The Giant of the North: Pokings Round the Pole
“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.