Red Rooney | Page 4

At least he was alive when I left him. If he has not died since, he is alive still."
Having uttered this truism, he thrust the blubber well home, and continued his meal.
Nuna's curiosity, having been aroused, was not easily allayed. She sat down beside her spouse, and plied him with numerous questions, to which Okiok gave her brief and very tantalising replies until he was gorged, when, throwing down the platter, he turned abruptly to his wife, and said impressively--
"Open your ears, Nuna. Okiok is no longer what he was. He has been born only to-day. He has at last seen with his two eyes--a Kablunet!"
He paused to restrain his excitement. His wife clasped her hands and looked at him excitedly, waiting for more.
"This Kablunet," he continued, "is very white, and not so ruddy as we have been told they are. His hair is brown, and twists in little circles. He wears it on the top of his head, and on the bottom of his head also--all round. He is not small or short. No; he is long and broad,--but he is thin, very thin, like the young ice at the beginning of winter. His eyes are the colour of the summer sky. His nose is like the eagle's beak, but not so long. His mouth--I know not what his mouth is like; it is hid in a nest of hair. His words I understand not. They seem to me nonsense, but his voice is soft and deep."
"And his dress--how does he dress?" asked Nuna, with natural feminine curiosity.
"Like ourselves," replied Okiok, with a touch of disappointment in his tone. "The men who said the Kablunets wear strange things on their heads and long flapping things on their legs told lies."
"Why did you not bring him here?" asked Nuna, after a few moments' meditation on these marvels.
"Because he is too heavy to lift, and too weak to walk. He has been starving. I wrapped him in the skin of a bear, and left him with a piece of blubber at his nose. When he wakes up he will smell; then he will eat. Perhaps he will live; perhaps he will die. Who can tell? I go to fetch him."
As the Eskimo spoke, the yelping of dogs outside told that his sons had obeyed his commands, and got ready the sledge. Without another word he crept out of the hut and jumped on the sledge, which was covered with two or three warm bearskins. Ermigit restrained the dogs, of which there were about eight, each fastened to the vehicle by a single line. Norrak handed his father the short-handled but heavy, long-lashed whip.
Okiok looked at Norrak as he grasped the instrument of punishment.
"Jump on," he said.
Norrak did so with evident good-will. The whip flashed in the air with a serpentine swing, and went off like a pistol. The dogs yelled in alarm, and, springing away at full speed, were soon lost among the hummocks of the Arctic sea.
CHAPTER TWO.
DESCRIBES A RESCUE AND A HAPPY FAMILY.
While the Eskimos were thus rushing to his rescue, poor Red Rooney-- whose shipmates, we may explain at once, had thus contracted his Christian name of Reginald--began to recover from his swoon, and to wonder in a listless fashion where he was. Feeling comparatively comfortable in his bear-skin, he did not at first care to press the inquiry; but, as Okiok had anticipated, the peculiar smell near his nose tended to arouse him. Drawing his hand gently up, he touched the object in front of his mouth. It felt very like blubber, with which substance he was familiar. Extending his tongue, he found that it also tasted like blubber. To a starving man this was enough. He pulled the end of the raw morsel into his mouth and began to chew.
Ah, reader, turn not up your refined nose! When you have been for several months on short allowance, when you have scraped every shred of meat off the very last bones of your provisions, and sucked out the last drop of marrow, and then roasted and eaten your spare boots, you may perhaps be in a position to estimate and enjoy a morsel of raw blubber.
Regardless of time, place, and circumstance, our poor wanderer continued to chew until in his great weakness he fell into a sort of half slumber, and dreamed--dreamed of feasting on viands more delightful than the waking imagination of man has ever conceived.
From this state of bliss he was rudely awakened by a roughish poke in the back. The poke was accompanied by a snuffing sound which caused the blood of the poor man to curdle. Could it be a bear?
He was not left long in doubt. After giving him another poke on the shoulder, the creature walked round him, snuffing as it