Author: H. Rider Haggard
Category: Adventure
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CHAPTER II
THE SLAYING OF THE BEAR
Leaping from their horses, Ragnar and Steinar came to where I stood, foralready I had dismounted and was pointing to the ground, which just herehad been swept clear of snow by the wind.
"I see nothing," said Ragnar.
"But I do, brother," I answered; "who study the ways of wild thingswhile you think I am asleep. Look, that moss has been turned over; forit is frozen underneath and pressed up into little mounds between thebear's claws. Also that tiny pool has gathered in the slot of the paw;it is its very shape. The other footprints do not show because of therock."
Then I went forward a few paces behind some bushes and called out: "Hereruns the track, sure enough, and, as I thought, the brute has a splitclaw; the snow marks it well. Bid the thrall stay with the horses andcome you."
They obeyed, and there on the white snow which lay beyond the bush wesaw the track of the bear stamped as if in wax.
"A mighty beast," said Ragnar. "Never have I seen its like."
"Aye," exclaimed Steinar, "but an ill place to hunt it in," and helooked doubtfully at the rough gorge, covered with undergrowth, thatsome hundred yards farther on became dense birch forest. "I think itwould be well to ride back to Aar, and return to-morrow morning with allwhom we can gather. This is no task for three spears."
By this time I, Olaf, was springing from rock to rock up the gorge,following the bear's track. For my brother's taunts rankled in me and Iwas determined that I should kill this beast or die and thus show Ragnarthat I feared no bear. So I called back to them over my shoulder:
"Aye, go home, it is wisest; but I go on for I have never yet seen oneof these white ice-bears alive."
"Now it is Olaf who taunts in his turn," said Ragnar with a laugh. Thenthey both sprang after me, but always I kept ahead of them.
For the half of a mile or more they followed me out of the scrub intothe birch forest, where the snow, lying on the matted boughs of thetrees and especially of some firs that were mingled with the birch, madethe place gloomy in that low light. Always in front of me ran the hugeslots of the bear till at length they brought me to a little forestglade, where some great whirling wind had torn up many trees which hadbut a poor root-hold on a patch of almost soilless rock.
These trees lay in confusion, their tops, which had not yet rotted,being filled with frozen snow. On the edge of them I paused, havinglost the track. Then I went forward again, casting wide as a hound does,while behind came Ragnar and Steinar, walking straight past the edge ofthe glade, and purposing to meet me at its head. This, indeed, Ragnardid, but Steinar halted because of a crunching sound that caughthis ear, and then stepped to the right between two fallen birches todiscover its cause. Next moment, as he told me afterwards, he stoodfrozen, for there behind the boughs of one of the trees was the hugewhite bear, eating some animal that it had killed. The beast saw him,and, mad with rage at being disturbed, for it was famished after itslong journey on the floe, reared itself up on its hind legs, roaringtill the air shook. High it towered, its hook-like claws outstretched.
Steinar tried to spring back, but caught his foot, and fell. Well forhim was it that he did so, for otherwise the blow which the bear struckwould have crushed him to a pulp. The brute did not seem to understandwhere he had gone--at any rate, it remained upreared and beating atthe air. Then a doubt took it, its huge paws sank until it sat likea begging dog, sniffing the wind. At this moment Ragnar came backshouting, and hurled his spear. It stuck in the beast's chest and hungthere. The bear began to feel for it with its paws, and, catching theshaft, lifted it to its mouth and champed it, thus dragging the steelfrom its hide.
Then it bethought it of Steinar, and, sinking down, discovered him, andtore at the birch tree under which he had crept till the splinters flewfrom its trunk. Just then I reached it, having seen all. By now the bearhad its teeth fixed in Steinar's shoulder, or, rather, in his leatherngarment, and was dragging him from under the tree. When it saw me itreared itself up again, lifting Steinar and holding him to its breastwith one paw. I went mad at the sight, and charged it, driving my speardeep into its throat. With its other paw it struck the weapon from myhand, shivering the shaft. There it stood, towering over us like a whitepillar, and roared with pain and fury, Steinar still pressed against it,Ragnar and I helpless.
"He's sped!" gasped Ragnar.
I thought for a flash of time, and--oh! well do I remember that moment:the huge beast foaming at the jaws and Steinar held to its breast as alittle girl holds a doll; the still, snow-laden trees, on the top of oneof which sat a small bird spreading its tail in jerks; the red lightof evening, and about us the great silences of the sky above and of thelonely forest beneath. It all comes back to me--I can see it now quiteclearly; yes, even the bird flitting to another twig, and there againspreading its tail to some invisible mate. Then I made up my mind whatto do.
"Not yet!" I cried. "Keep it in play," and, drawing my short and heavysword, I plunged through the birch boughs to get behind the bear. Ragnarunderstood. He threw his cap into the brute's face, and then, after ithad growled at him awhile, just as it dropped its great jaws to crunchSteinar, he found a bough and thrust it between them.
By now I was behind the bear, and, smiting at its right leg below theknee, severed the tendon. Down it came, still hugging Steinar. I smoteagain with all my strength, and cut into its spine above the tail,paralysing it. It was a great blow, as it need to be to cleave the thickhair and hide, and my sword broke in the backbone, so that, like Ragnar,now I was weaponless. The forepart of the bear rolled about in the snow,although its after half was still.
Then once more it seemed to bethink itself of Steinar, who lay unmovingand senseless. Stretching out a paw, it dragged him towards its champingjaws. Ragnar leapt upon its back and struck at it with his knife,thereby only maddening it the more. I ran in and grasped Steinar, whomthe bear was again hugging to its breast. Seeing me, it loosed Steinar,whom I dragged away and cast behind me, but in the effort I slipped andfell forward. The bear smote at me, and its mighty forearm--well for methat it was not its claws--struck me upon the side of the head and sentme crashing into a tree-top to the left. Five paces I flew before mybody touched the boughs, and there I lay quiet.
I suppose that Ragnar told me what passed after this while I wassenseless. At least, I know that the bear began to die, for my spear hadpierced some artery in its throat, and all the talk which followed, aswell as though I heard it with my ears. It roared and roared, vomitingblood and stretching out its claws after Steinar as Ragnar dragged himaway. Then it laid its head flat upon the snow and died. Ragnar lookedat it and muttered:
"Dead!"
Then he walked to that top of the fallen tree in which I lay, andagain muttered: "Dead! Well, Valhalla holds no braver man than Olaf theSkald."
Next he went to Steinar and once again exclaimed, "Dead!"
For so he looked, indeed, smothered in the blood of the bear and withhis garments half torn off him. Still, as the words passed Ragnar's lipshe sat up, rubbed his eyes and smiled as a child does when it awakes.
"Are you much hurt?" asked Ragnar.
"I think not," he answered doubtfully, "save that I feel sore and myhead swims. I have had a bad dream." Then his eyes fell on the bear, andhe added: "Oh, I remember now; it was no dream. Where is Olaf?"
"Supping with Odin," answered Ragnar and pointed to me.
Steinar rose to his feet, staggered to where I lay, and stared at mestretched there as white as the snow, with a smile upon my face and inmy hand a spray of some evergreen bush which I had grasped as I fell.
"Did he die to save me?" asked Steinar.
"Aye," answered Ragnar, "and never did man walk that bridge in betterfashion. You were right. Would that I had not mocked him."
"Would that I had died and not he," said Steinar with a sob. "It isborne in upon my heart that it were better I had died."
"Then that may well be, for the heart does not lie at such a time. Alsoit
is true that he was worth both of us. There was something more in himthan there is in us, Steinar. Come, lift him to my back, and if you arestrong enough, go on to the horses and bid the thrall bring one of them.I follow."
Thus ended the fight with the great white bear.