Part 9

"And why shouldn't they be?"

"For a very simple reason. Because man does not inhabit these islands!"

"Then how is your theory supported?"

"By an enormous array of accumulated evidence that there are vast continents to the north of us, which are inhabited both by man, reindeer, and other animals!"

"You mean _continent_, not _continents_," I suggested.

"On the contrary; I believe there are continents fully equaling in size Europe, Asia, Africa and the two Americas!"

Had the fellow lost his mind? I looked carefully to see if he were serious, and observing no indications of a joke, answered:

"Your theory might be all right if there was room enough around the pole for all the land you speak of; but as there isn't, I am afraid you'll have to be contented with one very moderate-sized continent, which I will admit it is barely possible may exist. As for its being inhabited, I don't believe it."

"It's a pity, Gurthrie, for you'll have to believe a great deal more than that before you get through with this journey. But speaking of the reindeer, do you know that immense herds of them roam over these islands; and that the enormous numbers which have been killed in former years--amounting to several thousand sometimes, in a single season--tends to support the theory that they have migrated from another land? But that is not all; for these creatures carry with them stronger evidences of a habitable region to the north--for they cannot have migrated from the south."

"And what is that evidence?" I asked.

"The ear marks we were speaking of," continued Torrence, "thousands of these reindeer are marked; that is, they have their ears cut in a way to indicate that it was done by the hand of man. It is the opinion of many hunters in this region that these animals have emigrated from an unknown country to the north; and that is my belief also!"

"But you spoke of _continents_!" I urged.

"And I still speak of continents. But wait; I do not wish to startle you, or shake your faith in my sanity. What I know, I know; and what I know, you shall soon see for yourself. But mind, we are going into a warmer climate, and we shall find all that I have intimated. But a little at a time; do not strain your mind with thoughts you have never yet learned to assimilate."

I admitted that if it were a fact about the ear marks it was certainly a curious one; whereupon Torrence declared that it was only one out of many reasons for the theory, which he would explain later. Altogether there was a conviction in his manner which was very impressive. I listened to him talk for more than an hour, and must confess that he produced an array of alleged facts that were startling. He ended by declaring that our discoveries would vastly exceed those of Columbus in their magnitude, and that we should go down to history as the greatest of all explorers!

When Torrence stopped talking, our pipes had gone out, and the fire was reduced to a few glowing coals. We got up to make preparations for a final departure into the great unknown, and I confess, with a good deal more awe than I had previously thought possible. If Torrence was oppressed by the contemplation of what we were about to undertake, he only showed it by a more earnest and serious demeanor than he had yet exhibited. For my part, I dreaded to leave the island, overcome with the thought of what might be awaiting us. Beyond this, I was seriously puzzled by my brother's remark about continents, and their size, but could not bring myself to insist on an explanation, which he seemed, for the present, disinclined to give. We had started together, and we must pull together for the rest of the journey, come what might.

We now made a thorough and exhaustive examination of the machine, and were gratified to find that everything was still in perfect order, as we did not wish to land upon an unknown continent without the means of returning. The vessel had been so thoroughly built, regardless of cost, that she seemed as staunch as when she first came out of the hands of the contractors at London. We took aboard several casks of fresh water for drinking, besides our bear meat; put everything to rights, and then shutting ourselves inside, concluded to take a long sleep before resuming our journey northward. Nothing disturbed us; not even a polar bear discovered our position, and when we arose at the end of twenty hours' rest, we partook of another hearty meal, and were ready to move.

Taking our places on deck, Torrence touched the controllers, and in a minute we were suspended a couple of hundred feet above the beach. Then slowly we commenced navigating the tortuous coast, first bearing eastwardly across the bay, and then following up the shore line as far as the Norwegian isles, a reef of rocky keys off the northwest coast. Here we took careful bearings; made allowances for the rather singular behavior of the compass, and then heading the ship due north, bore away upon our course.

I felt as if I were about to sail over the face of an unknown planet, and in a great measure, it was just this that we were destined to accomplish. I was fully alive to the terrors of that mysterious, strangely isolated quarter of our globe, where it seemed as if the Almighty had set his ban against man's advance, by encircling it with an impenetrable barrier, to cross which, every effort, of which history holds any record, was fruitless.

When the granite cliffs of Spitzbergen were fading from our view, Torrence turned to me, and said with emphasis:

"Mark my word! We are going to find a better climate ahead than we have left behind. We are going to find land, and a race of men who are unknown to the world. We are going to find many other things; but put that much down as a record if you will;" and so I have entered it.

We were alone, and with a loneliness never felt before. The last saw-like edge of Spitzbergen had sunk below the water line to the south. Yes, even that terribly Northern foothold must now be looked upon as a southern home, when compared with our present resting place. Should we ever look forward to reaching it, as a tropical paradise--the bourne of all our hopes and expectations? For Spitzbergen had known men; it was a part of our own world, and as I watched it fade and sink away it seemed close to all I had ever known and loved in my dear old earth, where nothing could ever be so solemnly, so awfully foreign as where we were, and where we were going.

Suddenly it became cold, and looking down we saw that the ocean had grown strangely quiet, the sparkle and motion of the waves having left it. Descending to a lower level we saw that we were passing over a field of pack ice, solid and impenetrable; and we slackened speed, and sunk still lower to examine it.

As we slipped along close above its hummocky surface, at the rate of ten or twelve miles an hour, we could appreciate some of the difficulties with which Arctic explorers have had to contend. What a herculean task to forge ahead through such an obstacle, whether with ship or sled! And yet with what absolute ease we seemed about to solve the puzzle of the ages. However, we were still a long way from the pole, and there was no telling what might happen before reaching it. At times I would be seized with a superstitious dread of some awful impending calamity, or of some horrible condition of the earth's surface or atmosphere, which would make it impossible for man to live where we were going. But Torrence was firm and resolute, and if such thoughts ever troubled him, he did not speak of them. I could scarcely believe that we should continue to the end as easily as we had begun, and advance without hindrance into the forbidden mysteries beyond.

It grew colder, although I can truly say, so well were we provided against the weather, that neither of us had suffered, and we continued to sit on deck in our top coats without inconvenience. Torrence made half a turn in the screw controlling our elevation, and we rose slightly higher, as there were dangerous looking inequalities in the ice ahead. We also moderately increased our speed, keeping, however, low enough, and running with just such headway as would enable us to see to the best advantage the formations below and around us.

Presently it began to snow, and the ice field became covered with a tattered sheet, the uneven protuberances sticking through in dirty patches. But it was only a summer shower, which we ran out of in a dozen or twenty miles, leaving the sea of frozen waves and hummocks bare again. Then we came to floes, or extended areas of ice that had not packed, wind-driven into the solid masses behind, but were still shifting about with the current, undecided as to their future course. The crunching and roaring of these masses was horrible. Detached areas, miles in extent, would rush at each other with Titanic power, and meeting, rend the air with deafening crashes like the wrecking of a thousand trains.

Next came the piling up into strange, fantastic shapes. Pyramids, towers, and grim fortifications would threaten each other for a minute, and then slowly advancing, meet with a report like thunder, splitting the air from earth to heaven, and melt into each other, to be again squeezed and piled into new designs. It was an awful, yet fascinating sight. But the worst had not come. Onward we swept over this crunching and grinding world, roaring in agony to free itself from the embrace of the demon Cold, which was slowly but surely stiffening it into immovable forms. And as we advanced, the thundering of the under world grew less, for there was no more movement. The forts, the towers, and the pyramids had become fixed and silent, and a city of weird architecture followed. A city of frozen monuments, deserted streets, of isolated villas, cathedrals, parks, and gardens, lakes of dazzling whiteness, turreted battlements with mounted guns commanding open spaces, and distant rivers threading the land beyond. But a deathlike silence reigned. It was a marvelous change, but a greater still was coming. Looking far to the north we observed that these singular ice forms were growing in size and splendor, so that it seemed advisable to rise a little higher to avoid a collision. But they grew. The forts became lofty houses; the houses cathedrals, and the cathedrals great ragged mountains of ice, with pinnacles reaching skyward.

* * * * *

"This," said Torrence, turning toward me with great solemnity, "is the Palaeocrystic Sea--the sea of ancient ice--the sea which man has never crossed. We have passed the limits of the known; beyond lies the mystery of the undiscovered world. A world which you will soon admit is greater, and of far more importance than our own!"

Although I could not gather his meaning, there was an import in his words that appalled me.

* * * * *

And now the scene grew more terrible with each mile of advance. Ages of freezing and thawing, accumulations of snow and ice, had produced a spectacle more awful than words can picture. A sea of mountains and valleys; of canons black in eternal night. A sea of silence. A sea of death.

* * * * *

But I will not dwell upon the horrors that separate the known from the unknown. The Palaeocrystic is simply an unexplored belt of ice surrounding the poles. Indeed it is not known to be unbroken, or to be of equal severity throughout. It might be termed a ribbon of ice mountains, which has been ages in forming, and which probably will not average more than fifty miles in breadth, and at some points, doubtless much narrower. Beyond it we came upon free ice again, and further reached the open polar sea.

Here was a marked change in the temperature, and as the air currents were from the north, the frozen area had little effect. Our thermometer showed a few degrees above freezing, and a tendency to rise still higher.

We now felt that we were fairly launched into an unknown world. A placid ocean stretched beneath to an unexplored horizon.

"Now!" exclaimed Torrence with enthusiasm; "if there are any discoveries to be made, we ought soon to make them."

Taking out a pair of field glasses we searched the skyline from the upper deck.

"No land in sight!" said Torrence; "but if I am not mistaken, yonder is a flock of wild geese, leading our course, and not more than half a mile ahead.

"They might be petrels!" I suggested.

"Whatever they are, I propose to give them a chase. A bird or two for dinner wouldn't be a bad idea!"

Although I had never hunted wild geese in an air ship, I agreed that it ought to be good sport.

*XIII.*

Steering directly after the geese on an ascending plane, we put on a tremendous spurt and soon had the whole gang squawking and floundering before us. There were hundreds, and when pressed, set the pace at a rate that made the air whizz by like a hurricane. It was intensely exciting. But the air ship was too swift to afford the slightest chance of their escape. In a few minutes we had overtaken them, broken their columns, and flown directly into the flock. Our shotguns were ready, but, strange as it may seem, we did not use them, because more than a dozen of the birds fell dead upon our deck from sheer fright, and we let the others escape. It was a strange experience; a method of hunting probably never indulged in before; and it was not at all surprising that the birds should have been frightened to death. The geese proved to be fat and a great delicacy.

We then dropped to our former level and speed, and resumed the lookout for land. Ice floes were still occasionally met, though steadily diminishing in size and apparent solidity. A few hours later we passed the last of them, and then met only an occasional chunk, or hummock, which seemed to be floating northward. We determined the direction by descending close to the surface of the water, and making a careful examination. There could be no doubt about it; the currents which carried these ice masses were trending northward. It seemed to imply some mystery, as yet unconsidered, although Torrence thought it possible that they might be vortex in character, returning again to their starting point.

At the usual hour we went below to partake of our midday meal, having first reduced our speed to a rate not exceeding ten miles an hour, not wishing to run upon anything startling during the stay below. It was fortunate we had done so, for upon coming on deck again, we saw a small blue line to starboard, apparently not more than a dozen or fifteen miles away.

"Land!" We both shouted in a breath.

Immediately we changed our course in the direction of this island, as it appeared; and while drifting toward it, considered whether we should call it Attlebridge Land or Torrence Island. Suddenly Torrence, clapping his hand to his head, exclaimed:

"If it's what I now believe it to be, we have not the right to name it!"

"And what do you believe it to be?" I asked.

"An island," said he.

"And why have we not the right to name it?"

"Because I believe it has been already discovered. Because I believe it is inhabited!"

"Inhabited!" I shouted; "and by whom?"

"By a man."

"By a man, or by men? Which did you say?"

"I said by a man--by one man--I believe that island has a _single inhabitant_, but we shall see!"

Again I looked at my brother with curiosity, half-wondering if he were demented.

"I understood you to say that the Palaeocrystic Sea was the dividing line between the known and the unknown world.

"And you understood me correctly," he replied,

"There is but one man in the world who knows anything about this island; in fact he is the only man living who has a right to name it."

"I should imagine that the inhabitant you speak of would have an equal right," I observed.

"That is just where you make your mistake," said Torrence with a knowing look. "Were he an ordinary man he might have; but under the circumstances--hardly!"

"And what are the circumstances? Why should he not name it?" I insisted.

"Because he is an idiot!" said Torrence.

I started.

"And how do you know that?"

"If I am wrong we shall soon find out. If I am right we shall equally soon know it!"

He was searching the point of land with his glass, and seemed disinclined to continue the subject, so with rather unpleasant emotions, I concluded to wait for developments. It could not now belong before I should know if there was any foundation for Torrence's talk. Certainly what he had said savored of lunacy.

We now bore down upon the island rapidly, and saw a rocky ledge surmounting a narrow beach, where we concluded to land. The promontory had a flat top, about thirty feet above the sea and we lowered ourselves gently down upon it. Scarcely had we done so than Torrence said:

"We shall probably have to explore in order to find traces of our inhabitant; and I wonder, therefore, if it would not be wiser to sail around the island before disembarking. It would certainly save trouble."

We concluded therefore to take a leisurely tour of discovery, and ascertain the size and general contour before landing; and so without further ado, we rose again, almost as soon as we had touched the ground.

The island was rocky, but not without vegetation, its arable parts being carpeted with vivid green. There was also a quantity of small trees, bearing a peculiar fruit, which neither of us had ever seen before. Inland, it rose into billowy hillocks, to probably an elevation of a couple of hundred feet, near the center. Its shores were indented with a number of bays or inlets, some of which made considerable inroad upon it. To the best of our judgment it was about four miles long, and of very irregular width, as in places these inlets nearly cut it in two. Thousands of pigeons flew out wherever we approached their rocky nestings, but there appeared to be no other animal life.

"And where is your inhabitant?" I asked, when we had gone around the greater part of the coast.

"We may not be able to find him at all," he answered; "I said we should probably discover traces of him if we searched. For my part, I have not given that up."

But the words were scarcely spoken when he sprang to the governing board and halted the vessel. I saw that we were hovering over a green sward which sloped gently to the water's edge near the head of one of the inlets described. Lowering ourselves gradually we landed on a grassy knoll, and Torrence immediately threw out the ladder and went over. I followed him, and in a minute saw what had attracted his attention from above, but which had entirely escaped mine. It was a rough looking stone, set on end, in the sward, and there being no other stones in the vicinity, it presented rather a peculiar appearance, inasmuch as it seemed almost certain that it had been placed there by human hands. We examined it with growing interest. There was something uncanny in finding such an object in such a place. It looked like a monument intended to mark a tomb, or the headstone of a grave in some country churchyard. It was about three feet high, nearly covered with a green mould, and had the appearance of great age.

"This," said Torrence, "is the first indication I have found!"

He was passing his hand over the face of the stone.

"Your single inhabitant must be a giant to plant such a rock as that!" I observed.

"Not at all," said Torrence; "I have no idea that he even touched it."

"Then you think nature placed it there?"

"Neither; but what is this?"

He was still examining the face of the thing studiously, with both hands and eyes. I stooped down to examine it. There was a roughness or indentation, which did not seem to be natural. Scraping the moss away from the crevices, we discovered to my amazement the following inscription, which I herewith give from a careful copy in my note book

There could be no possible doubt about this being an intentional design, but in what tongue, or what it meant was a mystery. We puzzled over it for an hour, when Torrence suggested that they might be English letters, rudely and ignorantly carved. "For instance," he said, "the first might very well be an N. The second is evidently an E; while the third is unmistakably intended for an I. Now the fourth is the same as the first. The fifth cannot well be other than an L. The sixth is the same as the second, and the last is a T." When we looked at it in this way, it seemed clear enough. Indeed what else could it be? But what the word meant, remained a mystery. Suddenly it occurred to us that it might be more than one word. "Suppose," said Torrence, "that the last five letters are intended to form the word 'Inlet'--a pronounced feature of the coast of this island--and that the first two stand for North East. There we seem to have it--North East Inlet--the stone probably refers to something of interest in, or about the North East Inlet of the island!"

Surely we had solved the problem. But when I reminded Torrence that we had been searching for traces of his alleged inhabitant, and that he should not be surprised at this discovery, he said:

"True enough; but exactly where they would be, or what they would look like, or even if this was the right island, I could not tell; but now I feel sure that I am right."

"The stone was evidently put here by some one," I remarked.

"Undoubtedly. There is not the slightest appearance of its having been deposited by nature; and the letters were cut with rough tools, by ignorant hands."

"And you believe a human being could have reached this spot without an air ship?"

"There is not one chance in a million that it could have been done," he replied; "certainly _never_ by the course we have taken. But there are stretches of land reaching far to the north; and in certain seasons, under the most exceptional circumstances, possibly some lost scout of the Arctic seas might have drifted here, had he once pushed his way across the frozen belt. I say it is possible; but that is all. Before we leave we shall know whether it is a fact."

We lingered a few minutes while I made the copy of the inscription, and then climbed back into the air ship, bound for the North East Inlet.

Skimming slowly around the shore we soon discovered the indentation we were looking for, and following up its course for a few hundred yards above the mouth, reached another of those turfy knolls, with which the island abounded. Around this the water ran directly into the land, forming a diminutive lake a little higher up, with grassy slopes upon every side. It was a beautiful spot, entirely protected from the surf, and screened from the winds as well. Indeed, so sheltered and peaceful a nook was it, and withal so inviting, that we decided to descend and look around, having observed nothing extraordinary from above.

"If I do not discover something interesting here," said Torrence, "I shall be disappointed."

Having landed on the hillock above the lake we separated, walking in opposite directions. The ground was covered with a brilliant, mossy turf, where the black bed rock did not protrude; but where it did so, only served to enhance the intensity of color by contrast. I had not walked far when I heard Torrence call:

"Hello! Look at this!"