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

quite unaccountable. Nay, after having taken a step, he would seem suddenly to repent, and draw back, putting a foot behind him again, or even to one side or the other—anywhere, in short, rather than in front. Coming up to the children at last by this painful process, he became suddenly aware of their presence, and opened his eyes to an extent that could only be accounted for on the wild supposition that he had never seen a child in all his life before.

Having stared for a minute or so with all the intensity of the most solemn surprise, he blinked like a sleepy owl, his mouth expanded, and his whole countenance beamed with good-will; but suddenly he changed back, as if by magic, to the solemn-surprise condition.

This was too much for the children, who simultaneously burst into a hilarious fit of laughter.

The fit seemed catching, for the man joined them with a loud roar of delight, swaying to and fro with closed eyes as he did so.

The roar brought up Red Rooney, who had followed the children’s steps and happened to be close to them at the time of the explosion. He looked at the man for a moment, and then his muttered remark, “Drunk as a fiddler!” cleared up the mystery.

When the man opened his eyes, having finished his laugh, and beheld a tall Kablunet gazing sternly at him, all the fire of his ancestors blazed up in his breast, and came out at his eyes. Drawing his knife, he sprang at our seaman with the murderous weapon uplifted.

Rooney caught his wrist, put a foot behind his leg, gave him a sort of twirl, and laid him flat on his back. The fall caused the knife to spin into the air, and the poor Eskimo found himself at the mercy of the Kablunet.

Instead of taking the man’s life, Rooney bade him sit up. The man did so with a solemn look, not unmixed with perplexity.

There is a phase of that terrible vice drunkenness which is comic, and it is not of the slightest use to ignore that fact. There were probably few men who detested strong drink and grieved over its dire effects more than Red Rooney. He had been led, at a time when total abstinence was almost unknown, to hate the very name of drink and to become a total abstainer. Yet he could not for the life of him resist a hearty laugh when the befuddled Eskimo blinked up in his face with an imbecile smile, and said—“Wh–whash ’e matter, y–you st–stupid ole’ K–K–Kablunet?”

The difficulty and faulty nature of his pronunciation was such that slipshod English serves admirably to indicate his state of mind, although neither English nor Eskimo, Arabic nor Hebrew, will suffice to describe in adequate terms the tremendous solemnity of his gaze after the imbecile smile had passed away.

“You disreputable old seal,” said Rooney, “where did you get the drink?”

Words are wanting to express the dignified look of injured innocence with which the man replied—“I—I’ve had no d–drink. Nosh a d–drop!”

“Yes, truly you are a man and a brother,” muttered Rooney, as he noted this “touch of nature,” and felt that he was in the company of “kin.” “What’s your name, you walrus?”

“K–Kazho,” answered the man indignantly.

“What!”

“K–Ka–zho,” he repeated, with emphasis.

“I suppose you mean Kajo, you unnatural jellyfish.”

Kajo did not condescend to say what he meant, but continued to eye the Kablunet with lofty disdain, though the effect of his expression was marred by his attention being distracted by Pussi and Tumbler, whose faces were fiery red, owing to fits of suppressed laughter.

“Get up now, you old rascal,” said Rooney. “Come along with me, and I’ll show you to my friends.”

At first the Eskimo showed a disposition to resist, but when the powerful seaman lifted him up by the neck of his coat, as if he had been a little dog, and set him on his legs, he thought better of it, smiled benignly, and moved on.

Hans Egede at once recognised this fellow as one of the most troublesome of his flock.

“I have done my best to keep strong drink from that man,” he explained to Rooney, “but, as you must be aware from your long residence among them, the traders will supply the poor creatures with rum, and Kajo’s naturally sanguine temperament is unable to withstand its influence. Over and over again he has promised me—with tears of, I believe, true repentance in his eyes—to give it up; but as surely as the traders offer it to him, and prevail on him to take one drop, so surely does he give way to a regular debauch.”

While he spoke to Rooney in the Danish tongue, the subject of conversation stood with bowed head, conscience-smitten, before him, for, although he did not understand the language, he guessed correctly that the talk was about his own misdeeds.

“Come with me,” said the missionary, taking the poor man by the arm, leading him aside to some distance, and evidently entering into serious remonstrance—while Kajo, as evidently, commenced energetic protestations.

On returning, Egede said that the Eskimo told him his tribe had moved along the coast to a better hunting-ground, and were at that moment located in an old deserted village, just beyond the point for which they were making, on the other side of the bay. He therefore advised that they should start off at once, so as to reach the camp early in the evening.

“Kajo tells me,” added Egede, “that his kayak lies hid in the bushes at no great distance; so he can go with us. He is not too drunk, I think, to manage his light craft.”

But Egede was wrong, for even while he was speaking Kajo had slipped quietly behind a bush. There, after a cautious look round to see that no one observed him, he drew a curious little flat earthenware bottle from some place of concealment about his dress, applied it to his lips, and took what Rooney would have styled “a long, hearty pull.”

That draught was the turning-point. The comic and humorous were put to flight, and nothing but fierce, furious savagery remained behind. Many men in their cups become lachrymose, others silly, and some combative. The fiery liquor had the latter effect on Kajo. Issuing from his place of retirement with a fiendish yell and glaring eyes, he made an insane attack on Angut. That Eskimo, having no desire to hurt the man, merely stepped lightly out of his way and let him pass. Fortunately his knife had been left on the ground where Rooney first met him, for he stumbled and fell upon Kabelaw, into whom he would certainly have plunged the weapon had it still been in his hand.

Jumping up, he looked round with the glaring eyes of a tiger, while his fingers clutched nervously at the place where he was wont to carry the lost knife.

Seeing his condition, Arbalik sprang towards him, but, stooping quickly, Kajo darted out of his way. At the same moment he snatched up a knife that had been left lying on the ground. The first effect of the last draught seemed for the time to have increased the man’s powers of action, for, rushing round the circle, he came suddenly upon poor old Kannoa, who chanced to be seated a little apart from the others. Seizing her thin hair, Kajo brandished the knife in front of her throat, and, glaring at the men, gave vent to a wild laugh of triumph.

It was evident that he was for the time quite mad and unaccountable for his actions—though by no means unaccountable for taking the accursed drink that reduced him to that state of temporary insanity. Red Rooney, aghast with horror at the impending fate of the dear old remembrancer of his grandmother, sprang forward with the agility of a wild cat, but his energy, intensified though it was by rage, could not have prevented the catastrophe if Ippegoo had not come to the rescue.

Yes, that mild youth was the instrument chosen to avert the blow. He chanced to be standing beside a mass of turf which Okiok had cut from the ground for the purpose of making a dry seat for Nuna. Seizing this, Ippegoo hurled it at the head of the drunken Eskimo. Never before did the feeble youth make such a good shot. Full on the flat face of the drunkard it went, like the wad of a siege-gun, scattering earth and débris all round—and down went the Eskimo. Unable to check himself, down also went Rooney on the top of him.

Next moment the luckless Kajo was secured with a piece of walrus-line, and flung on one side, while the indignant party held a noisy consultation as to what was to be done with him.