“Let them run,” said the Captain to Leo.
“And help them on,” added Benjy.
Leo took the advice of both, applied the lash, and increased the speed so much that the sledge swung from side to side on the smooth places, sometimes catching on a lump of ice, and all but throwing out its occupants. The Eskimos entered into the spirit of their leaders. They also plied their lashes, and, being more dexterous than Leo, soon converted the journey into a race, in which Chingatok—his giant arm flourishing an appropriately huge whip—was rapidly coming to the front when a tremendous shout in the rear caused them to pull up. Looking back, Alf’s sledge was seen inverted and mixed, as it were, with the team, while Alf himself and his Eskimo friends were sprawling around on the ice. No damage was done to life or limb, but a sledge-runner had been partially broken, and could not be mended,—so said Oolichuk—in less than an hour.
“This, then,” said the Captain, “is our first obstruction, so here we will make our beds for the night.”
Chapter Eleven.
Another Island discovered—The Englishmen and Eskimos alike are Astonished in more Ways than one.
As Chingatok had predicted, on the sixth day from Home-in-sight Island the party came to another island, where the great pack abruptly terminated. It was not large, probably ten or twelve miles in length, from the Eskimo account, but the ends of it could not be seen from the spot where they landed. At that point it was only two miles wide, and on the opposite side its shores were laved by an open sea, which was quite free from ice, with the exception of a few scattered floes and bergs—a sea whose waves fell in slow regular cadence on a pebbly beach, and whose horizon was an unbroken line barely distinguishable from the sky.
Close to it a few black rocks showed above the water, around which great numbers of gulls, puffins, and other sea-birds disported themselves in clamorous joy; sometimes flying to the shore as if to have a look at the newcomers, and then sheering off with a scream—it might be a laugh—to tell their comrades what they had seen.