Red Rooney, Robert Michael Ballantyne [summer reading list .txt] 📗

considered him the leader of the party, and listened with respect.

"What right have _you_," he continued, turning sharply on the last speaker, "to look with contempt on Kajo? You have been drinking mad water yourself. I smell it in your breath. If you were to take a little more, you would be quite ready to commit murder."

"No, I would not," replied the Eskimo stoutly.

"Yes, you would," said the sailor, still more stoutly. "Even my good-natured friend Okiok here would be ready to murder his wife Nuna if he was full of mad water."

This unexpected statement took our kindly Eskimo so much by surprise that for a moment or two he could not speak. Then he thundered forth--

"Never! What! kill Nuna? If I was stuffed with mad water from the toes to the eyelids, I _could_ not kill Nuna."

At that moment an aged Eskimo pressed to the front. Tears were on his wrinkled cheeks, as he said, in a quavering voice--

"Yes, you _could_, my son. The wife of Mangek was my dear child. No man ever loved his wife better than Mangek loved my child. He would have killed himself sooner than he would have killed her. But Mangek did not kill her. It was the mad water that killed her. He did not know what the mad water would do when he drank it. How could he? It is the first time he has drunk it; he will _never_ drink it again. But that will not bring back my child."

The old man tried to say more, but his lip trembled and his voice failed. His head drooped, and, turning abruptly round, he mingled with the crowd.

It was evident that the people were deeply moved by this speech. Probably they had never before given the mad water much of their thoughts, but now, after what had been said, and especially after the awful event of the previous night, opinion on the subject was beginning to form.

Red Rooney noted the fact, and was quick to take advantage of the opportunity.

"My friends," he said, and the natives listened all the more eagerly that he spoke their language so well, "when a cruel enemy comes to your shore, and begins to kill, how do you act?"

"We drive him into the sea; kill--destroy him," shouted the men promptly.

"Is not mad water a cruel enemy? Has he not already begun his deadly work? Has he not killed one of your best women, and broken the heart of one of your best men?"

"Huk! huk! Yes, that is true."

"Then who will fight him?" shouted Rooney.

There was a chorus of "I wills," and many of the men, running up to their huts, returned, some with bottles, and some with kegs. Foremost among them was the old father of the murdered woman. He stumbled, fell, and his keg rolled to Rooney's feet.

Catching it up, the sailor raised it high above his head and dashed it to splinters on the stones. With a shout of enthusiasm the Eskimos followed his example with bottle and keg, and in another moment quite a cataract of the vile spirit was flowing into the sea.

"That is well done," said Hans Egede, coming up at the moment. "You know how to take the tide at the flood, Rooney."

"Nay, sir," returned the sailor; "God brought about all the circumstances that raised the tide, and gave me power to see and act when the tide was up. I claim to be naught but an instrument."

"I will not quarrel with you on that point," rejoined Egede; "nevertheless, as an instrument, you did it well, and for that I thank God who has granted to you what I have prayed and toiled for, without success, for many a day. It is another illustration of prayer being answered in a different and better way from what I had asked or expected."

In this strange manner was originated, on the spur of the moment, an effectual and comprehensive total abstinence movement. We are bound of course to recognise the fact that it began in impulse, and was continued from necessity--no more drink being obtainable there at that time. Still, Egede and Rooney, as well as the better-disposed among the Eskimos, rejoiced in the event, for it was an unquestionable blessing so far as it went.

As the Eskimos had settled down on that spot for some weeks for the purpose of hunting--which was their only method of procuring the necessaries of life,--and as there was no pressing necessity for the missionary or his friends proceeding just then to Godhaab, it was resolved that they should all make a short stay at the place, to assist the Eskimos in their work, as well as to recruit the health and strength of those who had been enfeebled by recent hardship and starvation.


CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.


TELLS OF MEN WHOSE ACTIONS END IN SMOKE, AND OF OTHERS WHOSE PLOTS END IN DEEDS OF DARKNESS.

This is a world of surprises. However long we may live, and however much we may learn, the possibility of being surprised remains with us, and our capacity for blazing astonishment is as great as when first, with staggering gait, we escaped from the nursery into space and stood irresolute, with the world before us where to choose.

These thoughts arise from the remembrance of Okiok as he stood one morning open-mouthed, open-eyed, open-souled, and, figuratively, petrified, gazing at something over a ledge of rock.

What that something was we must learn from Okiok himself, after he had cautiously retired from the scene, and run breathlessly back towards the Eskimo village, where the first man he met was Red Rooney.

"I--I've seen it," gasped the Eskimo, gripping the seaman's arm convulsively.

"Seen what?"

"Seen a man--on fire; and he seems not to mind it!"

"On fire! A man! Surely not. You must be mistaken."

"No, I am quite sure," returned Okiok, with intense earnestness. "I saw him with my two eyes, and smoke was coming out of him."

Rooney half-suspected what the Eskimo had seen, but there was just enough of uncertainty to induce him to say, "Come, take me to him."

"Is the man alone?" he asked, as they hurried along.

"No; Ippegoo is with him, staring at him." They soon reached the ledge of rock where Okiok had seen the "something," and, looking cautiously over it, Rooney beheld his friend Kajo smoking a long clay pipe such as Dutchmen are supposed to love. Ippegoo was watching him in a state of ecstatic absorption.

Rooney drew back and indulged in a fit of stifled laughter for a minute, but his companion was too much surprised even to smile.

"Is he doing that curious thing," asked Okiok in a low voice, "which you once told me about--smookin' tibooko?"

"Yes; that's it," replied Rooney with a broad grin, "only you had better say `smokin' tobacco' next time."

"`Smokkin' tibucco,'" repeated the Eskimo; "well, that _is_ funny. But why does he spit it out? Does he not like it?"

"Of course he likes it. At least I suppose he does, by the expression of his face."

There could be little doubt that Rooney was right. Kajo had evidently got over the preliminary stages of incapacity and repugnance long ago, and had acquired the power of enjoying that mild and partial stupefaction--sometimes called "soothing influence"--which tobacco smoke affords. His eyes blinked happily, like those of a cat in the sunshine; his thickish lips protruded poutingly as they gripped the stem; and the smoke was expelled slowly at each puff, as if he grudged losing a single whiff of the full flavour.

Scarcely less interesting was the entranced gaze of Ippegoo. Self-oblivion had been effectively achieved in that youth. A compound of feelings--interest, surprise, philosophical inquiry, eager expectancy, and mild alarm--played hide-and-seek with each other in his bosom, and kept him observant and still.

"Why," asked Okiok, after gazing in silent admiration for a few minutes over the ledge, "why does he not swallow it, if he likes it, and keep it down?"

"It's hard to say," answered Rooney. "Perhaps he'd blow up or catch fire if he were to try. It might be dangerous!"

"See," exclaimed Okiok, in an eager whisper; "he is going to let Ippegoo taste it."

Rooney looked on with increased interest, for at that moment Kajo, having had enough, offered the pipe to his friend, who accepted it with the air of a man who half expected it to bite and put the end in his mouth with diffidence. He was not successful with the first draw, for instead of taking the smoke merely into his mouth he drew it straight down his throat, and spent nearly five minutes thereafter in violent coughing with tears running down his cheeks.

Kajo spent the same period in laughing, and then gravely and carefully explained how the thing should be done.

Ippegoo was an apt scholar. Almost immediately he learned to puff, and in a very short time was rolling thick white clouds from him like a turret-gun in action. Evidently he was proud of his rapid attainments.

"Humph! That won't last long," murmured Rooney to his companion.

"Isn't it good?" said Kajo to Ippegoo.

"Ye-es. O yes. It's good; a-at least, I suppose it is," replied the youth, with modesty.

A peculiar tinge of pallor overspread his face at that moment.

"What's wrong, Ippegoo?"

"I--I--feel f-funny."

"Never mind that," said Kajo. "It's always the way at first. When I first tried it I--"

He was cut short by Ippegoo suddenly rising, dropping the pipe, clapping one hand on his breast, the other on his mouth, and rushing into the bushes where he disappeared like one of his own puffs of smoke. At the same moment Rooney and Okiok appeared on the scene, laughing heartily.

"You rascal!" said Rooney to Kajo, on recovering his gravity; "you have learned to drink, and you have learned to smoke, and, not satisfied with that extent of depravity, you try to teach Ippegoo. You pitiful creature! Are you not ashamed of yourself?"

Kajo looked sheepish, and admitted that he had some sensations of that sort, but wasn't sure.

"Tell me," continued the seaman sternly, "before you tasted strong drink or tobacco, did you want them?"

"No," replied Kajo.

"Are you in better health now that you've got them?"

"I--I _feel_ the better for them," replied Kajo.

"I did not ask what you _feel_," returned Rooney. "_Are_ you better now than you were before? That's the question."

But Rooney never got a satisfactory answer to that question, and Kajo continued to drink and smoke until, happily for himself, he had to quit the settlements and proceed to the lands of thick-ribbed ice, where nothing stronger than train oil and lamp-smoke were procurable.

As for poor Ippegoo, he did not show himself to his friends during the remainder of that day. Being half an idiot, no one could prevail on him thereafter to touch another pipe.

Now, while the Eskimos and our friends were engaged in hunting, and holding an unwonted amount both of religious and philosophical intercourse, a band of desperadoes was