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Barely had this been effected at the cost of four days' delay,
in which the ship might have made five hundred miles toward home, when
natives were seen paddling out in canoes, gesticulating for the white
men to come ashore. Waxel lowered away in the small boat with nine
armed men to pay the savages a visit. Close ashore, he beckoned the
Indians to wade out; but they signalled him in turn to land, and he
ordered three men out to moor the boat to a rock. All went well
between Russians and Indians, presents being exchanged, till a chief
screwed up his courage to paddle out to Waxel in the boat. With
characteristic hospitality, Waxel at once proffered some Russian
brandy, which, by courtesy among all Western sailors, is always known
as "chain lightning." The chief took but one gulp of the liquid fire,
when with a wild yell he spat it out, shouted that he had been
poisoned, and dashed ashore.
{32} The three Russians succeeded in gaining Waxel's boat, but the
Indians grabbed the mooring ropes and seized the Chukchee interpreter,
whom Waxel had brought from Siberia.


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