The old man looked at his stately son with something of anxiety mingled with his surprise.
“Has Chingatok become a fool, like the Kablunets, since he left home?” he asked in a low voice.
“Chingatok is not sure,” replied the giant, gravely. “He has seen so much to puzzle him since he went away, that he sometimes feels foolish.”
The old Eskimo looked steadily at his son for a few moments, and shook his head.
“I will speak to these men—these foolish men,” he said. “Do they understand our language?”
“Some of them understand and speak a little, father, but they have with them one named Unders, who interprets. Come here, Unders.”
Anders promptly stepped to the front and interpreted, while the old Eskimo put Captain Vane through an examination of uncommon length and severity. At the close of it he shook his head with profound gravity, and turned again to his son.
“You have indeed brought to us a set of fools, Chingatok. Your voyage to the far-off lands has not been very successful. These men want something that they do not understand; that they could not see if it was before them; that they cannot describe when they talk about it, and that they could not lay hold of if they had it.”
“Yes, father,” sighed Chingatok, “it is as I told you—nothing; only the Nort Pole—a mere name.”
A new light seemed to break in on Chingatok as he said this, for he added quickly, “But, father, a name is something—my name, Chingatok, is something, yet it is nothing. You cannot see it, you do not lay hold of it, yet it is there.”