d value, and you
shall also have my best thanks and gratitude. The latter may not indeed
be worth much, but, nevertheless, you could not purchase it with all the
wealth of the Polar regions."

Chingatok looked with penetrating gaze at Anders while he translated,
and, considering the nature of the communication, the so-called
Brainless One proved himself a better man than the giant gave him credit
for.

"Does Blackbeard," asked Chingatok, after a few seconds' thought,
"expect to find this Nothing--this Nort Pole, in my country?"

"Well, I cannot exactly say that I do," replied the Captain; "you see,
I'm not quite sure, from what you tell me, where your country is. It
may not reach to the Pole, but it is enough for me that it lies in that
direction, and that you tell me there is much open water there. Men of
my nation have been in these regions before now, and some of them have
said that the Polar Sea is open, others that it is covered always with
ice so thick that it never melts. Some have said it is a `sea of
ancient ice' so rough that no man can travel over it, and that it is not
possible to reach the North Pole. I don't agree with that. I had been
led to expect to fall in with this sea of ancient ice before I had got
thus far, but it is not to be found. The sea indeed is partly blocked
with ordinary ice, but there is nothing to be seen of this vast
collection of mighty blocks, some of them thirty feet high--this wild
chaos of ice which so effectually stopped some of those who went before
me."

This speech put such brains as the Brainless One possessed to a severe
test, and, after all, he failed to convey its full meaning to Chingatok,
who, however, promptly replied to such portions as he understood.

"What Blackbeard calls the sea of old ice does exist," he said; "I have
seen it. No man could travel on it, only the birds can cross it. But
ice is not land. It changes place. It is here to-day; it is there
to-morrow. Next day it is gone. We cannot tell where it goes to or
when it will come back. The _very_ old ice comes back again and again.
It is slow to become like your Nort Pole--nothing. But it melts at last
and more comes in its place--growing old slowly and vanishing slowly.
It is full of wonder--like the stars; like the jumping flames; like the
sun and moon, which we cannot understand."

Chingatok paused and looked upwards with a solemn expression. His mind
had wandered into its favourite ch