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

of any sort about you--only one or two bruises."

"You'll find a bump on the top of my head, father, the size of a cocoa-nut. That's what knocked the senses out o' me, but the blood and brains belong to the bear. I lay no claim to them."

"Where _is_ the bear?" asked Alf, looking round.

"Where is he?" echoed Benjy, bursting into a wild laugh.

"Oh! Massa Benjy, don't laugh," said Butterface solemnly; "you hab no notion wot a awful look you got when you laugh wid sitch a bloody face."

This made Benjy laugh more than ever. His mirth became catching, and the negro's solemn visage relaxed into an irrepressible grin.

"Oh, you japan-jawed porpoise!" cried Benjy, "you should have seen that bear go off--with such a crack too! I only wish I'd been able to hold up for two seconds longer to see it properly, but my shelf went down, and I had to go along with it. Blown to bits! No--he was blown to a thousand atoms! Count 'em if you can."

Again Benjy burst into uproarious laughter.

There was indeed some ground for the boy's way of putting the case. The colossal creature had been so terribly shattered by the dynamite cartridge, that there was scarcely a piece of him larger than a man's hand left to tell the tale.

"Well, well," said the Captain, assisting his son to rise, "I'm thankful it's no worse."

"Worse, father! why, it _couldn't_ be worse, unless, indeed, his spirit were brought alive again and allowed to contemplate the humbling condition of his body."

"I don't refer to the bear, Benjy, but to yourself, lad. You might have been killed, you know, and I'm very thankful you were not--though you half-deserve to be. But come, we must encamp here for the night and return home to-morrow, for the wind has been shifting a little, and will be favourable, I think, in the morning."

The wind was indeed favourable next morning, we may say almost too favourable, for it blew a stiff breeze from the south, which steadily increased to a gale during the day. Afterwards the sky became overcast and the darkness intense, rendering it necessary to attend to the kite's regulator with the utmost care, and advance with the greatest caution.

Now, while the Captain and his friends were struggling back to their Polar home, Leo Vandervell happened to be caught by the same gale when out hunting. Being of a bold, sanguine, and somewhat reckless disposition, this Nimrod of the party paid little attention to the weather until it became difficult to walk and next to impossible to see. Then, having shot nothing that day, he turned towards the Pole with a feeling of disappointment.

But when the gale increased so that he could hardly face it, and the sky became obliterated by falling and drifting snow, disappointment gave place to anxiety, and he soon realised the fact that he had lost his direction. To advance in such circumstances was out of the question, he therefore set about building a miniature hut of snow. Being by that time expert at such masonry, he soon erected a dome-shaped shelter, in which he sat down on his empty game-bag after closing the entrance with a block of hard snow.

The position of our hunter was not enviable. The hut was barely high enough to let him sit up, and long enough to let him lie down--not to stretch out. The small allowance of pemmican with which he had set out had long ago been consumed. It was so dark that he could not see his hand when close before his eyes. He was somewhat fatigued and rather cold, and had no water to drink. It was depressing to think of going to bed in such circumstances with the yelling of an Arctic storm for a lullaby.

However, Leo had a buoyant spirit, and resolved to "make the best of it." First of all he groped in his game-bag for a small stove lamp, which he set up before him, and arranged blubber and a wick in it, using the sense of touch in default of sight. Then he struck a light, but not with matches. The Englishmen's small stock of congreves had long since been exhausted, and they were obliged to procure fire by the Eskimo method, namely, a little piece of wood worked like a drill, with a thong of leather, against another piece of wood until the friction produced fire. When a light had been thus laboriously obtained, he applied it to the wick of his lamp, and wished fervently for something to cook.

It is proverbial that wishing does not usually achieve much. After a deep sigh, therefore, Leo turned his wallet inside out. Besides a few crumbs, it contained a small lump of narwhal blubber and a little packet. The former, in its frozen state, somewhat resembled hard butter. The latter contained a little coffee--not the genuine article, however. That, like the matches, had long ago been used up, and our discoverers were reduced to roasted biscuit-crumbs. The substitute was not bad! Inside of the coffee-packet was a smaller packet of brown sugar, but it had burst and allowed its contents to mingle with the coffee.

Rejoiced to find even a little food where he had thought there was none, Leo filled his pannikin with snow, melted it, emptied into it the compound of coffee and sugar, put it on the lamp to boil, and sat down to watch, while he slowly consumed the narwhal butter, listening the while to the simmering of the pannikin and the roaring of the gale.

After his meagre meal he wrapped himself in his blanket, and went to sleep.

This was all very well as long as it lasted, but he cooled during the night, and, on awaking in the morning, found that keen frost penetrated every fibre of his garments and every pore of his skin. The storm, however, was over; the moon and stars were shining in a clear sky, and the aurora was dancing merrily. Rising at once he bundled up his traps, threw the line of his small hand-sledge over his shoulder, and stepped out for home. But cold and want of food had been telling on him. He soon experienced an unwonted sense of fatigue, then a drowsy sensation came over him.

Leo was well aware of the danger of giving way to drowsiness in such circumstances, yet, strange to say, he was not in the least afraid of being overcome. He would sit down to rest, just for two minutes, and then push on. He smiled, as he sat down in the crevice of a hummock, to think of the frequent and needless cautions which his uncle had given him against this very thing. The smile was still on his lips when his head drooped on a piece of ice, and he sank into a deep slumber.

Ah, Leonard Vandervell! ill would it have been for thee if thou hadst been left to thyself that day; but sharp eyes and anxious hearts were out on the icy waste in search of thee!

On arriving at his winter quarters, and learning that Leo had not yet returned, Captain Vane at once organised an elaborate search-expedition. The man who found him at last was Butterface.

"Oh, Massa Leo!" exclaimed that sable creature on beholding the youth seated, white and cold, on the hummock; but he said no more, being fully alive to the danger of the situation.

Rushing at Leo, he seized and shook him violently, as if he had been his bitterest foe. There was no response from the sleeping man. The negro therefore began to chafe, shake, and kick him; even to slap his face, and yell into his ears in a way that an ignorant observer would have styled brutal. At last there was a symptom of returning vitality in the poor youth's frame, and the negro redoubled his efforts.

"Ho! hallo! Massa Leo, wake up! You's dyin', you is!"

"Why--what's--the--matter--Butterf--" muttered Leo, and dropped his head again.

"Hi! hello! ho-o-o!" yelled Butterface, renewing the rough treatment, and finally hitting the youth a sounding slap on the ear.

"Ha! I be tink dat vakes you up."

It certainly did wake him up. A burst of indignation within seemed to do more for him than the outward buffetings. He shut his fist and hit Butterface a weak but well intended right-hander on the nose. The negro replied with a sounding slap on the other ear, which induced Leo to grasp him in his arms and try to throw him. Butterface returned the grasp with interest, and soon quite an interesting wrestling match began, the only witness of which sat on a neighbouring hummock in the form of a melancholy Arctic fox.

"Hi! hold on, Massa Leo! Don't kill me altogidder," shouted Butterface, as he fell beneath his adversary. "You's a'most right now."

"Almost right! what do you mean?"

"I mean dat you's bin a'most froze to deaf, but I's melted you down to life agin."

The truth at last began to dawn on the young hunter. After a brief explanation, he and the negro walked home together in perfect harmony.


CHAPTER THIRTY ONE.


THE LAST.

In course of time the long and dreary winter passed away, and signs of the coming spring began to manifest themselves to the dwellers in the Polar lands.

Chief and most musical among these signs were the almost forgotten sounds of dropping water, and tinkling rills. One day in April the thermometer suddenly rose to eighteen above the freezing-point of Fahrenheit. Captain Vane came from the observatory, his face blazing with excitement and oily with heat, to announce the fact.

"That accounts for it feeling so like summer," said Benjy.

"Summer, boy, it's like India," returned the Captain, puffing and fanning himself with his cap. "We'll begin this very day to make arrangements for returning home."

It was on the evening of that day that they heard the first droppings of the melting snow. Long before that, however, the sun had come back to gladden the Polar regions, and break up the reign of ancient night. His departure in autumn had been so gradual, that it was difficult to say when night began to overcome the day. So, in like manner, his return was gradual. It was not until Captain Vane observed stars of the sixth magnitude shining out at noon in November, that he had admitted the total absence of day; and when spring returned, it was not until he could read the smallest print at midnight in June that he admitted there was "no night there."

But neither the continual day of summer, nor the perpetual night of winter, made so deep an impression on our explorers as the gushing advent of spring. That season did not come gradually back like the light, but rushed upon them suddenly with a warm embrace, like an enthusiastic friend after a long absence. It plunged, as it were, upon the region, and overwhelmed it. Gushing waters thrilled the ears with the sweetness of an old familiar song. Exhalations from the moistened earth, and, soon after, the scent of awakening vegetation, filled the nostrils with delicious fragrance. In May, the willow-stems were