Chapter IV: The Agreement Drawn Up and Signed

Like all men who are ever likely to do any good in this world, and leave footsteps in the sands of time, Captain Mayne Brace was an early riser.

The stars were still glowing like diamonds in the sky, then, and the merry dancers--the aurora--were still at their revels when he turned out to have his bath. A quarter of an hour after this found him on deck.

Here, to his surprise, he met young Ingomar. He stood on the poop, his face skywards and to the north.

“Is it not a grand sight, sir?” he said. “How near and how brightly these stars and planets burn! It seems as if one could touch them with one’s rifle or fishing-rod. And the aurora-gleams--the positive magnetism that comes from the far-off Southern Pole--how beautiful their transparency of colours! Those ribbons of light seem to me like living things. And in the stillness of this early morning do you not hear them talking? Shsh--shs--shs--shs! Oh, sir, is it not God Himself who is speaking there--the God of power, the God we know so little of, the God whom in our pride of knowledge we sometimes venture to impugn, to correct, to criticize! Forgive me, sir, for speaking thus before an older man than myself. _But_ oh, sir, there is a glamour about that sky, about these northern solitary wilds, which gets around the heart and soul, and makes one feel one is really face to face with the Creator--Maker not alone of this puny earth, but of yonder universe--of infinity itself!”

He scarcely gave Captain Brace time to reply.

“Down in one’s bunk,” he continued, “one belongs to this world. Up here among the stars and aurora one is with God. But down below last night, sir, I was thinking of my father, my mother, and sister. To say that I was not longing a little for home would be to insinuate that I was more than a young man. Yet my resolution has not been one whit shaken. When I can do something that no one else has ever yet done, or at least made an attempt to do this something, the prodigal son will return to his father’s house; not till then. My father is a very Napoleon of finance. In that line I may never, _can_ never, hope to equal him, nor do I desire to do so. Yet I may become a great explorer, and help to add to the world’s fund of knowledge for the world’s benefit.

“I had made up my mind never to finger a frank of those two millions, but I shall, and will gladly, spend one million, if need be, for the furtherance of a plan I have in view, and have well thought out. It is an ambitious one, sir. I feel I ought to blush even to mention it.”

“You need not, young sir, if it be honourable,” said Brace.

Ingomar, as we may continue to call him, had been walking up and down the deck so rapidly, that it was difficult to keep pace with his gigantic strides.

But he hove to now suddenly, and confronted the captain.

“Listen,” he said. “The Americans have done as much as any other nation save Britain to solve the mystery that hangs around the Pole yonder. The veil will soon be raised. _I_ would go farther; I would venture to aid in the attempts that are now about to be made by you Britishers and by the Germans, to wrench its secrets from the Great Unknown, from the Antarctic itself, to force it to tell what it knows of the story of the earth.”

“The ambition,” said the captain, “is a noble one, certainly, and even I have had thoughts of bringing the knowledge I have gained in regions round our own North Pole to bear upon the South. Indeed, I was almost thinking of joining the expedition when I got home.”

“But _I_,” said Ingomar, “would not join any expedition. No, no, sir, and a thousand ‘No’s.’ I should fit out my own. And if I were to die in the attempt, why, I should die in a worthy cause; and to youth death does not seem so very dreadful if surrounded by a halo of noble adventure.

“And would you believe it,” he went on, “while in my lonesome igloo over the hills yonder, I have for months been forming all my plans for future operation. I would rather lay these before older and more skilled and scientific men than myself, and all I should do, all the honour I might obtain, would be that of finding the money for the expedition.

“Well, now, it may seem an abrupt question to ask, but I think that as long as a fellow keeps a clear brain and a good look-out ahead, abruptness is no great sin. Can you, then, or will you, sell me your ship?”

“This barque is not my own, alas! or, after having been so singularly unfortunate in ‘making a voyage,’[B] and presuming that you are sincere, I would gladly do so on the understanding that my services as master mariner of the _Walrus_ should be retained. But come down below. The fire is well alight, and we can talk uninterruptedly for a good hour yet before the others turn out.”

Although the acquaintance with each other of these two men was so very recent, there was a something--call it by any scientific name you please--that seemed to draw them together.

Captain Mayne Brace was very favourably impressed by the prodigal son, as he would insist upon calling himself. The coincidence that had brought them together was certainly strange, but Fate moves in a mysterious way, and Brace determined to take advantage of the meeting between Ingomar and himself.

He candidly opened his mind to the young millionaire.

“I am bound,” he said, “to do all I can to secure a good voyage during the spring fishery. Nothing could prevent me from attempting this for the benefit of my owners; and if I must return ‘a clean ship,’ then I shall have to steel my nerves to encounter my owners. The ship is well--too well--insured, and it was hinted to me that if I failed in making a paying voyage, no questions would be asked if I cast her away. There would be little chance of that, for even after a rough-and-tumble life at sea for so many years, I have a little honour left me, a clean heart, and a clear conscience.

“But, Mr. Armstrong----”

“Call me not Armstrong yet, sir--just Ingomar, and hang the ‘Mr.’”

“Well, Ingomar, I have no doubt my owners would be willing to sell the _Walrus_, and therefore, if you choose now to sign articles, I shall rate you as harpooner, and shall be perfectly willing to ship for you, before we leave these regions, the Yak-Yaks, the dogs, and young bears you say would be necessary to make our expedition a success.

“We are a sturdy ship and good sailer, and we have plenty of room, if we do not make a voyage, for you and your pets.”

“You have made me very happy, sir. Let us make the agreement at once.”

“Just one moment, young sir. You have told me that the _Walrus_ will be the auxiliary vessel carrying extra stores, the dogs, the Yak-Yak hunters, sledges, etc., and that you would build or buy and fit out a special ship for the actual scientific exploration. Now, I am a plain man--under what flag should we sail?”

“The Stars and Stripes?” said Ingomar.

This was more like a question than an answer, and Brace replied sturdily--

“No, sir. _I_ will sail under no flag except the British.

‘The flag that braved a thousand years
The battle and the breeze.’

But,” he added, half regretfully, “if you succeed in purchasing this good barque--and a better never sailed to the Sea of Ice--she will belong to you, and you can hoist your Stars and Stripes; only----”

“I understand,” said Ingomar, “and honour your sentiment. Well, you must be captain of the _Walrus_, that is clear. But everything else must be made clear, and I am certain we will not quarrel about the flag displayed.”

He considered a moment.

“Let us have the two in one,” he said. “Not one beneath the other, else we should quarrel worse than ever.”

He laughed at his own quaint notion, as he added--

“Why not have the two flags tacked together, so that their united ensign should show from one side the Bird of Freedom--the eagle, and on the other your British batch of Lions?”

It was Captain Brace’s turn to laugh now, and he did so right heartily.

“‘Pon my soul,” he said, “the conceit is a good one. I see that you and I, sir, are united, anyhow--just as the British and the Americans should ever be.”

Then the agreement was drawn up and signed by both, and so this memorable interview came to a close.

“I feel so happy now, captain,” said young Ingomar, “that--that I could cry.”

“Rather an original method of showing happiness, isn’t it?”

“Rather effeminate, anyhow. But now I feel at home here; and within the last four and twenty hours my prospects in life have brightened, and my sky is clear; the star of hope is shining as brightly as the Pole star yonder. I’m young, you see, sir, and---- Well, I can’t help that, can I, Captain Brace? But I don’t mean to fail, anyhow.”

“No; and you have nothing to be ashamed of, Ingomar. As to failure--

‘In the lexicon of youth which fate reserves
For a bright manhood, there is no such word
As Fail.’”

* * * * *

True to time--in fact, a little before it--the Yak-Yaks were seen returning to the barque, yelling and whooping, the dogs stretched out, and apparently hugging the snow as they sped onwards like a hairy hurricane across the level stretch of bay.

It was arranged that Nick and Nora both should accompany this tour inland, but as they could not be expected to keep pace with these trained Arctic dogs, one was taken up into Captain Brace’s sledge, and the other with the boys themselves in Ingomar’s.

Food was not forgotten, you may be well sure, nor tobacco and knickknacks for the natives.

The journey was a long one, and many a halt had to be made on hill-tops, and even in the valleys beneath.

No one who has not travelled in a real Eskimo well-appointed dog-sleigh can have the faintest notion of the speed obtained on good snow.

To-day it seemed as if the drivers were bent upon making a record, and it was one that I would defy any motor-car to make over the same track. The dogs needed to rest now and then, to lie down and pant a little, and refresh themselves by gulping down mouthfuls of the pure snow that was within easy reach.

Then they were fit again once more.

Though it was but little past one o’clock p.m., the sun was already going down when the halt for luncheon was called; and it need hardly be said that under so bracing a sky our travellers made each a hearty meal.

They were high up on a rounded hill, and the view all around from the rugged mountains of the west to the east, where lay the rough and rugged sea of ice, was indescribably beautiful.

Even the Yak-Yaks themselves seemed impressed with the transcendent loveliness of this marvellous Arctic sunset, and those moments of such stillness and silence that one might have heard a snowflake fall.

It was night and starlight before they reached the Eskimo village.

A moon by this time had risen solemnly over the hills, and flooded all the country with its strange, mysterious light--- a light the like of which I have seen in no land save the Arctic, a light that seems mystic and positively holy.

All the inhabitants turned out to welcome our heroes, and a wild, strange welcome it was.

This was a wandering tribe, and consequently a more brave and fearless people than the inhabitants of the igloo villages around the coast.

But they were safe; and they looked upon Ingomar as their sun-king, as in their musical, labial language they expressed it.

This tribe might have numbered altogether some six or seven hundred souls, and I may as well tell the truth about them--they never fished for blubber themselves, but levied blackmail on their humbler and more industrious neighbours who lived along the shores of gulfs and bays.

They had very large stores of frozen blubber, however, thousands of skins, and plenty of stored fish, and flesh of every sort, from seagulls’ to whales’.

Stimulants in the shape of rum or brandy I do not believe they ever tasted, but they seemed all the more happy in consequence.

Ingomar strode round among them, and even the children ran towards him to kiss his hand. Nay, more, the very dogs danced about him, but “down-charged” whenever he lifted his hand.

It was a queer sight to see the splendid jet-black Newfoundland standing close by his Nora’s side and defying the whole howling pack, turning his head sideways now and then to give Nora a lick, as much as to say, “Don’t be afraid, my dear; they’re only ignorant savages. I could fight them six at a time.”

The night was to be one of hard frost; but these nomads, much to our heroes’ astonishment, lit a great fire of ancient pine wood, which they had excavated from a hillside not far off, and so John Frost was defied for once.

The arrival of real “Eengleeshmen” at their winter camp was an event that no one would ever forget.

Though, in a manner of speaking, warlike in comparison to the ordinary Eskimos, these Yak-Yaks seemed very gentle and tractable, and did all in their power to entertain their guests. They sang queer little musical ditties, and the men and women joined in every chorus, clapping knees and brows with their palms in quite a funny way.

Then some of the head hunters gave a kind of dramatic performance, spear-armed; and even Charlie and Walter could see that this represented every phase of a great bear-hunt, even to the slaying of Bruin, and the death of one of the hunters.

Then Ingomar himself took the snowy stage, and if he had been listened to with the same rapt attention in New York that he was to-night by these semi-savages, the probability is that he never would have left his own country.

Ingomar’s igloo was a very large one, and in it burned two huge lamps, giving plenty of heat and light. There was no smoke, because that which arose from the oil was carried right up through, and though all the whites slept here in their bear and seal-skins, there was not a particle of discomfort felt.

And all slumbered well till eight o’clock next morning.

The fire was now replenished, and smoked fish made a right dainty addition to the breakfast. The _menu_ was certainly not so extensive as that of a Glasgow or London hotel, but our heroes sat down to it with hearty appetites, and that is more than most people can boast of in gloomy London town.

A surprise was awaiting them this morning, of which Ingomar had given the visitors no previous hint.