Curiosity and Presumption followed by Catastrophe.

Most of the able-bodied men and a few of the youngsters set off next day to obtain a supply of walrus, seal, and musk-ox flesh—or anything else that happened to be procurable.

Mrs Mangivik and other ladies were left to look after the camp and prepare for the return of the men, strict orders being left that no one should go on board the ship on any pretext whatever.

But strict orders are not always obeyed. There was one little boy in that community—not a bad boy, but a precocious and very ambitious boy—who chanced not to hear the orders given. Whether he was partially deaf, or purposely did not hear the orders, we cannot say. This little boy’s chief weakness was a desire to mimic. Having admired the wooden leg on Anteek’s head, and having observed where Anteek had stowed the leg away before setting off with the hunters, he possessed himself of it, put it on his head, and strutted about the camp to the admiration and envy of all his compeers; for he was a very daring and domineering boy, although small. His name was Doocheek.

Another of Doocheek’s weaknesses was a desire to ape the men, and think himself a man in consequence. This, coupled with a consuming curiosity in regard to Nazinred’s tobacco-pipe, caused him to observe—for he was remarkably observant—that the Indian had, for the first time since he resided among them, gone off on an expedition and left his pipe behind him—accidentally, no doubt. Doocheek watched his opportunity and secured the fire-bag which contained the smoking implements. Stolen waters are sweet, even in cold climates where all the waters freeze, and the boy cast about for a secluded place in which he might enjoy the sweetness of his pipe to the full without fear of interruption. A blue cavern in an iceberg might do, but the atmosphere in such caves was rather cold. Under the cliffs there were many sheltered places, but the juvenile members of the community were playing there, and would certainly intrude. Out on the floes was an exposed place—to vision as well as to wind and drift. What was left to him, then, but the ship?

Hurrying through the village in order to carry out his plans, the boy encountered Mrs Mangivik at the entrance to her hut.

“Where are you going, Doocheek?” demanded the woman, with a look of suspicion born of frequent experience.

With that spirit of ambiguous contradiction which would seem to prevail among the youth of all nations, Doocheek replied, “Nowhere.”

It is interesting to observe how that remarkable answer seems to satisfy inquirers, in nine cases out of ten, everywhere! At all events Mrs Mangivik smiled as if she were satisfied, and re-entered her hut, where Nootka was engaged in conversation with Adolay, while she taught her how to make Eskimo boots.

“Did not Cheenbuk forbid every one to go near the big kayak while the men were away?” demanded the woman.

“Yes he did,” answered Nootka, without raising her eyes.—“Now look here, Ad-dolay. You turn the toe up this way, and the heel down that way, and shove your needle in so, and then—”

“I am very sure,” interrupted Mrs Mangivik, “that little Doocheek has gone down there. There’s not another little boy in the tribe but himself would dare to do it.”

“He will lose some of his skin if he does,” said Nootka quietly—referring not to any habit of the Eskimos to flay bad boys alive, but to their tendency to punish the refractory in a way that was apt to ruffle the cuticle.

Quite indifferent to all such prospects in store for him, the boy hurried on until he reached the foot of the snow staircase. It had been repaired by that time, and the deck was easily gained. Descending to a part of the interior which was rather dark—for the boy was aware that his deeds were evil—he sat down on a locker and opened his fire-bag.

Eskimos are not quite free from superstition. Doocheek had plenty of natural courage, but he was apt to quail before the supernatural. Apart from the conscience, which even in Arctic bosoms tends to produce cowardice, the strange surroundings of the place—the deep shadows, merging into absolute obscurity, and the feeling of mystery that attached to everything connected with the vessel—all had the effect of rendering Doocheek’s enjoyment somewhat mixed. To look at him as he sat there, glaring nervously on all sides, one would have been tempted to say that his was what might be called a fearful joy. If a rat or a mouse had scurried past him at that moment he would have fled precipitately, but no rat or mouse moved. Probably they were all frozen, and he had the place entirely to himself—too much to himself. He began at that point to wish that he had brought another little boy, or even a girl, with him, to keep up his courage and share in his triumphant wickedness.

However, as nothing happened, his courage began to return, and he emptied the contents of the bag on the locker. He knew exactly what to do, for many a time had he watched the Indian fill his pipe and produce fire with flint, steel, and tinder. Beginning with the pipe, he filled it, and then proceeded to strike a light. Of course he found this much more difficult than he had expected. It seemed so easy in the Indian’s hands—it was so very difficult in his! After skinning his knuckles, however, chipping his thumb-nail, and knocking the flint out of his hand several times, he succeeded in making the right stroke, and a shower of sparks rewarded his perseverance.

This was charming. The place was so dark that the sparks seemed as large and bright as stars, while the darkness that followed was deeper by contrast. Forgetting the pipe and tobacco in this new-found joy, Doocheek kept pelting away at the flint, sending showers of sparks past his knees, and some of them were so large that they even fell upon the deck before going out.

But an abrupt stop was put to his amusement. Whether it was that something or other in the sides of the ship had given way, or the energetic action of the boy had shaken some fastening loose, we cannot say, but just as he was in the act of raising his hand for another feu-de-joie, a shelf over his head gave way, and a perfect avalanche of pots, pans, and noisy tin articles came down with a hideous crash on the deck!

To leap from the locker like a bomb-shell, and go straight up the hatchway like a rocket, was only natural. Doocheek did that as far as was compatible with flesh and blood. He could not remember afterwards by what process he reached the ice and found himself on the skirts of the village. But at that point his self-control returned, and he sauntered home—flushed, it is true, and a little winded, yet with the nonchalant air of a man who had just stepped out to “have a look at the weather.” His conscience was rather troubled, it is true, when he thought of the fire-bag and the pipe, etcetera, left behind, but nothing would have induced him to return for these at that time.

Towards evening the walrus-hunters returned. They had been very successful. The sledges were loaded up with the meat of several large animals, so that there was a prospect of unlimited feasting for more than a week to come.

“Now, old woman,” said Cheenbuk with cheery irreverence to his mother, and with that good-natured familiarity which is often engendered by good fortune, “stir up the lamps and get ready the marrow-bones!”

Regardless of lamps and marrow-bones, all the children of the community, even to the smallest babes, were sucking raw blubber as children in less favoured lands suck lollipops.

“Had you to go far?” asked Adolay.

“Not far. We found them all close by, and would have been back sooner, but some of them fought hard and took up much time,” answered Cheenbuk, who awaited the cooking process; for since he had discovered the Indian girl’s disgust at raw meat, he had become a total abstainer on the point.

“And,” he added, beginning to pull off his boots, “if your father had not been there with the spouter we should have been out on the floes fighting still, for some of the walruses were savage, and hard to kill.”

After supper, as a matter of course, Nazinred looked round with an air of benign satisfaction on his fine face.

“Is my fire-bag behind you, Adolay?” he asked in a low voice.

Doocheek was present and heard the question, but of course did not understand it, as it was put in the Dogrib tongue. The search, however, which immediately began induced him to retire promptly and absent himself from home for the time being.

“It is not here, father.”

A more careful search was made, then a most careful one, but no fire-bag was to be found.

“Perhaps Nootka took it to her sleeping-place to keep it safe,” suggested old Mangivik.

No; Nootka had seen nothing of it, and Nootka was not a little annoyed when, in spite of her assertion, a search was made in her boudoir, and not a little triumphant when the search proved fruitless.

“Surely no one has taken it away,” said Cheenbuk, looking round with an expression that would have sunk Doocheek through the snow into the earth if he had been there.

“If any one has taken it away,” said Aglootook, with a profundity of meaning in his tone that was meant to paralyse the guilty, and serve as a permanent caution to the innocent, “something awful will happen. I don’t say what, but something; so it will be as well to confess, for I’m sure to find it out—if not soon, then in a long time.”

For some moments after this there was dead silence, but nobody confessed, and they all looked at each other as if they expected some one to go off like a cannon shot through the roof suddenly, and were somewhat disappointed that no one did.

By degrees they began to breathe more freely, and at last some went out to seek repose in their own huts, while the inmates of Mangivik’s dwelling began to turn in for the night. Nootka and Adolay retired to the boudoir, and the men, drawing bear or seal-skins over them, lay down, each where he had feasted.

Nazinred alone remained sitting up, the victim of unsatisfied craving. North American Indians are noted for their power to conceal their feelings, and Nazinred was not an exception to the rule, for no sign did he betray of the longing desire for a pipe that consumed him. Only a tendency to silence, and a deeper solemnity than usual, seemed to indicate that all was not as he would wish.

At last he lay down. About an hour afterwards, finding that he could not sleep, he arose, cast an envious glance at the peaceful slumberers around him, crept through the entrance tunnel, and stood erect outside, with a gaze of subdued inquiry at the starry host overhead. Bringing his eyes slowly down to the things of earth, his ga............