The Giant of the North: Pokings Round the Pole

Chingatok measured off the half of his left hand by way of explaining how big.

“Is he black under the clothes?”

“Yes; black all over.”

Again the couple paused.

“It is strange,” said the old man, shaking his head. “Perhaps he was made black because his father was wicked.”

“Not so,” returned the young giant. “I have heard him say his father was a very good man.”

“Strange,” repeated the chief, with a solemn look, “he is very ugly—worse than a walrus. Tell me, my son, where do the Kablunets live? Do they hunt the walrus or the seal?”

“Blackbeard has told me much, father, that I do not understand. His people do not hunt much—only a very few of them do.”

“Wah! they are lazy! The few hunt to keep the rest in meat, I suppose.”

“No, father, that is not the way. The few hunt for fun. The great many spend their time in changing one thing for another. They seem to be never satisfied—always changing, changing—every day, and all day. Getting and giving, and never satisfied.”

“Poor things!” said the chief.

“And they have no walruses, no white bears, no whales, nothing!” added the son.

“Miserables! Perhaps that is why they come here to search for nothing!”

“But, father, if they have got nothing at home, why come here to search for it?”

“What do they eat?” asked Amalatok, quickly, as if he were afraid of recurring to the puzzling question that had once already taken him out of his mental depth.

“They eat all sorts of things. Many of them eat things that are nasty—things that grow out of the ground; things that are very hot and burn the tongue; things that are poison and make them ill. They eat fish too, like us, and other people bring them their meat in great oomiaks from far-off lands. They seem to be so poor that they cannot find enough in their own country to feed themselves.”

“Wretched creatures!” said the old man, pitifully. “Yes, and they drink too. Drink waters so hot and so terrible that they burn their mouths and their insides, and so they go mad.”

“Did I not say that they were fools?” said Amalatok, indignantly.

“But the strangest thing of all,” continued Chingatok, lowering his voice, and looking at his sire in a species of wonder, “is that they fill their mouths with smoke!”

“What? Eat smoke?” said Amalatok in amazement.

“No, they spit it out.”

“Did Blackbeard tell you that?”

“Yes.”

“Then Blackbeard is a liar!”

Chingatok did not appear to be shocked by the old man’s plain speaking, but he did not agree with him.

“No, father,” said he, after a pause. “Blackbeard is not a liar. He is good and wise, and speaks the truth. I have seen the Kablunets do it myself. In the big oomiak that they lost, some of the men did it, so—puff, pull, puff, puff—is it not funny?”

Both father and son burst into laughter at this, and then, becoming suddenly grave, remained staring at the smoke of their cooking-lamp, silently meditating on these things.

While thus engaged, a man entered the low doorway in the only possible manner, on hands and knees, and, rising, displayed the face of Anders.

“Blackbeard sends a message to the great old chief,” said the interpreter. “He wishes him to pay the Kablunets a visit. He has something to show to the great old chief.”

“Tell him I come,” said the chief, with a toss of the head which meant, “be off!”

“I wonder,” said Amalatok slowly, as Anders crept out, “whether Blackbeard means to show us some of his wisdom or some of his foolishness. The white men appear to have much of both.”

“Let us go see,” said Chingatok.

They went, and found the Captain seated in front of the door of his hut with his friends round him—all except Benjy, who was absent. They were very grave, as usual, desiring to be impressive.

“Chief,” began the Captain, in that solemn tone in which ghosts are supposed to address mankind, “I wish to show you that I can make the stoutest and most obstinate warrior of Poloeland tremble and jump without touching him.”

“That is not very difficult,” said the old man, who had still a lurking dislike to acknowledge the Englishmen his superiors. “I can make any one of them tremble and jump by throwing a spear at him.”

A slight titter from the assembly testified to the success of this reply.

“But,” rejoined the Captain, with deepening solemnity, “I will do it without throwing a spear.”

“So will I, by suddenly howling at him in the dark,” said Amalatok.

At this his men laughed outright.

“But I will not howl or move,” said the Captain.

“That will be clever,” returned the chief, solemnised in spite of himself. “Let Blackbeard proceed.”

“Order one of your braves to stand before me on that piece of flat skin,” said the Captain.

Amalatok looked round, and, observing a huge ungainly man with a cod-fishy expression of face, who seemed to shrink from notoriety, ordered him to step forward. The man did so with obvious trepidation, but he dared not refuse. The Captain fixed his eyes on him sternly, and, in a low growling voice, muttered in English: “Now, Benjy, give it a good turn.”

Cod-fishiness vanished as if by magic, and, with a look of wild horror, the man sprang into the air, tumbled on his back, rose up, and ran away!

It is difficult to say whether surprise or amusement predominated among the spectators. Many of them laughed heartily, while the Captain, still as grave as a judge, said in a low growling tone as if speaking to himself:—

“Not quite so stiff, Benjy, not quite so stiff. Be more gentle next time. Don’t do it all at once, boy; jerk it, Benjy, a turn or so at a time.”

It is perhaps needless to inform the reader that the Captain was practising on the Eskimos with his electrical machine, and that Benjy was secretly turning the handle inside the hut. The machine was connected, by means of wires, with the piece of skin on which the patients stood. These wires had been laid underground, not, indeed, in the darkness, but, during the secrecy and silence of the previous night.

After witnessing the effect on the first warrior, no other brave seemed inclined to venture on the skin, and the women, who enjoyed the fun greatly, were beginning to taunt them with cowardice, when Oolichuk strode forward. He believed intensely, and justifiably, in his own courage. No man, he felt quite sure, had the power to stare him into a nervous condition—not even the fiercest of the Kablunets. Let Blackbeard try, and do his worst!

Animated by these stern and self-reliant sentiments, he stepped upon the mat.

Benjy, being quick in apprehension, perceived his previous error, and proceeded this time with caution. He gave the handle of the machine a gentle half-turn and stopped, peeping through a crevice in the wall to observe the effect.

“Ha! ha! ho! ho!—hi! huk!” laughed Oolichuk, as a tickling sensation thrilled through all his nervous system. The laugh was irresistibly echoed by the assembled community.

Benjy waited a few seconds, and then gave the handle another and slightly stronger turn.

The laugh this time was longer and more ferocious, while the gallant Eskimo drew himself together, determined to resist the strange and subtle influence; at the same time frowning defiance at the Captain, who never for a moment took his coal-black eye off him!

Again Benjy turned the handle gently. He evidently possessed something of the ancient Inquisitor spirit, and gloated over the pains of his victim! The result was that Oolichuk not only quivered from head to foot, but gave a little jump and anything but a little yell. Benjy’s powers of self-restraint were by that time exhausted. He sent the handle round with a whirr and Oolichuk, tumbling backwards off the mat, rent the air with a shriek of demoniac laughter.

Of course the delight of the Eskimos—especially of the children—was beyond all bounds, and eager were the efforts made to induce another warrior to go upon the mysterious mat, but not one would venture. They would rather have faced their natural enemy, the great Grabantak, unarmed, any day!

In this difficulty an idea occurred to Amalatok. Seizing a huge dog by the neck he dragged it to the mat, and bade it lie down. The dog crouched and looked sheepishly round. Next moment he was in the air wriggling. Then he came to the ground, over which he rushed with a prolonged howl, and disappeared among the rocks on the hill side.

It is said that that poor dog was never again seen, but Benjy asserts most positively that, a week afterwards, he saw it sneaking into the village with its tail very much between its legs, and an expression of the deepest humility on its countenance.

“You’d better give them a taste of dynamite, father,” said Benjy that evening, as they all sat round their supper-kettle.

“No, no, boy. It is bad policy to fire off all your ammunition in a hurry. We’ll give it ’em bit by bit.”

“Just so, impress them by degrees,” said Alf.

“De fust warrior was nigh bu’sted by degrees,” said Butterface, with a broad grin, as he stirred the kettle. “You gib it ’im a’most too strong, Massa Benjee.”

“Blackbeard must be the bad spirit,” remarked Amalatok to his son that same night as they held converse together—according to custom—before going to bed.

“The bad spirit is never kind or good,” replied Chingatok, after a pause.

“No,” said the old man, “never.”

“But Blackbeard is always good and kind,” returned the giant.

This argument seemed unanswerable. At all events the old man did not answer it, but sat frowning at the cooking-lamp under the influence of intense thought.

After a prolonged meditation—during the course of which father and son each consumed the tit-bits of a walrus rib and a seal’s flipper—Chingatok remarked that the white men were totally beyond his comprehension. To which, after another pause, his father replied that he could not understand them at all.

Then, retiring to their respective couches, they calmly went to sleep—“perchance to dream!”

Chapter Nineteen.

A Shooting Trip to Paradise Isle, and further Display of the Captain’s Contrivances

While our explorers were thus reduced to a state of forced inaction as regarded the main object of their expedition, they did not by any means waste their time in idleness. On the contrary, each of the party went zealously to work in the way that was most suitable to his inclination.

After going over the main island of Poloe as a united party, and ascertaining its size, productions, and general features, the Captain told them they might now do as they pleased. For his part he meant to spend a good deal of his time in taking notes and observations, questioning the chief men as to the lands lying to the northward, repairing and improving the hut, and helping the natives miscellaneously so as to gain their regard.

Of course Leo spent much of his time with his rifle, for the natives were not such expert hunters but that occasionally they were badly off for food. Of course, also, Alf shouldered his botanical box and sallied forth hammer in hand, to “break stones,” as Butterface put it. Benjy sometimes followed Alf—more frequently Leo, and always carried his father’s double-barrelled shot-gun. He preferred that, because his powers with the rifle were not yet developed. Sometimes he went with Toolooha, or Tekkona, or Oblooria, in one of the native oomiaks to fish. At other times he practised paddling in the native kayak, so that he might accompany Chingatok on his excursions to the neighbouring islands after seals and wild-fowl.

In the excursions by water Leo preferred one of the india-rubber boats—partly because he was strong and could row it easily, and partly because it was capable of holding more game than the kayak.

These expeditions to the outlying islands were particularly delightful. There was something so peaceful, yet so wild, so romantic and so strange about the region, that the young men felt as if they had passed into a new world altogether. It is scarcely surprising that they should feel thus, when it is remembered that profound calms usually prevailed at that season, causing the sea to appear like another heaven below them; that the sun never went down, but circled round and round the horizon—dipping, indeed, a little more and more towards it each night, but not yet disappearing; that myriads of wild birds filled the air with plaintive cries; that whales, and sea-unicorns, and walruses sported around; that icebergs were only numerous enough to give a certain strangeness of aspect to the scene—a strangeness which was increased by the frequent appearance of arctic phenomena, such as several mock-suns rivalling the real one, and objects being enveloped in a golden haze, or turned upside down by changes in atmospheric temperature.

“No wonder that arctic voyagers are always hankering after the far north,” said Leo to Benjy, one magnificent morning, as they rowed towards the outlying islands over the golden sea.

Captain Vane was with them that morning, and it was easy to see that the Captain was in a peculiar frame of mind. A certain twinkle in his eyes and an occasional smile, apparently at nothing, showed that his thoughts, whatever they might be, were busy.

Now, it cannot have failed by this time to strike the intelligent reader, that Captain Vane was a man given to mystery, and rather fond of taking by surprise not only Eskimos but his own companions. On the bright morning referred to he took with him in the boat a small flat box, or packing-case, measuring about three feet square, and not more than four inches deep.

As they drew near to Leo’s favourite sporting-ground,—a long flat island with several small lakes on it which were bordered by tall reeds and sedges, where myriads of ducks, geese, gulls, plover, puffins, and other birds revelled in abject felicity,—Benjy asked his father what he had got in the box.

“I’ve got somethin’ in it, Benjy,—somethin’.”

“Why, daddy,” returned the boy with a laugh, “if I were an absolute lunatic you could not treat me with greater contempt. Do you suppose I am so weak as to imagine that you would bring a packing-case all the way from England to the North Pole with nothing in it?”

“You’re a funny boy, Benjy,” said the Captain, regarding his son with a placid look.

“You’re a funny father, daddy,” answered the son with a shake of the head; “and it’s fortunate for you that I’m good as well as funny, else I’d give you some trouble.”

“You’ve got a good opinion of yourself, Ben, anyhow,” said Leo, looking over his shoulder as he rowed. “Just change the subject and make yourself useful. Jump into the bow and have the boat-hook ready; the water shoals rather fast here, and I don’t want to risk scraping a hole in our little craft.”

The island they were approaching formed part of the extensive archipelago of which Poloe was the main or central island. Paradise Isle, as Leo had named it, lay about two miles from Poloe. The boat soon touched its shingly beach, but before it could scrape thereon its occupants stepped into the water and carefully carried it on shore.

“Now, Benjy, hand me the rifle and cartridges,” said Leo, after the boat was placed in the shadow of a low bank, “and fetch the game-bag. What! you don’t intend to carry the packing-case, uncle, do you?”

“I think I’d better do it,” answered the Captain, lifting the case by its cord in a careless way; “it might take a fancy to have a swim on its own account, you know. Come along, the birds are growing impatient, don’t you see?”

With a short laugh, Leo shouldered his rifle, and marched towards the first of a chain of little lakes, followed by Benjy with the game-bag, and the Captain with the case.

Soon a splendid grey wild-goose was seen swimming at a considerable distance beyond the reeds.

“There’s your chance, now, Leo,” said the Captain. But Leo shook his head. “No use,” he said; “if I were to shoot that one I’d never be able to get it; the mud is too deep for wading, and the reeds too thick for swimming amongst. It’s a pity to kill birds that we cannot get hold of, so, you see, I must walk along the margin of the lake until I see a bird in a good position to be got at, and then pot him.”

“But isn’t that slow work, lad?” asked the Captain.

“It might be slow if I missed often or wounded my birds,” replied Leo, “but I don’t often miss.”

The youth might with truth have said he never missed, for his eye was as true and his hand as sure as that of any Leatherstocking or Robin Hood that ever lived.

“Why don’t you launch the boat on the lake?” asked the Captain.

“Because I don’t like to run the risk of damaging it by hauling it about among mud and sticks and overland. Besides, that would be a cumbersome way of hunting. I prefer to tramp about the margin as you see, and just take what comes in my way. There are plenty of birds, and I seldom walk far without getting a goodish—hist! There’s one!”

As he spoke another large grey goose was seen stretching its long neck amongst the reeds at a distance of about two hundred yards. The crack of the rifle was followed by the instant death of the goose. At the same moment several companions of the bird rose trumpeting into the air amid a cloud of other birds. Again the rifle’s crack was heard, and one of the geese on the wing dropped beside its comrade.

As Leo carried his repeating rifle, he might easily have shot another, but he refrained, as the bird would have been too far out to be easily picked up.

“Now, Benjy, are you to go in, or am I?” asked the sportsman with a sly look.

“Oh! I suppose I must,” said the boy with an affectation of being martyred, though, in truth, nothing charmed him so much as to act the part of a water-dog.

A few seconds more, and he was stripped, for his garments consisted only of shirt and trousers. But it was more than a few seconds before he returned to land, swimming on his back and trailing a goose by the neck with each hand, for the reeds were thick and the mud softish, and the second bird had been further out than he expected.

“It’s glorious fun,” said Benjy, panting vehemently as he pulled on his clothes.

“It’s gloriously knocked up you’ll be before long at that rate,” said the Captain.

“Oh! but, uncle,” said Leo, quickly, “you must not suppose that I give him all the hard work. We share it between us, you know. Benjy sometimes shoots and then I do the retrieving. You’ve no idea how good a shot he is becoming.”

“Indeed, let me see you do it, my boy. D’ye see that goose over there?”

“What, the one near the middle of the lake, about four hundred yards off?”

“Ay, Benjy, I want that goose. You shoot it, my boy.”

“But you’ll never be able to get it, uncle,” said Leo.

“Benjy, I want that goose. You shoot it.” There was no disobeying this peremptory command. Leo handed the rifle to the boy.

“Down on one knee, Ben, Hythe position, my boy,” said the Captain, in the tone of a disciplinarian. Benjy obeyed, took a long steady aim, and fired.

“Bravo!” shouted the Captain as the bird turned breast up. “There’s that goose’s brother comin’ to see what’s the matter with him; just cook his goose too, Benjy.”

The boy aimed again, fired, and missed.

“Again!” cried the Captain, “look sharp!”

Again the boy fired, and this time wounded the bird as it was rising on the wing.

Although wounded, the goose was quite able to swim, and made rapidly towards the reeds on the other side.

“What! am I to lose that goose?” cried the Captain indignantly.

Leo seized the rifle. Almost without taking time to aim, he fired and shot the bird dead.

“There,” said he, laughing, “but I suspect it is a lost goose after all. It will be hard work to get either of these birds, uncle. However, I’ll try.”

Leo was proceeding to strip when the Captain forbade him.

“Don’t trouble yourself, lad,” he said, “I’ll go for them myself.”

“You, uncle?”

“Ay, me. D’ye suppose that nobody can swim but you and Benjy? Here, help me to open this box.”

In silent wonder and expectation Leo and Benjy did as they were bid. When the mysterious packing-case was opened, there was displayed to view a mass of waterproof material. Tumbling this out and unrolling it, the Captain displayed a pair of trousers and boots in one piece attached to something like an oval life-buoy. Thrusting his legs down into the trousers and boots, he drew the buoy—which was covered with india-rubber cloth—up to his waist and fixed it there. Then, putting the end of an india-rubber tube to his mouth, he began to blow, and the buoy round his waist began to extend until it took the form of an oval.

“Now, boys,” said the Captain, with profound gravity, “I’m about ready to go to sea. Here, you observe, is a pair o’ pants that won’t let in water. At the feet you’ll notice two flaps which expand when driven backward, and collapse when moved forward. These are propellers—human web-feet—to enable me to walk ahead, d’ye see? and here are two small paddles with a joint which I can fix together—so—and thus make one double-bladed paddle of ’em, about four feet long. It will help the feet, you understand, but I’m not dependent on it, for I can walk without the paddles at the rate of two or three miles an hour.”

As he spoke Captain Vane walked quietly into the water, to the wild delight of Benjy, and the amazement of his nephew.

When he was about waist-deep the buoy floated him. Continuing to walk, though his feet no longer touched ground, he was enabled by the propellers to move on. When he had got out a hundred yards or so, he turned round, took off his hat, and shouted—“land ho!”

“Ship ahoy!” shrieked Benjy, in an ecstasy.

“Mind your weather eye!” shouted the Captain, resuming his walk with a facetious swagger, while, with the paddles, he increased his speed. Soon after, he returned to land with the two geese.

“Well now, daddy,” said his son, while he and Leo examined the dress with minute interest, “I wish you’d make a clean breast of it, and let us know how many more surprises and contrivances of this sort you’ve got in store for us.”

“I fear this is the last one, Benjy, though there’s no end to the applications of these contrivances. You’d better apply this one to yourself now, and see how you get on in it.”

Of course Benjy was more than willing, though, as he remarked, the dress was far too big for him.

“Never mind that, my boy. A tight fit ain’t needful, and nobody will find fault with the cut in these regions.”

“Where ever did you get it, father?” asked the boy, as the fastenings were being secured round him.

“I got it from an ingenious friend, who says he’s goin’ to bring it out soon. Mayhap it’s in the shops of old England by this time. There, now, off you go, but don’t be too risky, Ben. Keep her full, and mind your helm.”3

Thus encouraged, the eager boy waded into the water, but, in his haste, tripped and fell, sending a volume of water over himself. He rose, however, without difficulty, and, proceeding with greater caution, soon walked off into deep water. Here he paddled about in a state of exuberant glee. The dress kept him perfectly dry, although he splashed the water about in reckless fashion, and did not return to land till quite exhausted.

Benjamin Vane from that day devoted himself to that machine. He became so enamoured of the “water-tramp,” as he styled it—not knowing its proper name at the time—that he went about the lakelets in it continually, sometimes fishing, at other times shooting. He even ventured a short distance out to sea in it, to the amazement of the Eskimos, the orbits of whose eyes were being decidedly enlarged, Benjy said, and their eyebrows permanently raised, by the constant succession of astonishment-fits into which they were thrown from day to day by their white visitors.

Chapter Twenty.

Benjy’s Enjoyments Interrupted, and Poloeland Overwhelmed with a Catastrophe

One pleasant morning, towards the end of summer, Benjamin Vane went out with his gun in the water-tramp on the large lake of Paradise Isle.

Leo and he had reached the isle in one of the india-rubber boats. They had taken Anders with them to carry their game, and little Oblooria to prepare their dinner while they were away shooting; for they disliked the delay of personal attention to cooking when they were ravenous! After landing Benjy, and seeing him busy getting himself into the aquatic dress, Leo said he would pull off to a group of walruses, which were sporting about off shore, and shoot one. Provisions of fowl and fish were plentiful enough just then at the Eskimo village, but he knew that walrus beef was greatly prized by the natives, and none of the huge creatures had been killed for some weeks past.