Chapter II: “heave Round, Sir,” Said Captain Mayne Brace

When the _Walrus_, in the shortening days of autumn, had steamed slowly into Incognita Bay, she had to force her way through the pancake ice with which the whole extent of the water was covered. Flat pieces these are, probably no more than a foot thick, covered of course with several inches of snow, and with an average diameter of, say, eight feet. They are really the _débris_ of a baby-floe which the waves, raised by some far-off gale of wind, have broken up. The snow-edge all around them is raised by the constant contact of the pieces of ice with one another, and this gives them a fancied resemblance to gigantic pancakes. Hence their name.

But soon after the _Walrus_ had anchored, the sky had cleared, and in the dead, unbroken silence of an early winter, they were frozen together by strong bay-ice. Then snow had fallen and fallen and fallen, with never a breath of wind strong enough to lift one feathery flake, till, on looking out over the bulwarks one morning after the decks had been cleared, and the sun was shining again, lo! the whole surface of the bay was one unbroken, unwrinkled sheet of dazzling snow.

Had that fall continued it would have buried ship and crew and all.

Then the glass had gone down somewhat, and the snow-field fell and shrank.

Harder frost than ever rendered Nature’s winter winding-sheet after this so solid and hard, that a regiment of artillery could have passed over it and left not a trace behind.

When snow had again fallen, it had been accompanied by such high, wild winds, that the flakes were ground into choking ice-dust, and swept clean off the surface of the bay.

The head of this inlet was about five nautical miles from the ship, but as soon as the advancing natives got on to the level snow-bay, with dogs and sledges, they commenced to make short work of this, and their strange, shrill cries, as the dogs were urged madly onwards, could now be distinctly heard by those on board the _Walrus_.

They were coming on like a whirlwind!

Faded the rich orange bar on the southern horizon, and the first rays of the great silver shield of a sun fell athwart the bay.

The advance was stopped in a second’s time. Down dropped men and dogs, the dogs to rest and pant, the natives to pray, their heads turned sunwards.

Two figures in the tallest sledge, who were wrapped in the skins of the big ice-bear, did not descend. Yet even they bent low their heads in reverence.

“We will have no fight,” said Captain Mayne Brace. “Men who pray never fight, save in a cause that is just.”

“For all that,” said “Dr.” Wright, “look yonder!”

He was pointing northwards, where the Teelies, as the friendly natives were called, could now be seen rapidly advancing in a compact body, all armed with that terrible battle-axe, the seal-club.

They were evidently bent on intercepting the newcomers. Perhaps they knew, of old, those semi-savages from the far interior.

“Now,” said the skipper, “this affair enters on a new phase, and if we cannot intervene as peacemakers, the snow out yonder will soon be brown with blood.”

“I have it, sir,” cried bold young Wright. “Give me ten men, and I will go and meet the Teelies. I don’t want to see bloodshed, captain. I have enough on the sick-list as it is, without the addition of wounded Yaks.”

“Take your men, and off you go, Wright,” cried Mayne Brace, laughing; “but I believe you are just spoiling for a fight all the same.”

Before an Englishman could have said “Auchtermuchty” without choking, Wright and his ten merry men were over the side and away.

He soon reached the Teelies and stopped, but these men seemed very excited, and brandished their clubs threateningly.

The sleigh Eskimos had also halted, and appeared to be preparing.

At that moment a battle appeared to be imminent, and, if it took place, a queer one it would be.

The Teelies were like a bull-terrier straining wildly at the end of its chain, mad to make a dash for the enemy.

And poor Wright found that, do what he might, he must speedily let them slip, then stand idly by and look on.

Donnybrook fair on an election day, or a wedding at ancient Ballyporeen, wouldn’t be a circumstance to the fight that would follow.

But lo! just at that moment the Gordian knot was unexpectedly cut.

For the high sledge, with the two men in it, was seen to detach itself from the main body, and, with but four dogs harnessed thereto, was driven at tremendous speed towards the _Walrus_.

Speed was slackened, however, before it got much over half-way, and now the faces and figures of the men on board could be distinctly seen.

And Captain Mayne Brace and his crew stared silently and wonderingly.

These men were evidently not Eskimos, far less were they savages. One was very tall and squarely built, and, had he not been so dark in skin, would have been very handsome.

His companion was evidently very short, but as broad in the beam as any athlete would care to be.

Both were armed with rifles, but these were slung carelessly in front of the sledge.

Presently they were close at hand. Then the taller of the two, who had been driving, ordered the dogs to “down-charge,” and threw the reins to his companion.

When he stood erect on the snow, with his spear-like pole in his left hand, and pulled his skin hood off, the volume of long dark brown hair that tumbled down over his shoulders, his splendid fur-clad figure and dignity of bearing, would have brought down the house in any theatre.

Then he tossed his head, and shook back his locks.

“Ingomar, sir, at your service!” he said, smiling.

The captain stood in the gangway.

“Ingomar, is it?” he said, smiling in turn. “Well, indeed, you look it, young fellow. But won’t Ingomar honour us with his presence on board?” he added.

“With pleasure, captain; and, come to think of it, that is what brought me here.”

Almost ignoring the assistance of the Jacob’s ladder thrown to him, he swung himself easily on board, and stood before them all.

“Heigho!” he said. “This _is_ a nice wind-up to a windy day. What will happen next, I wonder?”

Boy-like, Charlie at once stepped forward and shook Ingomar by the hand. Boys all love heroes. So do men, only they don’t like to show it.

“I’m sure,” said Charlie, impulsively, “uncle will make you welcome.”

“Hurrah!” cried the men.

“Your welcome, young sir,” said Mayne Brace, “shall be second only to that we gave the sun, as soon as we know a little about you, and what you desire.”

“Prettily spoken, captain. Forgive my familiarity. And I tell you straight, gentlemen, that what I desire most at the present moment is a piece of soap, a basin of water, and three towels. This hospitality to be followed, if you’ll be so good--and, being British, you are bound to be--by a good square meal and a cigar!”

Charlie would have led Ingomar straight away down to his own cabin on the spur of the moment.

But Ingomar held back.

“No,” he said politely, “let me wash--scrub, if you like it better--forward at the fo’c’sle. Every day for six months I have stripped, and my body has been scoured with snow. But my face----”

“Here you are, sir. Follow me!” This from one of the men, who had brought a wooden, rope-handled bucket of steaming water.

Ingomar was conducted to the half-deck, and, when he emerged, but for his romantic dress of skins, no one would have known him.

The skin, even of his hands, was now as white as a lady’s, and his complexion perfect.

And his every action, movement, and sentence were those of a well-bred man of the world.

He looked about ten years younger than he did when he stepped on board.

“By the way, Captain--eh----”

“Mayne Brace,” said Charlie.

“Captain Mayne Brace, I have been dreaming for weeks in my tent, far away over the hills yonder, that I was sailing southwards in a British barque. The fact is, sir, though life in these regions may have a spice of romance about it, one gets tired after a time of the winter’s darkness; and a diet of dried fish, seal-mutton, and whale-blubber becomes irksome at last, even if a bear-steak is now and then added to the _menu_.

“Do you know, sir,” he added, interrupting himself, “that if your tailor could make me a serge suit of some sort, and if I had my hair cut, I’d really have the audacity to ask you to grant me a passage back to temperate regions with you?”

“We will be delighted, Ingomar,” from the captain.

“Oh, that isn’t my name, but the name of the play in which I last took part in a Chicago theatre. But I should be glad to tell you who and what I am after I have munched a ship biscuit.”

As they went below to dinner, Captain Brace leaving orders for the man in the sledge and the dogs also, to be fed, Charlie found time to seize Ingomar’s hand again and pull himself up, while he whispered--

“Don’t have your hair cut, and don’t wear a serge suit. You look ever so much better in skins.”

* * * * *

After dinner Ingomar consented to sit in an easy-chair, but well away from the fire.

He lit his cigar.

“I’m very happy, Captain Brace,” he said.

“So pleased!” said Brace.

“You promised to tell us your story,” said Charlie.

“Well, yes,” returned the stranger, “and for your sake I’m sorry it must be brief. But, Captain Brace, may I first go and give Humpty Dumpty his orders, if I am to sleep on board all night?”

“Humpty Dumpty, as you call him, is perhaps, like yourself, an Englishman?”

“Oh, pardon me, captain, but neither Humpty nor I have the honour to be English. I am an American, sir, born and bred, and so is my mate. I don’t drawl, and I don’t ‘guess’ and ‘calculate,’ and I don’t use my nose much to talk with. Humpty does a little. But Humpty Dumpty was only a man before the mast when we became first acquainted. I’ll run up and speak to him over the side.”

“No, no,” cried the captain. “We’ll have Humpty down here for a minute.”

“What a strange name!” said Walt.

“Well, yes, but it fits him. It fits his shape and build. His real name is a deal too--a--aristocratic, don’t you call it, for him. Hampden is his surname, so I call him Humpty Dumpty for short.”

“Hullo, here he is!”

Humpty stood in the doorway, cap in hand.

He was about five feet or less in height, and in his Eskimo dress, with his tremendous breadth of shoulder, shaped somewhat like the capital letter V.

“You called me, sir?”

“Um, yes, Humpty. You are to drive back to our tribe, and tell them they must get away over the horizon again and camp there, but to return to-morrow before sunrise, because I believe these young gentlemen would like to ride in a dogsledge, and see the village of which I am king.”

“Oh!” from both boys.

“Right, sir; I’m off straight’s an arrow.”

“One minute, Mr. Hampden. You’ll have a glass of wine?”

“Excuse me, capen, but I’ve tasted it before, I reckon. Yes, sirree, once I took a thimbleful too much, and next day, sez I to myse’f, ‘No more liquor for Dumpty.’”

In a minute or two after this Dumpty was dashing over the snow to the spot where his tribe had been left.

The doctor entered now.

The steward had kept his dinner hot.

“The Teelies have gone back, sir, and peace is restored.”

He bowed and smiled to Ingomar, then sat down to dinner; but while he ate, only ordinary subjects were talked about.

Then Wright joined the circle round the fire, and, having cleared away, the steward considered himself privileged to stand in the doorway for a short time to listen.

For on board Arctic ships faithful servants are allowed quite a deal of freedom, which, by the way, I have never known them abuse.

“Well, my friends,” said Ingomar, “you must excuse my shortcomings as a story-teller. I suppose I’m not old enough to tell fibs, so my yarn, if short and stupid, has at least truthfulness in its favour.”

“Heave round, sir,” said Captain Mayne Brace.

And Ingomar, smiling, obeyed.