set
up the observatory, and which cone was, in very truth, as nearly as
possible the exact position of that long-sought-for imaginary point of
earth as could be ascertained by repeated and careful observations, made
with the best of scientific instruments by thoroughly capable men.

Chingatok and his father, with a large band of their followers and some
of their women, had also encamped, by permission, round the Pole, where,
in the intervals of the chase, they watched, with solemn and unflagging
interest, the incomprehensible doings of the white men.

The storm referred to began with heavy snow--that slow, quiet,
down-floating of great flakes which is so pleasant, even restful, in its
effect on the senses. At first it seemed as if a golden haze were mixed
with the snowfall, suggesting the idea that the sun's rays were
penetrating it.

"Most beautiful!" said Leo, who sat beside the Captain and his friends
on the North Pole enjoying the view through the open doorway of the hut,
and sipping a cup of coffee.

"It reminds me," said Alf, "of Buzzby's lines:--

"`The snowflakes falling softly
In the morning's golden prime,
Suggestive of a gentle touch
And the silent flight of Time.'"

"Behold a more powerful reminder of the flight of Time!" said Benjy,
pointing to the aged Makitok, who, with white beard and snow-besprinkled
person, came slowly towards them like the living embodiment of "Old
Father Christmas."

"Come," said Leo, hastening to assist the old man, "let me help you up
the Pole."

Leo, and indeed all the party, had fallen in with Benjy's humour, and
habitually referred thus to their mound.

"Why comes the ancient one here through the snow?" said Captain Vane,
rising and offering Makitok his seat, which was an empty packing-case.
"Surely my friend does not think we would forget him? Does not Benjy
always carry him his morning cup of coffee when the weather is too bad
for him to come hither?"

"Truly," returned the old man, sitting down with a sigh, "the Kablunets
are kind. They never forget. Bunjee never fails to bring the cuffy,
though he does sometimes pretend to forget the shoogre, till I have
tasted it and made a bad face; then he laughs and remembers that the
shoogre is in his pouch. It is his little way. But I come not to-day
for cuffy; I come to warn. There is danger in the air. Blackbeard must
take his strange things," (thus he referred to the philosophical
instruments), "away f