Godfrey cocked his gun, "it will frightenthem all into their holes. If you will go on with the dog, I will liedown here and will bring you as many rabbits as I can carry."
Two hours later he came down to the tent with two dozen rabbits he hadshot. After cooking two of them, and giving one to Jack as his share,they packed up all their belongings and again took to the canoe. Theyused their paddles until round the cape, and then heading westwardhoisted their sail, for what wind there was was still from the north,and the help it afforded was sufficient greatly to reduce the labour ofpaddling. They kept steadily on, one or other taking occasional snatchesof sleep. But with this exception, and that of the time spent by Luka incooking, they continued to paddle until, forty hours after starting,they reached Cape Golovina, passing between it and Beloc Island. Theydid not make the halt they had intended under shelter of the cape, forthe weather was fine, and Godfrey wanted to take advantage of the northwind as long as it lasted. Once round the cape they headed nearly duesouth, and the wind freshening a little, drove them along merrily, andthey were able to cease paddling, and to take a fair proportion of sleepalternately.
Luka was now getting more accustomed to the management of the sail, andno longer feared an occasional jibe, and night and day--if it could becalled night when the sun never set--they continued their voyage alongthe coast of the Yamal Peninsula. At the end of the fourth day the windfreshened so much that the large sail was taken down and theleg-of-mutton sail substituted for it; but as the wind continued torise, and the sea to get up fast, Godfrey began to look out for somespot into which to run for shelter. The coast was very indented andbroken, and in two hours they passed the mouth of a deep bay into whichthe boat was at once directed, and was presently moored under theshelter of its northern bank.
"She is a splendid sea-boat," Godfrey said. "If it wasn't for the boatin tow I should not mind what weather I was out in her."
Their stay was of short duration, for in a few hours the wind sankagain. "I don't think it is done yet," Godfrey said when they werebeyond the shelter of the bay. "I fancy it will blow up again presently;still we may as well push on. I think it is rather more from the eastthan it was."
For the next twenty-four hours, however, there was no very marked changein the force of the wind, but it had now veered round to the north-east.
"We are getting well down now," Godfrey said. "We have been sailing forfive days, and we have certainly been running a good three miles an hourfrom the time we rounded the cape. So we are three hundred and fiftymiles down. I should say we must be entering Kara Bay."
"Very bad weather coming," Luka said looking back.
Godfrey turned round. A heavy black cloud was sweeping up with a mistyline below it.
"By Jove, you are right; that is a big squall and no mistake. There isno bay to run to here, Luka, and we could not get there in time if therewas. We must do as I talked about. Quick, lower the sail down, there isnot a moment to lose. No, wait until I bring her up head to the wind.Now, then, down with it. Now unstep the
mast, lash that and the boom,the other sail, and its spar together; that is the way." And with theirjoint efforts the work was accomplished in a couple of minutes. "Now,then, fasten this rope to your end, Luka; I will tie the other end tomine. That is right. It is long enough to make a good big angle. Nowfasten the head-rope to the middle; be sure it is put in the middle,Luka. That is right. Now, launch it overboard."
The work was done as quickly as it is described, and in three minutesfrom the time the mast was lowered the canoe was riding to the floatinganchor.
"Now then, Luka, on with the apron."
"Shall we sit up?"
"No; we will lie down, cover up the holes, and lash them carefully whenwe are in. It is going to be a drencher, and it is of no use our gettingwet through to begin with. We could not do anything with the paddles."
They had scarcely made themselves snug when, with a roar, a deluge ofrain fell on the deck and cover, and a moment later even this sound waspartly deadened by the howl of the wind. Although their heads were closetogether, Godfrey felt that it would be utterly useless to make anyremark. He felt under no uneasiness, for, with their weight well downand anchored head to sea, he felt sure that the light canoe would rideover anything like a cork bottle. The motion of the boat rapidlyincreased, but she herself rode lightly over the waves. As theseincreased the jerking of the boat behind at her rope became more andmore violent, and the canoe quivered from end to end with the shocks.
"This will never do," Godfrey said to himself. "The boat will pull thestern out of her. It will be an awful loss to cut her adrift, but itcan't be helped."
He unlashed the fastenings of the cover of the circular hole above him,reached his hand forward and got hold of Luka's paddle, and passed itwith his own out through the hole. Then he sat up himself. Confident ashe felt in the canoe, he was almost frightened at the wild aspect of thesea. The wind was literally howling, driving the rain before it with aforce that stung Godfrey's neck as it struck it. He got out a strip ofdeer-skin lashing, of which there was a supply always close at handunder the deck, lashed the paddles together, and then, leaning aft,lashed them at the centre firmly to the tow-rope. Then with somedifficulty he got out his knife and cut the rope close to its fastening;the paddles flew overboard, and the boat drifted rapidly astern, thedrag of the paddles being, as Godfrey observed with satisfaction,sufficient to keep her head to wind. Then he wriggled himself downunderneath the apron again and lashed down the cover of the hole.