Just as Viushin was filling up our cups for the third time, the skin curtain of the low doorway at our side was lifted up, and the most extraordinary figure which I ever beheld in Kamchatka crawled silently in, straightened up to its full height of six feet, and stood majestically before us.  It was an ugly, dark-featured man about thirty years of age.  He was clothed in a scarlet dress-coat with blue facings and brass buttons, with long festoons of gold cord hung across the breast, trousers of black, greasy deerskin, and fur boots.  His hair was closely shaven from the crown of his head, leaving a long fringe of lank, uneven locks hanging about his ears and forehead.  Long strings of small coloured beads depended from his ears, and over one of them he had plastered for future use a huge quid of masticated tobacco.  About his waist was tied a ragged sealskin thong, which supported a magnificent silver-hilted sword and embossed scabbard.  His smoky, unmistakably Korak face, shaven head, scarlet coat, greasy skin trousers, gold cord, sealskin belt, silver-hilted sword, and fur boots, made up such a remarkable combination of glaring contrasts that we could do nothing for a moment but stare at him in utter amazement.  He reminded me of “Talipot, the Immortal Potentate of Manacabo, Messenger of the Morning, Enlightener of the Sun, Possessor of the Whole Earth, and Mighty Monarch of the Brass-handled Sword.”

“Who are you?” suddenly demanded the Major, in Russian.  A low bow was the only response.  “Where in the name of Chort did you come from?” Another bow.  “Where did you get that coat?  Can’t you say something?  Ay!  Meranef!  Come and talk to this—­fellow, I can’t make him say anything.”  Dodd suggested that he might be a messenger from the expedition of Sir John Franklin, with late advices from the Pole and the North-west Passage, and the silent owner of the sword bowed affirmatively, as if this were the true solution of the mystery.  “Are you a pickled cabbage?” suddenly inquired Dodd in Russian.  The Unknown intimated by a very emphatic bow that he was. “He doesn’t understand anything!” said Dodd in disgust; “where’s Meranef?” Meranef soon made his appearance, and began questioning the mysterious visitor in a scarlet coat as to his residence, name, and previous history.  For the first time he now found a voice.  “What does he say?” asked the Major; “what’s his name?”

“He says his name is Khanalpooginuk.”

“Where did he get that coat and sword?”

“He says ‘the Great White Chief’ gave it to him for a dead reindeer.”  This was not very satisfactory, and Meranef was instructed to get some more intelligible information.  Who the “Great White Chief” might be, and why he should give a scarlet coat and a silver-hilted sword for a dead reindeer, were questions beyond our ability to solve.  Finally, Meranef’s puzzled face cleared up, and he told us that the coat and sword had been presented to the Unknown by the Emperor,