The Giant of the North by Robert Michael Ballantyne (comprehension books .txt) 📖

detour before it could get at the artist. These and other thoughts passed through his brain like the lightning flash, and he was on the point of turning to run back and give the alarm to Leo, when a rattling of stones occurred behind him--just beyond the point of rocks round which he had turned. In the tension of his excited nerves he felt as if he had suddenly become red hot. Could this be another bear? If so, what was he to do, whither to fly? A moment more would settle the question, for the rattle of stones continued as the steps advanced. The boy felt the hair rising on his head. Round came the unknown monster in the form of--a man!

"Ah, Benjy, I--"

But the appearance of Benjy's countenance caused Leo to stop abruptly, both in walk and talk. He had found out his mistake about sending the boy round the hillock, and, turning back, had followed him.

"Ah! look there," said Benjy, pointing at the _tableau vivant_ on the hill-top.

Leo's ready rifle leaped from his shoulder to his left palm, and a grim smile played on his lips, for long service in a volunteer corps had made him a good judge of distance as well as a sure and deadly shot.

"Stand back, Benjy, behind this boulder," he whispered. "I'll lean on it to make more certain."

He was deliberately arranging the rifle while speaking, but never for one instant took his eye off the bear, which still stood motionless, with one paw raised, as if petrified with amazement at what it saw. As for Alf, he went on intently with his work, lifting and lowering his eyes continuously, putting in bold dashes here, or tender touches there; holding out the book occasionally at arm's length to regard his work, with head first on one side, then on the other, and, in short, going through all those graceful and familiar little evolutions of artistic procedure which arouse one's home feelings so powerfully everywhere-- even in the Arctic regions! Little did the artist know who was his uninvited pupil on that sunny summer night!

With one knee resting on a rock, and his rifle on the boulder, Leo took a steady, somewhat lengthened aim, and fired. The result was stupendous! Not only did the shot reverberate with crashing echoes among surrounding cliffs and boulders, but a dying howl from the bear burst over the island, like the thunder of a heavy gun, and went booming over the frozen sea. No wonder that the horrified Alf leapt nearly his own height into the air and scattered his drawing-materials right and left like chaff. He threw up his arms, and wheeled frantically round just in time to receive the murdered bear into his very bosom! They rolled down a small slope together, and then, falling apart, lay prone and apparently dead upon the ground.

You may be sure that Leo soon had his brother's head on his knee, and was calling to him in an agony of fear, quite regardless of the fact that the bear lay at his elbow, giving a few terrific kicks as its huge life oozed out through a bullet-hole in its heart, while Benjy, half weeping with sympathy, half laughing with glee, ran to a neighbouring pool to fetch water in his cap.

A little of the refreshing liquid dashed on his face and poured down his throat soon restored Alf, who had only been stunned by the fall.

"What induced you to keep on sketching all night?" asked Leo, after the first explanations were over.

"All night?" repeated Alf in surprise, "have I been away all night? What time is it?"

"Three o'clock in the morning at the very least," said Leo. "The sun is pretty high, as you might have seen if you had looked at it."

"But he never looked at it," said Benjy, whose eyes were not yet quite dry, "he never looks at anything, or thinks of anything, when he goes sketching."

"Surely you must allow that at least I look at and think of my work," said Alf, rising from the ground and sitting down on the rock from which he had been so rudely roused; "but you are half right, Benjy. The sun was at my back, you see, hid from me by the cliff over which the bear tumbled, and I had no thoughts for time, or eyes for nature, except the portion I was busy with--by the way, where is it?"

"What, your sketch?"

"Ay, and the colours. I wouldn't lose these for a sight of the Pole itself. Look for them, Ben, my boy, I still feel somewhat giddy."

In a few minutes the sketch and drawing-materials were collected, undamaged, and the three returned to camp, Alf leaning on Leo's arm. On the way thither they met the Captain's party, and afterwards the band led by Chingatok. The latter was mightily amused by the adventure, and continued for a considerable time afterwards to upheave his huge shoulders with suppressed laughter.

When the whole party was re-assembled the hour was so late, and they had all been so thoroughly excited, that no one felt inclined to sleep again. It was resolved, therefore, at once to commence the operations of a new day. Butterface was set to prepare coffee, and the Eskimos began breakfast with strips of raw blubber, while steaks of Leo's bear were being cooked.

Meanwhile Chingatok expressed a wish to see the drawing which had so nearly cost the artist his life.

Alf was delighted to exhibit and explain it.

For some time the giant gazed at it in silence. Then he rested his forehead in his huge hand as if in meditation.

It was truly a clever sketch of a surpassingly lovely scene. In the foreground was part of the island with its pearl-grey rocks, red-brown earth, and green mosses, in the midst of which lay a calm pool, like the island's eye looking up to heaven and reflecting the bright indescribable blue of the midnight sky. Further on was a mass of cold grey rocks. Beyond lay the northern ice-pack, which extended in chaotic confusion away to the distant horizon, but the chaos was somewhat relieved by the presence of lakelets which shone here and there over its surface like shields of glittering azure and burnished gold.

"Ask him what he thinks of it," said Leo to Anders, a little surprised at Chingatok's prolonged silence.

"I cannot speak," answered the giant, "my mind is bursting and my heart is full. With my finger I have drawn faces on the snow. I have seen men put wonderful things on flat rocks with a piece of stone, but this!--this is my country made little. It looks as if I could walk in it, yet it is flat!"

"The giant is rather complimentary," laughed Benjy, when this was translated; "to my eye your sketch is little better than a daub."

"It is a daub that causes me much anxiety," said the Captain, who now looked at the drawing for the first time. "D'you mean to tell me, Alf, that you've been true to nature when you sketched that pack?"

"As true as I could make it, uncle."

"I'll answer for its truth," said Leo, "and so will Benjy, for we both saw the view from the top of the island, though we paid little heed to it, being too much occupied with Alf and the bear at the time. The pack is even more rugged than he has drawn it, and it extends quite unbroken to the horizon."

The Captain's usually hopeful expression forsook him for a little as he commented on his bad fortune.

"The season advances, you see," he said, "and it's never very long at the best. I had hoped we were done with this troublesome `sea of ancient ice,' but it seems to turn up everywhere, and from past experience we know that the crossing of it is slow work, as well as hard. However, we mustn't lose heart. `Nebber say die,' as Butterface is fond of remarking."

"Yis, Massa, nebber say die, but allers say `lib, to de top ob your bent.' Dems my 'pinions w'en dey's wanted. Also `go a-hid.' Dat's a grand sent'ment--was borned 'mong de Yankees, an' I stoled it w'en I left ole Virginny."

"What says Chingatok?" asked the Captain of the Eskimo, who was still seated with the sketch on his knees in profound meditation.

"Blackbeard has trouble before him," answered the uncompromising giant, without removing his eyes from the paper. "There," he said, pointing to the pack, "you have three days' hard work. After that three days' easy and swift work. After that no more go on. Must come back."

"He speaks in riddles, Anders. What does he mean by the three days of hard work coming to an end?"

"I mean," said Chingatok, "that the ice was loose when I came to this island. It is now closed. The white men must toil, toil, toil--very slow over the ice for three days, then they will come to smooth ice, where the dogs may run for three days. Then they will come to another island, like this one, on the far-off side of which there is no ice-- nothing but sea, sea, sea. Our kayaks are gone," continued the giant, sadly, "we must come back and travel many days before we find things to make new ones."

While he was speaking, Captain Vane's face brightened up.

"Are you sure of what you say, Chingatok?"

"Chingatok is sure," replied the Eskimo quietly.

"Then we'll conquer our difficulties after all. Come, boys, let's waste no more time in idle talk, but harness the dogs, and be off at once."

Of course the party had to travel round the island, for there was neither ice nor snow on it. When the other side was reached the real difficulties of the journey were fully realised. During the whole of that day and the next they were almost continuously engaged in dragging the sledges over masses of ice, some of which rose to thirty feet above the general level. If the reader will try to imagine a very small ant or beetle dragging its property over a newly macadamised road, he will have a faint conception of the nature of the work. To some extent the dogs were a hindrance rather than a help, especially when passing over broken fragments, for they were always tumbling into holes and cracks, out of which they had to be dragged, and were much given to venting their ill-humour on each other, sometimes going in for a free fight, in the course of which they tied their traces into indescribable knots, and drove their Eskimo masters furious. On such occasions the whips--both lash and handle--were applied with unsparing vigour until the creatures were cowed.

Danger, also, as well as toil, was encountered during the journey. On the evening of the second day the sledge driven by Oolichuk diverged a little from the line of march towards what seemed an easier passage over the hummocks. They had just gained the top of an ice-block, which, unknown to the driver, overhung its base. When the dogs reached the edge of the mass, it suddenly gave way. Down went the team with a united howl