Part 28 (1/2)
It was a lovely sight, and never a rifle was lifted to shoot. Presently they disappeared, but on the mate of the _Scotia_ giving vent to a loud whistle, up came the heads again, and there they remained as long as the mate whistled, for of all wild creatures in the world that I have ever come across, the Greenland seal is the most inquisitive; and no doubt the experience of some of my old-boy readers who have been to the country is the same as my own.
Onwards, steadily onwards, all that day went our sportsmen; they did not even a.s.semble again for another meal, and at five of the clock they found themselves fully four miles from the place where the s.h.i.+ps lay.
The field of seals which they had attacked was some ten miles square, and although they had worked their way into it for miles, nevertheless when the flags were hoisted to recall them, at two bells in the first dog-watch, the field of seals still remained about ten miles square.
This may seem strange, but is thus accounted for. Out of say twenty seals on each berg, fifteen at least would escape, and these swam away under the pack, and again took the ice on the far-off edge of the field of seals.
It being somewhat too far to drag the skins to the s.h.i.+p, bings had been made on the ice during the latter part of the day, so that no dead seals should be left unflensed upon the ice. When they wended their way homewards at the end of this glorious day's shooting a broom was stuck besom-side up, on each bing, with the name of the s.h.i.+p on the handles.
This is done with the view of preventing other s.h.i.+ps from appropriating the skins. This is the custom of the country--one of the unwritten laws of the sea of ice.
While the gunners and their merry men were yet a long way off from the s.h.i.+ps, there came a hail from the crow's-nest of the _Arrandoon_, which, by the way, McBain had hardly left all the time. Peter had brought him up coffee and food, and he had danced in the interval to keep himself warm.
”On deck there?”
”Ay, ay, sir,” roared Peter, looking up.
”Is dinner all laid?”
”Ay, sir, and the cook is waiting.”
”Well, on with the kilt, Peter, if you're not afraid of getting your hocks frozen, get the bagpipes, and go and meet the hunters.”
Down below dived Peter, and he was up again in what sailors call ”a brace of shakes,” arrayed in full Highland costume, with the bagpipes over his arm. No wonder the c.o.c.katoo cried,--
”De-ah me?” when he saw Peter, and added, ”Such a to-do! such a to-do!
such a to-do!”
Now the bears had been rather numerous on the pack that day, just as the sharks were in the water. Doubtless the sharks found many a poor wounded seal to close their vengeful jaws upon, for they are either too cowardly or not swift enough to catch a healthy phoca; but the bears had behaved themselves unusually well. They had had plenty to eat, at all events, and seemed to know that the men at work on the ice were laying up a store of provisions for them that would last them all the summer, so they had made no attempt to attack them. But on their way back to the s.h.i.+p the doctor, who was striding on a little way in advance of the rest, startled a huge monster who was sunning himself behind a hummock.
It would be difficult to say whether the bear or the doctor was the more startled; at all events the latter fired and missed, and the former made off, running in the direction of the s.h.i.+ps. But he hadn't gone above half a mile when who should Bruin meet but Peter, coming swinging along with his bagpipes under his arm. Never a gun had Peter, and never a club--only the pipes. As soon as they saw each other they both stopped short.
”I do declare,” Bruin seemed to say to himself, ”here is a man or something all alone. But what a strange dress! I never saw anybody dressed like that before. Never mind, he looks sweet and nice; I'll have a bit.”
”I do declare,” said Peter to himself, ”if that isn't a big lump of a bear coming along, and I haven't even a stone to throw at him. Whatever shall I do at all, at all? Och! and och! this is the end of me now, at last. Sure enough it is marching to my own funeral I've been all the time, instead of going to meet the sportsmen. Oh! Peter, Peter! you'll never see your old mother in this world again, nor Scotland either.
Yonder big bear is licking his chops to devour you. Yonder is the big hairy sarcophagus that'll soon contain your mangled remains. Who would have thought that Peter of Arrandoon would have lived to play his own coronach?” [Coronach--a funeral hymn or wail for the departed.]
Hardly knowing what he did, poor Peter shouldered his pipes, and began to play a dreary, droning, yelling, squealing lament.
At the same moment Bruin commenced to perform some of the queerest antics ever a bear tried before. He stretched first one leg, then another, and he stretched his neck and described circles in the air with his nose, keeping time with the music. Then he sat up entirely on one end.
”Oh!” he seemed to say, ”flesh and blood couldn't stand that; I must, yes, I must give vent to a Ho--o--o--o--o--
”And likewise to a Hoo--oo--oo--oo--oo!!”
Reader, the voice of an asthmatical steam-engine, heard at midnight as it enters a tunnel, is a melancholy sound, so is the Welsh hooter, and the fog-horn of a Newcastle coal brig; but all combined, and sounding together, would be but a feeble imitation of the agonising notes of that great white bear as he sat on his haunches listening to Peter's pipes.
Peter himself saw the effect his music had produced, and, like the ”towsy tike” in _Tam o' Shanter_,--
”He hotched and blew wi' might and main.”
And, as if Peter had been a great magician, Bruin felt impelled to try to follow the notes, though I am bound to say he did not always keep even in the key-note. Surely such a duet was never heard before in this world. There was a small open s.p.a.ce of water not far from the hummock on which the piper of the _Arrandoon_ had stationed himself; it was soon alive with the heads of hundreds of seals who had come up to listen; so, upon the whole, Peter had a most appreciative audience. But see yonder, is that a seal on the ice that is creeping closer and closer up behind the bear? Nay, for seals don't carry rifles; and now the newcomer levels his gun just for a moment, there is a puff of blue-white smoke, the bear springs high in the air, then falls prostrate on the snow. His ululations are over for ever and ay; the piper plays a merrier air, and advances with speed to meet old Seth and the rest of the sportsmen, who, glad as they are to see him alive, greet him with uproarious cheers and laughter. Then a procession is formed, and with Peter and his pipes striding on in front, thus do the seal-stalkers return to the _Arrandoon_.