_ CHAPTER XV. COASTING
The current was now losing its power, and Godfrey, dipping his hand into the water and then putting it to his lips, found that it was distinctly brackish, and congratulated himself upon having laid in a stock of water when he did. After Luka had slept for six hours, Godfrey roused him.
"Now, Luka, you must take my place and steer; move very carefully else we shall capsize her. That is it. Now, if there is any change you lean forward and touch me; I shall wake in a moment. If the sail should shift over to the other side all you have got to do is to shift this sheet to its fastening on that side. With this light wind jibing does not matter at all, but if the wind freshens wake me at once."
For a quarter of an hour Godfrey watched to see that Luka steered steadily, then he worked himself down in the cockpit and closed his eyes. It did not seem to him that he had been asleep long when Luka touched him.
"I would not have woke you," Luka said; "but the land seems going right away from us."
Godfrey sat up. "So it is, Luka! I should not be surprised if that is the extreme northern point. Of course it may be only a deep bay, but at any rate we must see." He looked at his watch, "Why, I have been asleep nearly seven hours. Now, Luka, you had better haul the boat alongside, and see about cooking. We forgot to try those onions yesterday. Cut one up small and put it in the pan with the meat. By the by, you had better tie a piece of cord to those four bears' hams, and let them tow overboard for two or three hours. The water must be quite salt now, and when you take them out we will rub a little fresh salt into them. They ought to keep well then."
As soon as Luka had got into the boat--Jack jumping in with him, as he always made a point of superintending the cooking operations--Godfrey took his place in the stern, jibed the sail, which had before been on the port quarter, over to starboard, brought her head somewhat to the north of west, and hauled in the sheet. Lying over till the water nearly touched her gunwale, the light little craft would have gone speedily along had it not been for the drag of the boat astern. This, however, towed lightly, for she was loaded with but a very small proportion of the weight she would carry. Godfrey judged, by the objects on the shore, that they could not be going along less than three miles an hour. In six hours the land trended away due south, and he knew that they had now reached the first of the two deep bays they would have to pass before reaching the northern extremity of the Cape. He kept on his course, and an hour later, with the exception of the low coast nearly astern, no land was to be seen. Luka, who was paddling steadily, looked round. He had such implicit confidence in his companion that he was quite sure the boat was keeping the right course, but he had a vague sense of uneasiness at seeing nothing but sea around him.
"How do you know which way to go?" he asked.
"I know that by keeping on the same way we were going past the last land, we shall strike the coast again on the other side of this bay. I think it is twenty or thirty miles across. I can tell the way by the wind in the first place, and in the second place by the position of the sun. You see it is over my right shoulder at present; there is the mark of my shadow on the side. I have got to keep it about there, making some allowance for the change in the position of the sun."
Luka understood this. "But suppose the wind was to change?" he said.
"I should know it by the position of the sun. You see at present it comes nearly due south, and is blowing almost straight towards the sun; but if it were very cloudy, or at night when I could not see the sun, I should not be able to tell. Then after holding on till I felt sure that we were well past the mouth of this bay, I should put her about on the other tack, and should be sure to come upon the land sooner or later. Anyhow, even in the darkest night we should know if the wind had gone round to the north, as it would be so much colder. Besides, there is never a great shift of wind like that without knowing it; the one wind is sure to drop, and there would be something like a dead calm before the other set in. Anyhow, with a bright sun and a steady wind like this we cannot go wrong, and you will see land ahead in seven or eight hours."
It was less than six hours when Godfrey saw the low land ahead, and they were presently coasting along it again with the wind free, for they were now running but little to the west of north. Thirty miles farther there was another break in the coast.
"That was a first-rate map I made the tracing from," Godfrey said; "the coast-line is most accurately marked. Now we have another run of about the same distance as the last, then there is about fifty miles almost due north, then we shall be round this other Cape."
They made the passage safely across, although it took them longer than the first, for the wind dropped lighter, and they had both to use their paddles.
"We have just done it in time, Luka, and that is all. If we had been half an hour later there would be nothing for it but to anchor. Look at that white cloud on the water; that is a fog; we are only just in time. I am heading for that cove. Paddle hard, Luka, or it will be on us now before we get there."
They had just entered the cove, which was forty or fifty feet wide, and ran as many yards into the land, when the fog rolled over them.
"It is like a wet blanket," Godfrey said; "it is thirty or forty degrees colder than it was a minute back. Paddle very slowly and carefully now, Luka, and dip your paddle deeply in. I want to go as far up this creek as I can; but I don't want to run ashore."
Very gently they paddled on until Godfrey felt the ground at a depth of about three feet. "That will do nicely," he said. "Now I will drop the anchor over."
The anchor was one of Ostjak manufacture. It consisted of a long, flat, narrow stone weighing about six pounds; to each of the flat sides were lashed two pieces of fir, about an inch and a half in diameter. They projected a few inches below the stone, and were cut off just below a branch of about an inch in diameter and eight or ten inches long. These branches, when growing, bent downwards and slanted at an angle closely resembling that of the fluke of an anchor with the upright. The whole, therefore, was an excellent imitation of an anchor with four flukes, two on each side, the stone serving as a weight. This was thrown out of the bow of the canoe, and a couple of fathoms of line let out. Then Godfrey hauled up the larger boat and fastened it alongside. They could just make out the outline of the shore about fifteen feet on either side of them.
"We must take to our fur jackets again, Luka; my teeth are chattering, and after working as hard as we have been doing for the last three or four hours it won't do to get a chill. I am as hungry as a hunter; we had breakfast at five o'clock by my watch, and it is three now."
Luka soon lit the fire in the boat. The provisions in the canoe had been finished two days before, as they had been obliged to throw overboard what they had not eaten owing to its having become unfit for use. The food, however, wrapped up in furs in the boat was still solidly frozen. They cut a couple of fish out of the mass and placed them in the frying-pan; stuck a wooden skewer through some pieces of bear's meat and held them in the flame, and hung the bear's hams, as they did each time they cooked, in the smoke of the fire.
"We must try to get some more fish next time we set sail, Luka. I am sure we passed through several shoals of fish by the swirling of the water."
It was thirty-six hours before the fog cleared off, swept away by a south-westerly wind. As they had nothing to do but to eat and sleep during this time, they got up their anchor and hoisted their sail the moment the fog cleared off, and in eighteen hours reached the sharp point of the Cape. Rounding this, Godfrey said:
"Now, Luka, we are at the mouth of the Gulf of Obi. It is nearly two hundred miles, according to this map, to the opposite side, and we daren't try to make that; besides, the wind has been getting more to the west and would be right in our teeth, for you see by this tracing the opposite point of land is a good bit to the south of west. There is nothing for it but for us to keep along this shore for something like a hundred and fifty miles. We can lay our course well with this wind. The gulf won't be more than eighty miles wide there, and we can strike across and coast down the opposite bank. It seems a long way round, but we shall do it as quickly as we should beating right across in the teeth of this wind. I doubt if we could do that at all with this craft behind us."
Fortunately the wind was not high, or they could not have ventured out, as a heavy swell would have set in from the other side of the gulf. They kept their course within half a mile of the shore.
"What are those black things on that low point?" Godfrey asked. "I can hear them barking. They must be tremendously big dogs, if they are dogs."
"They are seals," Luka said; "they go right up the rivers in summer, and the Samoyedes and Yuruks kill great numbers on the coast. They eat the flesh and sell the teeth for ivory."
"Well, we don't want them at present," Godfrey said; "but if we fall short of food we will see whether we can kill some. At present the great thing is to get on."
Night and day the canoe kept on her way. Except when Godfrey was asleep Luka did not steer, for he did not like the management of the sail, especially now that the boat at times heeled over a great deal with the beam wind. He himself took his sleep by fits and starts two or three hours at a time, and except when cooking, paddled away assiduously. Twice Godfrey was lucky enough to bring down some ducks when a flock swept past the boat within shot. They had, too, a supply of fresh fish, for Godfrey now always had two lines out towing astern, with some white geese feathers fastened to the hooks as bait. Ordinarily they caught nothing, but they passed through several large shoals of fish, and at these times they pulled them out as fast as they could haul in and let go the lines, sometimes bringing in three or four at a time, as there were six hooks on each line. These fish were herrings, and they formed a welcome change. Luka had never seen one before, for although they penetrate for some distance up the great rivers, they never ascend to the upper waters. Jack, too, benefited greatly, for of late he had been kept on somewhat short rations, as they had now been reduced to the four half-cured bear's hams and a comparatively small stock of frozen food.
On the fifth day after rounding the cape the wind, which had been gradually getting lighter, dropped altogether, and for the next two days both of them worked steadily with their paddles.
"We must have made a good two hundred miles," Godfrey said; "and we could safely venture to strike across in such quiet weather as this, but there is a river marked on the chart as coming in somewhere here, and I want to find it if I can. There is water enough for another week, but it begins to taste horribly of skin, and besides that it has a considerable mixture of ashes. I am sure we must be very close to it; indeed, according to my calculation of two hundred miles, we ought to have passed it already. Anyhow, we will keep on until we get there."
Godfrey was not far out, for late in the day they saw an opening of some fifty yards wide in the bank. They at once made for it, and entering it, paddled along as near the bank as they could go to avoid the current. Godfrey tasted the water from time to time, and after paddling for two hours pronounced it perfectly sweet.
"We will land here, Luka. I am sure we both want to stretch our limbs a bit and have a rest. Look about for a good place to land; the banks are too steep to be able to get the big canoe up, but we can carry the other--it is light enough now."
They presently found a place where a portion of the bank had fallen in and left a gap. Here they landed, moored the large canoe to the shore and carried the other up the bank. An exclamation of pleasure broke from Godfrey at the wide expanse of bright green dotted with flowers. Jack was exuberant in his delight, circling round and round like a wild thing, barking loudly and occasionally throwing himself down to roll. The two paddles were driven firmly into the ground, the sail unlaced from the yard, which was lashed to the paddles as a ridge-pole, over which the sail was thrown. The furs were taken out of the boat and spread in the tent.
"We will have a cup of tea, Luka, and then turn in for twelve hours' sleep. I am sure we deserve it."
After a long rest they woke thoroughly refreshed; then, while Luka was lighting a fire, Godfrey went down to the river, stripped, and had a short swim, the water being too cold to permit his stopping more than two or three minutes in it. When they had had breakfast he said:
"Now, Luka, do you go down to the boat, take the firewood out, and then sluice the boat thoroughly with water and get it perfectly clean. By the time you have done that I shall be back, and we will then lift her out of the water and turn her bottom upwards to dry thoroughly. Then we will melt down some of that bear fat we saved and give her a thorough rubbing with it. But we will leave that job until to-morrow; it will take four-and-twenty hours for her to dry. I am going out with my gun to see what I can shoot. The whole place seems full of birds, though they are mostly small ones; still I might come across something better. You had better keep Jack with you."
Godfrey's expedition was not a very successful one. He brought back four grouse and a dozen small birds, which he had killed with a single shot, firing into the thick of a flock that flew by overhead. The grouse were roasted for dinner, and Godfrey found to his satisfaction that Luka had baked a pile of cakes, this being the first time they had tasted bread for a fortnight, as it demanded more time and attention than they could spare to it in the boat. Luka told him that several flights of black duck had passed up the river while he had been at work at the boat, and volunteered to grease the boat next day if Godfrey would try to get a shot at them.
"It will be of no use my trying to shoot them on the river," Godfrey said, "as I should have no means of picking them up; and I can tell you I found the water too cold this morning to care about stripping and swimming out for them. I will have another try on the plain. I saw four or five deer to-day, but only the first passed within shot, and as I had not a bullet in the gun he got off without my firing at him. I will try to-morrow if I can't stalk one."
Accordingly the next day Godfrey set out. After an hour's walking he saw three deer. He worked round very cautiously so as to get a clump of bushes between him and them, and then crawled up to it and looked through. They were a hundred and fifty yards away, and he had no confidence in his gun at that distance. He stood for some time thinking, and then remembered he had read that on the American plains the deer were often decoyed into coming close up to the hunter by working upon their curiosity. He drew his ramrod out from his gun, put the cap he wore--which was the fur one with tails--on to the end of it, pushed this through the bushes, and began to wave it to and fro. The deer caught sight of it immediately, and stood staring at it for a minute or two, ready to bound away should the strange object seem to threaten danger. As nothing came of it, they began to move towards it slowly and with hesitation, until they gathered in a group at a distance of not more than fifty yards.
Godfrey, while waving the cap with one hand, was holding his gun in readiness with the other. Feeling sure that he could not miss the mark now, he gently lowered the cap and raised his gun to his shoulder. Slight as was the movement it startled the deer; but as they turned to fly he fired both barrels at the shoulder of the one nearest to him, and had the satisfaction of seeing it fall, while its companions dashed away over the plain. He ran up to the fallen animal and found that it was already dead, both bullets having struck it in the region of the heart. He proceeded to cut off the head and the lower part of the legs, opened and cleaned it, and was then able to lift it on to his shoulder. As he neared the tent Jack came tearing along to meet him with loud barks of welcome.
"Yes, I have got food for you for some time, Jack, though it does not seem to me that you do much to earn it."
Luka was at work greasing the boat. Godfrey called him up on to the bank.
"We must try and do something to preserve the meat, Luka."
"Shall we rub it with salt, Godfrey?"
"We can spare some salt, but not much. It would never do to be left without that. We can do well enough without bread, but we can't do without salt."
"Smoke it well," Luka said.
"We might try that, but I am afraid those hams are beginning to go."
"Not smoke enough, Godfrey."
"No, I suppose not."
"They must have plenty, lots of smoke."
"Well, there is plenty of wood to make smoke with."
"We must keep it close," Luka said. "We ought to smoke it for two days."
"We can keep it close enough by cutting some poles and making a circular tent with the sail. It will spoil its whiteness, but that is of no great consequence. You had better leave the boat for the present, Luka, and come with me and cut poles and boughs for the fire."
Taking hatchets they started out and presently cut eight poles ten feet long.
"Now which is the best wood for smoking it with?"
"Pine makes the best smoke next to oak."
"There are plenty of stunted pines about, and I should think some of this aromatic shrub with it would be good. I will make up two big bundles of that, and we will take them and the poles back first; then we will cut some pine boughs."
As all these were obtained within a few hundred yards of the camp, they had soon materials for their fire. The poles were then stuck in a circle and lashed together at the top, the sail taken down and wrapped round it. It was not large enough, but by adding the storm-sail and the hide of the deer the covering was made complete. Then a number of sticks were tied from pole to pole across it. The deer-flesh was then cut up into strips of about a foot long, three or four inches wide, and half an inch thick; and these were hung over the sticks until the whole of the deer was so disposed of. The three remaining bear's hams were also hung up, and a fire of the pine-wood was then with some difficulty lighted and some of the sweet-smelling shrub laid on it. Godfrey, who had undertaken this part of the business while Luka went back to the boat, crawled out from the tent almost blinded.
"By Jove!" he said as he closed the aperture, "if it is as bad as that now that it is only just lighted, the meat ought to be smoked as dry as a chip by to-morrow."
Godfrey had nothing to do now but to watch the smoke rising from the opening at the top of the tent, opening the entrance a little whenever it slackened, drawing the sticks together with the iron ramrod, and throwing on a fresh armful of the fuel. Having finished greasing the boat, Luka did the same to the canoe. They spent the next twenty-four hours in alternately sleeping, collecting drift-wood on the river-bank, and attending to the fire, which had to be watched carefully, and some dry splinters added from time to time to get the green wood to keep alight. Every hour or two a piece of meat was taken out and examined, and in thirty hours from the time of lighting the fire Luka pronounced that it was done. The strips had shrivelled to half their former thickness and were almost black in colour.
"They will give us plenty of work for our teeth, Luka," Godfrey said. "They look almost like shoe-leather, but perhaps they will be better than they look. I once tasted some smoked reindeer tongues--at least they called them reindeer tongues, but I do not suppose they were--and they were first-rate. Now there is nothing more to do; let us get ready for another start."
The sail was taken off and the poles chopped into five-feet lengths.
"We will lay them in the bottom of the boat, Luka, four longways and four crossways. As there are sixteen of them, that will make the top line five or six inches above the floor. Then we will lay our firewood on them. In that way it won't get wet with the water, and, what is quite as important, it won't dirty the water."
This was done. The flour and deer's flesh were stowed on similar platforms fore and aft of the firewood and covered with skins. Some twelve buckets of water were then baled in. What remained of the frozen provisions was inspected; but it was agreed that as it had already melted a good deal, it would not be eatable much longer, and as they had food enough to last for some time, it was of no use keeping it. It was therefore broken up, Jack was allowed to eat as much as he wanted, and the rest was left. When everything was packed the canoe was carried down and placed in the water, and they took their places; Jack jumped on board, and a fresh start was made.
As soon as they emerged from the small river, they struck out straight from the land. The wind was light and from the north, and both took their paddles. Their four days' rest had done them good, and the canoe, under the influence of sail and oar, went fast through the water.
"Twenty-four hours ought to take us across," Godfrey said. "The gulf looks from eighty to ninety miles across at the point where the river runs into it. We must head rather to the south, for there is sure to be a current out in the middle, as the Obi is a big river."
It was, however, thirty hours before they reached the opposite shore--Godfrey accounting for the difference on the supposition that the stream must have been a good deal stronger than they expected, and must have drifted them down a long way. They found, indeed, that even inshore they were passing the land at a rate of nearly two miles an hour.
"That is all the better, Luka, for with this north wind our sail will be no good to us. We may as well get it down at once and stow it. The shores are muddy, I see; so we shall not hurt the canoe if we should drift up against it. That is a comfort, for we can both go to sleep. I am sure, after thirty hours' paddling with only two or three long easies, we deserve a rest. First of all we must have a meal. One does not know whether to call it dinner or supper when there is no night and we sleep just when we are tired."
They had caught eight or ten fish as they came across, passing through a great shoal of herrings. In half an hour the kettle was boiling over the fire, the fish were hissing and crackling in the frying-pan over it, and a strip of deer's flesh, with the ramrod run through it, was frizzling. It was pronounced excellent. There was a slight aromatic bitterness that gave a zest and flavour to it, and the flesh inside was by no means so tough as Godfrey had expected to find it. When all three of the voyagers had satisfied their hunger, the brands were as usual extinguished, the embers thrown overboard; then returning to the canoe, they lay down, and were in a very few minutes fast asleep. They slept for six hours, and when they woke the land was no longer in sight.
"It is lucky there is no fog," Godfrey said, "and that we have the sun to act as a compass. We can't be many miles out. We won't make straight for shore, Luka; we will head about north-west, so as to edge in gradually. There must be a good deal of current here, and it will be helping us along."
In an hour the low line of coast was visible, and they then headed still more to the north.
"There must be a good three-mile-an-hour current here," Godfrey observed presently. "We are going along first-rate past the shore. It took us over five days to come up. At this rate we shall go down in two."
They paddled steadily for twelve hours, stopping once only to cook a meal. Then they went close inshore again, had supper, and slept. When they woke they found they were still within a mile of the shore, and the current was now taking them along no more than a mile an hour.
"The gulf must be wide here, Luka. I don't think we should gain anything by going out four or five miles farther, so we will keep about as we are. We ought to be at the point by the end of to-day's work. We were two hundred miles up. I expect we drifted down five-and-twenty miles in crossing, and we must have passed the land at a good five miles an hour yesterday; so that we ought not to be more than thirty or forty miles from the point, for this peninsula does not go as far north as the other by twenty or thirty miles."
After eight hours' paddling they found themselves at the mouth of a deep bay.
"That is all right," Godfrey said, examining his tracing. "That land on the farther side of the bay is the northern point of the gulf. We will paddle across there and anchor by the shore for to-night. To-morrow we shall have a long paddle, for it is seventy or eighty miles nearly due west to a sheltered bay that lies just this side of Cape Golovina. Once round that, we have nearly four hundred miles to go nearly due south into Kara Bay. This long tongue of land we are working round is called the Yamal Peninsula. Once fairly down into Kara Bay, we shall leave Siberia behind us, and the land will be Russia."
They struck across the bay, and landed under shelter of the cape. The land was higher here than any they had before met; and after their sleep Godfrey took his gun, accompanied by Jack, and ascended the hill.
"It is rum," he said to himself, as he gazed over the wide expanse of sea to the north, "that this should be one sheet of ice in the winter. I do not like the look of those clouds away to the north. I think we are going to have either a fog or a gale. We won't make a move till we see. This coast seems rocky, and it won't do to make along it unless we have settled weather."
He returned and told Luka, and then wandered away again, as he had seen that birds were very plentiful, and he returned in three hours to the boat with a dozen grouse, six ptarmigan, and a capercailzie. Godfrey was now a good shot, and the birds, never having been disturbed by the approach of man, were so tame that he had no difficulty whatever in making a bag. As he went down to the boat he congratulated himself that they had not made a start, for the sky was now overcast, and the wind was already blowing strongly.
"We will have some bread to-day, Luka. These birds deserve something to eat with them, and our flour is holding out well. We have not eaten above twenty pounds since we started. I wish we had some yeast or something to make it rise. By the by I have an idea. Don't mix that till I come back, Luka."
Here, as when he landed on the Yenesei, he had seen numbers of rough nests on the ground, the birds being so tame that they often did not fly off even when he passed quite close to them. He returned to a spot where he had seen these nests quite thick, and had no difficulty in collecting a large number of little eggs of a great variety of colour.
"I expect about two out of every three are bad," he said. "We shall have to break them singly to find out the good ones. Fancy making a cake of sparrows' eggs!"
Upon breaking them he found that not more than one in five was good. Still there were quite enough for the purpose. The frying-pan was used as a basin, and in this he made a sort of batter of eggs and flour. By the time he had done this four of the grouse were nearly roasted. He poured the batter into the empty kettle, melted some deer's fat in the pan, and then poured in the batter again. Then he washed out and filled the kettle, and placed it upon the fire.
"Now, by the time the water is boiling, Luka, the batter and the grouse will be cooked. That is what we call a Yorkshire pudding at home; it will go splendidly with the birds."
The pudding turned out really good, and they enjoyed the meal immensely, Jack having the bones of the four birds for his share, together with the solitary fish they had caught the day before. By the time they had finished they were glad to get up their tent, which they pitched with the entrance close to the fire, for even in the sheltered spot where they were fierce gusts of cold wind swept down upon them. The canvas of the tent was fastened down by heavy stones placed upon it, the furs brought in, and everything made snug. For three days the storm raged.
"It is a nuisance losing so much time," Godfrey said. "It was somewhere about the middle of June when we started, and there are only three months of open weather here. Every day is of importance. I sha'n't so much mind when we get to the mouth of the Petchora, for I heard from one of the Russians in the prison that canoes often go as far as that from Archangel to trade, so I shall feel when I get there that we are getting into civilized regions. It is about four hundred miles from Kara Bay, so that we have a good eight hundred miles to travel before we get there. We can certainly paddle forty miles a day by sticking to it steadily; but allowing for another stoppage of four days, and we can't allow less than that, that will be a fortnight. How long have we been now, Luka? There is nothing to count time from."
Luka shook his head.
"Well, it is somewhere above three weeks," Godfrey went on; "so that by the time we get to the mouth of the Petchora, it will be the last week in July. That will give us a couple of months; but I fancy we can't count much on the weather in September. Still, if the canoes go from Archangel to Petchora and back, we ought to be able to do it from Petchora, for the distance from there to Archangel is a good deal less than from the mouth of the Yenesei to the Petchora. There is one thing, if the weather gets very bad on the way, or we get laid up by bad weather for a long time on the way to Petchora, we can go up the river, I hear, to a place called Ust Zlyma, and from there go overland to Archangel. It is about two hundred or two hundred and fifty miles across, and we could walk that in ten days. I am quite sure that we should not be suspected of being anything but what we look; and at Archangel there is sure to be a British consul, and he would put us up to the best plan of getting out of the country. However, there will be plenty of time to see about that as we get on."
The wind fell on the morning of the fourth day, but it would be some hours before the sea would have gone down sufficiently for them to make a start. Godfrey again went out shooting, this time accompanied by Luka.
Godfrey was as fortunate as he had been before, shooting three capercailzie and nineteen grouse; while Luka brought down with his arrows four capercailzie, which he found sitting on stunted trees. On their way back to the boat they collected a great quantity of eggs, and came upon a rabbit warren.
"Do not shoot," Luka said, as Godfrey cocked his gun, "it will frighten them all into their holes. If you will go on with the dog, I will lie down here and will bring you as many rabbits as I can carry."
Two hours later he came down to the tent with two dozen rabbits he had shot. After cooking two of them, and giving one to Jack as his share, they packed up all their belongings and again took to the canoe. They used their paddles until round the cape, and then heading westward hoisted their sail, for what wind there was was still from the north, and the help it afforded was sufficient greatly to reduce the labour of paddling. They kept steadily on, one or other taking occasional snatches of sleep. But with this exception, and that of the time spent by Luka in cooking, they continued to paddle until, forty hours after starting, they reached Cape Golovina, passing between it and Beloc Island. They did not make the halt they had intended under shelter of the cape, for the weather was fine, and Godfrey wanted to take advantage of the north wind as long as it lasted. Once round the cape they headed nearly due south, and the wind freshening a little, drove them along merrily, and they were able to cease paddling, and to take a fair proportion of sleep alternately.
Luka was now getting more accustomed to the management of the sail, and no longer feared an occasional jibe, and night and day--if it could be called night when the sun never set--they continued their voyage along the coast of the Yamal Peninsula. At the end of the fourth day the wind freshened so much that the large sail was taken down and the leg-of-mutton sail substituted for it; but as the wind continued to rise, and the sea to get up fast, Godfrey began to look out for some spot into which to run for shelter. The coast was very indented and broken, and in two hours they passed the mouth of a deep bay into which the boat was at once directed, and was presently moored under the shelter of its northern bank.
"She is a splendid sea-boat," Godfrey said. "If it wasn't for the boat in tow I should not mind what weather I was out in her."
Their stay was of short duration, for in a few hours the wind sank again. "I don't think it is done yet," Godfrey said when they were beyond the shelter of the bay. "I fancy it will blow up again presently; still we may as well push on. I think it is rather more from the east than it was."
For the next twenty-four hours, however, there was no very marked change in the force of the wind, but it had now veered round to the north-east.
"We are getting well down now," Godfrey said. "We have been sailing for five days, and we have certainly been running a good three miles an hour from the time we rounded the cape. So we are three hundred and fifty miles down. I should say we must be entering Kara Bay."
"Very bad weather coming," Luka said looking back.
Godfrey turned round. A heavy black cloud was sweeping up with a misty line below it.
"By Jove, you are right; that is a big squall and no mistake. There is no bay to run to here, Luka, and we could not get there in time if there was. We must do as I talked about. Quick, lower the sail down, there is not a moment to lose. No, wait until I bring her up head to the wind. Now, then, down with it. Now unstep the mast, lash that and the boom, the other sail, and its spar together; that is the way." And with their joint efforts the work was accomplished in a couple of minutes. "Now, then, fasten this rope to your end, Luka; I will tie the other end to mine. That is right. It is long enough to make a good big angle. Now fasten the head-rope to the middle; be sure it is put in the middle, Luka. That is right. Now, launch it overboard."
The work was done as quickly as it is described, and in three minutes from the time the mast was lowered the canoe was riding to the floating anchor.
"Now then, Luka, on with the apron."
"Shall we sit up?"
"No; we will lie down, cover up the holes, and lash them carefully when we are in. It is going to be a drencher, and it is of no use our getting wet through to begin with. We could not do anything with the paddles."
They had scarcely made themselves snug when, with a roar, a deluge of rain fell on the deck and cover, and a moment later even this sound was partly deadened by the howl of the wind. Although their heads were close together, Godfrey felt that it would be utterly useless to make any remark. He felt under no uneasiness, for, with their weight well down and anchored head to sea, he felt sure that the light canoe would ride over anything like a cork bottle. The motion of the boat rapidly increased, but she herself rode lightly over the waves. As these increased the jerking of the boat behind at her rope became more and more violent, and the canoe quivered from end to end with the shocks.
"This will never do," Godfrey said to himself. "The boat will pull the stern out of her. It will be an awful loss to cut her adrift, but it can't be helped."
He unlashed the fastenings of the cover of the circular hole above him, reached his hand forward and got hold of Luka's paddle, and passed it with his own out through the hole. Then he sat up himself. Confident as he felt in the canoe, he was almost frightened at the wild aspect of the sea. The wind was literally howling, driving the rain before it with a force that stung Godfrey's neck as it struck it. He got out a strip of deer-skin lashing, of which there was a supply always close at hand under the deck, lashed the paddles together, and then, leaning aft, lashed them at the centre firmly to the tow-rope. Then with some difficulty he got out his knife and cut the rope close to its fastening; the paddles flew overboard, and the boat drifted rapidly astern, the drag of the paddles being, as Godfrey observed with satisfaction, sufficient to keep her head to wind. Then he wriggled himself down underneath the apron again and lashed down the cover of the hole. _