The Giant of the North - Robert Michael Ballantyne (good e books to read .txt) 📗

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