Robert Michael Ballantyne
The Giant of the North: Pokings Round the Pole
Chapter Thirty.
Leo in Danger next! A Novel Mode of Rescue
When the catastrophe described in the last chapter occurred, Captain Vane and his friends, following hard on the heels of the runaway, chanced to be within two miles of the berg in the bosom of which Benjy had found refuge.
“There he is!” shouted the Captain joyfully, as the flash of the explosion reached his eyes and the roar of the report his ears. “Blessed evidence! He’s up to mischief of some sort still, and that’s proof positive that he’s alive.”
“But he may have perished in this piece of mischief,” said Alf, anxiously glancing up at the kite, which was dragging the heavily-laden sledge rather slowly over the rough ice.
“I hope not, Alf. Shake the regulator, Butterface, and see that it’s clear.”
“All right, Massa. Steam’s on de berry strongest what’s possible.”
“Heave some o’ the cargo overboard, Alf. We must make haste. Not the meat, lad, not the meat; everything else before that. So. Mind your helm, Chingatok; she’ll steer wildish when lightened.”
Captain Vane was right. When Alf had tumbled some of the heavier portions of lading off the sledge, it burst away like a wild-horse let go free, rendering it difficult at first for Chingatok to steady it. In a few minutes, however, he had it again under control, and they soon reached the berg.
“The dynamite must have gone off by accident,” said the Captain to Alf, as they stumbled over masses of ice which the explosion had brought down from the roof of the cavern. “It’s lucky it didn’t happen in summer, else the berg might have been blown to atoms. Hallo! what’s this? Bits of a polar bear, I do believe—and—what! not Benjy!”
It was indeed Benjy, flat on his back like a spread-eagle, and covered with blood and brains; but his appearance was the worst of his case, though it took a considerable time to convince his horrified friends of that fact.
“I tell you I’m all right, father,” said the poor boy, on recovering from the state of insensibility into which his fall had thrown him.
“But you’re covered from head to foot with blood,” exclaimed the anxious father, examining him all over, “though I can’t find a cut of any sort about you—only one or two bruises.”
“You’ll find a bump on the top of my head, father, the size of a cocoa-nut. That’s what knocked the senses out o’ me, but the blood and brains belong to the bear. I lay no claim to them.”
“Where is the bear?” asked Alf, looking round.
“Where is he?” echoed Benjy, bursting into a wild laugh.
“Oh! Massa Benjy, don’t laugh,” said Butterface solemnly; “you hab no notion wot a awful look you got when you laugh wid sitch a bloody face.”
This made Benjy laugh more than ever. His mirth became catching, and the negro’s solemn visage relaxed into an irrepressible grin.
“Oh, you japan-jawed porpoise!” cried Benjy, “you should have seen that bear go off—with such a crack too! I only wish I’d been able to hold up for two seconds longer to see it properly, but my shelf went down, and I had to go along with it. Blown to bits! No—he was blown to a thousand atoms! Count ’em if you can.”
Again Benjy burst into uproarious laughter.
There was indeed some ground for the boy’s way of putting the case. The colossal creature had been so terribly shattered by the dynamite cartridge, that there was scarcely a piece of him larger than a man’s hand left to tell the tale.
“Well, well,” said the Captain, assisting his son to rise, “I’m thankful it’s no worse.”
“Worse, father! why, it couldn’t be worse, unless, indeed, his spirit were brought alive again and allowed to contemplate the humbling condition of his body.”
“I don’t refer to the bear, Benjy, but to yourself, lad. You might have been killed, you know, and I’m very thankful you were not—though you half-deserve to be. But come, we must encamp here for the night and return home to-morrow, for the wind has been shifting a little, and will be favourable, I think, in the morning.”
The wind was indeed favourable next morning, we may say almost too favourable, for it blew a stiff breeze from the south, which steadily increased to a gale during the day. Afterwards the sky became overcast and the darkness intense, rendering it necessary to attend to the kite’s regulator with the utmost care, and advance with the greatest caution.
Now, while the Captain and his friends were struggling back to their Polar home, Leo Vandervell happened to be caught by the same gale when out hunting. Being of a bold, sanguine, and somewhat reckless disposition, this Nimrod of the party paid little attention to the weather until it became difficult to walk and next to impossible to see. Then, having shot nothing that day, he turned towards the Pole with a feeling of disappointment.
But when the gale increased so that he could hardly face it, and the sky became obliterated by falling and drifting snow, disappointment gave place to anxiety, and he soon realised the fact that he had lost his direction. To advance in such circumstances was out of the question, he therefore set about building a miniature hut of snow. Being by that time expert at such masonry, he soon erected a dome-shaped shelter, in which he sat down on his empty game-bag after closing the entrance with a block of hard snow.
The position of our hunter was not enviable. The hut was barely high enough to let him sit up, and long enough to let him lie down—not to stretch out. The small allowance of pemmican with which he had set out had long ago been consumed. It was so dark that he could not see his hand when close before his eyes. He was somewhat fatigued and rather cold, and had no water to drink. It was depressing to think of going to bed in such circumstances with the yelling of an Arctic storm for a lullaby.
However, Leo had a buoyant spirit, and resolved to “make the best of it.” First of all he groped in his game-bag for a small stove lamp, which he set up before him, and arranged blubber and a wick in it, using the sense of touch in default of sight. Then he struck a light, but not with matches. The Englishmen’s small stock of congreves had long since been exhausted, and they were obliged to procure fire by the Eskimo method, namely, a little piece of wood worked like a drill, with a thong of leather, against another piece of wood until the friction produced fire. When a light had been thus laboriously obtained, he applied it to the wick of his lamp, and wished fervently for something to cook.
It is proverbial that wishing does not usually achieve much. After a deep sigh, therefore, Leo turned his wallet inside out. Besides a few crumbs, it contained a small lump of narwhal blubber and a little packet. The former, in its frozen state, somewhat resembled hard butter. The latter contained a little coffee—not the genuine article, however. That, like the matches, had long ago been used up, and our discoverers were reduced to roasted biscuit-crumbs. The substitute was not bad! Inside of the coffee-packet was a smaller packet of brown sugar, but it had burst and allowed its contents to mingle with the coffee.
Rejoiced to find even a little food where he had thought there was none, Leo filled his pannikin with snow, melted it, emptied into it the compound of coffee and sugar, put it on the lamp to boil, and sat down to watch, while he slowly consumed the narwhal butter, listening the while to the simmering of the pannikin and the roaring of the gale.
After his meagre meal he wrapped himself in his blanket, and went to sleep.
This was all very well as long as it lasted, but he cooled during the night, and, on awaking in the morning, found that keen frost penetrated every fibre of his garments and every pore of his skin. The storm, however, was over; the moon and stars were shining in a clear sky, and the aurora was dancing merrily. Rising at once he bundled up his traps, threw the line of his small hand-sledge over his shoulder, and stepped out for home. But cold and want of food had been telling on him. He soon experienced an unwonted sense of fatigue, then a drowsy sensation came over him.
Leo was well aware of the danger of giving way to drowsiness in such circumstances, yet, strange to say, he was not in the least afraid of being overcome. He would sit down to rest, just for two minutes, and then push on. He smiled, as he sat down in the crevice of a hummock, to think of the frequent and needless cautions which his uncle had given him against this very thing. The smile was still on his lips when his head drooped on a piece of ice, and he sank into a deep slumber.
Ah, Leonard Vandervell! ill would it have been for thee if thou hadst been left to thyself that day; but sharp eyes and anxious hearts were out on the icy waste in search of thee!
On arriving at his winter quarters, and learning that Leo had not yet returned, Captain Vane at once organised an elaborate search-expedition. The man who found him at last was Butterface.
“Oh, Massa Leo!” exclaimed that sable creature on beholding the youth seated, white and cold, on the hummock; but he said no more, being fully alive to the danger of the situation.
Rushing at Leo, he seized and shook him violently, as if he had been his bitterest foe. There was no response from the sleeping man. The negro therefore began to chafe, shake, and kick him; even to slap his face, and yell into his ears in a way that an ignorant observer would have styled brutal. At last there was a symptom of returning vitality in the poor youth’s frame, and the negro redoubled his efforts.
“Ho! hallo! Massa Leo, wake up! You’s dyin’, you is!”
“Why—what’s—the—matter—Butterf—” muttered Leo, and dropped his head again.
“Hi! hello! ho–o–o!” yelled Butterface, renewing the rough treatment, and finally hitting the youth a sounding slap on the ear.
“Ha! I be tink dat vakes you up.”
It certainly did wake him up. A burst of indignation within seemed to do more for him than the outward buffetings. He shut his fist and hit Butterface a weak but well intended right-hander on the nose. The negro replied with a sounding slap on the other ear, which induced Leo to grasp him in his arms and try to throw him. Butterface returned the grasp with interest, and soon quite an interesting wrestling match began, the only witness of which sat on a neighbouring hummock in the form of a melancholy Arctic fox.
“Hi! hold on, Massa Leo! Don’t kill me altogidder,” shouted Butterface, as he fell beneath his adversary. “You’s a’most right now.”
“Almost right! what do you mean?”
“I mean dat you’s bin a’most froze to deaf, but I’s melted you down to life agin.”
The truth at last began to dawn on the young hunter. After a brief explanation, he and the negro walked home together in perfect harmony.
Chapter Thirty One.
The Last
In course of time the long and dreary winter passed away, and signs of the coming spring began to manifest themselves to the dwellers in the Polar lands.
Chief and most musical among these signs were the almost forgotten sounds of dropping water, and tinkling rills. One day in April the thermometer suddenly rose to eighteen above the freezing-point of Fahrenheit. Captain Vane came from the observatory, his face blazing with excitement and oily with heat, to announce the fact.
“That accounts for it feeling so like summer,” said Benjy.
“Summer, boy, it’s like India,” returned the Captain, puffing and fanning himself with his cap. “We’ll begin this very day to make arrangements for returning home.”
It was on the evening of that day that they heard the first droppings of the melting snow. Long before that, however, the sun had come back to gladden the Polar regions, and break up the reign of ancient night. His departure in autumn had been so gradual, that it was difficult to say when night began to overcome the day. So, in like manner, his return was gradual. It was not until Captain Vane observed stars of the sixth magnitude shining out at noon in November, that he had admitted the total absence of day; and when spring returned, it was not until he could read the smallest print at midnight in June that he admitted there was “no night there.”
But neither the continual day of summer, nor the perpetual night of winter, made so deep an impression on our explorers as the gushing advent of spring. That season did not come gradually back like the light, but rushed upon them suddenly with a warm embrace, like an enthusiastic friend after a long absence. It plunged, as it were, upon the region, and overwhelmed it. Gushing waters thrilled the ears with the sweetness of an old familiar song. Exhalations from the moistened earth, and, soon after, the scent of awakening vegetation, filled the nostrils with delicious fragrance. In May, the willow-stems were green and fresh with flowing sap. Flowers began to bud modestly, as if half afraid of having come too soon. But there was no cause to fear that. The glorious sun was strong in his might, and, like his Maker, warmed the northern world into exuberant life. Mosses, poppies, saxifrages, cochlearia, and other hardy plants began to sprout, and migratory birds innumerable—screaming terns, cackling duck, piping plover, auks in dense clouds with loudly whirring wings, trumpeting geese, eider-ducks, burgomasters, etcetera, began to return with all the noisy bustle and joyous excitement of a family on its annual visit to much-loved summer quarters.
But here we must note a difference between the experience of our explorers and that of all others. These myriads of happy creatures—and many others that we have not space to name—did not pass from the south onward to a still remoter north, but came up from all round the horizon,—up all the meridians of longitude, as on so many railway lines converging at the Pole, and settling down for a prolonged residence in garrulous felicity among the swamps and hills and vales of Flatland.
Truly it was a most enjoyable season and experience, but there is no joy without its alley here below—not even at the North Pole!
The alloy came in the form of a low fever which smote down the stalwart Leo, reduced his great strength seriously, and confined him for many weeks to a couch in their little stone hut, and, of course, the power of sympathy robbed his companions of much of that exuberant joy which they shared with the lower animals at the advent of beautiful spring.
During the period of his illness Leo’s chief nurse, comforter, and philosophical companion, was the giant of the North. And one of the subjects which occupied their minds most frequently was the Word of God. In the days of weakness and suffering Leo took to that great source of comfort with thirsting avidity, and intense was his gratification at the eager desire expressed by the giant to hear and understand what it contained.
Of course Alf, and Benjy, and the Captain, and Butterface, as well as Grabantak, Makitok, and Amalatok, with others of the Eskimos, were frequently by his side, but the giant never left him for more than a brief period, night or day.
“Ah! Chingatok,” said Leo one day, when the returning spring had begun to revive his strength, “I never felt such a love for God’s Book when I was well and strong as I feel for it now that I am ill, and I little thought that I should find out so much of its value while talking about it to an Eskimo. I shall be sorry to leave you, Chingatok—very sorry.”
“The young Kablunet is not yet going to die,” said the giant in a soft voice.
“I did not mean that,” replied Leo, with the ghost of his former hearty laugh; “I mean that I shall be obliged to leave Flatland and to return to my own home as soon as the season permits. Captain Vane has been talking to me about it. He is anxious now to depart, yet sorry to leave his kind and hospitable friends.”
“I, too, am sorry,” returned Chingatok sadly. “No more shall I hear from your lips the sweet words of my Great Father—the story of Jesus. You will take your book away with you.”
“That is true, my friend; and it would be useless to leave my Bible with you, as you could not read it, but the truth will remain with you, Chingatok.”
“Yes,” replied the giant with a significant smile, “you cannot take that away. It is here—and here.” He touched his forehead and breast as he spoke. Then he continued:—
“These strange things that Alf has been trying to teach me during the long nights I have learned—I understand.”
He referred here to a syllabic alphabet which Alf had invented, and which he had amused himself by teaching to some of the natives, so that they might write down and read those few words and messages in their own tongue which formerly they had been wont to convey to each other by means of signs and rude drawings—after the manner of most savages.
“Well, what about that?” asked Leo, as his companion paused.
“Could not my friend,” replied Chingatok, “change some of the words of his book into the language of the Eskimo and mark them down?”
Leo at once jumped at the idea. Afterwards he spoke to Alf about it, and the two set to work to translate some of the most important passages of Scripture, and write them down in the syllable alphabet. For this purpose they converted a sealskin into pretty fair parchment, and wrote with the ink which Captain Vane had brought with him and carefully husbanded. The occupation proved a beneficial stimulus to the invalid, who soon recovered much of his wonted health, and even began again to wander about with his old companion the repeating rifle.
The last event of interest which occurred at the North Pole, before the departure of our explorers, was the marriage of Oolichuk with Oblooria. The ceremony was very simple. It consisted in the bridegroom dressing in his best and going to the tent of his father-in-law with a gift, which he laid at his feet. He then paid some endearing Eskimo attentions to his mother-in-law, one of which was to present her with a raw duck, cleaned and dismembered for immediate consumption. He even assisted that pleased lady immediately to consume the duck, and wound up by taking timid little Oblooria’s hand and leading her away to a hut of his own, which he had specially built and decorated for the occasion.
As Amalatok had arrived that very day on a visit from Poloeland with his prime minister and several chiefs, and Grabantak was residing on the spot, with a number of chiefs from the surrounding islands, who had come to behold the famous Kablunets, there was a sort of impromptu gathering of the northern clans which lent appropriate dignity to the wedding.
After the preliminary feast of the occasion was over, Captain Vane was requested to exhibit some of his wonderful powers for the benefit of a strange chief who had recently arrived from a distant island. Of course our good-natured Captain complied.
“Get out the boats and kites, Benjy, boy,” he said; “we must go through our performances to please ’em. I feel as if we were a regular company of play-actors now.”
“Won’t you give them a blow-up first, father?”
“No, Benjy, no. Never put your best foot foremost. The proverb is a false one—as many proverbs are. We will dynamite them afterwards, and electrify them last of all. Go, look sharp.”
So the Captain first amazed the visitor with the kites and india-rubber boats; then he horrified him by blowing a small iceberg of some thousands of tons into millions of atoms; after which he convulsed him and made him “jump.”
The latter experiment was the one to which the enlightened Eskimos looked forward with the most excited and hopeful anticipations, for it was that which gratified best their feeling of mischievous joviality.
When the sedate and dignified chief was led, all ignorant of his fate, to the mysterious mat, and stood thereon with grave demeanour, the surrounding natives bent their knees, drew up elbows, expanded fingers, and glared in expectancy. When the dignified chief experienced a tremor of the frame and looked surprised, they grinned with satisfaction; when he quivered convulsively they also quivered with suppressed emotion. Ah! Benjy had learned by that time from experience to graduate very delicately his shocking scale, and thus lead his victim step by step from bad to worse, so as to squeeze the utmost amount of fun out of him, before inducing that galvanic war-dance which usually terminated the scene and threw his audience into fits of ecstatic laughter.
These were the final rejoicings of the wedding day—if we except a dance in which every man did what seemed best in his own eyes, and Butterface played reels on the flute with admirable incapacity.
But there came a day, at last, when the inhabitants of Flatland were far indeed removed from the spirit of merriment.
It was the height of the Arctic summer-time, when the crashing of the great glaciers and the gleaming of the melting bergs told of rapid dissolution, and the sleepless sun was circling its day-and-nightly course in the ever-bright blue sky. The population of Flatland was assembled on the beach of their native isle—the men with downcast looks, the women with sad and tearful eyes. Two india-rubber boats were on the shore. Two kites were flying overhead. The third boat and kite had been damaged beyond repair, but the two left were sufficient. The Englishmen were about to depart, and the Eskimos were inconsolable.
“My boat is on the shore,—”
Said Benjy, quoting Byron, as he shook old Makitok by the hand—
“And my kite is in the sky,
But before I go, of more,
I will—bid you—all—good-b—”
Benjy broke down at this point. The feeble attempt to be facetious to the last utterly failed.
Turning abruptly on his heel he stepped into the Faith and took his seat in the stern. It was the Hope which had been destroyed. The Faith and Charity still remained to them.
We must draw a curtain over that parting scene. Never before in human experience had such a display of kindly feeling and profound regret been witnessed in similar circumstances.
“Let go the tail-ropes!” said Captain Vane in a husky tone.
“Let go de ropes,” echoed Butterface in a broken voice.
The ropes were let go. The kites soared, and the boats rushed swiftly over the calm and glittering sea.
On nearing one of the outer islands the voyagers knew that their tiny boats would soon be shut out from view, and they rose to wave a last farewell. The salute was returned by the Eskimos—with especial fervour by Chingatok, who stood high above his fellows on a promontory, and waved the parchment roll of texts which he grasped in his huge right hand.
Long after the boats had disappeared, the kites could still be seen among the gorgeous clouds. Smaller and smaller they became in their flight to the mysterious south, until at last they seemed undistinguishable specks on the horizon, and then vanished altogether from view.
One by one the Eskimos retired to their homes—slowly and sadly, as if loath to part from the scene where the word farewell had been spoken. At last all were gone save Chingatok, who still stood for hours on the promontory, pressing the scroll to his heaving chest, and gazing intently at the place on the horizon where his friends had disappeared.
There was no night to bring his vigil or his meditations to a close, but time wore him out at last. With a sigh, amounting almost to a groan, he turned and walked slowly away, and did not stop until he stood upon the Pole, where he sat down on one of the Captain’s stools, and gazed mournfully at the remains of the dismantled observatory. There he was found by old Makitok, and for some time the giant and the wizard held converse together.
“I love these Kablunets,” said Chingatok.
“They are a strange race,” returned the wizard. “They mingle much folly with their wisdom. They come here to find this Nort Pole, this nothing, and they find it. Then they go away and leave it! What good has it done them?”
“I know not,” replied Chingatok humbly, “but I know not everything. They have showed me much. One thing they have showed me—that behind all things there is something else which I do not see. The Kablunets are wonderful men. Yet I pity them. As Blackbeard has said, some of them are too fond of killing themselves, and some are too fond of killing each other. I wish they would come here—the whole nation of them—and learn how to live in peace and be happy among the Eskimos. But they will not come. Only a few of their best men venture to come, and I should not wonder if their countrymen refused to believe the half of what they tell them when they get home.”
Old Makitok made no reply. He was puzzled, and when puzzled he usually retired to his hut and went to bed. Doing so on the present occasion he left his companion alone.
“Poor, poor Kablunets,” murmured Chingatok, descending from his position, and wandering away towards the outskirts of the village. “You are very clever, but you are somewhat foolish. I pity you, but I also love you well.”
With his grand head down, his arms crossed, and the scroll of texts pressed to his broad bosom, the Giant of the North wandered away, and finally disappeared among the flowering and rocky uplands of the interior.
