Red Rooney: The Last of the Crew, R. M. Ballantyne [recommended ebook reader .txt] 📗

at that time, what would you have asked Him to do for you?”

“I would have asked Him to clear the sea of ice,” replied the Eskimo promptly, “and send us kayaks and oomiaks to take us on shore.”

“And if He had answered you according to your prayer, you would have said, no doubt, ‘That is well.’”

“Yes,” answered Simek emphatically, and with a smile.

“But suppose,” continued Egede, “that God had answered you by delivering you in another way—by keeping you on the berg; by making that berg, as it were, into a great oomiak, and causing it to voyage as no oomiak ever voyaged—causing it to plough through pack-ice as no ship made by man ever ploughed; to go straight to an island to which no human power could have brought you; and to have done it all in time to save your own dear Pussi and all the rest of us from starvation—would you not have said that God had answered your prayer in a way that was far better?”

While the missionary was speaking, profound gravity took the place of the puzzled expression on the countenance of Simek and of the others who were listening, for their intelligence was quite quick enough to perceive the drift of his argument before it was finished.

“But,” said Simek earnestly, “I did not pray for this, yet I got it.”

“True, the Good Spirit guided you, even though you did not pray,” returned Egede. “Is not this a proof of His love? If He is so good to thankless and careless children, what sure ground have we for trusting that He will be good to those who love Him! What our Great Father wants is that we should love and trust Him.”

There was one man of the group whose lips were parted, and whose eyes seemed to glitter as he listened. This was Angut. Much and deeply had that intelligent Eskimo thought about the Great Spirit and the mysteries around and within himself, but never till that moment did the curtain seem to rise so decidedly from before his spiritual vision. Egede observed the keen gaze, though he judged it wise to take no notice of it at the time, but he did not fail to pray mentally that the good seed might take root.

The attention of the party was called off the subject of discourse just then by a further movement of the pack-ice.

“See, the lanes of open water widen,” exclaimed Okiok eagerly, pointing seaward.

“Perhaps,” said Egede, “God intends to deliver us.”

“Have you prayed to be delivered?” asked Angut quickly.

“Yes, I have.”

“Suppose,” continued the inquisitive Eskimo, “that God does not deliver you, but leaves you here to die. Would that be answering your prayer?”

“Yes; for instead of granting my request in the way I wished, namely, that I might be permitted to live and preach about the Great Spirit to your countrymen for many years, He would have answered my prayer for deliverance by taking me away from all evil, to be with Jesus, which is far better.”

To the surprise of the missionary, a look of disappointment settled on the face of Angut.

“What ails you?” he asked.

“From what you say,” returned the Eskimo, somewhat coldly, “I see that, with you, whatever happens is best; nothing can be wrong. There is something which tells me here,”—he placed his hand on his breast—“that that is not true.”

“You misunderstand me, friend,” said Egede; “I did not say that nothing can be wrong. What I do say is that whatever God does is and must be right. But God has given to man a free will, and with his free will man does wrong. It is just to save man from this wrong-doing that Jesus came to earth.”

“Free will?” murmured the Eskimo, with a recurrence of the perplexed look. And well might that look recur, for his untrained yet philosophical mind had been brought for the first time face to face with the great insoluble problem of the ages.

“Yes,” said Egede, “you have got hold of a thought which no man has ever yet been able to fathom. Free will is a great mystery, nevertheless every child knows that it is a great fact.”

From this point Angut seemed to commune only with his own spirit, for he put no more questions. At the same time the opening up of the pack rendered the less philosophical among the Eskimos anxious to make some practical efforts for their deliverance.

At Rooney’s suggestion it was arranged that the boldest of the men should take the missionary’s boat—a very small one that could not carry above a third of the party,—and examine the leads of open water, until they should ascertain whether they seemed safe or practicable; then return at once, and, if the report should be favourable, begin by taking off the women and children. This plan was carried out. A favourable report was brought back, the women were immediately embarked, and before evening closed the whole party was landed on the mainland in safety.

Being too late to proceed further that day, the Eskimos ran up a rude shelter of stones, moss, and sticks, the women being accommodated under the upturned boat. Next day they found that the pack had continued to ease off during the night, so that there was a lead of open water between it and the shore.

“You have been praying during the night,” said Okiok to Egede in an abrupt manner, almost as if he were accusing him of taking an unfair advantage of circumstances.

“Truly I have,” answered the missionary, with an amused look, “but I did not presume to ask the Great Spirit to help us in this particular way. I left that to His wisdom and love. I have been taught to trust Him.”

“And if you had not got an answer at all,” returned Okiok, wrinkling his brows in perplexity, “you would still have said that all was right?”

“Just so. If I get an answer it is well. If I get no answer it is still well, for then I know that He sees delay to be best for me and I feel sure that the answer will come at last, in the right way, and in good time, for in the Book of the Great Spirit I am told that ‘all things work together for good to them that love God.’”

“What!” exclaimed Angut, who had listened to the conversation with intense interest; “would it be good for you if I killed you?”

“Of course it would, if God allowed it. Thousands of men and women in time past have chosen to be killed rather than offend God by sinning.”

“This is very strange teaching,” said Angut, glancing at his friend Okiok.

“It is the teaching of Jesus, the Son of God. I am only His servant,” said the missionary, “and I hope to tell you much more that will seem very strange before long; but at present we must arrange what is now to be done, for it is the duty of all men to take advantage of opportunities as they are presented to them.”

The truth of this was so obvious that the Eskimos at once dropped into the region of the practical by advising that the women should all get into the boat and advance by water, while the men should walk by the shore.

This being agreed to, the boat was launched. Although not an Eskimo oomiak, the little craft, which was made of wood, and resembled a punt, was propelled by oomiak paddles, so that Madame Okiok, who was appointed steerswoman, felt herself quite at home when seated in her place. Sigokow, being a powerful creature, physically as well as mentally, was put in charge of the bow-paddle. The other women were ranged along the sides, each with a paddle except old Kannoa who was allowed to sit in the bottom of the craft as a passenger, and guardian of Pussi and Tumbler.

As these last were prone to jump about under violent impulses of joyous hilarity, and had an irresistible desire to lean over the sides for the purpose of dipping their hands in the sea, the duty of the old woman, although connected with children’s play, was by no mean’s child’s play.

Three miles an hour being the average speed at which the boat went, the walkers easily kept up with it. Only once did a difficulty occur when they came to a narrow bay which, although not more than a mile or so across from point to point, ran so far inland that the walkers could not have gone round it without great loss of time.

“We must be ferried across here,” said Egede; “but as it is past noon, I think we had better call a halt, and dine before making the traverse.”

“That is my opinion, too, sir,” said Rooney, throwing down the bundle he had been carrying.

As the invitation to feed seldom comes amiss to a healthy Eskimo, Egede’s proposal was at once agreed to, and in a few minutes they were all busily engaged.

It was a pretty spot, that on which they dined. Bushes just beginning to bud surrounded them; brilliant sunshine drew forth delicious scents from the long, long frozen earth and the reviving herbage on which they sat. It also drew forth gushing rivulets from the patches of snow and heavy drifts, which here and there by their depth and solidity seemed to bid defiance to the sweet influences of spring. The ice-laden sea sent gentle wavelets to the pebbly shore. A group of large willows formed a background to their lordly hall, and behind them, in receding and grand perspective, uprose the great shoulders of Greenland’s mountains.

On all those natural objects of interest and beauty, however, the travellers did not at first bestow more than a passing glance. They were too much engrossed with “metal more attractive,” in the shape of bear blubber; but when appetite began to fail conversation began to flow. At that point it occurred to Pussi and Tumbler that they would go and have some fun.

Child-nature is much the same all the world over and curiously enough, it bears strong resemblance to adult nature. Having fed to satiety, these chips of Simek and Okiok lifted up their eyes, and beheld the surrounding shrubs. At once the idea arose—“Let us explore.” The very same impulse that sent Mungo Park and Livingstone to Africa; Ross, Parry, Franklin, Kane, and all the rest of them toward the Pole, led our little hero and heroine into that thicket, and curiosity urged them to explore as far as possible. They did so, and, as a natural consequence, lost themselves. But what cared they for that? With youth, and health, and strength, they were as easy in their minds as Lieutenant Greely was with sextant, chart, and compass. As to food, were they not already victualled for, not a three years’, but a three hours’, expedition?

And their parents were not disturbed on their account. Eskimo fathers and mothers are not, as a rule, nervous or anxious about their offspring.

In a remarkably short space of time Pussi and Tumbler, walking hand in hand, put more than a mile of “bush” between them and their feeding-place.

“Oh! wha’s dat?” exclaimed Pussi, stopping short, and gazing into the thicket in front of her.

We pause to remind the reader that our little ones lisped in Eskimo, and that, in order to delineate faithfully, our only resource is to translate into lisping English.

“It’s a man,” exclaimed Tumbler.

“I tink him’s a funny man,” murmured the little girl, as the man approached.

Pussi was right. But it was not his dress, so much as his gait and expression, that were funny. For the stranger was obviously an Eskimo, being flat and fat-visaged, black-and-straight haired, and seal-skinnily clad.

The singular point about him was his walk. To all appearance it was a recently acquired power, for the man frowned almost fiercely at the ground as he advanced, and took each step with an amount of forethought and deliberation which to the children seemed