KALUMAH'S ADVENTURES.

Kalumah on the floating island, two hundred miles from the American coast. It

was almost incredible!

The first thing to be ascertained was whether the poor creature still

breathed. Was it possible to restore her to life? Mrs Barnett loosened her

clothes, and found that her body was not yet quite cold. Her heart beat very

feebly, but it did beat. The blood they had seen came from a slight wound in her

hand; Madge bound it up with her handkerchief, and the bleeding soon ceased.

At the same time Mrs Barnett raised the poor girl's head, and managed to pour

a few drops of rum between her parted lips. She then bathed her forehead and

temples with cold water, and waited.

A few minutes passed by, and neither of the watchers were able to utter a

word, so anxious were they lest the faint spark of life remaining to the young

Esquimaux should be quenched.

But at last Kalumah's breast heaved with a faint sigh, her hands moved

feebly, and presently she opened her eyes, and recognising her preserver she

murmured-

"Mrs Barnett! Mrs Barnett!"

The lady was not a little surprised at hearing her own name. Had Kalumah

voluntarily sought the floating island, and did she expect to find her old

European friends on it? If so, how had she come to know it, and how had she

managed to reach the island, two hundred miles from the mainland? How could she

have guessed that the ice-field as bearing Mrs Barnett and all the occupants of

Fort Hope away from the American coast? Really it all seemed quite

inexplicable.

"She lives-she will recover!" exclaimed Madge, who felt the vital heat and

pulsation returning to the poor bruised body.

"Poor child, poor child'" said Mrs Barnett, much affected; "she murmured my

name when she was at the point of death."

But now Kalumah again half opened her eyes, and looked about her with a

dreamy unsatisfied expression, presently, however, seeing Mrs Barnett, her face

brightened, the same name again burst from her lips, and painfully raising her

hand she let it fall on that of her friend.

The anxious care of the two women soon revived Kalumah, whose extreme

exhaustion arose not only from fatigue but also from hunger. She had eaten

nothing for forty-eight hours. Some pieces of cold venison and a little rum

refreshed her, and she soon felt able to accompany her newly-found friends to

the fort.

Before starting, however, Kalumah, seated on the sand between Mrs Barnett and

Madge, overwhelmed them with thanks and expressions of attachment. Then she told

her story: she had not forgotten the Europeans of Fort Hope, and the thought of

Mrs Paulina Barnett had been ever present with her. It was not by chance, as we

shall see, that she had come to Victoria Island.

The following is a brief summary of what Kalumah related to Mrs Barnett:-

Our readers will remember the young Esquimaux's promise to come and see her

friends at Fort Hope again in the fine season of the next year. The long Polar

night being over, and the month of May having come round, Kalumah set out to

fulfil her pledge. She left Russian America, where she had wintered, and

accompanied by one of her brothers-in-law, started for the peninsula of

Victoria.

Six weeks later, towards the middle of June, she got to that part of British

America which is near Cape Bathurst. She at once recognised the volcanic

mountains shutting in Liverpool Bay, and twenty miles farther east she came to

Walruses' Bay, where her people had so often hunted morses and seals.

But beyond the bay on the north, there was nothing to be seen. The coast

suddenly sank to the south-east in an almost straight line. Cape Esquimaux and

Cape Bathurst had alike disappeared.

Kalumah understood what had happened. Either the whole of the peninsula had

been swallowed up by the waves, or it was floating away as an island, no one

knew whither!

Kalumah's tears flowed fast at the loss of those whom she had come so far to

see.

Her brother-in-law, however, had not appeared surprised at the catastrophe. A

kind of legend or tradition had been handed down amongst the nomad tribes of

North America, that Cape Bathurst did not form part of the mainland, but had

been joined on to it thousands of years before, and would sooner or later be

torn away in some convulsion of nature. Hence the surprise at finding the

factory founded by Hobson at the foot of the cape. But with the unfortunate

reserve characteristic of their race, and perhaps also under the influence of

that enmity which all natives feel for those who settle in their country, they

said nothing to the Lieutenant, whose fort was already finished. Kalumah knew

nothing of this tradition, which after all rested on no trustworthy evidence,

and probably belonged to the many northern legends relating to the creation.

This was how it was that the colonists of Fort Hope were not warned of the

danger they ran in settling on such a spot.

Had a word in season been spoken to Hobson he would certainly have gone

farther in search of some firmer foundation for his fort than this soil, certain

peculiarities of which he had noticed at the first.

When Kalumah had made quite sure that all trace of Cape Bathurst was gone,

she explored the coast as far as the further side of Washburn Bay, but without

finding any sign of those she sought, and at last there was nothing left for her

to do but to return to the fisheries of Russian America.

She and her brother-in-law left Walruses' Bay at the end of June, and

following the coast got back to New Georgia towards the end of July, after an

absolutely fruitless journey.

Kalumah now gave up all hope of again seeing Mrs Barnett and the other

colonists of Fort Hope. She concluded that they had all been swallowed up by the

ocean long ago.

At this part of her tale the young Esquimaux looked at Mrs Barnett with eyes

full of tears, and pressed her hand [affectionaly] affectionately, and then she

murmured her thanks to God for her own preservation through the means of her

friend.

Kalumah on her return home resumed her customary occupations, and worked with

the rest of her tribe at the fisheries near Icy Cape, a point a little above the

seventieth parallel, and more than six hundred miles from Cape Bathurst.

Nothing worthy of note happened during the first half of the month of April;

but towards the end the storm began which had caused Hobson so much uneasiness,

and which had apparently extended its ravages over the whole of the Arctic Ocean

and beyond Behring Strait. It was equally violent at Icy Cape and on Victoria

Island, and, as the Lieutenant ascertained in taking his bearings, the latter

was then not more than two hundred miles from the coast.

As Mrs Barnett listened to Kalumah, her previous information enabled her

rapidly to find the key to the strange events which had taken place, and to

account for the arrival of the young native on the island.

During the first days of the storm the Esquimaux of Icy Cape were confined to

their huts. They could neither get out nor fish. But during the night of the

31st August a kind of presentiment led Kalumah to venture down to the beach,

and, braving the wind and rain in all their fury, she peered anxiously through

the darkness at the waves rising mountains high.

Presently she thought she saw a huge mass driven along by the hurricane

parallel with the coast. Gifted with extremely keen sight-as are all these

wandering tribes accustomed to the long dark Polar nights-she felt sure that she

was not mistaken.

Something of vast bulk was passing two miles from the coast, and that

something could be neither a whale, a boat, nor, at this time of the year, even

an iceberg.

But Kalumah did not stop to reason. The truth flashed upon her like a

revelation. Before her excited imagination rose the images of her friends. She

saw them all once more, Mrs Barnett, Madge, Lieutenant Hobson, the baby she had

covered with kisses at Fort Hope. Yes, they were passing, borne along in the

storm on a floating ice-field!

Kalumah did not doubt or hesitate a moment. She felt that she must tell the

poor shipwrecked people, which she was sure they were, of the close vicinity of

the land. She ran to her hut, seized a torch of tow and resin, such as the

Esquimaux use when fishing at night, lit it and waved it on the beach at the

summit of Icy Cape.

This was the fire which Hobson and Long had seen when crouching on Cape

Michael on the night of the 31st August.

Imagine the delight and excitement of the young Esquimaux when a signal

replied to hers, when she saw the huge fire lit by Lieutenant Hobson, the

reflection of which reached the American coast, although he did not dream that

he was so near it.

But it quickly went out, the lull in the storm only lasted a few minutes, and

the fearful gale, veering round to the south-east, swept along with redoubled

violence.

Kalumah feared that her "prey," so she called the floating island, was about

to escape her, and that it would not be driven on to the shore. She saw it

fading away, and knew that it would soon disappear in the darkness and be lost

to her on the boundless ocean.

It was indeed a terrible moment for the young native, and she determined at

all hazards to let her friends know of their situation. There might yet be time

for them to take some steps for their deliverance, although every hour took them

farther from the continent.

She did not hesitate a moment, her kayak was at hand, the frail bark in which

she had more than once braved the storms of the Arctic Ocean, she pushed it down

to the sea, hastily laced on the sealskin jacket fastened to the canoe, and, the

long paddle in her hand, she plunged into the darkness.

Mrs Barnett here pressed the brave child to her heart, and Madge shed tears

of sympathy.

When launched upon the roaring ocean, Kalumah found the change of wind in her

favour. The waves dashed over her kayak, it is true, but they were powerless to

harm the light boat, which floated on their crests like a straw. It was capsized

several times, but a stroke of the paddle righted it at once.

After about an hour's hard work, Kalumah could see the wandering island more

distinctly, and had no longer any doubt of effecting her purpose, as she was but

a quarter of a mile from the beach.

It was then that she uttered the cry which Hobson and Long had heard.

But, alas! Kalumah now felt herself being carried away towards the west by a

powerful current, which could take firmer hold of her kayak than of the floating

island!

In vain she struggled to beat back with her paddle, the light boat shot along

like an arrow. She uttered scream after scream, but she was unheard, for she was

already far away, and when the day broke the coasts of Alaska and the island she

had wished to reach, were but two distant masses on the horizon.

Did she despair? Not yet. It was impossible to get back to the American

continent in the teeth of the terrible wind which was driving the island before

it at a rapid pace, taking it out two hundred miles in thirty-six hours, and

assisted by the current from the coast.

There was but one thing left to do. To get to the island by keeping in the

same current which was drifting it away.

But, alas! the poor girl's strength was not equal to her courage, she was

faint from want of food, and, exhausted as she was, she could no longer wield

her paddle.

For some hours she struggled on, and seemed to be approaching the island,

although those on it could not see her, as she was but a speck upon the ocean.

She struggled on until her stiffened arms and bleeding hands fell powerless,

and, losing consciousness, she was floated along in her frail kayak at the mercy

of winds and waves.

She did not know how long this lasted, she remembered nothing more, until a

sudden shock roused her, her kayak had struck against something, it opened

beneath her, and she was plunged into cold water, the freshness of which revived

her. A few moments later, she was flung upon the sand in a dying state by a

large wave.

This had taken place the night before, just before dawn-that is to say, about

two or three o'clock in the morning. Kalumah had then been seventy hours at sea

since she embarked!

The young native had no idea where she had been thrown, whether on the

continent or on the floating island, which she had so bravely sought, but she

hoped the latter. Yes, hoped that she had reached her friends, although she knew

that the wind and current had driven them into the open sea, and not towards the

coast!

The thought revived her, and, shattered as she was, she struggled to her

feet, and tried to follow the coast.

She had, in fact, been providentially thrown on that portion of Victoria

Island which was formerly the upper corner of Walruses' Bay. But, worn away as

it was by the waves, she did not recognise the land with which she had once been

familiar.

She tottered on, stopped, and again struggled to advance; the beach before

her appeared endless, she had so often to go round where the sea had encroached

upon the sand. And so dragging herself along, stumbling and scrambling up again,

she at last approached the little wood where Mrs. Barnett and Madge had halted

that very morning. We know that the two women found the footprints left by

Kalumah in the snow not far from this very spot, and it was at a short distance

farther on that the poor girl fell for the last time. Exhausted by fatigue and

hunger, she still managed to creep along on hands and knees for a few minutes

longer.

A great hope kept her from despair, for she had at last recognised Cape

Esquimaux, at the foot of which she and her people had encamped the year before.

She knew now that she was but eight miles from the factory, and that she had

only to follow the path she had so often traversed when she went to visit her

friends at Fort Hope.

Yes, this hope sustained her, but she had scarcely reached the beach when her

forces entirely failed her, and she again lost all consciousness. But for Mrs

Barnett she would have died.

"But, dear lady," she added, "I knew that you would come to my rescue, and

that God would save me by your means."

We know the rest. We know the providential instinct which led Mrs Barnett and

Madge to explore this part of the coast on this very day, and the presentiment

which made them visit Cape Esquimaux after they had rested, and before returning

to Fort Hope. We know too-as Mrs Barnett related to Kalumah- how the piece of

ice had floated away, and how the bear had acted under the circumstances.

"And after all," added Mrs Barnett with a smile, "it was not I who saved you,

but the good creature without whose aid you would never have come back to us,

and if ever we see him again we will treat him with the respect due to your

preserver."

During this long conversation Kalumah was rested and refreshed, and Mrs

Barnett proposed that they should return to the fort at once, as she had already

been too long away. The young girl immediately rose ready to start.

Mrs Barnett was indeed most anxious to tell the Lieutenant of all that had

happened during the night of the storm, when the wandering island had neared the

American continent, but she urged Kalumah to keep her adventures secret, and to

say nothing about the situation of the island. She would naturally be supposed

to have come along the coast, in fulfilment of the promise she had made to visit

her friends in the fine season. Her arrival would tend only to strengthen the

belief of the colonists that no changes had taken place in the country around

Cape Bathurst, and to set at rest the doubts any of them might have

entertained.

It was about three o'clock when Madge and Mrs Barnett, with Kalumah hanging

on her arm, set out towards the east, and before five o'clock in the afternoon

they all arrived at the postern of the fort.