The Giant of the North: Pokings Round the Pole Part 4

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

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

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

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

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

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

"The white men are very wise, mother."

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

"But you cannot understand it."

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

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

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

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

"I know not how to begin, mother."

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

"True; give me one," said Chingatok.

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

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

"Is it a devil?" asked Toolooha.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Again the shriek was repeated with prolonged power.

"Tell me, my son," gasped Toolooha, "is Oblooria--are the people safe?

Why came you to me alone?"

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

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

CHAPTER FOUR.

A CATASTROPHE AND A BOLD DECISION.

Two days after her arrival at the temporary residence of the northern Eskimos, the steam yacht _Whitebear_, while close to the sh.o.r.e, was beset by ice, so that she could neither advance nor retreat.

Everywhere, as far as the eye could reach, the sea was covered with hummocks and bergs and fields of ice, so closely packed that there was not a piece of open water to be seen, with the exception of one small basin a few yards ahead of the lead or lane of water in which the vessel had been imprisoned.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Just all that can be done in the circ.u.mstances," replied the Captain.

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

"b.u.t.terface!" shouted the boy.

"Yis, ma.s.sa."

"Fetch the Captain's gla.s.ses, please."