“After him, lads,” roared the Captain, setting a brave example, and for some time heading the natives in the chase; but a few moments sufficed to prove the hopelessness of the race.
Tug as Benjy would at the regulator, it refused to act. Fortunately, being made of silk, it did not break. By this time the kite had attained its maximum speed, equal, as the Captain said, to a twenty-knot breeze. At first the surface of the snow was so smooth and hard, that Benjy, being busy with the obdurate regulator, did not appreciate the speed.
When he gave up his attempts with a sigh of despair, he had leisure to look around him. The sledge was gliding on with railway speed. One or two solitary hummocks that looked like white sentinels on the level plain, went past him with an awful rush, and several undulations caused by snow-drift were crossed in a light leap which he barely felt. Benjy was fully aware of his danger. To meet with a hummock no bigger than a wheelbarrow, would, in the circumstances, have entailed destruction; he therefore seized a pole which formed part of the sledge-gear, and tried steering. It could be done, but with great difficulty, as he had to sit in the front of the sledge to keep it down.
Recklessly jovial though he was, the boy could not contemplate his probable fate without misgiving. Nothing was visible in all the white illimitable plain save a hummock here and there, with a distant berg on the horizon. He could not expect the level character of the ice to extend far. Whither was he going? South he knew; but in that direction, his father had often told him, lay the open sea. The moon seemed to smile on him; the aurora appeared to dance with unwonted vigour, as if in glee; the very stars winked at him!
“What if a chasm or a big hummock should turn up?” thought Benjy.
The thought seemed to produce the dreaded object, for next moment a large hummock appeared right ahead. Far away though it was, the awful pace brought it quickly near. The poor boy struggled—he absolutely agonised—with the pole. His efforts were successful. The hummock went past like a meteor, but it was a horribly close shave, and Benjy felt his very marrow shrink, while he drew himself up into the smallest possible compass to let it go by.
A bump soon after told that the ice was getting more rugged. Then he saw a ridge before him. Was it large or small? Distance, the uncertain light, and imagination, magnified it to a high wall; high as the wall of China. In wild alarm our hero tugged at the regulator, but tugged in vain. The wall of China was upon him—under him. There was a crash. The sledge was in the air. Moments appeared minutes! Had the vehicle been suddenly furnished with wings? No! Another crash, which nearly shut up his spine like a telescope, told him that there were no wings. His teeth came together with a snap. Happily his tongue was not between them! Happily, too, the sledge did not overturn, but continued its furious flight.
“Oh, you villain!” exclaimed Benjy, shaking his fist at the airy monster which was thus dragging him to destruction.
If Benjy had been asked to state the truth just then, he would have found it hard to say whether consternation or delight were uppermost. It was such a glorious rush! But then, how was it to end? Well, he did not dare to think of that. Indeed he had not time to think, for troubles came crowding on him. A violent “swish!” and a sudden deluge told him that what he had taken for glassy ice was open water. It was only a shallow pool, however. Next moment he was across it, and bumping violently over a surface of broken ice.
The water suggested the fear that he must be nearing the open sea, and he became supernaturally grave. Fortunately, the last crash had been passed without dislocating the parts of either sledge or rider. A long stretch of smooth ice followed, over which he glided with ever-increasing speed.