Robert Michael Ballantyne
The Giant of the North: Pokings Round the Pole
“I have another box of similar instruments, Alf, down below,” said the Captain, as he laid them carefully out, “and I hope, by comparing the results obtained up here with those obtained at the level of the sea, to carry home a series of notes which will be of considerable value to science.”
When the Captain had finished laying them out, the Eskimos retired to a little distance, and regarded them for some minutes with anxious expectancy; but, as the strange things did not burst, or go up like sky-rockets, they soon returned with a somewhat disappointed look to their hut-building.
The work was quickly completed, for Eskimos are expert builders in their way, and the instruments had been carefully set up under shelter when the first symptoms of the storm began.
“I hope the sportsmen have returned,” said the Captain, looking gravely round the horizon.
“No doubt they have,” said Alf, preparing to descend the mountain. “Leo is not naturally reckless, and if he were, the cautious Anders would be a drag on him.”
An hour later they regained the Eskimo village, just as Benjy came running, in a state of dripping consternation, from the sea.
Need it be said that an instant and vigorous search was instituted? Not only did a band of the stoutest warriors, headed by Chingatok, set off in a fleet of kayaks, but the Captain and his companions started without delay in the two remaining india-rubber boats, and, flying their kites, despite the risk of doing so in a gale, went away in eager haste over the foaming billows.
After exerting themselves to the uttermost, they failed to discover the slightest trace of the lost boat. The storm passed quickly, and a calm succeeded, enabling them to prosecute the search more effectively with oar and paddle, but with no better result.
Day after day passed, and still no member of the band—Englishman or Eskimo—would relax his efforts, or admit that hope was sinking. But they had to admit it at last, and, after three weeks of unremitting toil, they were compelled to give up in absolute despair. The most sanguine was driven to the terrible conclusion that Leo, Anders, and timid little Oblooria were lost.
It was an awful blow. What cared Alf or the Captain now for discovery, or scientific investigation! The poor negro, who had never at any time cared for plants, rocks, or Poles, was sunk in the profoundest depths of sorrow. Benjy’s gay spirit was utterly broken. Oolichuk’s hearty laugh was silenced, and a cloud of settled melancholy descended over the entire village of Poloe.
Chapter Twenty One.
Fate of the Lost Ones
Leo, Anders, and timid little Oblooria, however, were not lost! Their case was bad enough, but it had not quite come to that.
On parting from Benjy, as described in the last chapter, these three went after a walrus, which coquetted with them instead of attacking, and drew them a considerable distance away from the island. This would have been a matter of trifling import if the weather had remained calm, but, as we have seen, a sudden and violent gale arose.
When the coming squall was first observed the boat was far to leeward of Paradise Isle, and as that island happened to be one of the most northerly of the group over which Amalatok ruled, they were thus far to leeward of any land with the exception of a solitary sugar-loaf rock near the horizon. Still Leo and his companions were not impressed with any sense of danger. They had been so long accustomed to calms, and to moving about in the india-rubber boats by means of paddles with perfect ease and security, that they had half forgotten the force of wind. Besides, the walrus was still playing with them provokingly—keeping just out of rifle-shot as if he had studied fire-arms and knew their range exactly.
“The rascal!” exclaimed Leo at last, losing patience, “he will never let us come an inch nearer.”
“Try ’im once more,” said Anders, who was a keen sportsman, “push him, paddle strong. Ho! Oblooria, paddle hard and queek.”
Although the interpreter, being in a facetious mood, addressed Oblooria in English, she quite understood his significant gestures, and bent to her work with a degree of energy and power quite surprising in one apparently so fragile. Leo also used his oars, (for they had both oars and paddles), with such good-will that the boat skimmed over the Arctic sea like a northern diver, and the distance between them and the walrus was perceptibly lessened.
“I don’t like the looks o’ the southern sky,” said Leo, regarding the horizon with knitted brows.
“Hims black ’nough—any’ow,” said Anders.
“Hold. I’ll have a farewell shot at the brute, and give up the chase,” said Leo, laying down the oars and grasping his rifle.
The ball seemed to take effect, for the walrus dived immediately with a violent splutter, and was seen no more.
By this time the squall was hissing towards them so fast that the hunters, giving up all thought of the walrus, turned at once and made for the land, but land by that time lay far off on the southern horizon with a dark foam-flecked sea between it and them.
“There’s no fear of the boat, Oblooria,” said Leo, glancing over his shoulder at the girl, who sat crouching to meet the first burst of the coming storm, “but you must hold on tight to the life-lines.”
There was no need to caution Anders. That worthy was already on his knees embracing a thwart—his teeth clenched as he gazed over the bow.
On it came like a whirlwind of the tropics, and rushed right over the low round gunwale of the boat, sweeping loose articles overboard, and carrying her bodily to leeward. Leo had taken a turn of the life-lines round both thighs, and held manfully to his oars. These, after stooping to the first rush of wind and water, he plied with all his might, and was ably seconded by Oblooria as well as by the interpreter, but a very few minutes of effort sufficed to convince them that they laboured in vain. They did not even “hold their own,” as sailors have it, but drifted slowly, yet steadily, to the north.
“It’s impossible to make head against this,” said Leo, suddenly ceasing his efforts, “and I count it a piece of good fortune, for which we cannot be too thankful, that there is still land to leeward of us.”
He pointed to the sugar-loaf rock before mentioned, towards which they were now rapidly drifting.
“Nothing to eat dere. Nothing to drink,” said Anders, gloomily.
“Oh! that won’t matter much. A squall like this can’t last long. We shall soon be able to start again for home, no doubt. I say, Anders, what are these creatures off the point there? They seem too large and black for sea-birds, and not the shape of seals or walruses.”
The interpreter gazed earnestly at the objects in question for some moments without answering. The rock which they were quickly nearing was rugged, barren, and steep on its southern face, against which the waves were by that time dashing with extreme violence, so that landing there would have been an impossibility. On its lee or northern side, however they might count on quiet water.
“We have nothing to fear,” said Leo, observing that Oblooria was much agitated; “tell her so, Anders; we are sure to find a sheltered creek of some sort on the other side.”
“I fear not the rocks or storm,” replied the Eskimo girl to Anders. “It is Grabantak, the chief of Flatland, that I fear.”
“Grabantak!” exclaimed Anders and Leo in the same breath.
“Grabantak is coming with his men!”
Poor little Oblooria, whose face had paled while her whole frame trembled, pointed towards the dark objects which had already attracted their attention. They were by that time near enough to be distinguished, and as they came, one after another, round the western point of Sugar-loaf rock, it was all too evident that the girl was right, and that the fleet of kayaks was probably bearing the northern savage and his men to attack the inhabitants of Poloe.
Leo’s first impulse was to seize his repeating rifle and fill its cartridge-chamber quite full. It may be well to observe here that the cartridges, being carried in a tight waterproof case, had not been affected by the seas which had so recently overwhelmed them.
“What’s de use?” asked Anders, in an unusually sulky tone, as he watched the youth’s action. “Two men not can fight all de mans of Flatland.”
“No, but I can pick off a dozen of them, one after another, with my good rifle, and then the rest will fly. Grabantak will fall first, and his best men after him.”
This was no idle boast on the part of Leo. He knew that he could accomplish what he threatened long before the Eskimos could get within spear-throwing distance of his boat.
“No use,” repeated Anders, firmly, still shaking his head in a sulky manner. “When you’s bullets be done, more an’ more inimies come on. Then dey kill you, an’ me, an’ Oblooria.”
Leo laid down his weapon. The resolve to die fighting to the last was the result of a mere impulse of animal courage. Second thoughts cooled him, and the reference to Oblooria’s fate decided him.
“You are right, Anders. If by fighting to the death I could save Oblooria, it would be my duty as well as my pleasure to fight; but I see that I haven’t the ghost of a chance against such a host as is approaching, and it would be simply revengeful to send as many as I can into the next world before going there myself. Besides, it would exasperate the savages, and make them harder on the poor girl.”
In saying this Leo was rather arguing out the point with himself than talking to the interpreter, who did not indeed understand much of what he said. Having made up his mind how to act, Leo stowed his precious rifle and ammunition in a small bag placed for that purpose under one of the thwarts, and, resuming the oars, prepared to meet his fate, whatever it should be, peacefully and unarmed.
While thus drifting in silence before the gale, the thought suddenly occurred to Leo, “How strange it is that I, who am a Christian—in name at least—should feel as if it were absurd to pray for God’s help at such a time as this! Surely He who made me and these Eskimos is capable of guarding us? The very least we can do is to ask Him to guide us!”
The youth was surprised at the thought. It had flashed upon him like a ray of light. It was not the first time that he had been in even more imminent danger than the present, yet he had never before thought of the necessity of asking help from God, as if He were really present and able as well as willing to succour. Before the thought had passed he acted on it. He had no time for formal prayer. He looked up! It was prayer without words. In a few minutes more the boat was surrounded by the fleet of kayaks. There were hundreds of these tiny vessels of the north, each with its solitary occupant, using his double-bladed paddle vigorously.
Need we say that the strangers were at first gazed on with speechless wonder? and that the Eskimos kept for some time hovering round them at a respectful distance, as if uncertain how to act, but with their war-spears ready? All the time the whole party drifted before the gale towards the island-rock.
“Anders,” said Leo, while the natives remained in this state of indecision, “my mind is made up as to our course of action. We will offer no resistance whatever to these fellows. We must be absolutely submissive, unless, indeed, they attempt to ill-treat Oblooria, in which case of course we will defend her. Do you hear?”
This was said with such quiet decision, and the concluding question was put in such a tone, that the interpreter replied, “Yis, sar,” promptly.
As Leo made no sign of any kind, but continued to guide the boat steadily with the oars, as if his sole anxiety was to round the western point of the island and get into a place of shelter, the natives turned their kayaks and advanced along with him. Naturally they fell into the position of an escort—a part of the fleet paddling on each side of the captives, (for such they now were), while the rest brought up the rear.
“What ails Oblooria, Anders?” asked Leo in a low tone.
“What is the matter?” asked the interpreter, turning to the girl, who, ever since the approach of the Eskimos, had crouched like a bundle in the bottom of the boat with her face buried in her hands. “There is no fear. Grabantak is a man, not a bear. He will not eat you.”
“Grabantak knows me,” answered the poor girl, without lifting her head; “he came to Poloe once, before the war, and wanted me to be the wife of his son. I want not his son. I want Oolichuk!”
The simplicity and candour of this confession caused Leo to laugh in spite of himself, while poor little Oblooria, who thought it no laughing matter, burst into tears.
Of course the men of Flatland kept their eyes fixed in wide amazement on Leo, as they paddled along, and this sudden laugh of his impressed them deeply, being apparently without a cause, coupled as it was with an air of absolute indifference to his probable fate, and to the presence of so many foes. Even the ruthless land-hungerer, Grabantak, was solemnised.
In a few minutes the whole party swept round the point of rocks, and proceeded towards the land over the comparatively quiet waters of a little bay which lay under the lee of the Sugar-loaf rock.
During the brief period that had been afforded for thought, Leo had been intently making his plans. He now proceeded to carry them out.
“Hand me the trinket-bundle,” he said to Anders.
The interpreter searched in a waterproof pouch in the stern of the boat, and produced a small bundle of such trinkets as are known to be valued by savages. It had been placed and was always kept there by Captain Vane, to be ready for emergencies.
“They will be sure to take everything from us at any rate,” remarked Leo, as he divided the trinkets into two separate bundles, “so I shall take the wind out of their sails by giving everything up at once with a good grace.”
The Grabantaks, if we may so style them, drew near, as the fleet approached the shore, with increasing curiosity. When land was reached they leaped out of their kayaks and crowded round the strangers. It is probable that they would have seized them and their possessions at this point, but the tall strapping figure of Leo, and his quiet manner, overawed them. They held back while the india-rubber boat was being carried by Leo and Anders to a position of safety.
Poor Oblooria walked beside them with her head bowed down, shrinking as much as possible out of sight. Everybody was so taken up with the strange white man that no one took any notice of her.
No sooner was the boat laid down than Leo taking one of the bundles of trinkets stepped up to Grabantak, whom he easily distinguished by his air of superiority and the deference paid him by his followers.
Pulling his own nose by way of a friendly token, Leo smiled benignantly in the chief’s face, and opened the bundle before him.
It is needless to say that delight mingled with the surprise that had hitherto blazed on the visage of Grabantak.
“Come here, Anders, and bring the other bundle with you. Tell this warrior that I am very glad to meet with him.”
“Great and unconquerable warrior,” began the interpreter, in the dialect which he had found was understood, by the men of Poloe, “we have come from far-off lands to bring you gifts—”
“Anders,” said Leo, whose knowledge of the Eskimo tongue was sufficient, by that time, to enable him in a measure to follow the drift of a speech, “Anders, if you don’t tell him exactly what I say I’ll kick you into the sea!”
As Anders stood on a rock close to the water’s edge, and Leo looked unusually stern, he thereafter rendered faithfully what the latter told him to say. The speech was something to the following effect:—
“I am one of a small band of white men who have come here to search out the land. We do not want the land. We only want to see it. We have plenty of land of our own in the far south. We have been staying with the great chief Amalatok in Poloeland.”
At the mention of his enemy’s name the countenance of Grabantak darkened. Without noticing this, Leo went on:—
“When I was out hunting with my man and a woman, the wind arose and blew us hither. We claim your hospitality, and hope you will help us to get back again to Poloeland. If you do so we will reward you well, for white men are powerful and rich. See, here are gifts for Grabantak, and for his wife.”
This latter remark was a sort of inspiration. Leo had observed, while Anders was speaking, that a stout cheerful-faced woman had been pushing aside the men and gradually edging her way toward the Eskimo chief with the air of a privileged person. That he had hit the mark was obvious, for Grabantak turned with a bland smile, and hit his wife a facetious and rather heavy slap on the shoulder. She was evidently accustomed to such treatment, and did not wince.
Taking from his bundle a gorgeous smoking-cap richly ornamented with brilliant beads, Leo coolly crowned the chief with it. Grabantak drew himself up and tried to look majestic, but a certain twitching of his face, and sparkle in his eyes, betrayed a tendency to laugh with delight. Fortunately, there was another cap of exactly the same pattern in the bundle, which Leo instantly placed on the head of the wife—whose name he afterwards learned was Merkut.
The chief’s assumed dignity vanished at this. With that childlike hilarity peculiar to the Eskimo race, he laughed outright, and then, seizing the cap from Merkut’s head, put it above his own to the amusement of his grinning followers.
Leo then selected a glittering clasp-knife with two blades, which the chief seized eagerly. It was evidently a great prize—too serious a gift to be lightly laughed at. Then a comb was presented to the wife, and a string of gay beads, and a pair of scissors. Of course the uses of combs and scissors had he explained, and deep was the interest manifested during the explanation, and utter the forgetfulness of the whole party for the time being in regard to everything else in the world—Oblooria included, who sat unnoticed on the rocks with her face still buried in her hands.
When Grabantak’s possessions were so numerous that the hood of his coat, and the tops of his wife’s boots were nearly filled with them, he became generous, and, prince-like, (having more than he knew what to do with), began to distribute things to his followers.
Among these followers was a tall and stalwart son of his own, to whom he was rather stern, and not very liberal. Perhaps the chief wished to train him with Spartan ideas of self-denial. Perhaps he wanted his followers to note his impartiality. Merkut did not, however, act on the same principles, for she quietly passed a number of valuable articles over to her dear son Koyatuk, unobserved by his stern father.
Things had gone on thus pleasantly for some time; the novelty of the gifts, and the interest in their explanation having apparently rendered these people forgetful of the fact that they might take them all at once; when a sudden change in the state of affairs was wrought by the utterance of one word.
“We must not,” said Leo to Anders, looking at his follower over the heads of the Eskimos, “forget poor little Oblooria.”
“Oblooria!” roared Grabantak with a start, as if he had been electrified.
“Oblooria!” echoed Koyatuk, glaring round.
“Oblooria!” gasped the entire band.
Another moment and Grabantak, bursting through the crowd, leaped towards the crouching girl and raised her face. Recognising her he uttered a yell which probably was meant for a cheer.
Hurrying the frightened girl into the circle through which he had broken, the chief presented her to his son, and, with an air worthy of a civilised courtier, said:—
“Your wife, Koyatuk—your Oblooria!—Looria!”
He went over the last syllables several times, as if he doubted his senses, and feared it was too good news to be true.
This formal introduction was greeted by the chief’s followers with a series of wild shouts and other demonstrations of extreme joy.
Chapter Twenty Two.
A Fight in Defence of Woman, And Rifle-Shooting Extraordinary
When the excitement had somewhat abated, Leo stepped to the side of Oblooria, and laying his hand on her shoulder said firmly, through Anders:—
“Pardon me, Grabantak, this girl is not the wife of Koyatuk; she is my sister!”
The chief frowned, clenched his teeth, and grasped a spear—
“When did Kablunet men begin to have Eskimo sisters?”
“When they took all distressed women under their protection,” returned Leo promptly. “Every woman who needs my help is my sister,” he added with a look of self-sufficiency which he was far from feeling.
This new doctrine obviously puzzled the chief, who frowned, smiled, and looked at the ground, as if in meditation. It seemed to afford great comfort to Oblooria, who nestled closer to her champion. As for Koyatuk, he treated the matter with an air of mingled surprise and scorn, but dutifully awaited his father’s pleasure.
Koyatuk was physically a fine specimen of a savage, but his spirit was not equal to his body. Like his father he was over six feet high, and firmly knit, being of both larger and stronger build than Leo, whom he now regarded, and of course hated, as his rival—a contemptible one, no doubt; still—a rival.
The warriors watched their chief in breathless suspense. To them it was a thoroughly new and interesting situation. That a white stranger, tall and active, but slender and very young, should dare single-handed to defy not only their chief, but, as it were, the entire tribe, including the royal family, was a state of things in regard to which their previous lives afforded no parallel. They could not understand it at all, and stood, as it were, in eager, open-mouthed, and one-legged expectation.
At last Grabantak looked up, as if smitten by a new idea, and spoke—
“Can Kablunet men fight?” he asked.
“They love peace better than war,” answered Leo, “but when they see cause to fight they can do so.”
Turning immediately to his son, Grabantak said with a grim smile—
“Behold your wife, take her!”
Koyatuk advanced. Leo placed Oblooria behind him, and, being unarmed, threw himself into a pugilistic posture of defence. The young Eskimo laid one of his strong hands on the Englishman’s shoulder, intending to thrust him aside violently. Leo was naturally of a tender disposition. He shrank from dealing a violent blow to one who had not the remotest idea of what was coming, or how to defend himself from the human fist when used as a battering-ram.
But Leo chanced to be, in a sense, doubly armed. During one of his holiday rambles in England he had visited Cornwall, and there had learned that celebrated “throw” which consists in making your haunch a fulcrum, your right arm a lever, and your adversary a shuttlecock. He suddenly grasped his foe round the waist with one arm. Next moment the Grabantaks saw what the most imaginative among them had never till then conceived of—Koyatuk’s soles turned to the sky, and his head pointing to the ground! The moment following, he lay flat on his back looking upwards blankly.
The huk! hi! ho! hooroos! that followed may be conceived, but cannot be described. Some of the men burst into laughter, for anything ludicrous is irresistible to an Eskimo of the very far north. A few were petrified. Others there were who resented this indignity to the heir-apparent, and flourished their spears in a threatening manner. These last Grabantak quieted with a look. The incident undoubtedly surprised that stern parent, but also afforded him some amusement. He said it was an insult that must be avenged. Oddly enough he made use of an expression which sounded curiously familiar to Leo’s ears, as translated by Anders. “The insult,” said Grabantak, “could only be washed out in blood!”
Strange, that simple savages of the far north should hold to that ridiculous doctrine. We had imagined that it was confined entirely to those further south, whose minds have been more or less warped by civilised usage.
A ring was immediately formed, and poor Leo now saw that the matter was becoming serious. He was on the eve of fighting an enforced duel in Oblooria’s service.
While the savages were preparing the lists, and Koyatuk, having recovered, was engaged in converse with his father, Leo whispered to Anders—
“Perhaps Oblooria has no objection to be the wife of this man?”
But the poor girl had very strong objections. She was, moreover, so emphatic in her expressions of horror, and cast on her champion such a look of entreaty, that he would have been more than mortal had he refused her. It was very perplexing. The idea of killing, or being killed, in such a cause was very repulsive. He tried to reason with Grabantak about the sin of injuring a defenceless woman, and the abstract right of females in general to have some say in the selection of their husbands, but Grabantak was inexorable.
“Is the Kablunet afraid?” he asked, with a glance of scornful surprise.
“Does he look afraid?” returned Leo, quietly.
Koyatuk now stepped into the middle of the ring of warriors, with a short spear in his right hand, and half-a-dozen spare ones in his left, whereby Leo perceived that the battle before him was not meant to be a mere “exchange of shots,” for the “satisfaction of honour.” There was evidently no humbug about these Eskimos.
Two men mounted guard over Anders and Oblooria, who, however, were allowed to remain inside the ring to witness the combat. A warrior now advanced to Leo and presented him with a small bundle of spears. He took them almost mechanically, thanked the giver, and laid them down at his feet without selecting one. Then he stood up, and, crossing his arms on his breast, gazed full at his opponent, who made a hideous face at him and flourished his spear.
It was quite evident that the Eskimos were perplexed by the white youth’s conduct, and knew not what to make of it. The truth is that poor Leo was almost beside himself with conflicting emotions and uncertainty as to what he ought to do. Despite all that had taken place, he found it almost impossible to persuade himself that he was actually about to engage in mortal combat. He had not a vestige of angry feeling in his heart against the man whom he was expected to fight with to the death, and the extraordinary nature of the complex faces that Koyatuk was making at him tended to foster the delusion that the whole thing was a farce—or a dream.
Then the knowledge that he could burst through the ring, get hold of his rifle, and sell his life dearly, or, perhaps, cause the whole savage tribe to fly in terror, was a sore temptation to him. All this, coupled with the necessity for taking instant and vigorous action of some sort, was enough to drive an older head distracted. It did drive the blood violently to the youth’s face, but, by a powerful effort of self-restraint, he continued to stand perfectly still, like a living statue, facing the Eskimo.
At last Koyatuk became tired of making useless faces at his rival. Suddenly poising his spear, he launched it.
Had Leo’s eye been less quick, or his limbs less active, that spear had laid him low for ever. He had barely time to spring aside, when the weapon passed between his side and his left arm, grazing the latter slightly, and drawing blood which trickled to the ends of his fingers.
There could be no further doubt now about the nature of the fight. Catching up a spear from the bundle at his feet he was just in time to receive the Eskimo, who sprang in on him with the intention of coming at once to close quarters. His rush was very furious; probably with a view to make it decisive. But the agile Leo was equal to the occasion. Bending suddenly so low as to be quite under his opponent’s desperate thrust, he struck out his right leg firmly. Koyatuk tripped over it, and ploughed the land for some yards with his hands, head, and knees.
Considerably staggered in mind and body by the fall, he sprang up with a roar, and turned to renew the attack. Leo was ready. The Eskimo, by that time mad with pain, humiliation, and rage, exercised no caution in his assault. He rushed at his rival like a mad bull. Our Englishman saw his opportunity. Dropping his own spear he guarded the thrust of his adversary’s with his right arm, while, with his left fist, he planted a solid blow on Koyatuk’s forehead. The right fist followed the left like the lightning flash, and alighted on Koyatuk’s nose, which, flat by nature, was rendered flatter still by art. Indeed it would be the weakest flattery to assert that he had any nose at all after receiving that blow. It was reduced to the shape of a small pancake, from the two holes in which there instantly spouted a stream of blood so copious that it drenched alike its owner and his rival.
After giving him this double salute, Leo stepped quickly aside to let him tumble forward, heels over head, which he did with the only half-checked impetuosity of his onset, and lay prone upon the ground.
“There, Anders,” said the victor, turning round as he pointed to his prostrate foe, “surely Grabantak’s son has got enough of blood now to wipe out all the insults he ever received, or is likely to receive, from me.”
Grabantak appeared to agree to this view of the case. That he saw and relished the jest was obvious, for he burst into an uproarious fit of laughter, in which his amiable warriors joined him, and, advancing to Leo, gave him a hearty slap of approval on the shoulder. At the same time he cast a look of amused scorn on his fallen son, who was being attended to by Merkut.
It may be observed here that Merkut was the only woman of the tribe allowed to go on this war-expedition. Being the chief’s wife, she had been allowed to do as she pleased, and it was her pleasure to accompany the party and to travel like the warriors in a kayak, which she managed as well as the best of them.
Grabantak now ordered his men to encamp, and feed till the gale should abate. Then, calling Leo and the interpreter aside, he questioned them closely as to the condition of the Poloese and the numbers of the white men who had recently joined them.
