Cæsar Cascabel/Part 2/Chapter VI

CHAPTER VI. IN WINTER QUARTERS.
SUCH was the situation of Mr. Sergius and his companions on January the 1st, 1868.

Alarming as it was already, through their being prisoners of the Neo-Siberians of the Liakhov Islands, it was now complicated by the presence of Ortik and Kirschef. Who knows if the two scoundrels would not endeavor to turn so unexpected a meeting to profit? Luckily, they were ignorant of the fact that the traveler attacked by them on the Alaskan frontier was Count Narkine, a political prisoner escaped from the Iakoutsk fortress, seeking to re-enter Russia by joining an itinerant showman's troupe.

Had they known it, they surely would have felt no hesitation in making use of the secret, levying blackmail on the Count, or in handing him over to the Russian authorities, in exchange for a reprieve or a pecuniary reward for themselves.

But was there not a possible danger of a mere accident betraying the secret to them, although Cascabel and his wife alone were now acquainted with it?

Meanwhile, Ortik and Kirschef continued to live apart from the troupe, determined though they were to join them, whenever an opportunity to regain their liberty should present itself.

For the present, indeed, and so long as the wintry period of the polar year would last, it was but too evident there was nothing to be attempted. The cold had become so excessive that the damp air exhaled by the lungs turned into snow. Sometimes the thermometer went down as low as forty degrees below zero, centigrade. Even in calm weather it would have been impossible to bear such a temperature. Cornelia and Napoleona never dared venture out of the Fair Rambler; indeed, they would have been prevented if they had. How endless they thought those sunless days, or rather those nights, of almost twenty-four hours' duration!

Kayette alone, accustomed to North American winters, was bold enough to face the cold out of doors; and in this she was imitated by the native women. They were seen going about their daily work, clad in reindeer-skin dresses, two hides thick, wrapped up in fur palsks, their feet incased in sealskin boots, and their heads covered with a cap of dogskin. Not even the tips of their noses could be seen,—which was not much to be regretted, it seems.

Mr. Sergius, Cascabel, his two sons, and Clovy, carefully protected by their furs, paid their obligatory visit to Tchou-Tchouk every day; and so did the two Russian sailors, who had been supplied with warm covering.

As to the male population of New Siberia, they boldly sally forth in any weather. They go hunting on the surface of their wide plains, hardened with frost; they quench their thirst with snow, and feed on the flesh of the animals they kill on the way. Their sleds are very light; they are made with the bones, ribs, and jaws of whales, and are set up on sliders on which they get a coating of ice by simply watering them just before starting off. To draw them along they use the reindeer, an animal which is of the greatest service to them in many ways. Their dogs are the Samoyede breed, closely resembling the wolf species, and quite as ferocious as the latter, with long legs and a thick coat of hair, dotted black and white or yellow and brown.

When the Neo-Siberians travel on foot, they put on their long snow-shoes, “or skis,” as they call them, and with these they swiftly skim over considerable distances, along the straits which separate the various islands of the archipelago, “tracking it” on the tundras or strips of alluvial soil usually formed on the edge of Arctic shores.

The natives of the Liakhov group are very inferior to the Eskimos of Northern America in the art of manufacturing weapons. Bows and arrows alone constitute their whole offensive and defensive arsenal. As to fishing implements, they have harpoons with which they attack the whale, and nets which they spread under the grundis, a kind of bottom ice on which seals may be caught.

They likewise use lances and knives when they attack the seals, a mode of warfare attended with no little danger, for these animals are formidable.

But the wild animal which they most dread to meet, or to be attacked by, is the white bear, which the intense-cold of winter and the necessity of getting some kind of food after long days of enforced fasting sometimes drive into the very villages of the archipelago. It must be acknowledged that the savages display real pluck on such occasions; they are never known to run away before the powerful brute, maddened as it is by hunger; they throw themselves upon him, knife in hand, and most of the time they come off victorious.

On several occasions, the Cascabels witnessed encounters of this kind, in which the polar bear, after grievously wounding several men, had to yield to the numerical strength of his foes. The whole tribe then came forth and the village kept a merry holiday. And what a windfall was this stock of bear's meat, so relished, it would seem, by Siberian stomachs! The best joints naturally found their way to Tchou-Tchouk's table and into his wooden bowl. As to his very humble subjects, each of them had a small share of what he condescended to leave them. Thence an opportunity to indulge in copious libations and eventually the general intoxication of the villagers,—“on what?” you will say: well, on a liquor made with the young shoots of the salix and the rhodiola, and the juice of the red whortleberry and the yellow marsh berries, a large supply of which they gather during the few weeks that the mild season lasts.

On the whole, not only is bear-hunting dangerous sport under such circumstances, but the game is scarce; the reindeer's flesh is the mainstay of the native cuisine, and with its blood a soup is made which, it must be confessed, never excited but loathing on the part of our artists.

Should it now be asked how the reindeer manage to live during the winter, it will be sufficient to say that these animals are at no trouble to find vegetable food, even under the thick layer of snow which covers the ground. Besides, enormous provisions of fodder are stored up before the cold sets in, and this alone would be enough for the feeding of the thousands of ruminants contained in the territories of New Siberia.

“Thousands!.... And to think that just a score of them would be such a boon to us!” Mr. Cascabel would go on repeating to himself, and he wondered how he would ever replace his lost team.

It seems now opportune to emphasize the fact that the inhabitants of the Liakhov archipelago are not idolatrous only, but extremely superstitious; that they attribute everything to the divinities they have wrought with their own hands, and obey them with the blindest servility. This idolatry is beyond all belief, and the mighty chief Tchou-Tchouk practised his religion with a fanaticism which had no equal but that of his subjects.

Each and every day, Tchou-Tchouk repaired to a sort of temple, or rather sacred place, named the Vorspük, which means the “prayer-grotto.” The divinities, represented by simple wooden posts, gaudily painted over, stood in a row in the inmost recess of a rocky cavern, and before them the natives came and knelt, one after the other. No spirit of intolerance ever prompted them to close the Vorspük to their foreign prisoners; on the contrary, the latter were invited to it; and thus it was that Mr. Sergius and his companions could satisfy their curiosity and examine the gods of these forsaken regions.

On the summit of each post was stuck up the head of some hideous bird, with round, red eyes, formidable, wide-open beaks, and bony crests curved round like horns. The faithful prostrated themselves at the feet of these posts, applied their ears against them, muttered their prayers, and although the gods had never vouched an answer, they retired, fully convinced they had heard the reply from above,—a reply generally in accordance with the secret wish of the petitioner.

When Tchou-Tchouk thought of laying some new tax on his subjects, the cunning chieftain never failed to obtain the celestial approbation; and where was the man among his subjects who would have dared deny what the gods willed?

One day in each week there was a religious ceremony more important than the others,—in this way, that the natives displayed more than ordinary pomp. Let the cold be never so intense, let snow-drifts whiz along the surface of the ground like so many sweeps of a mower's scythe, no one would stay indoors when Tchou-Tchouk headed the procession to the Vorspük. And will anybody guess how both men and women accoutered themselves for these grand solemnities since the capture of the new prisoners? Why, with the gala dresses of the troupe, of course. The many-colored tights so nobly worn by Mr. Cascabel; Cornelia's robes, which had once been new; the children's stage dresses; Clovy's helmet, with its gorgeous plume; all these were donned by the Siberian worshipers outside their ordinary wearing apparel. Nor had they forgotten the French horn, into which one of them blew as though it were for dear life; the trombone, out of which another drew impossible noises; nor yet the drum or the tambourine; in fact, all the musical apparatus of the showman's stock added its deafening din to the éclat of the ceremony.

It was then Mr. Cascabel thundered against the thieves, the ruffians, who took such liberties with his property, to the great danger of breaking the springs of his trombone, straining his horn, or bursting his drum.

“The wretches!—The wretches!” he would say; and Mr. Sergius himself was powerless to calm him down.

After all, it must be owned, the situation was of a nature to sour one's temper, so slowly, so wearily did the days and the weeks draw along. And then, what would be the end of this adventure, if it did come to an end?

Still, the time that could not now be devoted to rehearsals,—and heaven knows if Mr. Cascabel expected his artists would be rusty when they reached Perm,—that time was not permitted to slip by unemployed and profitless.

With a view to cause a reaction against low spirits, Mr. Sergius continually strove to interest his friends with his tales or his lessons. As a return, Cascabel had undertaken to teach him a few tricks of legerdemain, “for his own pleasure,” he said; but, in reality, a little proficiency in that way might be of use to Mr. Sergius if he ever had to play the showman's part in actual practice, the better to deceive the Russian police. As for John, he was busy completing the young Indian's course of instruction; and she, on her part, strained every nerve to learn to read and write under the guidance of her teacher.

Let them not be charged with egotism, if both accepted the situation without too much grumbling, absorbed as they were in a feeling which leaves room for no other. Mr. Sergius was not an unobservant witness of the intimacy which grew between John and his adopted daughter. Kayette had such a bright intelligence, and John displayed such zeal in developing it. Had fate decreed, then, that this honest fellow, so fond of study, so highly gifted by nature, should never be aught but an itinerant showman, should never rise above the sphere in which he was born? That was the secret of the future; and what future dared they now look forward to, prisoners as they were in the hands of a savage tribe on the utmost confines of the known world?

No sign was there of any change in Tchou-Tchouk's intentions; a ransom he should have ere he released his captives; and there seemed no likelihood of relief from the outside world. As to the money demanded by the greedy chief, how could they ever manage to get it?

True, the Cascabels possessed a treasure, unknown to themselves. It was young Sander's nugget, his famous nugget, a priceless treasure in its finder's eyes. When there was nobody by, he would draw it out of its hiding-place; and how he would gaze on it, and rub it and polish it! Willingly, of course, he would have parted with it to buy off the troupe out of Tchou-Tchouk's hands, but the latter would never have accepted as ready money a lump of gold under the shape and form of a stone. So, Sander kept to his first idea of waiting till they reached Europe, feeling sure that there he would have no trouble in converting his stone into coin, and compensate his father for the two thousand dollars that had been stolen from him in America!

Nothing could be better, if the journey to Europe could only be accomplished! Unfortunately, even a start was, for the present, out of the question. And this preyed also on the minds of the two miscreants whom ill-luck had thrown in the way of the Cascabels.

One day,—the 23d of January,—Ortik went to the Fair Rambler for the very purpose of having “a talk on the matter” with the wagon people, and, above all, ascertaining what they intended doing, in the event of Tchou-Tchouk permitting them to leave Kotelnoi Island.

“Mr. Sergius,” he began, “when you left Port Clarence, your intention was to pass the winter in Siberia?”

“Yes,” replied Mr. Sergius, “it was agreed we should try to reach some good village and stay there till spring-time. Why do you ask that question, Ortik?”

“Because I should like to know if you still think of taking up the same track, supposing, of course, these cursed savages let us go.”

“Not at all; that would be lengthening needlessly a journey which is long enough of itself. It would be better, I think, to make straight for the Russian frontier, and find out one of the passes in the Ural mountains.”

“In the northern part of the chain then?”

“Quite so, it being the nearest to where we are now.”

“And the wagon,” continued Ortik; “would you leave it here?”

Mr. Cascabel had evidently understood that part of the conversation.

“Leave the Fair Rambler here!” he exclaimed. “Not a bit of it, if I only can get a team! And I trust, before long—”

“What, you have an idea?” inquired Mr. Sergius.

“Not the shadow of one, yet! But Cornelia keeps telling me I'll hit on one, and Cornelia's word was never belied. An A 1 woman she is, sir, and she knows me, I tell you!”

Cascabel was his own old self again, brimful of trust in his lucky star, and refusing to believe that four Frenchmen and three Russians could not manage to get the better of a Tchou-Tchouk.

Mr. Cascabel's intention with regard to the Fair Rambler was communicated to Ortik.

“But, to take your wagon with you,” said the sailor, who showed great concern on this point, “you must have a set of reindeer.”

“We must.”

“And do you think Tchou-Tchouk will supply you with them?”

“What I think is that Mr. Cascabel will find some plan to make him do so.”

“Then, you will try to make your way to the coast of Siberia across the ice-field?”

“Just so.”

“Well, in that case, sir, you must be away before the ice begins to break, that is, before three months' time.”

“I am aware of that.”

“But, can you do it?”

“Perhaps the natives will consent, in the long run, to let us off.”

“I don't believe they will, Mr. Sergius, so long as you have no ransom to give them.”

“Unless the fools are compelled to do so!” exclaimed Mr. Cascabel, to whom this conversation had just been translated.

“Compelled! By whom?” inquired John.

“By circumstances!”

“Circumstances, father?”

“Yes, circumstances,” replied the veteran showman; “circumstances, you see, that's everything!”

And he scratched his head, and almost tore his hair off, but “not a shadow of an idea,” to use his own words, came out of his skull.

“Come, my friends,” said Mr. Sergius, “it is essential we should prepare for the event of the natives refusing to restore our liberty. Should we not make an effort to do without their consent, if they will not give it?”

“We shall, sir,” answered John. “But then, we must leave the Fair Rambler behind.”

“Don't talk like that!” sobbed Cascabel. “Don't talk like that! You break my heart!”

“Just think, father!”

“No, I won't! The Fair Rambler is our home! It is the roof under which you might have been born, John! And you would have me leave it at the mercy of those amphibious creatures, those walruses!”

“My dear Cascabel,” said Mr. Sergius, “we shall do all that can be done to induce the natives to set us free. But, as there seems to be every probability of their refusal, running away is our only resource; and if ever we succeed in eluding the watchfulness of our guardians, we can do so only at the loss of—”

“The home of the Cascabel family!” cried Cascabel. And if those words had contained as many a's as they had consonants, they could not have passed with greater forte through his trembling lips.

“Father,” suggested John, “there might be one other way, perhaps—”

“What is it?”

“Why might not one of us try to make his escape to the continent, and tell the Russian authorities? I am willing to start right away, Mr. Sergius.”

“No such thing,” interrupted Cascabel.

“No, don't do that!” added Ortik, in a hesitating way, when he was told John's proposal.

Mr. Cascabel and the sailor happened to agree on this point; but if the former thought of nothing but the danger Count Narkine would run, should he have any dealings with the Russian police, it was for his own sake the latter was desirous not to find himself in the presence of the authorities.

As to Mr. Sergius, he took another view of John's suggestion and said:

“Well do I recognize you by your acts, my brave-hearted fellow, and I thank you for thus offering to devote yourself for us, but your devotion would be fruitless. At the present time, in the middle of this Arctic winter, venturing across the ice-field to cover the three hundred miles which separate this island from the continent would be folly! You would inevitably perish in the attempt, my poor John! No, my friends, let us not part from each other; and if, in some way or another, we manage to get away from the Liakhovs, let us go all together!”

“That's what I call sensible advice!” added Cascabel; “and John must promise me to do nothing in that way without my permission.”

“I promise you, father.”

“And when I say we shall go all together,” continued Mr. Sergius, turning to Ortik, “I mean that Kirschef and you will both follow us. We shall not leave you in the hands of the natives.”

“I thank you, sir,” answered Ortik. “Kirschef and I will be of some use to you during the journey through Siberia. If, for the present, there is nothing to be done, we must make sure and be ready before the ice breaks up, as soon as the great cold ceases.”

This last reminder having been given, Ortik withdrew.

“Yes,” Mr. Sergius continued, “we must be ready—”

“Be ready we shall,” interrupted Cascabel; “but how? May the wolf gobble me up if I know!”

And, sure enough, how to take leave of Tchou-Tchouk, with or without his consent, that was the all-absorbing question on the order of the day. Eluding the vigilance of the natives seemed, to say the least, very difficult. Coaxing the chief to better terms could hardly be thought of. There was then but one alternative: duping him. Cæsar Cascabel said so twenty times a day; not a moment did he cease puzzling his brain in that direction; he would often “take his head to pieces,” as he said, and examine every nook and corner of it; and still, the end of January came and his search had yielded nothing yet.

César Cascabel/Deuxième partie/Chapitre VI