About ten days after their arrival in the great island, Sakalar, who was always the first to be moving, roused his comrades round him just as a party of a dozen strange men appeared in the distance.  They were short, stout fellows, with long lances in their hands, and by their dress very much resembled the Esquimaux.  Their attitude was menacing in the extreme, and by the advice of Sakalar, a general volley was fired over their heads.  The invaders halted, looked confusedly around, and then ran away.  Firearms retained. therefore, all their pristine qualities with these savages.

“They will return,” said Sakalar, moodily; “they did the same when I was here before, and then came back and killed my friend at night.  Sakalar escaped.”

Counsel was now held, and it was determined, after due deliberation, that strict watch should be kept at all hours, while much was necessarily trusted to the dogs.  All day one of the party was on the lookout, while at night the hut had its entrance well barred.  Several days, however, were thus passed without molestation, and then Sakalar took the Kolimsk men out to hunt, and left Ivan and Kolina together.  The young man had learned the value of his half-savage friend:  her devotion to her father and the party generally was unbounded.  She murmured neither at privations nor at sufferings, and kept up the courage of Ivan by painting in glowing terms all his brilliant future.  She seemed to have laid aside her personal feelings, and to look on him only as one doing battle with fortune in the hope of earning the hand of the rich widow of Yakoutsk.  But Ivan was much disposed to gloomy fits; he supposed himself forgotten, and slighted, and looked on the time of his probation as interminable.  It was in this mood that one day he was roused from his fit by a challenge from Kolina to go and see if the seals had come up to breathe at the hole which every morning was freshly broken in the ice.  Ivan assented, and away they went gaily down to the bay.  No seals were there, and after a short stay they returned toward the hut, recalled by the distant howling of the dogs.  But as they came near, they could see no sign of men or animals, though the sensible brutes still whined under the shelter of their snow-heaps.  Ivan, much surprised, raised the curtain of the door, his gun in hand, expecting to find that some animal was inside.  The lamp was out, and the hut in total darkness.  Before Ivan could recover his upright position, four men leaped on him, and he was a prisoner.

Kolina drew back, and cocked her gun; but the natives, satisfied with their present prey, formed round Ivan in a compact body, tied his hands, and bade him walk.  Their looks were sufficiently wild and menacing to make him move, especially as he recognized them as belonging to the warlike party of the Tchouktchas—­a tribe of Siberians who wander about the Polar Seas in search of game, who cross Behring’s Straits in skin-boats, and who probably are the only persons who by their temporary sojourn in New Siberia, have caused some to suppose it inhabited.  Kolina stood uncertain what to do, but in a few minutes she roused four of the dogs, and followed.  Ivan bawled to her to go back, but the girl paid no attention to his request, determined, as it seemed, to know his fate.