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The Giant of the North: Pokings Round the Pole

by R. M. Ballantyne · English · Gutenberg #21733 · 553,329 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Giant of the North: Pokings Round the Pole

Author: R. M. Ballantyne


        
Release date: June 7, 2007 [eBook #21733]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/21733

Credits: Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England


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Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England




The Giant of the North, or, Pokings Round The Pole, by R.M. Ballantyne.

________________________________________________________________________

Robert Michael Ballantyne was born in 1825 and died in 1894.  He was
educated at the Edinburgh Academy, and in 1841 he became a clerk with
the Hudson Bay Company, working at the Red River Settlement in Northen
Canada until 1847, arriving back in Edinburgh in 1848.  The letters he
had written home were very amusing in their description of backwoods
life, and his family publishing connections suggested that he should
construct a book based on these letters.  Three of his most enduring
books were written over the next decade, "The Young Fur Traders",
"Ungava", "The Hudson Bay Company", and were based on his experiences
with the H.B.C.  In this period he also wrote "The Coral island" and
"Martin Rattler", both of these taking place in places never visited by
Ballantyne.  Having been chided for small mistakes he made in these
books, he resolved always to visit the places he wrote about.  With
these books he became known as a great master of literature intended for
teenagers.  He researched the Cornish Mines, the London Fire Brigade,
the Postal Service, the Railways, the laying down of submarine telegraph
cables, the construction of light-houses, the light-ship service, the
life-boat service, South Africa, Norway, the North Sea fishing fleet,
ballooning, deep-sea diving, Algiers, and many more, experiencing the
lives of the men and women in these settings by living with them for
weeks and months at a time, and he lived as they lived.

He was a very true-to-life author, depicting the often squalid scenes he
encountered with great care and attention to detail.  His young readers
looked forward eagerly to his next books, and through the 1860s and
1870s there was a flow of books from his pen, sometimes four in a year,
all very good reading.  The rate of production diminished in the last
ten or fifteen years of his life, but the quality never failed.

He published over ninety books under his own name, and a few books for
very young children under the pseudonym "Comus".

For today's taste his books are perhaps a little too religious, and what
we would nowadays call "pi".  In part that was the way people wrote in
those days, but more important was the fact that in his days at the Red
River Settlement, in the wilds of Canada, he had been a little
dissolute, and he did not want his young readers to be unmindful of how
they ought to behave, as he felt he had been.

Some of his books were quite short, little over 100 pages.  These books
formed a series intended for the children of poorer parents, having less
pocket-money.  These books are particularly well-written and researched,
because he wanted that readership to get the very best possible for
their money.  They were published as six series, three books in each
series.

While Ballantyne had some acqaintance with the Eskimo during his years
with the Hudson Bay Company, this book runs a little into the
fantastical.  The head of the family who are the heroes of the book has
the belief that there is a sea of ever-warm water surrounding the North
Pole, and that there are islands there abounding in animal life, and
colonised by the Eskimos.  The plan is to visit these islands, and stand
upon the actual North Pole, which they find to be a low eminence near to
the hut of a descendant of a seaman of the original Hudson expedition in
1611.

The story is very well-told, and you find yourself almost believing the
Captain's logic.  The tension is maintained right up to the last
chapter, so much so that we do not learn whether the family, who have by
this time all become endeared to us, ever get home to England, and what
the father and mother of the Captain's nephews have to say about their
sons' adventures.

Created as an e-Text by Nick Hodson, August 2003.

________________________________________________________________________

THE GIANT OF THE NORTH, OR, POKINGS ROUND THE POLE, BY R.M. BALLANTYNE.



CHAPTER ONE.

INTRODUCES OUR HERO AND HIS KINDRED.

The Giant was an Eskimo of the Arctic regions.  At the beginning of his
career he was known among his kindred by the name of Skreekinbroot, or
the howler, because he howled oftener and more furiously than any infant
that had ever been born in Arctic land.  His proper name, however, was
Chingatok, though his familiars still ventured occasionally to style him
Skreekinbroot.

Now it must not be supposed that our giant was one of those ridiculous
myths of the nursery, with monstrous heads and savage hearts, who live
on human flesh, and finally receive their deserts at the hands of famous
giant-killing Jacks.  No!  Chingatok was a real man of moderate size--
not more than seven feet two in his sealskin boots--with a lithe,
handsome figure, immense chest and shoulders, a gentle disposition, and
a fine, though flattish countenance, which was sometimes grave with
thought, at other times rippling with fun.

We mention the howling characteristic of his babyhood because it was, in
early life, the only indication of the grand spirit that dwelt within
him--the solitary evidence of the tremendous energy with which he was
endowed.  At first he was no bigger than an ordinary infant.  He was,
perhaps, a little fatter, but _not_ larger, and there was not an oily
man or woman of the tribe to which he belonged who would have noticed
anything peculiar about him if he had only kept moderately quiet; but
this he would not or could not do.  His mouth was his safety-valve.  His
spirit seemed to have been born big at once.  It was far too large for
his infant body, and could only find relief from the little plump
dwelling in which it was at first enshrined by rushing out at the mouth.
The shrieks of pigs were trifles to the yelling of that Eskimo child's
impatience.  The caterwauling of cats was as nothing to the growls of
his disgust.  The angry voice of the Polar bear was a mere chirp
compared with the furious howling of his disappointment, and the barking
of a mad walrus was music to the roaring of his wrath.

Every one, except his mother, wished him dead and buried in the centre
of an iceberg or at the bottom of the Polar Sea.  His mother--squat,
solid, pleasant-faced, and mild--alone put up with his ways with that
long-suffering endurance which is characteristic of mothers.  Nothing
could disturb the serenity of Toolooha.  When the young giant, (that was
to be), roared, she fondled him; if that was ineffectual, she gave him a
walrus tusk or a seal's flipper to play with; if that did not suffice,
she handed him a lump of blubber to suck; if that failed, as was
sometimes the case, she gambolled with him on the floor of her snow-hut,
and rubbed his oily visage lovingly over her not less oleaginous
countenance.  Need we enlarge on this point?  Have not all mothers acted
thus, or similarly, in all times and climes?

  From pole to pole a mother's soul
  Is tender, strong, and true;
  Whether the loved be good or bad--
  White, yellow, black, or blue.

But Toolooha's love was wise as well as strong.  If all else failed, she
was wont to apply corporal punishment, and whacked her baby with her
tail.  Be not shocked, reader.  We refer to the tail of her coat, which
was so long that it trailed on the ground, and had a flap at the end
which produced surprising results when properly applied.

But the howling condition of life did not last long.

At the age of five years little Chingatok began to grow unusually fast,
and when he reached the age of seven, the tribe took note of him as a
more than promising youth.  Then the grand spirit, which had hitherto
sought to vent itself in yells and murderous assaults on its doting
mother, spent its energies in more noble action.  All the little boys of
his size, although much older than himself, began to look up to him as a
champion.  None went so boldly into mimic warfare with the walrus and
the bear as Chingatok.  No one could make toy sledges out of inferior
and scanty materials so well as he.  If any little one wanted a
succourer in distress, Skreekinbroot was the lad to whom he, or she,
turned.  If a broken toy had to be mended, Chingatok could do it better
than any other boy.  And so it went on until he became a man and a
giant.

When he was merely a big boy--that is, bigger than the largest man of
his tribe--he went out with the other braves to hunt and fish, and
signalised himself by the reckless manner in which he would attack the
polar bear single-handed; but when he reached his full height and
breadth he gave up reckless acts, restrained his tendency to display his
great strength, and became unusually modest and thoughtful, even
pensive, for an Eskimo.

The superiority of Chingatok's mind, as well as his body, soon became
manifest.  Even among savages, intellectual power commands respect.
When coupled with physical force it elicits reverence.  The young giant
soon became an oracle and a leading man in his tribe.  Those who had
wished him dead, and in the centre of an iceberg or at the bottom of the
Polar Sea, came to wish that there were only a few more men like him.

Of course he had one or two enemies.  Who has not?  There were a few who
envied him his physical powers.  There were some who envied him his
moral influence.  None envied him his intellectual superiority, for they
did not understand it.  There was one who not only envied but hated him.
This was Eemerk, a mean-spirited, narrow-minded fellow, who could not
bear to play what is styled second fiddle.

Eemerk was big enough--over six feet--but he wanted to be bigger.  He
was stout enough, but wanted to be stouter.  He was influential too, but
wanted to reign supreme.  This, of course, was not possible while there
existed a taller, stouter, and cleverer man than himself.  Even if
Eemerk had been the equal of Chingatok in all these respects, there
would still have remained one difference of character which would have
rendered equality impossible.

It was this: our young giant was unselfish and modest.  Eemerk was
selfish and vain-glorious.  When the latter killed a seal he always kept
the tit-bits for himself.  Chingatok gave them to his mother, or to any
one else who had a mind to have them.  And so in regard to everything.

Chingatok was not a native of the region in which we introduce him to
the reader.  He and the tribe, or rather part of the tribe, to which he
belonged, had travelled from the far north; so far north that nobody
knew the name of the land from which they had come.  Even Chingatok
himself did not know it.  Being unacquainted with geography, he knew no
more about his position on the face of this globe than a field-mouse or
a sparrow.

But the young giant had heard a strange rumour, while in his far-off
country, which had caused his strong intellect to ponder, and his huge
heart to beat high.  Tribes who dwelt far to the south of his northern
home had told him that other tribes, still further south, had declared
that the people who dwelt to the south of them had met with a race of
men who came to them over the sea on floating islands; that these
islands had something like trees growing out of them, and wings which
moved about, which folded and expanded somewhat like the wings of the
sea-gull; that these men's faces were whiter than Eskimo faces; that
they wore skins of a much more curious kind than sealskins, and that
they were amazingly clever with their hands, talked a language that no
one could understand, and did many wonderful things that nobody could
comprehend.

A longing, wistful expression used to steal over Chingatok's face as he
gazed at the southern horizon while listening to these strange rumours,
and a very slight smile of incredulity had glimmered on his visage, when
it was told him that one of the floating islands of these Kablunets, or
white men, had been seen with a burning mountain in the middle of it,
which vomited forth smoke and fire, and sometimes uttered a furious
hissing or shrieking sound, not unlike his own voice when he was a
Skreekinbroot.

The giant said little about these and other subjects, but thought
deeply.  His mind, as we have said, was far ahead of his time and
condition.  Let us listen to some of the disjointed thoughts that
perplexed this man.

"Who made me?" he asked in a low tone, when floating alone one day in
his kayak, or skin canoe, "whence came I? whither go I?  What is this
great sea on which I float? that land on which I tread?  No sledge, no
spear, no kayak, no snow-hut makes itself!  Who made all that which I
behold?"

Chingatok looked around him, but no audible answer came from Nature.  He
looked up, but the glorious sun only dazzled his eyes.

"There _must_ be One," he continued in a lower tone, "who made all
things; but who made _Him_?  No one?  It is impossible!  The Maker must
have ever been.  _Ever been_!"  He repeated this once or twice with a
look of perplexed gravity.

The northern savage had grasped the grand mystery, and, like all true
philosophers savage or civilised who have gone before him, relapsed into
silence.

At last he resolved to travel south, until he should arrive at the
coasts where these strange sights before described were said to have
been seen.

Having made up his mind, Chingatok began his arrangements without delay;
persuaded a few families of his tribe to accompany him, and reached the
north-western shores of Greenland after a long and trying journey by
water and ice.

Here he spent the winter.  When spring came, he continued his journey
south, and at last began to look out, with sanguine expectation, for the
floating islands with wings, and the larger island with the burning
mountain on it, about which he had heard.

Of course, on his way south, our giant fell in with some members of the
tribes through whom the rumours that puzzled him had been transmitted to
the far north; and, as he advanced, these rumours took a more definite,
also a more correct, form.  In time he came to understand that the
floating islands were gigantic kayaks, or canoes, with masts and sails,
instead of trees and wings.  The burning mountain, however, remained an
unmodified mystery, which he was still inclined to disbelieve.  But
these more correct views did not in the least abate Chingatok's eager
desire to behold, with his own eyes, the strange men from the unknown
south.

Eemerk formed one of the party who had volunteered to join Chingatok on
this journey.  Not that Eemerk was influenced by large-minded views or a
thirst for knowledge, but he could not bear the thought that his rival
should have all the honour of going forth on a long journey of
exploration to the mysterious south, a journey which was sure to be full
of adventure, and the successful accomplishment of which would
unquestionably raise him very much in the estimation of his tribe.

Eemerk had volunteered to go, not as second in command, but as an
independent member of the party--a sort of free-lance.  Chingatok did
not quite relish having Eemerk for a companion, but, being a
good-humoured, easy-going fellow, he made no objection to his going.
Eemerk took his wife with him.  Chingatok took his mother and little
sister; also a young woman named Tekkona, who was his wife's sister.
These were the only females of the exploring party.  Chingatok had left
his wife behind him, because she was not robust at that time; besides,
she was very small--as is usually the case with giants' wives--and he
was remarkably fond of her, and feared to expose her to severe fatigue
and danger.

The completed party of explorers numbered twenty souls, with their
respective bodies, some of which latter were large, some small, but all
strong and healthy.  Four of the men were friends of Eemerk, whom he had
induced to join because he knew them to be kindred spirits who would
support him.

"I go to the ice-cliff to look upon the sea," said Chingatok one
morning, drawing himself up to his full height, and unconsciously
brushing some of the lamp-black off the roof of his hut with the hood of
his sealskin coat.

At this point it may be well to explain, once for all, that our giant
did not speak English, and as it is highly improbable that the reader
understands the Eskimo tongue, we will translate as literally as
possible--merely remarking that Chingatok's language, like his mind, was
of a superior cast.

"Why goes my son to the ice-cliff?" asked Toolooha in a slightly
reproachful tone.  "Are not the floes nearer?  Can he not look on the
great salt lake from the hummocks?  The sun has been hot a long time
now.  The ice-cliffs are dangerous.  Their edges split off every day.
If my son goes often to them, he will one day come tumbling down upon
the floes and be crushed flat, and men will carry him to his mother's
feet like a mass of shapeless blubber."

It is interesting to note how strong a resemblance there is in sentiment
and modes of thought between different members of the human family.
This untutored savage, this Polar giant, replied, in the Eskimo tongue,
words which may be freely translated--"Never fear, mother, I know how to
take care of myself."

Had he been an Englishman, he could not have expressed himself more
naturally.  He smiled as he looked down at his stout and genial mother,
while she stooped and drew forth a choice morsel of walrus flesh from
one of her boots.  Eskimo ladies wear enormous sealskin boots the whole
length of their legs.  The tops of these boots are made extremely wide,
for the purpose of stowing away blubber, or babies, or other odd
articles that might encumber their hands.

Chingatok seemed the personification of savage dignity as he stood
there, leaning on a short walrus spear.  Evidently his little mother
doted on him.  So did Oblooria, a pretty little girl of about sixteen,
who was his only sister, and the counterpart of her mother, hairy coat
and tail included, only a few sizes smaller.

But Chingatok's dignity was marred somewhat when he went down on his
hands and knees, in order to crawl through the low snow-tunnel which was
the only mode of egress from the snow-hut.

Emerging at the outer end of the tunnel, he stood up, drew the hood of
his sealskin coat over his head, shouldered his spear, and went off with
huge and rapid strides over the frozen billows of the Arctic Sea.

Spring was far advanced at the time of which we write, and the sun shone
not only with dazzling brilliancy, but with intense power on the fields
of ice which still held the ocean in their cold unyielding embrace.  The
previous winter had been unusually severe, and the ice showed little or
no sign of breaking up, except at a great distance from land, where the
heaving of the waves had cracked it up into large fields.  These were
gradually parting from the main body, and drifting away with
surface-currents to southern waters, there to be liquefied and re-united
to their parent sea.

The particular part of the Greenland coast to which the giant went in
his ramble is marked by tremendous cliffs descending perpendicularly
into the water.  These, at one part, are divided by a valley tilled with
a great glacier, which flows from the mountains of the interior with a
steep declivity to the sea, into which it thrusts its tongue, or extreme
end.  This mighty river of ice completely fills the valley from side to
side, being more than two miles in width and many hundred feet thick.
It seems as solid and motionless as the rocks that hem it in,
nevertheless the markings on the surface resemble the currents and
eddies of a stream which has been suddenly frozen in the act of flowing,
and if you were to watch it narrowly, day by day, and week by week, you
would perceive, by the changed position of objects on its surface, that
it does actually advance or flow towards the sea.  A further proof of
this advance is, that although the tongue is constantly shedding off
large icebergs, it is never much decreased in extent, being pushed out
continuously by the ice which is behind.  In fact, it is this pushing
process which causes the end of the tongue to shed its bergs, because,
when the point is thrust into deep water and floats, the motion of the
sea cracks the floating mass off from that pail which is still aground,
and lets it drift away.

Now it was to these ice-cliffs that the somewhat reckless giant betook
himself.  Although not well acquainted with that region, or fully alive
to the extent of the danger incurred, his knowledge was sufficient to
render him cautious in the selection of the position which should form
his outlook.

And a magnificent sight indeed presented itself when he took his stand
among the glittering pinnacles.  Far as the eye could reach, the sea lay
stretched in the sunshine, calm as a mill-pond, and sparkling with
ice-jewels of every shape and size.  An Arctic haze, dry and sunny,
seemed to float over all like golden gauze.  Not only was the sun
encircled by a beautiful halo, but also by those lovely lights of the
Arctic regions known as parhelia, or mock-suns.  Four of these made no
mean display in emulation of their great original.  On the horizon,
refraction caused the ice-floes and bergs to present endless variety of
fantastic forms, and in the immediate foreground--at the giant's feet--
tremendous precipices of ice went sheer down into the deep water, while,
away to the right, where a bay still retained its winter grasp of an
ice-field, could be seen, like white bee-hives, the temporary snow-huts
of these wandering Eskimos.

Well might the eye, as well as the head, of the so-called savage rise
upwards while he pondered the great mystery of the Maker of all!  As he
stood on the giddy ledge, rapt in contemplation, an event occurred which
was fitted to deepen the solemnity of his thoughts.  Not twenty yards
from the point on which he stood, a great ice-cliff--the size of an
average house--snapped off with a rending crash, and went thundering
down into the deep, which seemed to boil and heave with sentient emotion
as it received the mass, and swallowed it in a turmoil indescribable.

Chingatok sprang from his post and sought a safer but not less lofty
outlook, while the new-born berg, rising from the sea, swayed
majestically to and fro in its new-found cradle.

"It is not understandable," muttered the giant as he took up his new
position and gazed with feelings of awe upon the grand scene.  "I wonder
if the pale-faced men in the floating islands think much about these
things.  Perhaps they dwell in a land which is still more wonderful than
this, and hunt the walrus and the seal like us.  It is said they come
for nothing else but to see our land and find out what is in it.  Why
should I not go to see their land?  My kayak is large, though it has no
wings.  The land may be far off, but am I not strong?  They are
pale-faced; perhaps the reason is that they are starved.  That must be
so, else they would not leave their home.  I might bring some of the
poor creatures to this happy land of ours, where there is always plenty
to eat.  They might send messengers for their relations to come and
dwell with us.  I will speak to mother about that; she is wise!"

Like a dutiful son, the giant turned on his heel, descended the cliffs,
and went straight home to consult with his mother.



CHAPTER TWO.

UNEXPECTED MEETINGS, ALARMS, AND CONFIDENCES.

"Mother, I have been thinking," said Chingatok, as he crept into his hut
and sat down on a raised bench of moss.

"That is not news, my son; you think much.  You are not like other men.
They think little and eat much."

The stout little woman looked up through the smoke of her cooking-lamp
and smiled, but her big son was too much absorbed in his thoughts to
observe her pleasantry, so she continued the cooking of a walrus chop in
silence.

"The Kablunets are not to be seen, mother," resumed Chingatok.  "I have
looked for them every day for a long time, and begin to weary.  My
thought is now to launch my kayak when we come to open water, load it
with meat, take four spears and more lines than a strong hunter needs
for a whole season; then paddle away south to discover the land of the
Kablunets.  They must be poor; they may be starving.  I will guide them
to our home, and show them this land of plenty."

He paused abruptly, and looked at his mother with solemn anxiety, for he
was well aware that he had given her food for profound reflection.

We feel tempted here to repeat our remark about the strong resemblance
between different members of the human family, but refrain.

This untutored woman of the Arctic lands met her son's proposition with
the well-known reply of many civilised persons.

"Of what use would it be, my son?  No good can come of searching out
these poor lands.  You cannot benefit the miserable Kablunets.  Perhaps
they are savage and fierce; and you are sure to meet with dangers by the
way.  Worse--you may die!"

"Mother," returned Chingatok, "when the white bear stands up with his
claws above my head and his mouth a-gape, does my hand tremble or my
spear fail?"

"No, my son."

"Then why do you speak to me of danger and death?"

Toolooha was not gifted with argumentative powers.  She relapsed into
silence and lamp-smoke.

But her son was not to be so easily dissuaded.  He adopted a line of
reasoning which never failed.

"Mother," he said, sadly, "it may be that you are right, and I am of too
fearful a spirit to venture far away from you by myself; I will remain
here if you think me a coward."

"Don't say so, Chingatok.  You know what I think.  Go, if you must go,
but who will hunt for your poor old mother when you are gone?"

This was an appeal which the astute little woman knew to be very
powerful with her son.  She buried her head in the smoke again, and left
the question to simmer.

Chingatok was tender-hearted.  He said nothing, but, as usual, he
thought much, as he gazed in a contemplative manner at his oily parent,
and there is no saying to what lengths of self-sacrifice he would have
gone if he had not been aroused, and his thoughts scattered to the
winds, by a yell so tremendous that it might well have petrified him on
the spot.  But it did nothing of the kind.  It only caused him to drop
on his knees, dart through the tunnel like an eel, spring into the open
air like an electrified rabbit from its burrow, and stand up with a look
of blazing interrogation on his huge countenance.

The cry had been uttered by his bosom friend and former playmate
Oolichuk, who came running towards him with frantic gesticulations.

"The Kablunets!" he gasped, "the white-faces have come!--on a floating
island!--alive!--smoking!--it is all true!"

"Where?" demanded our giant, whose face blazed up at once.

"There!" cried Oolichuk, pointing seaward towards the ice-hummocks with
both hands, and glaring up at his friend.

Without another word Chingatok ran off in the direction pointed out,
followed hotly by his friend.

Oolichuk was a large and powerful man, but, his legs were remarkably
short.  His pace, compared with that of Chingatok, was as that of a
sparrow to an ostrich.  Nevertheless he kept up, for he was agile and
vigorous.

"Have you seen them--have you spoken?" asked the giant, abruptly.

"Yes, all the tribe was there."

"No one killed?"

"No, but terribly frightened; they made me run home to fetch you."

Chingatok increased his speed.  So did Oolichuk.

While they run, let us leap a little ahead of them, reader, and see what
had caused all the excitement.

The whole party had gone off that morning, with the exception of
Chingatok and his mother, to spear seals in a neighbouring bay, where
these animals had been discovered in great numbers.  Dogs and sledges
had been taken, because a successful hunt was expected, and the ice was
sufficiently firm.

The bay was very large.  At its distant southern extremity there rose a
great promontory which jutted far out into the sea.  While the men were
busy there making preparations to begin the hunt, Oblooria, Chingatok's
little sister, amused herself by mounting a hummock of ice about thirty
feet high.

When there, she chanced to look towards the promontory.  Instantly she
opened her eyes and mouth and uttered a squeal that brought her friends
running to her side.

Oolichuk was the first to reach her.  He had no need to ask questions.
Oblooria's gaze directed his, and there, coming round the promontory, he
beheld an object which had never before filled his wondering eyes.  It
was, apparently, a monstrous creature with a dark body and towering
wings, and a black thing in its middle, from which were vomited volumes
of smoke.

"Kablunets! white men!" he yelled.

"Kablunets!--huk! huk!" echoed the whole tribe, as they scrambled up the
ice-hill one after another.

And they were right.  A vessel of the pale-faces had penetrated these
northern solitudes, and was advancing swiftly before a light breeze
under sail and steam.

Despite the preparation their minds had received, and the fact that they
were out in search of these very people, this sudden appearance of them
filled most of the Eskimos with alarm--some of them with absolute
terror, insomuch that the term "pale-face" became most appropriate to
themselves.

"What shall we do?" exclaimed Akeetolik, one of the men.

"Fly!" cried Ivitchuk, another of the men, whose natural courage was not
high.

"No; let us stay and behold!" said Oolichuk, with a look of contempt at
his timid comrade.

"Yes, stay and see," said Eemerk sternly.

"But they will kill us," faltered the young woman, whom we have already
mentioned by the name of Tekkona.

"No--no one would kill _you_," said Eemerk gallantly; "they would only
carry you off and keep you."

While they conversed with eager, anxious looks, the steam yacht--for
such she was--advanced rapidly, threading her way among the ice-fields
and floes with graceful rapidity and ease, to the unutterable amazement
of the natives.  Although her sails were spread to catch the light
breeze, her chief motive power at the time was a screw-propeller.

"Yes, it must be alive," said Oolichuk to Akeetolik, with a look of
solemn awe.  "The white men do not paddle.  They could not lift paddles
big enough to move such a great oomiak," [see Note 1], "and the wind is
not strong; it could not blow them so fast.  See, the oomiak has a
tail--and wags it!"

"Oh! _do_ let us run away!" whispered the trembling Oblooria, as she
took shelter behind Tekkona.

"No, no," said the latter, who was brave as well as pretty, "we need not
fear.  Our men will take care of us."

"I wish that Chingatok was here!" whimpered poor little Oblooria,
nestling closer to Tekkona and grasping her tail, "he fears nothing and
nobody."

"Ay," assented Tekkona with a peculiar smile, "and is brave enough to
fight everything and everybody."

"Does Oblooria think that no one can fight but the giant?" whispered
Oolichuk, who stood nearest to the little maid.

He drew a knife made of bone from his boot, where it usually lay
concealed, and flourished it, with a broad grin.  The girl laughed,
blushed slightly, and, looking down, toyed with the sleeve of Tekkona's
fur coat.

Meanwhile the yacht drew near to the floe on which our Eskimos were
grouped.  The ice was cracked right across, leaving a lane of open water
about ten feet wide between its inner edge and the shore ice.  The
Eskimos stood on the land side of this crack, a hundred yards or so from
it.  On nearing the floe the strange vessel checked her speed.

"It moves its wings!" exclaimed Eemerk.

"And turns its side to us," said Akeetolik.

"And wags its tail no more," cried Oolichuk.

"Oh! do, _do_ let us run away," gasped Oblooria.

"No, no, we will not run," said Tekkona.

At that moment a white cloud burst from the side of the yacht.

"Hi! hee! huk!" shouted the whole tribe in amazement.

A crash followed which not only rattled like thunder among the
surrounding cliffs, but went like electric fire to the central marrow of
each Eskimo.  With a united yell of terror, they leaped three feet into
the air--more or less--turned about, and fled.  Tekkona, who was active
as a young deer, herself took the lead; and Oblooria, whose limbs
trembled so that she could hardly run, held on to Oolichuk, who
gallantly dragged her along.  The terror was increased by a prolonged
screech from the steam-whistle.  It was a wild scramble in sudden panic.
The Eskimos reached their sledges, harnessed their teams, left their
spears on the ice, cracked their whips, which caused the dogs to join in
the yelling chorus, and made for the land at a furious gallop.

But their fear began to evaporate in a few minutes, and Oolichuk was the
first to check his pace.

"Ho! stop," he cried.

Eemerk looked back, saw that they were not pursued, and pulled up.  The
others followed suit, and soon the fugitives were seen by those on board
the yacht grouped together and gazing intently at them from the top of
another ice-hummock.

The effect of the cannon-shot on board the yacht itself was somewhat
startling.  The gun had been loaded on the other side of the promontory
for the purpose of being fired if Eskimos were not visible on the coast
beyond, in order to attract them from the interior, if they should
chance to be there.  When, however, the natives were discovered on the
ice, the gun was, of course, unnecessary, and had been forgotten.  It
therefore burst upon the crew with a shock of surprise, and caused the
Captain, who was in the cabin at the moment, to shoot up from the
hatchway like a Jack-in-the-box.

"Who did that?" he demanded, looking round sternly.

The crew, who had been gazing intently at the natives, did not know.

"I really cannot tell, sir," said the chief mate, touching his cap.

Two strapping youths--one about sixteen, the other eighteen--leaned over
the side and paid no regard to the question; but it was obvious, from
the heaving motion of their shoulders, that they were not so much
absorbed in contemplation as they pretended to be.

"Come, Leo, Alf, you know something about this."

The Captain was a large powerful man of about forty, with bushy
iron-grey curls, a huge beard, and an aquiline nose.  The two youths
turned to him at once, and Leo, the eldest, said respectfully, "We did
not see it done, uncle, but--but we think--"

"Well, what do you think?"

At that moment a delicate-looking, slender lad, about twelve years of
age, with fair curly hair, and flashing blue eyes, stepped out from
behind the funnel, which had hitherto concealed him, and said boldly,
though blushingly--

"I did it, father."

"Ha! just like you; why did you do it? eh!"

"I can hardly tell, father," said the boy, endeavouring to choke a
laugh, "but the Eskimos looked so funny, and I--I had a box of matches
in my pocket, and--and--I thought a shot would make them look so very
much funnier, and--and--I was right!"

"Well, Benjamin, you may go below, and remain there till further
orders."

When Captain Vane called his son "Benjamin," he was seriously
displeased.  At other times he called him Benjy.

"Yes, father," replied the boy, with a very bad grace, and down he went
in a state of rebellious despair, for he was wildly anxious to witness
all that went on.

His despair was abated, however, when, in the course of a few minutes,
the yacht swung round so as to present her stern to the shore, and
remained in that position, enabling him to observe proceedings from the
cabin windows almost as well as if he had been on deck.  He was not
aware that his father, knowing his son's nature, and wishing to temper
discipline with mercy, had placed the vessel in that position for his
special benefit!

The difficulty now was, how to attract the natives, and inspire them
with confidence in the good intentions of their visitors.  In any case
this would have been a difficult matter, but the firing of that unlucky
gun had increased the difficulty tenfold.  When, however, Captain Vane
saw the natives cease their mad flight, and turn to gaze at the vessel,
his hopes revived, and he set about a series of ingenious efforts to
attain his end.

First of all, he sent a boat in charge of his two nephews, Leonard and
Alphonse Vandervell, to set up a small table on the ice, on which were
temptingly arranged various presents, consisting of knives, beads,
looking-glasses, and articles of clothing.  Having done this, they
retired, like wary anglers, to watch for a bite.  But the fish would not
rise, though they observed the proceedings with profound attention from
the distant hummock.  After waiting a couple of hours, the navigators
removed the table and left an Eskimo dog in its place, with a string of
blue beads tied round its neck.  But this bait also failed.

"Try something emblematic, uncle," suggested Leonard, the elder of the
brothers before mentioned.

"And get Benjy to manufacture it," said Alphonse.

As Benjy was possessed of the most fertile imagination on board, he was
released from punishment and brought on deck.  The result of his effort
of genius was the creation of a huge white calico flag, on which were
painted roughly the figure of a sailor and an Eskimo sitting on an
iceberg, with a kettle of soup between them.  On one side were a pair of
hands clasped together; on the other a sprig of heath, the only shrub
that could be seen on the shore.

"Splendid!" exclaimed Leo and Alf in the same breath, as they held the
flag up to view.

"You'll become a Royal Academician if you cultivate your talents,
Benjy," said the Captain, who was proud, as well as fond, of this his
only child.

The boy said nothing, but a pleased expression and a twinkle in his eyes
proved that he was susceptible to flattery, though not carried off his
legs by it.

The banner with the strange device was fixed to a pole which was erected
on an ice-hummock between the ship and the shore, and a bag containing
presents was hung at the foot of it.

Still these Eskimo fish would not bite, though they "rose" at the flag.

Oolichuk's curiosity had become so intense that he could not resist it.
He advanced alone, very warily, and looked at it, but did not dare to
touch it.  Soon he was joined by Eemerk and the others.  Seeing this,
Captain Vane sent to meet them an interpreter whom he had procured at
one of the Greenland settlements in passing.  Just as this man, whose
name was Anders, stepped into the boat alongside, it occurred to the
Eskimos that their leader should be sent for.  Oolichuk undertook to
fetch him; he ran back to the sledges, harnessed a small team, and set
off like the wind.  Thus it came to pass that Chingatok and his mother
were startled by a yell, as before mentioned.

Meanwhile Anders was put on the ice, and advanced alone and unarmed
towards the canal, or chasm, which separated the parties.  He carried a
small white flag and a bag containing presents.  Innocent-looking and
defenceless though he was, however, the Eskimos approached him with
hesitating and slow steps, regarding every motion of the interpreter
with suspicion, and frequently stooping to thrust their hands into their
boots, in which they all carried knives.

At last, when within hearing, Anders shouted a peaceful message, and
there was much hallooing and gesticulation among the natives, but
nothing comprehensible came of it.  After a time Anders thought he
recognised words of a dialect with which he was acquainted, and to his
satisfaction found that they understood him.

"Kakeite! kakeite!--come on, come on," he cried, holding up the present.

"Nakrie! nakrie!--no, no, go away--you want to kill us," answered the
doubtful natives.

Thereupon Anders protested that nothing was further from his thoughts,
that he was a man and a friend, and had a mother like themselves, and
that he wanted to please them.

At this Eemerk approached to the edge of the canal, and, drawing a knife
from his boot, said, "Go away!  I can kill you."

Nothing daunted, Anders said he was not afraid, and taking a good
English knife from his bag threw it across the canal.

Eemerk picked it up, and was so pleased that he exclaimed, "Heigh-yaw!
heigh-yaw!" joyously, and pulled his nose several times.  Anders,
understanding this to be a sign of friendship, immediately pulled his
own nose, smiled, and threw several trinkets and articles of clothing to
the other natives, who had by that time drawn together in a group, and
were chattering in great surprise at the things presented.  Ivitchuk was
perhaps the most excited among them.  He chanced to get hold of a round
hox, in the lid of which was a mirror.  On beholding himself looking at
himself, he made such an awful face that he dropt the glass and sprang
backward, tripping up poor Oblooria in the act, and tumbling over her.

This was greeted with a shout of laughter, and Anders, now believing
that friendly relations had been established, went to the boat for a
plank to bridge the chasm.  As Leo and Alf assisted him to carry the
plank, the natives again became grave and anxious.

"Stop!" shouted Eemerk, "you want to kill us.  What great creature is
that?  Does it come from the moon or the sun?  Does it eat fire and
smoke?"

"No, it is only a dead thing.  It is a wooden house."

"You lie!" cried the polite Eemerk, "it shakes its wings.  It vomits
fire and smoke.  It has a tail, and wags it."

While speaking he slowly retreated, for the plank was being placed in
position, and the other natives were showing symptoms of an intention to
fly.

Just then a shout was heard landwards.  Turning round they saw a
dog-sledge flying over the ice towards them, with Oolichuk flourishing
the long-lashed whip, and the huge form of their leader beside him.

In a few seconds they dashed up, and Chingatok sprang upon the ice.
Without a moment's hesitation he strode towards the plank and crossed
it.  Walking up to Anders he pulled his own nose.  The interpreter was
not slow to return the salutation, as he looked up at the giant with
surprise, not unmingled with awe.  In addition, he grasped his huge
hand, squeezed, and shook it.

Chingatok smiled blandly, and returned the squeeze so as to cause the
interpreter to wince.  Then, perceiving at once that he had got
possession of a key to the affections of the strangers, he offered to
shake hands with Leonard and his brother, stooping with regal urbanity
to them as he did so.  By this time the Captain and first mate, with
Benjy and several of the crew, were approaching.  Instead of exhibiting
fear, Chingatok advanced to meet them, and shook hands all round.  He
gazed at Captain Vane with a look of admiration which was not at first
quite accountable, until he laid his hand gently on the Captain's
magnificent beard, and stroked it.

The Captain laughed, and again grasped the hand of the Eskimo.  They
both squeezed, but neither could make the other wince, for Captain Vane
was remarkably powerful, though comparatively short of limb.

"Well, you _are_ a good fellow in every way," exclaimed the Captain.

"Heigh, yah!" returned Chingatok, who no doubt meant to be
complimentary, though we confess our inability to translate.  It was
obvious that two sympathetic souls had met.

"Come across," shouted Chingatok, turning abruptly to his companions,
who had been gazing at his proceedings in open-mouthed wonder.

The whole tribe at once obeyed the order, and in a few minutes they were
in the seventh heaven of delight and good-will, receiving gifts and
handshakings, each pulling his own nose frequently by way of expressing
satisfaction or friendship, and otherwise exchanging compliments with
the no less amiable and gratified crew of the steam yacht _Whitebear_.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Note.  The oomiak is the open boat of skin used by Eskimo _women_, and
is capable of holding several persons.  The kayak, or man's canoe, holds
only one.



CHAPTER THREE.

SHOWS HOW THE ESKIMOS WERE ENTERTAINED BY THE WHITE MEN.

The _Whitebear_ steam yacht, owned and commanded by Captain Jacob Vane,
had sailed from England, and was bound for the North Pole.

"I'll find it--I'm bound to find it," was the Captain's usual mode of
expressing himself to his intimates on the subject, "if there's a North
Pole in the world at all, and my nephews Leo and Alf will help me.
Leo's a doctor, _almost_, and Alf's a scientific Jack-of-all-trades, so
we can't fail.  I'll take my boy Benjy for the benefit of his health,
and see if we don't bring home a chip o' the Pole big enough to set up
beside Cleopatra's Needle on the Thames embankment."

There was tremendous energy in Captain Vane, and indomitable resolution;
but energy and resolution cannot achieve all things.  There are other
factors in the life of man which help to mould his destiny.

Short and sad and terrible--ay, we might even say tremendous--was the
_Whitebear's_ wild career.

Up to the time of her meeting with the Eskimos, all had gone well.  Fair
weather and favouring winds had blown her across the Atlantic.  Sunshine
and success had received her, as it were, in the Arctic regions.  The
sea was unusually free of ice.  Upernavik, the last of the Greenland
settlements touched at, was reached early in the season, and the native
interpreter Anders secured.  The dreaded "middle passage," near the head
of Baffin's Bay, was made in the remarkably short space of fifty hours,
and, passing Cape York into the North Water, they entered Smith's Sound
without having received more than a passing bump--an Arctic kiss as it
were--from the Polar ice.

In Smith's Sound fortune still favoured them.  These resolute intending
discoverers of the North Pole passed in succession the various
"farthests" of previous explorers, and the stout brothers Vandervell,
with their cousin Benjy Vane, gazed eagerly over the bulwarks at the
swiftly-passing headlands, while the Captain pointed out the places of
interest, and kept up a running commentary on the brave deeds and high
aspirations of such well-known men as Frobisher, Davis, Hudson, Ross,
Parry, Franklin, Kane, McClure, Rae, McClintock, Hayes, Hall, Nares,
Markham, and all the other heroes of Arctic story.

It was an era in the career of those three youths that stood out bright
and fresh--never to be forgotten--this first burst of the realities of
the Arctic world on minds which had been previously well informed by
books.  The climax was reached on the day when the Eskimos of the far
north were met with.

But from that time a change took place in their experience.  Fortune
seemed to frown from that memorable day.  We say "seemed," because
knitted brows do not always or necessarily indicate what is meant by a
frown.

After the first fears of the Eskimos had been allayed, a party of them
were invited to go on board the ship.  They accepted the invitation and
went, headed by Chingatok.

That noble savage required no persuasion.  From the first he had shown
himself to be utterly devoid of fear.  He felt that the grand craving of
his nature--a thirst for knowledge--was about to be gratified, and that
would have encouraged him to risk anything, even if he had been much
less of a hero than he was.

But if fear had no influence over our giant, the same cannot be said of
his companions.  Oolichuk, indeed, was almost as bold, though he
exhibited a considerable amount of caution in his looks and movements;
but Eemerk, and one or two of his friends, betrayed their craven spirits
in frequent startled looks and changing colour.  Ivitchuk was a strange
compound of nervousness and courage, while Akeetolik appeared to have
lost the power of expressing every feeling but one--that of blank
amazement.  Indeed, surprise at what they saw on board the steam yacht
was the predominant feeling amongst these children of nature.  Their
eyebrows seemed to have gone up and fixed themselves in the middle of
their foreheads, and their eyes and mouths to have opened wide
permanently.  None of the women accepted the invitation to go aboard
except Tekkona, and Oblooria followed her, not because she was
courageous, but because she seemed to cling to the stronger nature as a
protection from undefined and mysterious dangers.

"Tell them," said Captain Vane to Anders, the Eskimo interpreter, "that
these are the machines that drive the ship along when there is no wind."

He pointed down the hatchway, where the complication of rods and cranks
glistened in the hold.

"Huk!" exclaimed the Eskimos.  They sometimes exclaimed Hi! ho! hoy! and
hah! as things were pointed out to them, but did not venture on language
more intelligible at first.

"Let 'em hear the steam-whistle," suggested the mate.

Before the Captain could countermand the order, Benjy had touched the
handle and let off a short, sharp _skirl_.  The effect on the natives
was powerful.

They leaped, with a simultaneous yell, at least a foot off the deck,
with the exception of Chingatok, though even he was visibly startled,
while Oblooria seized Tekkona round the waist, and buried her face in
her friend's jacket.

A brief explanation soon restored them to equanimity, and they were
about to pass on to some other object of interest, when both the
steam-whistle and the escape-valve were suddenly opened to their full
extent, and there issued from the engine a hissing yell so prolonged and
deafening that even the Captain's angry shout was not heard.

A yard at least was the leap into the air made by the weakest of the
Eskimos--except our giant, who seemed, however, to shrink into himself,
while he grasped his knife and looked cautiously round, as if to guard
himself from any foe that might appear.  Eemerk fairly turned and fled
to the stern of the yacht, over which he would certainly have plunged
had he not been forcibly restrained by two stout seamen.  The others,
trembling violently, stood still, because they knew not what to do, and
poor Oblooria fell flat on the deck, catching Tekkona by the tail, and
pulling her down beside her.

"You scoundrel!" exclaimed the Captain, when the din ceased, "I--I--go
down, sir, to--"

"Oh! father, don't be hard on me," pleaded Benjy, with a gleefully
horrified look, "I really could _not_ resist it.  The--the temptation
was too strong!"

"The temptation to give you a rope's-ending is almost too strong for
_me_, Benjamin," returned the Captain sternly, but there was a twinkle
in his eye notwithstanding, as he turned to explain to Chingatok that
his son had, by way of jest, allowed part of the mighty Power imprisoned
in the machinery to escape.

The Eskimo received the explanation with dignified gravity, and a faint
smile played on his lips as he glanced approvingly at Benjy, for he
loved a jest, and was keenly alive to a touch of humour.

"What power is imprisoned in the machinery?" asked our Eskimo through
the interpreter.

"What power?" repeated the Captain with a puzzled look, "why, it's
boiling water--steam."  Here he tried to give a clear account of the
nature and power and application of steam, but, not being gifted with
capacity for lucid explanation, and the mind of Anders being
unaccustomed to such matters, the result was that the brain of Chingatok
was filled with ideas that were fitted rather to amaze than to instruct
him.

After making the tour of the vessel, the party again passed the engine
hatch.  Chingatok touched the interpreter quietly, and said in a low,
grave tone, "Tell Blackbeard," (thus he styled the Captain), "to let the
Power yell again!"

Anders glanced up in the giant's grave countenance with a look of amused
surprise.  He understood him, and whispered to the Captain, who smiled
intelligently, and, turning to his son, said--

"Do it again, Benjy.  Give it 'em strong."

Never before did that lad obey his father with such joyous alacrity.  In
another instant the whistle shrieked, and the escape-valve hissed ten
times more furiously than before.  Up went the Eskimo--three feet or
more--as if in convulsions, and away went Eemerk to the stern, over
which he dived, swam to the floe, leaped on his sledge, cracked his
whip, and made for home on the wings of terror.  Doubtless an evil
conscience helped his cowardice.

Meanwhile Chingatok laughed, despite his struggles to be grave.  This
revealed the trick to some of his quick-witted and humour-loving
companions, who at once burst into loud laughter.  Even Oblooria
dismissed her fears and smiled.  In this restored condition they were
taken down to the cabin and fed sumptuously.

That night, as Chingatok sat beside his mother, busy with a seal's rib,
he gradually revealed to her the wonders he had seen.

"The white men are very wise, mother."

"So you have said four times, my son."

"But you cannot understand it."

"But my son can make me understand," said Toolooha, helping the amiable
giant to a second rib.

Chingatok gazed at his little mother with a look of solemnity that
evidently perplexed her.  She became restless under it, and wiped her
forehead uneasily with the flap at the end of her tail.  The youth
seemed about to speak, but he only sighed and addressed himself to the
second rib, over which he continued to gaze while he masticated.

"My thoughts are big, mother," he said, laying down the bare bone.

"That may well be, for so is your head, my son," she replied, gently.

"I know not how to begin, mother."

"Another rib may open your lips, perhaps," suggested the old woman,
softly.

"True; give me one," said Chingatok.

The third rib seemed to have the desired effect, for, while busy with
it, he began to give his parent a graphic account of the yacht and its
crew, and it was really interesting to note how correctly he described
all that he understood of what he had seen.  But some of the things he
had partly failed to comprehend, and about these he was vague.

"And they have a--a Power, mother, shut up in a hard thing, so that it
can't get out unless they let it, and it drives the big canoe through
the water.  It is very strong--terrible!"

"Is it a devil?" asked Toolooha.

"No, it is not alive.  It is dead.  It is _that_," he pointed with
emphasis to a pot hanging over the lamp out of which a little steam was
issuing, and looked at his mother with awful solemnity.  She returned
the look with something of incredulity.

"Yes, mother, the Power is not a beast.  It lives not, yet it drives the
white man's canoe, which is as big as a little iceberg, and it whistles;
it shrieks; it yells!"

A slightly sorrowful look rested for a moment on Toolooha's benign
countenance.  It was evident that she suspected her son either of
derangement, or having forsaken the paths of truth.  But it passed like
a summer cloud.

"Tell me more," she said, laying her hand affectionately on the huge arm
of Chingatok, who had fallen into a contemplative mood, and, with hands
clasped over one knee, sat gazing upwards.

Before he could reply the heart of Toolooha was made to bound by a
shriek more terrible than she had ever before heard or imagined.

Chingatok caught her by the wrist, held up a finger as if to impose
silence, smiled brightly, and listened.

Again the shriek was repeated with prolonged power.

"Tell me, my son," gasped Toolooha, "is Oblooria--are the people safe?
Why came you to me alone?"

"The little sister and the people are safe.  I came alone to prevent
your being taken by surprise.  Did I not say that it could shriek and
yell?  This is the white man's big canoe."

Dropping the old woman's hand as he spoke, Chingatok darted into the
open air with the agility of a Polar bear, and Toolooha followed with
the speed of an Arctic hare.



CHAPTER FOUR.

A CATASTROPHE AND A BOLD DECISION.

Two days after her arrival at the temporary residence of the northern
Eskimos, the steam yacht _Whitebear_, while close to the shore, was
beset by ice, so that she could neither advance nor retreat.
Everywhere, as far as the eye could reach, the sea was covered with
hummocks and bergs and fields of ice, so closely packed that there was
not a piece of open water to be seen, with the exception of one small
basin a few yards ahead of the lead or lane of water in which the vessel
had been imprisoned.

"No chance of escaping from this, I fear, for a long time," said Alf
Vandervell to his brother, as they stood near the wheel, looking at the
desolate prospect.

"It seems quite hopeless," said Leo, with, however, a look of confidence
that ill accorded with his words.

"I do believe we are frozen in for the winter," said Benjy Vane, coming
up at the moment.

"There speaks ignorance," said the Captain, whose head appeared at the
cabin hatchway.  "If any of you had been in these regions before, you
would have learned that nothing is so uncertain as the action of pack
ice.  At one time you may be hard and fast, so that you couldn't move an
inch.  A few hours after, the set of the currents may loosen the pack,
and open up lanes of water through which you may easily make your
escape.  Sometimes it opens up so as to leave almost a clear sea in a
few hours."

"But it is pretty tight packed just now, father, and looks wintry-like,
doesn't it?" said Benjy in a desponding tone.

"Looks! boy, ay, but things are not what they seem hereaway.  You saw
four mock-suns round the real one yesterday, didn't you? and the day
before you saw icebergs floating in the air, eh?"

"True, father, but these appearances were deceptive, whereas this ice,
which looks so tightly packed, is a reality."

"That is so, lad, but it is not set fast for the winter, though it looks
like it.  Well, doctor," added the Captain, turning towards a tall
cadaverous man who came on deck just then with the air and tread of an
invalid, "how goes it with you?  Better, I hope?"

He asked this with kindly interest as he laid his strong hand on the
sick man's shoulder; but the doctor shook his head and smiled sadly.

"It is a great misfortune to an expedition, Captain, when the doctor
himself falls sick," he said, sitting down on the skylight with a sigh.

"Come, come, cheer up, doctor," returned the Captain, heartily, "don't
be cast down; we'll all turn doctors for the occasion, and nurse you
well in spite of yourself."

"I'll keep up all heart, Captain, you may depend on't, as long as two of
my bones will stick together, but--well, to change the subject; what are
you going to do now?"

"Just all that can be done in the circumstances," replied the Captain.
"You see, we cannot advance over ice either with sail or steam, but
there's a basin just ahead which seems a little more secure than that in
which we lie.  I'll try to get into it.  There is nothing but a neck of
ice between us and it, which I think I could cut by charging in under
full steam, and there seems a faint gleam of something far ahead, which
encourages me.  Tell the steward to fetch my glasses, Benjy."

"Butterface!" shouted the boy.

"Yis, massa."

"Fetch the Captain's glasses, please."

"Yis, massa."

A pair of large binoculars were brought up by a huge negro, whose name
was pre-eminently unsuggestive of his appearance.

After a long steady gaze at the horizon, the Captain shut up the glass
with an air of determination, and ordered the engineer to get up full
steam, and the crew to be ready with the ice-poles.

There was a large berg at the extremity of the lakelet of open water
into which Captain Vane wished to break.  It was necessary to keep well
out of the way of that berg.  The Captain trusted chiefly to his screw,
but got out the ice-poles in case they should be required.

When all the men were stationed, the order was given to go ahead full
steam.  The gallant little yacht charged the neck of ice like a living
creature, hit it fair, cut right through, and scattered the fragments
right and left as she sailed majestically into the lakelet beyond.  The
shock was severe, but no harm was done, everything on board having been
made as strong as possible, and of the very best material, for a voyage
in ice-laden seas.

An unforeseen event followed, however, which ended in a series of most
terrible catastrophes.  The neck of ice through which they had broken
had acted as a check on the pressure of the great body of the floe, and
it was no sooner removed than the heavy mass began to close in with slow
but irresistible power, compelling the little vessel to steam close up
to the iceberg--so close that some of the upper parts actually overhung
the deck.

They were slowly forced into this dangerous position.  With breathless
anxiety the Captain and crew watched the apparently gentle, but really
tremendous grinding of the ice against the vessel's side.  Even the
youngest on board could realise the danger.  No one moved, for nothing
whatever could be done.

"Everything depends, under God, on the ice easing off before we are
crushed," said the Captain.

As he spoke, the timbers of the yacht seemed to groan under the
pressure; then there was a succession of loud cracks, and the vessel was
thrust bodily up the sloping sides of the berg.  While in this position,
with the bow high and dry, a mass of ice was forced against the
stern-post, and the screw-propeller was snapped off as if it had been
made of glass.

Poor Captain Vane's heart sank as if he had received his death-blow, for
he knew that the yacht was now, even in the event of escaping, reduced
to an ordinary vessel dependent on its sails.  The shock seemed to have
shaken the berg itself, for at that moment a crashing sound was heard
overhead.  The terror-stricken crew looked up, and for one moment a
pinnacle like a church spire was seen to flash through the air right
above them.  It fell with an indescribable roar close alongside,
deluging the decks with water.  There was a momentary sigh of relief,
which, however, was chased away by a succession of falling masses,
varying from a pound to a ton in weight, which came down on the deck
like cannon-shots, breaking the topmasts, and cutting to pieces much of
the rigging.  Strange to say, none of the men were seriously injured,
though many received bruises more or less severe.

During this brief but thrilling period, the brothers Vandervell and
Benjy Vane crouched close together beside the port bulwarks, partially
screened from the falling ice by the mizzen shrouds.  The Captain stood
on the quarter-deck, quite exposed, and apparently unconscious of
danger, the picture of despair.

"It can't last long," sighed poor Benjy, looking solemnly up at the vast
mass of the bluish-white berg, which hung above them as if ready to
fall.

Presently the pressure ceased, then the ice eased off, and in a few
minutes the _Whitebear_ slid back into the sea, a pitiable wreck!  Now
had come the time for action.

"Out poles, my lads, and shove her off the berg!" was the sharp order.

Every one strained as if for life at the ice-poles, and slowly forced
the yacht away from the dreaded berg.  It mattered not that they were
forcing her towards a rocky shore.  Any fate would be better than being
crushed under a mountain of ice.

But the danger was not yet past.  No sooner had they cleared the berg,
and escaped from that form of destruction, than the ice began again to
close in, and this time the vessel was "nipped" with such severity, that
some of her principal timbers gave way.  Finally, her back was broken,
and the bottom forced in.

"So," exclaimed the Captain, with a look of profound grief, "our voyage
in the _Whitebear_, lads, has come to an end.  All that we can do now is
to get the boats and provisions, and as much of the cargo as we can,
safe on the ice.  And sharp's the word, for when the floes ease off, the
poor little yacht will certainly go to the bottom."

"No, massa," said the negro steward, stepping on deck at that moment,
"we can't go to de bottom, cause we's dare a-ready!"

"What d'ye mean, Butterface?"

"Jus' what me say," replied the steward, with a look of calm
resignation.  "I's bin b'low, an' seed de rocks stickin' troo de bottom.
Der's one de size ob a jolly-boat's bow comed right troo my pantry, an'
knock all de crockery to smash, an' de best teapot, he's so flat he
wouldn't know hisself in a lookin'-glass."

It turned out to be as Butterface said.  The pack had actually thrust
the little vessel on a shoal, which extended out from the headland off
which the catastrophe occurred, and there was therefore no fear of her
sinking.

"Well, we've reason to be thankful for that, at all events," said the
Captain, with an attempt to look cheerful; "come, lads, let's to work.
Whatever our future course is to be, our first business is to get the
boats and cargo out of danger."

With tremendous energy--because action brought relief to their
overstrained feelings--the crew of the ill-fated yacht set to work to
haul the boats upon the grounded ice.  The tide was falling, so that a
great part of the most valuable part of the cargo was placed in security
before the rising tide interrupted the work.

This was fortunate, for, when the water reached a certain point the ice
began to move, and the poor little vessel was so twisted about that they
dared not venture on board of her.

That night--if we may call it night in a region where the sun never
quite went down--the party encamped on the north-western coast of
Greenland, in the lee of a huge cliff just beyond which the tongue of a
mighty glacier dipped into the sea.  For convenience the party divided
into two, with a blazing fire for each, round which the castaways
circled, conversing in subdued, sad tones while supper was being
prepared.

It was a solemn occasion, and a scene of indescribable grandeur, with
the almost eternal glacier of Greenland--the great Humboldt glacier--
shedding its bergs into the dark blue sea, the waters of which had by
that time been partially cleared to the northward.  On the left was the
weird pack and its thousand grotesque forms, with the wreck in its iron
grasp; on the right the perpendicular cliffs, and the bright sky over
all, with the smoke of the campfires rising into it from the foreground.

"Now, my friends," said Captain Vane to the crew when assembled after
supper, "I am no longer your commander, for my vessel is a wreck, but as
I suppose you still regard me as your leader, I assemble you here for
the purpose of considering our position, and deciding on what is best to
be done."

Here the Captain said, among other things, it was his opinion that the
_Whitebear_ was damaged beyond the possibility of repair, that their
only chance of escape lay in the boats, and that the distance between
the place on which they stood and Upernavik, although great, was not
beyond the reach of resolute men.

"Before going further, or expressing a decided opinion," he added, "I
would hear what the officers have to say on this subject.  Let the first
mate speak."

"It's my opinion," said the mate, "that there's only one thing to be
done, namely, to start for home as soon and as fast as we can.  We have
good boats, plenty of provisions, and are all stout and healthy,
excepting our doctor, whom we will take good care of, and expect to do
no rough work."

"Thanks, mate," said the doctor with a laugh, "I think that, at all
events, I shall keep well enough to physic you if you get ill."

"Are you willing to take charge of the party in the event of my deciding
to remain here?" asked the Captain of the mate.

"Certainly, sir," he replied, with a look of slight surprise.  "You know
I am quite able to do so.  The second mate, too, is as able as I am.
For that matter, most of the men, I think, would find little difficulty
in navigating a boat to Upernavik."

"That is well," returned the Captain, "because I do not intend to return
with you."

"Not return!" exclaimed the doctor; "surely you don't mean to winter
here."

"No, not here, but further north," replied the Captain, with a smile
which most of the party returned, for they thought he was jesting.

Benjy Vane, however, did not think so.  A gleeful look of triumph caused
his face, as it were, to sparkle, and he said, eagerly--

"We'll winter at the North Pole, father, eh?"

This was greeted with a general laugh.

"But seriously, uncle, what do you mean to do?" asked Leonard
Vandervell, who, with his brother, was not unhopeful that the Captain
meditated something desperate.

"Benjy is not far off the mark.  I intend to winter at the Pole, or as
near to it as I can manage to get."

"My dear Captain Vane," said the doctor, with an anxious look, "you
cannot really mean what you say.  You must be jesting, or mad."

"Well, as to madness," returned the Captain with a peculiar smile, "you
ought to know best, for it's a perquisite of your cloth to pronounce
people mad or sane, though some of yourselves are as mad as the worst of
us; but in regard to jesting, nothing, I assure you, is further from my
mind.  Listen!"

He rose from the box which had formed his seat, and looked earnestly
round on his men.  As he stood there, erect, tall, square, powerful,
with legs firmly planted, and apart, as if to guard against a lurch of
his ship, with his bronzed face flushed, and his dark eye flashing, they
all understood that their leader's mind was made up, and that what he
had resolved upon, he would certainly attempt to carry out.

"Listen," he repeated; "it was my purpose on leaving England, as you all
know, to sail north as far as the ice would let me; to winter where we
should stick fast, and organise an over-ice, or overland journey to the
Pole with all the appliances of recent scientific discovery, and all the
advantages of knowledge acquired by former explorers.  It has pleased
God to destroy my ship, but my life and my hopes are spared.  So are my
stores and scientific instruments.  I intend, therefore, to carry out my
original purpose.  I believe that former explorers have erred in some
points of their procedure.  These errors I shall steer clear of.  Former
travellers have ignored some facts, and despised some appliances.  These
facts I will recognise; these appliances I will utilise.  With a steam
yacht, you, my friends, who have shown so much enthusiasm and courage up
to this point, would have been of the utmost service to me.  As a party
in boats, or on foot, you would only hamper my movements.  I mean to
prosecute this enterprise almost alone.  I shall join myself to the
Eskimos."

He paused at this point as if in meditation.  Benjy, whose eyes and
mouth had been gradually opening to their widest, almost gasped with
astonishment as he glanced at his cousins, whose expressive countenances
were somewhat similarly affected.

"I have had some long talks," continued the Captain, "with that big
Eskimo Chingatok, through our interpreter, and from what he says I
believe my chances of success are considerable.  I am all the more
confirmed in this resolution because of the readiness and ability of my
first mate to guide you out of the Arctic regions, and your willingness
to trust him.  Anders has agreed to go with me as interpreter, and now,
all I want is one other man, because--"

"Put me down, father," cried Benjy, in a burst of excitement--"_I'm_
your man."

"Hush, lad," said the Captain with a little smile, "of course I shall
take you with me and also your two cousins, but I want one other man to
complete the party--but he must be a heartily willing man.  Who will
volunteer?"

There was silence for a few moments.  It was broken by the doctor.

"I for one won't volunteer," he said, "for I'm too much shaken by this
troublesome illness to think of such an expedition.  If I were well it
might be otherwise, but perhaps some of the others will offer."

"You can't expect me to do so," said the mate, "for I've got to guide
our party home, as agreed on; besides, under any circumstances, I would
not join you, for it is simple madness.  You'll forgive me, Captain.  I
mean no disrespect, but I have sailed many years to these seas, and I
know from experience that what you propose is beyond the power of man to
accomplish."

"Experience!" repeated the Captain, quickly.  "Has your experience
extended further north than this point?"

"No, sir, I have not been further north than this--nobody has.  It is
beyond the utmost limit yet reached, so far as I know."

"Well, then, you cannot speak from _experience_ about what I propose,"
said the Captain, turning away.  "Come, lads, I have no wish to
constrain you, I merely give one of you the chance."

Still no one came forward.  Every man of the crew of the _Whitebear_ had
had more or less personal acquaintance with arctic travel and danger.
They would have followed Captain Vane anywhere in the yacht, but
evidently they had no taste for what he was about to undertake.

At last one stepped to the front.  It was Butterface, the steward.  This
intensely black negro was a bulky, powerful man, with a modest spirit
and a strange disbelief in his own capacities, though, in truth, these
were very considerable.  He came forward, stooping slightly, and rubbing
his hands in a deprecating manner.

"'Scuse me, massa Capting.  P'r'aps it bery presumsheeous in dis yer
chile for to speak afore his betters, but as no oder man 'pears to want
to volunteer, I's willin' to go in an' win.  Ob course I ain't a man--
on'y a nigger, but I's a willin' nigger, an' kin do a few small tings--
cook de grub, wash up de cups an' sarsers, pull a oar, clean yer boots,
fight de Eskimos if you wants me to, an' ginrally to scrimmage around
a'most anything.  Moreover, I eats no more dan a babby--'sep wen I's
hungry--an' I'll foller you, massa, troo tick and tin--to de Nort Pole,
or de Sout Pole, or de East Pole, or de West Pole--or any oder pole
wotsomediver--all de same to Butterface, s'long's you'll let 'im stick
by you."

The crew could not help giving the negro a cheer as he finished this
loyal speech, and the Captain, although he would have preferred one of
the other men, gladly accepted his services.

A few days later the boats were ready and provisioned; adieus were said,
hats and handkerchiefs waved, and soon after Captain Vane and his son
and two nephews, with Anders and Butterface, were left to fight their
battles alone, on the margin of an unexplored, mysterious Polar sea.



CHAPTER FIVE.

LEFT TO THEIR FATE.

There are times, probably, in all conditions of life, when men feel a
species of desolate sadness creeping over their spirits, which they find
it hard to shake off or subdue.  Such a time arrived to our Arctic
adventurers the night after they had parted from the crew of the wrecked
_Whitebear_.  Nearly everything around, and much within, them was
calculated to foster that feeling.

They were seated on the rocky point on the extremity of which their
yacht had been driven.  Behind them were the deep ravines, broad
valleys, black beetling cliffs, grand mountains, stupendous glaciers,
and dreary desolation of Greenland.  To right and left, and in front of
them, lay the chaotic ice-pack of the Arctic sea, with lanes and pools
of water visible here and there like lines and spots of ink.  Icebergs
innumerable rose against the sky, which at the time was entirely covered
with grey and gloomy clouds.  Gusts of wind swept over the frozen waste
now and then, as if a squall which had recently passed, were sighing at
the thought of leaving anything undestroyed behind it.  When we add to
this, that the wanderers were thinking of the comrades who had just left
them--the last link, as it were, with the civilised world from which
they were self-exiled, of the unknown dangers and difficulties that lay
before them, and of the all but forlorn hope they had undertaken, there
need be little wonder that for some time they all looked rather grave,
and were disposed to silence.

But life is made up of opposites, light and shade, hard and soft, hot
and cold, sweet and sour, for the purpose, no doubt, of placing man
between two moral battledores so as to drive the weak and erring
shuttlecock of his will right and left, and thus keep it in the middle
course of rectitude.  No sooner had our adventurers sunk to the
profoundest depths of gloom, than the battledore of brighter influences
began to play upon them.  It did not, however, achieve the end at once.

"I'm in the lowest, bluest, dreariest, grumpiest, and most utterly
miserable state of mind I ever was in in all my life," said poor little
Benjy Vane, thrusting his hands into his pockets, sitting down on a
rock, and gazing round on the waste wilderness, which had only just
ceased howling, the very personification of despair.

"So's I, massa," said Butterface, looking up from a compound of wet coal
and driftwood which he had been vainly trying to coax into a flame for
cooking purposes; "I's most 'orribly miserable!"

There was a beaming grin on the negro's visage that gave the lie direct
to his words.

"That's always the way with you, Benjy," said the Captain, "either
bubblin' over with jollity an' mischief, or down in the deepest blues."

"Blues! father," cried the boy, "don't talk of blues--it's the blacks
I'm in, the very blackest of blacks."

"Ha! jus' like me," muttered Butterface, sticking out his thick lips at
the unwilling fire, and giving a blow that any grampus might have
envied.

The result was that a column of almost solid smoke, which had been for
some time rising thicker and thicker from the coals, burst into a bright
flame.  This was the first of the sweet influences before referred to.

"Mind your wool, Flatnose," cried Benjy, as the negro drew quickly back.

It may be remarked here that the mysterious bond of sympathy which
united the spirits of Benjy Vane and the black steward found expression
in kindly respect on the part of the man, and in various eccentric
courses on the part of the boy--among others, in a habit of patting him
on the back, and giving him a choice selection of impromptu names, such
as Black-mug, Yellow-eyes, Square-jaws, and the like.

"What have you got in the kettle?" asked Leo Vandervell, who came up
with some dry driftwood at the moment.

"Bubble-um-squeak," replied the cook.

"What sort o' squeak is that?" asked Leo, as he bent his tall strong
frame over the fire to investigate the contents of the kettle.

"What am it, massa?  Why, it am a bit o' salt pork, an' a bit o' dat
bear you shooted troo de nose yes'rday, an' a junk o' walrus, an' two
puffins, an' some injin corn, a leetil pepper, an' a leetil salt."

"Good, that sounds well," said Leo.  "I'll go fetch you some more
driftwood, for it'll take a deal of boiling, that will, to make it
eatable."

The driftwood referred to was merely some pieces of the yacht which had
been cast ashore by the hurly-burly of ice and water that had occurred
during the last tide.  No other species of driftwood was to be found on
that coast, for the neighbouring region was utterly destitute of trees.

"Where has Alf gone to?" asked the Captain, as Leo was moving away.

"Oh, he's looking for plants and shells, as usual," answered Leo, with a
smile.  "You know his heart is set upon these things."

"He'll have to set his heart on helping wi' the cargo after supper,"
said the Captain, drawing a small notebook and pencil from his pocket.

A few more of the sweet and reviving influences of life now began to
circle round the wanderers.  Among them was the savoury odour that arose
from the pot of bubble-um-squeak, also the improved appearance of the
sky.

It was night, almost midnight, nevertheless the sun was blazing in the
heavens, and as the storm-clouds had rolled away like a dark curtain,
his cheering rays were by that time gilding the icebergs, and rendering
the land-cliffs ruddily.  The travellers had enjoyed perpetual daylight
for several weeks already, and at that high latitude they could count on
many more to come.  By the time supper was ready, the depressing
influences were gone, and the spirits of all had recovered their wonted
tone.  Indeed it was not to the discredit of the party that they were so
much cast down on that occasion, for the parting, perhaps for ever, from
the friends with whom they had hitherto voyaged, had much more to do
with their sadness than surrounding circumstances or future trials.

"What plan do you intend to follow out, uncle?" asked Alphonse
Vandervell, as they sat at supper that night round the kettle.

"That depends on many things, lad," replied the Captain, laying down his
spoon, and leaning his back against a convenient rock.  "If the ice
moves off, I shall adopt one course; if it holds fast I shall try
another.  Then, if you insist on gathering and carrying along with you
such pocket-loads of specimens, plants, rocks, etcetera, as you've
brought in this evening, I'll have to build a sort of Noah's ark, or
omnibus on sledge-runners, to carry them."

"And suppose I don't insist on carrying these things, what then?"

"Well," replied the Captain, "in that case I would--well, let me see--a
little more of the bubble, Benjy."

"Wouldn't you rather some of the squeak?" asked the boy.

"Both, lad, both--some of everything.  Well, as I was saying--and you've
a right to know what's running in my head, seeing that you have to help
me carry out the plans--I'll give you a rough notion of 'em."

The Captain became more serious as he explained his plans.  "The
Eskimos, you know," he continued, "have gone by what I may call the
shore ice, two days' journey in advance of this spot, taking our dogs
along with them.  It was my intention to have proceeded to the same
point in our yacht, and there, if the sea was open, to have taken on
board that magnificent Eskimo giant, Chingatok, with his family, and
steered away due north.  In the event of the pack being impassable, I
had intended to have laid the yacht up in some safe harbour; hunted and
fished until we had a stock of dried and salted provisions, enough to
last us two years, and then to have started northward in sledges, under
the guidance of Chingatok, with a few picked men, leaving the rest and
the yacht in charge of the mate.  The wreck of the _Whitebear_ has,
however, forced me to modify these plans.  I shall now secure as much of
our cargo as we have been able to save, and leave it here _en cache_--"

"What sort of cash is that, father?" asked Benjy.

"You are the best linguist among us, Leo, tell him," said the Captain,
turning to his nephew.

"`_En cache_' is French for `in hiding,'" returned Leo, with a laugh.

"Why do you speak French to Englishmen, father?" said Benjy in a
pathetic tone, but with a pert look.

"'Cause the expression is a common one on this side the Atlantic, lad,
and you ought to know it.  Now, don't interrupt me again.  Well, having
placed the cargo in security," ("_En cache_," muttered Benjy with a
glance at Butterface.) "I shall rig up the sledges brought from England,
load them with what we require, and follow up the Eskimos.  You're sure,
Anders, that you understood Chingatok's description of the place?"

The interpreter declared that he was quite sure.

"After that," resumed the Captain, "I'll act according to the
information the said Eskimos can give me.  D'ye know, I have a strong
suspicion that our Arctic giant Chingatok is a philosopher, if I may
judge from one or two questions he put and observations he made when we
first met.  He says he has come from a fine country which lies far--very
far--to the north of this; so far that I feel quite interested and
hopeful about it.  I expect to have more talk with him soon on the
subject.  A little more o' the bubble, lad; really, Butterface, your
powers in the way of cookery are wonderful."

"Chingatok seems to me quite a remarkable fellow for an Eskimo,"
observed Leo, scraping the bottom of the kettle with his spoon, and
looking inquiringly into it.  "I, too, had some talk with him--through
Anders--when we first met, and from what he said I can't help thinking
that he has come from the remote north solely on a voyage of discovery
into what must be to him the unknown regions of the south.  Evidently he
has an inquiring mind."

"Much like yourself, Leo, to judge from the way you peer into that
kettle," said Benjy; "please don't scrape the bottom out of it.  There's
not much tin to mend it with, you know, in these regions."

"Brass will do quite as well," retorted Leo, "and there can be no lack
of that while you are here."

"Come now, Benjy," said Alf, "that insolent remark should put you on
your mettle."

"So it does, but I won't open my lips, because I feel that I should
speak ironically if I were to reply," returned the boy, gazing dreamily
into the quiet countenance of the steward.  "What are _you_ thinking of,
you lump of charcoal?"

"Me, massa? me tink dere 'pears to be room for more wittles inside ob
me; but as all de grub's eated up, p'r'aps it would be as well to be
goin' an' tacklin' suffin' else now."

"You're right, Butterface," cried the Captain, rousing himself from a
reverie.  "What say you, comrades?  Shall we turn in an' have a nap?
It's past midnight."

"I'm not inclined for sleep," said Alf, looking up from some of the
botanical specimens he had collected.

"No more am I," said Leo, lifting up his arms and stretching his
stalwart frame, which, notwithstanding his youth, had already developed
to almost the full proportions of a powerful man.

"I vote that we sit up all night," said Benjy, "the sun does it, and why
shouldn't we?"

"Well, I've no objection," rejoined the Captain, "but we must work if we
don't sleep--so, come along."

Setting the example, Captain Vane began to shoulder the bags and boxes
which lay scattered around with the energy of an enthusiastic railway
porter.  The other members of the party were not a whit behind him in
diligence and energy.  Even Benjy, delicate-looking though he was, did
the work of an average man, besides enlivening the proceedings with
snatches of song and a flow of small talk of a humorous and slightly
insolent nature.



CHAPTER SIX.

FUTURE PLANS DISCUSSED AND DECIDED.

Away to the northward of the spot where the _Whitebear_ had been wrecked
there stretched a point of land far out into the Arctic Ocean.  It was
about thirty miles distant, and loomed hugely bluff and grand against
the brilliant sky, as if it were the forefront of the northern world.
No civilised eyes had ever beheld that land before.  Captain Vane knew
that, because it lay in latitude 83 north, which was a little beyond the
furthest point yet reached by Arctic navigators.  He therefore named it
Cape Newhope.  Benjy thought that it should have been named
Butterface-beak, because the steward had been the first to observe it,
but his father thought otherwise.

About three miles to the northward of this point of land the Eskimos
were encamped.  According to arrangement with the white men they had
gone there, as we have said, in charge of the dogs brought by Captain
Vane from Upernavik, as these animals, it was thought, stood much in
need of exercise.

Here the natives had found and taken possession of a number of deserted
Eskimo huts.

These rude buildings were the abodes to which the good people migrated
when summer heat became so great as to render their snow-huts sloppily
disagreeable.

In one of the huts sat Chingatok, his arms resting on his knees, his
huge hands clasped, and his intelligent eyes fixed dreamily on the
lamp-flame, over which his culinary mother was bending in busy
sincerity.  There were many points of character in which this remarkable
mother and son resembled each other.  Both were earnest--intensely so--
and each was enthusiastically eager about small matters as well as
great.  In short, they both possessed great though uncultivated minds.

The hut they occupied was in some respects as remarkable as themselves.
It measured about six feet in height and ten in diameter.  The walls
were made of flattish stones, moss, and the bones of seals, whales,
narwhals, and other Arctic creatures.  The stones were laid so that each
overlapped the one below it, a very little inwards, and thus the walls
approached each other gradually as they rose from the foundation; the
top being finally closed by slabs of slate-stone.  Similar stones
covered the floor--one half of which floor was raised a foot or so above
the other, and this raised half served for a seat by day as well as a
couch by night.  On it were spread a thick layer of dried moss, and
several seal, dog, and bear skins.  Smaller elevations in the corners
near the entrance served for seats.  The door was a curtain of sealskin.
Above it was a small window, glazed, so to speak, with strips of
semi-transparent dried intestines sewed together.

Toolooha's cooking-lamp was made of soapstone, formed like a clam-shell,
and about eight inches in diameter; the fuel was seal-oil, and the wick
was of moss.  It smoked considerably, but Eskimos are smoke-proof.  The
pot above it, suspended from the roof, was also made of soapstone.
Sealskins hung about the walls drying; oily mittens, socks and boots
were suspended about on pegs and racks of rib-bones.  Lumps of blubber
hung and lay about miscellaneously.  Odours, not savoury, were therefore
prevalent--but Eskimos are smell-proof.

"Mother," said the giant, raising his eyes from the flame to his
parent's smoke-encircled visage, "they are a most wonderful people,
these Kablunets.  Blackbeard is a great man--a grand man--but I think he
is--"

Chingatok paused, shook his head, and touched his forehead with a look
of significance worthy of a white man.

"Why think you so, my son?" asked the old woman, sneezing, as a denser
cloud than usual went up her nose.

"Because he has come here to search for _nothing_."

"Nothing, my son?"

"Yes--at least that is what he tried to explain to me.  Perhaps the
interpreter could not explain.  He is not a smart man, that interpreter.
He resembles a walrus with his brain scooped out.  He spoke much, but I
could not understand."

"Could not understand?" repeated Toolooha, with an incredulous look,
"let not Chingatok say so.  Is there _anything_ that passes the lips of
man which he cannot understand?"

"Truly, mother, I once thought there was not," replied the giant, with a
modest look, "but I am mistaken.  The Kablunets make me stare and feel
foolish."

"But it is not possible to search for _nothing_," urged Toolooha.

"So I said," replied her son, "but Blackbeard only laughed at me."

"Did he?" cried the mother, with a much relieved expression, "then let
your mind rest, my son, for Blackbeard must be a fool if he laughed at
_you_."

"Blackbeard is no fool," replied Chingatok.

"Has he not come to search for new lands _here_, as you went to search
for them _there_?" asked Toolooha, pointing alternately north and south.

"No--if I have understood him.  Perhaps the brainless walrus translated
his words wrongly."

"Is the thing he searches for something to eat?"

"Something to drink or wear?"

"No, I tell you.  It is _nothing_!  Yet he gives it a name.  He calls it
_Nort Pole_!"

Perhaps it is needless to remind the reader that Chingatok and his
mother conversed in their native tongue, which we have rendered as
literally as possible, and that the last two words were his broken
English for "North Pole!"

"Nort Pole!" repeated Toolooha once or twice contemplatively.  "Well, he
may search for nothing if he will, but that he cannot find."

"Nay, mother," returned the giant with a soft smile, "if he will search
for nothing he is sure to find it!"

Chingatok sighed, for his mother did not see the joke.

"Blackbeard," he continued with a grave, puzzled manner, "said that this
world on which we stand floats in the air like a bird, and spins round!"

"Then Blackbeard is a liar," said Toolooha quietly, though without a
thought of being rude.  She merely meant what she said, and said what
she meant, being a naturally candid woman.

"That may be so, mother, but I think not."

"How can the world float without wings?" demanded the old woman
indignantly.  "If it spinned should we not feel the spinning, and grow
giddy?"

"And Blackbeard says," continued the giant, regardless of the questions
propounded, "that it spins round upon this _Nort Pole_, which he says is
not a real thing, but only nothing.  I asked Blackbeard--How can a world
spin upon nothing?"

"And what said he to that?" demanded Toolooha quickly.

"He only laughed.  They all laughed when the brainless walrus put my
question.  There is one little boy--the son I think of Blackbeard--who
laughed more than all the rest.  He lay down on the ice to laugh, and
rolled about as if he had the bowel-twist."

"That son of Blackbeard must be a fool more than his father," said
Toolooha, casting a look of indignation at her innocent kettle.

"Perhaps; but he is not like his father," returned Chingatok meekly.
"There are two other chiefs among the Kablunets who seem to me fine men.
They are very young and wise.  They have learned a little of our tongue
from the Brainless One, and asked me some questions about the rocks, and
the moss, and the flowers.  They are tall and strong.  One of them is
very grave and seems to think much, like myself.  He also spoke of this
Nothing--this Nort Pole.  They are all mad, I think, about that thing--
that Nothing!"

The conversation was interrupted at this point by the sudden entrance of
the giant's little sister with the news that the Kablunets were observed
coming round the great cape, dragging a sledge.

"Is not the big oomiak with them?" asked her brother, rising quickly.

"No, we see no oomiak--no wings--no fire," answered Oblooria, "only six
men dragging a sledge."

Chingatok went out immediately, and Oblooria was about to follow when
her mother recalled her.

"Come here, little one.  There is a bit of blubber for you to suck.
Tell me, saw you any sign of madness in these white men when they were
talking with your brother about this--this--Nort Pole."

"No, mother, no," answered Oblooria thoughtfully, "I saw not madness.
They laughed much, it is true--but not more than Oolichuk laughs
sometimes.  Yes--I think again!  There was one who seems mad--the small
boy, whom brother thinks to be the son of Blackbeard--Benjay, they call
him."

"Hah!  I thought so," exclaimed Toolooha, evidently pleased at her
penetration on this point.  "Go, child, I cannot quit the lamp.  Bring
me news of what they say and do."

Oblooria obeyed with alacrity, bolting her strip of half-cooked blubber
as she ran; her mother meanwhile gave her undivided attention to the
duties of the lamp.

The white men and all the members of the Eskimo band were standing by
the sledge engaged in earnest conversation when the little girl came
forward.  Captain Vane was speaking.

"Yes, Chingatok," he said, looking up at the tall savage, who stood
erect in frame but with bent head and his hands clasped before him, like
a modest chief, which in truth he was.  "Yes, if you will guide me to
your home in the northern lands, I will pay you well--for I have much
iron and wood and such things as I think you wish for and value, and you
shall also have my best thanks and gratitude.  The latter may not indeed
be worth much, but, nevertheless, you could not purchase it with all the
wealth of the Polar regions."

Chingatok looked with penetrating gaze at Anders while he translated,
and, considering the nature of the communication, the so-called
Brainless One proved himself a better man than the giant gave him credit
for.

"Does Blackbeard," asked Chingatok, after a few seconds' thought,
"expect to find this Nothing--this Nort Pole, in my country?"

"Well, I cannot exactly say that I do," replied the Captain; "you see,
I'm not quite sure, from what you tell me, where your country is.  It
may not reach to the Pole, but it is enough for me that it lies in that
direction, and that you tell me there is much open water there.  Men of
my nation have been in these regions before now, and some of them have
said that the Polar Sea is open, others that it is covered always with
ice so thick that it never melts.  Some have said it is a `sea of
ancient ice' so rough that no man can travel over it, and that it is not
possible to reach the North Pole.  I don't agree with that.  I had been
led to expect to fall in with this sea of ancient ice before I had got
thus far, but it is not to be found.  The sea indeed is partly blocked
with ordinary ice, but there is nothing to be seen of this vast
collection of mighty blocks, some of them thirty feet high--this wild
chaos of ice which so effectually stopped some of those who went before
me."

This speech put such brains as the Brainless One possessed to a severe
test, and, after all, he failed to convey its full meaning to Chingatok,
who, however, promptly replied to such portions as he understood.

"What Blackbeard calls the sea of old ice does exist," he said; "I have
seen it.  No man could travel on it, only the birds can cross it.  But
ice is not land.  It changes place.  It is here to-day; it is there
to-morrow.  Next day it is gone.  We cannot tell where it goes to or
when it will come back.  The _very_ old ice comes back again and again.
It is slow to become like your Nort Pole--nothing.  But it melts at last
and more comes in its place--growing old slowly and vanishing slowly.
It is full of wonder--like the stars; like the jumping flames; like the
sun and moon, which we cannot understand."

Chingatok paused and looked upwards with a solemn expression.  His mind
had wandered into its favourite channels, and for the moment he forgot
the main subject of conversation, while the white men regarded him with
some surprise, his comrades with feelings of interest not unmingled with
awe.

"But," he continued, "I know where the sea of ancient ice-blocks is just
now.  I came past it in my kayak, and can guide you to it by the same
way."

"That is just what I want, Chingatok," said the Captain with a joyful
look, "only aid me in this matter, and I will reward you well.  I've
already told you that my ship is wrecked, and that the crew, except
those you see here, have left me; but I have saved all the cargo and
buried it in a place of security with the exception of those things
which I need for my expedition.  One half of these things are on this
sledge,--the other half on a sledge left behind and ready packed near
the wreck.  Now, I want you to send men to fetch that sledge here."

"That shall be done," said Chingatok.  "Thanks, thanks, my good fellow,"
returned the Captain, "and we must set about it at once, for the summer
is advancing, and you know as well as I do that the hot season is but a
short one in these regions."

"A moment more shall not be lost," said the giant.

He turned to Oolichuk, who had been leaning on a short spear, and gazing
open-mouthed, eyed, and eared, during the foregoing conversation, and
said a few words to him and to the other Eskimos in a low tone.

Oolichuk merely nodded his head, said "Yah!" or something similarly
significant, shouldered his spear and went off in the direction of the
Cape of Newhope, followed by nearly all the men of the party.

"Stay, not quite so fast," cried Captain Vane.

"Stop!" shouted Chingatok.

Oolichuk and his men paused.

"One of us had better go with them," said the Captain, "to show the
place where the sledge has been left."

"I will go, uncle, if you'll allow me," said Leo Vandervell.

"Oh! let me go too, father," pleaded Benjy, "I'm not a bit tired; do."

"You may both go.  Take a rifle with you, Leo.  There's no saying what
you may meet on the way."

In half-an-hour the party under Oolichuk had reached the extremity of
the cape, and Captain Vane observed that his volatile son mounted to the
top of an ice-block to wave a farewell.  He looked like a black speck,
or a crow, in the far distance.  Another moment, and the speck had
disappeared among the hummocks of the ice-locked sea.



CHAPTER SEVEN.

DIFFICULTIES ENCOUNTERED AND FACED.

They had not quite doubled the Cape of Newhope, and were about to round
the point which concealed the spot that had been named Wreck Bay, when
they suddenly found themselves face to face with a Polar bear!

Bruin was evidently out for an evening stroll, for he seemed to have
nothing particular to do.

Surprise lit up alike the countenances of the men and the visage of the
bear.  It was an unexpected meeting on both sides.  The distance between
them was not more than thirty feet.  Leo was the only one of the party
who carried a rifle.  More than once during the voyage had Leo seen and
shot a bear.  The sight was not new to him, but never before had he come
so suddenly, or so very close, upon this king of the Arctic Seas.  He
chanced at the time to be walking a few yards in advance of the party in
company with Oolichuk and Benjy.

The three stopped, stared, and stood as if petrified.

For one moment, then they uttered a united and half involuntary roar.

Right royally did that bear accept the challenge.  It rose, according to
custom, on its hind legs, and immediately began that slow, but deadly
war-dance with which the race is wont to preface an attack, while its
upper lip curled in apparent derision, exposing its terrible fangs.

Leo recovered self-possession instantly.  The rifle leaped to his
shoulder, the centre of the bear's breast was covered, and the trigger
pulled.

Only a snap resulted.  Leo had forgotten to load!  Benjy gasped with
anxiety.  Oolichuk, who had held himself back with a sparkling smile of
expectation at the prospect of seeing the Kablunet use his
thunder-weapon, looked surprised and disappointed, but went into action
promptly with his spear, accompanied by Akeetolik.  Leo's rifle, being a
breech-loader, was quickly re-charged, but as the rest of the party
stood leaning on their spears with the evident intention of merely
watching the combat, the youth resolved to hold his hand, despite
Benjy's earnest recommendation to put one ball between the bear's eyes,
and the other into his stomach.

It was but a brief though decisive battle.  Those Eskimos were well used
to such warfare.

Running towards the animal with levelled spears, the two men separated
on coming close, so that Bruin was forced to a state of indecision as to
which enemy he would assail first.  Akeetolik settled the point for him
by giving him a prick on the right side, thus, as it were, drawing the
enemy's fire on himself.  The bear turned towards him with a fierce
growl, and in so doing, exposed his left side to attack.  Oolichuk was
not slow to seize the opportunity.  He leaped close up, and drove his
spear deep into the animal's heart--killing it on the spot.

Next day the party returned to the Eskimo camp with the sledge-load of
goods, and the bear on the top.

While steaks of the same were being prepared by Toolooha, Captain Vane
and his new allies were busy discussing the details of the advance.

"I know that the difficulties will be great," he said, in reply to a
remark from the interpreter, "but I mean to face and overcome them."

"Ah!" exclaimed Alf, who was rather fond of poetry:--

  "To dare unknown dangers in a noble cause,
  Despite an adverse Nature and her tiresome Laws."

"Just so, Alf, my boy, stick at nothing; never give in; victory or
death, that's my way of expressing the same sentiment.  But there's one
thing that I must impress once more upon you all--namely, that each man
must reduce his kit to the very lowest point of size and weight.  No
extras allowed."

"What, not even a box of paper collars?" asked Benjy.

"Not one, my boy, but you may take a strait-waistcoat in your box if you
choose, for you'll be sure to need it."

"Oh! father," returned the boy, remonstratively, "you are severe.
However, I will take one, if you agree to leave your woollen comforter
behind.  You won't need that, you see, as long as I am with you."

"Of course," said Alf, "you will allow us to carry small libraries with
us?"

"Certainly not, my lad, only one book each, and that must be a small
one."

"The only book I possess is my Bible," said Leo, "and that won't take up
much room, for it's an uncommonly small one."

"If I only had my Robinson Crusoe here," cried Benjy, "I'd take it, for
there's enough of adventure in that book to carry a man over half the
world."

"Ay," said Alf, "and enough of mind to carry him over the other half.
For my part, if we must be content with one book each, I shall take
Buzzby's poems."

"Oh! horrible!" cried Benjy, "why, he's no better than a maudlin',
dawdlin', drawlin', caterwaulin'--"

"Come, Benjy, don't be insolent; he's second only to Tennyson.  Just
listen to this _morceau_ by Buzzby.  It is an Ode to Courage--

  "`High! hot! hillarious compound of--'"

"Stop! stop! man, don't begin when we're in the middle of our plans,"
interrupted Benjy, "let us hear what book Butterface means to take."

"I not take no book, massa, only take my flute.  Music is wot's de
matter wid me.  Dat is de ting what hab charms to soove de savage
beast."

"I wouldn't advise you try to soothe a Polar bear with it," said Leo,
"unless you have a rifle handy."

"Yes--and especially an unloaded one, which is very effective against
Polar bears," put in the Captain, with a sly look.  "Ah, Leo, I could
hardly have believed it of you--and you the sportsman of our party, too;
our chief huntsman.  Oh, fie!"

"Come, uncle, don't be too hard on that little mistake," said Leo, with
a slight blush, for he was really annoyed by the unsportsmanlike
oversight hinted at; "but pray, may I ask," he added, turning sharply on
the Captain, "what is inside of these three enormous boxes of yours
which take up so much space on the sledges?"

"You may ask, Leo, but you may not expect an answer.  That is my secret,
and I mean to keep it as a sort of stimulus to your spirits when the
hardships of the way begin to tell on you.  Ask Chingatok, Anders,"
continued the Captain, turning to the interpreter, "if he thinks we have
enough provisions collected for the journey.  I wish to start
immediately."

"We have enough," answered Chingatok, who had been sitting a silent, but
deeply interested observer--so to speak--of the foregoing conversation.

"Tell him, then, to arrange with his party, and be prepared to set out
by noon to-morrow."

That night, by the light of the midnight sun, the Eskimos sat round
their kettles of bear-chops, and went into the _pros_ and _cons_ of the
proposed expedition.  Some were enthusiastically in favour of casting in
their lot with the white men, others were decidedly against it, and a
few were undecided.  Among the latter was Akeetolik.

"These ignorant men," said that bold savage, "are foolish and useless.
They cannot kill bears.  The one named Lo, (thus was Leonard's name
reduced to its lowest denomination), is big enough, and looks very fine,
but when he sees bear he only stares, makes a little click with his
thunder-weapon, and looks stupid."

"Blackbeard explained that," said Oolichuk; "Lo made some mistake."

"That may be so," retorted Akeetolik, "but if you and me had not been
there, the _bear_ would not make a mistake."

"I will not go with these Kablunets," said Eemerk with a frown, "they
are only savages.  They are not taught.  No doubt they had a wonderful
boat, but they have not been able to keep their boat.  They cannot kill
bears; perhaps they cannot kill seals or walruses, and they ask us to
help them to travel--to show them the way!  They can do nothing.  They
must be led like children.  My advice is to kill them all, since they
are so useless, and take their goods."

This speech was received with marks of decided approval by those of the
party who were in the habit of siding with Eemerk, but the rest were
silent.  In a few moments Chingatok said, in a low, quiet, but
impressive tone: "The Kablunets are not foolish or ignorant.  They are
wise--far beyond the wisdom of the Eskimos.  It is Eemerk who is like a
walrus without brains.  He thinks that his little mind is outside of
everything, and so he has not eyes to perceive that he is ignorant as
well as foolish, and that other men are wise."

This was the severest rebuke that the good-natured Chingatok had yet
administered to Eemerk, but the latter, foolish though he was, had
wisdom enough not to resent it openly.  He sat in moody silence, with
his eyes fixed on the ground.

Of course Oolichuk was decidedly in favour of joining the white men, and
so was Ivitchuk, who soon brought round his hesitating friend Akeetolik,
and several of the others.  Oblooria, being timid, would gladly have
sided with Eemerk, but she hated the man, and, besides, would in any
case have cast in her lot with her mother and brother, even if free to
do otherwise.

The fair Tekkona, whose courage and faith were naturally strong, had
only one idea, and that was to follow cheerfully wherever Chingatok led;
but she was very modest, and gave no opinion.  She merely remarked: "The
Kablunets are handsome men, and seem good."

As for Toolooha, she had enough to do to attend to the serious duties of
the lamp, and always left the settlement of less important matters to
the men.

"You and yours are free to do what you please," said Chingatok to
Eemerk, when the discussion drew to a close.  "I go with the white men
to-morrow."

"What says Oblooria?" whispered Oolichuk when the rest of the party were
listening to Eemerk's reply.

"Oblooria goes with her brother and mother," answered that young lady,
toying coquettishly with her sealskin tail.

Oolichuk's good-humoured visage beamed with satisfaction, and his flat
nose curled up--as much as it was possible for such a feature to curl--
with contempt, as he glanced at Eemerk and said--

"I have heard many tales from Anders--the white man's mouthpiece--since
we met.  He tells me the white men are very brave and fond of running
into danger for nothing but fun.  Those who do not like the fun of
danger should join Eemerk.  Those who are fond of fun and danger should
come with our great chief Chingatok--huk!  Let us divide."

Without more palaver the band divided, and it was found that only eight
sided with Eemerk.  All the rest cast in their lot with our giant, after
which this Arctic House of Commons adjourned, and its members went to
rest.

A few days after that, Captain Vane and his Eskimo allies, having left
the camp with Eemerk and his friends far behind them, came suddenly one
fine morning on a barrier which threatened effectually to arrest their
further progress northward.  This was nothing less than that tremendous
sea of "ancient ice" which had baffled previous navigators and sledging
parties.

"Chaos! absolute chaos!" exclaimed Alf Vandervell, who was first to
recover from the shock of surprise, not to say consternation, with which
the party beheld the scene on turning a high cape.

"It looks bad," said Captain Vane, gravely, "but things often look worse
at a first glance than they really are."

"I hope it may be so in this case," said Leo, in a low tone.

"Good-bye to the North Pole!" said Benjy, with a look of despondency so
deep that the rest of the party laughed in spite of themselves.

The truth was that poor Benjy had suffered much during the sledge
journey which they had begun, for although he rode, like the rest of
them, on one of the Eskimo sledges, the ice over which they had
travelled along shore had been sufficiently rugged to necessitate
constant getting off and on, as well as much scrambling over hummocks
and broken ice.  We have already said that Benjy was not very robust,
though courageous and full of spirit, so that he was prone to leap from
the deepest depths of despair to the highest heights of hope at a
moment's notice--or _vice versa_.  Not having become inured to
ice-travel, he was naturally much cast down when the chaos
above-mentioned met his gaze.

"Strange," said the Captain, after a long silent look at the barrier,
"strange that we should find it here.  The experience of former
travellers placed it considerably to the south and west of this."

"But you know," said Leo, "Chingatok told us that the old ice drifts
about just as the more recently formed does.  Who knows but we may find
the end of it not far off, and perhaps may reach open water beyond,
where we can make skin canoes, and launch forth on a voyage of
discovery."

"I vote that we climb the cliffs and try to see over the top of this
horrid ice-jumble," said Benjy.

"Not a bad suggestion, lad.  Let us do so.  We will encamp here, Anders.
Let all the people have a good feed, and tell Chingatok to follow us.
You will come along with him."

A few hours later, and the Captain, Leo, Alf, Benjy, Chingatok, and the
interpreter stood on the extreme summit of the promontory which they had
named Cape Chaos, and from which they had a splendid bird's-eye view of
the whole region.

It was indeed a tremendous and never-to-be-forgotten scene.

As far as the eye could reach, the ocean was covered with ice heaped
together in some places in the wildest confusion, and so firmly wedged
in appearance that it seemed as if it had lain there in a solid mass
from the first day of creation.  Elsewhere the ice was more level and
less compact.  In the midst of this rugged scene, hundreds of giant
icebergs rose conspicuously above the rest, towering upwards in every
shape and of all sizes, from which the bright sun was flashed back in
rich variety of form, from the sharp gleam that trickled down an edge of
ice to the refulgent blaze on a glassy face which almost rivalled the
sun himself in brilliancy.  These icebergs, extending as they did to the
horizon, where they mingled with and were lost in the pearl-grey sky,
gave an impression of vast illimitable perspective.  Although no sign of
an open sea was at first observed, there was no lack of water to enliven
the scene, for here and there, and everywhere, were pools and ponds, and
even lakes of goodly size, which had been formed on the surface by the
melting ice.  In these the picturesque masses were faithfully reflected,
and over them vast flocks of gulls, eider-ducks, puffins, and other
wild-fowl of the north, disported themselves in garrulous felicity.

On the edge of the rocky precipice, from which they had a bird's-eye
view of the scene, our discoverers stood silent for some time, absorbed
in contemplation, with feelings of mingled awe and wonder.  Then
exclamations of surprise and admiration broke forth.

"The wonderful works of God!" said the Captain, in a tone of profound
reverence.

"Beautiful, beyond belief!" murmured Alf.

"But it seems an effectual check to our advance," said the practical
Leo, who, however, was by no means insensible to the extreme beauty of
the scene.

"Not effectual, lad; not effectual," returned the Captain, stretching
out his hand and turning to the interpreter; "look, Anders, d'ye see
nothing on the horizon away to the nor'ard?  Isn't that a bit of
water-sky over there?"

"Ya," replied the interpreter, gazing intently, "there be watter-sky
over there.  Ya.  But not possobubble for go there.  Ice too big an'
brokkin up."

"Ask Chingatok what he thinks," returned the Captain.

Chingatok's opinion was that the water-sky indicated the open sea.  He
knew that sea well--had often paddled over it, and his own country lay
in it.

"But how ever did he cross that ice?" asked the Captain; "what says he
to that, Anders?"

"I did not cross it," answered the Eskimo, through Anders.  "When I came
here with my party the ice was not there; it was far off yonder."

He pointed to the eastward.

"Just so," returned the Captain, with a satisfied nod, "that confirms my
opinion.  You see, boys, that the coast here trends off to the East'ard
in a very decided manner.  Now, if that was only the shore of a bay, and
the land again ran off to the nor'ard, it would not be possible for such
a sea of ice to have come from _that_ direction.  I therefore conclude
that we are standing on the most northern cape of Greenland; that
Greenland itself is a huge island, unconnected with the Polar lands;
that we are now on the shores of the great Polar basin, in which,
somewhere not very far from the Pole itself, lies the home of our friend
Chingatok--at least so I judge from what he has said.  Moreover, I feel
sure that the water-sky we see over there indicates the commencement of
that `open sea' which, I hold, in common with many learned men, lies
around the North Pole, and which I am determined to float upon before
many days go by."

"We'd better spread our wings then, father, and be off at once," said
Benjy; "for it's quite certain that we'll never manage to scramble over
that ice-jumble with sledges."

"Nevertheless, I will try, Benjy."

"But how, uncle?" asked Leo.

"Ay, how?" repeated Alf, "_that_ is the question."

"Come, come, Alf, let Shakespeare alone," said the pert Benjy, "if you
_must_ quote, confine yourself to Buzzby."

"Nay, Benjy, be not so severe.  It was but a slip.  Besides, our leader
has not forbidden our carrying a whole library in our heads, so long as
we take only one book in our pockets.  But, uncle, you have not yet told
us how you intend to cross that amazing barrier which Benjy has
appropriately styled an ice-jumble."

"How, boy?" returned the Captain, who had been gazing eagerly in all
directions while they talked, "it is impossible for me to say how.  All
that I can speak of with certainty as to our future movements is, that
the road by which we have come to the top of this cliff will lead us to
the bottom again, where Toolooha is preparing for us an excellent supper
of bear-steaks and tea.  One step at a time, lads, is my motto; when
that is taken we shall see clearly how and where to take the next."

A sound sleep was the step which the whole party took after that which
led to the bear-steaks.  Then Captain Vane arose, ordered the dogs to be
harnessed to the sledges, and, laying his course due north, steered
straight out upon the sea of ancient ice.



CHAPTER EIGHT.

DIFFICULTIES AND DANGERS INCREASE, AND THE CAPTAIN EXPOUNDS HIS VIEWS.

The first part of the journey over the rugged ice was not so difficult
as had been anticipated, because they found a number of openings--narrow
lanes, as it were--winding between the masses, most of which were wide
enough to permit of the passage of the sledges; and when they chanced to
come on a gap that was too narrow, they easily widened it with their
hatchets and ice-chisels.

There was, however, some danger connected with this process, for some of
the mighty blocks of ice amongst which they moved were piled in such
positions that it only required a few choppings at their base to bring
them down in ruins on their heads.  One instance of this kind sufficed
to warn them effectually.

Captain Vane's dog-sledge was leading the way at the time.  Leo drove
it, for by that time the Eskimos had taught him how to use the
short-handled whip with the lash full fifteen feet long, and Leo was an
apt pupil in every athletic and manly exercise.  Beside him sat the
Captain, Alf, Benjy, and Butterface--the black visage of the latter
absolutely shining with delight at the novelty of the situation.  Behind
came the sledge of Chingatok, which, besides being laden with bear-rugs,
sealskins, junks of meat, and a host of indescribable Eskimo implements,
carried himself and the precious persons of Toolooha and Tekkona.  Next
came the sledge of the laughter-loving Oolichuk, with the timid Oblooria
and another woman.  Then followed the sledges of Ivitchuk and Akeetolik,
laden with the rest of the Eskimo women and goods, and last of all came
Captain Vane's two English-made sledges, heavily-laden with the goods
and provisions of the explorers.  These latter sledges, although made in
England, had been constructed on the principle of the native sledge,
namely, with the parts fastened by means of walrus-sinew lashings
instead of nails, which last would have snapped like glass in the winter
frosts of the Polar regions, besides being incapable of standing the
twistings and shocks of ice-travel.

All the dogs being fresh, and the floor of the lanes not too rough, the
strangely-assorted party trotted merrily along, causing the echoes among
the great ice-blocks, spires, and obelisks, to ring to the music of
their chatting, and the cracks of their powerful whips.  Suddenly, a
shout at the front, and an abrupt pull up, brought the whole column to a
halt.  The Captain's dogs had broken into a gallop.  On turning suddenly
round a spur of a glacier about as big as Saint Paul's Cathedral, they
went swish into a shallow pond which had been formed on the ice.  It was
not deep, but there was sufficient water in it to send a deluge of spray
over the travellers.

A burst of laughter greeted the incident as they sprang off the sledge,
and waded to the dry ice a few yards ahead.

"No damage done," exclaimed the Captain, as he assisted the dogs to haul
the sledge out of the water.

"No damage!" repeated Benjy, with a rueful look, "why, I'm soaked from
top to toe!"

"Yes, you've got the worst of it," said Leo, with a laugh; "that comes
of being forward, Benjy.  You would insist on sitting in front."

"Well, it is some comfort," retorted Benjy, squeezing the water from his
garments, "that _Alf_ is as wet as myself, for that gives us an
opportunity of sympathising with each other.  Eh, _Alf_?  Does Buzzby
offer no consolatory remarks for such an occasion as this?"

"O yes," replied Alf; "in his beautiful poem on Melancholy, sixth canto,
Buzzby says:--

  "`When trouble, like a curtain spread,
  Obscures the clouded brain,
  And worries on the weary head
  Descend like soaking rain--
  Lift up th'umbrella of the heart,
  Stride manfully along;
  Defy depression's dreary dart,
  And shout in gleeful song.'"

"Come, Alf, clap on to this tow-rope, an' stop your nonsense," said
Captain Vane, who was not in a poetical frame of mind just then.

"Dat is mos' boosiful potry!" exclaimed Butterface, with an immense
display of eyes and teeth, as he lent a willing hand to haul out the
sledge.  "Mos' boosiful.  But he's rader a strong rem'dy, massa, don'
you tink?  Not bery easy to git up a gleefoo' shout when one's down in
de mout' bery bad, eh!"

Alf's reply was checked by the necessity for remounting the sledge and
resuming the journey.  Those in rear avoided the pond by going round it.

"The weather's warm, anyhow, and that's a comfort," remarked Benjy, as
he settled down in his wet garments.  "We can't freeze in summer, you
know, and--"

He stopped abruptly, for it became apparent just then that the opening
close ahead of them was too narrow for the sledge to pass.  It was
narrowed by a buttress, or projection, of the cathedral-berg, which
jutted up close to a vast obelisk of ice about forty feet high, if not
higher.

"Nothing for it, boys, but to cut through," said the Captain, jumping
out, and seizing an axe, as the sledge was jammed between the masses.
The dogs lay down to rest and pant while the men were at work.

"It's cut an' come again in dem regins," muttered the negro steward,
also seizing an axe, and attacking the base of the obelisk.

A sudden cry of alarm from the whole party caused him to desist and look
up.  He echoed the cry and sprang back swiftly, for the huge mass of ice
having been just on the balance, one slash at its base had destroyed the
equilibrium, and it was leaning slowly over with a deep grinding sound.
A moment later the motion was swift, and it fell with a terrible crash,
bursting into a thousand fragments, scattering lumps and glittering
morsels far and wide, and causing the whole ice-field to tremble.  The
concussion overturned several other masses, which had been in the same
nicely-balanced condition, some near at hand, others out of sight,
though within earshot, and, for a moment, the travellers felt as if the
surrounding pack were disrupting everywhere and falling into utter ruin,
but in a few seconds the sounds ceased, and again all was quiet.

Fortunately, the obelisk which had been overturned fell towards the
north--away from the party; but although it thus narrowly missed
crushing them all in one icy tomb, it blocked up their path so
completely that the remainder of that day had to be spent in cutting a
passage through it.

Need we say that, after this, they were careful how they used their axes
and ice-chisels?

Soon after the occurrence of this incident, the labyrinths among the ice
became more broken, tortuous, and bewildering.  At last they ceased
altogether, and the travellers were compelled to take an almost straight
course right over everything, for blocks, masses, and drifts on a
gigantic scale were heaved up in such dire confusion, that nothing
having the faintest resemblance to a track or passage could be found.

"It's hard work, this," remarked the Captain to Leo one evening, seating
himself on a mass of ice which he had just chopped from an obstruction,
and wiping the perspiration from his brow.

"Hard, indeed," said Leo, sitting down beside him, "I fear it begins to
tell upon poor Benjy.  You should really order him to rest more than he
does, uncle."

A grim smile of satisfaction played for a minute on the Captain's rugged
face, as he glanced at his son, who, a short distance ahead, was hacking
at the ice with a pick-axe, in company with Alf and Butterface and the
Eskimo men.

"It'll do him good, lad," replied the Captain.  "Hard work is just what
my Benjy needs.  He's not very stout, to be sure, but there is nothing
wrong with his constitution, and he's got plenty of spirit."

This was indeed true.  Benjy had too much spirit for his somewhat
slender frame, but his father, being a herculean man, did not quite
perceive that what was good for himself might be too much for his son.
Captain Vane was, however, the reverse of a harsh man.  He pondered what
Leo had said, and soon afterwards went up to his son.

"Benjy, my lad."

"Yes, father," said the boy, dropping the head of his pick-axe on the
ice, resting his hands on the haft, and looking up with a flushed
countenance.

"You should rest a bit now and then, Benjy.  You'll knock yourself up if
you don't."

"Rest a bit, father!  Why, I've just had a rest, and I'm not tired--that
is, not very.  Ain't it fun, father?  And the ice cuts up so easily, and
flies about so splendidly--see here."

With flashing eyes our little hero raised his pick and drove it into the
ice at which he had been working, with all his force, so that a great
rent was made, and a mass the size of a dressing-table sprang from the
side of a berg, and, falling down, burst into a shower of sparkling
gems.  But this was not all.  To Benjy's intense delight, a mass of many
tons in weight was loosened by the fall of the smaller lump, and rolled
down with a thunderous roar, causing Butterface, who was too near it, to
jump out of the way with an amount of agility that threw the whole party
into fits of laughter.

"What d'ye think o' that, father?"

"I think it's somewhat dangerous," answered the Captain, recovering his
gravity and re-shouldering his axe.  "However, as long as you enjoy the
work, it can't hurt you, so go ahead, my boy; it'll be a long time
before you cut away too much o' the Polar ice!"

Reaching a slightly open space beyond this point, the dogs were
harnessed, and the party advanced for a mile or so, when they came to
another obstruction worse than that which they had previously passed.

"There's a deal of ice-rubbish in these regions," remarked Benjy, eyeing
the wildly heaped masses with a grave face, and heaving a deep sigh.

"Yes, Massa Benjy, bery too much altogidder," said Butterface, echoing
the sigh.

"Come, we won't cut through this," cried Captain Vane in a cheery voice;
"we'll try to go over it.  There is a considerable drift of old snow
that seems to offer a sort of track.  What says Chingatok?"

The easy-going Eskimo said that it would be as well to go over it as
through it, perhaps better!

So, over it they went, but they soon began to wish they had tried any
other plan, for the snow-track quickly came to an end, and then the
difficulty of passing even the empty sledges from one ice mass to
another was very great, while the process of carrying forward the goods
on the shoulders of the men was exceedingly laborious.  The poor dogs,
too, were constantly falling between masses, and dragging each other
down, so that they gave more trouble at last than they were worth.

In all these trying circumstances, the Eskimo women were almost as
useful as the men.  Indeed they would have been quite as useful if they
had been as strong, and they bore the fatigues and trials of the journey
with the placid good humour, and apparent, if not real, humility of
their race.

At last, one afternoon, our discoverers came suddenly to the edge of
this great barrier of ancient ice, and beheld, from an elevated plateau
to which they had climbed, a scene which was calculated to rouse in
their breasts feelings at once of admiration and despair, for there,
stretching away below them for several miles, lay a sea of comparatively
level ice, and beyond it a chain of stupendous glaciers, which presented
an apparently impassable barrier--a huge continuous wall of ice that
seemed to rise into the very sky.

This chain bore all the evidences of being very old ice--compared to
which that of the so-called "ancient sea" was absolutely juvenile.  On
the ice-plain, which was apparently illimitable to the right and left,
were hundreds of pools of water in which the icebergs, the golden
clouds, the sun, and the blue sky were reflected, and on the surface of
which myriads of Arctic wild-fowl were sporting about, making the air
vocal with their plaintive cries, and ruffling the glassy surfaces of
the lakes with their dipping wings.  The heads of seals were also
observed here and there.

"These will stop us at last," said Alf, pointing to the bergs with a
profound sigh.

"No, they won't," remarked the Captain quietly.  "_Nothing_ will stop
us!"

"That's true, anyhow, uncle," returned Alf; "for if it be, as Chingatok
thinks, that we are in search of nothing, of course when we find
nothing, nothing will stop us!"

"Why, Alf," said Leo, "I wonder that you, who are usually in an
enthusiastic and poetical frame of mind, should be depressed by distant
difficulties, instead of admiring such a splendid sight of birds and
beasts enjoying themselves in what I may style an Arctic heaven.  You
should take example by Benjy."

That youth did indeed afford a bright example of rapt enthusiasm just
then, for, standing a little apart by himself, he gazed at the scene
with flushed face, open mouth, and glittering eyes, in speechless
delight.

"Ask Chingatok if he ever saw this range before," said the Captain to
Anders, on recovering from his first feeling of surprise.

No, Chingatok had never seen it, except, indeed, the tops of the bergs--
at sea, in the far distance--but he had often heard of it from some of
his countrymen, who, like himself, were fond of exploring.  But that sea
of ice was not there, he said, when he had passed on his journey
southward.  It had drifted there, since that time, from the great sea.

"Ah! the great sea that he speaks of is just what we must find and cross
over," muttered the Captain to himself.

"But how are we to cross over it, uncle?" asked Leo.

The Captain replied with one of his quiet glances.  His followers had
long become accustomed to this silent method of declining to reply, and
forbore to press the subject.

"Come now, boys, get ready to descend to the plain.  We'll have to do it
with caution."

There was, indeed, ground for caution.  We have said that they had
climbed to an elevated plateau on one of the small bergs which formed
the outside margin of the rugged ice.  The side of this berg was a steep
slope of hard snow, so steep that they thought it unwise to attempt the
descent by what in Switzerland is termed glissading.

"We'll have to zig-zag down, I think," continued the Captain, settling
himself on his sledge; but the Captain's dogs thought otherwise.  Under
a sudden impulse of reckless free-will, the whole team, giving vent to a
howl of mingled glee and fear, dashed down the slope at full gallop.  Of
course they were overtaken in a few seconds by the sledge, which not
only ran into them, but sent them sprawling on their backs right and
left.  Then it met a slight obstruction, and itself upset, sending
Captain Vane and his companions, with its other contents, into the midst
of the struggling dogs.  With momentarily increasing speed this
avalanche of mixed dead and living matter went sliding, hurtling,
swinging, shouting, struggling, and yelling to the bottom.  Fortunately,
there was no obstruction there, else had destruction been inevitable.
The slope merged gradually into the level plain, over which the
avalanche swept for a considerable distance before the momentum of their
flight was expended.

When at length they stopped, and disentangled themselves from the knot
into which the traces had tied them, it was found that no one was
materially hurt.  Looking up at the height down which they had come,
they beheld the Eskimos standing at the top with outstretched arms in
the attitude of men who glare in speechless horror.  But these did not
stand thus long.  Descending by a more circuitous route, they soon
rejoined the Captain's party, and then, as the night was far advanced,
they encamped on the edge of the ice-plain, on a part that was bathed in
the beams of the ever-circling sun.

That night at supper Captain Vane was unusually thoughtful and silent.

"You're not losing heart, are you, uncle?" asked Leo, during a pause.

"No, lad, certainly not," replied the Captain, dreamily.

"You've not been bumped very badly in the tumble, father, have you?"
asked Benjy with an anxious look.

"Bumped? no; what makes you think so?"

"Because you're gazing at Toolooha's lamp as if you saw a ghost in it."

"Well, perhaps I do see a ghost there," returned the Captain with an
effort to rouse his attention to things going on around him.  "I see the
ghost of things to come.  I am looking through Toolooha's lamp into
futurity."

"And what does futurity look like?" asked Alf.  "Bright or dark?"

"Black--black as me," muttered Butterface, as he approached and laid
fresh viands before the party.

It ought to be told that Butterface had suffered rather severely in the
recent glissade on the snow-slope, which will account for the gloomy
view he took of the future at that time.

"Listen," said the Captain, with a look of sudden earnestness; "as it is
highly probable that a day or two more will decide the question of our
success or failure, I think it right to reveal to you more fully my
thoughts, my plans, and the prospects that lie before us.  You all know
very well that there is much difference of opinion about the condition
of the sea around the North Pole.  Some think it must be cumbered with
eternal ice, others that it is comparatively free from ice, and that it
enjoys a somewhat milder climate than those parts of the Arctic regions
with which we have hitherto been doing battle.  I hold entirely with the
latter view--with those who believe in an open Polar basin.  I won't
weary you with the grounds of my belief in detail, but here are a few of
my reasons--

"It is an admitted fact that there is constant circulation of the water
in the ocean.  That wise and painstaking philosopher, Maury, of the US
navy, has proved to my mind that this grand circulation of the sea-water
round the world is the cause of all the oceanic streams, hot and cold,
with which we have been so long acquainted.

"This circulation is a necessity as well as a fact.  At the Equator the
water is extremely warm and salt, besides lime-laden, in consequence of
excessive evaporation.  At the Poles it is extremely cold and fresh.
Mixing is therefore a necessity.  The hot salt-waters of the Equator
flow to the Poles to get freshened and cooled.  Those of the Poles flow
to the Equator to get salted, limed, and warmed.  They do this
continuously in two grand currents, north and south, all round the
world.  But the land comes in as a disturbing element; it diverts the
water into streams variously modified in force and direction, and the
streams also change places variously, sometimes the hot currents
travelling north as under-currents with the cold currents above,
sometimes the reverse.  One branch of the current comes from the Equator
round the Cape of Good Hope, turns up the west coast of Africa, and is
deflected into the Gulf of Mexico, round which it sweeps, and then
shoots across the Atlantic to England and Norway.  It is known as our
Gulf Stream.

"Now, the equatorial warm and salt current enters Baffin's Bay as a
submarine current, while the cold and comparatively fresh waters of the
Polar regions descend as a surface-current, bearing the great ice-fields
of the Arctic seas to the southward.  One thing that goes far to prove
this, is the fact that the enormous icebergs thrown off from the
northern glaciers have been frequently seen by navigators travelling
northward, right _against_ the current flowing south.  These huge
ice-mountains, floating as they do with seven or eight parts of their
bulk beneath the surface, are carried thus forcibly up stream by the
under-current until their bases are worn off by the warm waters below,
thus allowing the upper current to gain the mastery, and hurry them
south again to their final dissolution in the Atlantic.

"Now, lads," continued the Captain, with the air of a man who propounds
a self-evident proposition; "is it not clear that if the warm waters of
the south flow into the Polar basin as an _under_ current, they must
come up _somewhere_, to take the place of the cold waters that are for
ever flowing away from the Pole to the Equator?  Can anything be clearer
than that--except the nose on Benjy's face?  Well then, that being so,
the waters round the Pole _must_ be comparatively warm waters, and also,
comparatively, free from ice, so that if we could only manage to cross
this ice-barrier and get into them, we might sail right away to the
North Pole."

"But, father," said Benjy, "since you have taken the liberty to trifle
with my nose, I feel entitled to remark that we can't sail in waters,
either hot or cold, without a ship."

"That's true, boy," rejoined the Captain.  "However," he added, with a
half-humorous curl of his black moustache, "you know I'm not given to
stick at trifles.  Time will show.  Meanwhile I am strongly of opinion
that this is the last ice-barrier we shall meet with on our way to the
Pole."

"Is there not some tradition of a mild climate in the furthest north
among the Eskimos?" asked Alf.

"Of course there is.  It has long been known that the Greenland Eskimos
have a tradition of an island in an iceless sea, lying away in the far
north, where there are many musk-oxen, and, from what I have been told
by our friend Chingatok, I am disposed to think that he and his kindred
inhabit this island, or group of islands, in the Polar basin--not far,
perhaps, from the Pole itself.  He says there are musk-oxen there.  But
there is another creature, and a much bigger one than any Eskimo, bigger
even than Chingatok, who bears his testimony to an open Polar sea,
namely, the Greenland whale.  It has been ascertained that the `right'
whale does not, and cannot, enter the tropical regions of the Ocean.
They are to him as a sea of fire, a wall of adamant, so that it is
impossible for him to swim south, double Cape Horn, and proceed to the
North Pacific; yet the very same kind of whale found in Baffin's Bay is
found at Behring Straits.  Now, the question is, how did he get there?"

"Was born there, no doubt," answered Benjy, "and had no occasion to make
such a long voyage!"

"Ah! my boy, but we have the strongest evidence that he was _not_ born
there, for you must know that some whalers have a habit of marking their
harpoons with date and name of ship; and as we have been told by that
good and true man Dr Scoresby, there have been several instances where
whales have been captured near Behring Straits with harpoons in them
bearing the stamp of ships that were known to cruise on the Baffin's Bay
side of America.  Moreover, in one or two instances a very short time
had elapsed between the date of harpooning on the Atlantic and capturing
on the Pacific side.  These facts prove, at all events, a `North-west
Passage' for whales, and, as whales cannot travel far under ice without
breathing, they also tend to prove an open Polar sea.

"Another argument in favour of this basin is the migration of birds to
the northward at certain seasons.  Birds do not migrate to frozen
regions, and such migrations northward have been observed by those who,
like ourselves, have reached the highest latitudes.

"Captain Nares of the _Alert_, in May 1876, when only a little to the
southward of this, saw ptarmigan flying in pairs to the north-west,
seeking for better feeding-grounds.  Ducks and geese also passed
northward early in June, indicating plainly the existence of suitable
feeding-grounds in the undiscovered and mysterious North.

"We have now passed beyond the point reached by Captain Nares.  My last
observation placed us in parallel 84 degrees 40 minutes, the highest
that has yet been reached by civilised man."

"The highest, uncle?" interrupted Leo.  "Yes--the highest.  Scoresby
reached 81 degrees 50 minutes in 1806, Parry 82 degrees 45 minutes in
1827--with sledges.  That unfortunate and heroic American, Captain Hall,
ran his vessel, the _Polaris_, in the shortest space of time on record,
up to latitude 82 degrees 16 minutes.  Captain Nares reached a higher
latitude than had previously been attained by ships, and Captain
Markham, of Captain Nares' expedition, travelled over this very `sea of
ancient ice' with sledges to latitude 83 degrees 20.4 minutes--about 400
miles from the Pole, and the highest yet reached, as I have said.  So,
you see, we have beaten them all!  Moreover, I strongly incline to the
belief that the open Polar Sea lies just beyond that range of huge
icebergs which we see before us."

The Captain rose as he spoke, and pointed to the gigantic chain, behind
one of which the sun was just about to dip, causing its jagged peaks to
glow as with intense fire.

"But how are we ever to pass that barrier, uncle?" asked Alf, who was by
nature the least sanguine of the party in regard to overcoming
difficulties of a geographical nature, although by far the most
enthusiastic in the effort to acquire knowledge.

"You shall see, to-morrow," answered the Captain; "at present we must
turn in and rest.  See, the Eskimos have already set us the example."



CHAPTER NINE.

THE CAPTAIN MAKES A STUPENDOUS EFFORT.  DISAPPOINTMENTS AND DISCOVERIES.

Next morning the ice-plain was crossed at a swinging gallop.  Indeed,
the dogs were so fresh and frisky after a good rest and a hearty meal
that they ran away more than once, and it became a matter of extreme
difficulty to check them.  At last the great chain was reached, and the
party came to an abrupt halt at the base of one of the largest of the
bergs.  Captain Vane gazed up at it as Napoleon the First may be
supposed to have gazed at the Alps he had resolved to scale and cross.

The resemblance to alpine scenery was not confined to mere form--such as
towering peaks and mighty precipices--for there were lakelets and ponds
here and there up among the crystal heights, from which rivulets
trickled, streams brawled, and cataracts thundered.

It was evident, however, that the old giant that frowned on them was
verging towards dissolution, for he was honey-combed in all directions.

"Impossible to scale that," said Alf, with a solemn look.

Even Leo's sanguine temperament was dashed for a moment.  "We dare not
attempt to cut through it," he said, "for masses are falling about here
and there in a very dangerous fashion."

As he spoke, a tall spire was seen to slip from its position, topple
over, and go crashing down into a dark blue gulf of ice below it.

"No chance of success _now_," said Benjamin Vane, gloomily.

"None wotsomediver," muttered Butterface, his broad black visage
absolutely elongated by sympathetic despair.  For, you must know, as far
as his own feelings were concerned, sympathy alone influenced him.
Personally, he was supremely indifferent about reaching the North Pole.
In fact he did not believe in it at all, and made no scruple of saying
so, when asked, but he seldom volunteered his opinion, being an
extremely modest and polite man.

During these desponding remarks Captain Vane did not seem to be much
depressed.

"Anders," he said, turning abruptly to the interpreter, "ask Chingatok
what he thinks.  Can we pass this barrier, and, if not, what would he
advise us to do?"

It was observed that the other Eskimos drew near with anxious looks to
hear the opinion of their chief.

Toolooha and Tekkona, however, seemed quite devoid of anxiety.  They
evidently had perfect confidence in the giant, and poor little Oblooria
glanced up in the face of her friend as if to gather consolation from
her looks.

Chingatok, after a short pause, said:--

"The ice-mountains cannot be passed.  The white men have not wings; they
cannot fly.  They must return to land, and travel for many days to the
open water near the far-off land--there."

He pointed direct to the northward.

Captain Vane made no reply.  He merely turned and gave orders that the
lashings of one of the large sledges which conveyed the baggage should
be cast loose.  Selecting a box from this, he opened it, and took
therefrom a small instrument made partly of brass, partly of glass, and
partly of wood.

"You have often wondered, Benjy," he said, "what I meant to do with this
electrical machine.  You shall soon see.  Help me to arrange it, boy,
and do you, Leo, uncoil part of this copper wire.  Here, Alf, carry this
little box to the foot of the berg, and lay it in front of yon blue
cavern."

"Which?  That one close to the waterfall or--"

"No, the big cavern, just under the most solid part of the berg--the one
that seems to grow bluer and bluer until it becomes quite black in its
heart.  And have a care, Alf.  The box you carry is dangerous.  Don't
let it fall.  Lay it down gently, and come back at once.  Anders," he
added, turning round, "let all the people go back with dogs and sledges
for a quarter of a mile."

There was something so peremptory and abrupt in their leader's manner
that no one thought of asking him a question, though all were filled
with surprise and curiosity as to what he meant to do.

"Come here, Leo," he said, after his orders had been obeyed.  "Hold this
coil, and pay it out as I walk to the berg with the end in my hand."

The coil was one of extremely fine copper wire.  Leo let it run as the
Captain walked off.  A minute or two later he was seen to enter the dark
blue cavern and disappear.

"My dear dad is reckless," exclaimed Benjy, in some anxiety, "what if
the roof o' that cave should fall in.  There are bits of ice dropping
about everywhere.  What _can_ he be going to do?"

As he spoke, the Captain issued from the cave, and walked smartly
towards them.

"Now then, it's all right," he said, "give me the coil, Leo, and come
back, all of you.  Fetch the machine, Alf."

In a few minutes the whole party had retired a considerable distance
from the huge berg, the Captain uncoiling the wire as he went.

"Surely you're not going to try to blow it up piecemeal?" said Leo.

"No, lad, I'm not going to do that, or anything so slow," returned the
Captain, stopping and arranging the instrument.

"But if the box contains gunpowder," persisted Leo, "there's not enough
to--"

"It contains dynamite," said the Captain, affixing the coil to the
machine, and giving it a sharp turn.

If a volcano had suddenly opened fire under the iceberg the effect could
not have been more tremendous.  Thunder itself is not more deep than was
the crash which reverberated among the ice-cliffs.  Smoke burst in a
huge volume from the heart of the berg.  Masses, fragments, domes, and
pinnacles were hurled into the air, and fell back to mingle with the
blue precipices that tumbled, slid, or plunged in horrible confusion.
Only a portion, indeed, of the mighty mass had been actually disrupted,
but the shock to the surrounding ice was so shattering that the entire
berg subsided.

"Stu-pendous!" exclaimed Alf, with a look of awe-stricken wonder.

Benjy, after venting his feelings in a shriek of joyful surprise, seemed
to be struck dumb.  Anders and Butterface stood still,--speechless.  As
for the Eskimos, they turned with one hideous yell, and fled from the
spot like maniacs--excepting Chingatok, who, although startled, stood
his ground in an attitude expressive of superlative surprise.

"So,--it has not disappointed me," remarked the Captain, when the
hideous din had ceased, "dynamite is indeed a powerful agent when
properly applied: immeasurably more effective than powder."

"But it seems to me," said Leo, beginning to recover himself, "that
although you have brought the berg down you have not rendered it much
more passable."

"That's true, lad," answered the Captain with a somewhat rueful
expression.  "It does seem a lumpy sort of heap after all; but there may
be found some practicable bits when we examine it more closely.  Come,
we'll go see."

On closer inspection it was found that the ruined berg still presented
an absolutely insurmountable obstacle to the explorers, who, being
finally compelled to admit that even dynamite had failed, left the place
in search of a natural opening.

Travelling along the chain for a considerable time, in the hope of
succeeding, they came at last to a succession of comparatively level
floes, which conducted them to the extreme northern end of the chain,
and there they found that the floes continued onwards in an unbroken
plain to what appeared to be the open sea.

"That is a water-sky, for certain," exclaimed Captain Vane, eagerly, on
the evening when this discovery was made.  "The open ocean cannot now be
far off."

"There's a very dark cloud there, father," said Benjy, who, as we have
before said, possessed the keenest sight of the party.

"A cloud, boy! where?  Um--Yes, I see something--"

"It is land," said Chingatok, in a low voice.

"Land!" exclaimed the Captain, "are you sure?"

"Yes, I know it well.  I passed it on my journey here.  We left our
canoes and oomiaks there, and took to sledges because the floes were
unbroken.  But these ice-mountains were not here at that time.  They
have come down since we passed from the great sea."

"There!" said the Captain, turning to Leo with a look of triumph, "he
still speaks of the great sea!  If these bergs came from it, we _must_
have reached it, lad."

"But the land puzzles me," said Leo.  "Can it be part of Greenland?"

"Scarcely, for Greenland lies far to the east'ard, and the latest
discoveries made on the north of that land show that the coast turns
still more decidedly east--tending to the conclusion that Greenland is
an island.  This land, therefore, must be entirely new land--an island--
a continent perhaps."

"But it may be a cape, father," interposed Benjy.  "You know that capes
have a queer way of sticking out suddenly from land, just as men's noses
stick out from their faces."

"True, Benjy, true, but your simile is not perfect, for men's noses
don't always stick out from their faces--witness the nose of Butterface,
which, you know, is well aft of his lips and chin.  However, this _may_
be Greenland's nose--who knows?  We shall go and find out ere long.
Come, use your whip, Leo.  Ho!  Chingatok, tell your hairy kinsmen to
clap on all sail and make for the land."

"Hold on, uncle!" cried Alf, "I think I see a splendid specimen of--"

The crack of Leo's whip, and the yelping of the team, drowned the rest
of the sentence, and Alf was whirled away from his splendid specimen,
(whatever it was), for ever!

"It is a piece of great good fortune," said the Captain, as they swept
along over the hard and level snow, "that the Eskimos have left their
boats on this land, for now I shall have two strings to my bow."

"What is the other string?" asked Leo, as he administered a flip to the
flank of a lazy dog.

"Ah, that remains to be seen, lad," replied the Captain.

"Why, what a tyrant you are, uncle!" exclaimed Alf, who had recovered
from his disappointment about the splendid specimen.  "You won't tell us
anything, almost.  Who ever before heard of the men of an expedition to
the North Pole being kept in ignorance of the means by which they were
to get there?"

The Captain's reply was only a twinkle of the eye.

"Father wants to fill you with bliss, Alf," said Benjy, "according to
your own notions of that sort of thing."

"What do you mean, Ben?"

"Why, have we not all heard you often quote the words:--`Where ignorance
is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise.'"

"Hear, hear!  That's it, Benjy," said the Captain, with a nod and a
short laugh, while his son assumed the satisfied gravity of look
appropriate to one who has made a hit; "I won't decrease his bliss by
removing his ignorance yet awhile."

"Hain't Buzzby got nuffin' to say on that 'ere pint?" whispered
Butterface to Benjy, who sat just in front of him.

"Ah! to be sure.  I say, Alf," said the boy with an earnest look,
"hasn't your favourite author got something to say about the bliss of
ignorance?  I'm almost sure I heard you muttering something in your
dreams on that subject the other day."

"Of course he has.  He has a long poem on that subject.  Here is a bit
of it."

Alf, whose memory was good, immediately recited the following:

  "How sweet is ignorance!  How soothing to the mind,
  To search for treasures in the brain, and nothing find!
  Consider.  When the memory is richly stored,
  How apt the victim of redundant knowledge to be bored!
  When Nothing fills the chambers of the heart and brain,
  Then negative enjoyment comes with pleasures in her train!
  Descending on the clods of sense like summer rain.

  "Knowledge, 'tis said, gives power, and so it often does;
  Knowledge makes sorrow, too, around our pillows buzz.
  In debt I am, with little cash; I know it--and am sad.
  Of course, if I were ignorant of this--how glad!
  A loving friend, whom once I knew in glowing health,
  Has broken down, and also, somehow, lost his wealth.
  How sad the knowledge makes me!  Better far
  In ignorance to live, than hear of things that jar,
  And think of things that are not,--not of things that are.

  "`If ignorance is bliss,' the poet saith--why `if?'
  Why doubt a fact so clearly proven, stubborn, stiff?
  The heavy griefs and burdens of the world around,
  The hideous tyranny by which mankind is ground,
  The earthquake, tempest, rush of war, and wail of woe,
  Are all as though they were not--if I do not know!
  Wrapped in my robe of ignorance, what _can_ I miss?
  Am I not saved from all--and more than all--of this?
  Do I not revel in a regal realm of bliss?"

"Bravo!  Buzzby," cried the Captain, "but, I say, Alf, don't it seem to
smack rather too much of selfishness?"

"Of course it does, uncle.  I do not think Buzzby always sound in
principle, and, like many poets, he is sometimes confused in his logic."

"You're right, Benjy, the land is clear enough now," remarked the
Captain, whose interest in Buzzby was not profound, and whose feelings
towards logic bordered on the contemptuous, as is often the case with
half-educated men, and, strange to say, sometimes with highly-educated
men, as well as with the totally ignorant--so true is it that extremes
meet!

In the course of a couple of hours the sledges drew near to the island,
which proved to be a large but comparatively low one, rising not more
than a hundred feet in any part.  It was barren and ragged, with patches
of reindeer moss growing in some parts, and dwarf willows in others.
Myriads of sea-birds made it their home, and these received the invaders
with clamorous cries, as if they knew that white men were a dangerous
novelty, and objected to the innovation.

Despite their remonstrances, the party landed, and the Eskimos hurried
over the rocks to that part of the island where they had left their
kayaks and women's boats in charge of a party of natives who were
resident on the island at the time they passed, and from whom they had
borrowed the dogs and sledges with which they had travelled south.

Meanwhile the white men took to rambling; Leo to shoot wild-fowl for
supper, Alf to search for "specimens," and Benjy to scramble among the
rocks in search of anything that might "turn up."  Butterface assisted
the latter in his explorations.  While the rest were thus engaged, the
Captain extemporised a flag-staff out of two spears lashed together with
a small block at the top for the purpose of running up a flag, and
formally taking possession of the island when they should re-assemble.
This done, he wrote a brief outline of his recent doings, which he
inserted in a ginger-beer bottle brought for that very purpose.  Then he
assisted Anders in making the encampment and preparing supper.

The two were yet in the midst of the latter operation when a shout was
heard in the distance.  Looking in the direction whence it came they saw
Chingatok striding over the rocks towards them with unusual haste.  He
was followed by the other Eskimos, who came forward gesticulating
violently.

"My countrymen have left the island," said Chingatok when he came up.

"And taken the kayaks with them?" asked Captain Vane anxiously.

"Every one," replied the giant.

This was depressing news to the Captain, who had counted much on making
use of the Eskimo canoes in the event of his own appliances failing.

"Where have they gone, think you?" he asked.

"Tell Blackbeard," replied Chingatok, turning to Anders, "that no one
knows.  Since they went away the lanes of open water have closed, and
the ice is solid everywhere."

"But where the kayak and the oomiak cannot float the sledge may go,"
said the Captain.

"That is true; tell the pale chief he is wise, yet he knows not all
things.  Let him think.  When he comes to the great open sea what will
he do without canoes?"

"Huk!" exclaimed Oolichuk, with that look and tone which intimated his
belief that the pale chief had received a "clincher."

The chattering of the other Eskimos ceased for a moment or two as they
awaited eagerly the Captain's answer, but the Captain disappointed them.
He merely said, "Well, we shall see.  I may not know all things,
Chingatok, nevertheless I know a deal more than you can guess at.  Come
now, let's have supper, Anders; we can't wait for the wanderers."

As he spoke, three of the wanderers came into camp, namely Leo, Benjy,
and Butterface.

"What's come of Alf?" asked the Captain.

Neither Leo nor Benjy had seen him since they parted, a quarter of an
hour after starting, and both had expected to find him in camp, but
Butterface had seen him.

"Sawd him runnin'," said the sable steward, "runnin' like a mad kangaroo
arter a smallish brute like a mouse.  Nebber sawd nuffin' like Massa Alf
for runnin'."

"Well, we can't wait for him," said the Captain, "I want to take
possession of the island before supper.  What shall we call it?"

"Disappointment Isle," said Leo, "seeing that the Eskimos have failed
us."

"No--I won't be ungrateful," returned the Captain, "considering the
successes already achieved."

"Call it Content Isle, then," suggested Benjy.

"But I am not content with partial success.  Come, Butterface, haven't
you got a suggestion to make."

The negro shook his woolly head.  "No," he said, "I's 'orrible stoopid.
Nebber could get nuffin' to come out o' my brain--sep w'en it's knocked
out by accident.  You's hard to please, massa.  S'pose you mix de two,--
dis'pintment an' content,--an' call 'im Half-an'-half Island."

"Home is in sight now," said Chingatok, who had taken no interest in the
above discussion, as it was carried on in English.  "A few days more and
we should be there if we only had our kayaks."

"There's the name," exclaimed the Captain eagerly when this was
translated, "`Home-in-sight,' that will do."

Rising quickly, he bent a Union Jack to the halyards of his primitive
flag-staff, ran it up, and in the name of Queen Victoria took possession
of _Home-in-sight Island_.  After having given three hearty British
cheers, in which the Eskimos tried to join, with but partial success,
they buried the ginger-beer bottle under a heap of stones, a wooden
cross was fixed on the top of the cairn, and then the party sat down to
supper, while the Captain made a careful note of the latitude and
longitude, which he had previously ascertained.  This latest addition to
Her Majesty's dominions was put down by him in latitude 85 degrees 32
minutes, or about 288 geographical miles from the North Pole.



CHAPTER TEN.

A SKETCHER IN IMMINENT DANGER.  DIFFICULTIES INCREASE, AND ARE OVERCOME
AS USUAL.

The first night on Home-in-sight Island was not so undisturbed as might
have been expected.  The noisy gulls did indeed go to sleep at their
proper bed-time, which, by the way, they must have ascertained by
instinct, for the sun could be no certain guide, seeing that he shone
all night as well as all day, and it would be too much to expect that
gulls had sufficient powers of observation to note the great luminary's
exact relation to the horizon.  Polar bears, like the Eskimo, had
forsaken the spot.  All nature, indeed, animate and inanimate, favoured
the idea of repose when the explorers lay down to sleep on a mossy couch
that was quite as soft as a feather bed, and much more springy.

The cause of disturbance was the prolonged absence of Alf Vandervell.
That enthusiastic naturalist's failure to appear at supper was nothing
uncommon.  His non-appearance when they lay down did indeed cause some
surprise, but little or no anxiety, and they all dropped into a sound
sleep which lasted till considerably beyond midnight.  Then the Captain
awoke with a feeling of uneasiness, started up on one elbow, yawned, and
gazed dreamily around.  The sun, which had just kissed his hand to the
disappointed horizon and begun to re-ascend the sky, blinded the Captain
with his beams, but did not prevent him from observing that Alf's place
was still vacant.

"Very odd," he muttered, "Alf didn't use to--to--w'at's 'is name in--
this--way--"

The Captain's head dropped, his elbow relaxed, and he returned to the
land of Nod for another half-hour.

Again he awoke with a start, and sat upright.

"This'll never do," he exclaimed, with a fierce yawn, "something _must_
be wrong.  Ho!  Benjy!"

"Umph!" replied the boy, who, though personally light, was a heavy
sleeper.

"Rouse up, Ben, Alf's not come back.  Where did you leave him?"

"Don' know, Burrerface saw 'im las'--."  Benjy dropped off with a sigh,
but was re-aroused by a rough shake from his father, who lay close to
him.

"Come, Ben, stir up Butterface!  We must go look for Alf."

Butterface lay on the other side of Benjy, who, only half alive to what
he was doing, raised his hand and let it fall heavily on the negro's
nose, by way of stirring him up.

"Hallo! massa Benjamin!  You's dreamin' drefful strong dis mornin'."

"Yer up, ol' ebony!" groaned the boy.

In a few minutes the whole camp was roused; sleep was quickly banished
by anxiety about the missing one; guns and rifles were loaded, and a
regular search-expedition was hastily organised.  They started off in
groups in different directions, leaving the Eskimo women in charge of
the camp.

The Captain headed one party, Chingatok another, and Leo with Benjy a
third, while a few of the natives went off independently, in couples or
alone.

"I was sure Alf would get into trouble," said Benjy, as he trotted
beside Leo, who strode over the ground in anxious haste.  "That way he
has of getting so absorbed in things that he forgets where he is, won't
make him a good explorer."

"Not so sure of that, Ben," returned Leo; "he can discover things that
men who are less absorbed, like you, might fail to note.  Let us go
round this hillock on separate sides.  We might pass him if we went
together.  Keep your eyes open as you go.  He may have stumbled over one
of those low precipices and broken a leg.  Keep your ears cocked also,
and give a shout now and then."

We have said that the island was a low one, nevertheless it was
extremely rugged, with little ridges and hollows everywhere, like
miniature hills and valleys.  Through one of these latter Benjy hurried,
glancing from side to side as he went, like a red Indian on the
war-path--which character, indeed, he thought of, and tried to imitate.

The little vale did not, however, as Leo had imagined, lead round the
hillock.  It diverged gradually to the right, and ascended towards the
higher parts of the island.  The path was so obstructed by rocks and
boulders which had evidently been at one time under the pressure of ice,
that the boy could not see far in any direction, except by mounting one
of these.  He had not gone far when, on turning the corner of a cliff
which opened up another gorge to view, he beheld a sight which caused
him to open mouth and eyes to their widest.

For there, seated on an eminence, with his back to a low precipice, not
more than three or four hundred yards off, sat the missing explorer,
with book on knees and pencil in hand--sketching; and there, seated on
the top of the precipice, looking over the edge at the artist, skulked a
huge Polar bear, taking as it were, a surreptitious lesson in drawing!
The bear, probably supposing Alf to be a wandering seal, had dogged him
to that position just as Benjy Vane discovered him, and then, finding
the precipice too high for a leap perhaps, or doubting the character of
his intended victim, he had paused in uncertainty on the edge.

The boy's first impulse was to utter a shout of warning, for he had no
gun wherewith to shoot the brute, but fear lest that might precipitate
an attack restrained him.  Benjy, however, was quick-witted.  He saw
that the leap was probably too much even for a Polar bear, and that the
nature of the ground would necessitate a detour before it could get at
the artist.  These and other thoughts passed through his brain like the
lightning flash, and he was on the point of turning to run back and give
the alarm to Leo, when a rattling of stones occurred behind him--just
beyond the point of rocks round which he had turned.  In the tension of
his excited nerves he felt as if he had suddenly become red hot.  Could
this be another bear?  If so, what was he to do, whither to fly?  A
moment more would settle the question, for the rattle of stones
continued as the steps advanced.  The boy felt the hair rising on his
head.  Round came the unknown monster in the form of--a man!

"Ah, Benjy, I--"

But the appearance of Benjy's countenance caused Leo to stop abruptly,
both in walk and talk.  He had found out his mistake about sending the
boy round the hillock, and, turning back, had followed him.

"Ah! look there," said Benjy, pointing at the _tableau vivant_ on the
hill-top.

Leo's ready rifle leaped from his shoulder to his left palm, and a grim
smile played on his lips, for long service in a volunteer corps had made
him a good judge of distance as well as a sure and deadly shot.

"Stand back, Benjy, behind this boulder," he whispered.  "I'll lean on
it to make more certain."

He was deliberately arranging the rifle while speaking, but never for
one instant took his eye off the bear, which still stood motionless,
with one paw raised, as if petrified with amazement at what it saw.  As
for Alf, he went on intently with his work, lifting and lowering his
eyes continuously, putting in bold dashes here, or tender touches there;
holding out the book occasionally at arm's length to regard his work,
with head first on one side, then on the other, and, in short, going
through all those graceful and familiar little evolutions of artistic
procedure which arouse one's home feelings so powerfully everywhere--
even in the Arctic regions!  Little did the artist know who was his
uninvited pupil on that sunny summer night!

With one knee resting on a rock, and his rifle on the boulder, Leo took
a steady, somewhat lengthened aim, and fired.  The result was
stupendous!  Not only did the shot reverberate with crashing echoes
among surrounding cliffs and boulders, but a dying howl from the bear
burst over the island, like the thunder of a heavy gun, and went booming
over the frozen sea.  No wonder that the horrified Alf leapt nearly his
own height into the air and scattered his drawing-materials right and
left like chaff.  He threw up his arms, and wheeled frantically round
just in time to receive the murdered bear into his very bosom!  They
rolled down a small slope together, and then, falling apart, lay prone
and apparently dead upon the ground.

You may be sure that Leo soon had his brother's head on his knee, and
was calling to him in an agony of fear, quite regardless of the fact
that the bear lay at his elbow, giving a few terrific kicks as its huge
life oozed out through a bullet-hole in its heart, while Benjy, half
weeping with sympathy, half laughing with glee, ran to a neighbouring
pool to fetch water in his cap.

A little of the refreshing liquid dashed on his face and poured down his
throat soon restored Alf, who had only been stunned by the fall.

"What induced you to keep on sketching all night?" asked Leo, after the
first explanations were over.

"All night?" repeated Alf in surprise, "have I been away all night?
What time is it?"

"Three o'clock in the morning at the very least," said Leo.  "The sun is
pretty high, as you might have seen if you had looked at it."

"But he never looked at it," said Benjy, whose eyes were not yet quite
dry, "he never looks at anything, or thinks of anything, when he goes
sketching."

"Surely you must allow that at least I look at and think of my work,"
said Alf, rising from the ground and sitting down on the rock from which
he had been so rudely roused; "but you are half right, Benjy.  The sun
was at my back, you see, hid from me by the cliff over which the bear
tumbled, and I had no thoughts for time, or eyes for nature, except the
portion I was busy with--by the way, where is it?"

"What, your sketch?"

"Ay, and the colours.  I wouldn't lose these for a sight of the Pole
itself.  Look for them, Ben, my boy, I still feel somewhat giddy."

In a few minutes the sketch and drawing-materials were collected,
undamaged, and the three returned to camp, Alf leaning on Leo's arm.  On
the way thither they met the Captain's party, and afterwards the band
led by Chingatok.  The latter was mightily amused by the adventure, and
continued for a considerable time afterwards to upheave his huge
shoulders with suppressed laughter.

When the whole party was re-assembled the hour was so late, and they had
all been so thoroughly excited, that no one felt inclined to sleep
again.  It was resolved, therefore, at once to commence the operations
of a new day.  Butterface was set to prepare coffee, and the Eskimos
began breakfast with strips of raw blubber, while steaks of Leo's bear
were being cooked.

Meanwhile Chingatok expressed a wish to see the drawing which had so
nearly cost the artist his life.

Alf was delighted to exhibit and explain it.

For some time the giant gazed at it in silence.  Then he rested his
forehead in his huge hand as if in meditation.

It was truly a clever sketch of a surpassingly lovely scene.  In the
foreground was part of the island with its pearl-grey rocks, red-brown
earth, and green mosses, in the midst of which lay a calm pool, like the
island's eye looking up to heaven and reflecting the bright
indescribable blue of the midnight sky.  Further on was a mass of cold
grey rocks.  Beyond lay the northern ice-pack, which extended in chaotic
confusion away to the distant horizon, but the chaos was somewhat
relieved by the presence of lakelets which shone here and there over its
surface like shields of glittering azure and burnished gold.

"Ask him what he thinks of it," said Leo to Anders, a little surprised
at Chingatok's prolonged silence.

"I cannot speak," answered the giant, "my mind is bursting and my heart
is full.  With my finger I have drawn faces on the snow.  I have seen
men put wonderful things on flat rocks with a piece of stone, but
this!--this is my country made little.  It looks as if I could walk in
it, yet it is flat!"

"The giant is rather complimentary," laughed Benjy, when this was
translated; "to my eye your sketch is little better than a daub."

"It is a daub that causes me much anxiety," said the Captain, who now
looked at the drawing for the first time.  "D'you mean to tell me, Alf,
that you've been true to nature when you sketched that pack?"

"As true as I could make it, uncle."

"I'll answer for its truth," said Leo, "and so will Benjy, for we both
saw the view from the top of the island, though we paid little heed to
it, being too much occupied with Alf and the bear at the time.  The pack
is even more rugged than he has drawn it, and it extends quite unbroken
to the horizon."

The Captain's usually hopeful expression forsook him for a little as he
commented on his bad fortune.

"The season advances, you see," he said, "and it's never very long at
the best.  I had hoped we were done with this troublesome `sea of
ancient ice,' but it seems to turn up everywhere, and from past
experience we know that the crossing of it is slow work, as well as
hard.  However, we mustn't lose heart.  `Nebber say die,' as Butterface
is fond of remarking."

"Yis, Massa, nebber say die, but allers say `lib, to de top ob your
bent.'  Dems my 'pinions w'en dey's wanted.  Also `go a-hid.'  Dat's a
grand sent'ment--was borned 'mong de Yankees, an' I stoled it w'en I
left ole Virginny."

"What says Chingatok?" asked the Captain of the Eskimo, who was still
seated with the sketch on his knees in profound meditation.

"Blackbeard has trouble before him," answered the uncompromising giant,
without removing his eyes from the paper.  "There," he said, pointing to
the pack, "you have three days' hard work.  After that three days' easy
and swift work.  After that no more go on.  Must come back."

"He speaks in riddles, Anders.  What does he mean by the three days of
hard work coming to an end?"

"I mean," said Chingatok, "that the ice was loose when I came to this
island.  It is now closed.  The white men must toil, toil, toil--very
slow over the ice for three days, then they will come to smooth ice,
where the dogs may run for three days.  Then they will come to another
island, like this one, on the far-off side of which there is no ice--
nothing but sea, sea, sea.  Our kayaks are gone," continued the giant,
sadly, "we must come back and travel many days before we find things to
make new ones."

While he was speaking, Captain Vane's face brightened up.

"Are you sure of what you say, Chingatok?"

"Chingatok is sure," replied the Eskimo quietly.

"Then we'll conquer our difficulties after all.  Come, boys, let's waste
no more time in idle talk, but harness the dogs, and be off at once."

Of course the party had to travel round the island, for there was
neither ice nor snow on it.  When the other side was reached the real
difficulties of the journey were fully realised.  During the whole of
that day and the next they were almost continuously engaged in dragging
the sledges over masses of ice, some of which rose to thirty feet above
the general level.  If the reader will try to imagine a very small ant
or beetle dragging its property over a newly macadamised road, he will
have a faint conception of the nature of the work.  To some extent the
dogs were a hindrance rather than a help, especially when passing over
broken fragments, for they were always tumbling into holes and cracks,
out of which they had to be dragged, and were much given to venting
their ill-humour on each other, sometimes going in for a free fight, in
the course of which they tied their traces into indescribable knots, and
drove their Eskimo masters furious.  On such occasions the whips--both
lash and handle--were applied with unsparing vigour until the creatures
were cowed.

Danger, also, as well as toil, was encountered during the journey.  On
the evening of the second day the sledge driven by Oolichuk diverged a
little from the line of march towards what seemed an easier passage over
the hummocks.  They had just gained the top of an ice-block, which,
unknown to the driver, overhung its base.  When the dogs reached the
edge of the mass, it suddenly gave way.  Down went the team with a
united howl of despair.  Their weight jerked the sledge forward, another
mass of the ice gave way, and over went the whole affair.  In the fall
the lashings broke, and Oolichuk, with several of his kindred, including
poor little Oblooria, went down in a shower of skins, packages, bags,
and Eskimo cooking utensils.

Fortunately, they dropped on a slope of ice which broke their fall, and,
as it were, shunted them all safely, though violently, to the lower
level of the pack.

Beyond a few scratches and bruises, no evil resulted from this accident
to these hardy natives of the north.

That night they all encamped, as on the previous night, in the midst of
the pack, spreading their skins and furs on the flattest ice they could
find, and keeping as far from overhanging lumps as possible.

"What does Blackbeard mean by coming here?" asked Chingatok of Anders,
as they lay side by side, gazing up at the blue sky awaiting sleep.  "We
cannot swim over the sea, and we have no boats."

"I don't know," answered the interpreter.  "Our chief is a wonderful
man.  He does things that seem to be all wrong, but they turn out mostly
to be all right."

"Does he ever speak of a Great Spirit?" asked the giant in a solemn
tone.

"Not to me," replied the other, "but I hear him sometimes speaking to
his little boy about his God."

"Then he must know his God," returned Chingatok.  "Has he seen him--
spoken to him?"

Anders was a good deal surprised as well as puzzled by the questions put
by his new friend.  His extremely commonplace mind had never been
exercised by such ideas.  "I never asked him about that," he said, "and
he never told me.  Perhaps he will tell you if you ask him."

The interpreter turned on his side with a sigh and went to sleep.  The
giant lay on his back gazing long and steadily with a wistful look at
the unbroken vault of sky, whose vast profundity seemed to thrust him
mercilessly back.  As he gazed, a little cloud, light as a puff of
eider-down, and golden as the sun from which its lustre came, floated
into the range of his vision.  He smiled, for the thought that light may
suddenly arise when all around seems blank gave his inquiring spirit
rest, and he soon joined the slumbering band who lay upon the ice around
him.

According to Chingatok's prophecy, on the third day the fagged and weary
discoverers surmounted their first difficulty, and came upon
comparatively smooth ice, the surface of which resembled hard-trodden
snow, and was sufficiently free from obstructing lumps to admit of rapid
sledge travelling.  It was late when they reached it, but as they could
now all sit on the sledges and leave the hard work to the dogs, the
leader resolved to continue the advance without resting.

"It's time enough to stop when we're stopped," he remarked to Leo, while
making preparations to start.  "We will sleep at the first obstruction
we meet with, if it's a sufficiently troublesome one.  See that the
things are well lashed on all the sledges, Alf.  Remember that I hold
you responsible for lost articles."

"And what am I responsible for, father?" asked Benjy with a pert look.

"For keeping out of mischief, Ben.  That's the most I can expect of
you."

"You are only a sort of negative blessing to us, you see, Benjy," said
Alf, as he stooped to tighten a rope.  "It's not so much what you do, as
what you don't do, that rejoices us."

"I'm glad of that," retorted the boy, arranging himself comfortably on
his father's sledge, "because I won't do anything at all for some hours
to come, which ought to fill you all with perfect felicity.  Awake me,
Leo, if we chance to upset."

"Now then, all ready?" cried the Captain.  "Off you go, then--clap on
all sail!"

Crack went the mighty whips, howl went the dogs, and the sledges were
soon skimming over the sea at the rate of ten miles an hour.  Of course
they did not keep that pace up very long.  It became necessary to rest
at times, also, to give the dogs a little food.  When this latter
process had been completed, the teams became so lively that they tried
to runaway.

"Let them run," said the Captain to Leo.

"And help them on," added Benjy.

Leo took the advice of both, applied the lash, and increased the speed
so much that the sledge swung from side to side on the smooth places,
sometimes catching on a lump of ice, and all but throwing out its
occupants.  The Eskimos entered into the spirit of their leaders.  They
also plied their lashes, and, being more dexterous than Leo, soon
converted the journey into a race, in which Chingatok--his giant arm
flourishing an appropriately huge whip--was rapidly coming to the front
when a tremendous shout in the rear caused them to pull up.  Looking
back, Alf's sledge was seen inverted and mixed, as it were, with the
team, while Alf himself and his Eskimo friends were sprawling around on
the ice.  No damage was done to life or limb, but a sledge-runner had
been partially broken, and could not be mended,--so said Oolichuk--in
less than an hour.

"This, then," said the Captain, "is our first obstruction, so here we
will make our beds for the night."



CHAPTER ELEVEN.

ANOTHER ISLAND DISCOVERED--THE ENGLISHMEN AND ESKIMOS ALIKE ARE
ASTONISHED IN MORE WAYS THAN ONE.

As Chingatok had predicted, on the sixth day from Home-in-sight Island
the party came to another island, where the great pack abruptly
terminated.  It was not large, probably ten or twelve miles in length,
from the Eskimo account, but the ends of it could not be seen from the
spot where they landed.  At that point it was only two miles wide, and
on the opposite side its shores were laved by an open sea, which was
quite free from ice, with the exception of a few scattered floes and
bergs--a sea whose waves fell in slow regular cadence on a pebbly beach,
and whose horizon was an unbroken line barely distinguishable from the
sky.

Close to it a few black rocks showed above the water, around which great
numbers of gulls, puffins, and other sea-birds disported themselves in
clamorous joy; sometimes flying to the shore as if to have a look at the
newcomers, and then sheering off with a scream--it might be a laugh--to
tell their comrades what they had seen.

"Here, then, at last, is the open Polar Sea," said Captain Vane, after
the first long silent gaze of joy and admiration.  "I have no doubt of
it whatever.  And now we shall proceed, I hope without interruption, to
the Pole!"

"Of course you do not intend that we should swim there, do you, uncle?"
said Leo.

"Of course not, my boy.  In those big cases, which have cost us so much
labour to bring here, I have three large and stout india-rubber boats--"

"Ha!  I guessed as much," exclaimed Alf.

"No doubt," returned the Captain, "but you did not guess all."

"I hope not," said Leo, "for to say truth I don't much relish the idea
of rowing over an unknown sea an unknown distance at the rate of three
or four miles an hour.  I hope you have a patent steam-engine that will
drive us along somewhat faster."

"No, lad, no, I have no such steam-engine or any other miraculous
contrivance that sets the laws of nature at defiance, and appears only
in nursery tales.  This expedition has been undertaken on no haphazard
or insane plan.  It was all cut and dry before we left Old England, and
it is much simpler than you suppose."

"What, then, is to be your motive power, if not oars or sails--which
last would not work well, I fear, in an india-rubber boat?" asked Leo.

"Kites," replied the Captain.

"Kites!" repeated both Alf and Leo in surprise.

"Not paper ones, surely," said Benjy, in a tone of disappointment, not
unmingled with contempt.

"No, Ben, not paper ones," said the Captain, "but you shall see.  Let
the boxes be unlashed and carried into yonder cave.  I'll unpack them
presently.  Meanwhile, Anders, I want you to interpret for me.  Go, tell
Chingatok I wish to have a talk with him."

While the brothers went to obey their leader's order, and Benjy to
superintend the pitching of the camp, Captain Vane walked along the
shore with Anders and the giant.

"Are you sure, Chingatok, that there is no more ice in this sea?" asked
the Captain.

"No more great packs; only a little here and there, and a few
ice-mountains," answered the Eskimo.

"And no more islands?"

"No more islands till you come to the land where I and my people dwell.
There are more islands beyond that with people on them--people who are
not friendly to us."

"How far off, now, is your land from this island?" continued the
Captain, with a grave nod to Leo, who joined them at the moment.

"About three days with a kayak."

The Captain pondered for a few minutes.

"Leo," he said, "the observation which I took yesterday enables me to
place this island in latitude 86 degrees 40 minutes.  I judge that a
kayak may travel at the rate of three miles an hour, which, making
allowance for sleep and rests, gives the distance of this island from
Chingatok's native land approximately at about 100 miles, so that the
home of this giant and his tribe is actually in the near neighbourhood
of the Pole itself.  If this be so, we may consider that our success,
wind, weather, etcetera, permitting, is absolutely certain."

The Captain spoke in the deep earnest tones of one under the influence
of powerful but suppressed enthusiasm.

"Now then, Leo," he continued, "we will go and take formal possession of
this new discovery.  What shall we call it?  Good Hope is too familiar
as a cape."

"Why not Great Hope?" asked Leo.

"Good!  That will do well."

So Captain Vane took possession of Great Hope Island; having fixed its
position in latitude 86 degrees 40 minutes north, and longitude 60
degrees west.

After that he proceeded to open the cases which had so long been objects
of interest to his own party, and objects of intense curiosity to the
Eskimos, who crowded round the entrance of the shallow cavern with eager
looks, while their leader went to work with hammer and chisel on the
copper fastenings.

"Wugh!  Huk! hi! hosh! ho!" were something like the exclamations uttered
by the Eskimos when the lid of the first case flew up and revealed only
a mass of brown paper wrappings.

It was interesting to observe the utter self-oblivion of these children
of nature!  Of course the eyes and mouths of all opened wider and wider
while the work went on.  We can understand this, for it is
characteristic of the simple in all nations, but it was not so easy to
understand why shoulders should slowly rise and elbows be slightly bent,
and the ten fingers gradually expand like claws.  Anxiety might account
for the way in which some of them softly lifted one foot and then the
other; but why did little Oblooria raise her left foot by imperceptible
degrees, and remain poised upon the other as if she were a bird, except
on the supposition that she was unconsciously imitating Tekkona, who was
doing the same thing?

It was interesting, also, to note the slight substratum of consciousness
that displayed itself in Oolichuk, who, while regarding the Captain in
glaring expectancy, put his arm, inadvertently as it were, round
Oblooria's waist--also the complete absence of consciousness in the
latter, who was so engrossed with the Captain, that she did not appear
to feel the touch of Oolichuk!  These little peculiarities, however,
although extremely interesting, were not observed by any of the actors
on that occasion--except, perhaps, by Benjy, who, being sharp-witted,
had a knack of seeing round a corner at times!

When the contents of the case were turned out, they proved to consist of
several coils of rope, and a large square bundle.  The uncording of the
latter intensified the expectation of the Eskimo to boiling point, and
when the brown paper was removed, and a roll of something with a
strange, not to say bad, smell was displayed, they boiled over in a
series of exclamations to which the former "huks" and "hos" were mere
child's play.  But when the roll was unrolled, and assumed a flat shape
not unlike the skin of a huge walrus, they gave a shout.  Then, when the
Captain, opening a smaller package, displayed a pair of bellows like a
concertina, they gave a gasp.  When he applied these to a hole in the
flat object, and caused it slowly to swell, they uttered a roar, and
when, finally, they saw the flat thing transformed into a goodly-sized
boat, they absolutely squealed with delight, and began to caper about in
childlike joy.

In this manner, three cases were opened, and three boats produced.  Then
the Magician, who went about his work in perfect silence, with a knowing
smile on his lips, opened several longish boxes, which Leo had guessed
to be filled with fishing-rods or spare rifles, but which, it turned
out, contained oars for the india-rubber boats.  After that, the Captain
opened another large case, which roused the surprise of his white
followers as much as that of the natives.

"It looks like one of mother's silk dresses," remarked Benjy, as the new
wonder was dragged forth.

"Too voluminous for that," said Alf.

"A balloon!" exclaimed Leo.

"No, boys, it's only a kite," said the Captain, unfolding it.  "I
confess it does not look very like one, but its appearance will change
by and by."

And its appearance did change remarkably as it was opened out and put
together.

The construction of this kite was peculiar.  In the first place, it was
square in form, or, rather, diamond-shaped, and its size, when fully
distended, was eighteen feet by fourteen.

"The simplicity of it, you see," said the Captain, as he put it
together, "is its great recommendation."

He ceased to speak for a few moments, while engaged with a troublesome
joint, and Benjy took advantage of the pause to express a hope that
simplicity was not its _greatest_ recommendation, because he had never
heard of any one attempting to reach the Pole on the strength of
simplicity.

Without noticing this remark, the Captain went on--

"You see it would be troublesome to carry distending sticks of great
length, because they would be in the way, and apt to get broken.  Each
stick, therefore, has a joint in the middle like that of a fishing-rod.
There are four such sticks, fastened to, or radiating from, a strong
steel central hinge, so that they can be folded together, or opened out
into the form of a cross.  A small but very strong cross of bamboo fits
on the machine, behind the central hinge, and locks it in a distended
position, after the silk has been placed on it.  Strong cords run round
the outer edges of the silk, and there are loops at the corners to
attach it to the distenders.  Thus, you see, the kite can be put up, or
folded into a portable form like an umbrella, though not of course as
quickly, nor yet as easily, owing to its great size."

While he was speaking, the Captain was busily putting the several parts
of the kite together.

As he concluded, he laid the machine on its face, locked it with the
little bamboo cross, and then held it up in triumph, to the delight of
his white observers, and the blank astonishment of the Eskimos.  We say
blank, because, unlike the boat, the nature of which they understood
before it had been quite inflated, this machine was to them an absolute
mystery, and seemed to be of no use at all.

Their opinion of it was not improved when a sudden puff of wind blew it
flat on the ground, causing the Captain to fall on the top of it.

"It's a little awkward in handling," he growled, unlocking the
centre-cross.  "Hold the points down, lads, till I drag it into the
umbrella form.  There; it's all safe now.  The truth is,
unmanageableness when in hand is the only fault of my kite.  Once in the
air, it's as tractable as a lamb; getting it up is the chief difficulty,
but that is not too great to be overcome."

"Besides, you know, nothing's perfect in this world, father," said
Benjy, with a wink at Butterface, who, having acute risible tendencies,
exploded.  Some of the Eskimos, whose sympathies were strong, joined in
the laugh by way of relief to their feelings.

When the Captain had wound a strap round the closed kite, to restrain
its volatile nature, he opened another large case which contained
several reels of strong cord, somewhat resembling log-lines, but with
this peculiarity, that, alongside of each thick cord there ran a thin
red line of twine, connected with though not bound to the other by means
of little loops or rings of twine fixed about six feet apart throughout
its entire length.

"These are the cords to fly the kites," said the Captain, taking up one
of the reels, which was as large as a man's hat.  "You see I have three
sets of silk in that box, and six sets of reels and sticks, besides a
few spare pieces of the latter, so that we can afford to suffer a little
damage.  Now, the use of this peculiar sort of double line will be clear
when in action, but I may as well explain it.  The end of this stout
line is to be made fast to the band which you saw on the kite, and the
end of this thin red line to the top of its upright stick.  You remember
well enough how independent ordinary kites are.  You cannot cause them
to descend except by hauling them in by main force, and you cannot
moderate their pull.  This kite of mine is capable of exerting a pull
equal to six horses, with a sufficiently strong wind.  So, you see, it
would be impossible for a dozen men to hold it without some check on its
power.  This check is supplied by the thin red line, which is made of
the strongest silk.  By pulling it gently you bend the head of the kite
forward, so that it ceases to present a flat surface to the wind, which
flies off it more or less at the tail.  By pulling still more on the red
line, the traction-power is still further reduced, and, with a good
pull, the kite can be made to present its head altogether to the wind,
and thus to lie flat on it, when, of course, it will descend slowly to
the ground, waving from side to side, like a dropped sheet of paper."

"Are you going to try it, father?" asked Benjy eagerly.

The Captain looked up at the clouds with a critical glance.  "There's
hardly enough of wind to-day, boy.  Nevertheless we will try."

In a very short time the kite was again extended, the centre locked, the
thick cord fixed to a loop in the band, and the thin cord to the head of
the main stick.  While this was being done, the corners were held down
by Leo, Benjy, Anders, and Butterface.

"How about a tail, father?" asked Benjy, with sudden animation.

"Ha!  I forgot the tail.  I've got several tails.  It's well you
reminded me."

"It is indeed," responded the boy, "for I remember well that when my
kites lost their tails they used to whirl wildly about until they dashed
their heads on the ground.  This kite would be little better than a mad
elephant without its tail!"

A short tail, made of the strongest cat-gut, was now fixed to the lower
extremity of the kite.  It had a bag at the end, to be weighted with
stones as required.

"Now, then, Alf, do you carry the reel away fifty yards or so, and pay
out the line as you go.  Make a dozen of the Eskimos hold on with you
till I come and regulate the pull.  I must remain here to set it off."

Alf did as he was ordered.  When he was far enough out, the Captain and
Leo raised the aerial monster with caution, grasping it by the
shoulders, while Benjy held on to the tail.  Their great care was to
keep it flat, so that it presented nothing but its thin head to the
wind, but this was a difficulty, for it kept fluttering as if anxious to
get away, catching a slant of wind underneath now and then, which caused
both Leo and the Captain to stagger.

"Don't hold down the tail, Benjy," cried the Captain, looking anxiously
over his shoulder.

Unfortunately Ben did not hear the "don't."  Not only did he hold on
with increased vigour, but he gave the tail an energetic pull downwards.
The result was that the wind got fairly underneath, and the head was
jerked upward.  Leo, fearing to tear the silk, let go, and the Captain
was thrown violently off.  Benjy alone stood to his guns--or to his
tail--with loyal heroism for a moment, but when he felt himself lifted
off the ground a few inches, a feeling of horror seized him.  He let go,
and came down with a whack.

Free at last, the huge kite shot upwards like a rocket, and a terrible
howl from the Eskimo showed that all was not right at their end of the
line.  The truth was that none of them were impressed with the
importance of the duty required of them.  The sudden strain jerked the
line out of the hands of some, and threw others to the ground, and Alf,
who had for greater security taken a turn of the line round his right
arm, was dragged forward at full racing speed.  Indeed he was beginning
to take those tremendous bounds called "giant strides," which were sure
to terminate in his being dragged along the ground.

Captain Vane saw the danger, and was equal to the occasion.  There was
little time for thought or action.  Another moment and Alf would be off
the beach into the sea.

"Let go!  Alf; let go!" cried Leo, in an agony of alarm.

"No, no! hold on!" shouted the Captain.

Poor Alf could not help holding on.  The turns of the line round his arm
held him fast.

Another moment, and he was abreast of the Captain who sprang at him as
he passed like a leopard on his prey and held on.  But the pace was
little checked with this additional weight.  It was beyond the Captain's
running powers, and both he and Alf would have been thrown violently to
the ground had it not happened that they had reached the water, into
which they plunged with a tremendous splash.  They were dragged through
it, however, only for a few seconds, for by that time the Captain had
succeeded in getting hold of the red line and pulling it separately.
The result was immediate and satisfactory.  The head of the kite was
thrown forward, acting somewhat as a sail does when a ship is thrown
into the wind, and the two unfortunates came to an anchor in four feet
of water.

"We must not let it into the water, Alf," gasped the Captain, clearing
the water from his eyes.

"How can we prevent it?" spluttered Alf, shaking the wet hair off his
face.

"Ease your fingers a bit.  There; hold on."  As he spoke the Captain
gave a slight pull on the regulating line.  The kite at once caught the
wind and soared, giving the two operators an awful tug, which nearly
overturne

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