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Soon reaching the upper regions, they caught the steady breeze there, and towed the boats along at the rate of eight or ten miles an hour. In two hours they sighted the islet which Chingatok had mentioned, and, soon afterwards, had landed and taken possession of it, in the usual manner, under the name of Refuge Island.
Up to that day he had conversed entirely through the medium of Anders, but as that useful man was now in Alf's boat, the Captain was left to his own resources, and got on much better than he had expected. Chingatok turned his eyes from the horizon on which they had been fixed, and looked dreamily at the Captain when asked what he was thinking about.
By this time they were joined by Leo and Chingatok, who ran into the water and aided them in dragging the refractory machine ashore. "That's a vigorous beginning, father," remarked Benjy as they came to land. "It is, my boy. Go and fetch me dry clothes while we haul in the kite and make her snug." "When do you mean to start?" asked Leo, as he coiled away the slack of the line on the reel.
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."
"Tell me more," she said, laying her hand affectionately on the huge arm of Chingatok, who had fallen into a contemplative mood, and, with hands clasped over one knee, sat gazing upwards. Before he could reply the heart of Toolooha was made to bound by a shriek more terrible than she had ever before heard or imagined.
"It's the great sea-serpent at last," said Benjy, with something like awe on his countenance. "It does look uncommon like it," replied the Captain, with a perplexed expression on his rugged visage. "Get out the rifles, lad! It's as well to be ready. D'ye know what it is, Chingatok?" Again the giant uttered the unpronounceable name, while Benjy got out the fire-arms with eager haste.
"He says, `Call upon me in the time of trouble and I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me." "Have you not called?" asked Chingatok with a slight look of surprise. "No; I say it to my shame, Chingatok. This blow has so stunned me that I had forgotten my God." "Call now," said the giant earnestly. "If He is a good and true God, He must keep His promise."
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.
Chingatok, who was listening to the conversation, without of course understanding it, and to whom the Captain had made sundry spasmodic remarks during the day in the Eskimo tongue, went that night to Amalatok, who was sitting in Makitok's hut, and said "My father, Blackbeard has found it!" "Found what, my son? his nothing his Nort Pole?" "Yes, my father, he has found his Nort Pole."
"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.
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