In the Misty Seas: A Story of the Sealers of Behring Strait

"When I want a man to do anything I'll tell him," he said, and turned gravely to the officer. "You can put that thing down. Nobody's going to hurt you. Can you talk any English?"

The officer who, Appleby surmised, was from the Baltic coast, made a sign of comprehension. "A little – but more easy the French," he said.

"Then," said Jordan dryly, "we'll get ahead. Fetch Brulée in, Stickine."

While Stickine went out the officer laid down his pistol, and with a little deprecatory gesture straightened his uniform and drew tight his belt. Then, to Appleby's astonishment, he took out a little silver box and shook a few cigarettes out from it on to the table. He did not seem in any way disturbed, though the faces of the big bronzed sealers who carried clubs and rifles were very grim as they watched him. This was almost a shock to Appleby, who had hitherto half-instinctively believed that quiet fearlessness and resolute composure in times of stress and peril were only to be expected from Englishmen. Yet here was a Russian helpless in the hands of men whom he knew had a bitter grievance against him and his comrades, and if he felt the slightest fear of them it was at least imperceptible. Appleby was, however, to discover later on that while some lands are considerably more pleasant to live in than others the fact that he was born in England or Russia, or elsewhere, after all makes no great difference in the qualities that become any man.

Then he saw that Stickine had returned, and the officer was speaking. "What you make here, Captain?" he said, getting out the words with evident difficulty.

"He's too slow," said Jordan. "Ask him if he has more men anywhere around, Brulée."

"Two of them at the huts, and 'bout a dozen natives," was the answer.

Jordan nodded, and Montreal stepped forward, his face grey and set, and his fingers trembling on his rifle. "I guess it's 'bout time I did some talking too," he said "Ask if he has seen my brother."

"Get right back until you're wanted. It's me that's running this show," said Jordan. "Ask him if they've got an Englishman there, Brulée."

The officer made a little gesture of assent. "They have one who works," he said.

"Send for him right now," said Jordan sternly. "Four of my men will go along in case there's any blundering."

The dark-skinned man slipped out from behind the table, and when he went out with four of the sealers behind him the blue-eyed officer held out the little box.

"You will do me the pleasure, Captain," he said in French.

Jordan smiled dryly. "No, thanks," he said. "I've no great use for these things, and I don't know that I'm open to take anything of that kind from you just now."

The Russian, who seemed to understand him, laughed a little. "With permission," he said, and lighted a cigarette. "Now you can tell me what you come for, Captain."

"You can tell him 'bout Motter, Brulée. Two of you will keep a look-out outside there," said Jordan, and crossing over sat down on the table.

Then there followed a very anxious interval, and Appleby fancied by the way the men glanced towards the door that they were as expectant as he was himself. Now and then one of them moved restlessly, and the lads could hear the crackle of the stove and the moan of the wind about the building. They caught very little of Brulée's narrative, but long afterwards the scene returned to them, and they could see Jordan sitting very still, with an impassive bronzed face beneath his fur cap, on the table, and the blue-eyed officer languidly watching him while the smoke of the cigarette drifted between them. It also seemed to both the lads that if either of the men let his fear or anger master him a much more deadly vapour would whirl in thicker wreaths about the lonely building. Brulée seemed disposed to make the most of his opportunity, but he stopped at last, and the officer nodded to Jordan comprehendingly.

"Lache. Infame! It was not my affair," he said in French.

After that there was silence, until a tramp of feet grew nearer, and a murmur rose from the anxious men when a voice came out of the darkness hoarse and exultant, "We've got him."

Then, with Montreal and another man in front of them, the sealers came in, and there was once more a murmur when the first two stopped close by Jordan, who held out his hand.

"And you're Tom Allardyce?" he said.

The man's hand seemed to shake as he grasped the skipper's, and his eyes grew a trifle hazy when the rest grinned at him encouragingly and Montreal patted his shoulder.

"Yes," he said. "I was cast away up here 'most two years ago."

"Sit down," said Jordan quietly, with a glance at the Russian officer. "Tell us all about it. Don't worry, and go slow. I've a reason for wanting to know."

The man sat down, and there was another little murmur when the sealers saw his lined and haggard face, for there was on it the stamp of hunger and suffering. His hands were clawlike, and there was a great scar upon his forehead.

"It's good to see you, boys," he said, and his voice died away hoarsely. Then he turned to Jordan. "You're going to take me back with you?"

Jordan laughed a little. "Oh, yes," he said. "Look at the boys. I guess they're not going to let me leave you, if I wanted to."

The lurking fear died out of Allardyce's eyes. "Well," he said, "I was cast away – me and an Indian and Stetson, sealing from the old St. Michael. 'Twas back there on the eastern reefs we came ashore, and when I got him out Stetson's head was crushed in. That left me and the Indian, and the Russians sent us west when the gun-boat came. I don't know how long they kept us yonder, but one night when they sent us down the coast on a schooner me and the Indian got away from her. The boat was a good one, and, for it was blowing fresh, we ran back north before the wind I don't know where, and lived with the natives ashore until the Indian got drowned in an ice crack while we starved through that winter. There's lots of things I don't seem to remember, but I got blown off in a skin boat at last, and when I'd lived most of a week on nothing a schooner fetched me here."

It was a very disjointed story, but the sealers could fill in the cold and hunger of those terrible wanderings which Allardyce, whose face spoke more plainly for him, left out. Brulée rendered it into French, and Jordan turned to the officer.

"Your people take away a white man's liberty and leave him to rot without a hearing?" he said.

The Russian made a little deprecatory gesture. "The Department is slow – or perhaps it is occupied, and he ran away too soon. One waits the instructions, and if the papers do not come – what would you? Sometimes a man is forgotten."

"Did you ever see this man before, Allardyce?" asked Jordan.

"No," said the sealer. "Not until he came here with the gun-boat a week ago."

Jordan nodded, and pointed to the dark-skinned man. "Have the folks here ill-treated you?"

"No," said Allardyce. "I had to work for them, and I was glad I had, but they never did no harm to me."

Jordan turned once more to the Russians. "I guess," he said grimly, "that was quite fortunate for all of you. Now, how long have you been working for them, Allardyce?"

"Since soon after the ice broke up. When that was I don't quite know."

"Well," said Jordan dryly, "we'll fix up the thing. I've had to come here with my schooner for this man, and I'll charge my time to you at forty dollars the day besides what Motter stole from me. We'll figure he has been working here two months, anyway, and he'd have got 'bout two dollars and a half for every day of it in our country. Then there's the months you kept him on the other coast without giving him a show to make out his innocence, and his damaged feelings. That will run to five hundred dollars, anyway, and it's very moderate. You can't do things of that kind to a Canadian without it costing something. Still, the trading folks aren't going to lose anything, because the Government's bound to pay them. Now, have you got any roubles with you?"

"Very few," said the dark-skinned man in French. "We pay the natives in provisions."

Jordan nodded. "Then I'll work it out in seals," he said. "Now I'm wanting that pistol and your sword from you."

The blue-eyed officer laid his hand upon the blade. "You can have my word – a six hour's truce – but this only in one way."

"Well," said Jordan with a little laugh, "I guess I can trust you, because we've got your men's rifles, and I'll leave enough of the boys to take care of you. Montreal, you'll stop with four of them, and the rest will come along with me. It's going to take a good many holluschackie to square this deal."

The Russian nodded, and lighted another cigarette, and the lads went out with the rest into the misty night.

CHAPTER XX

THE NEXT MEETING

The men stopped at last at the head of the slope to the sea, and the lads discovered that the task before them was a good deal less simple than they had fancied. There were the seals – they could see them dimly lying in groups on the shingle or shambling about – but it became evident that their destruction could not be undertaken in a haphazard fashion, for Jordan sent two of the men to work round between them and the sea.

"We'll give them 'bout ten minutes, boys, and then start in. I'm entitled to so many skins, but I've no use for spoiling the whole herd," he said.

Here and there a man beat his hands while they waited, for the night was cold, others lighted their pipes, and Niven, who was glad to rest his wrenched foot, sat down.

"Why don't we go straight in and club them?" he asked Stickine.

"It wouldn't be the square thing," said the Canadian. "A seal knows a good deal, and if we killed 'bout half of them among the rest, those that got away would tell the others, and it would be a long while before they came back to this beach again."

"But seals only do things instinctively," said Niven.

Donegal, who was standing close by, laughed as he asked, "And what is instinct, anyway?"

Niven appeared to have some difficulty in finding an answer, and Appleby grinned at him. "Better tell him you don't know," he said.

Donegal nodded. "Nor any one else, but the holluschackie have brains in their heads, as ye will see before this conthract's through. And what were they given brains for if 'twas not to make use av them? 'Tis the vanity of ignorance would have ye believe there's no sense in the wondherful things in the sea. Sure, Donovitch and his Indians could tell ye better."

This was a new point of view to Appleby, but being aware that his sealer comrades had seen more of the denizens of the waters than all the city men who lectured and wrote about them put together he made no answer.

"Then when are we going to club them?" asked Niven.

"When we've drawn out those we want and driven them nice and slow to a handy place," said Stickine.

Before they had time for further questions Jordan spoke to Stickine, and spreading out they floundered down the slope and then closed in on the seals. The latter made no very great effort to avoid them, and when they had driven them together Jordan separated those he wanted from the rest.

"We'll take these along," he said.

Then while most of the herd went flopping down the slope in a hurry to the sea the men urged the rest slowly towards the higher ground, pushing one here and there with their feet, or prodding them with their rifles. It was dark, but the lads could see the seals more or less plainly, though it would have puzzled either of them to describe their progression. They did not walk, they did not crawl, but every move set their blubber-coated bodies quivering, and nothing more appropriate than flopping occurred to Niven. They also went faster than he fancied they could have done, though the men seemed desirous not to hurry them, and when he asked, Stickine told him the reason.

"If you make them hot before you club them, they'll spoil their pelts," he said. "You could strip the fur right off a seal that had been run too hard with your fingers."

They went on, and when now and then one of the seals made a futile endeavour to get away, or stopped, and, raising itself in a curious fashion, gazed at its persecutors, the lads commenced to be sorry for them. They also felt a squeamishness that was almost too much for them when at last, after they and the seals had rested a little, the men set about the slaughter. After the first few minutes both lads slipped away, for the sight of the limp, quivering bodies and whirling clubs almost sickened them, but they dare not go too far, and the thud of the crushing blows followed them. Niven had seen Donovitch stand over his victims and beat their heads in, and the recollection of it remained with him.

"Of course you can't have seal-skins without killing seals, but they seemed so harmless – and I wish I hadn't come," he said.

His regret was even stronger when Jordan called him, and very much against his wishes he helped to roll round the horribly smelling, greasy bodies while the others flayed them. At every clutch his fingers sank in the warm, shaking blubber, and when at last the work was over his face was white and he shivered from revulsion. It was daylight now, and the men stood about him dabbled here and there with blood, and foul with grease all over, while he fancied that one could have smelt them from the schooner.

"It's beastly," he said to Appleby. "I feel as if I'd eaten no end of things that didn't agree with me."

Then Jordan sent two men back for the Russian officer, and nodded to him when he came.

"I want you to see what we've got. We're 'bout square now," he said.

The officer glanced down at the slaughtered holluschackie with a little gesture of disgust. Then he laughed as he said in French, "It is not my affair. I see you again one day, Captain, and it is perhaps different then."

Brulée made this plain, and Jordan smiled. "If you do it's quite likely I can show as good a fist as you. Anyway, we're going off now, and I'll bid you good-morning. You'll find your men's rifles down there on the beach when you want them."

In another half-hour they were pulling off to the schooner, and when they sat at breakfast in the hold Stickine grinned at the lads.

"Feeling any better now?" he said. "You don't like clubbing holluschackie?"

"No," said Appleby with a little shiver of disgust. "I've been wondering whether it's not going to make trouble for Jordan, too, because somebody will, in all probability, send on the demand to Canada if those folks ask their Government to pay the damage."

Stickine smiled dryly. "It's not quite likely that they will," he said. "The fellows who're responsible do some kind of curious things, and neither they nor the sealers have much use for talking. 'Pears to me that more than one Government is getting tired of us, and the Russian department bosses want a man who knows how to keep out of trouble. If he gets worrying them they're quite likely to find another use for him. Of course, there'll be some writing, but Ned Jordan only took what he was entitled to when he might have swept the island, and it isn't going to suit anybody to drag Tom Allardyce in."

Appleby could not decide then or afterwards whether Stickine was right, but it seemed to him that there was a good deal of reason in his opinion. In any case he had little leisure to consider the affair just then, for Jordan called them up on deck to hoist the topsails, and they spent most of that day watching for a wind. It was as usual dim and hazy, and the lads fancied that Jordan was a trifle anxious, for he swept the sea with his glasses as they rolled slowly east. Appleby was also within hearing when he drew Stickine away from the rest.

"We're in a kind of fix," he said. "There's nothing the Russians wouldn't do to square up the deal with us, and that fellow we left behind will be pulling all he's worth for Motter's to turn the gun-boat loose. If I'd figured we were going to have this weather I'd have set his boat adrift. Send an Indian to the cross-trees to keep a look-out for her."

The wind came, almost too much of it, in the afternoon, and at dusk the Champlain was lying as close as she could to it with her lighter canvas stowed, and a nest of reefs to leeward. The lads could see the white foam flying and the whirling clouds of spray, and were wondering whether the schooner could weather them on that tack when the Indian aloft stretched out his hand, and somebody shouted —

"Boat close in with the surf."

Appleby went up the masthoops, and could just make out something that swung into sight now and then against the whiteness of the surf behind it. It was, he surmised, a boat, and he saw that Jordan was watching her under the main-boom.

"The Russian!" he said. "It don't seem sense to let her get that close in with the rocks to lee."

"Somebody waving!" said Stickine, who had taken up the glasses. "They're used up, and can't pull her out against the sea."

There was silence for at least another minute, while the men stared at the whirling spray and the dusky object that was hove up every now and then, and Niven shivered a little, for he could guess what would happen to worn-out men, hurled upon those fangs of rock by the frothing sea. The reefs would mangle them out of human semblance, in all probability. Then Jordan glanced to weather at the big froth-tipped slopes of water that rolled up towards them, and shook his head solemnly.

"We can't let them drown," he said. "Get your maintopsail up, but let it lie below the gaff, and shake loose the outer jib. We'll want them when we come to beat her out again."

"Square away?" asked Montreal at the helm.

Jordan nodded. "Out main-boom, boys. Slack up everything."

The long boom swung outboard, the schooner swung round, and as she swept in for the reefs with the wind on her quarter now the lads realized as well as the others did, the risks the skipper was quietly taking. It was easy to run for the boat, but to beat out again would be a very different affair, and Appleby fancied that only a very handy vessel would do it once she felt the grip of the sea that grew higher as it swept forward through shallowing water to crumble on the reefs. It was also unpleasantly evident as he watched the white spouting that swimming would not be much use to him if she did not succeed. Still, he had confidence in the lean, grim-faced man who stood quietly by the house. The men in the boat would have taken the schooner from him and ruined him if they could, but Appleby knew that so long as the Champlain's spars and canvas would hold out, Jordan would not let them drown.

In another few minutes it was also apparent that the Russians were in sorest need of help, for each time she swung up the boat seemed closer to the surf. The men were pulling desperately while the spray that blew in from the streaming bows whirled about them, but every one could see they were making no headway, and the reefs were close astern. At last Jordan signed to Stickine.

"You've got to be handy, boys," he said quietly.

Appleby was at the rail, and saw for a moment the straining bodies swing with the thrashing oars and the white upturned faces, as the schooner rushed by the boat. A great wreath of foam frothed about her as she swung over the top of a sea, but in another second she had passed astern, and every man on board the Champlain became busy when Jordan raised his hand. Down went the helm, in came the long boom, there was a great rattle of blocks and banging of canvas, and as the schooner swept round a voice rang through the din.

"Get a holt of them. Up gaff topsail and jib while she's shaking!"

Appleby, as it happened, was at the topsail halliard, and could see very little as they ran the sail up. He, however, knew the schooner had run to leeward of the boat, and now when she lay to, he had a momentary glimpse of the Russians. They were flying towards her with the boat hove up on the back of a sea, but the Champlain rolled heavily and he lost sight of her. In another moment or two there was a thud and a shouting beneath him to lee, and struggling with the topsail tack, he could dimly see black figures leaning down through the shrouds and apparently clutching at something in the sea. Then bedraggled objects came scrambling over the rail, and Montreal was whirling the wheel round while something drove away astern.

"They're here. Haul staysail," said Jordan.

It had taken less than a minute, and now the Champlain, heaving her bows out of a seatop, was going on again nobody seemed to consider that they had done anything unusual, though it was evident that it might still cost them very dearly. The reefs were waiting close astern, there was also an ominous spouting in front of them, and black seas that had grown steeper came seething out of the dimness to weather. The schooner was hove down by her canvas until the lads could scarcely stand upon her deck, but she must carry the last inch of it if she was to beat off shore.

On she went, deluging her jibs at every plunge and drenching her foresail half-way up, until the reef was close ahead, and Jordan signed with his hand. Then with canvas banging she swept round head to wind, and, while the men, who needed no telling, grasped the jib-sheets, hung there a few breathless moments, for everybody on board her knew that if she would not stay, or come round on the other tack, she would be on the reef in another minute. Appleby cast one brief glance at the tumultuous spouting and chaos of crumbling seas, and then turned his eyes away, for he had seen rather more than was good for him.

"Let draw staysail. Lee-sheets," said somebody, and she was coming round with them.

Dripping men grabbed at the ropes, there was a banging of canvas, and she was thrashing out on the other tack when Jordan, turning to the blue-eyed officer, held out his hand.

"It's kind of fortunate we came along just then. I'll fix you up by and by," he said.

There was still just enough light to see by, and Appleby afterwards remembered the cloud of spray that blew into the foresail, the white seething of the reefs, and the two figures beneath the drenched canvas on the Champlain's deck. The Russian stood erect in his wet uniform, Jordan swaying a little, uncouth and ungainly in his spray-wet canvas and greasy furs, but the two shook hands as men and equals, and Appleby dimly realized that a great deal was implied by that grasp. One was, up there, an outlaw, the other an officer of the Tsar, but the likeness between them was greater than the difference of race, and Appleby commenced to understand things he had heard and read that had once been incomprehensible to him. Men, it seemed, were much the same wherever they came from, and neither varying speech nor colour could make them less than men, while the pride that set the nations at each others' throats was an evil thing. Then there flashed into his memory lines he had once been made to learn, and had straightway forgotten, "When the battle flags are furled."

In the meanwhile he was wanted to get another pull on the staysail-sheet, and when that was done all his attention was occupied by the reefs and the schooner. Hove down by her canvas she put her bows in every now and then, and her deck ran water, while the masts were groaning under the pressure, and the surf seemed very little farther away. Once or twice when a white sea smote her it seemed to both the lads who clung tight to what was handiest that she was going over, and Appleby saw that Montreal glanced at Jordan as though asking a question from the wheel. The skipper, however, shook his head.

"We've no time for luffing. She has got to take what comes," he said.

For several minutes it seemed scarcely possible that the Champlain could resist the overwhelming heeling stress of her canvas, and her deck was swept fore and aft during them. Then there was a lull in the wind, and as she lifted her rail a little, Stickine glanced at the boat astern of them.

"She's most swamped, and a big drag on us," he said. "Shall I cut the painter?"

Again Jordan shook his head. "Not unless we have to. We'll want her to-morrow."

For an hour they thrashed to windward before they could clear the reefs, and when at last the horrible white seething swept away behind them, and they swung the topsail and mainsail peak down it was with a great contentment that the lads, who were drenched through, crawled away below. Niven laughed excitedly as he stripped off his dripping clothes.