The Giant of the North: Pokings Round the Pole by R. M. Ballantyne (best historical biographies TXT) 📕

The warlike tendencies of Grabantak, the northern savage, had the effect of compelling Captain Vane and his party to delay for a considerable time their efforts to reach the Pole. This was all the more distressing that they had by that time approached so very near to it. A carefully made observation placed the island of Poloe in latitude 88 degrees 30 minutes 10 seconds, about 90 geographical, or 104 English statute miles from the Pole.

There was no help for it, however. To have ventured on Grabantak’s territory while war was impending would have been to court destruction. Captain Vane saw therefore that the only way of advancing his own cause was to promote peace between the tribes. With a view to this he sought an interview with the old chief Amalatok.

“Why do you wish to go to war?” he asked.

“I do not wish to go to war,” answered the chief, frowning fiercely.

“Why do you go then?” said the Captain in a soothing tone, for he was very anxious not to rouse the chief’s anger; but he was unsuccessful, for the question seemed to set the old man on fire. He started up, grinding his teeth and striding about his hut, knocking over pots, oil cans, and cooking-lamps somewhat like that famous bull which got into a china shop. Finding the space too small for him he suddenly dropped on his knees, crept through the low entrance, sprang up, and began to stride about more comfortably.

The open air calmed him a little. He ceased to grind his teeth, and stopping in front of the Captain, who had followed him, said in a low growl, “Do you think I will submit to insult?”

“Some men have occasionally done so with advantage,” answered the Captain.

“Kablunets may do so, Eskimos never!” returned the old man, resuming his hurried walk to and fro, and the grinding of his teeth again.

“If Amalatok were to kill all his enemies—all the men, women and children,” said the Captain, raising a fierce gleam of satisfaction in the old man’s face at the mere suggestion, “and if he were to knock down all their huts, and burn up all their kayaks and oomiaks, the insult would still remain, because an insult can only be wiped out by one’s enemy confessing his sin and repenting.”

For a few seconds Amalatok stood silent; his eyes fixed on the ground as if he were puzzled.

“The white man is right,” he said at length, “but if I killed them all I should be avenged.”

“Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord,” leaped naturally to the Captain’s mind; but, reflecting that the man before him was a heathen who would not admit the value of the quotation, he paused a moment or two.

“And what,” he then said, “if Grabantak should kill Amalatok and all his men, and carry away the women and children into slavery, would the insult be wiped out in that case? Would it not rather be deepened?”

“True, it would; but then we should all be dead—we should not care.”

“The men would all be dead, truly,” returned the Captain, “but perhaps the women and children left behind might care. They would also suffer.”

“Go, go,” said the Eskimo chief, losing temper as he lost ground in the argument; “what can Kablunets know about such matters? You tell me you are men of peace; that your religion is a religion of peace. Of course, then, you understand nothing about war. Go, I have been insulted, and I must fight.”

Seeing that it would be fruitless talking to the old chief while he was in this frame of mind, Captain Vane left him and returned to his own hut, where he found Chingatok and Leo engaged in earnest conversation—Alf and Benjy being silent listeners.

“I’m glad you’ve come, uncle,” said Leo, making room for him on the turf seat, “because Chingatok and I are discussing the subject of war; and—”

“A strange coincidence,” interrupted the Captain. “I have just been discussing the same subject with old Amalatok. I hope that in showing the evils of war you are coming better speed with the son than I did with the father.”

“As to that,” said Leo, “I have no difficulty in showing Chingatok the evils of war. He sees them clearly enough already. The trouble I have with him is to explain the Bible on that subject. You see he has got a very troublesome inquiring sort of mind, and ever since I have told him that the Bible is the Word of God he won’t listen to my explanations about anything. He said to me in the quietest way possible, just now, ‘Why do you give me your reasons when you tell me the Great Spirit has given His? I want to know what He says.’ Well, now, you know, it is puzzling to be brought to book like that, and I doubt if Anders translates well. You understand and speak the language, uncle, better than he does, I think, so I want you to help me.”

“I’ll try, Leo, though I am ashamed to say I am not so well read in the Word myself as I ought to be. What does Chingatok want to know?”

“He wants to reconcile things, of course. That is always the way. Now I told him that the Great Spirit is good, and does not wish men to go to war, and that He has written for us a law, namely, that we should ‘live peaceably with all men.’ Chingatok liked this very much, but then I had told him before, that the Great Spirit had told His ancient people the Jews to go and fight His enemies, and take possession of their lands. Now he regards this as a contradiction. He says—How can a man live peaceably with all men, and at the same time go to war with some men, kill them, and take their lands?”

“Ah! Leo, my boy, your difficulty in answering the Eskimo lies in your own partial quotation of Scripture,” said the Captain. Then, turning to Chingatok, he added, “My young friend did not give you the whole law—only part of it. The word is written thus:— ‘if it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men.’ Some times it is not possible, Chingatok; then we must fight. But the law says keep from fighting ‘as much as you can.’ Mind that, Chingatok, and if you are ever induced to go to war for the sake of a little island—for the sake of a little insult,—don’t flatter yourself that you are keeping out of it as much as lieth in you.”

“Good, good,” said the giant, earnestly; “Blackbeard’s words are wise.”

“As to the people of God in the long past,” continued the Captain, “God told them to go to war, so they went; but that does not authorise men to go to war at their own bidding. What is right in the Great Father of all may be very wrong in the children. God kills men every day, and we do not blame Him, but if man kills his fellow we hunt him down as a murderer. In the long past time the Great Father spoke to His children by His wise and holy men, and sometimes He saw fit to tell them to fight. With His reasons we have nothing to do. Now, the Great Father speaks to us by His Book. In it He tells us to live in peace with all men—if possible.”

“Good,” said the giant with an approving nod, though a perplexed expression still lingered on his face. “But the Great Father has never before spoken to me by His Book—never at all to my forefathers.”

“He may, however, have spoken by His Spirit within you, Chingatok, I cannot tell,” returned the Captain with a meditative air. “You have desires for peace and a tendency to forgive. This could not be the work of the spirit of evil. It must have been that of the Good Spirit.”

This seemed to break upon the Eskimo as a new light, and he relapsed into silence as he thought of the wonderful idea that within his breast the Great Spirit might have been working in time past although he knew it not. Then he thought of the many times he had in the past resisted what he had hitherto only thought of as good feelings; and the sudden perception that at such times he had been resisting the Father of all impressed him for the first time with a sensation of guiltiness. It was some time before the need of a Saviour from sin entered into his mind, but the ice had been broken, and at last, through Leo’s Bible, as read by him and explained by Captain Vane, Jesus, the Sun of Righteousness, rose upon his soul and sent in the light for which he had thirsted so long.

But, as we have said, this effect was not immediate, and he remained in a state of uncertainty and sadness while the warlike councils and preparations went on.

Meanwhile Captain Vane set himself earnestly to work to hit on some plan by which, if possible, to turn the feeling of the Eskimo community in favour of peace. At first he thought of going alone and unarmed, with Anders as interpreter, to the land of Grabantak to dissuade that savage potentate from attacking the Poloes, but the Eskimos pointed out that the danger of this plan was so great that he might as well kill