The Giant of the North | Page 6

to drop on his knees, dart through the tunnel like an eel, spring into the open air like an electrified rabbit from its burrow, and stand up with a look of blazing interrogation on his huge countenance.
The cry had been uttered by his bosom friend and former playmate Oolichuk, who came running towards him with frantic gesticulations.
"The Kablunets!" he gasped, "the white-faces have come!--on a floating island!--alive!--smoking!--it is all true!"
"Where?" demanded our giant, whose face blazed up at once.
"There!" cried Oolichuk, pointing seaward towards the ice-hummocks with both hands, and glaring up at his friend.
Without another word Chingatok ran off in the direction pointed out, followed hotly by his friend.
Oolichuk was a large and powerful man, but, his legs were remarkably short. His pace, compared with that of Chingatok, was as that of a sparrow to an ostrich. Nevertheless he kept up, for he was agile and vigorous.
"Have you seen them--have you spoken?" asked the giant, abruptly.
"Yes, all the tribe was there."
"No one killed?"
"No, but terribly frightened; they made me run home to fetch you."
Chingatok increased his speed. So did Oolichuk.
While they run, let us leap a little ahead of them, reader, and see what had caused all the excitement.
The whole party had gone off that morning, with the exception of Chingatok and his mother, to spear seals in a neighbouring bay, where these animals had been discovered in great numbers. Dogs and sledges had been taken, because a successful hunt was expected, and the ice was sufficiently firm.
The bay was very large. At its distant southern extremity there rose a great promontory which jutted far out into the sea. 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. He had no need to ask questions. Oblooria's gaze directed his, and there, coming round the promontory, he beheld an object which had never before filled his wondering eyes. It was, apparently, a monstrous creature with a dark body and towering wings, and a black thing in its middle, from which were vomited volumes of smoke.
"Kablunets! white men!" he yelled.
"Kablunets!--huk! huk!" echoed the whole tribe, as they scrambled up the ice-hill one after another.
And they were right. A vessel of the pale-faces had penetrated these northern solitudes, and was advancing swiftly before a light breeze under sail and steam.
Despite the preparation their minds had received, and the fact that they were out in search of these very people, this sudden appearance of them filled most of the Eskimos with alarm--some of them with absolute terror, insomuch that the term "pale-face" became most appropriate to themselves.
"What shall we do?" exclaimed Akeetolik, one of the men.
"Fly!" cried Ivitchuk, another of the men, whose natural courage was not high.
"No; let us stay and behold!" said Oolichuk, with a look of contempt at his timid comrade.
"Yes, stay and see," said Eemerk sternly.
"But they will kill us," faltered the young woman, whom we have already mentioned by the name of Tekkona.
"No--no one would kill you," said Eemerk gallantly; "they would only carry you off and keep you."
While they conversed with eager, anxious looks, the steam yacht--for such she was--advanced rapidly, threading her way among the ice-fields and floes with graceful rapidity and ease, to the unutterable amazement of the natives. Although her sails were spread to catch the light breeze, her chief motive power at the time was a screw-propeller.
"Yes, it must be alive," said Oolichuk to Akeetolik, with a look of solemn awe. "The white men do not paddle. They could not lift paddles big enough to move such a great oomiak," [see Note 1], "and the wind is not strong; it could not blow them so fast. See, the oomiak has a tail--and wags it!"
"Oh! do let us run away!" whispered the trembling Oblooria, as she took shelter behind Tekkona.
"No, no," said the latter, who was brave as well as pretty, "we need not fear. Our men will take care of us."
"I wish that Chingatok was here!" whimpered poor little Oblooria, nestling closer to Tekkona and grasping her tail, "he fears nothing and nobody."
"Ay," assented Tekkona with a peculiar smile, "and is brave enough to fight everything and everybody."
"Does Oblooria think that no one can fight but the giant?" whispered Oolichuk, who stood nearest to the little maid.
He drew a knife made of bone from his boot, where it usually lay concealed, and flourished it, with a broad grin. The girl laughed, blushed slightly, and, looking down, toyed with the sleeve of Tekkona's fur coat.
Meanwhile the yacht drew near to the floe