The Giant of the North: Pokings Round the Pole

Like a dutiful son, the giant turned on his heel, descended the cliffs, and went straight home to consult with his mother.

Chapter Two.

Unexpected Meetings, Alarms, and Confidences

“Mother, I have been thinking,” said Chingatok, as he crept into his hut and sat down on a raised bench of moss.

“That is not news, my son; you think much. You are not like other men. They think little and eat much.”

The stout little woman looked up through the smoke of her cooking-lamp and smiled, but her big son was too much absorbed in his thoughts to observe her pleasantry, so she continued the cooking of a walrus chop in silence.

“The Kablunets are not to be seen, mother,” resumed Chingatok. “I have looked for them every day for a long time, and begin to weary. My thought is now to launch my kayak when we come to open water, load it with meat, take four spears and more lines than a strong hunter needs for a whole season; then paddle away south to discover the land of the Kablunets. They must be poor; they may be starving. I will guide them to our home, and show them this land of plenty.”

He paused abruptly, and looked at his mother with solemn anxiety, for he was well aware that he had given her food for profound reflection.

We feel tempted here to repeat our remark about the strong resemblance between different members of the human family, but refrain.

This untutored woman of the Arctic lands met her son’s proposition with the well-known reply of many civilised persons.

“Of what use would it be, my son? No good can come of searching out these poor lands. You cannot benefit the miserable Kablunets. Perhaps they are savage and fierce; and you are sure to meet with dangers by the way. Worse—you may die!”

“Mother,” returned Chingatok, “when the white bear stands up with his claws above my head and his mouth a-gape, does my hand tremble or my spear fail?”

“No, my son.”

“Then why do you speak to me of danger and death?”

Toolooha was not gifted with argumentative powers. She relapsed into silence and lamp-smoke.

But her son was not to be so easily dissuaded. He adopted a line of reasoning which never failed.

“Mother,” he said, sadly, “it may be that you are right, and I am of too fearful a spirit to venture far away from you by myself; I will remain here if you think me a coward.”

“Don’t say so, Chingatok. You know what I think. Go, if you must go, but who will hunt for your poor old mother when you are gone?”

This was an appeal which the astute little woman knew to be very powerful with her son. She buried her head in the smoke again, and left the question to simmer.

Chingatok was tender-hearted. He said nothing, but, as usual, he thought much, as he gazed in a contemplative manner at his oily parent, and there is no saying to what lengths of self-sacrifice he would have gone if he had not been aroused, and his thoughts scattered to the winds, by a yell so tremendous that it might well have petrified him on the spot. But it did nothing of the kind. It only caused him to drop on his knees, dart through the tunnel like an eel, spring into the open air like an electrified rabbit from its burrow, and stand up with a look of blazing interrogation on his huge countenance.

The cry had been uttered by his bosom friend and former playmate Oolichuk, who came running towards him with frantic gesticulations.

“The Kablunets!” he gasped, “the white-faces have come!—on a floating island!—alive!—smoking!—it is all true!”

“Where?” demanded our giant, whose face blazed up at once.

“There!” cried Oolichuk, pointing seaward towards the ice-hummocks with both hands, and glaring up at his friend.

Without another word Chingatok ran off in the direction pointed out, followed hotly by his friend.

Oolichuk was a large and powerful man, but, his legs were remarkably short. His pace, compared with that of Chingatok, was as that of a sparrow to an ostrich. Nevertheless he kept up, for he was agile and vigorous.

“Have you seen them—have you spoken?” asked the giant, abruptly.

“Yes, all the tribe was there.”

“No one killed?”

“No, but terribly frightened; they made me run home to fetch you.”

Chingatok increased his speed. So did Oolichuk.

While they run, let us leap a little ahead of them, reader, and see what had caused all the excitement.

The whole party had gone off that morning, with the exception of Chingatok and his mother, to spear seals in a neighbouring bay, where these animals had been discovered in great numbers. Dogs and sledges had been taken, because a successful hunt was expected, and the ice was sufficiently firm.

The bay was very large. At its distant southern extremity there rose a great promontory which jutted far out into the sea. While the men were busy there making preparations to begin the hunt, Oblooria, Chingatok’s little sister, amused herself by mounting a hummock of ice about thirty feet high.

When there, she chanced to look towards the promontory. Instantly she opened her eyes and mouth and uttered a squeal that brought her friends running to her side.

Oolichuk was the first to reach her. He had no need to ask questions. Oblooria’s gaze directed his, and there, coming round the promontory, he beheld an object which had never before filled his wondering eyes. It was, apparently, a monstrous creature with a dark body and towering wings, and a black thing in its middle, from which were vomited volumes of smoke.

“Kablunets! white men!” he yelled.

“Kablunets!—huk! huk!” echoed the whole tribe, as they scrambled up the ice-hill one after another.

And they were right. A vessel of the pale-faces had penetrated these northern solitudes, and was advancing swiftly before a light breeze under sail and steam.

Despite the preparation their minds had received, and the fact that they were out in search of these very people, this sudden appearance of them filled most of the Eskimos with alarm—some of them with absolute terror, insomuch that the term “pale-face” became most appropriate to themselves.

“What shall we do?” exclaimed Akeetolik, one of the men.

“Fly!” cried Ivitchuk, another of the men, whose natural courage was not high.

“No; let us stay and behold!” said Oolichuk, with a look of contempt at his timid comrade.

“Yes, stay and see,” said Eemerk sternly.

“But they will kill us,” faltered the young woman, whom we have already mentioned by the name of Tekkona.

“No—no one would kill you,” said Eemerk gallantly; “they would only carry you off and keep you.”

While they conversed with eager, anxious looks, the steam yacht—for such she was—advanced rapidly, threading her way among the ice-fields and floes with graceful rapidity and ease, to the unutterable amazement of the natives. Although her sails were spread to catch the light breeze, her chief motive power at the time was a screw-propeller.

“Yes, it must be alive,” said Oolichuk to Akeetolik, with a look of solemn awe. “The white men do not paddle. They could not lift paddles big enough to move such a great oomiak,”[1 - The oomiak is the open boat of skin used by Eskimo women, and is capable of holding several persons. The kayak, or man’s canoe, holds only one.], “and the wind is not strong; it could not blow them so fast. See, the oomiak has a tail—and wags it!”

“Oh! do let us run away!” whispered the trembling Oblooria, as she took shelter behind Tekkona.

“No, no,” said the latter, who was brave as well as pretty, “we need not fear. Our men will take care of us.”