by Oliver Optic
CHAPTER II
THE MYSTERY AND BOBBY
Abel had often seen death before. He had seen men drowned, men who hadfrozen to death, men accidentally shot to death, and men who had diednaturally and comfortably in their beds. It was, therefore, not thesight of death that startled him, but the horror and tragic appeal inthe dead man's staring eyes. It was uncanny and supernatural.
This, at least, was Abel's first intuitive impression. Though he couldnot have defined this impression or put his thoughts into words, hefelt much as one would feel who had heard a dead man speak.
He pushed his skiff a few yards away and, resting upon his oars, viewedthe derelict from a respectful distance. His impulse was to row back toItigailit Island at once and leave the boat and its ghastly, silentskipper to the mercies of the sea. But the mystery fascinated him. Thebeseeching gaze that had met his had roused his imagination. And so fora long time he sat in silent contemplation of the boat, wondering fromwhence it and the thing it contained had come, and how the man had methis death.
Abel Zachariah was a Christian, but he was also an Eskimo, and he hadinherited the superstitions of untold generations of heathenancestors--superstitions that to him were truths above contradiction. Heheld it as a fact beyond dispute that all unnatural or accidental deathswere brought about by the evil spirits with which his forefathers hadpeopled the sea and the desolate land in which he lived. It was his firmbelief that evil spirits remained to haunt the place where a victim hadbeen lured to violent death, as in the present instance had plainly beenthe case. He had no doubt that the boat was haunted, and therefore hekept his distance, for unless by some subtle and certain charm thespirits could be driven off, none but a foolhardy man would ever ventureto board the derelict, and Abel was not a foolhardy man.
These superstitions seem very foolish to us, no doubt; but, after all,were they one whit more foolish or groundless than the countlesssuperstitions to which many educated and seemingly intelligent Christianpeople of civilization are bound? As, for instance, the superstitionthat where thirteen sit together at table one will die within the year.
And so Abel Zachariah, being a man of caution, held aloof from the boatwhich he had so eagerly set out to salvage; and sitting engrossed incontemplation, he in his skiff and the dead man in the derelict driftedfor a while side by side toward Itigailit Island. And thus he wassitting silent and inactive when suddenly he was startled by the cry ofa child in distress.
Abel for a moment was not at all certain that this was not some wickedplot of the spirits, intended to lure him within their reach, and heseized his oars, determined to increase the distance between himself andpossible danger. But when the cry was repeated, and presently became afrightened wail, Abel hesitated. If it was a spirit that emitted thesucceeding wails it was surely a very corporeal spirit, with welldeveloped lungs and also a very much frightened spirit; and a frightenedspirit could not be dangerous.
Abel had never heard of a spirit that cried like this one, or of aspirit that was frightened, and he rose to his feet that he might lookover the gunwale and into the derelict. From this vantage he beheld thehead of a little child, and he could see, also, that this very realchild, and not the much feared spirits, was the source of the loud andpiteous wails.
The spirit of evil, then, had not tarried after striking down the man.Doubtless God had interposed to save the child, else it, too, would havebeen destroyed, and no spirit of evil could remain where God exerted Hispower. Here was a subtle and potent charm in which Abel Zachariah hadunwavering faith, for, after all, his faith in God was greater than hisfaith in the religion of his fathers. And so, vastly relieved and nolonger afraid, he rowed his skiff alongside the boat, made his painterfast and stepped aboard.
Standing in the forward part of the boat was a little boy, perhaps threeyears of age. He was fair haired and fair skinned and handsome, but as aresult of privations he had suffered he was evidently ill and his cheekswere flushed with fever.
Abel's great, generous heart went out to the child in boundlesssympathy. He forgot the dead man aft. He forgot even the boat. Thecoveted prize of his ambition an hour before, had small importance toAbel now. His one thought was for this distressed little one that Godhad so unexpectedly sent down to him upon the bosom of the sea.
The child ceased crying, and with big blue tear-wet eyes looked withwonder upon his dusky faced deliverer.
"_Oksunae_" (be strong), said Abel with a reassuring smile, as hestooped and took the little one's hand into his big rough palm.
The child did not understand the word of greeting, but he didunderstand, with the intuition and instinct of little children and dumbcreatures, that Abel was his friend.
Beneath the deck, forward, were blankets, in which the boy had doubtlessbeen sleeping when Abel first looked into the boat and discovered thedead man. Beneath the deck Abel also found among other things, a jugpartly filled with tepid water, a tin cup, and a bag containing a fewbroken fragments of sea biscuits. He gave the child a sip of the waterand selected for it one of the larger fragments of biscuit. Then,patting it affectionately upon the cheek he tenderly tucked it among theblankets, beneath the deck, that it might be sheltered from the breeze.And the little one, content with the ministrations and attentions of hisnew guardian, quietly acquiesced.
Abel was greatly excited by his wonderful discovery, and he was eager tosurprise Mrs. Abel Zachariah and to present to her the fair-skinned boy,and therefore he lost no time in further exploration of the boat.Unafraid now of evil spirits, and disregarding the dead man lying aft,he undid the painter of his skiff and secured it astern, where the skiffwould tow easily. And so, with the mysterious child under the deck athis back, and the mysterious dead man lying in the boat at his feet,and his own skiff trailing behind, Abel, with a strong arm and a stoutheart and a head filled with perplexing questions, rowed the mysteriousboat to the low ledge of rocks that served as a landing place onItigailit Island.
Of course Mrs. Abel Zachariah, keenly interested in his quest of theprize, was there to meet him, and looking into the boat she saw theghastly passenger and was duly shocked.
"The man has been killed!" she exclaimed, stepping backward as thoughafraid the thing would injure her. "It is a boat of evil! Come away fromit! Why did you bring it in from the sea?"
For answer Abel reached beneath the deck, lifted out the child, andstepping ashore placed it in Mrs. Abel's arms.
"A boy," said he. "God sent him to us and he is ours."
Mrs. Abel was taken completely by surprise. For a long moment shelooked into the child's flushed and feverish face, and it looked intoher round and eager face, and smiled its confidence, and from thatinstant she took it to her heart as her own. She pressed it to her bosomwith all the mother love of a good woman, for Mrs. Abel Zachariah,primitive Eskimo though she was, was a good woman, and her heart wassoft and affectionate.
The child was ill and neglected. It was evidently suffering fromexposure and lack of nourishment. Mrs. Abel's instincts told her this ata glance and forgetful of all else, she hurried away with it to thetent. It drank eagerly from the cup of clear cold water which she heldto its lips, and ate as much fresh-caught cod, boiled in sea water, andof her own coarse bread, as she thought well for it.
All the time she fondled the boy and talked to him soothingly in strangeEskimo words which he had never heard before, but which nevertheless heunderstood, for she spoke in the universal accent of the mother to herlittle one. And when he had eaten he nestled snugly in her arms, as hewould have nestled in his own mother's arms, and with his head upon herbosom closed his eyes and sighed in deep content.
Abel when his wife had gone with the child into the tent, anchored theboat of tragedy a little way from shore, that the big wolf dogs prowlingabout might not interfere with the peaceful repose of its silentoccupant. Then rowing ashore in his skiff, he selected a secluded spotupon the island, and dug a grave.
In the rocky soil the grave was necessarily a shallow one, and he hadfinis
hed his task when Mrs. Abel reappeared from the tent to announcethat the boy was sleeping and seemed much better after eating. Thenwhile they sat upon the rocks and ate their own belated dinner of boiledcod and tea, Abel told the story of his discovery.
"What do you suppose killed the man?" Mrs. Abel asked.
"I do not know," said Abel. "It looks like a gunshot wound but I havenot searched for a gun yet. It is a fine boat, and did not belong to aschooner. I never saw a boat like it and I never saw so fine a boatbefore. The man was not a fisherman, either."
"The boy's clothing is finer than any I ever saw," declared Mrs. Abel."It is not like any I ever saw and is finer and prettier than themissionaries' children wear and on one of his fingers there is abeautiful ring."
"I cannot get it through my head where the boat came from," said Abel.
"It was God's messenger, and His way of sending us the boy," assertedMrs. Abel. "He sent the boat with the boy out of the farthest mists ofthe sea, from the place where storms are born, and He sent the boat on aclear day, when we could see it, and He kept you near the boat when youwould have gone away, until the boy cried. God meant that we should havea child."
"Yes," agreed Abel. "It was God's way of giving us a child for our own.But why did He send a man with the boy and a dead man, at that?"
"I do not know," said Mrs. Abel, "but there was some reason, I suppose.The child has a skin so white and its clothes are so fine, I am sure itmust have come from Heaven. We know it came from the Far Beyond, for yousay the man was not a fisherman, and the boat is not a fisherman'sboat."
This was an awe-inspiring solution of the mystery, and Abel and hiswife accepted it with due solemnity. A suggestion of the miraculousappealed to them, for they did not in the least believe that the days ofmiracles were past, as indeed they are not. They had already, with big,hospitable hearts, accepted the child as their own. Now, believing thatit was a gift from Heaven, sent directly to them by God, as a token ofparticular favor, they would not have parted from it for all the richesin the world.
The afternoon was far spent when, at last, Abel, in his skiff, rowed outto the anchored derelict and brought it in again to the landing place.Here a search of the boat discovered, in addition to the blankets whichhad formed the boy's bed, the water jug, the tin cup, and biscuit bag, aquantity of loaded shotgun shells and a double-barreled shotgun. Theshotgun, which had been hidden in the bottom of the boat by the folds ofa sail, called forth an exclamation of delight from Abel. It was amarvel of workmanship, and its stock and lock were beautifully engraved.And with the sail, which would prove useful, was a tarpaulin and aquantity of rope.
In the pockets of the dead man were a jackknife, a small notebook, apiece of pencil, and an empty wallet. Nothing which seemed important,but all of which Abel preserved carefully as a future heritage for theboy.
There were no boards from which to fashion a coffin, so they wrapped theunknown in an old sail, and that evening, when the western sky was aglowwith color buried him in the grave Abel had made. And over the graveAbel read in Eskimo a chapter from the Testament, and said a prayer, andto the doleful accompaniment of lapping waves upon the shore he and Mrs.Abel sang, in Eskimo, one of the old hymns for, as Christians, they mustneeds give the stranger a Christian burial, the only service they couldrender him.
Abel and his wife looked upon the advent of the little boy as a Divineblessing. They firmly believed that God had sent him to them to increasetheir happiness, and they lavished upon him all the love and affectionof their simple hospitable natures. They were deeply solicitous for hishealth, and responding to gentle care the fever quickly left him, for hewas, naturally, a strong and well-developed child.
They understood few words of English, but they soon discovered that theboy called himself "Bobby," and Bobby was accepted as his name. Bobby,on his part, spoke English indifferently, and of all other tongues andespecially the Eskimo tongue, he was wholly ignorant. At that period ofhis life it was quite immaterial to him, indeed, what language he spokeso long as the language served to make his wants known; and he began toacquire an Eskimo vocabulary sufficient for his immediate needs, and hisefforts in this direction afforded his foster parents a vast deal ofpleasure.
Mrs. Abel Zachariah, considering the clothing Bobby wore quite too finefor ordinary use, and unsuited to the climate and the conditions of hisnew surroundings and life, fashioned for him a suit of coarse but warmerfabric. When this was finished to her liking she dressed him in it, andwashed and folded and laid away in a chest the things he had worn, as aprecious souvenir of his coming.
From the skins of Arctic hares, which Abel killed with the wonderfulshotgun, she made him a warm little jacket with a hood; for his feetshe made sealskin moccasins, with legs that reached to his knees, andsewed them with sinew to render them waterproof, that his feet might bekept quite dry when the rocks were wet with rains, or when the firstmoist snows of autumn fell, as they did with the coming of September.And when the great flocks of wild ducks and geese came flying out of theNorth, the feathers of all that Abel shot were carefully hoarded in bagsfor Bobby's winter bed.
And so the weeks passed until early October. The land was now white withsnow, and steadily increasing cold warned them that winter was at handand that presently the bays and sea would be frozen. It was time now forAbel to set his fox traps, and time for them to move to their wintercabin on the mainland.
This cabin was situated at the head of a deep bay which the Eskimos call"Tissiuhaksoak," but which English-speaking folk called "Abel's Bay,"because Abel was the first to build a cabin there; and we, beingEnglish-speaking people, shall also call it Abel's Bay.
The bloody record of the tragedy had long since been washed from theboat. From two of the six long oars with which the boat was fitted, Abelimprovised two masts. The tarpaulin was remodeled into a second sail,and, one blustery morning, with their tent and all their belongingsstowed into the boat, and the dogs in the skiff, which was in tow, theyset sail for Abel's Bay, and left Itigailit Island and the lonely graveto the Arctic blasts that would presently sweep down upon it from theicy seas; and late on the following afternoon they reached the cabinwhich for many years was to be Bobby's home.
Thus it was that Bobby, amid adventure and mystery, made his advent uponThe Labrador and found a home among strange people. And in such a landit was quite plain that as the years passed he should have otheradventures.
