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 green
and fresh with flowing sap. Flowers began to bud modestly, as if half
afraid of having come too soon. But there was no cause to fear that.
The glorious sun was strong in his might, and, like his Maker, warmed
the northern world into exuberant life. Mosses, poppies, saxifrages,
cochlearia, and other hardy plants began to sprout, and migratory birds
innumerable--screaming terns, cackling duck, piping plover, auks in
dense clouds with loudly whirring wings, trumpeting geese, eider-ducks,
burgomasters, etcetera, began to return with all the noisy bustle and
joyous excitement of a family on its annual visit to much-loved summer
quarters.
But here we must note a difference between the experience of our
explorers and that of all others. These myriads of happy creatures--and
many others that we have not space to name--did not pass from the south
onward to a still remoter north, but came up from all round the
horizon,--up all the meridians of longitude, as on so many railway lines
converging at the Pole, and settling down for a prolonged residence in
garrulous felicity among the swamps and hills and vales of Flatland.
Truly it was a most enjoyable season and experience, but there is no joy
without its alley here below--not even at the North Pole!
The alloy came in the form of a low fever which smote down the stalwart
Leo, reduced his great strength seriously, and confined him for many
weeks to a couch in their little stone hut, and, of course, the power of
sympathy robbed his companions of much of that exuberant joy which they
shared with the lower animals at the advent of beautiful spring.
During the period of his illness Leo's chief nurse, comforter, and
philosophical companion, was the giant of the North. And one of the
subjects which occupied their minds most frequently was the Word of God.
In the days of weakness and suffering Leo took to that great source of
comfort with thirsting avidity, and intense was his gratification at the
eager desire expressed by the giant to hear and understand what it
contained.
Of course Alf, and Benjy, and the Captain, and Butterface, as well as
Grabantak, Makitok, and Amalatok, with others of the Eskimos, were
frequently by his side, but the giant never left him for more than a
brief period, night or day.
"Ah! Chingatok," said Leo one day, when the returning spring had begun
to revive his strength, "I never felt such a love for God's Book when I
was well and strong as I feel for it now that I am ill, and I little
thought that I should find out so much of its value while talking about
it to an Eskimo. I shall be sorry to leave you, Chingatok--very sorry."
"The young Kablunet is not yet going to die," said the giant in a soft
voice.
"I did not mean that," replied Leo, with the ghost of his former hearty
laugh; "I mean that I shall be obliged to leave Flatland and to return
to my own home as soon as the season permits. Captain Vane has been
talking to me about it. He is anxious now to depart, yet sorry to leave
his kind and hospitable friends."
"I, too, am sorry," returned Chingatok sadly. "No more shall I hear
from your lips the sweet words of my Great Father--the story of Jesus.
You will take your book away with you."
"That is true, my friend; and it would be useless to leave my Bible with
you, as you could not read it, but the _truth_ will remain with you,
Chingatok."
"Yes," replied the giant with a significant smile, "you cannot take
_that_ away. It is here--and here." He touched his forehead and breast
as he spoke. Then he continued:--
"These strange things that Alf has been trying to teach me during the
long nights I have learned--I understand."
He referred here to a syllabic alphabet which Alf had invented, and
which he had amused himself by teaching to some of the natives, so that
they might write down and read those few words and messages in their own
tongue which formerly they had been wont to convey to each other by
means of signs and rude drawings--after the manner of most savages.
"Well, what about that?" asked Leo, as his companion paused.
"Could not my friend," replied Chingatok, "change some of the words of
his book into the language of the Eskimo and mark them down?"
Leo at once jumped at the idea. Afterwards he spoke to Alf about it,
and the two set to work to translate some of the most important passages
of Scripture, and write them down in the syllable alphabet. For this
purpose they converted a sealskin into pretty fair parchment, and wrote
with the ink which Captain Vane had brought with him and carefully
husbanded. The occupation proved a beneficial stimulus to the invalid,
who soon recovered much of his wonted health, and even began again to
wander about with his old companion the repeating rifle.
The last event of interest which occurred at the North Pole, before the
departure of our explorers, was the marriage of Oolichuk with Oblooria.
The ceremony was very simple. It consisted in the bridegroom dressing
in his best and going to the tent of his father-in-law with a gift,
which he laid at his feet. He then paid some endearing Eskimo
attentions to his mother-in-law, one of which was to present her with a
raw duck, cleaned and dismembered for immediate consumption. He even
assisted that pleased lady immediately to consume the duck, and wound up
by taking timid little Oblooria's hand and leading her away to a hut of
his own, which he had specially built and decorated for the occasion.
As Amalatok had arrived that very day on a visit from Poloeland with his
prime minister and several chiefs, and Grabantak was residing on the
spot, with a number of chiefs from the surrounding islands, who had come
to behold the famous Kablunets, there was a sort of impromptu gathering
of the northern clans which lent appropriate dignity to the wedding.
After the preliminary feast of the occasion was over, Captain Vane was
requested to exhibit some of his wonderful powers for the benefit of a
strange chief who had recently arrived from a distant island. Of course
our good-natured Captain complied.
"Get out the boats and kites, Benjy, boy," he said; "we must go through
our performances to please 'em. I feel as if we were a regular company
of play-actors now."
"Won't you give them a blow-up first, father?"
"No, Benjy, no. Never put your best foot foremost. The proverb is a
false one--as many proverbs are. We will dynamite them afterwards, and
electrify them last of all. Go, look sharp."
So the Captain first amazed the visitor with the kites and india-rubber
boats; then he horrified him by blowing a small iceberg of some
thousands of tons into millions of atoms; after which he convulsed him
and made him "jump."
The latter experiment was the one to which the enlightened Eskimos
looked forward with the most excited and hopeful anticipations, for it
was that which gratified best their feeling of mischievous joviality.
When the sedate and dignified chief was led, all ignorant of his fate,
to the mysterious mat, and stood thereon with grave demeanour, the
surrounding natives bent their knees, drew up elbows, expanded fingers,
and glared in expectancy. When the dignified chief experienced a tremor
of the frame and looked surprised, they grinned with satisfaction; when
he quivered convulsively they also quivered with suppressed emotion.
Ah! Benjy had learned by that time from experience to graduate very
delicately his shocking scale, and thus lead his victim step by step
from bad to worse, so as to squeeze the utmost amount of fun out of him,
before inducing that galvanic war-dance which usually terminated the
scene and threw his audience into fits of ecstatic laughter.
These were the final rejoicings of the wedding day--if we except a dance
in which every man did what seemed best in his own eyes, and Butterface
played reels on the flute with admirable incapacity.
But there came a day, at last, when the inhabitants of Flatland were far
indeed removed from the spirit of merriment.
It was the height of the Arctic summer-time, when the crashing of the
great glaciers and the gleaming of the melting bergs told of rapid
dissolution, and the sleepless sun was circling its day-and-nightly
course in the ever-bright blue sky. The population of Flatland was
assembled on the beach of their native isle--the men with downcast
looks, the women with sad and tearful eyes. Two india-rubber boats were
on the shore. Two kites were flying overhead. The third boat and kite
had been damaged beyond repair, but the two left were sufficient. The
Englishmen were about to depart, and the Eskimos were inconsolable.
"My boat is on the shore,--"