The Giant of the North: Pokings Round the Pole by R. M. Ballantyne (best historical biographies TXT) đź“•
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- Author: R. M. Ballantyne
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As Leo carried his repeating rifle, he might easily have shot another, but he refrained, as the bird would have been too far out to be easily picked up.
“Now, Benjy, are you to go in, or am I?” asked the sportsman with a sly look.
“Oh! I suppose I must,” said the boy with an affectation of being martyred, though, in truth, nothing charmed him so much as to act the part of a water-dog.
A few seconds more, and he was stripped, for his garments consisted only of shirt and trousers. But it was more than a few seconds before he returned to land, swimming on his back and trailing a goose by the neck with each hand, for the reeds were thick and the mud softish, and the second bird had been further out than he expected.
“It’s glorious fun,” said Benjy, panting vehemently as he pulled on his clothes.
“It’s gloriously knocked up you’ll be before long at that rate,” said the Captain.
“Oh! but, uncle,” said Leo, quickly, “you must not suppose that I give him all the hard work. We share it between us, you know. Benjy sometimes shoots and then I do the retrieving. You’ve no idea how good a shot he is becoming.”
“Indeed, let me see you do it, my boy. D’ye see that goose over there?”
“What, the one near the middle of the lake, about four hundred yards off?”
“Ay, Benjy, I want that goose. You shoot it, my boy.”
“But you’ll never be able to get it, uncle,” said Leo.
“Benjy, I want that goose. You shoot it.” There was no disobeying this peremptory command. Leo handed the rifle to the boy.
“Down on one knee, Ben, Hythe position, my boy,” said the Captain, in the tone of a disciplinarian. Benjy obeyed, took a long steady aim, and fired.
“Bravo!” shouted the Captain as the bird turned breast up. “There’s that goose’s brother comin’ to see what’s the matter with him; just cook his goose too, Benjy.”
The boy aimed again, fired, and missed.
“Again!” cried the Captain, “look sharp!”
Again the boy fired, and this time wounded the bird as it was rising on the wing.
Although wounded, the goose was quite able to swim, and made rapidly towards the reeds on the other side.
“What! am I to lose that goose?” cried the Captain indignantly.
Leo seized the rifle. Almost without taking time to aim, he fired and shot the bird dead.
“There,” said he, laughing, “but I suspect it is a lost goose after all. It will be hard work to get either of these birds, uncle. However, I’ll try.”
Leo was proceeding to strip when the Captain forbade him.
“Don’t trouble yourself, lad,” he said, “I’ll go for them myself.”
“You, uncle?”
“Ay, me. D’ye suppose that nobody can swim but you and Benjy? Here, help me to open this box.”
In silent wonder and expectation Leo and Benjy did as they were bid. When the mysterious packing-case was opened, there was displayed to view a mass of waterproof material. Tumbling this out and unrolling it, the Captain displayed a pair of trousers and boots in one piece attached to something like an oval life-buoy. Thrusting his legs down into the trousers and boots, he drew the buoy—which was covered with india-rubber cloth—up to his waist and fixed it there. Then, putting the end of an india-rubber tube to his mouth, he began to blow, and the buoy round his waist began to extend until it took the form of an oval.
“Now, boys,” said the Captain, with profound gravity, “I’m about ready to go to sea. Here, you observe, is a pair o’ pants that won’t let in water. At the feet you’ll notice two flaps which expand when driven backward, and collapse when moved forward. These are propellers—human web-feet—to enable me to walk ahead, d’ye see? and here are two small paddles with a joint which I can fix together—so—and thus make one double-bladed paddle of ’em, about four feet long. It will help the feet, you understand, but I’m not dependent on it, for I can walk without the paddles at the rate of two or three miles an hour.”
As he spoke Captain Vane walked quietly into the water, to the wild delight of Benjy, and the amazement of his nephew.
When he was about waist-deep the buoy floated him. Continuing to walk, though his feet no longer touched ground, he was enabled by the propellers to move on. When he had got out a hundred yards or so, he turned round, took off his hat, and shouted—“land ho!”
“Ship ahoy!” shrieked Benjy, in an ecstasy.
“Mind your weather eye!” shouted the Captain, resuming his walk with a facetious swagger, while, with the paddles, he increased his speed. Soon after, he returned to land with the two geese.
“Well now, daddy,” said his son, while he and Leo examined the dress with minute interest, “I wish you’d make a clean breast of it, and let us know how many more surprises and contrivances of this sort you’ve got in store for us.”
“I fear this is the last one, Benjy, though there’s no end to the applications of these contrivances. You’d better apply this one to yourself now, and see how you get on in it.”
Of course Benjy was more than willing, though, as he remarked, the dress was far too big for him.
“Never mind that, my boy. A tight fit ain’t needful, and nobody will find fault with the cut in these regions.”
“Where ever did you get it, father?” asked the boy, as the fastenings were being secured round him.
“I got it from an ingenious friend, who says he’s goin’ to bring it out soon. Mayhap it’s in the shops of old England by this time. There, now, off you go, but don’t be too risky, Ben. Keep her full, and mind your helm.” (See Note.)
Thus encouraged, the eager boy waded into the water, but, in his haste, tripped and fell, sending a volume of water over himself. He rose, however, without difficulty, and, proceeding with greater caution, soon walked off into deep water. Here he paddled about in a state of exuberant glee. The dress kept him perfectly dry, although he splashed the water about in reckless fashion, and did not return to land till quite exhausted.
Benjamin Vane from that day devoted himself to that machine. He became so enamoured of the “water-tramp,” as he styled it—not knowing its proper name at the time—that he went about the lakelets in it continually, sometimes fishing, at other times shooting. He even ventured a short distance out to sea in it, to the amazement of the Eskimos, the orbits of whose eyes were being decidedly enlarged, Benjy said, and their eyebrows permanently raised, by the constant succession of astonishment-fits into which they were thrown from day to day by their white visitors.
Note. Lest it should be supposed that the “pedomotive” here described is the mere creature of the author’s brain, it may be well to state that he has seen it in the establishment of the patentees, Messrs Thornton and Company of Edinburgh.
One pleasant morning, towards the end of summer, Benjamin Vane went out with his gun in the water-tramp on the large lake of Paradise Isle.
Leo and he had reached the isle in one of the india-rubber boats. They had taken Anders with them to carry their game, and little Oblooria to prepare their dinner while they were away shooting; for they disliked the delay of personal attention to cooking when they were ravenous! After landing Benjy, and seeing him busy getting himself into the aquatic dress, Leo said he would pull off to a group of walruses, which were sporting about off shore, and shoot one. Provisions of fowl and fish were plentiful enough just then at the Eskimo village, but he knew that walrus beef was greatly prized by the natives, and none of the huge creatures had been killed for some weeks past.
About this time the threatened war with the northern Eskimos had unfortunately commenced.
The insatiable Grabantak had made a descent on one of Amalatok’s smaller islands, killed the warriors, and carried off the women and children, with everything else he could lay hands on. Of course Amalatok made reprisals; attacked a small island belonging to Grabantak, and did as much general mischief as he could. The paltry islet about which the war began was not worthy either of attack or defence!
Then Amalatok, burning with the righteous indignation of the man who did not begin the quarrel, got up a grand muster of his forces, and went with a great fleet of kayaks to attack Grabantak in his strongholds.
But Grabantak’s strongholds were remarkably strong. A good deal of killing was done, and some destruction of property accomplished, but that did not effect the conquest of the great northern Savage. Neither did it prove either party to be right or wrong! Grabantak retired to impregnable fastnesses, and Amalatok returned to Poloeland “covered with glory,”—some of his followers also covered with wounds, a few of which had fallen to his own share. The success, however, was not decided. On the whole, the result was rather disappointing, but Amalatok was brave and high-spirited, as some people would say. He was not going to give in; not he! He would fight as long as a man was left to back him, and bring Grabantak to his knees—or die! Either event would, of course, have been of immense advantage to both nations. He ground his teeth and glared when he announced this determination, and also shook his fist, but a sharp twinge of pain in one of his unhealed wounds caused him to cease frowning abruptly.
There was a sound, too, in the air, which caused him to sit down and reflect. It was a mixed and half-stifled sound, as if of women groaning and little children wailing. Some of his braves, of course, had fallen in the recent conflicts—fallen honourably with their faces to the foe. Their young widows and their little ones mourned them, and refused to be comforted, because they were not. It was highly unpatriotic, no doubt, but natural.
Amalatok had asked the white men to join him in the fight, but they had refused. They would help him to defend his country, if attacked, they said, but they would not go out to war. Amalatok had once threatened Blackbeard if he refused to go, but Blackbeard had smiled, and threatened to retaliate by making him “jump!” Whereupon the old chief became suddenly meek.
This, then, was the state of affairs when Benjy and Leo went shooting, on the morning to which we have referred.
But who can hope to describe, with adequate force, the joyful feelings of Benjamin Vane as he moved slily about the lakelets of Paradise Isle in the water-tramp? The novelty of the situation was so great. The surrounding circumstances were so peculiar. The prolonged calms of the circumpolar basin, at that period of the year, were so new to one accustomed to the variable skies of England; the perpetual sunshine, the absence of any necessity to consider time, in a land from which night seemed to have finally fled; the glassy repose of lake and sea, so suggestive of peace; the cheery bustle of animal life, so suggestive of pleasure—all these influences together filled the boy’s breast with a strong romantic joy which was far too powerful to seek or find relief in those boisterous leaps and shouts which were his usual safety-valves.
Although not much given to serious thought, except when conversing with his father, Benjy became meditative as
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