“Hurrah!”
And the evening passed very happily away.
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.”