Punch (68.1875)

LV

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[July 3, 1875.

Before Punch got to this point he had passed from the realms of speech into the kingdom which King Somnus and
Queen Silence share between them—and lo ! he was alone—alone—

“ The first
That ever burst
Into that silent sea ! ”

It was a case of ice, as Lord Dufferin’s Yalet observed to his Lordship aboard his yacht off Jan Mayen,—ice all
around.”

Punch had outstripped the Alert and the Discovery. Hugging his new Volume to his breast, as the best of all life-
preservers, a source of perennial light and heat, more sustaining than pemmican, more defiant of chill than three-piled duffle,
he had urged his way, gallantly, across pack and hummock, over berg and floe. And now he was There. But Where ?
Latitude and Longitude had ceased to be. If Time and Space were at all, it was as much as they were.

The Midnight Sun burned red on the horizon ; the distant howl of the Great Bear, which had long been distinctly
audible, was now deafening.

Punch stood, at last, where never living man had stood before —face to face with the Pole !

He did not feel giddy, not even dizzy—only calm. He was not cold—only cool. The fact is, he was at home in that
proud position, on the apex of the round World (if anything so nearly round can be said to have an apex)—with the Globe at
his feet!

He looked superbly around !

What is that white mass gathered at the base of the spindle on which our Earth revolves ? An iceberg? No,—a
sweet though snow-clad, and, presumably, snow-cold creature, gracefully enwrapped in a mantle of frozen drift, under a veil
fringed with crystalline icicles, half hiding, half revealing her coy loveliness !

Yes! it is the Polar Queen—the Lady of the Everlasting Silence—the Ice Maiden that hath waited to be won from
creation till now.

Gracefully advancing, Punch kneeled before her. There came a voice from behind the veil—

“ My Deliverer ! At last! 0 how have I waited and longed for thee ! But, first, thy credentials.”

Punch laid at her feet

VOLUME SIXTY-EIGHT.

She seized it eagerly—tore open its pages—and a roar as of many pent-up water-floods let loose of a sudden shook
the Seven Stars, and made the beams of her Auroral Crown shoot wildly to the zenith. It was the breaking up, and down, of
The Everlasting Silence, under the laughter-compelling spell of Punch !

“ Come to my heart ! ” she murmured—and suddenly Punch felt a rushing chill as of an avalanche, yet pervaded by a
delicious perfume, oversweep his frame—

#*###**#

He had knocked over his tankard, and was wet through with the Moselle-Cup.

But he knew that his Volume was in the hands of Her Polar Majesty, and was happy !