long as a man was left to back him, and
bring Grabantak to his knees--or die! Either event would, of course,
have been of immense advantage to both nations. He ground his teeth and
glared when he announced this determination, and also shook his fist,
but a sharp twinge of pain in one of his unhealed wounds caused him to
cease frowning abruptly.

There was a sound, too, in the air, which caused him to sit down and
reflect. It was a mixed and half-stifled sound, as if of women groaning
and little children wailing. Some of his braves, of course, had fallen
in the recent conflicts--fallen honourably with their faces to the foe.
Their young widows and their little ones mourned them, and refused to be
comforted, because they were not. It was highly unpatriotic, no doubt,
but natural.

Amalatok had asked the white men to join him in the fight, but they had
refused. They would help him to defend his country, if attacked, they
said, but they would not go out to war. Amalatok had once threatened
Blackbeard if he refused to go, but Blackbeard had smiled, and
threatened to retaliate by making him "jump!" Whereupon the old chief
became suddenly meek.

This, then, was the state of affairs when Benjy and Leo went shooting,
on the morning to which we have referred.

But who can hope to describe, with adequate force, the joyful feelings
of Benjamin Vane as he moved slily about the lakelets of Paradise Isle
in the water-tramp? The novelty of the situation was so great. The
surrounding circumstances were so peculiar. The prolonged calms of the
circumpolar basin, at that period of the year, were so new to one
accustomed to the variable skies of England; the perpetual sunshine, the
absence of any necessity to consider time, in a land from which night
seemed to have finally fled; the glassy repose of lake and sea, so
suggestive of peace; the cheery bustle of animal life, so suggestive of
pleasure--all these influences together filled the boy's breast with a
strong romantic joy which was far too powerful to seek or find relief in
those boisterous leaps and shouts which were his usual safety-valves.

Although not much given to serious thought, except when conversing with
his father, Benjy became meditative as he moved quietly about at the
edge of the reeds, and began to wonder whether the paradise above
_could_ exceed this paradise below!

Events occurred that day which proved to him that the sublunary paradise
was, at least,