Part 8

I heard him now give an order to put off two boats for us, at once, in case the launch had been destroyed. I called this across to Edith Gale, who immediately set out for the landing place, after bidding me not to be uneasy, and to be careful about taking cold. She added that I was sure to be taken off, soon, though by what special means she had acquired this information I have yet to learn. She disappeared down the snow stairway, and I was alone.

I could still talk to Gale, however, and I told him just what we had seen before we struck. I said I would go back over there now and take another look. But this he counselled against, as we were still grinding away at the wall, and there would be great danger from crumbling fragments. I realized, now, why the older bergs were battered and so much smaller. Pounding along that wall for a thousand miles or so is not calculated to encourage the growth or improve the appearance of even the best constructed iceberg.

Then Gale told me what had happened on the ship. Officer Larkins and one sailor had been on deck when the upheaval came. They had seized ropes on the upward lift, and though very wet and breathless after the plunge, had come up safely. The water had not been fierce, but very deep. Larkins had interviewed, and named, a few fish while he was down. The Billowcrest had fully earned her title.

“But where were _you_?” I called.

“Playing euchre with Biffer, in the cabin. It was my deal. I shuffled as we went up and dealt as we came down. I had plenty of time to get through and turn trump while we were under. Then Biff said, ‘I order you up!’ and up we come. ‘Guess our Pacemaker’s hit the South Pole,’ says Biff, ‘an’ knocked it over!’ Then I remembered right away about you an’ Johnnie.”

A little later he called to me that “Johnnie” had got back safely. When the upheaval came, the launch had been swamped but did not sink because of her air-tight compartments. The men had scrambled to the berg and had the water about pumped out by the time Miss Gale reached them. I might expect rescue any time, and I’d better walk about to keep warm.

I could do this and talk, too. Edith Gale took the telephone then, and told me in detail all that had happened, and encouraged me in my long waiting. Incidentally I looked about for a way down, but without success. By and by I heard her speaking to some one, but so low that I could not distinguish the words. Then to me, and it seemed that there was a note of anxiety in her voice:

“How wide is the chasm, now?”

I walked over nearer and answered.

“About as it was—perhaps narrower. It seems to be drawing together again.”

“Oh, I’m _so_ glad!”

“Why, has anything——?”

“Oh, no, don’t be frightened! But the men have returned and can’t find any place to scale the berg on that side. They are going now with ropes and ladders to get you across the chasm.”

I tried to reply, but the first effort was unsuccessful. I could never, even as a boy, walk a beam that was more than ten feet from the ground. The thought of crossing that chasm on anything to which I was not securely tied made me colder than any Antarctic climate.

“Oh,” I managed to say at last, “tell them to bring ropes, plenty of them, and a—a derrick, if they happen to have such a thing.”

Through another cold, wretched hour—warmed and encouraged only by messages from the ship. At last I heard voices, and then there were men with ropes and ladders on the other side of the chasm, which by this time was no more than fifteen feet across. Their ladders they had expected to splice end to end, but as each was long enough to reach, I insisted that they be spliced side by side. They threw me a rope, and one end of this bridge I dragged over and jammed securely into the snow. Then, untying the rope, I fastened it under my arms and threw them the other end; after which I lay down, for I could never have walked, and was hauled ignominiously across.

“Got a pretty cold shake, didn’t you?” said Gale as he welcomed me back to the ship.

And so it was that we reached the great Antarctic barrier, at last. We came around to the westward of old Pacemaker, who in two parts was still grinding along to the eastward. We found open water and a northerly current, which, on examination, we accepted as our warm surface river, and this we followed directly to an anchorage in a small ice-bound bay or bottle, for it seemed more like a tall glass tube with a strip out of the side than anything I can think of, while its height gave it the appearance of drawing together at the top. We half hoped to find a way into the continent when we entered this ice-locked harbor, but the warm fresh current flowed, as I had rather expected it would from _beneath_ the barrier, and apparently in great volume. The water in the harbor was only slightly brackish, and its temperature on our arrival about 36° Fahrenheit. How far it had come through the ice we could only surmise, or to what extent it would affect our winter climate. It would freeze solidly, no doubt, during the long winter, but even then we believed it would be only an added protection against the floes outside, and the squeeze of the pack. Altogether, we were mightily pleased with our winter quarters, and warmed and fed, and safe again on the old Billowcrest with those I loved, I was happier than I can say.

XVII. INVESTIGATION AND DISCOVERY.

Our days grew shorter rapidly. In the fading light we made haste to examine our surroundings with care, and to make sure that we could not find a still better location for the long winter ahead. When the water outside was clear of ice we cruised in the launch along the barrier to make what Chauncey Gale called “scientific developments.” We became convinced, soon, that our warm river formed at its mouth the only available retreat for the Billowcrest, and further, that this river, following up the coast of Victoria Land, was without doubt the current noted by Borchgrevink, who seems not to have thought of tasting as well as testing its waters. Just outside the harbor this river is met by the slow-moving, southward flowing salt current, and forced aside. The ice-wall to the left, or westward, angles somewhat to the north, and the deflected current naturally follows this coast, diffusing itself gradually over the opposite-flowing, sluggish ocean current.

Examining our river at the point where it emerged from the ice, we found that at low tide there was a space of several feet between its normal surface and the massy barrier above, and in this we recognized a possible entrance to the inland continent, had there been any assurance that we should reach the other side, or, at least, a point above highwater mark before the tide’s return. Chauncey Gale peered into the blackness, and shook his head.

“I don’t like to go into a hole and pull the hole in after me,” he said, “and it seems to me that’s about what we’d do in this case.”

We decided therefore not to attempt this, at most not until the return of summer, and after we had tested the efficiency of our balloon.

The river, we concluded, had been one day open to the sky throughout, but at some far-off period the ice and snows of winter had formed so deeply upon it that the summer warmth could not entirely dissolve them. Each year and century had added thickness and strength to this crystal bridge, until were it not for the widening harbor at the mouth, above which the ice appears never to have remained throughout the year, there would be little to mark the point of entrance.

Concerning the barrier itself, I became convinced that it was not, as reported by others, from points farther north, a mass formed about, or abreast of a mountain range; but that where we were at least, it was the accumulation on a _comparatively flat shore_ of the solidified snows of centuries. There is, of course, a heavy Antarctic snowfall each year, and this is partly melted and frozen again during almost every day of the long polar summer. The stratified lines in the barrier showed us clearly the formation of the upper layers, while the lower layers, formed countless ages ago, had settled and congealed into a concrete crystal mass. We decided that it was the formation of this mass out over the sea, and the final breaking off by its own weight, that produced the Antarctic berg, always recognized by its tabular, or flat, top and blue strata lines, the latter often showing throughout the full height of the berg’s exposed surface—an elevation of two hundred feet or more.

But these lines above the water reveal merely what have been the topmost layers of the towering wall from whence the berg came. Below the water-line the ice extends downward for perhaps eighteen hundred feet, and this added to the height above gives approximately the elevation of the great Antarctic Barrier! For full two thousand feet above the Billowcrest rose this almost perpendicular blue precipice. Our harbor formed a little more than half a circle, and was something less than half a mile across. It will be seen, therefore, that our name of Bottle Bay, conferred by Chauncey Gale on the moment of our arrival, was not inaptly chosen.

For a time we could not get rid of the feeling that the surrounding wall would presently topple and destroy us. But as days passed we grew strong in our security, while our opening to the north, whence, in this latitude, the sun sends its warmest comfort, became at midday a wonderful gate of gold. We named it the “Portal of the Sun,” and through it, less than two months later, we were to see that life-giving luminary disappear. Would we be there to watch for its return when the long winter night had passed? Who should say?

XVIII. A “BORNING” AND A MYSTERY.

One morning, a week after our arrival, as we sat at breakfast, we felt the Billowcrest suddenly rock beneath us, and a moment later there came a roar so mighty that it seemed the whole world must shudder with it. We looked at each other, our minds reverting to the moment of our arrival with the Pacemaker. But there was a difference in the sound. That had been a splitting, crashing terror. This also seemed the cry of a great rending asunder, but followed by a splendid, universal groan of peace. At first no one spoke, and we half rose to hasten on deck. But then, to Ferratoni, came the truth.

“Have no fright,” he said, “it was but the borning of a giant.”

We felt the vessel now slowly rising beneath us. Going out we found the water pouring into our harbor, displaced by the new-born berg. Had we been outside, the Billowcrest might have repeated her diving experiment.

When the water receded we went out in the launch to investigate. Following the wall for more than a mile we came to a wonderful gleaming monster, an infant Titan, setting out clumsily on its first voyage. Already there was a space between it and the mother barrier, and the great life current of the ocean was tugging it to the east.

“It’s got a long trip before it,” said Gale. “It’ll be in many a tight place and get lots of hard rubs before it sees home again. How long do you suppose it will be?”

I shook my head.

“Depends a good deal on what luck it has, I suppose; same as with the rest of us.”

We went a little way in behind the berg to inspect the new surface there. It was smooth and transparent.

“Look!” cried Edith Gale, pointing up.

Our eyes followed in the direction indicated, and we saw in the clear ice just above our heads something frozen. The light dazzled at first and we moved to the other side. Then we saw a huge animal form enclosed in the crystal. It was perfectly preserved. The body was smooth and dark, with long flippers, and extending in front for many feet was a slender neck or throat, ending in a head something like that of a great bird. We looked at it in silence for some moments; Gale said:

“Are we going to find such things as that when we get inside? If we are you can refund _my_ money, now.”

“That,” I said, “is a plesiosaurus, or an ichthyosaurus. I can never quite remember which is which. But it’s some kind of a ‘saurus,’ and it was washed up, or crept up there to die, probably more than a million years ago. If this were a scientific expedition we would rejoice, and dig it out. We might, anyway.”

“No,” dissented Gale, “I don’t want to bring down another iceberg just yet, and besides, we’ve got other fish to fry.”

“One might say other _sauruses_ of amusement,” added Edith Gale, with becoming solemnity.

“I think we’d better go home after that,” said her father.

Entering the harbor, Ferratoni pointed to the surface of the water, a little way ahead, where something appeared to be floating. As we drew nearer our wonder increased, for it proved to be a part of a small boat, or canoe. It did not appear to have been in the water for any great length of time, and did not much resemble any craft we could recall. Captain Biffer decided that it was from some island of the South Pacific, and had been brought to us by the salt undercurrent. It had been forced into the harbor, he said, by the recent in-tide caused by the new berg. To me, however, his argument did not seem tenable. I believed the craft had been brought by our warm river from the inner continent, battered to pieces on the way by rocks or crushed against the ice overhead. Edith Gale quite agreed with me in this, as did Ferratoni. Her father also seemed to favor the idea. We took the fragment—it was a piece of a sharp bow—to the forward cabin of the Billowcrest. Here we placed it on a little table, and gathering about it, Edith Gale, Ferratoni, and I constructed some curious fancies of those whose hands had fashioned it. To Ferratoni more than to us it seemed to speak; but, on the other hand, he revealed less of what it told him.

XIX. A LONG FAREWELL.

And now indeed the shadows gathered and closed in about us. Already our day was but a brief period of mournful twilight. Soon there would be only a chill redness in the northern sky at midday. Then this too would leave us, and the electric glow of the Billowcrest would be our only cheer.

With the coming of the dark, the friendly sea life—the penguins and the seals—vanished. They had visited us numerously during the early days of our arrival in Bottle Bay, and we did not realize what a comfort they had been until they were gone. Neither did we quite understand why they should go, when the water of the bay was still open. Yet we knew that they must be wiser in the matter than we, and we could not help being a bit depressed as we watched them becoming fewer each day, until the last one had regarded us solemnly and with a harsh note of farewell had deserted us for the open waters of the north.

Instinctively we drew nearer together and our interdependence became daily more evident. What gave trifling pleasure to one was a signal for a general rejoicing, while the slightest individual ailment became a matter of heavy concern to all.

There were so few of us, and the darkening waste about was so wide and desolate. Personal consideration and even tenderness crept into our daily round, and any dim shadows of discontent that may have lingered among us were gathered up by the approaching gloom.

The Captain informed us that on the Saturday before Easter we should see the sun for the last time. Gale said he was glad Easter fell late that year, and that we ought to do something special in the way of farewell ceremonies.

So on Saturday immediately after breakfast we began our programme. We were to have many other such diversions during the long night that followed, and as our first was fairly representative of the others I will give it somewhat in detail. There were a number of musical instruments on board and most of us could play, or at least strum a little. Edith Gale, who was a skilled musician, had composed something for the occasion, and led on the harp. Ferratoni played well on the violin, Gale had some mastery of the flute, and I could follow with chords on the piano. Then we had singing, in which all joined, and the great barrier behind us echoed for the first time in all its million years to a grand old English ballad with a rousing chorus.

Now followed a literary series in which we were to give things of our own composition. Edith Gale was first on this programme. She did not need to read her effort. It was very brief.

“Beauty,” she said, “and a love of the truly beautiful, are nature’s best gifts to men and women. We have only to look and to listen, and we learn something of the joy of the Universe and the soothing spirit of peace. Even in this loneliness, and through the long night that lies now at our Gateway of the Sun, we may find, if we will understand it, something beside desolation and unillumined dark. Within, we shall keep the semblance and memories of summertime. Without, will fall a night, mighty and solemn, and terrifying, but always majestic, always beautiful. And in our hearts we shall not grow faint, or despair.”

After the acknowledgments Gale said:

“That’s the sort of thing that Johnnie used to carry to the homes and hearthstones of Tangleside, and it’s wonderful the way they seemed to take to it. What do you think about it, Bill? Do you think a love of the beautiful will be our greatest comfort during a hundred-day night? Let’s hear from you.”

Mr. Sturritt rose nervously.

“I—I am quite sure,” he began, “that Miss Gale understands her bus—er—subject, I should say, but I would suggest, that, without proper nourishment—that is—food we would find it not easy to appreciate the less filling—er, I mean less material comforts of beauty.”

Here Mr. Sturritt glanced at a little paper in his hand and continued more steadily.

“Without proper food man becomes ill in body and morals. With it, he becomes hopeful, and inspired to high achievements. Different foods result in varied trains of thought. Acting upon this I hope to produce a condensed lozenge or wafer that shall assist each according to his needs. The inventor, the artist and the poet will then be gently stimulated in imagination, command of words or rhythmic forces, as may be required.”

Mr. Sturritt lowered his paper.

“For those lacking in their love of the truly beautiful I may also get up a dose—er, I should say—prepare a lozenge. For our long winter, however, I have laid in a line of—er—uncondensed supplies which I hope will make our memories of summer fonder, and the strangeness of the night less—less discouraging.”

“Good for you, Bill,” laughed Gale as he sat down. “Johnnie’s all right too, but in a case of this kind it’s the food question that I’m thinking of. Who’s next? Let’s hear from you, Biffer.”

The Captain rose with some embarrassment, and rather ponderously.

“I’m with Miss Gale, mostly,” he began. “I’ve seen the sea in a storm so beautiful that I wasn’t afraid, but the story I’m going to tell may seem to side some with Mr. Sturritt, too.

“Twenty-five years ago last January I was captain of a three-masted schooner in the colony trade, bound from Liverpool to Halifax. Five days out we struck one of the hardest no’theast storms I ever met. In less than an hour after she hit us we’d lost our mainmast, and our cook’s galley was a wreck. Our deck was open at the seams in forty places and everything, including our provision, was wet with salt water. I ought to have run back but I didn’t, and we hadn’t more’n got out of that storm till another hit us, and then another, until we’d had eleven hurricanes in less than that many days, and were in the worst condition a vessel could get into and keep afloat. We had none too much provision to start with, and most of what we’d had was lost. There was no way to cook what we did have, so it was half a loaf of bread and a pint of water a day, and drifting along under a little dinky sail, with a signal of distress flying. Well, the wind kept up and blew us across the ocean, somehow. We got in sight of Halifax light one evening, and right there we struck a nor’wester that laid us out proper. We rolled and pitched and waterlogged, and went back to sea again—God knows where.

“Then hard times did begin. It was four ounces of bread and half a gill of water a day for fifty days, and cold and freezing, trying to keep afloat.”

“And then you were rescued! Then you were taken off!”

It was Edith Gale. She was leaning forward, and her eyes glistening.

“No, Miss Gale, then we ran out of bread and water.”

“Oh, Captain Biffer!”

“For seven days there wa’n’t any of either. Everybody laid down to die except me. I kep’ up on responsibility, and stood at the wheel day and night. I didn’t know where we was, and I didn’t care, but somehow I couldn’t let go of the wheel. Mebbe, if I’d appreciated nature a little more it would have helped, too, and I know a little food would have gone a long ways. But nature didn’t seem to need us, and we didn’t need nature. And all the food and water were gone, though pretty soon I didn’t care for that, either. I didn’t even care much when I saw a big steamer coming right toward us. I was glad, of course, but I didn’t care enough to make any hurrah over it, and neither did the men. But after we’d been carried on board, and I’d got through with a plate of soup, down in the Captain’s room, I says; ‘What day is it, Captain?’ ‘Why,’ he says, ‘didn’t you know? It’s Easter Sunday.’ ‘No,’ I says, ‘but the Lord be praised.’”

The glisten in Edith Gale’s eyes had become tears. Captain Biffer and I had had our differences. Perhaps in a general way he still believed me an ass. But I had walked over and taken his hand before I remembered it.

“I want to shake a brave man’s hand,” I said.

“Mr. Larkins,” said Gale, “suppose you give us your experience. What’s the best thing to keep up on through a long dark night?”

“Well, Admiral,” began Mr. Larkins, “I’ve never been shipwrecked, but I remember something about a dark night, and a man as got out into the wet of it. It was tin year ago, and I was comin’ out of Manchester on the bark Mary Collins, bound fer Bombay. She was a shlow old towboat, an’ the sailors were makin’ fun of her from the shtarrt. But there was one felly, named Doolan, who kep’ at it continual, an’ repeatin’ all day that he could shwim to Bombay sooner than we could get there on the Mary Collins. ‘An,’ Doolan,’ I says, ‘you may get a chance to thry it, if we hit one o’ thim shqualls that I run into here two year ago.’ An’ it was the next night that we did that same, an’ Doolan was up on the top-s’l yarrd. An’ whin the thwist of the shquall hit Doolan, he wint off wid a whoop an’ a currvin’ ploonge, an’ one of the men below yells out ‘Man overboard!’ an’ heaves a life-buoy into the blackness of it. But by the time we could put her about in that shquall, an’ get back, there was no Doolan. We hadn’t expected there would be. For whin a man dhrifts ashtern in a shquall on a darrk night his name _may_ shtay Doolan, but it’s more than likely to be Dinnis. So afther callin’ an’ showin’ lights a bit, we wint on to Bombay in the direction that Doolan might be shwimmin’, if he had a mind, now, to thry. An’ whin we got to Bombay an’ I wint to the Cushtom House an’ walked in, I see a felly sthandin’ by the rail, an’ a-grinnin’, an’ by the Ghost of me Great Gran’mother if it wasn’t Doolan! ‘Don’t be frightened, sur,’ he says, ‘it’s me.’ ‘An’ Doolan!’ I says, ‘an’ how did you get here? ‘Shwimmin’,’ says Doolan, ‘an’ I told you I could beat the Mary Collins.’