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He had to stoop still lower when a stout urchin of about five years of age came up behind him and tried to reach his face. "Meltik!" exclaimed the giant, rubbing noses gently for fear of damaging him, "you are stout and fat, my son, you have been eating much blubber good." At that moment Chingatok's eyes fell on an object which had hitherto escaped his observation.
"Why do you speak French to Englishmen, father?" said Benjy in a pathetic tone, but with a pert look. "'Cause the expression is a common one on this side the Atlantic, lad, and you ought to know it. Now, don't interrupt me again. You're sure, Anders, that you understood Chingatok's description of the place?" The interpreter declared that he was quite sure.
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.
A longing, wistful expression used to steal over Chingatok's face as he gazed at the southern horizon while listening to these strange rumours, and a very slight smile of incredulity had glimmered on his visage, when it was told him that one of the floating islands of these Kablunets, or white men, had been seen with a burning mountain in the middle of it, which vomited forth smoke and fire, and sometimes uttered a furious hissing or shrieking sound, not unlike his own voice when he was a Skreekinbroot.
The superiority of Chingatok's mind, as well as his body, soon became manifest. Even among savages, intellectual power commands respect. When coupled with physical force it elicits reverence. The young giant soon became an oracle and a leading man in his tribe.
According to Chingatok's prophecy, on the third day the fagged and weary discoverers surmounted their first difficulty, and came upon comparatively smooth ice, the surface of which resembled hard-trodden snow, and was sufficiently free from obstructing lumps to admit of rapid sledge travelling.
At this point it may be well to explain, once for all, that our giant did not speak English, and as it is highly improbable that the reader understands the Eskimo tongue, we will translate as literally as possible merely remarking that Chingatok's language, like his mind, was of a superior cast. "Why goes my son to the ice-cliff?" asked Toolooha in a slightly reproachful tone.
Although old, he still held the reins of power, chiefly because his eldest son and rightful successor Chingatok's elder brother was a weak-minded man of little capacity and somewhat malignant disposition. If our giant had been his eldest, he would have resigned cheerfully long ago.
The burning mountain, however, remained an unmodified mystery, which he was still inclined to disbelieve. But these more correct views did not in the least abate Chingatok's eager desire to behold, with his own eyes, the strange men from the unknown south. Eemerk formed one of the party who had volunteered to join Chingatok on this journey.
"Ask Chingatok what he thinks," returned the Captain. Chingatok's opinion was that the water-sky indicated the open sea. He knew that sea well had often paddled over it, and his own country lay in it. "But how ever did he cross that ice?" asked the Captain; "what says he to that, Anders?" "I did not cross it," answered the Eskimo, through Anders.
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