ked, though certainly it was not an age apt to
fly into enthusiasms over that species of pulpit prophets and
prophecies. But this particular man undoubtedly did wake the strong dark
feelings that sleep in the heart; his eyes were very singular and
powerful; his voice from a whisper ran gathering, like snow-balls, and
crashed, as I have heard the pack-ice in commotion far yonder in the
North; while his gestures were as uncouth and gawky as some wild man's
of the primitive ages.

Well, this man--what _was_ his name?--Macintosh? Mackay? I think--yes,
that was it! _Mackay_. Mackay saw fit to take offence at the new attempt
to reach the Pole in the _Boreal_; and for three Sundays, when the
preparations were nearing completion, stormed against it at Kensington.

The excitement of the world with regard to the North Pole had at this
date reached a pitch which can only be described as _fevered_, though
that word hardly expresses the strange ecstasy and unrest which
prevailed: for the abstract interest which mankind, in mere desire for
knowledge, had always felt in this unknown region, was now, suddenly, a
thousand and a thousand times intensified by a new, concrete interest--a
tremendous _money_ interest.

And the new zeal had ceased to be healthy in its tone as the old zeal
was: for now the fierce demon Mammon was making his voice heard in this
matter.

Within the ten years preceding the _Boreal_ expedition, no less than
twenty-seven expeditions had set out, and failed.

The secret of this new rage lay in the last will and testament of Mr.
Charles P. Stickney of Chicago, that king of faddists, supposed to be
the richest individual who ever lived: he, just ten years before the
_Boreal_ undertaking, had died, bequeathing 175 million dollars to the
man, of whatever nationality, who first reached the Pole.

Such was the actual wording of the will--_'the man who first reached'_:
and from this loose method of designating the person intended had
immediately burst forth a prolonged heat of controversy in Europe and
America as to whether or no the testator meant _the Chief_ of the first
expedition which reached: but it was finally decided, on the highest
legal authority, that, in any case, the actual wording of the document
held good: and that it was the individual, whatever his station in the
expedition, whose foot first reached the 90th degree of north latitude,
who would have title to the fortune.

At all events, the public f