A VOYAGE IN THE NORTH SEAS. 255 



of falling in with the Esquimaux. Arundel had formed his deter- 

 mination ; he readily assented to the proposition, and with every ap- 

 pearance of cheerfulness left Flora under the care of Bellamy and 

 four of the seamen, while he himself with the other two struck into 

 the country. They had not proceeded a mile before arriving at the 

 entrance of a deep rocky ravine, which seemed to open out at the 

 farther end on the shores of the inlet, Arundel despatched one of the 

 seamen round the rocks, pretending that he would in that way be 

 more likely to fall in with game, while with the other, who was the 

 identical Black Bill we have before mentioned, he proceeded to ex- 

 plore the recesses of the wild chasm, at the bottom of which there 

 was a difficult and precarious path. When they had advanced a few 

 hundred yards by this rude footway, the hollow suddenly expanded, 

 the basaltic rocks rose more perpendicularly, enclosing a piece of 

 swampy ground of a circular form, covered with dwarf willows and 

 a few other stunted shrubs. A flock of wild ducks sprang out of a 

 small piece of water enclosed by the scanty brushwood, and the sea- 

 man firing brought two or three down, which, laying his gun on the 

 ground, he ran to secure. Arundel seized the opportunity when he 

 was thus engaged, to conceal the gun, and when the seaman returned 

 with the birds he had shot, he found himself disarmed, and a loaded 

 fowling-piece levelled at him at the distance of a dozen yards. 



" William Blight !" said Arundel, speaking slowly and sternly, 

 " your life has been in my hands before, and I saved it, it was my 

 duty; it is again in my hands, and I shall consider it equally my 

 duty to destroy it, should it be necessary for the preservation of my 

 own. If you will answer truly, and at once, two or three questions 

 which I shall put to you, I will spare your life ; if you will assist 

 me, I shall reward you liberally should we ever return to England ; 

 if you will not answer, or if you hesitate or equivocate, the words 

 shall be the last your tongue shall ever utter: Speak; will you 

 agree to my conditions ?" The seaman listened with perfect calm- 

 ness to this address, turning his quid rapidly round in his mouth, 

 and glancing his little dark scintillating eyes first on the weapon, 

 and then on Arundel. At length he burst into a loud scornful laugh. 

 " Why, do you think, Doctor," said he, with reckless jocularity, 

 " that a handful of small shot is to frighten a sea-dog like me, that 

 has many a time heard the shots of a ship of war playing God save 

 the King for an hour together over my head ? Look ye ; if I liked 

 the service I was sent on, I would say fire away and welcome, for 

 it's all one to the old smuggler when he's to work up his dead reck- 

 oning, any further than I would like the hulk to go down in blue 

 water, as the little Albatross did. But as I was like pressed into 

 this here business, and don't like harming a spirity young fellow like 

 yourself, why I'll answer your questions, if so be as they don't relate 

 to the secrets of the contraband." Arundel, astonished at his hardi- 

 hood, heard him to an end ; then taking down his fowling piece, but 

 still holding it in the direction of the smuggler, he asked, te What 

 was Captain Bellamy's real intention in coming on shore to-day?" 

 " We were to get you a few miles into the country, and there, if 

 possible, to lose you and find our own way to the boat, which is to 



