The Giant of the North: Pokings Round the Pole Part 41

Oolichuk continued this process until the first auk was finished. He then treated the second bird in the same manner, and a.s.sisted his lady-love to consume it, as well as the remainder of the oil.

Conversation did not flow during the first part of the meal, but, after having drunk deeply, their lips were opened and the feast of reason began. It consisted chiefly of a running commentary by the man on the Kablunets and their ways, and appreciative giggles on the part of the woman; but they were interrupted at the very commencement by the sudden appearance of one of the Kablunets sauntering towards them.

They rose instantly and rambled away in opposite directions, absorbed in contemplation--the one of the earth, and the other of the sky.

Three days after that, Captain Vane and his party approached the sh.o.r.es of _Great Isle_. It was low like the other islands of Flatland, but of greater extent, insomuch that its entire circ.u.mference could not be seen from its highest central point. Like the other islands it was quite dest.i.tute of trees, but the low bush was luxuriantly dense, and filled, they were told, with herds of reindeer and musk-oxen. Myriads of wild-fowl--from the lordly swan to the twittering sandpiper--swarmed among its sedgy lakelets, while grouse and ptarmigan were to be seen in large flocks on its uplands. The land was clothed in mosses and gra.s.ses of the richest green, and decked with variegated wild-flowers and berries.

The voyagers were received with deep interest and great hospitality by the inhabitants of the coast, who, it seemed, never quarrelled with the neighbouring islanders or went to war.

Makitok dwelt in the centre of the island. Thither they therefore went the following day.

It was afternoon when they came to the valley in which dwelt the angekok, or, as Red Indians would have styled him, the medicine-man.

It was a peculiar valley. Unlike other vales it had neither outlet or inlet, but was a mere circular basin or depression of vast extent, the lowest part of which was in its centre. The slope towards the centre was so gradual that the descent was hardly perceived, yet Captain Vane could not resist the conviction that the lowest part of the vale must be lower than the surface of the sea.

The rich luxuriance of herbage in Great Isle seemed to culminate in this lovely vale. At the centre and lowest part of the valley, Makitok, or rather Makitok's forefathers, had built their dwelling. It was a hut, resembling the huts of the Eskimos. No other hut was to be seen. The angekok loved solitude.

Beside the hut there stood a small truncated cone about fifteen feet high, on the summit of which sat an old white-bearded man, who intently watched the approaching travellers.

"Behold--Makitok!" said Teyma as they drew near.

The old man did not move. He appeared to be over eighty years of age, and, unlike Eskimos in general, had a bushy snow-white beard. The thin hair on his head was also white, and his features were good.

Our travellers were not disappointed with this strange recluse, who received them with an air of refinement and urbanity so far removed from Eskimo manners and character, that Captain Vane felt convinced he must be descended from some other branch of the human family. Makitok felt and expressed a degree of interest in the objects of the expedition which had not been observed in any Eskimo, except Chingatok, and he was intelligent and quick of perception far before most of those who surrounded him.

"And what have you to say about yourself?" asked the captain that evening, after a long animated conversation on the country and its productions.

"I have little to say," replied the old man, sadly. "There is no mystery about my family except its beginning in the long past."

"But is not _all_ mystery in the long past?" asked the Captain.

"True, my son, but there is a difference in _my_ mystery. Other Eskimos can trace back from son to father till they get confused and lost, as if surrounded by the winter-fogs. But when I trace back--far back--I come to one man--my _first father_, who had no father, it is said, and who came no one knows from where. My mind is not confused or lost; it is stopped!"

"Might not the mystery-bundle that you call _buk_ explain matters?"

asked Alf.

When this was translated, the old man for the first time looked troubled.

"I dare not open it," he said in an undertone, as if speaking to himself. "From father to son we have held it sacred. It must grow-- ever grow--never diminish!"

"It's a pity he looks at it in that light," remarked Leo to Benjy, as they lay down to sleep that night. "I have no doubt that the man whom he styles first father wrapped up the thing, whatever it is, to keep it safe, not to make a mystery of it, and that his successors, having begun with a mistaken view, have now converted the re-wrapping of the bundle by each successive heir into a sacred obligation. However, we may perhaps succeed in overcoming the old fellow's prejudices. Good-night, Benjy."

A snore from Benjy showed that Leo's words had been thrown away, so, with a light laugh, he turned over, and soon joined his comrade in the land of dreams.

For two weeks the party remained on _Great Isle_, hunting, shooting, fishing, collecting, and investigating; also, we may add, astonishing the natives.

During that period many adventures of a more or less exciting nature befell them, which, however, we must pa.s.s over in silence. At the end of that time, the youth who had been sent for the Captain's s.e.xtant and other philosophical instruments arrived with them all--thermometers, barometers, chronometers, wind and water gauges, pendulums, etcetera, safe and sound.

As the instruments reached _Cup Valley_, (so Benjy had styled Makitok's home), in the morning, it was too early for taking trustworthy observations. The Captain therefore employed the time in erecting an observatory. For this purpose he selected, with Makitok's permission, the truncated cone close to the recluse's dwelling. Here, after taking formal possession and hoisting the Union Jack, he busied himself, in a state of subdued excitement, preparing for the intended observations.

"I'll fix the lat.i.tude and longitude in a few hours," he said.

"Meantime, Leo, you and Benjy had better go off with the rifle and fetch us something good for dinner."

Leo and Benjy were always ready to go a-hunting. They required no second bidding, but were soon rambling over the slopes or wading among the marshes of the island in pursuit of game.

Leo carried his repeater; Benjy the shot-gun. Both wore native Eskimo boots as long as the leg, which, being made of untanned hide, are, when soaked, thoroughly waterproof. (See Note.)

Oolichuk and b.u.t.terface carried the game-bags, and these were soon filled with such game as was thought best for food. Sending them back to camp with orders to empty the bags and return, Leo and Benjy took to the uplands in search of n.o.bler game. It was not difficult to find.

Soon a splendid stag was shot by Leo and a musk-ox by Benjy.

Not long after this, the bag-bearers returned.

"You shoots mos' awful well, Ma.s.sas," said b.u.t.terface; "but it's my 'pinion dat you bof better go home, for Captain Vane he go mad!"

"What d'you mean, b.u.t.terface?" asked Leo.

"I mean dat de Capp'n he's hoed mad, or suffin like it, an' Ma.s.sa Alf not mush better."

A good deal amused and surprised by the negro's statement, the two hunters hastened back to Makitok's hut, where they indeed found Captain Vane in a state of great excitement.

"Well, uncle, what's the news?" asked Leo; "found your lat.i.tude higher than you expected?"

"Higher!" exclaimed the Captain, seizing his nephew by both hands and shaking them. "Higher! I should think so--couldn't be _higher_.

There's neither lat.i.tude nor longitude here, my boy! I've found it!

Come--come up, and I'll show you the exact spot--the _North Pole itself_!"

He dragged Leo to the top of the truncated cone on which he had pitched his observatory.

"There, look round you," he cried, taking off his hat and wiping the perspiration from his brow.

"Well, uncle, where is it?" asked Leo, half-amused and half-sceptical.

"Where! why, don't you see it? No, of course you don't. You're looking _all round it_, lad. Look down,--down at your feet. Leonard Vandervell," he added, in sudden solemnity, "you're _on it_! you're standing on the North Pole _now_!"

Leo still looked incredulous.

"What I you don't believe? Convince him, Alf."

"Indeed it is true," said Alf; "we have been testing and checking our observations in every possible manner, and the result never varies more than a foot or two. The North Pole is at this moment actually under our feet."

As we have now, good reader, at last reached that great _point_ of geographical interest which has so long perplexed the world and agitated enterprising man, we deem this the proper place to present you with a map of Captain Vane's discoveries.

"And so," said Benjy with an injured look, "the geography books are right after all; the world _is_ `a little flattened at the Poles like an orange.' Well, I never believed it before, and I don't believe _yet_ that it's like an orange."

"But it is more than flattened, Benjy," said Leo; "don't you see it is even hollowed out a little, as if the spinning of the world had made a sort of whirlpool at the North Pole, and no doubt there is the same at the South."

Chingatok, who was listening to the conversation, without of course understanding it, and to whom the Captain had made sundry spasmodic remarks during the day in the Eskimo tongue, went that night to Amalatok, who was sitting in Makitok's hut, and said--

"My father, Blackbeard has found it!"