Part 12

We rounded a bend a little later, and the fall came in sight. It was perhaps a mile away and was a long rapid, rather than a fall. There was no thought of ascending it with the boat. Already the current was very swift, and the shores narrowing together. We headed in for the bank. Landing proved a hard job, for the bank here was rather high, and very steep. We had to unload most of our things and carry them up in our arms. By the time we got everything up we were too tired to attempt to climb the long hill which we now saw rose ahead of us. It was this rise that formed the rapid, and against it the snow had blown and drifted, though this was all the better for us, as it made the ascent easier for the boat, which would have been hard to push up over rough, bare rocks. To-morrow morning we would know what lay beyond that hill. To-night we were resting, and getting strength from the “skipteroon” for a long tug. Zar had promised to sing “Brown Cows” to me, and perhaps for the last time, for Edith Gale’s voice when I had called to her just now was barely audible, even though she must have spoken very loudly. I was obliged to shout to make her hear, which made any expression of tenderness between us somewhat difficult. Zar’s voice, however, would probably carry.

XXVI. THE WELCOME TO THE UNKNOWN.

And now came the day of days! Early in the morning we reloaded our boat, and set out eagerly. The wind helped us somewhat in our upward pull but it was a hard tug. Often we propped our load, and halted for breath. The hill seemed to grow longer as we ascended.

“Nick,” said Gale, “I believe this is the South Pole, and that we’re climbing it.”

“It isn’t quite that,” I said, “but it may be the end of the bare rocks and snow. I shouldn’t wonder if all this bare rock has had the dirt washed off by the million years or so of melting drifts. We’ve already seen dirt along the river bank, and there should be more of it where the snow ends. If this is the place, it explains this rise.”

We tugged on and up. When at last we were within a stone’s throw of the summit, our eagerness made us silent. We halted once more before the final effort.

“Nick,” panted Gale, “it’s the Promised Land. You’re entitled to the first look. Go on ahead, and come back and tell us.”

“No,” I said, “we’ll leave the boat here, and go up four abreast, to look over.”

“Anyhow, you’ll see it first, that way,” said Gale, “and Bill next.”

Side by side we hurried forward. Just at the brow, the hill was a bit steeper, and there was a surface of bare rock, over which we scrambled, and a moment later stood on the summit. Then——

Before us—level upland with here and there a patch of white, where snow still lingered. But between and beyond the white, beginning at our feet, and stretching away to the farthest horizon limits, a thick, yielding carpet of wonderful Purple Violets!

Mr. Sturritt was first to speak.

“The Lord be praised for all His mercies!” he said.

Ferratoni was down with his face among the leaves and blossoms.

Gale said: “I’ve been to violet receptions before, but this rather lays it over anything, so far.”

As for me, I was silent. I hardly knew what I had expected to see. Perhaps trees—perhaps a distant city—perhaps a waste of barren downs. But certainly not this. I knew, of course, that flowers bloomed at the very edge of Alaskan glaciers, but perhaps I had forgotten. Like Ferratoni, I got down to feel and smell them. They had a sweet, delicate odor, that had been borne from us by the wind. The blossom itself was somewhat different in form from our northern violets, and was of a darker hue. The leaf was smaller.

Through a sea of bloom we pushed our boat toward the river above the rapids. The banks were lower, here, and there was no more ice. We were presently sailing between violet-scented shores, and the silence and balm that was in the air brought forgetfulness of our difficulties. To the ship we attempted to convey the great news, but now our telephone failed us almost entirely, and in spite of all that Ferratoni could do to it, it was with the greatest difficulty that we finally conveyed the bare facts, sacrificing altogether the poetic details of the scene about us.

My first attempt to explain to Edith that we were met with violets was understood by her to be “violence,” and this was not easy to get rid of. However, she comprehended at last, and had she been standing on top of the ice-barrier, I think she could have heard me, without the telephone. As for her voice, it was lost utterly in the wide space between, and only the searching quality of Captain Biffer’s tones could convey to us her replies. Even these were lost when we tried again, a little later. Being thus cut off from the ship saddened us, in spite of our pleasant surroundings.

“We’ll have to go it alone,” commented Gale. “Mebbe we’ll hit another set of vibrations up here, somewhere, and be all right again. We’re likely to strike most anything now. Anyway Johnnie knows we were doing well at last accounts. Do you know,” he added, some minutes later, “this would be a great place to lay out an addition. Violet Mead—how’s that for a name? Acre property, no grading, and if there was any way of getting over that ice-wall, it would be the easiest thing in the world to run a gravity railroad down the snowbank from Bottle Bay right to this meadow. There’s a steady incline and the drifts would be easy to cut through.”

“How about the melting underneath in the summer, and the drifting overhead in the winter?” I asked. “I think a line of balloons would be more practical.”

Gale shook his head.

“No more balloons in mine. The going is well enough, but it’s the free and easy way you have of starting and stopping that I object to.”

Gradually the sun slipped down behind the violet fields. The wind died, and a scented, luminous twilight fell. The atmosphere was like an evening in late April. We were preparing to land for the night, when a dark speck appeared on the river ahead. The surface of the water was a dull red gold, reflecting the western sky. Into this there had drifted a sharp, black outline—a boat, we saw presently—a sort of canoe. It was the first indication of human life, and we held our breath, wondering. As it approached, it appeared empty.

We turned our craft toward it, and it drifted just under our side. We leaned over and looked down. A face looked up into ours—the white, dead face of a beautiful young girl, and above and about her there were masses and festoons of flowers.

We held the boat a little, and regarded the sleeper without speaking. She was so beautiful, and had come to us so silently out of the unknown land.

Twilight deepened.

Then presently we loosed the little funeral boat, and saw it pass down into the dimness of evening to the land of eternal cold.

“It was a part of just such a boat that we found in Bottle Bay,” Gale said, as we drew near the shore. “This accounts for its being there.”

I assented, but we did not discuss the matter further, and we spoke but little as we prepared for the night. Communication with those behind had ceased. Before us was mystery, and about us silence. Cut off from every tie we knew, we had entered an enchanted land, and the spell of its potent magic came down with the perfumed dark.

XXVII. THE PRINCE OF THE PURPLE FIELDS.

I woke next morning to an odor even more inspiring than the smell of violets. There was that about it which at first made me distrust my senses. It seemed too good to be true—that searching, pervading, heavenly odor. I closed my eyes and opened them to make sure I was awake. Then it came again—more persistent than before—and with it a sputter and a crackle. It was! It was! I could not be deceived—it was frying fish!

Gale, it seems, had risen early, upturned some insects and worms from under the violet sod, and found splendid fishing but a step away. Mr. Sturritt had promptly joined him, and now there was ready a breakfast that made up for many days of fasting and tablets.

“I don’t know what kind of fish they are,” explained Gale, “but they seemed as hungry as we were, so we formed a sort of mutual benefit association. Sort of a first aid to the famished.”

The morning was still and beautiful. We had rested on violet beds, and after our bounteous breakfast we set out southward again, in the joyous expectation of further discovery. We were in excellent spirits; the air was balm and the dangers of cold and hunger were behind us. It is true that the Billowcrest was also there, and between, a wide desolation which we could hardly hope to surmount with our present resources. But this fact we kept in the background. It was not an immediate concern, and we were willing to believe that to-morrow, and the day after, and the month following would in some manner provide ways and develop means.

Chauncey Gale became particularly jubilant as we ascended.

“If all the people are like that girl we saw last night,” he said at last,—“I don’t mean of course if they are all dead, but if they all _look_ like that,—it seems to me that this is about the best addition the Lord has yet laid out. Maybe this is His own little pet corner down here, and He didn’t think anybody else would find it. You know I felt a good deal that way when I laid out Tangleside. It was a little shut-in neck of woods, and some of Johnnie’s friends liked it, so we just bought it and let ’em have it. I didn’t suppose anybody else would ever think of wanting to live there, but they did. People found out that we didn’t want them, and you couldn’t keep them away with clubs. They overrun the place and ruined it. Johnnie couldn’t do a thing with them. They cut out the trees and bushes that grew there, and set out a lot of nursery stuff that broke Johnnie’s heart in six months. If this place should turn out to be a sort of Tangleside of the Lord’s, I suppose He’d like it just as well if we kept out. But if the people are all like that girl——”

“You shall know presently,” interrupted Ferratoni. “They are just ahead.”

He had scarcely spoken before during the morning, and there was now a quality in his voice that made us all look first at him, and then in the direction his eyes followed. We thought he might have received some mental impression, but saw now that just beyond a little knoll on the shore, and coming down to the marge to meet us, were the figures of men. It did not surprise us; we had expected them even sooner. During our approach they regarded us, as we them, in silence.

They were very fair—almost pallid of countenance—graceful rather than robust. Their dress was quite simple in form. Something akin to both the early Syrian and Japanese it seemed, and appeared to have grown for them, rather than to have been constructed by artificial devices. Their faces were smooth, and their hair long—parted on top and gathered loosely at the back with a sort of circlet or band. To me they seemed as a part with the fields and sky behind them—some new flowering of our enchanted land.

All were young, but one younger and handsomer than the others advanced as our boat grounded. His wide-sleeved coat, or tunic, of soft glistening white was embroidered over with the flower of the plains above us. That he was of rank seemed evident. Gale, who was in the bow, stepped ashore and held out his hand to this fair youth, who laid his own in it, unhesitatingly.

“How are you?” greeted Gale, heartily. “Glad to see you. We’ve had all kinds of a time getting here, and it’s good to find somebody at home. My name is Gale, Chauncey Gale, and these are my friends. We’re from New York City, United States of America—best town and biggest country on earth. We’ve come down here to discover you, and take a look at your country to see whether we want to annex it or not. Up till yesterday we didn’t think we did, but the farther we get into your proposition the better we like it. Now, tell us who _you_ are.”

During this rather characteristic greeting the youth had been regarding Gale with puzzled inquiry. He answered now with a gentle flow of aspirate syllables—a little address it seemed. The sounds were pleasant to the ear, but often barely audible. As he spoke, he pointed now and then to the half-dozen others about him.

We followed Gale ashore, and something like a general hand-shaking took place. The youth’s followers, however, showed no disposition to do more than lay their palms to ours for a brief instant, and then retire. But when the youth himself came to Ferratoni, their hands lingered together, and the puzzled look that had been on the face of each melted away. Then the youth spoke again, still holding Ferratoni’s hand. When he had finished, the latter, turning to us, said:

“He is the Prince of the Purple Fields. We are in the borders of his domain. With his followers he escorted until yesterday a young lady of his court for a distance on her journey to the Land of the Silent Cold. It was she we passed. Two days ago something which must have been our balloon bag was blown to them, and it was thought we were not far distant. They have dimly known of our coming, somewhat as I had received an impression of their existence.”

We regarded our companion with increasing wonder and amazement.

“But, Ferratoni,” I said, “you do not mean to say that you understand their language.”

“Not the words. The language of thought is the same to all men. The vibration between us is by no means perfect, but when timed to the slow measure of speech, the mental echo is sufficiently good to follow his meaning.”

“Look here,” asked Gale, “can’t you twist up my strings a little? I’d like to get in key and know what’s going on, too.”

“And does he also follow your thought?” I put in.

But the youth was speaking again and Ferratoni gave him close attention. Then he interpreted.

“The conscious exchange of thought without words, he tells me, marks their advancement in communication—perhaps somewhat as the wireless interchange of words marks ours. Their progress has been along different lines it seems. The Prince and his sister, the Princess of the Lilied Hills, whose domain lies beyond this, bid us welcome. Your thought, however, he does not reach as yet, except through me, and this requires a double or repeated process, somewhat like translation.”

“Well,” muttered Gale, “I’m rather glad of that. I want to have a few thinks all to myself when I’m in a new place and seeing things.”

The Prince now said something further to Ferratoni, and then with his suite set off up the bank.

“Their boats are just above,” the latter explained. “We are to overtake them, and all proceed up the river together.”

Around a little bend we found them waiting for us. They had two barges, long, graceful and beautiful, similar to the canoe of the American Indian in shape, but propelled by slender oars in the hands of tall, youthful oarsmen of bare arms and heads, and fair, smooth faces. Near the center of each craft there was a sail of the simplest banner form, white but embroidered with the blue flower of the Prince’s domain. Truly they seemed to us as an integral part of the world about them.

Mr. Sturritt, who had hitherto remained silent, leaned over to me and murmured:

“Look—er—at them, and—and then at us. We’re not very—that is—attractive, while they—why it’s just as if they were condensed—I should say—er—materialized, as it were, from the elements.”

And Chauncey Gale:

“Better food than tablets, just to look at them, eh, Bill?”

“Sustenance for the soul,” said Ferratoni.

XXVIII. A HARBOR OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS.

Oct. 5. For seven days we have ascended this silent, flowing river, and to-night we rest in the palace of the Prince. At least we call him the Prince, though Ferratoni has explained to us that the word hardly carries the thought as conveyed to him. One whom the others follow and emulate, he thinks would be more exact, but this would mean prince, too, in our acceptation of the word, and so “Prince” he has become to us, and we would not wish for a better title for this fair serene youth, whose unvexed spirit and gentle sway of those about him have wrought a spell upon us all.

We have enjoyed his bounteous hospitality, and often he has traveled in our boat, conversing with Ferratoni, who has translated to us. I have made no previous record, as I desired first to get some definite impression of this new-found country and its people. What their impression of us has been it would not be easy to say.

I am not surprised that we have awakened in them a vague wonder and uneasiness rather than admiration. At least Ferratoni says that this is the case. Our boat with its propeller has been examined with what seemed to me a mingling of mild curiosity and respect, and I think with very little idea of adopting its plans or processes. Its unbeautiful lines and the jar of its propeller would not accord with their placid and graceful lives. Our various instruments and our watches they regard with something akin to fear. Perhaps like our ancestors they consider them the result of witchery. When our balloon bag which preceded us was explained to them, as well as our adventures since leaving the Billowcrest, they showed little interest, and certainly found no pleasure in any episode of this somewhat turbulent period. The picture of Chauncey Gale being jerked and battered through a snowdrift did not, as to us, give joy, now that it was all over, and Gale’s neck and limbs still properly adjusted. To them it was a distressing, because unbeautiful, incident. Something to be deplored quietly and forgotten quickly.

For the people of this secluded land, if we may judge by those we have seen, are all grace, all repose, all serenity of demeanor. Ambition and achievement—of such kind at least as we know and prize—seem foreign to their lives. They do not venture—or very rarely—beyond the violet boundaries, even during the long summer day. The region without—the Land of the Silent Cold—is to them the country of the dead.

Any lingering doubt I may have cherished that my lost uncle had found harbor here has been destroyed by the fact that they have no knowledge of the world without. Something of its existence seems to have been dimly known to them by tradition, and perhaps through vague mental impressions, but heretofore no word from those beyond the great outer barrier has ever come to them. They have speculated very dreamily upon the matter—even more so than we have upon the inhabitants of other planets—and have made as little attempt to reach them. When we came nearer to their zone of vibration the Prince and his sister, who it seems are the high priests of this peculiar development, were able to establish some sort of communication with Ferratoni, whose mental adjustment is less foreign to them than ours. But it was an imperfect chord—a poor connection as we would say—and not until the Prince and Ferratoni were face to face and palm to palm was the result definite and tangible.

Their progress, such as it is, has been along lines totally different from those of our people. They resemble the Orientals in some respects—or at least the idea we have of the Orientals of a long ago time. From what I have seen I judge that their mechanical appliances are as those of a far antiquity. Beautiful, indeed, but to a people like us valuable only as curios. To this, however, there appears to be one exception. The Prince has to-day explained to Ferratoni a new process, invented by himself and his serene sister, the Princess of the Lilied Hills, for dispelling darkness. It seems to be a large plate of metal (probably a sort of yellow aluminum, which we at first took for gold and is the only metal we have seen thus far), and this is arranged to receive, by induction, electric waves from the Aurora Australis, radiating them again in the form of a continuous glow. At least, it is expected to do so—we do not understand that it has been perfected as yet, and as we are to see it later it is more than likely that Ferratoni and Gale will be able to improve it greatly. It appears to be the one real mechanical attempt of this languid race—the child of their one great necessity—and the Prince believes that when perfected it will strengthen their people and give them longer life.

As it is, they are enervated by the long summer day, and depleted still further by the long night that follows. When the first vigor of youth wanes, and often before, they pass quickly out of life, and usually, the Prince tells us, without pain. They regard Gale as old—and Mr. Sturritt as a veritable patriarch.

The contrast between them and us is very great. Between Chauncey Gale and the Prince it is worth going far to see. The one, all languorous grace and spiritual repose; the other, all nerve force and vigor, all action and muscle and overflowing energy.

At least, the latter applied to Gale a few days ago. The spell of quiet content that lies upon this land has possessed him now, somewhat, as it has the others. Like us, he is willing to rest after our hard battle with the snowdrifts—to sail without question, almost without comment along these peaceful shores.

“They don’t seem to need homes and firesides, nor Johnnie’s missionary work in this country,” he remarked to-day, after a long silence. Then we both grew sad, remembering that we had received no word from the vessel for so long. The bell of the telephone rang a little yesterday, and we thought there was a sound of mingled words in the receiver, but nothing intelligible. The Prince, when the nature and use of the invention was explained to him, regarded us with what seemed a mild added wonder, as well as pity, that we should need such an affair when we already have, each within his head, a far better means of communication if we would but develop it.

There are trees along the banks now—curious semi-tropical trees, most of them—and the violets have been replaced here by a multitude of more gorgeous blossoms. Dwellings and people we saw to-day for the first time. The people congregate it would seem—the result of the long night—and there are no dwellers of the fields, save in midsummer. Then they inhabit tents until the harvests, which the warm, untilled earth bountifully provides for them, are gathered. Such as we have seen were collected along the shore to see us pass. There was no eager curiosity or excitement. Some, indeed, slowly waved their arms or banners as we approached, but this I take it was more as a tribute to the Prince than a greeting to the strangers.

Their houses, like everything else of this unvexed land, appear to have grown, rather than to have been built, and are essentially a part of the landscape. Whatever the contour of the location the house conforms to it. Many are against hillsides, and are built in terrace form, with flowers at the top of each story, forming, as it were, a garden for the next. They are for the most part laid up of unhewn stone, logs, limbs, and even interwoven brush. Frequently some surface of the living rock, or a huge bowlder, or a growing tree may become a part of, and blend into, the habitation. It is not always easy to tell where nature ends and artifice begins, or even to distinguish some of the humbler dwellings at first glance.

The terrace form prevails more than any other it seems; so much so that Gale has conferred on this race the name of “Terrace Dwellers,” which effort we regard as more of a success than some of his former attempts at nomenclature. Even when the home is built upon a level spot the lower story usually extends and forms a floral garden for the one above.

Flowers there are, everywhere—many that we seem to recognize, but many more that we have not seen. From what the Prince tells Ferratoni, I gather that while they last, every ceremonial of whatever sort, is a great feast of flowers.