Next morning the ice-plain was crossed at a swinging gallop. Indeed, the dogs were so fresh and frisky after a good rest and a hearty meal that they ran away more than once, and it became a matter of extreme difficulty to check them. At last the great chain was reached, and the party came to an abrupt halt at the base of one of the largest of the bergs. Captain Vane gazed up at it as Napoleon the First may be supposed to have gazed at the Alps he had resolved to scale and cross.
The resemblance to alpine scenery was not confined to mere form—such as towering peaks and mighty precipices—for there were lakelets and ponds here and there up among the crystal heights, from which rivulets trickled, streams brawled, and cataracts thundered.
It was evident, however, that the old giant that frowned on them was verging towards dissolution, for he was honey-combed in all directions.
“Impossible to scale that,” said Alf, with a solemn look.
Even Leo’s sanguine temperament was dashed for a moment. “We dare not attempt to cut through it,” he said, “for masses are falling about here and there in a very dangerous fashion.”
As he spoke, a tall spire was seen to slip from its position, topple over, and go crashing down into a dark blue gulf of ice below it.
“No chance of success now,” said Benjamin Vane, gloomily.
“None wotsomediver,” muttered Butterface, his broad black visage absolutely elongated by sympathetic despair. For, you must know, as far as his own feelings were concerned, sympathy alone influenced him. Personally, he was supremely indifferent about reaching the North Pole. In fact he did not believe in it at all, and made no scruple of saying so, when asked, but he seldom volunteered his opinion, being an extremely modest and polite man.
During these desponding remarks Captain Vane did not seem to be much depressed.
“Anders,” he said, turning abruptly to the interpreter, “ask Chingatok what he thinks. Can we pass this barrier, and, if not, what would he advise us to do?”
It was observed that the other Eskimos drew near with anxious looks to hear the opinion of their chief.
Toolooha and Tekkona, however, seemed quite devoid of anxiety. They evidently had perfect confidence in the giant, and poor little Oblooria glanced up in the face of her friend as if to gather consolation from her looks.
Chingatok, after a short pause, said:—
“The ice-mountains cannot be passed. The white men have not wings; they cannot fly. They must return to land, and travel for many days to the open water near the far-off land—there.”
He pointed direct to the northward.
Captain Vane made no reply. He merely turned and gave orders that the lashings of one of the large sledges which conveyed the baggage should be cast loose. Selecting a box from this, he opened it, and took therefrom a small instrument made partly of brass, partly of glass, and partly of wood.
“You have often wondered, Benjy,” he said, “what I meant to do with this electrical machine. You shall soon see. Help me to arrange it, boy, and do you, Leo, uncoil part of this copper wire. Here, Alf, carry this little box to the foot of the berg, and lay it in front of yon blue cavern.”
“Which? That one close to the waterfall or—”
“No, the big cavern, just under the most solid part of the berg—the one that seems to grow bluer and bluer until it becomes quite black in its heart. And have a care, Alf. The box you carry is dangerous. Don’t let it fall. Lay it down gently, and come back at once. Anders,” he added, turning round, “let all the people go back with dogs and sledges for a quarter of a mile.”
There was something so peremptory and abrupt in their leader’s manner that no one thought of asking him a question, though all were filled with surprise and curiosity as to what he meant to do.
“Come here, Leo,” he said, after his orders had been obeyed. “Hold this coil, and pay it out as I walk to the berg with the end in my hand.”
The coil was one of extremely fine copper wire. Leo let it run as the Captain walked off. A minute or two later he was seen to enter the dark blue cavern and disappear.
“My dear dad is reckless,” exclaimed Benjy, in some anxiety, “what if the roof o’ that cave should fall in. There are bits of ice dropping about everywhere. What can he be going to do?”
As he spoke, the Captain issued from the cave, and walked smartly towards them.
“Now then, it’s all right,” he said, “give me the coil, Leo, and come back, all of you. Fetch the machine, Alf.”
In a few minutes the whole party had retired a considerable distance from the huge berg, the Captain uncoiling the wire as he went.
“Surely you’re not going to try to blow it up piecemeal?” said Leo.
“No, lad, I’m not going to do that, or anything so slow,” returned the Captain, stopping and arranging the instrument.
“But if the box contains gunpowder,” persisted Leo, “there’s not enough to—”
“It contains dynamite,” said the Captain, affixing the coil to the machine, and giving it a sharp turn.
If a volcano had suddenly opened fire under the iceberg the effect could not have been more tremendous. Thunder itself is not more deep than was the crash which reverberated among the ice-cliffs. Smoke burst in a huge volume from the heart of the berg. Masses, fragments, domes, and pinnacles were hurled into the air, and fell back to mingle with the blue precipices that tumbled, slid, or plunged in horrible confusion. Only a portion, indeed, of the mighty mass had been actually disrupted, but the shock to the surrounding ice was so shattering that the entire berg subsided.
“Stu-pendous!” exclaimed Alf, with a look of awe-stricken wonder.
Benjy, after venting his feelings in a shriek of joyful surprise, seemed to be struck dumb. Anders and Butterface stood still,—speechless. As for the Eskimos, they turned with one hideous yell, and fled from the spot like maniacs—excepting Chingatok, who, although startled, stood his ground in an attitude expressive of superlative surprise.
“So,—it has not disappointed me,” remarked the Captain, when the hideous din had ceased, “dynamite is indeed a powerful agent when properly applied: immeasurably more effective than powder.”
“But it seems to me,” said Leo, beginning to recover himself, “that although you have brought the berg down you have not rendered it much more passable.”
“That’s true, lad,” answered the Captain with a somewhat rueful expression. “It does seem a lumpy sort of heap after all; but there may be found some practicable bits when we examine it more closely. Come, we’ll go see.”
On closer inspection it was found that the ruined berg still presented an absolutely insurmountable obstacle to the explorers, who, being finally compelled to admit that even dynamite had failed, left the place in search of a natural opening.
Travelling along the chain for a considerable time, in the hope of succeeding, they came at last to a succession of comparatively level floes, which conducted them to the extreme northern end of the chain, and there they found that the floes continued onwards in an unbroken plain to what appeared to be the open sea.
“That is a water-sky, for certain,” exclaimed Captain Vane, eagerly, on the evening when this discovery was made. “The open ocean cannot now be far off.”
“There’s a very dark cloud there, father,” said Benjy, who, as we have before said, possessed the keenest sight of the party.
“A cloud, boy! where? Um—Yes, I see something—”
“It is land,” said Chingatok, in a low voice.
“Land!” exclaimed the Captain, “are you sure?”
“Yes, I know it well. I passed it on my journey here. We left our canoes and oomiaks there, and took to sledges because the floes were unbroken. But these ice-mountains were not here at that time. They have come down since we passed from the great sea.”
“There!” said the Captain, turning to Leo with a look of triumph, “he still speaks of the great sea! If these bergs came from it, we must have reached it, lad.”
“But the land puzzles me,” said Leo. “Can it be part of Greenland?”
“Scarcely, for Greenland lies far to the east’ard, and the latest discoveries made on the north of that land show that the coast turns still more decidedly east—tending to the conclusion that Greenland is an island. This land, therefore, must be entirely new land—an island—a continent perhaps.”
“But it may be a cape, father,” interposed Benjy. “You know that capes have a queer way of sticking out suddenly from land, just as men’s noses stick out from their faces.”
“True, Benjy, true, but your simile is not perfect, for men’s noses don’t always stick out from their faces—witness the nose of Butterface, which, you know, is well aft of his lips and chin. However, this may be Greenland’s nose—who knows? We shall go and find out ere long. Come, use your whip, Leo. Ho! Chingatok, tell your hairy kinsmen to clap on all sail and make for the land.”
“Hold on, uncle!” cried Alf, “I think I see a splendid specimen of—”
The crack of Leo’s whip, and the yelping of the team, drowned the rest of the sentence, and Alf was whirled away from his splendid specimen, (whatever it was), for ever!
“It is a piece of great good fortune,” said the Captain, as they swept along over the hard and level snow, “that the Eskimos have left their boats on this land, for now I shall have two strings to my bow.”
“What is the other string?” asked Leo, as he administered a flip to the flank of a lazy dog.
“Ah, that remains to be seen, lad,” replied the Captain.
“Why, what a tyrant you are, uncle!” exclaimed Alf, who had recovered from his disappointment about the splendid specimen. “You won’t tell us anything, almost. Who ever before heard of the men of an expedition to the North Pole being kept in ignorance of the means by which they were to get there?”
The Captain’s reply was only a twinkle of the eye.
“Father wants to fill you with bliss, Alf,” said Benjy, “according to your own notions of that sort of thing.”
“What do you mean, Ben?”
“Why, have we not all heard you often quote the words:— ‘Where ignorance is bliss, ’tis folly to be wise.’”
“Hear, hear! That’s it, Benjy,” said the Captain, with a nod and a short laugh, while his son assumed the satisfied gravity of look appropriate to one who has made a hit; “I won’t decrease his bliss by removing his ignorance yet awhile.”
“Hain’t Buzzby got nuffin’ to say on that ’ere pint?” whispered Butterface to Benjy, who sat just in front of him.
“Ah! to be sure. I say, Alf,” said the boy with an earnest look, “hasn’t your favourite author got something to say about the bliss of ignorance? I’m almost sure I heard you muttering something in your dreams on that subject the other day.”
“Of course he has. He has a long poem on that subject. Here is a bit of it.”
Alf, whose memory was good, immediately recited the following:
“How sweet is ignorance! How soothing to the mind,
To search for treasures in the brain, and nothing find!
Consider. When the memory is richly stored,
How apt the victim of redundant knowledge to be bored!
When Nothing fills the chambers of the heart and brain,
Then negative enjoyment comes with pleasures in her train!
Descending on the clods of sense like summer rain.
“Knowledge, ’tis said, gives power, and so it often does;
Knowledge makes sorrow, too, around our pillows buzz.
In debt I am, with little cash; I know it—and am sad.
Of course, if I were ignorant of this—how glad!
A loving friend, whom once I knew in glowing health,
Has broken down, and also, somehow, lost his wealth.
How sad the knowledge makes me! Better far
In ignorance to live, than hear of things that jar,
And think of things that are not,—not of things that are.
“‘If ignorance is bliss,’ the poet saith—why ‘if?’
Why doubt a fact so clearly proven, stubborn, stiff?
The heavy griefs and burdens of the world around,
The hideous tyranny by which mankind is ground,
The earthquake, tempest, rush of war, and wail of woe,
Are all as though they were not—if I do not know!
Wrapped in my robe of ignorance, what can I miss?
Am I not saved from all—and more than all—of this?
Do I not revel in a regal realm of bliss?”
“Bravo! Buzzby,” cried the Captain, “but, I say, Alf, don’t it seem to smack rather too much of selfishness?”
“Of course it does, uncle. I do not think Buzzby always sound in principle, and, like many poets, he is sometimes confused in his logic.”
“You’re right, Benjy, the land is clear enough now,” remarked the Captain, whose interest in Buzzby was not profound, and whose feelings towards logic bordered on the contemptuous, as is often the case with half-educated men, and, strange to say, sometimes with highly-educated men, as well as with the totally ignorant—so true is it that extremes meet!
In the course of a couple of hours the sledges drew near to the island, which proved to be a large but comparatively low one, rising not more than a hundred feet in any part. It was barren and ragged, with patches of reindeer moss growing in some parts, and dwarf willows in others. Myriads of sea-birds made it their home, and these received the invaders with clamorous cries, as if they knew that white men were a dangerous novelty, and objected to the innovation.
Despite their remonstrances, the party landed, and the Eskimos hurried over the rocks to that part of the island where they had left their kayaks and women’s boats in charge of a party of natives who were resident on the island at the time they passed, and from whom they had borrowed the dogs and sledges with which they had travelled south.
Meanwhile the white men took to rambling; Leo to shoot wild-fowl for supper, Alf to search for “specimens,” and Benjy to scramble among the rocks in search of anything that might “turn up.” Butterface assisted the latter in his explorations. While the rest were thus engaged, the Captain extemporised a flag-staff out of two spears lashed together with a small block at the top for the purpose of running up a flag, and formally taking possession of the island when they should re-assemble. This done, he wrote a brief outline of his recent doings, which he inserted in a ginger-beer bottle brought for that very purpose. Then he assisted Anders in making the encampment and preparing supper.
The two were yet in the midst of the latter operation when a shout was heard in the distance. Looking in the direction whence it came they saw Chingatok striding over the rocks towards them with unusual haste. He was followed by the other Eskimos, who came forward gesticulating violently.
“My countrymen have left the island,” said Chingatok when he came up.
“And taken the kayaks with them?” asked Captain Vane anxiously.
“Every one,” replied the giant.
This was depressing news to the Captain, who had counted much on making use of the Eskimo canoes in the event of his own appliances failing.
“Where have they gone, think you?” he asked.
“Tell Blackbeard,” replied Chingatok, turning to Anders, “that no one knows. Since they went away the lanes of open water have closed, and the ice is solid everywhere.”
“But where the kayak and the oomiak cannot float the sledge may go,” said the Captain.
“That is true; tell the pale chief he is wise, yet he knows not all things. Let him think. When he comes to the great open sea what will he do without canoes?”
“Huk!” exclaimed Oolichuk, with that look and tone which intimated his belief that the pale chief had received a “clincher.”
The chattering of the other Eskimos ceased for a moment or two as they awaited eagerly the Captain’s answer, but the Captain disappointed them. He merely said, “Well, we shall see. I may not know all things, Chingatok, nevertheless I know a deal more than you can guess at. Come now, let’s have supper, Anders; we can’t wait for the wanderers.”
As he spoke, three of the wanderers came into camp, namely Leo, Benjy, and Butterface.
“What’s come of Alf?” asked the Captain.
Neither Leo nor Benjy had seen him since they parted, a quarter of an hour after starting, and both had expected to find him in camp, but Butterface had seen him.
“Sawd him runnin’,” said the sable steward, “runnin’ like a mad kangaroo arter a smallish brute like a mouse. Nebber sawd nuffin’ like Massa Alf for runnin’.”
“Well, we can’t wait for him,” said the Captain, “I want to take possession of the island before supper. What shall we call it?”
“Disappointment Isle,” said Leo, “seeing that the Eskimos have failed us.”
“No—I won’t be ungrateful,” returned the Captain, “considering the successes already achieved.”
“Call it Content Isle, then,” suggested Benjy.
“But I am not content with partial success. Come, Butterface, haven’t you got a suggestion to make.”
The negro shook his woolly head. “No,” he said, “I’s ’orrible stoopid. Nebber could get nuffin’ to come out o’ my brain—sep w’en it’s knocked out by accident. You’s hard to please, massa. S’pose you mix de two,—dis’pintment an’ content,—an’ call ’im Half-an’-half Island.”
“Home is in sight now,” said Chingatok, who had taken no interest in the above discussion, as it was carried on in English. “A few days more and we should be there if we only had our kayaks.”
“There’s the name,” exclaimed the Captain eagerly when this was translated, “‘Home-in-sight,’ that will do.”
Rising quickly, he bent a union Jack to the halyards of his primitive flag-staff, ran it up, and in the name of Queen Victoria took possession of Home-in-sight Island. After having given three hearty British cheers, in which the Eskimos tried to join, with but partial success, they buried the ginger-beer bottle under a heap of stones, a wooden cross was fixed on the top of the cairn, and then the party sat down to supper, while the Captain made a careful note of the latitude and longitude, which he had previously ascertained. This latest addition to Her Majesty’s dominions was put down by him in latitude 85 degrees 32 minutes, or about 288 geographical miles from the North Pole.
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