Part 26 (2/2)
”Were these the only times that I was cast away? No--for I lost my s.h.i.+p by fire once in the northern ice of Western Greenland, and it was two whole years before either myself or my messmates placed foot again on British soil. There wasn't a s.h.i.+p anywhere near us, and the nearest settlement was a colony of transported Danes, that lived about three hundred miles south of us. We saved all we could from the burning barque, and that was little enough; then we constructed rough sledges, and tied our food and chattels thereon, and set out upon our long, dreary march. It took us well-nigh two months to accomplish our journey, for the way was a rough one, and the region was wild and desolate in the extreme. It was late in autumn, and the sun shone by day, but his beams were sadly shorn by the falling snow. Five suns in all we could count at times, though four, you know, were merely mirages.
We did not all reach the colony; indeed, many succ.u.mbed to the fatigue of the march, to frost-bites, and to scurvy; and we laid them to rest in hastily-dug graves, and the snow was their only winding-sheet. It was more than a year before we found a pa.s.sage back to our own country, and kind though the poor people all were to us, the governor included, we had to rough it, I can tell you. But you see, sailors who choose the Arctic Seas as their cruising-grounds must expect to suffer at times.
”Bears, did you say? Thousands! I've counted as many as fifty at one time on the ice, and I've had a few encounters with them too, myself, though I've known those that have had more. I've known men fight them single-handed, and come off scot-free, leaving Bruin dead on the ice.
d.i.c.kie McInlay fought a bear with a seal-club. You may be sure the duel wasn't of his own proposing; but coming across the ice one day all alone, he rounded the corner of a hummock, and lo! and behold! there was a monstrous bear was.h.i.+ng the blood off his chops after eating a seal.
”'Ho! ho!' roared the bear. 'I have dined, but you'll come in handy for dessert. Oho! Waugh, O! oh!'
”d.i.c.k was a little bit of a fellow, but his biceps was as big, round, and just as hard as a hawser.
”'If you come an inch nearer me,' cried d.i.c.kie, quite undaunted, 'it'll be a dear day's work for ye, Mr Bruin.'
”The bear crouched for a spring. He never did spring, though; but d.i.c.kie did; and he will tell you to this day that he never could understand how he managed to clear the s.p.a.ce betwixt himself and the bear so speedily. Then there was a dull thud; Bruin never lifted head again, for the iron of d.i.c.kie's club was planted deep into his brain.
”The doctor here,” continued Silas, ”can tell you what a terribly sharp and deadly weapon of offence a large amputating knife would prove, in the hands of a powerful man, against any animal that ever lived. But the doctor I don't think would care to attack a bear with one.”
”Indeed, no,” said Sandy; ”I would rather be excused.”
”But the surgeon of the _North Star_ did,” said Silas. ”I was witness myself to the awful encounter. But the poor surgeon was mad at the time; he had given way to the rum-fever--rum-fiend it should be called.
With his knife in his hand he wandered off and away all by himself over the pack. I saw the fight between the bear and him commence, and sent men at once to a.s.sist him. When they reached the scene of action they found the huge bear lying dead, stabbed in fifty places at least. The snow for yards around had been trampled down in the awful struggle, and was yellow and red with blood. The doctor lay beside the bear, apparently asleep. I need not tell you that he slept the sleep that knows no waking. The poor fellow's body was crushed to pulp.
”Charles Manning, a spectioneer of the _Good Resolve_, was lying on his back on the sunny side of a hummock, s.n.a.t.c.hing a five-minutes' rest, for it was sealing time, when a bear crept up behind him, more stealthily than any cat could have done. He drew his paw upwards along the poor fellow's body. Only once, mind you, but he left him a mere empty sh.e.l.l.”
[The author is relating facts; names only are concealed.]
”Ah! but, gentlemen, you should have seen a two-mile run I had not five years ago from a bear. Silas himself wouldn't have believed that Silas could have done the distance in double the time. He was coming home all by himself, when he burst his rifle firing at a seal, and just at that moment up popped a bear.
”'All alone, are you, Silas?' Bruin seemed to say.
”'Yes,' replied Silas, moving off; 'and I don't want your company either. I know my way, thank you.'
”'Oh, I daresay you do!' says the bear. 'But it will only be friendly like if I see you home. Wait a bit.'
”'Never a wait!' said Silas; and so the race began.
”Of course they saw it from the s.h.i.+p, and sent men to meet me and settle Bruin. Puffed? I should think I was! I lay on my face for five minutes, with no more breath in my old bellows than there is in a dead badger?”
”You've seen the sea-lion, I suppose, Captain Grig?” said Allan.
”I have that!” replied Silas, ”and the sea-bear, too, and I don't know which of the two I'd rather meet on the top of a berg, for they are vicious brutes both.”
”I've read some very interesting accounts of them,” said Allan, ”in the encyclopaedias.”
”So have I,” laughed old Silas, ”written by men who had never seen them out of the Brighton Aquarium. Pardon me, but you cannot study nature from books.”
”Do you know the _Stemmatopus cristatus_?” inquired Rory.
”What s.h.i.+p, my boy?” said Silas, with one hand behind his ear; ”I didn't catch the name o' the craft.”
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