Part 23 (1/2)
”'In oars!'--the boat touches the rocks, and we are there to take the painter, and to make her fast.
”Two of the men spring out; a man rises in the stern; he shades his eyes with his hands, as if to protect them from the glaring sun, and stares at us, and then at the savages, who--of both s.e.xes, and of every age and size--surround us. Then he calls out, 'Is there a white man in that crowd?'
”'Yes, sir; two of them.'
”'I thought so from the motions,' says the man. Then he stared at me again, and cried: 'Is that the lubber Hardy, of the _Blackbird_?'
”'Yes, sir; it is,' I answered.
”'Is that other chap the cabin-boy?--him they called the Dean?'
”'Yes, sir,' spoke up the Dean.
”In an instant the man was out upon the rocks, and he grasped us warmly by the hands. He had recognized us, now we recognized _him_. He was the master of a s.h.i.+p that lay alongside the _Blackbird_ when we first went among the ice, catching seals. His s.h.i.+p was the _Rob Roy_, of Aberdeen.
”This much he said to quiet us, for he saw the state of agitation we were in. Then he went on to tell us that the _Blackbird_, not having been heard from in all this time, it was thought that she must have gone down somewhere among the ice, with all on board; and he told us further, that he was on a whaling voyage now, and then he said, 'The _Rob Roy_ will give you a bonny welcome, lads.'
”Afterward he told us that the vessels were, as we had supposed, a part of the whaling fleet, and he said it was fortunate that he had discovered us, as this was our only chance, for all the other vessels that were following him would be very likely, on account of the state of the ice, to hold to the westward, and not come near the land.
”All this time the savages were _yeh-yeh_-ing round us, greatly to the amus.e.m.e.nt of the captain of the _Rob Roy_ and his boat's crew. Then, when I told the captain how good they had been to us, he sent his boat back to the s.h.i.+p, and had fetched for them wood and knives and iron and needles, in such great abundance that they set up a _yeh, yeh_, in consequence, which, for anything I know to the contrary, may be going on even to this present time.
”But what was the happiness of the savages compared to ours? Our feelings cannot be described. It seemed almost as if we had come from death to life. We could hardly believe our eyes,--that this was the s.h.i.+p we had so long hoped for, this the rescue we had so often despaired of.
We cried with very joy, and behaved like two crazy people. The captain of the _Rob Roy_ laughed good-naturedly at us, and proposed at once to hurry us off aboard his s.h.i.+p.
”We kept our promise to give Eatum all our property; but the captain of the _Rob Roy_ wanted 'Old Crumply' and 'The Dean's Delight,' and our pot and lamp, and some other things; so he gave Eatum other valuables in place of them. Then we took leave of our savage friends, which we of course did not do without some feelings of sorrow and regret at parting from them, remembering as we did how kind they had been to us, and how they had rescued us from our unhappy situation; and the savages seemed a little sorry too. First came Eatum and Mrs. Eatum, and then the two little Eatums (Mop-head and Gimlet-eyes) that I had so often played with; then Old Grim and Big-toes and Little-nose; and Awak, the walrus, and Kossuit; and the two young ladies who might have been our wives: and then all the rest of them, big and little, old and young.
”Then off we went to the _Rob Roy_; and a fair wind coming soon, the ice began to move away from the land, the Rob Roy's sails were unfurled to the fresh breeze, and now, with hearts turned thankfully to Heaven for our deliverance, we were again afloat upon the blue water,--whither bound we did not know, but _homeward_ in the end.”
”O, how glad you must have been!” said Fred.
”How splendidly the rescue and all that comes round,” said William; ”just like it does in all the printed books. Why, Captain Hardy, it couldn't have been better if you'd made the story up, it looks so _real_!”
While, as for little Alice, she never said a word, but only looked upon the old man wonderingly.
CHAPTER XX.
Brings the Holidays of the Little People and the Story of the Old Man to an End.
Again the Mariner's Rest receives the little people; again the Ancient Mariner is there to welcome them. But a shade of sadness is upon the old man's face, and the children are not so gay as is their wont; for all things must have an end, and holidays are no exception to the rule.
”Isn't it too bad,” said William, looking very sober,--”isn't it too bad that this is to be the last of it?”
”Not so bad for you as for me,” replied the Ancient Mariner; and the old man looked as gloomy and forsaken as if he had been cast away in the cold again. But he soon cheered up, and in a much livelier way he said, ”Well now, my hearties, since this is to be the last of it, suppose we close the story in the 'Crow's Nest,' where we first began it; for you see, if the Dean and I were rescued from the desolate island and the savages, we were not home yet. Now, what do you say to that, my dears?”
”The Crow's Nest! Yes, yes, the Crow's Nest!” cried the children all at once; and away they scampered to it, as light and merry as if they had never for an instant been sad at thought of the parting that was so soon to come.
And now once more our little party are together in the dear old rustic vine-clad arbor, and, as on the first day of meeting there, the old man takes his long clay pipe out of his mouth, and sticks it in a rafter overhead; then around little Alice he puts his great, big arm, and he draws the fair-haired, bright-eyed child close to his side, and thus ”ballasted,” as he says, he ”bears away for port.”