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                                  _To_

                              My Parents.


[Illustration:

  “The South Pole for us all!”—Frontispiece, Page 58.
]




                                 _The_
                            Great White Way
          A Record of an Unusual Voyage of Discovery, and some
            Romantic Love Affairs amid Strange Surroundings.
               The Whole Recounted by one Nicholas Chase,
                   Promoter of the Expedition, whose
                       Reports have been Arranged
                           for Publication by


                          ALBERT BIGELOW PAINE

         _Author of “The Van Dwellers,” “The Bread Line,” etc._

                WITH DRAWINGS BY BERNARD J. ROSENMEYER,
                  SKETCHES BY CHAUNCEY GALE, AND MAPS,
                    ETC. FROM MR. CHASE’S NOTE BOOK

[Illustration]

                                New York
                         J. F. TAYLOR & COMPANY
                                  1901




                            COPYRIGHT, 1901,
                         BY J. F. TAYLOR & CO.

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                               CONTENTS.


  CHAPTER                                                           PAGE

       I. Answer to an Old Summons                                     5

      II. I Renew an Old Dream                                         7

     III. Even Seeking to Realize It                                  11

      IV. Turning to the Sea, at Last, for Solace                     15

       V. I Overhaul the Steam Yacht, Billowcrest                     20

      VI. Where All Things Become Possible                            49

     VII. I Learn the Way of the Sea, and Enter More Fully Into My
            Heritage                                                  59

    VIII. The Halcyon Way to the South                                70

      IX. Admonition and Counsel                                      76

       X. Captain Biffer is Assisted by the Pampeiro                  86

      XI. In Gloomy Seas                                              95

     XII. Where Captain Biffer Revises Some Opinions                  99

    XIII. In the “Fighting-Top”                                      106

     XIV. An Excursion and an Experiment                             115

      XV. As Reported by My Note-Book                                121

     XVI. Following the Pacemaker                                    134

    XVII. Investigation and Discovery                                146

   XVIII. A “Borning” and a Mystery                                  150

     XIX. A Long Farewell                                            154

      XX. The Long Dark                                              174

     XXI. An Arrival and a Departure                                 183

    XXII. On the Air-Line, South                                     190

   XXIII. The Cloudcrest Makes a Landing                             199

    XXIV. The Great White Way                                        209

     XXV. Where the Way Ends                                         215

    XXVI. The Welcome to the Unknown                                 223

   XXVII. The Prince of the Purple Fields                            228

  XXVIII. A Harbor of Forgotten Dreams                               235

    XXIX. A Land of the Heart’s Desire                               243

     XXX. The Lady of the Lilies                                     249

    XXXI. The Pole at Last                                           253

   XXXII. An Offering to the Sun                                     264

  XXXIII. The Touch of Life                                          269

   XXXIV. The Pardon of Love                                         279

    XXXV. Down the River of Coming Dark                              290

   XXXVI. The “Passage of the Dead”                                  293

  XXXVII. The Rising Tide                                            301

 XXXVIII. Storm and Stress                                           305

   XXXIX. Where Dreams Become Real                                   315

      XL. Claiming the Reward                                        322




                         LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


 “The South Pole for us all!” (page 58)                   _Frontispiece_

 “Then, somebody was clinging to me”                             Page 93

 “From our high vantage we could command a vast circle of
   sunless, melancholy cold”                                    Page 117

 “Cut her, Nick, cut her! I can’t stick on any longer!”         Page 202


                        THE PALACE OF THE PRINCE

 “A harbor for vanished argosies and forgotten dreams”          Page 242


                           THE PARDON OF LOVE

 “There fell upon them a long golden bar of the returning
   sunlight”                                                    Page 288




                            DRAMATIS PERSONÆ
                                  _OF_
                         _THE_ GREAT WHITE WAY.


  NICHOLAS CHASE, a young man with a dream of discovery, and an
    inherited love of the sea.

  CHAUNCEY GALE, a merry millionaire, with a willingness to back his
    judgment.

  EDITH GALE, his daughter, a girl with accomplishments and ideas.

  ZAR,  maid and former nurse of Edith Gale. A woman with no
    “fool notions” about the South Pole.

  FERRATONI, an Italian electrician with wireless communication, and
    subtle psychic theories.

  CAPTAIN JOSEPH BIFFER, Master of the Billowcrest. An old salt, with
    little respect for wild expeditions.

  TERENCE LARKINS, First Officer of the Billowcrest, with a disregard
    of facts.

  MR. EMORY, Second Officer of the Billowcrest.

  WILLIAM STURRITT, Steward of the Billowcrest, and inventor of
    condensed food tablets.

  FRENCHY, a bosun who stirs up trouble.

  PRINCE OF THE PURPLE FIELDS, a gentle despot of the _Port of
    Dreams_.

  PRINCESS OF THE LILIED HILLS, _His Serene Sister_, whose domain is
    the deepest South.

  Three maidens of the _Land of Dreams and Lotus_.

  A shipwrecked sailor, whose rescue is important to all concerned.

  Cabin boy, stewardess, and crew of the Billowcrest.

  Courtiers, populace, etc., of the _Land of the Sloping Sun_.




                          THE GREAT WHITE WAY.




                                   I.
                       ANSWER TO AN OLD SUMMONS.


For more than ten generations my maternal ancestors have been farers of
the sea, and I was born within call of high tide. At the distance of a
thousand miles inland it still called me, and often in childhood I woke
at night from dreams of a blue harbor with white sails.

It is not strange, therefore, that I should return to the coast. When,
at the age of thirty, I found myself happily rid of a commercial
venture—conducted for ten years half-heartedly and with insignificant
results—it was only natural that I should set my face seaward. My
custom, of which there was never any great amount, and my goodwill, of
which there was ever an abundance, I had disposed of to one who was
likely to reverse these conditions—his methods in the matter of trade
being rather less eccentric than my own. He had been able to pay me in
cash the modest sum agreed upon, and this amount I now hoped to increase
through some marine investment or adventure—something that would bring
me at once into active sea life—though I do not now see what this could
have been, and I confess that my ideas at the time were somewhat vague.




                                  II.
                         I RENEW AN OLD DREAM.


Perhaps first of all I wished to visit the South Pole—not an
unreasonable ambition it would seem for one backed by ten generations of
sea captains and ocean faring—but one that I found not altogether easy
to gratify. For one thing, there was no Antarctic expedition forming at
the time; and then, my notions in the matter were not popular.

From boyhood it had been my dream that about the earth’s southern axis,
shut in by a precipitous wall of ice, there lay a great undiscovered
world. Not a bleak desolation of storm-swept peaks and glaciers, but a
fair, fruitful land, warmed and nourished from beneath by the great
central heat brought nearer to the surface there through terrestrial
oblation, or, as my geography had put it, the “flattening of the poles.”

I had held to this fancy for a long time on the basis of theory only,
and, perhaps, the added premise that nature would not allow so vast a
tract as the Antarctic Continent to lie desolate. But, curiously enough,
about the time I arrived in New York I met with what seemed to me
undoubted bits of evidence in the reports of some recent polar
observations.

Borchgrevink, a Norwegian explorer, returning with a poorly fitted
Antarctic expedition, reported, among other things, a warm current off
Victoria Land, at a point below the 71st parallel, and flowing
approximately from the _direction of the pole!_[1]

Footnote 1:

  “It seems to me,” he says, in an article printed in the Century
  Magazine (January, 1896), “that an investigation of the origin and
  consequences of the warm current running northeast, which we
  experienced in Victoria Bay, is of the greatest importance.”

  True, Borchgrevink believed the Antarctic Continent to be an
  exceptionally cold one, but for this he was not to blame. No man can
  help what he does or does not believe in these matters regardless of
  sound logic and able reasoning to the contrary.—N. C.

Nansen, another Norwegian, in the Arctic Polar Sea, had been astonished
to find that the water at a great depth, instead of being colder than at
the surface as he had expected, was _warmer_! He had also found that as
he progressed northward from 80° the thermometer had been inclined to
_rise_ rather than to fall. To be sure, when he arrived at a point
within a little more than two hundred miles of the earth’s axis, he had
found only a continuance of ice—a frozen sea which undoubtedly extended
to the pole itself; but this frigidity I attributed to the fact that it
_was_ a sea into which, from the zone of fierce cold below, were
constantly forced huge ice-floes. These, as I conceived, would maintain
the condition of cold in the Arctics by shutting out the under warmth,
through which, however, they would be gradually melted—to be discharged
in those great Arctic currents which Nansen and other explorers had
observed. The lack of thickness in the ice _forming_ about the pole had
also been noted with some surprise. This too, I claimed, was due to the
warm earth beneath it which, while it could not much affect the general
climate, when some three miles of very chilly water and several feet of
substantial ice lay between, did serve as a provision of nature to
prevent the northern sea from becoming one mighty solidified mass.

Now, ice-floes could not be forced inland, as would have to be the case
in the Antarctics where there was admittedly a continent instead of a
sea. Around this continent, it was said, there lay a precipitous frozen
wall which no man had ever scaled. What lay beyond, no man of our world
had ever seen. But in my fancy I saw those ramparts of eternal ice
receding inward to a pleasant land, as the snow-capped Sierras <DW72> to
the verdant plains of California. A pleasant land—a fair circular
world—temperate in its outer zone, becoming even tropic at the center,
and extending no less than a thousand miles from rim to rim. There, I
believed, unknown to the world without, a great and perhaps enlightened
race lived and toiled—loved and died.




                                  III.
                      EVEN SEEKING TO REALIZE IT.


But scientists, I was grieved to find, took very little stock in these
views. Even such as were willing to listen declared that the earth’s
oblation counted for nothing. Most of them questioned the existence of
a great central heat—some disputed it altogether. The currents and
temperatures reported by Nansen, Borchgrevink and others, they
ascribed, as nearly as I can remember, to centrifugal deflections, to
gravitatory adjustments—to anything, in fact, rather than what seemed
to me the simple and obvious causes. As a rule, they ridiculed the
idea of a habitable world, or even the possibility of penetrating the
continent at all. When I timidly referred to a plan I had partially
conceived—something with balloons in it—they despised me so openly
that I was grateful not to be dismissed with violence. I cannot forego
one brief example.

He was a stout, shiny-coated man, with the round eyes and human
expression of a seal. He took me quite seriously, however, which some of
them had not. Also himself, and the world in general. When I had briefly
stated my convictions he put his fingers together in front of his
comfortable roundness and regarded me solemnly. Then he said:

“My dear young man, you are pursuing what science terms an _ignis
fatuus_, commonly and vulgarly known as a will-o’-the-wisp. You are
wasting your time, and I assure you that neither I nor my associates in
science could, or would, indorse your sophistries, or even stand idly by
and see you induce the unthinking man of means to invest in an
undertaking which we, as men of profound research and calm
understanding, could not, and therefore would not approve.” He cleared
his throat with a phocine bark at the end of this period and settled
himself for the next. “Men in all ages,” he proceeded, “have undertaken,
in the cause of science, difficult tasks, and at vast expenditure, when
there was a proper scientific basis for the effort.”

He paused again. My case was hopeless so far as he was concerned—that
was clear. I would close the interview with a bit of pleasantry.

“Ah, yes,” I suggested, “such as the ‘hunting of the snark,’ for
instance. Well, perhaps I shall find the snark at the South Pole, when I
get there, who knows?”

The human seal lifted one flipper and scratched his head for a moment
gravely. Then he said with great severity:

“Young man, I do not recall the _genus_ snark. I do not believe that
science recognizes the existence of such a creature. Yet, even so, it is
most unlikely that its habitat should be the South Pole.”

I retired then, strong in the conclusion that the imagination of the
average scientist is a fixed equation, and his humor an unknown
quantity. Also that his chief sphere of usefulness lies in being able to
establish mathematically a fact already discovered by accident. The
accident had not yet occurred, hence the time for the scientist and his
arithmetic was not at hand.

I now sought capital without science, but the results though interesting
were not gratifying.

A millionaire editor, a very Crœsus of journalism, was my final
experience in this field. He didn’t have any time to throw away, but I
seemed reasonably well-fed, and he saw I was in earnest, so he was
willing to listen. He put his feet upon a table near me while he did it.
When I got the bald facts out and was getting ready to amplify a little
he broke in:

“How long would it take you to go there and get back?” he asked.

“I hardly know—five years, perhaps—possibly longer.”

The millionaire editor took his feet down.

“Humph! Hundred thousand dollars for a Sunday beat and five years to get
it! No, I don’t think we want any South Poles in this paper——”

“But in the cause of human knowledge and science,” I argued.

“My friend,” he said, “the only human knowledge and science that I am
interested in is the knowledge and science of getting out, next Sunday
and the Sunday after, a better paper than that lantern-faced pirate down
the street yonder. When you’ve found your South Pole and brought back a
piece of it, come in, and I’ll pay you more for the first slice than
anybody else, no matter what they offer. But you’re too long range for
us just at present. Good day!”




                                  IV.
                TURNING TO THE SEA, AT LAST, FOR SOLACE.


Having thus met only with rebuff and disaster in the places where it
seemed to me I had most reason to expect welcome and encouragement, I
turned for comfort to those who, like my forbears, went down to the sea
in ships. Along South Street, where the sky shows through a tangle of
rigging, and long bowsprits threaten to poke out windows across the way,
I forgot my defeats and even, for a time, my purpose, as I revelled in
my long-delayed heritage of the sea.

It was the ships from distant ports that fascinated me most. My Uncle
Nicholas—a sailor who was more than half a poet—had been in the foreign
trade. I remembered him dimly as a big brown-faced man who had told me
of far lands and shipwrecks, and rocked me to sleep to the words and
tune of an old hymn, of which I could still repeat the stanza beginning,

                “The storm that wrecks the winter sky.”

His vessel with all on board had disappeared somewhere in the dark
waters below Cape Horn more than twenty years before. I had inherited
half of his name and a number of precious trinkets brought home during
his early days of seafaring—also, it was supposed, something of his
tastes and disposition. In a manner I was his heir, and the tall-masted,
black-hulled barks that came in from the Orient—to be pushed as quietly
into place at the dock as if they had but just been towed across the
East River from Brooklyn—these, it seemed to me, were his ships, hence,
_my_ ships that were coming in, at last.

I found in them treasures of joy unspeakable. Those from around the Horn
seemed to bring me direct messages from the lost sailor. I felt that had
he lived he would have believed in my dreams and helped me to make them
reality. At times I even went so far as to imagine that his ship had not
gone down at all, but had sailed away to some fair harbor of the South,
whence he had not cared to return.

It thrilled me even to touch one of those weather-beaten hulls. The
humblest and most unwashed seaman wrought a spell upon me as he made a
pretense of polishing a bit of brass or of mopping up the afterdeck. He
had braved fierce storms. He had spent long nights spinning yarns in the
forecastle. Perhaps he had been wrecked and had drifted for weeks in an
open boat. It might be that he had been driven by storms into those
gloomy seas of the South—even to the very edge of my Antarctic world!

When they would let me I went on board, to fall over things and ask
questions. My knowledge of shipping was about what could be expected of
one whose life had been spent on the prairies of the West, with now and
then a fleeting glimpse of a Mississippi River steamer. I suppose they
wondered how I could be so interested in a subject, concerning which I
displayed such a distressing lack of knowledge. They were willing to
enlighten me, however, for considerations of tobacco or money, and daily
I made new bosom friends—some of them, I suspect, as unholy a lot of
sea-rovers as ever found reward at the end of a yard-arm.

I did not seek technical instruction. What I yearned for was their
personal experiences, and these they painted for me in colorings of the
sea and sky, and in such measure as the supplies were forthcoming.
Almost to a man they readily remembered my Uncle Nicholas, but as they
differed widely concerning his stature, complexion and general
attributes, I was prone to believe at last that they would have recalled
him quite as willingly under any other name; and indeed I found this to
be true when I made the experiment, finally, of giving his name as
Hopkins, or Pierce, or Samelson, instead of the real one, which had been
Lovejoy.

I gathered courage presently to interview the officers, but these I
found rather less entertaining, perhaps because they were more truthful.
Only one of them recalled my Uncle Nicholas, a kindly first mate, and I
suspect that even this effort resulted from a desire to please rather
than from any real mental process or strict regard for verities.

I suppose I annoyed them, too, for I threw out a hint now and then which
suggested my becoming a part of their ship’s company, though in what
capacity or for what purpose neither I nor they could possibly imagine.
As for my Antarctic scheme, I presently avoided mentioning it, or, at
most, referred to it but timidly. Indeed, I demeaned myself so far at
times as to recall it in jest as the wild fancy of some mythical third
party whose reasoning and mentality were properly matters of ridicule
and contempt.

For I had discovered early in the game that the conception of a warm
country at the South Pole appealed as little to the seaman as to the
scientist. The sailors whom I had subsidized most liberally regarded me
with suspicion and unconsciously touched their foreheads at the
suggestion, while the kindly first officer, who had been willing to
remember my uncle, promptly forgot him again and walked away.

I passed my days at length in wandering rather silently about the docks
and shipping offices, seeking to invest my slender means in some venture
or adventure of the sea that would take me into many ports and perhaps
yield me a modest income besides. I consulted a clairvoyant among other
things, a greasy person on Twenty-third Street, who took me into a dim,
dingy room and told me that I was contemplating something-or-other and
that somebody-or-other would have something-or-other to do with it. This
was good as far as it went. I was, in fact, contemplating most of the
time. I was ready for anything—to explore, to filibuster, to seek for
hidden treasure—to go anywhere and to do anything that would make me
fairly and legitimately a part and parcel with the sea. I read one
morning of a daring voyager who in a small boat had set out to sail
around the world alone. I would have given all that I possessed to have
gone with him, and for a few moments I think I even contemplated a
similar undertaking. But as I did not then know a gaff from a
flying-jib, and realizing that my voyage would probably be completed
with suddenness and violence somewhere in the neighborhood of Sandy
Hook, I resisted the impulse. As for my Antarctic dream, its realization
seemed even farther away than when as a boy I had first conceived it,
some fifteen years before.




                                   V.
                I OVERHAUL THE STEAM YACHT, BILLOWCREST.


It was early spring when I had arrived in New York, and the summer heat
had begun to wane when I first set eyes on the Billowcrest, and its
owner, Chauncey Gale.

On one of those cool mornings that usually come during the first days of
August I was taking a stroll up Riverside Drive. Below me lay the blue
Hudson, and at a little dock just beyond Grant’s Tomb a vessel was
anchored. Looking down on her from above it was evident, even to my
unprofessional eye, that she was an unusual craft. Her hull was painted
white like that of a pleasure yacht and its model appeared to have been
constructed on some such lines. Also, an awning sheltered her decks,
suggesting the sumptuous pleasures of the truly rich. But she was much
larger than any yacht I had ever seen, and fully bark-rigged—carrying
both steam and sail. She was wider, too, in proportion to her length,
and her cabins seemed rather curiously disposed. A man laboring up the
<DW72> took occasion to enlighten me. He had just investigated on his own
account.

“Great boat, that,” he panted. “Cost a million, and belongs to a man
named Gale. Made his money in real estate and built her himself, after
his own ideas. He wasn’t a sailor at all, but he’d planned lots of
houses and knew what he wanted, and had the money to pay for it. No
other boat like her in the world and not apt to be; but she suits him
and she goes all right, and that’s all that’s necessary, ain’t it?”

I said that it was, and I presently went down to look at her. I do not
now remember that I was prompted by any other motive than to see, if
possible, what a man looked like who could afford to disregard the laws
and traditions of ship architecture, and build and own a million dollar
steamer after his own model, and for his own pleasure. Also, I had a
natural curiosity to learn something of what sort of vessel would result
from these conditions.

As I drew nearer I was still further impressed with her remarkable
breadth of beam, suggesting comfort rather than speed, and by the
unusual flare and flatness of her hull, reminding me of the model of
Western steamers built for log jams and shallow water. Connecting with
the dock was a small gangway, at the top of which stood a
foreign-looking sailor in uniform. Across his cap, in white letters, was
the word, “BILLOWCREST.” He regarded me distrustfully as I walked up and
down, and one or two suggestions I made, with a view of conveying to him
my good opinion of his boat, as well as the impression that I knew a lot
about yachts in general, he acknowledged grudgingly and in mixed
tongues. I disapproved of him from the start, and as later events
showed, with sufficient reason. Having looked over the vessel casually I
halted at last in front of the gangway.

“I should like to come on board,” I said.

The polyglot dissented.

“No admit. Mis’r Gale command.”

“Is Mr. Gale himself on board?”

I assumed a manner of severity with a view of convincing him that I was
of some importance, and at the same instant ascended the gang-plank,
extending my card before me. Of course the card meant nothing to him
except that I was able to have a card, but I could see that he hesitated
and was lost. Evidently he had little knowledge of the great American
game when I could intimidate him with one card.

He returned presently, and scowlingly led me into a little saloon
forward. Then he disappeared again and I was left to look at my
surroundings. A desk, a fireplace with a gas-log, some chairs suggestive
of comfort, a stairway, probably leading to the bridge above. The
evidences of the real estate man’s genius were becoming apparent. I
might have been in the reception hall of any one of a thousand country
cottages in the better class suburbs of New York. I had barely made
these observations when a door to the right of the stairway opened. In a
cottage it would have led to the dining-room, and did so, as I
discovered later, on the Billowcrest. A tall, solemn-looking man
entered, and I rose, half extending my hand, after the manner of the
West.

“Mr. Gale,” I said.

The solemn man waved me aside—somewhat nervously it seemed.

“No—I’m—that is, I’m not Mr. Gale. I’m only the—his steward,” he
explained. “Mr. Gale is—er—somewhat busy just now and would like to know
if your errand is im—that is, I should say, a personal matter. Perhaps
I—I might answer, you know.”

My heart warmed instantly toward this sober-faced man with thin
whitening hair and nervous hesitation of manner. I was about to tell him
that I only wanted to go over the yacht, and that he would do admirably
when I thrilled with a sudden impulse, or it may have been an
inspiration.

“Please tell Mr. Gale,” I said, “that I am sorry to disturb him, but
that I would really like to see him personally. I will not detain him.”

The solemn man retired hastily, leaving the door slightly ajar behind
him. I heard him murmur something within, which was followed by a rather
quick, hearty response.

“All right, Bill. Newspaper man, I guess,—tell him I’m coming!”

The tall man whose name, it seemed, and inappropriately enough, was
Bill, returned with this announcement. Close behind him followed a
stout, clear-eyed man of perhaps fifty. A man evidently overflowing with
nerve force and energy, appreciative of humor, prompt and keen in his
estimate of human nature, and willing to back his judgments with his
money. Undismayed and merry in misfortune, joyous and magnanimous in
prosperity, scrupulously careful of his credit, and picturesquely
careless of his speech—in a word, Chauncey Gale, real estate speculator,
self-made capitalist and American Citizen.

I did not, of course, realize all of these things on the instant of our
meeting, yet I cannot refrain from setting them down now, lest in the
reader’s mind there should exist for a moment a misconception of this
man to whom I owe all the best that I can ever give.

He came forward and took my hand heartily.

“Set down,” he commanded, “and tell us all about it.”

“Mr. Gale,” I began, “I have been admiring your yacht from the outside,
and I came on board to learn more about her purpose—how you came to
build her, what you intend to do with her, her dimensions, and so on.”

I was sparring for an opening, you see, and then he had taken me for a
reporter.

“What paper you on?”

I was unprepared for this and it came near being a knockout. I rallied,
however, to the truth.

“I’m on no paper, Mr. Gale; I’m a man with a scheme.”

“Good enough! What is it?”

“To go to the South Pole.”

We both laughed. There had been no suggestion of annoyance or even
brusqueness in Mr. Gale’s manner, which was as encouraging as possible,
and as buoyant. But half unconsciously I had adopted its directness, and
perhaps this pleased him.

“Say, but that’s a cool proposition,” he commented. “We might get snowed
up on that speculation, don’t you think so?”

“Well, of course it _might_ be a cold day before we got there, but when
we did——”

Mr. Gale interrupted.

“Look here,” he broke in, “I’m glad you ain’t on a paper, anyway. I’ve
not much use for them, to tell the truth. I’ve paid ’em more’n a million
dollars for advertising, and when I built this yacht they all turned in
and abused me. They got what they thought was a tip from some
sea-captain, who said she wouldn’t steer, or float, or anything else,
and that I’d never get out of the harbor. Well, she floats all right,
doesn’t she?”

I looked properly indignant and said that she did.

“I’ve been around the world twice in her,” he continued, “me and my
daughter. She isn’t fast, that’s a fact, but she’s fast enough for us,
and she suits us first-rate. I don’t know whether she’d do to go to the
South Pole in or not. I’ll tell you how she’s built, and what I built
her for, and you can see for yourself.”

I did not allow myself to consider Mr. Gale’s manner or remarks as in
the slightest degree encouraging to my plans. The fact that he had cut
short my attempted explanation rather indicated, I thought, that this
part of our interview was closed.

“I built her myself,” he proceeded, “after my own ideas. She’s a good
deal on the plan of a house we used to live in and liked, at Hillcrest.
My daughter grew up in it. Hillcrest was my first addition, and the
Billowcrest is my last. I’m a real-estate man, and all the money I ever
made, or lost, came and went in laying out additions. I’ve laid out and
sold fifty-three, altogether. Hillcrest, Stonycrest, Mudcrest,
Dingleside, Tangleside, Jungleside, Edgewater, Bilgewater, Jerkwater and
all the other Crests and Sides and Hursts and Waters and Manors you’ve
heard of for the past twenty years. I was the first man that ever used
the line, ‘Quit Paying Rent and Buy a Home,’ and more people have quit
paying rent and bought homes from me than from any man that ever took
space in a Sunday paper. My daughter is a sort of missionary. She makes
people good and I sell ’em homes and firesides. Or maybe I sell ’em
homes first and she makes ’em good afterwards, so they’ll keep up their
payments. Whichever way it is, we’ve been pretty good partners for about
twenty-five years, and when the land and spiritual improvement business
got overdone around here I built this boat so we could take comfort in
her together, and maybe find some place in the world where people still
needed homes and firesides, and missionary work. She’s two hundred and
sixty feet long and fifty feet in the beam, twin screw and carries
sixteen thousand square feet of calico besides. She’s wide, so she’ll be
safe and comfortable, and I built her flat so’s we could take her into
shallow water if we wanted to. She’s as stout as a battle-ship and she’s
took us around the world twice, as I said. We’ve had a bully time in
her, too, but so far we’ve found no place in _this_ old world where
they’re suffering for homes and firesides or where they ain’t
missionaried to death. Now, what’s your scheme?”

It seemed the opportune moment. My pulse quickened and stopped as I
leaned forward and said:

“It’s to _find a new world_!”

“At the South Pole?”

“At the South Pole.”

“What’s the matter with the North?”

“The North Pole is a frozen sea—a desolation of ice. At the South Pole
there is a continent—I believe a warm one.”

“What warmed it?”

“The oblation of the earth, which brings the surface there sufficiently
near the great central heat to counteract the otherwise low temperature
resulting from the oblique angle of the direct solar rays.”

I had gone over this so often that in my eagerness I suppose I parroted
it off like a phonograph. Gale was regarding me keenly—mystified but
interested.

“Look here,” he said. “I believe you’re in earnest. Just say that again,
please; slow, and without any frills, this time.”

I was ready enough to simplify.

“Mr. Gale,” I began, “you are aware, perhaps, that when we dig down into
the earth we find that it becomes rapidly warmer as we descend, so that
a heat is presently reached at which life could not exist, and from this
it has been argued that the inner earth is a mass of fire surrounded
only by an outer crust of some fifty miles in thickness. We also know by
observation and experiment that the diameter of the earth between the
poles is some twenty-six miles less than it is at any point on the
equator. This is known as the earth’s oblation, or, as the school-books
have it, the flattening of the poles.”

I paused and Gale nodded; apparently these things were not entirely
unfamiliar to him. I proceeded with my discourse.

“You will see, therefore, that at each polar axis the earth’s surface is
some thirteen miles nearer to this great central heat than at the
equator, and this I believe to be sufficient to produce a warmth which
prevents the great ice-floes of the Arctic Sea from solidifying about
the North Pole; while at the South, where there is a continent into
which ice-floes cannot be forced, I am convinced that there will some
day be found a warm habitable country about the earth’s axis. Whoever
finds it will gain immortality, and perhaps wealth beyond his wildest
dreams.”

I had warmed to this explanation with something of the old-time
enthusiasm, and I could see that Gale was listening closely. It may have
appealed to his sense of humor, or perhaps the very wildness of the
speculation attracted him.

“Say,” he laughed, as I finished, “the world turning on its axle would
help to keep it warm there, too, wouldn’t it?”

I joined in his merriment. The humors of the enterprise were not the
least of its attractions.

“But that _would_ be a bully place for a real-estate man,” he reflected.
“First on the ground could have it all his own way, couldn’t he? Build
and own railroads and trolley lines, and lay out the whole country in
additions. Sunnybank, Snowbank, Axis Hill—look here, why ain’t anybody
ever been there before?”

“Because nobody has ever been prepared to surmount the almost
perpendicular wall that surrounds it, or to cross the frozen zone
beyond. The ice-wall is anywhere from one to two thousand feet high. I
have a plan for scaling it and for drifting over the frozen belt in a
balloon to which, instead of a car, there will be attached a sort of
large light boat with runners on it, so that it may also be sailed or
drawn on the surface, if necessary. The balloon idea is not, of course,
altogether new, except——”

But Gale had gone off into another roar of merriment.

“Well, if this ain’t the coldest, windiest bluff I ever got up against,”
he howled. “Think of going up in a balloon and falling off of an
ice-wall two thousand feet high! Oh, Lord! What is home without a
door-knob!”

“There does appear to be an element of humor in some phases of my
proposition,” I admitted, “but I have faith in it, nevertheless, and am
quite sincere in my belief of a warm Antarctic world.”

“Of course you are. If you hadn’t been I wouldn’t ‘a’ let you talk to me
for a minute. Let’s hear some more about it. Do you think this ship
would do? When do you want to start?”

“As for the ship,” I hastened to say, “it would almost seem that she had
been built for the purpose. With her splendid sailing rig, her coal
could be economized, and used only when absolutely necessary. Her light
draught makes it possible to take her into almost any waters. The shape
of her hull and her strength are calculated to withstand an ice-squeeze,
and her capacity is such that enough provisions in condensed forms could
be stored away in her hold to last for an almost indefinite length of
time. As for starting——”

A cloud had passed over Gale’s face at the mention of an ice-squeeze,
but now he was laughing again.

“Condensed food! Oh, by the great Diamond Back, but that will hit Bill!
That’s his hobby. He’s invented tablets condensed from every kind of
food under the sun. You saw Bill awhile ago. Used to be my right-hand
man in real estate, and is now my steward, from choice. Never had a
profitable idea of his own, but honest and faithful as a town clock.
What he calls dietetics is his long suit. He don’t try many of his
experiments on us, but he does on himself; that’s why he looks like a
funeral. Oh, but we must have Bill along—it’ll suit him to the ground!”

He touched a button at his elbow.

“Food tablets might prove a great advantage,” I admitted, “especially if
we made an extended trip in the balloon.”

“Bill can make ’em for us all right. Soup tablets, meat tablets, bread
tablets—why, you can put a meat tablet between two bread tablets and
have a sandwich, and carry a whole _table d’hôte_ dinner in a pill-box.
Here, boy, tell Mr. Sturritt to step up here, if he’s not busy. Tell him
I’ve got important news for him.”

Clearly it was but a huge joke to Mr. Gale. I was willing to enter into
the spirit of it, however. He turned to me as the boy disappeared.

“Of course, we can’t expect to find anybody living there.”

“Why not? Nature never yet left a habitable country unoccupied. We shall
undoubtedly find a race of people there—perhaps a very fine one.”

He regarded me incredulously a moment, and then thumped the desk at his
side vigorously.

“That settles it! Johnnie’s missionary work’s cut out for her. It’s a
great combination, and we can’t lose! Balloons, tablets, missionary
work, and homes and firesides! A regular four-time winner!”

He was about to touch the bell again when there came a light tap at the
door near me, and a woman’s voice said:

“Mayn’t I have some of the fun, too, Daddy?”

My spirits sank the least bit. The mental image I had formed of Miss
Gale, the missionary, was not altogether pleasing, while her advent was
likely to put a speedy end to any thread of hope I may have picked up
during my rather hilarious interview with her father. Gale, meanwhile,
had risen hastily to admit her, and I had involuntarily turned. It is
true the voice had been not unmusical, but certainly I was wholly
unprepared for the picture in the doorway. Tall, lithe and splendid she
stood there—the perfect type of America’s ideal womanhood.

Gale greeted her eagerly.

“Of _course_ you can hear it—I was just going to send for you. Johnnie,
here’s a young man that’s going to take us to the South Pole to convert
the heathen there, and provide ’em with homes and firesides. Mr. ——,” he
glanced at my card, which he had kept in his hand all this time—“Mr.
Nicholas Chase, my daughter, Miss Edith Gale, sometimes, by her daddy,
called Johnnie, for short.”

Miss Gale held out her hand cordially. I took it with no feeling of
hesitation that I can now recall. And it seemed to me that I would be
willing to go right on holding a hand like that and let the South Pole
discover itself, or remain lost through all eternity.

“I have been telling Mr. Chase,” Chauncey Gale began, when we were
seated, “of our missionary-real-estate combine; how I provide outcast
humanity with homes and firesides in this world, and how you look out
for a home without too much fireside in it in the next; and how all the
territory in this world seems to be pretty well covered in our line. Now
he’s found for us, or is going to find, he says, a new world where we
can do business on a big scale. Is that correct, Mr. Chase?”

I looked at Miss Gale, upon whose face there was an expression,
half-aggrieved, half-mystified. For one thing, it was evident that, like
myself, she could not be quite certain whether her father was
altogether, or only partly, in jest. She beamed graciously on me,
however, which was enough.

“Why, how fine that is,” she assented. “We have been wishing for some
new thing to do, and some new where to go, but we never dreamed of a new
world. If you can take us to one we will reward you—even to the half of
our kingdom.”

“Poor trade,” said Gale. “Whole world for half a kingdom. Try again.”

“Oh, well, he shall have”—she hesitated, seeking a way out, then in
frank confusion—“he shall name his reward, as they do in the
story-books.”

I joined in the laugh. But my heart had grown strangely warm, and my
pulses were set to a new measure. I had never fully believed in love at
first sight till that moment.

“Tell us your scheme again, Chase,” commanded Gale.

The familiar form of his address stimulated me. I felt that I had known
this robust man since the beginning of all things.

“Wait,” he interrupted, “here comes Bill—he must hear it, too. Mr.
Chase, I present you to His Royal Tablets, Mr. William Sturritt, caterer
extraordinary to the Great Billowcrest Expedition for the discovery and
development of the warm Antarctic World. Bill, old man, your tablets are
going to have their innings at last. Mr. Chase is just going to tell us
how to climb a two thousand foot ice-wall in a balloon.”

I shook hands heartily with the thin, solemn man, who made an anxious
attempt to smile and seated himself rather insecurely on the edge of a
chair. Then I began as gravely as possible, and reviewed once more my
theories and purpose, adding now the brief but important bits of
evidence concerning temperatures and currents, supplied by recent
explorers. The warm northerly current reported by Borchgrevink I dwelt
upon, and suggested that by following it a vessel might meet with less
formidable obstructions in the way of field ice, and perhaps reach the
ice barrier at no great distance from the habitable circle beyond. It
even might be possible, I said, to follow this current directly to the
interior continent, though this I considered doubtful, believing rather
that it would flow out from amid fierce and shifting obstructions that
would make navigation impracticable.

I then reviewed my plan for scaling the ice barrier and crossing the
frozen strip by the aid of a balloon, to which would be attached the
light boat-shaped car before mentioned. This car, I said, might be
constructed to hold four, possibly six, men. In it could be stored light
instruments for photography, observation, etc. Also such furs and
clothing as would be needed, and a considerable supply of food in
condensed forms.

During this recital I had been interrupted by scarcely a word. Once,
when I mentioned the ice-wall, Gale had put his hands together and
murmured to himself, “Oh, Lord, two thousand feet high—now I lay me!”
But for the rest of the time he was quite silent and attentive, as were
both of the others. Miss Gale (and it was to her that I talked), Edith
Gale listened without speaking, moveless, her eyes looking straight into
mine, but far beyond me, to the land of which I spoke—a land of
fancy—the country of my dreams, now becoming hers. Gale turned to Mr.
Sturritt as I finished. The meager face of the latter was flushed and
animated. Credulous, visionary and eager, the dream had become his, too.
It seemed to me that there was a quality of tenderness in Gale’s voice
as he addressed him.

“Well, Bill,” he said, “what do you think of it? Chance of your life,
ain’t it? Think of provisioning a voyage to the South Pole. Why, you can
fairly wallow in tablets!”

Mr. Sturritt shifted a bit in his chair.

“I think it the most wond—the most marvelous undertaking of the
century,” he said eagerly, “and the most plaus—er—that is, the most
logical. For my own part in it, I may say to Mr. Race—that is, Chase,
that I have perfected a sort of system of food tab—I should say
lozenges, that might, I believe, be found advantageous in supplying the
balloon with food—that is—er—I mean the people _in_ the balloon, where
space and lightness would be considerations. They are, I think I may say
without claiming—taking credit, that is, for the entire originality of
the idea—more nutritious and—er—more wholesome than any other food
lozenge I have seen, besides being less bulk—er—I should say—more
compact in form, and not so hard to—to—I mean, in fact quite easy——”

“Not so hard to take,” put in Gale. “That’s right, Bill, they’re not bad
at all—I’ve tried ’em. I threw a fit afterwards, but that wasn’t your
fault—I didn’t take ’em right.”

“Papa insisted on eating all the dessert tablets, because they were pink
and flavored with wintergreen, and they made him ill,” commented Miss
Gale, who seemed to waken from her reverie.

“They should be taken—er—used, I mean, according to direc—that is—in
proper sequence,” explained Mr. Sturritt. “White, followed by blue and
red, in order to work well—to secure hygienic results, I should say. The
white contains the gently stimulating nutriment of meat and bivalve
juices, and is—er—the soup course, so to speak. The blue contains the
solids required to supply strength, while the pink or rose wafer
combines the essence of creams, fruits and nuts—the delicacies, as it
were, of food diet. White, blue and red is the proper combi—er—that
is—sequence, and I shall soon have other varieties.”

“I thought they ought to go red, white and blue,” said Gale, “like the
colors in the flag. But, see here, Johnnie, what do you think of Mr.
Chase’s scheme, anyway? Ain’t it a bully chance for opening our business
on a big scale?”

“_Please_ don’t, Daddy,” protested Miss Gale. “Mr. Chase must have a
very unfair opinion of us from what you have told him. He must stay to
luncheon, and learn to know us better.”

At this point Mr. Sturritt rose and excused himself.

“I am not really a missionary, you know,” Edith Gale continued. “In fact
not at all. I have just a little hobby—a very little one—of helping
people to better ideals through a truer appreciation of the beautiful in
nature.” She said this quite unaffectedly—much as a child would explain
a little game of its own. I nodded eagerly and she proceeded.

“It has always seemed to me that the people who see only firewood in
trees, weather-signs in skies, and water-supply in rivers, miss a good
deal of what is best in this world, and are perhaps not so well prepared
for what they find in the next. And sometimes even those who care in a
way for the beauties of the earth and sky miss a good deal of them, or
care not in the best way. Sometimes they cut their trees into queer
shapes, or chop away all the pretty tangle of foliage from a river bank,
or lay out their gardens with a square and compass. I sketch and paint a
little, and now and then I try to make people realize the beauty as well
as the usefulness of nature, and that it’s a waste of time to do all
those artificial things to it. It is quite simple to explain with
pictures, you know, like an object lesson, and I show them that
star-shaped flower-beds, and bare river banks, and ornamentally trimmed
trees do not make as pretty pictures as they would the other way, and
then sometimes I go further and say that maybe children, and grown
folks, too, would be better and less artificial themselves if they were
taught to care less for nature in its unnatural forms, and more as God
made it. Your dream of an Antarctic world and an undiscovered race is
very fascinating to me. I, also, have long had a dream of finding such a
people, though it is far more likely that I should go to them to learn
than to teach.”

Chauncey Gale had been watching her admiringly while she spoke. As for
myself, if there had been one thing needed to complete my conversion, it
was this revelation of her gentle doctrines. Gale, however, could not be
long repressed.

“You’ve no idea how that sort of thing takes with commuters,” he said
reverentially. “It’s sold more additions for me than all my advertising
put together.”

“Oh, Daddy, how can you!”

“Look at that air of innocence,” said Gale, “it would deceive the oldest
man living. You know very well, Johnnie, that the Bilgewater lots would
never have moved in the world if you hadn’t gone out there and got those
people all crazy on art values. Why, the art value of every lot in
Bilgewater doubled in ten days, and they went off like chromos at a
picture auction.”

“Papa!” said Miss Gale severely, “I went to Bridgewater, or Bilgewater,
as you persist in calling it, and showed the people my pictures out
there, because I was invited to do so, and because I saw by their lawns
and gardens that they needed me. I had no thought of the material value
and sale of your old lots, I can assure you, and I don’t believe my
going made a particle of difference. If I had thought it possible, I
shouldn’t have gone.”

It was evident that Gale’s fond pride in his daughter grew with every
sentence.

“She’d deceive anybody in the world, except her old Daddy,” he
persisted. “Get your pictures, Johnnie, and let Mr. Chase see them.”

I hastened to assure Miss Gale that I should consider it a privilege to
look at her work, and she rose, leaving me with her father, whose eyes
followed her proudly. For myself, I was in a decidedly miscellaneous
condition, mentally. I could not permit myself even to hope that Gale
really intended to undertake the expedition I had proposed. Yet there
had been something about it all that suggested a sincere interest in my
plans, in spite of the fact of his rather boisterous and perhaps undue
tendency to levity. It seemed to me that his daughter, and his old-time
associate, Sturritt, had taken him seriously, and they must know his
moods better than I. At most I would not allow myself to do _more_ than
hope. I had waited so long—I could restrain the frenzy of joy in me a
little longer. One thing was assured. I was to sit at luncheon with
Edith Gale, and even should there be no voyage to the South, I might
hope to see her again, when from time to time I could make the excuse of
coming to her father with new sources of amusement. I reflected that I
would invent the most absurd propositions that human ingenuity could
devise, for Chauncey Gale to play with, if he only would let his
daughter take part in the merry pastime.

Gale, meantime, had turned to me, and was about to speak when Miss Gale
entered. She was accompanied by a stout, resolute-looking <DW52> woman,
bearing a large portfolio.

“Put it right down on the rug, Zar, against the chair, so.”

Miss Gale herself adjusted the heavy book, then seated herself
comfortably on the floor beside it. The servant withdrew. Gale slid over
to a low stool, and, half unconsciously, I slipped from my chair to a
position on the floor between them. We were like a group of children
around a toy book.

The cover of the portfolio was turned back and the first picture, a bit
of landscape in water color, was shown. I had no great technical
knowledge of art, but I could see at a glance that Miss Gale’s work was
of unusual quality. The admiration, at first expressed in words, soon
became the silence of unquestioned tribute. Yet I was not surprised that
Edith Gale should do this masterly work. What did surprise me was the
genuine appreciation of her father, as shown by his occasional comment.
Evidently the daughter’s ability had not been wholly due to the dead
mother. At the end of the portfolio there was a series of illustrations
for an old Yorkshire ballad.

“Daddy and I always sing this when folks will let us,” announced Miss
Gale, with an affected diffidence that made her all the more beautiful,
I thought.

“You can’t get away now till after lunch, Chase,” said Gale; “you’ve got
to stand it.”

Edith Gale had set the first of the series up before us, and sang the
opening lines of the ballad in a voice that might have come from the
middle strings of a harp. Then, at the refrain, there joined in a deep,
rich resonance that I could hardly realize proceeded from her father. I
came in at the end of the second stanza—feebly at first, but gaining in
courage until I sang with volume enough to have spoiled everything had I
not been more fortunate than usual and kept to the right key.

“Well,” said Gale, “what do you think? Do you think those pictures and
that singing of hers will convert the heathen?”

I looked at the wonderful girl, who was laughing and closing the
portfolio.

“They would convert me,” I said fervently, “to anything.”

Gale seemed to enjoy this enthusiasm.

“People mostly like us when they know us, eh, Johnnie?”

But Miss Gale was retiring with the portfolio. He turned to me.

“That’s a great girl,” he said. “The only piece of property but one that
I never wanted to part with. The other one was her mother. Johnnie came
just in time to take her place, and I don’t know what I’d’ a’ done if
she hadn’t. Being a mother to her kept me busy, and she’s been mother
and father and whole family to me. She’s kept me going straight for
about twenty-five years now, and is about the finest south-<DW72>
blue-grass addition that the Lord ever helped lay out. And she cares
more for her old daddy than for anybody else in the world. Her old daddy
and her pictures. She never saw a young man that she cared to look at
twice, unless he could do something, and then it was for his talents,
and not for him. When they fall in love with her she generally gets
tired of their paintings, or their music, or whatever it is, and they go
away. They all seem to do it, though. You’d be in love with her yourself
in a week, if you lingered about this ship. It’s in the air, and
everybody gets it. I wouldn’t say much about it, though, if it was me.
If we should go to the South Pole, you’d want to stay with the
expedition, and after we got out to sea you’d have some trouble getting
ashore again in case you didn’t find the ship comfortable. There’s
another young man that comes here. He’s got a scheme for——”

But Miss Gale re-entered at that moment. She had made some slight
changes in her toilet, and was more entrancing than ever. Her father had
been right, I thought, only he had named too long a period. He had said
“in a week.” His prophecy was already fulfilled.

“I say, Johnnie,” greeted Gale, “why wouldn’t our wireless telegraphy
scheme go well with this expedition, especially with the balloon part?
How about that, Chase? Would it fit in?”

“Perfectly, but Marconi seems to have it all in his own hands, as yet.”

“Not by a jug-full! Johnnie’s got a young man, I was just going to
mention him when she came in, a sort of portigee——”

“_Protégé Papa!_ Though he’s not that, either. He’s——”

“Oh, well, _protyshay_, then. Anyway, he’s got a system that beats
Macarony’s to death. I call this chap Macarony, too, because he’s
Italian, and his name is a good deal the same.”

“His name is Ferratoni, Papa, and the other isn’t Macaroni, either, but
Marconi. Papa never calls anything by its right name, if he can help
it,” she apologized. “He gets into dreadful trouble sometimes, too, and
I’m glad of it. He should be more particular.”

“All right, then, it’s Ferry—Ferry what? How is it again, Johnnie?”

“Fer-ra-toni.”

“Now we’ve got it. Oh, well, let’s compromise and call him Tony, for
short. Well, Tony’s got a system that does all that Macarony’s does, and
goes it one better. Obstructions in the way don’t seem to make much
difference, and you can use it with a telephone attachment instead of
a—a what do you call it—a knocker?”

“A sounder, Daddy.”

“A sounder, that’s it, instead of a sounder. We tried it here the other
day, and could talk to him over in the Tract building as well as if we’d
been connected with the central office. He’s perfecting it now for long
distance, and we might take him right along with us, and let him
experiment between the balloon and the ship. How’s that?”

“It would complete our plans perfectly,” I agreed, “if his system of
communication prove successful. But do you think he would care to go on
such a voyage?”

Gale looked at his daughter.

“Do you think he would go, Johnnie?” he asked, and I thought there was a
suggestion of teasing in his voice. Also, it seemed to me that there was
a little wave of confusion in Miss Gale’s face, though the slight added
color there may have been due to other causes.

“I—why, I think he might——” she began hesitatingly. “I think he would
consider it an opportunity. He is deeply interested in what he calls
chorded vibrations. Wireless telegraphy, or telephoning, is like that,
you know, but Mr. Ferratoni goes much farther. He attributes everything
to vibrations. He analyzes my poor little hobby until there’s nothing
left of it. He may be here to luncheon to-day, and you can talk with
him,” she added, and I thought the blush deepened.

Assuredly he would come to luncheon, and of a certainty he would go to
the South Pole, or anywhere that Edith Gale went, and would let him go.
It was too late now, however, for me to raise objections. My only
comfort lay in the memory of her father’s assurance that it was in their
talents, and not in her protégés themselves, that his daughter was
interested.

Still, I argued miserably, there must some day come a time—I was sure
she had blushed——

A cabin boy entered bearing a tray on which there was a card. He
presented it to Miss Gale.

“Mr. Ferratoni,” she said, glancing at it, and an instant later I saw in
the doorway a slender figure, surmounted by a beautiful beardless
face—the face of southern Italy—of a poet.

My heart sank, but I greeted him cordially, for I could not withstand
the beauty of his face and the magnetism of his glance. It seemed to me
that it was a foregone conclusion, so far as Miss Gale was concerned,
and then I suddenly realized that the South Pole without Edith Gale
would not be worth looking for. Even a whole warm Antarctic continent
would be a desolation more bleak than people had ever believed it. Yet I
would find it for her if I could—and then my reward—she had said I
should name it—it had been but a jest, of course——

I realized that Miss Gale was speaking.

“We were just talking of you, Mr. Ferratoni. We have a plan which we
think will interest you. Mr. Chase will talk to us about it during
luncheon.”




                                  VI.
                   WHERE ALL THINGS BECOME POSSIBLE.


We passed out into the dining saloon—a counterpart, I learned later, of
the dining-room in Mr. Gale’s former cottage at Hillcrest. We were
presently joined by a stout and grizzled man of perhaps sixty, with a
slight sinister obliquity in one eye. He was arrayed in a handsome blue
uniform, and was presented to me as Mr. Joseph Biffer, captain of the
Billowcrest. I was pleasantly surprised to see that Mr. Sturritt was
also to be with us. The customs on the Billowcrest, as I presently
learned, were quite democratic, and William Sturritt, though nominally
steward, remained the trusted friend and companion of Chauncey Gale, as
he had been for many years. It is true there was an officers’ mess, at
which both Mr. Sturritt and Captain Biffer usually preferred to dine,
but at the Admiral’s table (they had conferred the title of Admiral on
Gale) there was always a welcome for his officers, while on occasions
such as this they were often present by request. Gale and his daughter
were seated at opposite ends of the table, Ferratoni and myself next
Miss Gale, while Captain Biffer and Mr. Sturritt occupied the same
relative position to the Admiral.

The Admiral wasted no time in coming to the fun.

“Captain Biffer,” he said, “we want you to take us to the South Pole.”

Mr. Biffer continued the grim process of seasoning his soup for several
seconds without replying. Perhaps some rumor of the expedition had
already come to him. Then he fixed his sound eye severely on Gale, while
he withered the rest of us, and particularly myself, with the other.

“When do you want to start?” he asked.

There was that about Mr. Biffer’s tone and attitude which indicated, so
far as he was concerned, an entire lack of humor in the proposition.
Even Gale, I thought, seemed a trifle subdued as he answered:

“Oh, I don’t know; we’ll consider that after Mr. Chase has told us what
we are going to need to be ready. In three or four months, perhaps.”

Once more the deflected vision of Captain Biffer laid its scorn heavily
upon us.

“And get down there and stuck in the ice below Cape Horn about the
middle of March, just when their winter and six months’ night begins.”

It was a clean hit for the Captain, and I gave him credit. Gale was
clearly out of it for the time being, and looked at me helplessly. His
very dismay, however, encouraged me. A man must be in earnest, I
thought, to look like that. I hastened to his rescue.

“I have naturally considered the Antarctic solar conditions,” I said,
with some dignity, though I confess that with the Captain’s piercing
searchlight upon me, the latter was not easy to maintain. “I am aware
that their seasons are opposed to ours, and that the year at the poles
is divided into a day and a night of six months each.”

Gale, who had been regarding me anxiously, at this point relieved
himself in an undertone.

“Six months,” he murmured. “Think of going out to make a night of it in
a country like that! Oh, Lord, what is life without a latch-key?”

“I have considered these facts,” I repeated, “and while a period of
several months of semi-darkness and cold is not a cheering anticipation
to those accustomed to the more frequent recurrence of sunlight, I am
convinced that, under favorable conditions, it is not altogether a
hardship; also, that in the pleasant climate which I believe exists
about the earth’s axis, the extended interval of darkness and
semi-twilight would be still less disturbing, and may have been overcome
in a measure, or altogether, by the inhabitants there, through
artificial means.”

I could see that Chauncey Gale was reviving somewhat as I proceeded, and
this gave me courage to continue, in spite of the fact that the
Captain’s contempt was only too manifest. As for Mr. Sturritt, he was
non-committal, while Ferratoni appeared to have drifted off into a dream
of his own. But Edith Gale sustained me with the unshaken confidence in
her eyes, and my strength became as the strength of ten.

“As for the time of starting,” I continued——

“Wait,” interrupted Gale, “go over the whole scheme again for the
benefit of those who didn’t hear it before. Then we can consider ways
and means afterwards.”

Accordingly, and for the third time that day, I carefully reviewed my
theories and plans for the expedition. As I proceeded I observed that
Captain Biffer’s contempt softened into something akin to pity, while,
on the other hand, Chauncey Gale rapidly regained his buoyant
confidence.

“That’s where you come in, Bill,” he laughed, as I spoke of the balloon
car and its condensed stores.

Mr. Sturritt nodded eagerly.

“And you, Johnnie,” as I referred again to the possible inhabitants in
the undiscovered world.

“And Mr. Ferratoni is not to be left out,” answered Miss Gale. “Mr.
Chase says that a wireless telephone is the one thing needed to make his
plan perfect.”

“To keep the balloon in communication with the ship, in event of our
making the voyage overland would be of the greatest advantage,” I
admitted, “if it can be done.”

Ferratoni’s face flushed.

“Yes, oh, yes,” he said anxiously, “it can be done. It is the chance.”

“And would you be willing to go on a voyage like that, and leave behind
your opportunities of recognition and fortune?” I asked.

Ferratoni’s face grew even more beautiful.

“Fortune? Recognition?” He spoke musically, and his English was almost
perfect. “It is not those that I would care for. It is the pursuing of
the truth, the great Truth! Electricity—it is but one vibration. There
are yet many others—thought, life, soul! Wireless communication—the
answering of electric chords—it’s but a step toward the fact, the
proving of the Whole Fact. To-day we speak without wires across the
city. Later, we shall speak across the world. Still later, between the
worlds—perhaps even—yes, yes, I will go! I have but shown the little
step. I would have the time and place to continue. And then the new
world too—yes, oh, yes, I will go, of a certainty!”

A respectful silence had fallen upon the table. Chauncey Gale’s face
showed thoughtful interest. Mr. Biffer was evidently impressed. Me he
had regarded as a crazy land-lubber with fool notions of navigation. In
Ferratoni he acknowledged a man of science—a science he did not
understand and therefore regarded with reverence and awe. Edith Gale’s
face wore the exalted expression which always gave it its greatest
beauty. For myself, I had been far from unmoved by Ferratoni’s words. I
felt that it would be hard to feel jealousy for a man like that, and
still harder not to do so. Gale recovered first, and turned to me.

“What about the superintending of the balloon?” he asked. “Who have you
got for that?”

I knew as little of practical ballooning as of navigation, but as a boy
I had experimented in chemistry, and the manufacture of gases. More
lately I had done some reading, and I had ideas on the subject. I said
therefore, with becoming modesty, that I had made some study of
aeronautics and that, as the science had not yet progressed much beyond
the first principles of filling a bag with gas and waiting until the
wind was in the right quarter, I believed I might safely undertake to
oversee this feature of the enterprise, including the construction of
the boat-sledge-car combination.

“And I can take a hand in that, too,” said Gale.

“I’ve got a pretty good mechanical head myself; I’ve planned and built
about a million houses, first and last. Commuters say I can get more
closets and cubbyholes into a six-room cottage than anybody else could
set on the bare lot. I’ll take care of that boat. Now, how about the
time, Chase? When do we start?”

“I had thought,” I answered, “that it might require a year for
preparation. If we started a year from now, or a little later, we would
reach the Antarctics easily by the beginning of the day or summer
season, and might, I believe, hope to reach a desirable position at or
near the ice-barrier by the beginning of the winter night. During this
we would make every added preparation for the inland excursion to be
undertaken on the following summer——”

“Say, we’d be apt to get some frost on our pumpkins laying up against an
ice-wall through a six months’ night, wouldn’t we?” interrupted Gale.

I called attention to the comfort with which Nansen and his associates
had passed through an Arctic night with far fewer resources than we
should have on a vessel like the Billowcrest.

“Look here,” said Gale, “what’s the use of waiting a year? Why not go
_this_ year?”

“Why,” I suggested, “we could hardly get ready. There will be food
supplies to get together, instruments, implements, the balloon, and then
the engaging of such scientists as you might wish to take along——”

“Scientists,” interrupted Gale, “what kind?”

“Well, perhaps a meteorologist, a geologist, an ornithologist——”

“See here, what are all those things? What are they for?”

“To observe and record conditions,” I said. “An ornithologist, for
instance, would classify and name any new birds that we might find in
the Southern Hemisphere, and an——”

“Hold on,” interrupted Gale, “we don’t want any of that yet. We’ll
discover the country first. We’ve got science enough right here to do
that, I guess, if anybody has. Besides I’m a pretty good hand at naming
things myself, and if we find any strange animals or birds wandering
about down there without titles, I’ll just give ’em some.”

“Oh, Papa,” laughed Miss Gale.

“Why, yes, of course; and now as to those other things. Mr. Sturritt
here can give an order in five minutes for enough provision to last ten
years, and have it on board in twenty-four hours. Whatever instruments
and material you need for your balloon and telephone machine can be had
about as quick, I’m thinking, and if we need any mechanics of any kind I
can put my finger on a hundred of them to-morrow. If we’ve got to lay up
six months against an ice-wall we’ll want something to do, and will have
time enough to build things to fit the case in hand. What I want to know
is, if we can be ready to start from here in a week, so’s we’ll miss
this winter up here and get safe in the arms of that ice-wall before
winter sets in down there! I’m simply pining to get up against that two
thousand foot ice-bluff, and I don’t want to wait a year to do it. What
do _you_ say, Bill, can we be ready to start from here in a week?”

My heart sank. It was but a huge joke then, after all, and this was his
way out of it. But Sturritt, who knew him, was taking it seriously.

“Yes—that is—why certainly, in—er—three days!” he said with nervous
haste.

“I can be ready to-morrow,” said Ferratoni, quietly.

“I am ready to start to-night,” said Edith Gale.

I hastened to add that the materials needed for the balloon could
doubtless be procured without delay.

“And you, Biffer?” Gale turned to the Captain who had been a silent
unprotesting martyr during this proceeding. “Are you ready to start in a
week for the South Pole?”

“Admiral,” said the Captain solemnly, and making a sincere effort to fix
him with both eyes at once, “you own this boat and I’m hired to sail it.
I don’t believe in no South Pole, but if there _is_ one, I don’t know of
a better place for a crowd like this. And if you give the order to go to
the South Pole, I’ll _take_ you to the South Pole, and sail off into
space when we get there, if you say so!”

Mr. Biffer’s remarks were greeted with applause and a round of merriment
in which the Captain paid himself the tribute of joining.

“We’ll have the balloon for navigating space, Captain Biffer,” said
Edith Gale.

“And my opinion is that we’ll need it, ma’am, if we ever get back.”

But amid the now general enthusiasm Chauncey Gale had sprung to his
feet. There was a flush of excitement on his full handsome face, and
when he spoke there was a ring of decision in his voice.

“Everybody in favor of starting a week from to-day, for the South Pole,
stand up!” he said.

There was a universal scramble. Captain Biffer was first on his feet.
Gale seized a glass of wine and holding it high above his head,
continued:

“To the Great Billowcrest Expedition! Missionary work for Johnnie;
electricity for Ferratoni; balloons for Chase; tablets for Bill; the
ship for the Captain; homes and firesides for me, and _the South Pole
for us all_!”




                                  VII.
   I LEARN THE WAY OF THE SEA, AND ENTER MORE FULLY INTO MY HERITAGE.


The sun lifting higher above Long Island touched the spray under the bow
and turned it into a little rainbow that traveled on ahead. I leaned far
out to watch this pleasant omen of fortune, endeavoring meanwhile to
realize something of the situation, now that we were finally under way
and the years of youth and waiting, of empty dreams and disappointments,
lay all behind.

It had been a week to be remembered. A whirl of racing from ship to
shop, and from shop to factory—of urging and beseeching on my part, of
excuses and protestations on the part of tradesmen and manufacturers. I
had been almost despairing at last in the matter of material for the
balloon bag, when one morning—it was the fourth day—I heard of a very
large completed balloon, made to order for an aeronaut whose old one had
missed connection with it by one day. When they had come to deliver it,
the undertaker was just driving off, and the aeronaut had made his
farewell ascension.

I found it to be of really enormous proportions—one of the largest ever
manufactured, I was told—so large, in fact, that the maker was as glad
to part with it as I was to secure it.

My associates also had been somewhat occupied. Mr. Sturritt’s delivery
teams had been lined up on the Billowcrest dock from morning till night,
unloading provisions in various forms, enough it would seem for an army.
Ferratoni had laid in his cells, coils, transmitters, detectors and
heaven only knows what besides, while Miss Gale had undertaken to
supply, in addition to her own requirements, the warm clothing and
bedding likely to be needed for an Antarctic winter.

As for Chauncey Gale, he had sat all day at a little table on the
afterdeck and signed checks; checks, many of them, that would have
wrecked my former commercial venture at any time during the ten years of
its existence; and he whistled as he did it, and called out words of
comfort to Captain Biffer, who, with a fierce eye on each end of the
vessel, strode up and down where boxes, barrels, rolls, rope, chains,
etc., were piled or still coming over the side—rending the Second
Commandment into orders and admonitions that would have turned a
clergyman gray in a night.

Now it was all over. The weird maelstrom of whirling days and nights
that had added unreality to what was already dreamlike and impossible,
had subsided. We were going down the harbor under full sail. Leaving the
others still at breakfast, I had come out here alone to find myself.

I could not grasp it at all. The little farm boy who in the night had
wakened and cried for the sea, going back to it, at last. The youth who
had carried into manhood the fancy of a fair unknown land, and of one
day sailing away to the South to find it, entering suddenly into an
Aladdin-like realization of his dreams. It seemed to me that every
vessel in the harbor ought to be decorated and firing salutes—that every
soul of the vast city ought to be waving us adieu.

To be sure, we hadn’t told anybody. Gale was rather down on the papers,
and we had left so suddenly that they had little chance to find out what
we were doing. One of them—that of the millionaire editor—got an inkling
of it in some way, and in its Sunday Magazine of two days before had
filled a page with strange vagaries purporting to be our plans, and
disturbing pictures of the lands and people we expected to discover. But
as no one ever believes anything printed in a Sunday newspaper, even
when backed up by sworn statements, these things appeared to have passed
unnoticed. There had been one exception, however; my scientist of the
snark and flipper, who had appeared on Monday morning to enter his
promised protest.

He came at a busy time. About a hundred teams were backing into each
other on the dock, whence arose a medley of unjoyous execration, and a
line of men were waiting at Gale’s little table for checks. It was this
auspicious moment that my scientist selected for his mission. Captain
Biffer, to whom he first appealed, acknowledged him with an observation
which no magazine would print, and waved him toward Gale.

“There’s the man _you_ want,” he snorted, “that man over there giving
his money away.”

Chauncey Gale was at that moment engaged in constructing a check that
ran well into four figures. He paused, however, with his hand on the way
to the ink-bottle and listened for a moment with proper respect. Then he
said, quite serenely:

“I wonder if you couldn’t conveniently go to hell for about three years.
Perhaps by then I’ll have time to listen to you. You notice we’re pretty
busy, this morning.”

I smiled now, recalling how the human seal had flopped backwards over a
box of cod-fish and narrowly missed pitching overboard in his anxiety to
get ashore. There had been no further interference, and no offered
encouragement. We were leaving it all behind, now; the narrow, busy,
indifferent world. There were no salutes, and if there were any flags,
or waving, I did not see them. Nobody had been down to see us off, and
impudent tugs steamed by and splashed water at us, just as if we were
going out for a day’s sail, and would be back in time for the roof
gardens.

Somewhat later I was joined by Edith Gale. It is customary to say “as
fresh as the morning,” when referring to a fair woman at such a time,
but, rare as the morning was, I could not have paid it a finer tribute
than to have compared it to Edith Gale.

She came forward and leaned over at the other side of the bow-sprit.

“How pretty the little rainbow is this morning,” she said, looking down.

“Yes, I have been accepting it as an omen of success.”

Edith Gale laughed.

“I hope it doesn’t mean that we are pursuing a rainbow. We never quite
capture it, you see.”

“I have been called a rainbow chaser all my life,” I answered, a little
sadly.

“I suppose there is always some rainbow just ahead of us all,” she
mused. “Even if we find the South Pole, and all the things we expect
there, then something else will come to wish for and look forward to.”

“I am sure of it,” I answered fervently, “I——”

Her father’s warning recurred to me opportunely. We were not yet out of
the harbor, and I did not wish to be set ashore at Sandy Hook.

“There is the ocean,” she said presently, “the Atlantic Ocean. How I
love it!”

We had already caught the slight swell from the sea. The added
exhilaration of it filled me with exultant joy. I stood up and drew in a
deep breath of the salt ambrosia.

“Oh,” I said, “it is wine—nectar! It is my birthright—I have always
known that I should come back to it, some day!”

Instinctively we turned for a last look at the harbor we were leaving.
Farther down the deck Ferratoni was pointing out some landmark to
Chauncey Gale, while from the bridge Captain Biffer was taking a silent
and solemn farewell of the sky-scrapers of Manhattan. Mr. Sturritt
presently came out of the cabin, beaming, and looked out to sea. The
land had no further attraction for him. Our provision and the materials
for his tablets were safely on board.

We faced seaward again. We were through the Narrows now, and the swell
was much stronger, a long steady swing. I heard the Captain give a word
of command to the helmsman and noticed that we were turning to the
southward. A shoreless expanse of ocean lay ahead.

“I should think all this would appear like a dream to you,” said Edith
Gale. “Aren’t you afraid you’ll wake up?”

“I have been trying to find something to convince me that I _am_ awake,”
I said.

“How splendid it was that Papa took up with your plans. You know he has
all sorts of things brought to him. A man came to him not long ago with
some scheme for buying stocks that he said would pay a hundred per cent.
a week on the investment. Papa gave him a dollar, and told him that if
his theory was correct he didn’t need any partner, for the dollar would
make him rich in six months.”

The pitch of the vessel became stronger. Then, too, it was not always
regular. Sometimes it swung off a bit to one side, and just when I felt
that it ought to lift us buoyantly and sustainingly it would disappoint
me by sinking away beneath us—falling down-hill, as it were—or it would
change its mind at the last minute and conclude to fall down some other
hill, or perhaps give up the notion altogether. I grew discontented and
wished it wouldn’t do these things. There was a bit of tarred lashing on
the bow-sprit near us. In the harbor the smell of it had been fine and
inspiring, but it did not attract me any more. It had become rather
obnoxious, in fact, and I moved a little to one side to avoid it.
Neither did I feel inclined to laugh at Edith Gale’s story. Somehow it
did not seem altogether in good taste. Perhaps she was disappointed, for
she referred to my own plans.

“And to think that Papa should believe in you from the start. He said he
had never seen any one so much in earnest about anything as you were in
your determination to find the South Pole.”

“Yes—oh, yes,” I admitted weakly, “I was in earnest, of course—but——”

The ship gave a peculiar roll and the salt spray came flying up from
below. Some of it got into my mouth. It took away any remaining interest
I may have had in Miss Gale’s conversation. I did not care for the South
Pole, either, and the rainbow of promise had become a mockery. I
remembered a particularly steady bit of rock in one of my father’s
meadows. As a child this rock had been the ship on which I had voyaged
through billowing seas of grass. I would have been willing now to give
all my interest in both poles, the ship, and even in Miss Gale herself,
to cruise once more for five minutes on that rock.

Edith Gale wiped the water from her own face, laughing merrily.

“I love the sea spray,” she said gaily, “can you taste the gold in it?”

I shook my head miserably.

“A man came to Papa, once, with a scheme to extract the gold from it,”
she ran on. “Papa told him that there was so much water that he guessed
he’d wait till the patent on the process became public, or ran out. Do
you suppose there really is gold in it?”

I could not answer immediately.

“Do you suppose there _is_?” she repeated, and I thought there was a
note of injury in her voice.

“Oh, I don’t know,” I groaned wretchedly, “but I know what _will_ be
there, pretty soon, if this ship doesn’t stand still!”

She turned a startled face toward me. She said afterwards that all the
colors of the ocean were reflected in mine. She had been ready to laugh
at first, but her expression became one of compassion.

“Oh,” she said, “I never thought, I am such a good sailor—and the bow is
the very worst place for that. You must go back amid-ships. You are
seasick—I am sure of it!”

“So am I,” I gasped, “and I am also sure, now, that I am not dreaming!”

I stumbled feebly back to a steamer-chair and looked out on the horizon
that one instant sank far below the rail, and the next, lifted as far
above it. Between lay the tossing sea—my heritage. That which my
ancestors had lived and died for. I did not blame them for dying—I was
willing to do that, myself. Chauncey Gale came along just then.

“I’ve got a great scheme for the balloon boat,” he began, “a combination
wind and water propeller. Ferratoni can supply the power, and——”

He caught my expression just then and the words died in his throat.

“Hello,” he laughed, “you’ve got ’em, haven’t you? Storm last week left
it a little rough. Do you always get sick this way at sea?”

“I—yes—I don’t know. It—it’s my first experience.”

Gale regarded me with an amazement that was akin to respect.

“Oh, Lord!” he gasped. “Never been to sea before and planned a trip to
the South Pole! What’s a bluff without a show-down!”

“Do you think I’ll be like this all the way?” I asked.

“Oh, pshaw! No! I’ll have Bill give you some of his tablets. You’ll be
all right enough by lunch time.”

The suggestion of a food tablet at this particular time was the last
thing needed. I went hastily below.

Gale’s prediction was not quite realized. I was absent from luncheon,
but before evening the spirit of my ancestors rose within me—perhaps
because there was nothing else left for that purpose—and I ascended to
the dinner table.

“Well, you’ve concluded that this voyage is no dream, have you?” greeted
Gale.

“A good many more will come to that conclusion before it’s over,”
growled Captain Biffer, who was present.

Across the table, the place of Ferratoni was vacant. Edith Gale,
radiant, beamed upon me. I could afford to laugh, now, and did so.

And thus it was I came fully into my heritage.




                                 VIII.
                     THE HALCYON WAY TO THE SOUTH.


A cold plunge next morning in water combed up from the very bottom of
the sea was my final baptismal ceremony. Fully restored I hastened on
deck. Chauncey and Edith Gale were already there, walking briskly up and
down, and I joined in the joyous march. A faint violet bank showed on
the western horizon. Looking through a glass I could see that it was
solid and unchanging in outline. It was land, they explained; we were
off Cape Charles, and would pass Hatteras during the afternoon. I
remembered an account in my old Fifth Reader of “The Last Cruise of the
Monitor.” It had been always my favorite selection in the reading class.
It gave me a curious feeling now to know that we were soon to pass over
the waters where the sturdy little fighter had gone down. However, I had
no longer a sense of unreality in my surroundings. I had been too
thoroughly waked up the day before.

We were presently joined by Ferratoni—spiritually pale, but triumphant.
I was not sorry, for I could not help caring for the man, and it seemed
to me that after all his devotion to Edith Gale might be rather a
tribute to an ideal than a genuine passion of the heart. We ascended to
the bridge where we found the First Officer on watch. His name was
Larkins—Terence Larkins—a sturdy Newfoundlander of forty, whose life
ashore had been limited to childhood only—a period now lost in the
cloudland of myth and fable. He had no prejudices concerning our
destination. He was ready at any moment to go anywhere that the sea
touched, and to maintain a pleasant discourse at any stage of the
journey. He was big and blond, with a touch of ancestry in his speech
and a proper disregard of facts—a merry Munchausen of the sea. He
saluted as we approached, and pointed shoreward.

“Farrmers’ day ashore,” he said, with a serious air. “All the farrmers
come to the beach to-day for their annual shwim.”

“Is this the day?” I asked, looking where he pointed. “I’ve heard of it,
but I had forgotten the date.”

“Sure it is, man; an’ can’t ye see thim over there, dhriving down to the
beach with their teams? An’ thim fellies puttin’ up the limonade
shtands, an’ merry-go-rounds fer the farrmer lads an’ their
shweetheartses?”

I reached for the glass and took a long look. The solid purple wall was
as solid and purple as it had been before.

“No, really, Mr. Larkins,” I admitted, “I do not.”

“Let _me_ look, Larkins,” said Gale.

He leveled the glass and began to testify.

“Why, of course! And there’s a new addition laid out just below, and a
little sign stuck up with—let me see—M-A-R-S-H-S-I-D-E on it. Well,
that’s a funny name for an addition, ‘Marshside!’”

Edith Gale seized the glass. After a hasty glance she declared:

“Of course Mr. Chase couldn’t see anything! And you and Mr. Larkins
didn’t, either.”

Ferratoni who had been gazing through another glass also shook his head.
Chauncey Gale and Mr. Larkins joined in a hearty laugh at our expense.

“Oh, now,” consoled the latter, “it’s because yer eyes are not thrained
to lookin’ over the sea. By the time ye get back from the South Pole
they’ll be opened to a great many things.”

There came the summons to breakfast and we went below—certainly with no
reluctance on my part, this time.

And now passed beautiful days; glorious shipboard days to which the
slight uncertainty of a rival’s relative position gave only added zest.
Ferratoni, it is true, may have had somewhat different views in this
matter. He was obliged to spend the greater part of his time with Gale
in the modeling of the new electrical propelling apparatus, which the
latter was perfecting for the balloon. In the matter of constructive
detail my assistance was not highly regarded by Gale who had really a
mechanical turn of mind, as the Billowcrest itself proved; for whatever
may have been the vessel’s faults from the seaman’s standpoint it was
certainly all that a landsman could desire. Below stairs there was a
splendidly appointed workshop, and the engineers on the Billowcrest were
also skilled workers in wood and metals. The boat-car for the
Cloudcrest, as we had decided to name the balloon, was a matter of daily
discussion among us all, but at the point of technical intricacy I was
promptly relieved for the good of all concerned.

It was but natural, therefore, that I should be a good deal in Edith
Gale’s company. Also that I should feel a gentle solicitude for
Ferratoni—a sweet soul whom all presently grew to love; it seemed too
bad that he should not come in for his full share of paradise. My own
fancies had been called poetic, but I realized daily that Ferratoni
lived in a world which to me could be never more than borderland. And
this I hoped consoled him somewhat for what he was missing by tinkering
away his days with Gale on a dynamo for my balloon car, while I was
revelling in the seventh delight of the daughter’s company, above
stairs.

We cared for pretty much the same things. We liked to walk up and down
the decks, discussing the books we had read, the pictures we had seen,
and the purpose and possibilities of art.

            “Beauty, the secret of the universe,
            The thought that gives the soul eternal peace.”

was the quotation most frequently on her lips.

She had seen so much more of the world and its glories than I, and her
understanding of nature was a marvel to me. She taught me to see colors
that I had been blind to before. Sometimes she brought up her materials
and sketched, while I looked on and loved her. When she would let me I
photographed her. One day I ventured to show her some verses that I had
written, and the fact that she really seemed to care for them gave me a
higher opinion of us both.

And the sea racing past made a fine accompaniment to these pleasant
things. She liked to watch the surge along the side and listen to its
music. So did I, and often together we leaned over the rail to watch and
hear it rush by.

We discussed metaphysics, and talked of life, and love, and death.
Remembering Chauncey Gale’s advice, I was careful to avoid the personal
note at such times. Ferratoni had touched now and then upon his theories
in these matters, and these suggested speculations of our own. I was not
displeased to find that Edith Gale did not quite accord with, or perhaps
altogether grasp, his filmy philosophies. I preferred that she should be
less ethereal—what she was, in fact—a splendid reality of flesh and
blood and soul, with a love of all the joys of earth and sky. The clouds
scudding across the blue, the white joy of the sunlit sails, the smash
of the spray over the bow, a merry game of shuffle-board, and even
hop-scotch—these things gave her life and sustenance—and then, at the
end of the day, came the good dinner, and the untroubled sleep of a
healthy child.




                                  IX.
                        ADMONITION AND COUNSEL.


Our progress southward was hurried. We had touched at Charleston for a
full supply of coal, but we were sailing under canvas only. It was still
bleak winter below Cape Horn, and we did not wish to enter those somber
seas before November, the beginning of the Antarctic spring.

Sometimes Edith Gale and I drew steamer chairs to the extreme bow of the
boat, and looking away to the horizon, imagined the land of our quest
lying just beyond. At night, from this point, we watched the new
constellations of the tropics rising from the sea, and those of the
North falling back, behind us.

Chauncey Gale and Ferratoni frequently joined us, and at times I was
constrained through courtesy to leave Ferratoni and Edith Gale together.
Perhaps it was not quite wise—the stars and sea form a dangerous
combination to a man like Ferratoni.

After one such evening I was taking a morning constitutional on the deck
forward when I saw a female figure emerge from the cabin. Edith Gale had
often joined me in these walks, but it was not she. Neither was it our
stewardess—a brawny, non-committal Scotch woman, of whom Mr. Sturritt,
though her superior in rank, stood in wholesome awe. It proved to be
Miss Gale’s maid and former nurse, the stout <DW52> woman, Zarelda, or
Zar, as she was commonly called. Miss Gale had long since told me of
some of the peculiar sayings and eccentricities of this privileged
person, but thus far my interest in her had been rather casual. Now,
however, she planted herself at one end of my promenade and sternly
faced my approach. I bade her a respectful and even engaging “good
morning” as I came on, but the severity of her features did not relax.
She nodded ominously, and proceeded to open fire.

“Look heah,” she demanded, “I wan’ know wheah you gwine wid dis ship?”

“Why, down to the Antarctics,” I said winningly. “I thought everybody
knew that.”

I felt a sense of relief in being able to answer so readily. It seemed I
was not quite through, however.

“Yes, down to Aunt Ar’tics!” she snorted, “I should say down to Aunt
Ar’tics! I like to know whose kinfolks dat Aunt Ar’tics is, anyway! I
ain’ nevah heard o’ none o’ Mistah Gale’s people by dat name, an’ if she
some o’ yo’ po’ relation, I don’ see what foh _we_-all mus’ go trailin’
off down to de mos’ Godforlonesomest spot on dis earth, to visit in de
dead o’ wintah. An’ what my Miss Edith goin’ foh, anyway? What my Miss
Edith got to do wid yo’ old Aunt Ar’tics, dat’s what I wan’ to know?
Humph! moah antics dan Ar’tics—dat’s what I think!”

My emotions during this assault had been rather conflicting, but I
managed to maintain a proper degree of calmness.

“Why,” I said gravely, “this ‘Antarctics’ bears a relationship to us
all—to the whole world, in fact.”

I rather prided myself on the cleverness of this rejoinder, but it
appeared after all to have been rather poorly thought out.

“Dat’s enough! Dat settles it,” she exploded. “Now I know mighty well
dey ain’ no sech pussun. Kinfolks to de whole worl’. Look heah, me an’
my Miss Edith has jes’ been deceptified long enough! I know wheah you
gwine wid dis boat! You gwine to de Souf Pole—dat’s wheah you gwine! I
done heah de Cap’n say so las’ night, an’ dat when he got dar he gwine
to sail her off into space wid de whole kit an’ possum of us! I know
mighty well somp’n gone wrong when I put Miss Edith to baid. She ain’
said two words, an’ befoah dat she been mighty chipper de whole trip. I
didn’t know what it was, an’ I set an’ hol’ her han’ an’ sing to her,
an’ it seem like she ain’ _nevah_ goin’ to sleep. But bimeby when I slip
up on deck a li’l’, to look at de sky, I heah de Cap’n an’ Mistah
Lahkins argifyin’ up on de bridge, an’ I heah de Cap’n say dat we goin’
to de Souf Pole an’, ’scusin’ de libe’ty, sah, dat you gone plum crazy
on de subjec’, and dat you got de Admiral an’ Mistah Macarony an’ Mistah
Sturritt all crazy, laikewise; an’ dat he gwine to sail you-all to de
Souf Pole, case dat wheah you-all b’long, an’ dat you-all nevah get
home, case when he get dere he gwine straight off into space wid de
ship, an’ de whole caboodle in it. An’ den right away, I knowed what’s
de mattah wid my Miss Edith. I knowed she been up dar a-hearin’ somp’n,
too. An’ I make up my min’, right den an’ dar, dat me an’ my Miss Edith
ain’ gwine. I like to see me an’ my Miss Edith flyin’ off into space,
an’ us wid no wings yit, an’ fallin’ down to de bottomless pit an’ lake
o’ fiah! Humph! We’s gwine de other way, we is!”

She hesitated a moment for breath, and I took advantage of the recess.

“What did Mr. Larkins say about it?” I asked.

“Mistah Lahkins! Humph, Mistah Lahkins! What he always say? He jes’
laugh an’ say dat de Souf Pole ’bout de onliest stick o’ timbah he ain’
tie up to yit, but he reckon dat it strong enough to hol’ us f’m gwine
off into space. Anyway, he willin’ to take chances wid de res’. ‘An’ de
Cap’n say, ‘Dat’s all right, same here,’ but dat de bosen, Frenchy, been
talkin’ ’roun’ ’<DW41> de sailors, an’ dat some get mighty oneasy an’ wan’
to be put ashoah. An’ dat’s what _I_ want. I wan’ me an’ my Miss Edith
put ashoah. Den if you-all _mus’_ go on aftah de Souf Pole, why jes’
_go_, and leave me an’ my Miss Edith to go back home; an’ nex’ time tell
folks wheah you gwine, an’ not make out like you takin’ all dis
perwision down to some po’ kinfolks dat everybody related to, an’ nobody
don’t know about.”

There was another brief intermission. The incident was entertaining
enough, but there was a grave note in it as well. In the bosen, Frenchy,
I recognized the sailor who on the first day had barred my entrance to
the Billowcrest. I recalled my unfavorable impression of the man. He
would be altogether the one, I thought, to stir up discontent among the
sailors—an unpleasant prospect.

“Please, sah, won’t you put me an’ my Miss Edith ashoah, sah?” In my
more serious consideration I had temporarily forgotten Zar’s presence.
She had believed me hesitating, perhaps, and had adopted a persuasive
tone in consequence. “Miss Edith mighty sad las’ night,” she added, “an’
I know you don’ want dat po’ gal to go spillin’ off into space like a
lil’ robin when he nes’ break!”

“Not for the South Pole, Antarctics, and the whole world, Zar!” I said
with a fervency that made the woman suddenly regard me with a new
interest. There was a rustle behind her, and Edith Gale stepped out on
deck. “Here is Miss Gale to speak for herself,” I added, with some
confusion.

“What’s the matter, Zar? What do you want of Mr. Chase?”

“I want him to put we ’uns ashoah,” began the old woman. “I tol’ him we
done foun’ out about gwine to de Souf Pole, an’ dat you an’ me wan’ to
get off right heah, an’ go ashoah.”

“But I don’t want to get off, Zar. I’ve known all along where we are
going. I _want_ to go to the South Pole with—with Papa, and we’re going
to bring it back with us.”

Zar regarded her mistress a moment in silence. Then she said in a voice
of grave wonderment:

“I wish you tell me what dat Paw of yours gwine to do wid dat Souf Pole
when he gits it? Ain’ he got money ’nuff already? Anyhow, who gwine to
buy dat pole? An’ how dey gwine know hit’s de sho nuff Souf Pole when
dey sees hit? What’s to hender us gwine ’shoah right heah, an’ hackin’
down any ole pole, an’ gwine home again widout any moah foolishness?
Ain’ none dem folks up in New York gwine know de diff’ence!”

“Why, Zar,” laughed Miss Gale, “and you such a good church member!”

“Well, den, if yo’ Paw boun’ to go aftah de sho’ nuff pole, let him go,
but don’ _you_ go. You cain’t he’p him any!”

“But, Zar, you know I wouldn’t leave Papa. I never could.”

The old woman tossed her head.

“Humph! Bettah not be too suah!” She regarded me with a fierceness that
somehow warmed me to the soul. “Dey ain’ no man livin’ I’d go to de Souf
Pole foh,” she concluded, and with this final shot she disappeared, and
went rumbling down the companion-way, “no, sah, not even if I could be
wid him all de way an’ back again.”

“See, there’s a vessel,” said Edith Gale. “Bring the glass, please, and
let’s try to make her out.”

I hastened to obey, though with no great interest in the result. The
tropics and distant vessels had been wonderfully fascinating to me, but
just at this moment I was dwelling fondly on Zar’s parting salute.

A little later she sought me again.

“Look heah,” she counselled solemnly, “you turn dis ship right ’round,
now, an’ go back home. You go off down dar wid my Miss Edith, an’ bofe
die an’ get all froze stiff, an’ den what good is you to each other, I
like to know? What good is you?”

Zar had meant this for remonstrance and admonition, but I was her sworn
friend and champion from that moment.

Chauncey Gale found me staring off at the horizon and building a fair
castle in which the South Pole had no part.

“Chase,” he said, “don’t you make a mistake, too, and forget what I told
you about Johnnie.”

The abruptness of it startled me a bit, but there was a quality in his
voice that called for confidence and sincerity.

“Thank you, Mr. Gale, and—and I believe you spoke just in time.”

“I had my suspicions of it,” he admitted. “Tony got his medicine last
night, I guess.”

“Oh!” I had started a bit, and Zar’s report of Miss Gale’s depression
took on a new meaning.

“Yes, he’s no good this morning. He got all tangled up on his dynamo and
we had an explosion that nearly set the ship afire. Then he went off
half crying and I haven’t seen him since. I guess he wishes himself
ashore, now, but wishin’ won’t do any good. He might get a message there
all right, but he’s got to have something more than vibrations to get
himself there. You see this ain’t any matrimonial excursion. We ain’t
got any preacher along, and Biff’s license don’t cover that sort of a
splice. Emory’s got a doctor’s diploma, but that wouldn’t fit the case,
either.”

Mr. Emory was the Second Officer of the Billowcrest—a quiet, unobtrusive
man whose love for the sea had led him back to it through devious ways.
A runaway cabin boy, he had returned home in early manhood to become a
country doctor, a naval hospital surgeon, a ship’s doctor and officer by
turns, and was now serving us in the double capacity of the last two.

“Anyway,” concluded Gale, “we’ve got the South Pole on hand, and I’m in
favor of taking things in their turn. You can’t afford to get in
Macarony’s fix just now. We’ll need you when we get down there below the
Horn. Besides we’re a long ways from shore, and the water here’s full of
sharks.”

The last was certainly true. A black knife-like fin at that instant cut
the water below us, and the swish of a steel-like tail as it disappeared
made me shudder.

“That chap seems to be following us,” commented Gale, “they say it means
a death aboard, but I think it’s more likely he’s after the garbage.
’Twouldn’t be a good time to swim, would it?”

He walked away and left me leaning over the rail. I thought his advice
kindly, on the whole encouraging, and made up my mind to remember it. I
wondered if Ferratoni had really spoken to Edith Gale. “Poor fellow,” I
thought, “it must have been the glamour of the tropic night that made
his ideal seem real to him for the moment.” And this I still believe to
have been the case; but what it was he said that night to Edith Gale, or
just what she replied, I shall never know.




                                   X.
              CAPTAIN BIFFER IS ASSISTED BY THE PAMPEIRO.


Southward, and still southward.

We crossed the equator under light steam, for there was no wind and it
was too warm to lie becalmed, even in that mystical, lotus-breathing
sea.

Our world was turned around, now. We were going back to the year’s
beginning, and springtime lay at the end of our bow-sprit. The Big
Dipper and the North Star were ours no longer; the Southern Cross had
become our beacon and our hope. The sun and moon were still with us, but
even these had fallen behind and it was to the northward now that we
turned for noonday.

Gradually the glorious sunsets of the lower tropics faded into a
semblance of those we had known in our own land. It was no longer quite
comfortable on deck without wraps. An April quality had come into the
air, and we grew presently to realize that we were entering rapidly into
what was, to us, the curious anomaly of an October spring.

To me it was all pure enjoyment. It seemed that I could never look at
the sea enough, and often I got Edith Gale to help me. And Ferratoni
too, sometimes, for with the cooler weather and more temperate skies he
had become quite himself again.

The first frost in the air seemed a glacial feeling to us, and set us to
talking with renewed interest of the Far South and the lands and peoples
we had undertaken to discover. I felt sure we were extravagant in some
of our expectations. The tales we had read led us to hope for marvels in
the way of mechanical progress, and we treated ourselves to flying
machines and heaven only knows what other luxuries. In the end, I
discouraged flying machines. I said that if these were a fact with the
Antarcticans, they would have come to us long since. I said also that we
must not build our anticipations too big, but base everything on calm
reason and sound logic. It was more than possible, I admitted, that the
Antarcticans had made some advancements in mechanism that were unknown
to us, but on the whole I thought we would hold our own at the next
world’s exhibition.

It had been Chauncey Gale’s intention to touch at one of the large South
American ports for a little holiday, and to procure a few articles
needed in the construction department below stairs. This idea, however,
was now discouraged by the officers, who believed that a number if not
all of the crew would desert the ship at the first opportunity.

“Why not let them go?” I had asked, when we were talking the matter
over, “and ship a new crew?”

Into the Captain’s off eye there came the twist of indifferent scorn
usually accorded to my suggestions.

“Yes,” he growled, “and get a gang from some crimp who would load ’em
onto us dead drunk, to cut our throats as soon as they got sober. I know
South American crews—I’ve helped kill some of ’em—I don’t want any
more.”

I was silent. I didn’t know what a crimp was, and I wouldn’t have asked
for considerable. I have since learned that he is an unreliable person;
a bad man, who sells worse whisky over a disreputable bar, from which he
unloads on sea-captains anything human, and drunk enough to stand the
operation. His place is a sort of clearing house, and the crimp has a
syndicate or trust, as it were, with the captain at his mercy.

We altered our plans, therefore, and turned our course more directly
southward, toward the Falkland Islands. We were off the River de la
Plata at the time, sailing leisurely along under a blue sky, with the
fair weather that had followed us most of the way from New York. The
sailors had expected we would put into Rio Janeiro or one of the ports
farther down, but now that we had passed below Montevideo and were
standing out to sea, they knew we were not to touch land again.

I was leaning over the rail after the interview in the cabin, puzzling
about crimps, and looking at the shark—or one just like him—who still
followed us, when I heard Mr. Emory, who was on watch, order the men up
into the shrouds to shorten sail. I did not see why this should be done,
for the sky was blue, dotted here and there with small woolly clouds
that showed only a tendency to skurry about a little, like frisking
lambs. Perhaps the men didn’t understand, either, for the bosen,
Frenchy, blew his whistle presently and they left their work about half
finished, and came down. Then they gathered in a group at the bow and I
saw Mr. Emory go forward and talk earnestly to Frenchy, who seemed
excited and gesticulated at the men, the cabin, himself and the world in
general. Mr. Emory left him after a few moments and disappeared into the
cabin, where I knew the Captain and Edith Gale were matched in a rubber
of whist against the Admiral and Ferratoni, who had been coerced into
learning the game.

I left my place at the ship’s side. I did not believe in the old shark
superstition, and I had little respect for a creature that would follow
a ship thirty-five hundred miles for table-scraps when he could get a
fish dinner any time for the trouble of catching it. I did want to know
about the men, though—why they had been taking in sail, and why they had
quit and gathered in a group over the forecastle. Mr. Emory was talking
to Captain Biffer when I came in.

“They refuse to obey orders,” he was saying, “unless we turn around and
put into Montevideo. They claim they need more clothing for the cold
weather south. The sky looks rather queer, and I set them to reefing
down so’s to be ready for one of those Pampeiros that Mr. Larkins says
come up in a minute down here. When they got about half through, Frenchy
stopped them. They’re out forward, now.”

“Did you tell them we had plenty of warm clothing aboard?” asked Gale.

“I told them. It isn’t the clothing. They simply want to desert the
ship.”

“Is Mr. Larkins on the bridge?” asked Captain Biffer.

“He comes on at eight bells—in about five minutes, now.”

“Very well; go back to the bridge, Mr. Emory, I’ll deal with this
situation.” Then to Edith Gale “Don’t be alarmed, ma’am.”

I risked a remark.

“Is this your first strike, Captain?” I ventured.

His eye fixed me grimly.

“We don’t call it that at sea,” he said, “we call it mutiny!”

The word rather startled me, but I followed him out on deck, as did the
others. No one could remain in the cabin with a thing like that going on
outside. The men were about as we had left them—the bosen, Frenchy,
somewhat in front of the others. He was a villain and a traitor, but he
was not without bravado.

“We haf not been well treat!” he began, “we haf been deceive. We——”

He paused. The Captain had drawn a bead on him with the eye he most
frequently used on me. With the other he took aim at the group behind,
and every man of them felt himself singled out, and quailed. I could see
them beginning to shrink and wither even before he said a word. He began
by gently reminding them of the usual lightness of their employment and
the continued excellence of their bill-of-fare; then in good sooth he
opened up.

It was like the breaking loose at Manila. I had known that Biffer had a
way with his English, but I never realized until that moment what he
could do when he tried. They didn’t need any warm clothes, now.
Everything he called them was red-hot and fitted as if they had grown to
it. Why, they fairly shrivelled, and whenever anything he said hit the
deck it smoked.

A cloud of what appeared to be genuine smoke came drifting across our
bows just then, and the air had grown strangely hot, but nobody seemed
to notice it. I think we unconsciously attributed these things to the
Captain’s artillery. The men were huddled and Frenchy alone was still
defiant. His case was desperate and he was a desperate man. He made a
step forward—perhaps he thought the men would follow him—a movement that
a second later would have been a spring at the Captain’s throat. One
hand he held close to his side and in it something gleamed.

There was an instant of dead silence, then—just above our heads—

“_All hands aloft to shorten sail! The Pampeiro!_”

Everybody looked up. Officer Larkins had come on the bridge and his rich
voice rang out like a clarion peal. Frenchy stopped. The men sprang into
life. They were ready enough to obey, now, but it was too late!

[Illustration:

  “Then, somebody was clinging to me.”—Page 93.
]

I had seen cyclones in the West, but the Pampeiro is different. From the
smoke across our bow there came a lurid flash, and thunder that seemed
to hit every part of the vessel at once. I heard the smashing of wood
and ripping of canvas overhead, and just in front of me I saw a great
wave come pouring over the ship’s side. Somebody seized my hand and
there was a startled cry of my name. Then somebody was clinging to
me—somebody that I was holding close and helping into the cabin. In the
half blackness I saw that Chauncey Gale and Ferratoni were just behind.
The cabin was dark and the ship pitching violently.

It was all over in ten minutes. The vessel still rolled, but the storm
had passed. Zar, who had been napping when the Pampeiro struck, came
running in to her mistress.

“You po’ li’l’ lam’, how wet you is!” she said, “an’ how yo’ heart
beat—so frightened!”

She bore off her charge, and the rest of us took account of stock.

We found we had lost some sail—a top-mast—several steamer chairs, and
one man—Frenchy—who had been directly in the path of the wave.

“That’s what that shark meant,” said Chauncey Gale solemnly, “he won’t
follow us any more. And say, Biff, it was worth the price of admission
to hear you comb those fellows down. By the great corner-stone, but you
did it beautiful!”

On the whole there were compensations. We had seen a Pampeiro, for one
thing, and we had got rid of a mutiny; a disturbing element had been
removed and an old superstition had been confirmed. Altogether,
everybody was satisfied, including the shark.

But to me had come an added joy. In the moment of danger it was to _me_
that Edith Gale had turned.

That night we walked the deck together. The sky was clear and black
again, though the sea was still billowy, and there was a chill head-wind
which, with our damaged rigging, necessitated the use of steam.

We walked back to the stern, and leaning over looked down at the surge
boiling up from the screw beneath. Like a huge serpent it twisted away
into the night, showing a white coil here and there as it vanished in
the shoreless dark behind. A mighty awe came upon us. Face to face with
the vastness of the universe, we were overpowered by that dread
loneliness which lies between the stars.

By and by I told her of the man sailing around the world in a little
boat, alone. She would not let me dwell upon it. Then I said I had
thought of doing it myself.

“You must never do it,” she shuddered, “promise me that you never will.”

There had never been the slightest danger of my doing it, and never
would be, but it did not seem strange that I should promise.




                                  XI.
                            IN GLOOMY SEAS.


In entering the waters below Cape Horn it had been my plan to continue
southward not farther than the northern extremity of the South Shetland
Islands, thence to bear off in a southwesterly course until the outer
edge of the field—or pack-ice—had been reached. This ice fringe would, I
believed, begin somewhat north of the Antarctic Circle, not lower than
the sixty-fifth parallel—possibly much higher. It would recede before
the warm sun of December—the month answering to our northern June. My
continued purpose was to creep westward along the edge of the ice-pack,
examining every foot of the way, in the hope of finding a warm northerly
flowing current, of the sort that Borchgrevink had reported. Such a
current would afford a possible entrance to the frozen expanses
surrounding the Antarctic Continent—perhaps guide us to the very gateway
of the continent itself. Failing to find a passage sooner, we would
continue westward to the coast of Victoria Land, and endeavor to reach
our destination by following the warm current already reported by
Borchgrevink.

I was rather surprised at Captain Biffer’s hearty approval of this
outline. I believe now he was of the opinion that a few weeks along the
edge of the pack, with perhaps a little squeeze here and there, would
satisfy Chauncey Gale’s ambition for Antarctic conquest, and that the
Billowcrest would be ordered north for a cruise in the Pacific, in the
direction of more friendly latitudes.

For the present, therefore, we continued directly southward—very slowly,
for we were still full early—keeping well off the stormy coast of
Patagonia, and to the eastward of the Falkland Islands. These we sighted
one morning, and ran close in to get a glimpse of inhabited land once
more before plunging into the vastness of unknown and unpeopled seas. It
was a bleak shore, and perhaps reminded Mr. Larkins of his native
Newfoundland, where the conditions were somewhat similar. He gazed
solemnly at the forbidding coast along which there showed but meager
signs of foliage.

“Thim’s nootmig threes,” he said, at last, waving at the stunted
vegetation which we were inspecting through the glasses, and upon which
we had been commenting.

Edith Gale protested.

“Oh, Mr. Larkins! Nutmeg trees don’t grow in this cold latitude!”

“Yis, ma’am,—wooden nootmigs. The people ship ’em to the shtates.”

“And that long, smooth rock running down; what’s that, Mr. Larkins?”

“That’s a seals’ shlidy-down. The seals, ma’am, get out there and shoot
the shoots. Many’s the time I’ve watched them in Newfoundland. I
shouldn’t wonder if the bake-apple grows over there, too,” he added,
reflectively.

“Baked apple! Do apples grow already baked in Newfoundland, Mr.
Larkins?”

“Not baked apple, but bake-apple, ma’am. A bit of a foine yellow berry
that grows on the top of a shlip of a shtalk, so high”—(holding his hand
down to within a foot of the deck)—“one berry to the shtalk, ma’am, and
delishuous, my worrd! And the bake-apple jam!” Mr. Larkins closed his
eyes and wagged his head in a manner to indicate that life without
bake-apple jam was but a poor shift, at best. “The _bake_-apple, is it!”
he continued. “Oh, but, Miss, you must never die without tasting the
bake-apple!”

There was something about Mr. Larkins’s manner that compelled faith in
this unknown fruit, which ordinarily we would have regarded as a
pleasant myth of his own. We caught a measure of his enthusiasm. We
wanted to see the mysterious golden berry that grew one on a stalk, and
had we not been on our way to find the South Pole, I believe we might
have gone in pursuit of the bake-apple.

And now we were indeed getting well to the southward. The sun though on
its upward incline had fallen far behind. Our days became long spectral
cycles broken only by brief periods of luminous twilight, and the
glacial feeling in the air was no longer a quality of our imagination.
Against the chill wind that came over our bow we tacked but leisurely.
Gradually, as we should, we were acquiring the taste for Antarctic cold,
and daily the fascination of it, and of the lonely seas around and
about, grew upon us.




                                  XII.
              WHERE CAPTAIN BIFFER REVISES SOME OPINIONS.


I went up on the bridge one morning to find Captain Biffer gazing
intently through the glass at some distant object.

“There’s your South Shetlands,” he announced, as I approached, “Elephant
Island, I should say. Looks pretty cold to me.”

I did not reply for a moment, but stood looking out over the black
tossing waters that lie below Cape Horn. Somewhere it was, in this cold
expanse, that my uncle’s vessel was believed to have gone down. Here,
amid the crash of storm and surge, she had been last seen, more than
twenty years before, and here must have perished: I swept the sea in
every direction, as if seeking to locate the very spot.

“They used to come to the Shetlands after seal,” continued the Captain,
“and they say there’s gold and precious stones on some of ’em. I never
saw anybody that got any, though. Too cold, I guess, to look and dig for
’em.”

“Colder than the Klondike?”

“Klondike! Well, I should say so. There’s a warm current runs up that
way. I never heard of any warm currents down here except the one you’re
going to find. Just take a glance at that for a cold-looking country.”

I leveled the glass and scrutinized the blue outline ahead. It was a
flat-topped, square formation, and there was a peculiar prismatic glow
about it that suggested ice. I hesitated for some moments, however,
before risking a reply. At last I was convinced.

“Yes, Captain Biffer,” I said, lowering the glass, “it _is_ pretty
cold—it’s an iceberg!”

Edith and Chauncey Gale, followed by Ferratoni, came up the stairs just
in time to hear the Captain’s reply.

“An iceberg!” he jeered. “Well, I’ve seen a good many icebergs up north,
but I never saw one like that. You mean an ice-box.”

I was quite calm. I could afford to be, for I felt that a moment of
triumph was at hand.

“Yes, Captain,” I admitted, “you might liken it to that, I suppose, but
it is an iceberg, nevertheless. The Arctic bergs which you have seen
were split from glaciers and topped by tall pinnacles and turrets. They
were more like castles or cathedrals. The Antarctic berg is usually a
section of that great ice wall or barrier which we hope some day to
reach. It is nearly always of this general character, and is frequently
crossed by blue horizontal lines, showing its stratified formation from
year to year.”

Before I had finished speaking the Captain was again studying the object
ahead. A light mist had drifted across our bows, but it lifted now, and
the square fortress-like walls in the distance shone clearly in the
morning sun. Captain Biffer waited a moment longer. Then he came down
handsomely.

“You’re right!” he said heartily, “I can see those lines from here. I
know the Arctics,” he added, “but I guess I’m all at sea in these
God-forsaken waters!”

It was a slight incident—an opportune display of a bit of knowledge
which any boy familiar with Antarctic literature might have
possessed—but my command of the expedition may be said to have dated
from that moment. The next day fairly completed my triumph. Some large
fragments of surface ice had come drifting to the ship and we were
looking at them, over the side.

“Pancake ice,” commented the Captain. “We’ll get all we want of that,
pretty soon.”

“Not exactly pancake ice, Captain,” I observed respectfully. “A
combination of salt-water pancake with splinters of fresh-water, barrier
ice. Those clear spots are the fresh-water formation.”

Captain Biffer regarded me a moment doubtfully. Then he gave an order to
some sailors.

“Get up a piece of that ice!” he growled, “I want to look at it.”

A man was lowered over the side, and hacked off a fragment which was
hauled on board. The Captain chipped out pieces of the white and the
clear ice and tasted of them. Then he flung them overboard.

“You win!” he laughed, “I’m out of it, down here.”

“What’s that brown color on it?” asked Edith Gale.

“Dirt,” said the Captain. “Comes from the shore.”

“Captain,” I objected, “I’m sorry, but I’ve got to differ with you
again.”

“What is it, then, if it ain’t dirt?” he grumbled.

“A growth,” I replied, “a plant—at least, I think it is. I can’t be
sure, for I have never seen it before, but former explorers have
reported an algæ as giving such an appearance to old ice, and I think I
can show that this is what they found.”

I ran down to my stateroom, and presently returned with a powerful
microscope—a treasure from boyhood. I placed it upon a small table and
putting a bit of the brown color on a slide adjusted the lenses. Then I
beckoned to the Captain. He came and squinted into the glass steadily
for a moment.

“Humph! seaweed!” he commented. “Well, I’ll be —— Say, look here, this
is your ocean, and your expedition—you can have ’em!”

You see, it was my innings. Theoretically I knew more of this part of
the world than any one on board, and theory was about all we had now to
go on. I could see that Chauncey Gale was pleased. I suppose it had not
always been easy to stand for me against the Captain’s poor opinion, and
he felt that in some measure now he had been justified. Edith Gale, too,
was not made less happy by these incidents, and the sailors, taking
their cue from their chief officer, paid me an added and daily
increasing respect. True, the Captain continued to navigate the ship,
but in a general way I directed our course and experiments, and was
regarded more and more as authority in matters of discussion and
dispute.

High up on the mainmast I had constructed for me a crow’s nest, or
lookout, from which to make observations. Chauncey Gale attended to
this, and did it well, as he did everything he undertook. It was a
stout, comfortable barrel arrangement, capable of holding three persons
if necessary.

When it was done I viewed it from below with interest and misgivings. I
had never been aloft, and I felt that an error in reaching my perch
might conclude the expedition. The eyes of the ship were upon me,
however, and it would not do to hesitate.

With a faint but resolute heart, I began the ascent. I did not dare to
look back, and when at last I found myself safely inside the snug box, I
was a bit weak and trembly, but swelling with triumph.

“Let me in, too, please!”

I looked down at my feet. It was Edith Gale, who had run lightly up
behind me. I concealed any pride I may have had in my own accomplishment
and drew her up.

“How pale you are,” she said, “are you ill?”

“No, oh no, it’s the—the excitement, I think.”

We leaned over and waved to those below. They waved back at us and
cheered.

“How’s the weather up there?” called Gale.

“Cold,” I said. “Feels like the North Pole!” (It was, in fact, about
zero at the time, but we did not mind it in the least.)

“What’s the matter with the South Pole?” This from Captain Biffer.

“Hot, there!” I yelled.

The Captain laughed.

“Well,” he shouted, “you’re right about some things, but you’ll find
that barrel a parlor stove compared with the South Pole.”

Edith Gale leveled a glass toward the southern horizon. We were well
down in the sixties, now. Icebergs and floating pack-ice had become
common. To the southward lay mystery that in some weird form might at
any moment rise above the somber waters. Presently she handed me the
glass.

“See if you make out anything,” she said.

I looked steadily, and at first saw nothing. Then, low down, and
stretching from rim to rim across our watery world, far-off and faint,
rising, falling, lifting and disappearing. I saw a thin, uncertain,
glittering edge—the ice-pack!

It was our turn, now, to cheer. Captain Biffer ran up to see and verify.
By nightfall (the radiant dusk fell late now, for it was November, and
the sun shone till ten o’clock) we were in the midst of loose, grinding
ice—the edge of the pack.

The second stage of the Great Billowcrest Expedition had begun.




                                 XIII.
                         IN THE “FIGHTING-TOP.”


Our crow’s nest became at once the nucleus of the expedition. Edith Gale
named it our “fighting-top” because of the fierce discussions that took
place there.

This warfare concerning the new objects that appeared daily on our
horizon was almost continual, and when not actively engaged in the
combats, I was supposed to adjust them. They occurred most frequently
between Edith Gale and her father, both of whom delighted in our
lookout, and remained with me there a greater part of the time, in spite
of bitter cold, and even the wet freezing discomfort that often swept in
about us.

A paragraph of Borchgrevink’s came back to me now—the fulness of which I
had not before realized. “Only from the crow’s nest,” he says, “can one
fully appreciate the supernatural charm of Antarctic scenery. Up there
you seem lifted above the pettiness and troubles of everyday life. Your
horizon is wide, and from your high position you rule the little world
below you. Onward, onward stretch the ice-fields, the narrow channels
about the ship are opened and closed again by the current and wind, and
as you strain your sight to the utmost to find the best places for the
vessel to penetrate, your eyes wander from the ship’s bow out toward the
horizon, where floes and channels seem to form one dense vast ice-field.
Ice and snow cover spars and ropes, and everywhere are perfect peace and
silence.”

I have quoted this because we felt it all, and he has given it to us so
much better than I could say it. No ordinary attempt of the elements
could dismay us, or chill the exalted joy of our high, swinging perch.
From our fighting-top we looked away to the south, across leagues of
lifting, shifting, grinding ice—split here and there by long, black
waterways—studded by iridescent island bergs—garish with every splendor
of the spectrum, and blending at last into that overwhelming fathomless
hue of the South, Antarctic Violet.

New wonders were constantly appearing before and below us. From our
lofty vantage we discussed them fully, and photographed them when they
came within range. With the luminous icy mist about us, there was still
a gratification and a rapture, and when it passed and the sun returned,
a new blazing enchantment lay all below us, even to the northward,
where, beyond the dazzle of drifting ice-pans, rolled the black,
uplifting sea.

We observed and studied the haze or “blink” in the sky that always
indicates the presence of ice, and the black, or “water” sky that tells
of an open way—keeping well in among the floes, that we might not miss
any lead or northward drift that would reveal our current from the
South.

I did not expect it for a long distance yet, but it was our plan to
leave no step of the way unexamined, and certainly there was plenty
beside to repay us. Edith Gale seemed fairly lost in the color glories
of this supernatural, elemental world. Chauncey Gale declared it was
like the Chicago Fair, where one could have spent a lifetime and still
not have seen it all. He made his initial attempt at naming birds one
morning when a penguin, the first we had seen, came by on a small pan of
ice. The bird regarded us solemnly, and in return we laughed at him.
Edith Gale was overjoyed at his arrival.

“Now, Daddy, what’s that? You were going to name things, you know.”

“That,” replied Gale gravely, “is a ‘Billy Watson.’ He looks exactly
like a fellow I used to know by that name, when he had his dress suit
on.”

We didn’t consider it much of a name, but it had a sticking quality, and
all penguins became “Billy Watsons” to us thereafter. There were “Big
Billy Watsons” and “Little Billy Watsons.” Also, some that had feathers
in their hats, and these we called “Dandy Billy Watsons.” When we came
to some sea-leopards and crab-eating seals he tried his hand again as a
naturalist.

[Illustration:

  TWO IMPRESSIONS OF BILLY WATSON. FIRST, BY CHAUNCEY GALE. SECOND,
  BY NICHOLAS CHASE.
]

“Those,” he said, “are ‘Moon-faced Mollies.’”

But this was regarded as a failure. Anyhow, it was my turn. The Captain
had referred to them indiscriminately as seals, whereupon I produced
their true names and my authority for conferring them, thus adding
another instalment to Mr. Biffer’s respect for my scientific
attainments, which, though slight enough, were sufficient to impress him
considerably.

During these days Ferratoni had almost nothing to say. He walked the
deck for hours as we pushed through the drifting ice, listening to its
crushing under the iron sheathing below and looking always to the south,
as if something lay there from which, across that wireless, frozen
waste, to him alone came tidings. Now and then he ascended to our
fighting-top to peer still farther into those polar depths. We all felt
very close to creation’s secrets here in this primeval world, but we
realized that Ferratoni was nearer to the invisible than the others.

“I feel sometimes that he can read our very souls and all the mystery of
the air,” Edith Gale said to me, after one of these visits. “When he
looks at me I know that I may as well have put my thoughts into words.
He believes, too, you know, that we shall be able to converse mentally,
by and by, and at any distance. It would be simply the chording of the
thought vibration, he says, and that there is really no need of
words—that they are but a poor medium at best, and, as somebody has
said, invented more to conceal thought than to convey it.”

“We shall have wordless telepathy, then, instead of wireless
telegraphy,” I assented, “and I believe Ferratoni is nearer right than
most people would admit. Why, when we are up here alone together,
sometimes, it seems to me that we——” I hesitated, and she interrupted me
rather hastily.

“Yes, when we are looking out at all this, we are so often silent
because there are no words to convey it; but I know what you are
thinking better than if you tried to tell it.”

I do not think this was quite what I had started to say, but I was
grateful for the interruption. I should doubtless have got into deep
water and difficulties.

Each day the sun rose earlier, shone warmer, and set later. What we
referred to as night no longer bore even the semblance of a night, and
its darkest hour was but a brief period of lambent twilight. The weather
continued unusually good for the latitude, and Thanksgiving Day, on the
edge of the Antarctic Zone, was a complete golden cycle. After a
bounteous dinner planned by Mr. Sturritt, and joined in by all the
officers of the Billowcrest, we ascended by turns to the fighting-top to
look for the first time on the midnight sun. Captain Biffer came back to
the deck rather solemnly.

“It’s more than likely we won’t see it again, right away,” he announced.
“If I’m not mistaken, there’s a blow coming off there to the northeast.”

The Captain was _not_ mistaken, this time. Within an hour after midnight
we were pitching in the midst of real darkness, fearsome and
impenetrable. Icy waves were breaking over the decks of the Billowcrest,
and the crash of ice under her hull was terrifying in its deafening
fury.

There was no sail to take in, for we were running under steam only, now,
but the sailors had enough to do at first to keep everything movable
from washing overboard, and then, a little later, themselves. At each
end of the vessel the officers were roaring out commands, and the men
striving to obey.

There was no thought of sleep, of course, and everybody was on deck or
in the cabins. Zar was praying swiftly and inclusively so as to have
everybody in readiness at a moment’s notice, and nobody discouraged this
undertaking. From stray bits that came to me now and then above the
uproar I gathered that she believed our Thanksgiving services, as well
as the expedition generally, had been of a character to provoke Divine
wrath.

“Oh, Lawd,” she howled, “what can dese po’ sinful people expect, a-goin’
a hop-scotchin’ aroun’ on Thanksgivin’ Day, an’ a-huntin’ foh a fool
pole in a lan’ wheah dey ain’ nuffin but ice, an’ wheah de sun shine at
midnight? What can dey spect, Lawd? What can dey spect?”

As a matter of fact we were expecting almost anything at that moment,
and we were not surprised, or more frightened than we had been, when
Captain Biffer came in and roared at us that we were being driven into
the pack!

“Let her go in!” yelled Gale.

“Be smashed, if we do. Go to hell in five minutes!”

“Don’t care! hell can’t be worse than this!”

In the electric blaze of the cabin I looked more closely at Gale. There
was a green pallor over his features that was not due to fright. Even in
that awful hour there came upon me a proper and malicious joy. He was
seasick! I did not blame him. We were rolling fearfully and I felt some
discomfort, myself. But the spirit of my ancestors had waxed strong now,
and prevailed. The others, too, were getting pale, all except Zar, who
turned a peculiar blue, and discontinued her prayer service. The brawny
stewardess and myself assisted both her and her mistress to their
staterooms, where I spoke a reassuring word to Edith Gale, and hastened
back to the others. But Gale and Ferratoni had both disappeared, and I
saw them no more during that fearful night.

Plunging and battering we jammed our way into that mass of thundering
ice. Our search-lights, of which we had two, were kept going constantly,
but even so, we were likely at any moment to collide with a berg in that
surging blackness. The sight from the deck—the shouting sea, with the
ice tossing and flashing as it was borne into the angle of our electric
rays—was as the view of a riotous inferno that was making ready to crush
us into its sombre depths.

But by morning we had penetrated the pack to a point where the violence
beneath produced on the surface only a heaving, groaning protest at our
presence. With the return of light, I went out to view our condition,
and when I realized that our invincible Billowcrest had battled unhurt
through it all, that noble vessel—whatever may have been her faults, and
in spite of all disparagement—took a place in my affections that was
only outranked by those of her builder and her mistress. The wind
slackened in the afternoon, and with the calm there came clear, intense
cold. By morning the great ice-floes about us were cemented together. We
were frozen solidly in the pack.




                                  XIV.
                    AN EXCURSION AND AN EXPERIMENT.


“Well, here we are,” announced Captain Biffer, as we grouped together on
the deck to survey the scene. “And here we’re likely to stay for one
while, I’m thinking. This is your warm world—how do you like it?”

“Better than a cold sea,” I said, “when there’s a northeast gale
blowing.”

“How long do we lay up here, Chase?” asked Chauncey Gale. “You’re
running this excursion.”

I was secretly uneasy, but I made light of the situation.

“Oh, this is the usual thing. We’ll be here a day or two, perhaps, then
the ice will separate again, or a lead form that will let us back to
open water. We could hardly be shut in long at this season.”

“I’d invent something to beat this game if I was going to play it
regular,” said Gale, then added, “Great place this to lay out an
addition. ‘Frozenhurst,’ how’s that for a name?”

“Can we go out on the ice?” asked Edith Gale.

“Of course, if we are careful, and do not go far from the ship,” I said.
“We can try our new snow-shoes.”

“I shall make the first Antarctic experiment in wireless communication,”
observed Ferratoni.

“Good time to look for the bake-apple,” suggested Mr. Larkins.

But just here came a sharp protest from Zar.

“Yas, I sh’d say _baked apples_! Well, I reckon we jes’ ’bout as apt to
fin’ baked apples as anything else in dis refrigidous country! Not much,
my Miss Edith ain’ gwine out on dat ol’ humpety, bow-back ice-pon’! No,
sah!”

Zar’s characterization of the sea’s aspect referred to the huge hummocks
and heaved appearance of the ice in places. There were also many bergs,
apparently at no great distance, and in spite of the old woman’s
strenuous objections, Edith Gale and I planned to visit the nearest of
these.

We did so in the afternoon. Numberless penguins, sea-leopards and other
species of Antarctic life had gathered curiously about the Billowcrest
during the day, and some of these waddled and floundered after us when
we set out. We could not make very rapid progress with our new
foot-gear, and for a little distance made an interesting spectacle, with
our procession of followers trailing out behind. “All hands and the
cook” gathered on the deck to enjoy it.

[Illustration:

  “From our high vantage we could command a vast circle of sunless,
    melancholy cold.”—Page 117.
]

We carried one of Ferratoni’s telephones—a neat, compact little affair,
with handles for convenience, and from nearly a mile distant
communicated with the inventor, who had ascended to the crow’s-nest for
the experiment. It was a successful trial, and we believed it would have
been equally so had the distance been much greater.

Then we pushed in among the silent bergs, and ascending by a circuitous
path to the battlements of a great ice fortress, tried it again.

“Hello,” I called, “can you hear a message from the South Pole?”

The answer that came back was as prompt as it was unexpected.

“There is a message in the air,” said the voice of Ferratoni. “It is
very close—around and about us. Some day—perhaps soon—I shall hear it.”

I repeated this to Edith Gale, wonderingly.

“What do you suppose he means?” I whispered.

“You remember what I told you in the fighting-top,” she said. “I am sure
of it now.”

I did not answer, but together our eyes followed the white way to the
south.

A light snow had fallen during the forenoon, and dull clouds were banked
heavily against the sky. From our high vantage we could command a vast
circle of sunless, melancholy cold. Beyond this there lay another
horizon, and beyond that still another, and yet another. In this deep
solitude the distant black outline of the Billowcrest marked our only
human tie.

A silence and an awe fell upon us—a mysterious fear of this pale land
that was not a land, but a chill spectral semblance, with amazing forces
and surprising shapes. We descended hastily and set out for the ship
without speaking. From among the bergs the creeping gloom gathered and
shut us in. Uncanny sea-leopards and mournful penguins regarded us as we
hurried past.

We were clumsy on our snow-shoes, but we consumed no unnecessary time in
reaching the vessel, and not until we were warmed and cheered by a good
dinner were we altogether restored. But then came weariness, and with
the Billowcrest now moveless and silent, we realized that night more
fully than ever before the perfect blessing of dreamless, Antarctic
sleep.

And now passed some days in which I grew ever more uneasy, but
maintained as far as possible a cheerful outward calm. The cold
lingered, and the way seaward did not open. Huge cracks split the pack
here and there, but they did not reach the Billowcrest. Then came that
terror of all polar expeditions—the ice pressure—the meeting and closing
in of enormous ice-fields moving irresistibly in opposite directions.

We were awakened rather rudely by a sudden harsh grinding below, and
felt the vessel heave, first to one side, then to the other. Then there
was an ominous rumble, which became a deafening roar. I hurried on deck,
to find that a strong pressure was taking place, and that we were
directly in its midst. Our peril was great and imminent. I was turning
hastily toward the cabin, when Captain Biffer ran down the deck yelling:

“Take to the ice! Take to the ice! She’s going down!”

At the same instant Chauncey Gale hurried out of the cabin, followed by
Edith Gale and the others. The sailors were skurrying about helplessly.

“To the ice!” roared the Captain. “To the ice! She’s going down!”

Most of us scrambled for the rail. If I did not do so it was perhaps
because there were others in my way. But Chauncey Gale, his hand on his
daughter’s arm, stood firm.

“Stop!” he shouted. “Going down, _nothing_! She’s going up!”

And this was true. Everybody saw it, now it was pointed out to them.
Thanks to the shape and strength of her hull, the sturdy Billowcrest was
being squeezed and lifted bodily into the air, instead of being crushed
like a peanut, as would have been the case with an ordinary vessel.

For ten minutes or more the heaving and grinding continued. Huge
pressure ridges formed on every side, and the ice world about us was a
living, groaning agony. Then it seemed that there came relief. The pack
split and thundered apart in every direction. The Billowcrest settled
back into place, and before us lay a long way of open water, stretching
northward as far as the eye could reach. Our steam was ready, and in a
very brief time we were on our way back to the sea.

“That was about the tightest squeeze I ever got caught in,” observed
Gale, “and, say, I didn’t build her for a nip like that, but didn’t the
old Billowcrest do noble?”

“Chauncey Gale,” I said, “you’re the best ship builder, and the bravest
man God ever made!”

“How much do you want to borrow?” asked Gale, but he said it without
bitterness.




                                  XV.
                      AS REPORTED BY MY NOTE-BOOK.


If we were more fearless now, we were also more careful. Our faith in
the Billowcrest was complete, but we profited by experience. At the next
indication of bad weather, we headed northward in time, and rode out the
storm at sea.

I think Captain Biffer had hoped that we would abandon our project after
the ice squeeze, but Christmas Day found us far to the westward, and
still creeping slowly along the edge of the ice-fields. Our days were a
never-ending glory now, for it was midsummer, and of good weather we
were having far more than we had been led to expect. We did not need to
go to the crow’s-nest to see the midnight sun on Christmas Eve, and
Christmas Day we celebrated by crossing the one hundred and fortieth
meridian, and by telling, after dinner, where we had been and what had
happened to us the year before.

The Gales, with the yacht and its present officers, had been in Naples,
where they had met Ferratoni, who was then perfecting his experiments. I
had been in the interior of the “States,” making ready to drift, I knew
not where. Now all were here together, in the luminous, and fantastic
midsummer of the farther South, seeking at my direction a half mythical
highway to what might be a wholly mythical destination. Edith Gale had
referred to me once, in jest, as a new Lochinvar. I said that I would
strive to be that, but there were nights when I woke and remembered what
all those men of science had said, and just how they had said it; and on
those nights I trembled and weakened a little at the thought of the
responsibility of life and expenditure I had assumed, and might have
faltered still more, perhaps, had I not been strong in my determination
to prove those sages of the test-tube and microscope at fault.

Thus far we had found no indication of a warm current, nor, in fact,
anything else suggestive of warmth in the latitudes below the Antarctic
Circle, but, as the books say, there had been plenty to amuse and
instruct. Our days were a good deal alike, but they were never
monotonous. As we approached the point where Borchgrevink had penetrated
the ice-pack, our expectations increased and our painstaking scrutiny of
each step of the way was redoubled. Perhaps the brief daily record of my
notebook will best continue the narrative at this point.

Jan. 1. Still pushing westward, slightly south. The New Year finds us at
latitude 68° 12´, longitude 163° 44´. We are going very slowly now,
barely thirty miles a day. The weather is excellent, and seems very
warm. I spend fifteen hours out of the twenty-four in the fighting-top.
When I am not there we lie to, or drift. There appears to be a slight
westward movement in the ice, and we go with it during the night, or
rather while I am asleep, for, of course, there is no night yet. Plenty
of life here. Several sorts of whales appear in the open water, and
penguins visit the ship daily. Edith Gale declares that some of them are
the same ones that we first saw, and that they have taken a fancy to us.

[Illustration:

  FROM MR. CHASE’S NOTE-BOOK.
]

Jan. 2. We cannot be far now from Victoria Land, but still no sign of
the warm current. True, Borchgrevink pushed thirty-eight days through
the pack-ice before he came to this current, but these things vary in
different years, and it is more than likely that we are already nearing
the point where he emerged from the pack. The slight drift we have
noticed continues and appears to bend to the south as we approach the
coast.

Jan. 3. Edith and Chauncey Gale were with me almost constantly to-day in
the crow’s-nest. The sailors to-night claim they can “smell” land. As we
approach it, life becomes much more frequent, though not more cheerful.
It is either white or black, and unmusical. The chant of the seals is
depressing, and the chorus of the penguins a thing to be avoided.
However, they always amuse us, and we appear to furnish entertainment
for them. Also, they are fond of good music, perhaps because they cannot
make it themselves. Edith Gale played the piano last night, and a whole
flock of “Billy Watsons” in dress suits crowded on deck to listen to it.
Probably they thought it a musicale given for their benefit. The
sea-leopards and crab-eaters gathered about the ship, too, and would
have come on board if they had been able. Mr. Sturritt is experimenting
with all of these from a food standpoint, and the sailors are collecting
many skins and feathers.

[Illustration:

  AN IMPRESSION BY CHAUNCEY GALE.
]

Jan. 5. Borchgrevink must have found very different conditions, indeed,
from the westward, for we are at latitude 70°, or very near it, and we
have not yet found it necessary to penetrate the ice. This current that
now appears to drift us to the southwest may have something to do with
it, or it may be that this is a warmer summer, hence the different
conditions.

Jan. 6. This current, if it is a current, puzzles us all. It is not
noticeable on the surface, where the ice moves with the wind (I have
even fancied to-day when there was no wind that the floes drifted
northward), but seems to grip us from beneath and push us slowly, very
slowly, but surely, to the southwest. Gale said to-day it was like the
illness, “grip.” We were sure we had it, but we didn’t know just where.

Jan. 8. Whatever this current is, it is carrying us in the right
direction. It has brought us safely through the waters explored by Sir
James Ross fifty years ago, and where pack-ice delayed Borchgrevink
thirty-eight days. The Captain thinks it a slight undercurrent that
curves in around Possession Island, which we shall see to-morrow, if all
goes well. We are all eager for the first sight of Antarctic land. Again
to-day there was no wind, and both Edith Gale and I held that the
surface ice was drifting to the north, but the others thought it only
_seemed_ so because of our movement to the southward. We did not change
our opinion, however. It is curious, but we almost invariably agree. It
is as if we were two parts of one mind. How beautiful she was to-day in
her new seal hood, with the funny little point at the top. I....

[Illustration:

  “PROCESSION ISLAND” BY CHAUNCEY GALE.
]

Jan. 9. We have seen the coast to-day, but did not think it wise to
attempt a landing. From the deck we could view with our glasses
Possession Island, with its millions of penguin inhabitants. Their
lookouts screamed and yelled at us to keep off, and their bleak shore is
well defended by jagged rocks and long glacier points that push out into
the water. We observed the perfect system of order and highways
maintained by these solemn creatures as they moved procession-like to
and from the shore—the fat ones on one side all proceeding to their
nests in the cliffs, and the thin ones coming to the sea for food. They
did not quarrel, or get in each other’s way. It seemed that we could
never get through laughing at them. Gale says the place should be named
Procession Island, and that the first addition he lays out down here
he’s going to get “Billy Watsons” to build the streets for him. There
are many icebergs about, nearly all with the blue lines and the tabular
top. They are from the great barrier to the south, whence they have
doubtless been blown by the gales of last winter, and now seem to be
drifting homeward to be there in time for next.

Jan. 12. Our current has not deserted us, but we are more mystified with
it than ever. The surface ice is certainly drifting slowly northward,
for we can now gauge its movement by the shore, while we and the bergs
are drifting to the south. The Captain says that it is not uncommon for
currents to flow in opposite directions, one above the other, for a
short distance, and that they are called “witch tides,” for the reason
that ships are sometimes unable to move in them, even with a fair wind,
but that he has never seen anything just like this. Can it be that this
upper drift from the south is our warm current, and that we have been in
it for days without knowing it? Certainly it is but a feeble current as
yet, and there is no warmth in it that we can discover. There is no pack
here, and we shall keep on going. Borchgrevink found open water as low
as 74°.

Jan. 13. It _is_ our warm current from the south! There is no doubt of
this to-day, and there is more to be told! When I went on deck this
morning, Officer Larkins, who was on watch, reported that the ice seemed
to run north a bit stronger, and that our drift southward was
proportionately less rapid. I immediately had a pail of water drawn up,
and tested it. It was 32°. Yesterday it had tested 30°! There was
something about the look of the water that made me taste it. Larkins
said he thought it had thrown me into a fit, and I suppose I did make
some sort of a demonstration, for it was fresh! At least it was only
brackish, from the melting in it of the salt-water ice. I don’t remember
just what I did at first, but I know that when I turned around and saw
Edith Gale coming out of the cabin, I found it not easy to keep from
behaving in a manner which I feel quite certain she would have
disapproved. As it was, I rushed up to her with the glass. “Taste it!” I
urged. “Taste it! It’s fresh water from a warm river flowing straight
from the South Pole!” She tasted and rejoiced with me. That it came from
inland warmth we could not doubt. And now the mystery of these currents
becomes clearer. Above the heavily-moving ocean current below us there
is the lighter, shallower current of fresh warm water, carried by its
force in the opposite direction, and finally spreading and losing itself
in the sea. It was doubtless this strange combination that helped to
open our way through the pack, and that we believe now will show us the
way to our destination. In celebration of the event we have just had a
great feasting, at which I was the guest of honor. I cannot sleep, so I
must go back to the deck to watch and rejoice.

Later—Edith Gale was there, and we walked up and down for an hour,
constructing wild theories. We still drift southward against our new
warm river. The drift of the great salt current a few feet below the
surface is strong, and we let it carry us—whither?

Jan. 15. We are in the midst of a fierce, northeasterly storm that has
brought a world of grinding pack-ice about us. All trace of our warm
current is lost, of course, and we are fighting now with steam and sail
to keep from being driven upon the ragged shores of Victoria Land. We
cannot see the coast, for a thick mist has shut us in, but we know by
the screaming flocks of birds whirling about us that it is not far
distant. At any moment we may strike a hidden reef or rock, or be
crushed by a toppling berg. No one slept last night, and one of the
officers has been in the crow’s-nest constantly. Two days ago all seemed
joy. To-night I am heartsick, and only for the abiding courage and faith
of Chauncey and Edith Gale would be despairing. Gale is a king among
men, and Edith——

Jan. 20. Five days in the clutch of this fearful storm. I seem to have
lived as many years since we found the warm current. If I have slept I
do not know it. I am thin and haggard with watching and anxiety. But now
the wind has gone down, and there is hope, though we are still beset
with this pounding, maddening ice, and the Captain has taken no
observation since the 14th. I shall try to sleep.

Jan. 21. The sun came out this morning, and Biffer got our position.
There has been little change in the past week. We have just about held
our own in keeping off shore. Now we are hemmed in by ice and our
currents are lost beneath it. We shall try to push southward, however,
in the hope of reaching clear water. The wind is behind us, but the
drift ice ahead packs fearfully, perhaps because of the opposite flowing
current.

Jan. 26. This morning I was called before I was awake, and hurried on
deck to find Captain Biffer looking through a glass at a grim outline
ahead.

“There’s your ice-wall,” he said, as I approached.

“What’s our latitude?” I asked.

“72° 33´.”

“Then it can’t be the wall,” I said. “It lies somewhere below 74°.”

The Captain looked again through his glass. Then we ascended to the
crow’s-nest for a better view.

“Well,” he declared, at last, “if that ain’t the ice-wall, it’s the
father of all the icebergs we’ve seen yet.”

And an iceberg it proved to be. We pushed and worked our way toward it
all the forenoon, and about two o’clock came near enough to make out an
area of open water adjacent to it, by which we knew it was being carried
southward against the surface current thus leaving a clear space behind.
Into this we pushed a little later, and steaming in close, found that in
the back of our ice giant there was a hollow of considerable size. It
was, in fact, a sort of harbor for us, though not without its drawbacks.
For to the right and left and behind lay pack-ice, so solid that escape
in any direction seemed impossible, and ready to close in upon us should
the great berg halt or hesitate in its progress poleward.

“We are going now, whether we want to or not,” said Chauncey Gale.

“Yes,” laughed Captain Biffer, “we’ve got a pacemaker.”

And this is so. Borne on by the vast salt current far beneath, our giant
berg, regardless of drift ice and feeble fresh-water resistance, is
pushing slowly steadily to the southward, whence it came. I believe now
that this salt undercurrent describes a huge circle in the Antarctic
Ocean; that it bends to the eastward when it reaches the great southern
barrier, thence northward, detaching and carrying with it into the upper
seas these giant sections of the wall, drifting them across westward and
bringing them back southward, at last, as this one is being brought, to
the point of its titanic birth. The bergs we met over by the Shetlands
were drifting northward. Those along the way came as we came. Some of
them looked worn and travel-stained, as if they had been swinging around
the circle for a long time; bruised and battered for perhaps centuries.
The one we are following must be on its first trip, for it is a giant of
giants, going home mighty and magnificent after its first trip abroad.

And we are going with it. We shall not attempt to force our way out, and
why should we? We set out for the South. We believe now—all of us, I
think—that there is a land there from whence can flow a warm river. We
are going to find it!




                                  XVI.
                        FOLLOWING THE PACEMAKER.


For a full month we drifted slowly with our monster berg. So slowly that
at times, when the wind shifted, we were almost at a standstill, and the
drift-ice was ready to shut us in. But within our big giant’s lap we
were well protected, and lying idly were borne steadily to the south. We
grew presently to love our big protector, and had the Captain’s name of
Pacemaker not clung to him we should have christened him something very
grand, indeed. For as a pacemaker he was not a success. An average of
twenty miles a day was about the best we could do, and at times we did
even worse. Still, we gave him great credit, for without him we might,
as Gale said, “have gone to the wall” before we were ready to.

As the days passed I found that I must change my calculations somewhat
concerning the position of the barrier. I had located it not lower than
75°, but by the 25th we were below 76°, and no barrier as yet. Could it
be that this undercurrent flowed _through_ the Antarctic Continent? But
this, I decided, would be impossible.

We were not idle during this period of drifting, and the month as a
whole was one of enjoyment. When we no longer had the sun at midnight,
we began preparing for winter. From the skins obtained by the sailors we
rigged ourselves out in new suits, according to the best polar
authorities. It was not seriously cold as yet, but with the advent of
the Antarctic night who could say what cold might come? Gale was fondly
referred to as Jumbo when he got properly put together. One day,
however, he got down on his back and could not get up again. Then he was
christened the “Turtle.”

“I’ve heard of people being as big as a barrel,” he said, “but in this
outfit I’m as big as a whole cooper-shop.”

We were frequently tempted to try scaling our big Pacemaker to make
observations ahead. Edith Gale would have gone promptly had her father
consented. Ferratoni, too, was eager to make some further experiments,
testing his apparatus with the berg as an elevation. With our little
steam launch we believed we might be able to find a place where the
ascent would not be difficult, and as days passed and brought still
deeper latitudes, the temptation grew even stronger.

We yielded to it, at last, on the second of March, a momentous day in
our calendar. Immediately after breakfast that morning we discovered
that our pacemaker was moving considerably faster than at any previous
time, and that its great right wing was swinging ahead of the left. I
argued at once that we had reached a bend in the current, where the
outer edge would have the greater speed. It seemed to me that we must be
near the barrier by these indications, and that it was now more
important than ever that we should know how the land, or rather the
water, lay ahead, that we might decide whether to continue with the
berg, or to strike out now on our own account and endeavor to find a way
around to the south. Gale was for sending up the balloon, but this would
have required two days’ preparation, and seemed unnecessary. I was
greatly in favor of trying to scale the berg ahead, which plan was
finally adopted.

I had thought of going with two sailors only, one to remain with the
launch, and one to assist me in the ascent, but when the launch was
ready Edith Gale suddenly appeared, panoplied for the undertaking, and
finally coaxed and intimidated her father into yielding. It was against
his judgment and mine, but she had been confined to the ship so long,
and our old friend ahead had been so steady and faithful, that it seemed
there could be no more danger than in scaling a mountain, provided we
found an accessible and easy path. This we did without much difficulty,
and just outside of the little hollow where the Billowcrest lay. Here
the berg appeared to have been washed or gullied out by snow melting
from above, which had formed a sort of natural snow-carpeted stairway,
similar to that made by a mountain brook in winter. There was also a
good landing below, and here we left the sailors with the launch, which
we thought was more likely to need them than we. Then we ran and
stumbled up the snowy stair like two children.

It was not quite so easy and safe as it looked. At one place I slipped
into a narrow crevice and came near breaking my ankle, as well as
Ferratoni’s telephone apparatus, which I carried. After this we went
more carefully. The berg was even higher than it appeared, but we soon
reached the top, which we were glad to find comparatively level and
firmly crusted over. Here we tried the telephone with great success.
Chauncey Gale asked if we could see the South Pole from where we were,
and cautioned “Johnnie” to be careful. By going near the brink we could
have looked down on the vessel, but this we would not risk.

We now hastened across to the opposite side of the berg, not more than a
third of a mile distant, for the Pacemaker was a long, narrow section of
the barrier, and the hollow in which the Billowcrest was lying made it
still narrower at this point. There was a light mist rising from the ice
that obstructed our vision somewhat, and there was a dazzle, too, that
we thought must be the sun shining on the ice-pack ahead. It was not
until we were quite near the edge that we realized our mistake.

Then, suddenly we stopped dead still. Out of the mist, the dazzle had
crystallized into definite form. It was ice, truly, but not the
far-lying level of the pack. Steadily, surely, inevitably, we were being
borne forward to a towering, gleaming wall! It loomed far above us, and
extended to the east and west as far as our eyes could follow. No need
to guess what it was—we knew! We were face to face with the great
barrier—the huge, impregnable fortress of the Antarctic world.

For a moment we stood stupefied, spellbound. Then came a realization of
doom. The Pacemaker would strike presently, with its irresistible,
crushing momentum. The right wing seemed to us even now touching.
Rending destruction, perhaps annihilation, must follow.

There was no necessity of discussion. As usual we were of one mind, and
were on our way back to the ship quicker than anything Ferratoni could
produce. We even forgot we had the telephone and could warn the others.
What we desired most was to get off from that berg before the
earthquake.

“This is the way,” panted Edith Gale, presently.

“No, this!” I panted back, bending a little to the east.

In our haste and excitement we had grown a bit confused.

“Try both,” I breathed.

But at that instant there came a vast trembling under our feet, and the
next I was lying upon the snow, while the air about me was being rent by
a sound so awful as to batter into my brain the thought that we had
struck the Antarctic Continent and split it in two! I was nearly right,
only that, when a second later I opened my eyes, I saw that the split
was the Pacemaker’s, and that I was lying within six inches of its edge.
Just across, perhaps ten yards away, lay Edith Gale. More than two
hundred feet below was the sea, and at that instant I saw the
Billowcrest being lifted up and up by the mightiest, slowest wave that
ever sea was heir to. It seemed to me that she would never stop, and I
remember thinking dimly that if she kept on coming I could get aboard.
Then at last she fell back and the sea swallowed her. Again I could
count time, and I was sure she was on her way to the bottom when she
reappeared, swinging and rolling, but apparently undamaged. I saw black
figures on her begin to move; then I looked across once more to Edith
Gale, who was slowly drifting farther from me. She was sitting upright,
half dazed as it seemed. I called across to her. She assured me that she
was not in the least injured—only a bit shaken up and confused. Then I
saw she had been correct in the position of the launch.

[Illustration:

  SKETCH FROM MR. CHASE’S NOTE-BOOK.
]

“Go to the boat,” I said. “If they are not lost, they can take you to
the ship, and then try to get me. I can see the ship from here. It seems
safe.”

“Keep away from that edge!” she called back. “And why don’t you use the
telephone?”

I had forgotten it entirely. Even as she spoke it began ringing, and
holding it to my ear I distinguished the eager “hello” of Chauncey Gale.

“Hello!” I called, “all right up here! How’s the ship?”

“Wet, but safe. How’s Johnnie?”

“Safe. We were separated when the shake-up came and the berg broke
between us. She’s on the side where the launch is.”

Gale would always be Gale.

“No danger of your fighting then about whose fault it was.”

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.’

“But it wasn’t shwimmin’ that saved Doolan, ner food, ner
reshponsibility, ner even the beauties of nature, though he had a chance
durin’ the night he fell over to view thim at close range. It was the
life-buoy that saved Doolan, an’ kep’ him floatin’ till he was picked up
next mornin’ by a shmarter boat that beat the Mary Collins to Bombay by
one tide. I’m not sayin’ but that the others air sushtainin’ too, but it
was the life-buoy that saved Doolan.”

“There are many kinds of life-buoys, Mr. Larkins,” laughed Edith Gale,
“and I confess that Mr. Doolan seems to have found the one best suited
to his needs. What is your experience, Mr. Emory?”

The quiet Second Officer was silent for a moment, and his face saddened.

“I was shipwrecked once,” he said. “We lost our vessel and drifted for a
long time in a leaky boat. A good many died. I was kept up by the memory
of a girl, waiting for me at home. When I got there——”

Mr. Emory paused as if to gather himself. It had grown very still in the
saloon.

“She was dead,” he concluded, “so you see my shipwreck and dark night
are not over yet.”

Our narrow round had indeed brought us close together. I doubt if Emory
had ever spoken of this before to any one. Edith Gale laid her hand on
his arm.

“And she is still waiting,” she said, “you must not forget that.”

“Suppose we hear from you, Chase,” said Gale, after a pause.

Matters had taken rather an unexpected turn. I felt that I could not
discuss what would best sustain me through the dark night ahead without
putting myself and one other person in a trying position. I made an
effort to gain time.

“I think we should hear from the Admiral, now,” I said.

“Oh, well,” said Gale, “I’m not bashful if I _have_ got new clothes on.
Here’s a few observations that I’ve jotted down from time to time, not
especially for a dark night, but for any old night, or day either, when
you happen to think about ’em.” Gale straightened back and pulled down
his vest comfortably. “Seventeen Observations,” he began, “by Chauncey
Gale. Homes and Firesides a Specialty.”

I. “This is a good world if we just think so. The toothache is about the
worst thing in it, and we can have the tooth pulled.

II. “There ain’t so many mistakes in this world as people think. A man’s
pretty apt to get where he belongs by the time he’s forty.

III. “It’s easy to get rich if people only know it. Most folks want to
make too hard work of it.

IV. “There may be men who could get rich playing poker, but I’ve only
happened to meet the ones that had _tried_ it.

V. “It isn’t hard work to judge human nature if you let the other man do
the talking.

VI. “A man’s word may be as good as his bond, but if it is he won’t mind
giving his bond, too.

VII. “The commuter who keeps his lawn mowed is a gentleman. If he mows
the vacant lot next to him, he’s fit for a better world.

VIII. “Many a man is a blamed fool with the best intentions in the
world.

IX. “A free show may be a good show, but if it is, the crowd will pay
for it.

X. “A mosquito has no fear of death, and a pound of them will ruin the
best addition ever laid out.

XI. “Luck is a good thing, but it’s the men that don’t count on it that
mostly have it.

XII. “It isn’t the biggest creature that can stand the most punishment.
A lick that will only amuse a fly will kill a baby.

XIII. “Distance depends a good deal on how fast a man can walk. No
addition should be more than five minutes from the station.

XIV. “A man can enjoy leisure just as well while he’s waiting for a
train as any other time if he’ll only think so.

XV. “I never saw a failure yet that wasn’t worth more than it cost, if
the fellow that failed made use of it.

XVI. “The best way to make yourself liked is to make yourself worth
liking.

XVII. “Never laugh at a lunatic’s plans. The biggest fool scheme to-day
may be a sound business proposition to-morrow.”

Gale sat down amid enthusiasm. Most of his observations were not new in
substance, and some of them I did not altogether agree with, but in them
all I recognized the characteristic philosophy that had made Chauncey
Gale the man I had learned to admire, and even to love. His last
“observation,” though uncomplimentary in form, explained to me our
presence in Bottle Bay at this moment. I would endeavor to make it hold
good.

“Come, Chase, it’s your turn, now!”

“This,” I said, rising, “is something I did while wandering about the
docks of New York City. The editors that saw it didn’t care for it, and
I don’t care very much for it now, myself. I have altered my opinion
about some things since then—not about the sea, I mean, but about
the—the most sustaining—that is, through a dark night—I mean, that
is—now——”

“Never mind what you mean now,” said Gale. “Suppose you read it and let
us see if we can tell what you meant then.”

I was glad enough for this interruption, and proceeded, forthwith:

                         SEA HERITAGE.

               I was born with the sea in my blood—
                 The sea with its surge and its flow—
               The voice of the tide at its flood
                 Keeps calling and calling to me,
               And sooner or later I know
                 I must go back to the sea.

               I hear it pound in the dark:
                 The salt mist creeps to my brain
               As I lean from my window and hark
                 To the voice that keeps shouting for me
               In vain—and yet, not in vain,
                 For I shall go back to the sea.

               I long for the leap of the spray—
                 I lust for the swirl of the brine—
               Though lingering day after day
                 (Land fetters still cumbering me)
               Some morn I shall claim what is mine—
                 I will rise—I will go to the sea.

               It may be a year, or a day—
                 It may be to-morrow—God knows!
               When, to answer, I’ll up and away,
                 But when and wherever it be,
               This birthright is bound to foreclose—
                 I must go back to the sea!

“Well, yes,” commented Gale, as I sat down. “I seem to gather what you
were driving at then, but it didn’t seem to me you meant quite the same
thing the day we sailed.”

Edith Gale came out of a reverie to join in the laugh. I wondered if she
knew what I had meant by my floundering about before beginning the
verses—if she realized that a word, or perhaps three words, from her
would mean more to me now than all the seas and lands of earth.

But Ferratoni, at a signal from Gale, had arisen. For days he had been
as one in a dream. We had thought him depressed by the oncoming night.
It seems doubtful, now, that he even realized that there was a night.

“Force!” he began. “In that word lies the secret of all the worlds and
skies.

“Force, and its visible symbol, vibration!

“Sound—it is vibration—all know it.

“Heat, light, color, Electricity—they are vibrations:—many recognize it.

“Life, thought, soul—these, too, are vibrations, yet more subtle:—I have
proved it.

“And from vibrations—harmony.

“Music—the fitting together or chording of sounds—the union of
vibrations—it is the form all know, it has soothed and charmed so many.”

He paused and looked toward Edith Gale.

“Beauty,” he continued, “that which _you_ so well offer to men as spirit
sustenance, what is it but the combining of life and color vibrations
into chords which bring joy to those whose souls awake to answer?

“Harmony—it is Nature’s law. Only the hand of man may work discord. Left
undisturbed for even a brief period, the wood and the stream, the meadow
and the hill, fall into rhyme and melody, while from the sun and moon
falls a quivering glory of light, and voices of the air come whispering
or shouting past to blend more perfectly the elemental chord.”

His eyes wandered about to the others in the room.

“Lives vibrating to lives—the chord is friendship.” His gaze came back
to Edith Gale, then to me. “Soul vibrates to soul—the chord is love.”

During the brief silence which followed this there was no question as to
vibrations on my part. They were distinct waves, in fact, and I did not
dare to look otherwise than straight ahead.

“For myself,” he continued, and I breathed again, “I have found the way
of mental unity which means the voiceless speaking.”

He motioned to Miss Gale, who struck a chord on the harp near her. From
the strings of the piano across the room came a faint yet perfect
answer.

“That,” he said—“it contains it all. Thus the electric chords answer to
each other and we speak without wires across the spaces. So the
vibrations of the thought awaken in the mind of another their echo, and
men are made to know, and may answer, without words.”

Once more he paused, and we had somehow a feeling that he was drifting
away from us. When he spoke again there was in his voice the quality of
one who, listening to faint far-off words, tries to repeat them.

“Somewhere,” he said, “from out of the land we are about to enter—there
is seeking us now such a message. It comes far through the spaces—the
strings of my thought are not perfectly adjusted to its tuning. Here, in
the close union of our daily round the difficulty is not. We have become
in mental adjustment—our minds have formed in a chord to which it is not
strange that I, who have given my life to such research, should have
found the key—should have become able to know without words, as in
another way I have been able to hear without wires.”

He roused, as it were, and once more came back to us—to me, in fact.

“You,” he continued, “are at this instant wondering if what I said of
the answering soul be true. It is, and you shall presently know it.
You,” turning to Gale, “are thinking of the hour. You wished to consult
your watch and hesitated out of consideration for me. You have no need.
The Captain who sits behind you has just done so, and it lacks still a
half-hour of midday.” He turned to Zar, who thus far had been a silent
observer of the ceremonies. “You,” he said, “are remembering a little
sunny cabin in the North, where thirty years ago you lived with your
little ones about you. One of them is grown, now; the others are dead.”

Zar had comprehended little or nothing of what had gone before of
Ferratoni’s words. She had been in a reverie, but at this point she
sprang to her feet excitedly.

“Good Lawd!” she cried, “what kin’ o’ man _is_ dat? Stan’ here an’ tell
me jes’ puzzacly what I thinkin’ dat berry minute! I gwine out o’ here!
I not gwine stay in no sech place!”

She set out hastily for the door. Her outbreak had brought the needed
relaxation, and we all laughed.

“Come back,” called Gale. “You haven’t made your speech yet. We want to
hear what you have to say.”

The old woman turned suddenly.

“All right, den I tell you what I got to say! I’s mighty good an’ tired
dis heah country! Dat’s what I got to say! Heah we come off f’m a good
civilianized lan’ wheah de sun git up an’ go to bed same as people do,
an’ come off heah wheah de sun git up ha’f way, an’ cain’t git up no
furdah, and cain’t git back nohow, but jes’ stay dar week in an’ week
out, an’ keep hones’ folks awake, an’ den when it do git down cain’t git
up ag’in, an’ de whole worl’ freeze up a-waitin’ foh hit. An’ what we
come foh? Why, to fin’ a’ old pole what can be pick’ up in anybody’s
wood-pile, free foh ca’yin’ off! Come down heah aftah a _pole_! What
kin’ o’ pole you reck’n’ gwine grow in such place, anyhow? I sh’d _say_
pole! Why, you couldn’t grow a bean pole! You couldn’t grow a willer
squich like I use to keep foh a little girl what need hit now—bringin’
her ole mammy off down heah to freeze up in dis ice-jug! Come aftah a
pole an’ fine a hole, dat’s what we done! No won’er Mistah Macaroni know
what I thinkin’ ’bout, when hit all freeze up an’ stay heah, ’stid o’
gwine wheah hit b’long!” The old woman paused an instant for breath,
then in a deep voice of warning concluded her arraignment. “An’ what
kin’ o’ great black beas’ gwine come an’ get dis ship befo’ we all see
mo’nin’? What great black monstah comin’ outen dis long black night what
you-all mention? I know—hit Deff! Dat what comin’—Deff! Gwine out to say
good-by to de sun, is you? Well, you bettah, caise when dat sun git
roun’ dis way ag’in, if hit evah do, hit’s my ’pinion dat hit wait a
long time befo’ _we_-all come out to say ‘Howdy!’”

The old woman flung herself out of the saloon. We laughed, but her final
words had not been entirely without effect. It was by no means
impossible that during the long night the “black beast” would come, and
that the returning sun would find fewer to bid it welcome.

“I think she speaks not with the spirit of prophecy,” said Ferratoni,
but nevertheless we grew rather silent as we passed into the gloom
without. Edith Gale and I ascended to the bridge. The others did not
follow, but huddled forward to the bow. It lacked still ten minutes of
midday.

We now saw that the sky overhead was thick, but clear-streaked in the
north. Where the sun would appear there was a sorrowful semblance of
dawn. Far across the black, frozen wastes, chill bands of red and orange
glowed feebly amid heavier bands of dusk violet. Profound, overpowering,
the infinite dark and cold were upon us. Before it, philosophies
dwindled and the need of warm human touch and sympathy came powerfully
upon us all. Edith Gale did not speak, and instinctively we drew closer
together. Somewhere beneath the fur wrappings my hand found hers. She
did not withdraw it. The caution of Chauncey Gale seemed as far off as
the place where he had spoken it. I leaned nearer to her. The word
formed itself on my lips—I could not be blamed.

“Sweetheart!” I whispered.

She did not answer—the sun was coming. Above the far rim it showed a
thin rayless edge. Between, there seemed to lie a million miles of
frozen sea. We watched it creep slowly westward. It was not a real sun,
but a wraith—a vision such as Dante might have dreamed.

Again, leaning near, I whispered to her; and again, just at first, she
did not answer. Then, very softly:

“But it was not until you found the new world that you were to claim
your reward.”

My heart bounded. She had remembered, then.

“Yes—I wish only to _name_ it, now.”

The sun that had grown to a narrow distorted segment became once more a
wavering line.

“Wait,” she said—“not now—to-morrow, perhaps—in the morning——”

“Morning? It is months till then. It is the long night I am thinking
of——”

“Yes, I know. I didn’t mean—I meant——” and then somehow my arm had found
its way about her, and she was close, close, and did not draw away.

The sun went out. The black wall—the black sea—the great black Antarctic
Night and cold closed in, but within and about us lay the ineffable
glory that has lighted the world and warmed it since man first looked on
woman and found her fair.




                                  XX.
                             THE LONG DARK.


I cannot attempt to picture the vast Antarctic Night. The words I have
learned were never intended to convey the supreme mightiness of the
Polar Dark. Chauncey Gale has referred to it as “Creation’s Cold
Storage.” I am willing to let it go at that.

In the electric blaze of the Billowcrest we made merry, and occupied
ourselves usefully. When the cold without was not too severe we went
snow-shoeing over Bottle Bay, where a crust of ice had eventually
formed, and where snow grew ever deeper until we half expected to be
overwhelmed. Sometimes we heard the roaring of the pack outside, but in
our snug harbor we felt little of its grinding discontent. How much we
were warmed by our current beneath the ice we could not know, but the
thermometer at no time showed more than 30° below zero. I have seen it
as cold in northern Nebraska.

Neither was it wholly dark in clear weather. We had the stars, and at
regular intervals, through our harbor gateway, the moon looked in. Often
it was a weird, distorted moon—flattened and wrinkled by radiations of
cold from the far-lying ice—but always welcome. More than once it was
doubly and even trebly welcome, for the atmosphere was responsible for
some curious effects. Once Gale came down hastily to where Edith and I
were deep in a game of cribbage.

“I want you and Johnnie to come on deck a minute,” he said with some
urgency, “I want you to look at the moon.”

We arrayed ourselves and obeyed. Gale led the way and pointed to the
harbor entrance.

“Nick,” he commanded, “I want you and Johnnie to tell me how many moons
you see there.”

My hand lay on Edith’s arm and I gave it a significant pressure.

“Why,” I said, “I see one moon, of course. How many do you want me to
see?”

“I hope, papa,” said his daughter gravely, “that you haven’t been taking
too much wine. You know that it doesn’t agree with you. It makes you too
stout, and now that it affects your eyes this way, I should think you
would at least moderate your appetite for strong waters.”

“Johnnie,” said Gale severely, “you’re a goose, as usual. But on the
dead, now, I want you and Nick to tell me how many moons you see there.
I see three. If you only see one, then this cold storage, or something
else, has got into my eyes, and it’s time I was doing something for it.”

We assured him, then, that we saw what he did, one real moon and two
false ones, the result of some strange condition of the air. When we
descended to the cabin, Gale followed singing,

 “Three moons rose over the city where there shouldn’t have been but
    one.”

Besides these things we had the Aurora Australis, though from our
position under the ice-wall we seldom got a direct view of this
phenomenon, and we sometimes made excursions into the desolation of the
pack to view it. On one of these we were separated from the ship by a
wide waterway that opened just outside the harbor. It seemed a serious
predicament for a time, but the little telephone, which we always
carried, promptly “vibrated” a message to the ship, and our
balloon-boat-and-sled combination was first put into actual service as a
ferry to bring us safely over. From without, our harbor entrance had
seemed a portal to the lower regions. Crossing to it in the boat was
like being ferried over the river Styx.

To me the days did not drag, though to others of the party they may have
passed less swiftly. Love did not speed the hours for them, unless in
the sense that all the ship loved the lovers, and in making our lives
interesting for us they found sufficient entertainment for themselves.
Gale’s acceptance of the new understanding between Edith and myself had
been characteristic and hearty.

“Well,” he said, “’tain’t my fault. Don’t come around now, you and
Johnnie, tryin’ to blame it onto me. I told you how it would be. Oh
Lord, what’s a circus without monkeys!” He took our hands then, and
squeezed them together in one big, splendid palm. “Nicholas Chase,” he
went on, “you’ve got the boat, and me, and now a mortgage on Johnnie. If
there’s any other outlying and unattached property you’d like to have,
just name it. And if you don’t see what you want ask for it. Johnnie’s
the only undivided interest I had left that I cared anything about, and
if you’re going to get that you might as well have all the rest.” But at
this point Edith had thrown her arms about his neck, laughing and crying
at once. Happy as I was, there was a moment or two just then in which I
did not feel entirely comfortable.

One day, perhaps a week later, when we came in from an hour’s
snow-shoeing, he suddenly greeted us with:

“Look here, Johnnie, how did it come you didn’t turn Nick down like the
others?”

My sweetheart’s cheeks were already aglow, and her eyes sparkling. But I
thought there came an added glow and sparkle at the unexpected question.
Her eyes sent a quick look into mine that warmed my soul.

“Why, you see, Daddy, we—we were away off down here, and—and we couldn’t
afford to have any unpleasantness on the ship, and——”

“Oh, yes, I see—I see! And you’re going to bounce him when we get back
to New York. Great girl! Takes after her Daddy.”

From the hand that rested on my arm she had been withdrawing the little
fur mitten. Now a small palm and some cold fingers came creeping up into
mine for warmth, and to bestow a reassuring pressure.

“But—but don’t you see, Daddy,—I—I—we can’t afford to have any
unpleasantness there, either,” she said.

We had a long series of whist rubbers in the cabin, and entertainments
in which the forecastle was frequently invited to join. In turn, we
sometimes looked in on the forecastle, or, for exercise, took a hand
with the sailors in clearing snow and ice from the vessel. Altogether we
were a well-fed, contented little world—a warm, bright spot in a wide
waste of dark and cold—and even Zar grew stout and comfortable, and more
considerate of my feelings.

“I can stay heah jes’ as long as de boat stays and de perwision hold
out,” was her frequent assertion. “Mistah Sturritt certney is a mighty
good perwider.” And Mr. Sturritt deserved this compliment, for whatever
may have been his eccentricities in the matter of tablets, as our
regular commissary, he appeared to be a complete and continuous success.

As spring approached and the return of the sun drew near, preparations
for scaling the ice-wall and for the journey inland were perfected. Our
balloon, the Cloudcrest, was carefully overhauled, and our boat-car
furnished with all the requirements of an extended voyage, should we
find, after making observations, such an undertaking to be advisable.
The boat was very light and had air-tight aluminum compartments, as well
as many water-tight compartments for our stores. Mr. Sturritt’s
condensed food lozenges, which we had all tested and voted a success,
were variously distributed.

“We don’t want to carry all our pills in one box,” explained Gale, “and
say, Bill, don’t you think we’d better leave one place for a few
old-fashioned sandwiches? Just to start on, you know; then we can kind
o’ taper off onto tablets, as it were. You’ve fed us too well through
the winter to jump right into pills at the drop of the hat.”

So a place for sandwiches was left; also places for field-glasses and
other instruments, as well as for furs and sleeping-bags, which were
likely to be needed, we thought, in the early stages of the journey. For
ballast, instead of sand, we filled bags with zinc filings, these to be
used later in making hydrogen for replenishing the balloon. It is true
we thought it more than likely that we should return in some new
fashion, to be provided by the Antarcticans, but we believed it well to
be prepared for emergencies. Our propeller for both wind and water was
now thoroughly tested, the retorts for making the gas were complete and
ready, and all grew impatient at last for the day when we were to make
our trial ascension.

Ferratoni, I think, was more eager than the others. He seemed convinced
now that not only were there human beings beyond the barrier, but that
they knew of us, and waited for our coming. In just what form this had
“vibrated” to him he could not quite explain, and in fact rarely
attempted to do so. He was quite willing, however, to experiment with us
in telepathy, or, as he termed it, in the chording of mental vibrations,
through which he could often follow a train of thought in another with a
success that was certainly interesting, and even startling.

It appeared in no sense to be a gift with Ferratoni, but a scientific
attainment, acquired by patient and gradual steps. He claimed that the
principle of it was quite as simple as that of the answering musical or
electric vibrations—in fact, the same. We grew to accept this theory in
time, though we made little progress in its application. Perhaps our
minds were too full of other things.

To Ferratoni all the problems of the ages resolved themselves into
Chorded Vibrations.

“There is no change in the individual at death,” he said to me one day.
“It is simply a moving out of the old house. The life vibration—the
intelligence—remains the same. I shall be able by and by to chord and
communicate with those no longer in the Physical House.”

Later, when I saw Edith, I said:

“The long night is telling on Ferratoni. He is becoming a spiritualist.”

Edith Gale looked thoughtful.

“If he does, he will be a scientific one,” she said, “and able to
demonstrate reasonably the how and why of his inter-spheric
communications. If all he says of his chorded vibrations be true, who
shall say how far, and through what dim spaces they may not answer?”

You see, we had had time to speculate on a good many things during the
long Antarctic Night. Even in an ordinary night, between the hours of
three and five in the morning, strange problems come drifting in and the
boundary lines between substance and shadow waver. Keep this up for a
period of months, without a break of sunlight, and one’s skepticism on
almost any point begins to totter. At the end of the third month, if
Ferratoni had announced that he could render himself invisible and
transport himself to any point of the compass at will, we would have
been less surprised than eager to learn the process; and had Mr.
Sturritt suddenly declared that he had perfected a lozenge which would
confer eternal youth, I feel certain that any of us would have been
willing to accept a trial package.




                                  XXI.
                      AN ARRIVAL AND A DEPARTURE.


Curiously enough the sun made its first chill, brief reappearance on the
anniversary of our sailing. Chill and brief it was, but that thin edge
of light skirting the far northern horizon meant to all who saw it new
hope, and a new hold on the realities of life.

The sky there had for some time been growing redder each day, and more
than once we believed that the Captain’s calculation would be proved at
fault, and that the sun itself must appear. But the Captain’s
mathematics were sound, and the sun was on schedule time. In spite of
Zar’s prophecy we were all there to bid it “howdy,” and there was not a
soul on board, from the Admiral to the cook, that sent “regrets” to that
reception. Captain Biffer had “bent on” a stiff new shirt for the
occasion, and was smiling and triumphant.

“Wheah you reckon dat sun shinin’ _warm_, now?” Zar asked in an awed
voice.

“In New York City,” answered her mistress, “just as it was the day we
sailed.”

“Shall we be back there a year from now?” I asked.

She held my arm close. Chauncey Gale answered.

“I will. Too far away from the Bowery down here.”

But Ferratoni, who stood next me, said—speaking to himself, and so low
that only I heard it—

“Not all of us will return.”

I did not seem to hear, either, and I doubt if he knew that he had
spoken; but a thing said like that creates an impression, and it set me
to wondering. Then the brief exhibition was over, and we descended
hastily to the warmth and feast waiting for us below.

There would be still nearly two months before we were willing to attempt
our journey inland. We did not much care to face darkness in unknown
wastes, and our continuous day would not begin until late in October. We
were determined, however, to make much sooner the trial ascension for
the purposes of observation, and to test the carrying power of the
Cloudcrest. By the middle of September our days were of good length, and
on the twentieth the divisions of light and darkness would be equal. We
decided to make our preliminary ascension on that day.

It was only by chance that Edith Gale missed taking part in this
momentous event. She had begged to be allowed to do so, and while
neither Gale nor I approved of her going, we had more than half
consented when Ferratoni came to our rescue by suggesting that we ought
by all means to make the carrying test with just those who expected to
undertake the voyage later.

This, both Gale and I declared, was a weighty argument, and my fiancée
at length yielded, though I must confess with but a poor show of either
filial or spousal obedience. She had been quite prepared to undertake a
voyage, too, and even this wild notion had not been surrendered without
severe reasoning.

“One of this firm’s got to stay with the ship,” Gale had said, finally.
“Now, if you’re going with the balloon, Johnnie, who’s going to stay?
Nick or me?”

She gave it up, then, and perhaps she had never been really serious in
the matter. Only she couldn’t bear the thought of our going away into
the undiscovered lands without her. No one but Ferratoni and Mr.
Sturritt were to accompany Gale and myself on the voyage inland, and Mr.
Sturritt only on condition that the balloon in its trial ascension
proved amply buoyant. He had counted on it from the first, having been
with Gale in every undertaking for many years. Then, too, he wished to
attend personally to our experiments with the food lozenge.

We were astir early on the morning of the twentieth, and had the gas
going and the balloon inflated by ten o’clock. It was a clear winter
morning, but still, and to us it seemed warm. Our entire population was
gathered for the occasion.

“So you gwine to sail off into space, now, is yeh?” observed Zar, as we
prepared to start.

“Yes, and your Miss Edith is going along,” I answered, jestingly.

Zar whirled about.

“Look heah, honey! You don’t mean to say you gwine up in dat skiff to
pernavigate de skies, does yeh?”

“Of course, Zar. Why not?”

Miss Gale made a move as if to take her place in the boat, but the old
woman, with a nimbleness and strength not consistent with her years,
suddenly stepped forward and bore her off bodily, as she had so often
done in childhood.

“Put me down, Zar!” pleaded Miss Gale, “put me down! I won’t go—I
promise!”

The old woman set her mistress upright and regarded her sternly.

“Well, I dess reckon you won’t, honey,” she announced, “lessen you walk
ovah my old dead body! You wouldn’t come on dis trip ef I’d knowed wheah
we-all comin’ to. I mighty tiahd sech foolishness, an’ dey ain’ gwine be
no moah of it! Airskiff! Humph! I guess not!”

We were all ready now. By a short, stout rope, running from a stanchion
through a ring in the deck to another ring in the bottom of our boat-car
and thus back to the stanchion again, our balloon was held close
captive. Coiled on the deck beside us lay twenty-five hundred feet of
smaller rope, one end of it attached to the ring beneath the car, and
the other lashed firmly about an iron “bit”—thus constituting our
anchorage while aloft. The Cloudcrest was very large, certainly, and
pulled desperately in the clear, cold air, but it did not seem possible
that she would be able to lift all that great length of line. A little
more than a hundred yards away was the perpendicular blue barrier of
ice, beyond whose lofty summit we hoped soon to look. Our shorter
anchorage was all that detained us, and a man stood ready with a keen
knife, to sever at the word. When ready to descend we had only to open
the valve above and let out the gas. We expected to be back in an hour.

Chauncey Gale took his seat last. He kissed his daughter as if he were
starting on a journey. This inclination had seized me also, but not the
resolution so I had merely pressed her hand. All except the man with the
knife drew back.

“Ready! One, two, three, cut!”

There was a sharp hissing sound, a sudden upward jerk, and a white world
fell away beneath us. The cold air rushed by and took our breath. Then
presently it passed less swiftly. The weight of our anchor rope was
beginning to tell. Like Alice falling into Wonderland we were going
slowly enough at length to take in things as we went along. There were
no empty jam-pots, but the swift panorama of the stratified wall was
interesting. Ferratoni handed me the telephone.

“All right, below?” I called.

“All right!” came the voice of Edith Gale, “but how small you are
getting!”

“We feel bigger than we look!”

“Is Daddy all right?”

“Yes, he’s getting out a sleeping-bag, so if he feels cold he can get
into it.”

Gale seized the transmitter.

“Slander,” he called. “We’ve already found two hot bricks in Nick’s
pocket, and he’s been begging like a stray kitten to be taken home!”

Up, and up, and up! The Billowcrest below grew small, then smaller, and
became at last a toy boat tossed into a snowdrift. Nearer and nearer
came the verge of the barrier.

“Can’t you see over it yet?” called the voice in the phone. “It looks as
if you could.”

“Not yet! Soon, though. We’re half crazy with excitement!”

“Tell me the instant you _can_ see over, and just what you can see!”

“Yes, of course! In another second now—we——”

There was a sudden movement of the car. Looking up I saw that the
balloon bag, now lifting above the barrier, had been caught in an upper
current of air from the north, and was being carried inward, to the
wall. In another instant it struck the jagged edge of the precipice,
rebounded, was caught again by the air current and lifted, and with a
wild sweep went plunging over the barrier, dragging us almost
horizontally behind!

There came some startled cries through the telephone. Then, from behind,
a sudden jerk that nearly flung us from the car. We had reached the end
of our rope, so to speak, and had been pulled up, short. Too short, for
the taut line, drawn across the sharp edge of ice, could not stand the
strain. Well for us that it did not. We were already clawing tooth and
nail at everything in sight, and our angle was becoming momentarily more
precipitous. The car swung suddenly downward into an easier position,
and then once more a white world dropped away beneath. We did not need
to guess what had happened. We knew. The line had parted, and on the
wings of a thirty mile wind we were bound for the South Pole.




                                 XXII.
                        ON THE AIR-LINE, SOUTH.


It is needless to say that in the few brief seconds required for these
things to happen I did not continue the conversation with my fiancée.
The reader will understand that I was busy—too busy even to listen to
the advice that was coming through the telephone. At least I suppose it
was advice—Miss Gale would naturally give advice on an occasion like
that, and besides there was nothing else that she could have given,
anyway. But as the instrument was at that moment swinging over the side
of the car, and would have been lost to us utterly, had not Ferratoni,
with great foresight, nailed it securely at the other end, and as we
were engaged in holding on to a half-overturned air-boat with everything
made by nature for that purpose, the connection was poor, and the
advice, or sympathy, or whatever it was, wasted on the snow-clad fields.

For that is what lay below us as far as we could see. The snow, the
endless snow, and still the snow. From our far, cold height it seemed a
level floor, though we know by what we found later that it must have
been heaved and drifted.

We were very high. The dropping away of the greater part of our anchor
rope had sent us up like a rocket. We were a bit confused, at first, but
presently we faced each other, and the situation. We were bound
southward—that much was certain—and at a rapid rate of speed. Gale was
first to express himself.

“I’ve boarded a train going twenty-five mile an hour,” he panted, “but I
never had to hold on with my teeth before. I haven’t had so much fun
since I had the measles.”

“It _was_ rather interesting for a second or two,” I assented.

Mr. Sturritt was examining the compartments where his tablets were
stored.

“I feared we might have spilled—that is—been unfortunate with our
supplies,” he explained. “They are all right, I see.”

“Oh, they’re all right, Bill. The tablets we have always with us. But
how about the sandwiches? You didn’t put any in for this trip, of
course!”

Mr. Sturritt looked mildly injured.

“Why, yes, I obeyed—that is—I followed instructions, and prepared for
the trial ascension precisely as if we were to make the intended voyage.
In order that the weight might—er——”

“Do you mean,” interrupted Gale, “that there are sandwiches in there?”
tapping on the compartment reserved for that purpose.

“Yes, sir—or were, when we started.”

“Bill,” declared Gale, fervently, “if we ever get out of this snap, I’ll
set you up in a business big enough to supply tablets to the whole
civilized world and part of Long Island.”

“I should be quite satisfied to stay—that is, to remain—that is, if we
ever get back to it, on the Billowcrest,” said Mr. Sturritt simply.

Gale turned to me.

“How long will it take to get to that warm country of yours, Nick?”

“If we keep on as we’re going, we ought to be in a much warmer climate
by night,” I said, “and night won’t come so quickly, either, going in
this direction. The continuous day is just beginning at the Pole, you
know.”

Gale leaned back.

“All right,” he said, “I’d rather go to the end of the line than to try
to get back over that ice-wall. Give us a through ticket and throw her
wide open.”

Ferratoni meantime was fishing up the telephone, and after a brief
examination passed it with gentle courtesy over to me.

“I do not need it, you know,” he said.

I took it eagerly, though I did not quite gather his meaning. The little
bell was already ringing violently. I called hastily into the
transmitter:

“Hello! hello! down there! All well up here. All safe and bound for the
South Pole.”

Edith Gale’s voice came back joyously.

“Oh, Nicholas! Oh, I was so frightened!”

“Don’t worry a bit. We’re a little ahead of schedule time, but we’re off
all right, and have got a clear track.”

There was a brief pause, during which I imagined Miss Gale might be
collecting herself after her excitement, and perhaps communicating the
news to the others. Then her voice came again, somewhat more calmly.

“Oh, are you sure you’re all right, and how’s Daddy?”

“Supplied with sandwiches, and at peace with all mankind.”

My tone reassured her.

“What can you see up there?” she asked eagerly.

“Nothing, so far, but snow, but there seem to be light fleecy clouds to
the south, or maybe they’re snow hills. If clouds, it would mean a
warmer country, I think.”

“How high up are you?”

“Well, perhaps a mile or so.”

“Very cold up there?”

“It’s getting cold. We were pretty warm at first, from exercise.”

“Oh, weren’t you frightened?”

“N—no, I don’t think we had time.”

She then asked me about Mr. Sturritt and Ferratoni, but before I could
answer Ferratoni said:

“You may tell her that I gain happiness with every mile that passes.”

“Could you hear her question?” I asked, surprised.

“Mentally, yes,” he answered. “Even at this distance there is a perfect
chording of the thought, as well as the electrical vibration.”

I knew then what he had meant by not needing the telephone.

“Look here, we’re going down,” declared Gale, suddenly.

I peered over the side of the boat. Certainly the swift-flying waste
below seemed to be coming nearer. We were no longer miles above the
drifts. I doubted if we were even one mile, and they seemed to be
rapidly coming nearer. I looked at Gale. What could it mean?

“I’ll tell you,” he said, “just what’s the matter. We got a puncture
when we struck the edge of that ice-wall. We’re leaking gas, and we’re
going to be dumped out, pretty soon, right here in the middle of
nowhere.”

There seemed no argument against this conclusion. I did not attempt any.
The thing to do was to act.

“We’ll have to throw out some of our ballast, quick,” I said, “before we
get down where our drag-rope can touch. That would pull on us still
more. We must keep going as long as we can, unless you want to try to
get back to the ship.”

“And fall off that two thousand foot wall—not much!” said Gale. “We’re
going on.”

Our bags of zinc filings were stored in a compartment at the bottom of
the boat, under our furs and sleeping arrangements. I lifted the latter
quickly and drew out some of the ballast. I passed the bags to Gale, who
threw them over, one at a time. There was a slight upward pull as each
went over, but still the white surface below remained distressingly
near. The five hundred feet that still remained of our anchor rope
seemed to cover more than half the distance, though this was, of course,
deceptive. We continued to throw out our bags of filings until all were
gone, and followed them with our supply of acid, which, without the
zinc, would be of no value. Minus the means of making gas, our chances
of return were, of course, much lessened, but the needs of the moment
seemed all important and imperative. As we drew near the flying surface
our speed appeared to increase, though in reality it probably slackened.

Our descent now became less rapid. Perhaps because the pressure of the
gas was not so great, and also because the lower air was more buoyant.
Still, it was not to be denied that we were drawing slowly, surely,
nearer to the white plain below. We had not mentioned our predicament to
those on the ship, and we said no word now of the impending disaster. We
simply huddled down into our fur wrappings and waited, often looking
over the side to note our progress, both southward and downward.

Finally, just after noon, it became evident that our anchor-rope would
soon touch, and this would presently drag us down.

“How much does that rope weigh?” Gale asked, looking at me.

“About two hundred pounds, perhaps.”

We remained looking at each other, and though not skilled like Ferratoni
in such matters, I could read the thought in his mind. The rope, as I
have said, was attached to the iron ring below. I would as soon have
jumped over at once, as to have attempted to climb over and cut it. As
for Gale, he was much too heavy, and not constructed for such work. But
we knew we must get rid of that rope.

“Perhaps I can shoot it off,” suggested Gale.

He drew a revolver from one of the compartments, and leaning over, fired
repeatedly at the slender mark. But the end below was touching now, and
this made it unsteady. He gave up at last, his hands numb with cold.

“Either I am a poor shot, or the bullets won’t cut it,” he said.

“There is no help for it,” I thought. “I must make the attempt and die.”

“No,” said Ferratoni, “I will go over. You can put a rope around me.”

But at this point Mr. Sturritt ventured to interfere.

“As a boy,” he said, “I was something of a circus—that is—I was somewhat
given to gymnastics, and I think I might properly undertake this
matter.”

“Bill,” said Gale, fervently, “you’re laying up treasures.”

He was the lightest of the party. We put a small rope securely about
him, and made loops to hold to from above. The elderly man laid off his
outer furs, and in the icy air stepped nimbly to the edge. Then, knife
in hand, he cautiously descended. He first tried holding to the side of
the boat with one hand and reaching for the rope with the other. But
this would not work, so, at his bidding, we lowered him a few feet
further. He gave himself a push outward as he descended. As he swung
back under the boat he seized the rope below, and with a few deft cuts,
severed it.

There was a sudden upward flight that prevented our hauling in
immediately. Then we pulled straight up, and Mr. Sturritt’s hands, and
presently his head, appeared over the side. He tumbled in among us and
we covered him with furs. We offered him brandy, for he was stiff and
blue.

“N—no,” he shivered, “in c—compartment four you will find a brown
lozenge especially adapted to such occas—that is—to emergencies of this
sort.”

I hastily procured the tablets, and he swallowed two of them.

“Take a little whisky to wash ’em down, Bill.”

But Mr. Sturritt shook his head, and presently seemed to grow quite warm
among the furs. Then, closing his eyes, he slept. Gale regarded him
fondly.

“Bully old Bill!” he said. “I never knew him to be afraid in my life, or
to fail when it came to the pinch!”




                                 XXIII.
                    THE CLOUDCREST MAKES A LANDING.


We were fully half a mile above the white world now, and greatly
encouraged. If we could keep this up for several hours I believed we
might get beyond the snow barrier, or at least to a point where the cold
was less intense. Already it seemed to me that the air was less keen. We
felt little or no wind as we were traveling with it, and while we had
started our propeller and kept it going steadily it did not add enough
to our speed to cause any perceptible current of air from ahead. By two
o’clock we agreed that it was considerably warmer than when we had
started. The thermometer, too, showed a difference of several degrees,
though this might be due to a variety of causes. At the ship, however,
Edith reported no perceptible change, all of which added to our
encouragement. Gale, meantime, had investigated the sandwiches, and
found them not only safe, but packed to prevent freezing. We each took
two, in addition to an allowance of lozenges—all except Mr. Sturritt,
who stood by his guns, or rather his tablets, and fared on this food
only.

But by three o’clock it became evident that we must soon reach the end
of the balloon stage of our journey. The Cloudcrest had done nobly in
her crippled condition, but she was settling steadily now, and there was
nothing else that we could afford to throw away. It was better, we said,
to face the disaster of landing at once with our supplies than to throw
them away and land finally with nothing. We believed that we had covered
no less than a hundred and fifty miles, a distance which I had hoped
would mark the limit of the snow-line, but in this, evidently, I had
been mistaken. It was still a white level ahead, over which, if we
escaped destruction in making our landing (and this seemed extremely
doubtful at the rate of speed we were going), we would now be obliged to
proceed, and much more slowly, on foot. I determined, therefore, to
stick to the balloon as long as possible, even at the cost of some risk
and discomfort.

But as we drew near the surface we saw that what had appeared to us a
smooth level was billowed and drifted like the sea. We braced ourselves
for the moment when we should strike. The chances were that we would be
flung out with violence or dragged to death miserably.

Nearer and nearer we came, rushing down on the marble whiteness beneath.

“Do you know,” said Gale suddenly, “it seems to me we are going
down-hill.”

“If we are,” I replied, “it shows that the crust is getting thinner, and
proves my theory of a warm country. I have thought it for some time, but
I would not mention it until some one else—hi!—Look out!”

There was a sudden shock, and a blinding smash of snow that choked and
stunned us. I gasped and coughed to get my breath. When I opened my eyes
I saw that we had cut through the peak of the high drift I had seen
coming just ahead, and bounded several feet into the air. But presently
we settled again, and there was another jerk and smash, and another
bound.

“We’re hitting only the high places,” gasped Gale.

“We won’t hit many more,” I gasped back.

We did hit another at that instant, and plowed through still another
immediately afterward. Then we appeared to strike a comparatively smooth
place, for we felt the rush and bump of the snow beneath almost
constantly, though the spray of it became a blinding volume that meant
suffocation and death.

“Cut the ropes!” shouted Gale, “and let her go!”

He was seated in the stern, and must have suited the action to the word,
for I felt the bow, where I was, rise, and looking back saw Gale holding
on for dear life to keep from spilling out behind. He did not look
contented, and evidently had changed his mind about a through ticket.
Like Uncle Laxart, he was willing to wait for the next balloon, or to
walk, or to go in any way that was quieter. Ferratoni and Sturritt were
also sawing at the side ropes, and I quickly got my knife ready to sever
the single rope at the bow last. Mr. Sturritt succeeded in getting the
ropes on his side cut off first, and for some moments our boat, or
rather our sled, for it was that now, was pitching or rolling through
the drifts on side or bottom, just as it happened. Then we seemed to
right, and I guessed, though I could not see, that Ferratoni had in some
manner got his ropes cut away. Our sled was being pulled now by its
single cord up hill and down dale, helter-skelter, lickety-split,
bounding, leaping, plunging, and courting destruction. From out of the
madness of it all came Gale’s voice.

“Here we come! Head us, somebody! Dern our fool souls, we’re runnin’
away!” And a second later, “Cut her, Nick, cut her! I can’t stick on any
longer!”

[Illustration:

  “Cut her, Nick, cut her! I can’t stick on any longer!”—Page 202.
]

I had been holding the edge of my knife to the rope, hesitating to cut,
for the reason that we appeared to have slowed down somewhat, and were
yet making such excellent time. Now, with a slash, we were free.

There was a sudden halting, a plunge, a wild medley of legs and arms and
ropes and Antarctic snow, and over all a tightly fitting cover, and
blackness.

The cover was the overturned boat. The blackness, the inside of it,
where I was. I was half stunned at first, however, and did not realize
just what had occurred. Then I heard Gale’s voice outside.

“Ring up the curtain, and let’s see what’s left.”

I braced my back against whatever was above me and it rose. Then the
light came under, and I saw Gale. Together we pushed and pulled up the
boat and righted it. Under the boat with me had fallen both Mr. Sturritt
and Ferratoni. The latter was gasping and getting his wind. The former
was white and senseless, but opened his eyes almost immediately, and sat
up. Gale, who had rolled out behind into a comfortable drift, was quite
merry.

“Look yonder,” he laughed.

I looked to the south and upward, as he pointed, and saw a dark spot
against the sky. It was the bag of the Cloudcrest.

“If you get there before we do,” sang Gale.

“Chauncey Gale,” I said, “if every exploring party had a man like you
along there would be no such thing as failure.”

“I think we’d better talk a little to Johnnie if the telephone’s
working,” he said. “She may think we’ve gone to sleep.”

We found the apparatus buried in the snow, but apparently uninjured. The
little bell on it rang as soon as the snow was poked away.

“Hello,” called Gale, “that you, Johnnie? Matter? With us? Why, nothing.
We’ve been busy, that’s all.—No, not quite so loud as it was.—Yes. Bell
didn’t ring, maybe.—Noise you heard? Oh, slacking down the propeller I
guess. Or maybe Nick singing. We’ve camped for the night.—No. Nick
thought it best now we’ve got where it’s warm. Didn’t know what we might
get into, you know.—Yes, bully!—Yes, had to let out some gas. We’ll have
to throw out ballast of course in the morning.—Good place? Oh, yes,—nice
and clean.—No, not _too_ warm.—No, no trees yet.—Oh, why—we—we hitched
it to—that is—we tied it to—to”—Gale slipped his hand over the
transmitter and turned to me helplessly. “Nick, what under heavens did
we hitch the balloon to, for the night? Tell me quick!”

“A—a peculiar petrified formation,” I said hastily. “Might have been a
tree, at one time, you know.”

“Nick says it’s a petrified tree.—Yes, only a few of ’em left.—No. Tell
Biff to hold the fort.—Yes, we must camp, now. Good-by!” He turned to me
again. “Nick,” he said, “that was a good petrified lie of yours, and it
worked in bully. No use to worry the little girl,” he added, “she’ll
think about us enough, anyway.”

We prepared for the night. There was still a feeble sun in the west, and
we made haste to get into comfortable quarters before it left us. I had
learned something of navigation on the vessel, and securing an angle I
calculated that we had made somewhat more than one hundred and sixty
miles during the five hours of aerial travel. We were convinced now that
the snow surface sloped to the southward. Our horizon showed this when
we ascended to the top of the highest drifts, and the temperature also
indicated our approach to a warmer zone. That the frozen crust was
getting thinner we had no doubt, but the end of it seemed yet far
distant, and the temperature about us was by no means of a sort to
suggest a summer wardrobe.

The mechanical skill of Chauncey Gale now became manifest. Inverting our
boat once more, there appeared folded legs which when pulled down formed
short uprights. Also, there was a canvas that dropped around these, and
made a continuous wall, with a flap door in front. On the snow floor
inside we spread our furs, and at the opening there was presently a
little electric stove going, on which Mr. Sturritt was busily melting
snow and preparing tea. This with some sandwiches and a generous round
of lozenges formed our evening meal. We ate it, reclining on our furs,
and were really quite cozy and comfortable. I had a presentiment that I
could not adopt Mr. Sturritt’s condensed food as a continuous diet. It
would have been treason, however, to say so at this stage. Gale was very
delicate in the matter.

“What’s a picnic without peanuts!” he said, as he lit a cigar, and lay
back in the darkness. “And, by the way, Bill, how many of those
sandwiches have we got?”

“Why, I think plenty for—er—to-morrow—that is—at the present rate of
consumption.”

“Um—well, maybe we’d better begin tapering to-morrow then. One a meal,
instead of two. We don’t want to break in on tablets too suddenly, you
know.”

We crept into our sleeping bags—Gale and I together. We heard the
clatter of fine drifting snow on our roof and canvas wall. We were not
cold, and drowsiness presently came stealing over me—the reaction after
all the excitement of the day.

Then out of the darkness came the face of Edith Gale. We were far apart
for the first time in a year. Long, desolate, frozen miles lay between
us. To-morrow night the distance would be still greater. She did not
know our plight—of that I was glad. Yet, in the end, it might be no
worse than hers. The Billowcrest might never escape from her ice-locked
harbor. And it was I who had brought all of this to pass. We were both
isolated in this great frozen world, and all through a mad dream of my
boyhood. I had an inclination to toss on my pillow, but the limits of
the sleeping-bag did not permit this luxury. From out of the darkness at
the other end of the boat came the voice of Ferratoni.

“It will avail nothing to disturb yourself,” he said gently, “and a
good-night word would be comforting.”

I had forgotten the telephone. I reached out an arm for it now, and
touched the call button. Almost immediately it answered, and then came
Edith’s voice.

“Hello! Who is it?”

“It’s me—we’re just going to sleep and want to say good night.”

“Are you really warm and nice? And is Daddy comfortable?”

“Yes, he’s asleep, I think.”

“No, he isn’t,” said Gale. “Give me that phone a minute.”

“Hi, Johnnie, that you?—Yes. You better go, too.—Can’t sleep? Why?—Oh,
pshaw! we’re snug as a bug. Go on, now. Say your prayers over twice, and
get Zar to sing ‘Brown Cows’ to you! Good night!”

He handed me the transmitter.

“Good night,” I said.

“Good night, dear,” she called, “and God bless you!”

A sweet peace and comfort came upon me.

“Ferratoni,” I said, “you deserve a crown!” But he did not answer.

Drowsiness once more came down like a soft curtain. Then the sleepy
voice of Gale:

“Bill!”

“Yes, sir.”

“How did it happen, when you cut the rope to-day and the balloon shot
up, that your weight didn’t jerk us all out? I didn’t feel any jerk.”

“No, sir—I—I—had grabbed—that is—seized hold quite firmly of the bit of
rope above, sir.”

There was another silence, and then I half-heard, mingled with a dream
that was just beginning, the far-off sleepy voice of Gale, whispering,

“Bully old Bill!”




                                 XXIV.
                          THE GREAT WHITE WAY.


Sept. 21. All day we have been pushing our boat-sleigh, and to-night we
are between fifteen and twenty miles farther south than last. We made
fairly good progress in spite of the drifts, because of the general
down-<DW72>, which in some places was such that we got into our boat and
the wind carried us along. Gale and Ferratoni are fixing up a sail to
use to-morrow. It will be rigged between two of the uprights, forward.
The wings of our propeller were smashed in the fall. We are all very
tired to-night, and very hungry, for our light ration of sandwiches does
not go far, and the food lozenges become unpleasant when eaten in any
quantity. Mr. Sturritt explains that we do not quite follow
instructions, but I noticed this evening a very sad look on his face, so
perhaps he is experiencing some difficulty with them himself, as a
steady diet, for he still persistently declines the sandwiches. I hope
we shall reach somewhere or something to-morrow. Otherwise we shall be
in very bad straits in the matter of food. Fortunately we have plenty of
tea and coffee. The air has grown warmer, and a soft snow is falling. It
is what we would call good winter weather in northern Nebraska.

Sept. 22. Another day of pushing and sailing our boat-sledge. The sail
is a success, and a great help. We have made good time, but there is no
sign of dry land yet, and our last sandwiches are gone. To-morrow it
will be tablets or nothing. We have not confessed it to each other, but
I think it will be _nothing_. Even Mr. Sturritt looks wretched when it
comes mealtime. He steadily refuses the sandwiches, however.

It is clear and cold to-night, but it was much warmer through the day
than yesterday. We are almost too warm, in fact, when we are pushing the
boat. Gale never loses heart. He keeps up the deception with Edith,
though this is not so easy as it would seem. He told her to-day that we
were “laying up,” because of adverse winds. Her voice in the telephone
seems weaker than it was, perhaps because of our reaching a lower level,
and the increasing distance. Like the Marconi system, this may require
that one end of the circuit should be much higher than the other in
order to get the best results. Ferratoni thinks the jar of our fall may
have affected the instrument, too. I hope and pray that it will not fail
us altogether, for the voices from the ship are our greatest comfort.
Last night, just as I was dozing off I heard my name called gently.

“Nicholas!”

It was Edith’s voice, and close to my ear. I answered softly, for the
others were already sleeping. Then she said:

“Nicholas, Zar is going to sing to me, don’t you want to hear, too?”

“Oh, yes, I should love to.”

There came a mumble of protest in the receiver. Evidently Zar did not
altogether approve of singing us both to sleep at once, even though so
many frozen miles lay between. Then this ceased, and a moment later,
vibrating across the wastes in a rich, crooning chant, came her song of
the “Old Brown Cows.”[2]

Footnote 2:

[Illustration]

             Words and Music, Copyright, 1901, by the Author.

                “Dark come down an’ dey ain’ come home—
                Dark come down an’ dey ain’ come home—
                Dark come down an’ dey ain’ come home-
                          Ole brown cows.
                          Ole brown cows—
                Straying away from de mastah’s gate,
                          Ole brown cows.

                “Look way down to to de pastur’ lot—
                Call way down th’ough the clovah fiel’—
                Hunt way down by de cattle pon’
                          Foh ole brown cows.
                          Ole brown cows—
                Call ’em home to de mastah’s gate,
                          Ole brown cows.

                “What dat tinkle-in’ th’ough de wood?
                What dat browserin’ ’long de haidge?
                What dat shuffle-in’ down de lane?
                          Ole brown cows.
                          Ole brown cows—
                All come home to de mastah’s gate—
                          Ole brown cows.”

Sept. 23. The wind keeps with us, and whenever we find a decently smooth
place we can sail. Otherwise, we should make little progress, for we are
too weak from weariness and lack of food to do much at pushing the boat.
We kept up to-day on coffee and tea. We can’t eat any more tablets, and
Mr. Sturritt, who forced down a number of them, had something like
nervous spasms afterwards. To-night, when he stopped for camp, he sat
down and cried. Gale comforted him.

“Poor Bill,” he said “poor old Bill. _Don’t_ break down. We’ll get out
of this mess some way. We always have, you know.”

“It isn’t that,” moaned Sturritt, “I’m not afraid. It’s the tab—that
is—the lozenges. They’ve failed me. I—I can’t eat ’em, myself!”

Sept. 24. Strange what will come out of this white desolation. Last
night, after the others were asleep, Ferratoni and I talked softly of
evolution and immortality. He believes in transmigration, and that the
horse is the next step before man. I was barely awake at last, and
closed my eyes to a vision of four jaded horses that were dragging a
heavy boat across the sun-bright snow.

Sept. 25. This morning a white bird—the first life we have seen—lighted
near our camp, and Gale shot it with his revolver. It was a fine shot,
for the bird was not large—barely a good bite apiece. It revived us more
than would seem possible, and encouraged us in the belief that we are
nearing bare ground. We pushed on to the south, though very slowly. We
have made no more than twenty miles in the past three days. Other birds
passed, but neither Gale nor the rest of us could hit them. We were soon
wretchedly hungry again, and desperate.

About noon Gale was taken quite unexpectedly with a religious turn, and
offered a prayer. It seemed fervent enough, but on the whole I did not
think much of it. He said:

“Oh, Lord, we seem to have run the lines of this addition wrong. We’ve
made a poor survey and we can’t find any corner-stones. There’s no use
trying to get back to the ship, and we don’t seem to be able to get
anywhere else. We’re hungry, Lord, too, and we can’t eat any more of
Bill’s tablets. He can’t eat ’em himself. I’ve tried to shoot birds, but
I only hit one, and I think that was an accident. I’ve shot and shot and
used up about all my ammunition. I can’t hit a thing, Lord, and the
other boys shoot worse than I do. It’s your turn now, Lord. Amen.”

It may be that this prayer did some good, for in the afternoon a whole
flock of birds lit near us, and Gale threw his revolver among them,
killing two. We feel sure these birds indicate bare earth not far away.
But we must reach it soon. Gale is, as ever, full of cheer. Ferratoni
does not seem to flag, while I am buoyed up by hope, and still have,
though it comes each day more faintly, the voice of the woman I love, to
give me strength and courage. But poor old Sturritt, who is heart-broken
over the failure of his food lozenge, won’t last long as things are. I
gave him my part of the last birds to-day. I divided them, so he didn’t
know the difference.




                                  XXV.
                          WHERE THE WAY ENDS.


But now came a great day.

It began with a discovery. My pockets had been full of lozenges which I
could not eat, and I had emptied them out on the snow. It seems,
however, that I had left two in my coat pocket—a white one and a brown
one. I had such a gnawing hunger after we started that when I felt these
there, I put them both in my mouth together, thinking to hold them a
moment and then take them out before they sickened me.

But, strangely enough, they did not do so. As they dissolved I swallowed
them, and when they were gone I felt strengthened. Then I asked Mr.
Sturritt if he had ever tried this particular combination. He shook his
head sadly and said no, but that it was no use. I then told him what I
had done, and he made the experiment. Presently we were all consuming
brown and white lozenges, and satisfying what the advertisements refer
to as a “long-felt want.” Mr. Sturritt was almost mad with delight. He
grew ten years younger in as many minutes, and capered about in the snow
until he caught his foot in one of the runners and fell head-first into
a drift. Then we all laughed, and got hold of the boat and sent it ahead
faster than it had gone since we landed. The brown was the medicated
lozenge, intended for extreme cold and exhaustion. Combined with the
white soup lozenge, it formed an acceptable nourishment, and we had an
ample store of both colors.

The next event of the day came about eleven o’clock. Gale, who was
looking ahead, stopped suddenly.

“Hey! Black snow on the port bow!” he called.

We all looked where he pointed. Then I gave a whoop.

“Not snow!” I cried, “but land!”

We ran forward like boys. No, it was not land, after all, but the next
thing to it—a great black expanse of bare, wind-swept rock! We could not
tell, of course, how high it rose above the normal surface, but we did
not believe it could be many feet. Looking ahead with the glass we saw
many other black patches, stretching away and blending together, as it
seemed, on the horizon. We made all haste forward, and when we stopped
for our noon rest I made a calculation of our position. We were not
quite to the eighty-third parallel, and a little more than two hundred
miles from the Billowcrest. I had calculated that the habitable zone
would begin here, but it appeared that I had been in error. The cold
from the sea reached farther inland than I had supposed. Still, I
reflected, this place might be altogether clear of snow a month later,
and only uninhabitable because of barrenness.

Immediately after our coffee we pushed on again. All at once I made out
what seemed to be the opening, or chasm, among the bare patches to the
right. Leaving the others, I ran over to investigate and came back
shouting and breathless.

“A river! a river!” I called, “and smooth ice. We can sail on it!”

We steered our boat-sled over there as rapidly as possible. It was
difficult getting down to the surface, some forty feet below, but we
managed it at last. Then we stopped for breath and observation.

“I’ll bet this is _our_ river,” said Gale, “and that we haven’t been
more than a mile from it since we started.”

“No doubt of it,” I said, “and we even may have been on top of it part
of the time. Of course it’s filled level full of snow somewhere below
here, and we shouldn’t have known the difference. It is a channel that
cuts through and carries the melting snow to the sea. If it didn’t the
center of the Antarctic Continent would be a big circular pond. There
may be many of these rivers.”

“Well, one is enough for us, just now,” said Gale. Then he promptly
confessed to Edith that we had “abandoned” our balloon bag, owing to
“adverse winds,” but that we didn’t care, for we had reached a river and
“good sailing.” She didn’t appear to notice any discrepancy in this
statement, and we decided that it would be unsafe to attempt to mend it.
The “good sailing,” at least, was true, for the wind continued
favorable, and we were presently going up-stream at a fair rate of
speed. Gale leaned back and lit a cigar.

“This beats pushing,” he said. “Good boat, good crowd, good cigar. What
is joy without a jews-harp!”

By nightfall—it fell much later now—the snowbanks on either side were no
more than ten feet high on a level, and when we stopped for camp we
found the country above almost more black than white—the bare rocks
showing in masses in all directions.

We rejoiced greatly, and fondly hoped to be out of the snow altogether
by the following evening, though I was a bit uneasy about the rock. If
the Antarctic Continent proved to be nothing but barren granite it would
be of as little value as if it were a waste of snow. Still, a circle of
nearly a thousand miles in diameter could hardly be the same throughout.

Our failing telephone, however, was a real sorrow. Though still
distinct, the voices were very faint, now. Unless Ferratoni could do
something, it would fail us altogether, soon. He believed its condition
due mainly to our lower altitude, and the vast obstruction that was now
lying between us and the Billowcrest. But it had been a great comfort to
us all through our hardest hours, and I would be content. The mental
vibrations from the vessel, Ferratoni said, were similarly affected, and
much confused.

Another day of discovery followed. The wind and weather being too good
to waste, by five o’clock we were on our way up the river. The snow
crust thinned out rapidly, until, by ten o’clock, there was no more than
a foot on the banks above, and we were sailing between shores of genuine
stone and clay, the first soil we had seen for a year. Flocks of birds
became plentiful, and at one place we saw some strange, brown animals,
about the size and shape of rabbits, but with very long hind legs and
with a method of locomotion similar to that of a frog. Gale named them
“Skipteroons” because of their lightsome mode of travel, and shot at
them, without success.

The temperature was barely freezing, now, and we were altogether happy.
So much so that we confessed to Edith all the affair of the balloon, and
our subsequent difficulties. She was less surprised than we had
expected. She had suspected, it seems, that all was not so well as we
had pretended, and of course our statements _had_ been a trifle
contradictory at times. But she rejoiced now in the reality of good
fortune that had come to us, the genuineness of which could not be
mistaken, even through our fast failing telephone.

Several times we halted and climbed up on the shore to look at the
country for possible inhabitants, but there was as yet no human sign,
though much bird life, and some more of the funny half-rabbit creatures,
one of which Gale succeeded in killing at last, a welcome addition to
our bill-of-fare. All at once, about four o’clock, Ferratoni held out
his hand. “Listen!” he said.

We listened very hard, and thought we heard a roaring sound ahead, but
as the wind was blowing in that direction, we could not be sure. It grew
stronger, however, as we ascended, and was steady and continuous. We
decided that it was a fall, and not far away. Hardly had we made this
conclusion when there was a cracking sound beneath us, followed by a
crash of ice and a splash of water, and our boat-sleigh was no longer a
sleigh at all, but a genuine boat, battling with a strong current and
broken ice. Our momentum had sent us ahead a few feet, but our sail was
too small to stem the current and we were drifting back to the jagged
ice. This time it was Ferratoni who saved the situation. He had foreseen
just such an emergency and had at hand the little propeller wheel for
water. With a quick movement, now, he plunged it beneath the surface at
the stern, and deftly slipping and locking it into place, pressed the
button of the dynamo. We were off, like a trolley car. The thin ice
ahead parted before our sharp bow, and in a few moments we were in open
water, heading up-stream under both electricity and sail.

“Like gettin’ money from home,” said Gale. “Look here, Nick, where would
your boat scheme have been, anyway, without Tony and me to help you
out?”

Certainly the propeller was a success, and I approved it heartily.

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.

The fact that my camera was not on board when we took our premature
flight into the unknown is a matter of deep regret to me, for I would
fain preserve some more permanent impressions of these placid and
beautiful shores.

But we have reached the Prince’s palace. It is a succession of wonderful
terraces, beginning at the river front, and extending back to the hills
behind it. Each terrace is supported by a row of slender columns, and on
the outer edge of each a carved railing leads to a graceful outside
stairway that ascends from one step of flowers to the next. At the
summit, on a level with the hills, the last step forms a round
colonnaded eyrie, on the top of which the sun still lingers. Along the
terraces are groups of waiting people who, as we approach, wave
tranquilly their white arms to the Prince. Their dress and attitudes
suggest some dim, forgotten land of the East. Us they regard with placid
curiosity, yet with a gentle friendliness evident in their faces.

Now, from the wide portal of the lower story, come many down the broad,
white steps to greet us. Young are they all, and beautiful—creatures of
an unknown world, while from either side troop bare-armed boys and
girls, chanting a low, rhythmic melody of welcome.

So are we come at last to the land of my fancy. And a land of fancy
indeed it seems to us. A harbor for vanished argosies and forgotten
dreams. A port for lost rhymes and strayed melodies—for discarded magic
and alchemies long dead. And it is in this enchanted vale that we find
once more the shelter of human habitation.

We shall rest to-night with the Prince of the Purple Fields.

[Illustration:

  THE PALACE OF THE PRINCE.

  “A harbor for vanished argosies and forgotten dreams.”—Page 242.
]




                                 XXIX.
                     A LAND OF THE HEART’S DESIRE.


Oct. 12. This is the land of harmony. Here, shut in from the outer world
by the crystal walls of the ages, rhythmic vibrations of the universe
have blossomed in a fair, frail, almost supernatural life. Here the
ideals of Ferratoni are the realities of the daily round, while the
dreams of Edith Gale are but as the play language of little children.

Here, shut away from the greed and struggle of the life we know—few in
numbers and simple in their material needs, fragile and brief in their
span of physical existence and plunged for half the year into a sunless
period of contemplation—the lives of the people have linked themselves
with the sun and stars, with the woods and fields, with the winds and
waters, and with each other, in one rare, universal chord.

It is the natural result of the long periods of sun and darkness. The
polar night binds them in closer sympathy, even as it did those of the
Billowcrest, while during the long sunny day they have only to bask in
the sun and dream, and let the fecund soil provide amply for their
wants. There is no need of struggle—no effort, save to retain life, if I
may apply that term to this languorous melody of existence wherein
greed, jealousy, vanity and the other elements of discord find no place.

There is no old age here—our most frequent excuse for greed. No
necessity for a life of heavy toil to provide for a ghastly period when
all save physical want has perished.

Indeed, there is little effort here of any sort. They are not even
obliged to talk, for their minds are as open books, and there is not, as
with us, the need of many words to cloud and diffuse a few poor
thoughts, that in the beginning were hardly worth while.

Truth here is not a luxury—a thing produced with difficulty and
therefore conserved for special occasions—but an abounding necessity,
like air and water. Concealment, ever the first step toward sorrow, is
impossible.

Love flowers naturally and where all may see. Marriage is union, and
separation unknown. Joy to one is answered in the bosom of many, and
grief is the minor chord that stirs mournfully the heart of a multitude.
Verily is it a “Land of the Heart’s Desire,”

          “Where nobody ever grows old, and crafty and wise—
          Where nobody ever grows false and bitter of tongue.”

If I seem to have waxed poetic in speaking of these people, it is
because poetry is the language and breath of their race. Even Chauncey
Gale has imbibed something of the pervading spirit, and adapted his
phraseology to the conditions.

“The chant of the trolley and the song of the lawn-mower are heard not
nor needed,” he said to me this morning, as we looked from our high
terrace down on the dream world below.

I speak of it as morning, but there is no morning now. It is always
afternoon—the afternoon of a June day, before the gray dust and the
withering heat of summer have begun their blight. We have been here a
week and we would roam no farther. The world, the vessel, the crew—even
Edith Gale—all seem as a page of some half-forgotten tale—something of
another and long-ago existence in which we have no further part. The
spell of the lotus is upon us. The lives of the lotus-eaters have become
our lives.

We have laid off our travel-stained dress, shaved our beards, and become
in appearance even as those about us. Ferratoni is as one to the manor
born. Mr. Sturritt might have been a seer and a high priest from
childhood. His (to them) extreme age has commanded their wonder and
reverence, and his pink dessert lozenges are highly regarded as a new
and most delightful confection. Altogether he is in high favor, ranking
next, it would seem, to Ferratoni, who, as the favorite of the Prince,
and interpreter for the rest of us, is exalted somewhat unduly. As for
Gale, whose physical and facial lines are perhaps most at variance with
those about us, he has put himself on low diet in order to train down to
a poetic basis, and goes about reciting verses, remembered from
childhood, to slender youths and fair, reclining women, who listen
drowsily as they bathe in the life-giving rays of the returning sun.
Yesterday I heard him repeating “Mary’s Little Lamb” to a group of
languid listeners. It did not matter—they do not understand his words,
and his thought vibrations are, I suspect, altogether too highly
tensioned for this deliberate race.

Now that there is no more night the people live out of doors. There are
no regular hours for sleep or food. Soft-footed, bare-limbed boys bring
viands at call, while æolian harps, yielding pillows, and the perfume of
flowers everywhere woo to somnolence and repose. Our food consists
mainly of preserved fruits, also the meat of a curious, silken-haired
goat which these people possess, and sometimes that of the strange,
leaping rabbit creature—these being their only animals. The flesh of
birds and fishes, however, is plentiful, and to these things are added
many preparations of their chief cereal, a sort of rice, which yields
abundantly each year, without planting. Our sweets are from the sap of a
tree, even finer and more delicate of flavor than our northern maple.
Wine we have from the wild grapes that ripen later in great abundance.

Within the palace I find many curious little lamps and torches,—their
provision against the long night. The walls and floors are draped with
yielding fabrics, woven from the silken fleece of the goat, and from the
long hair of the “skipteroon.” Of feather work, too, I have seen some
delicate examples. Their looms for weaving, their implements for
harvesting, their utensils for preparing food, are all of the simplest
and most primitive form, such as our earliest ancestors might have
employed, and as may be in use to-day in lands where mechanism has made
little or no progress. Their one attempt in this direction is their
invention for dispelling darkness, and this has not yet been shown to
us, for the complaisant Prince has been quiescent since our arrival, and
we have fallen into the way of it all, and are willing to procrastinate,
and to keep on procrastinating while the circling sun dispenses the
anodyne of eternal afternoon.

It is not strange that like the nations of the Incas these people should
be worshippers of the sun. To them comes the fullest realization of its
life-giving glory, and the joyless stagnation of the death-breathing
dark. We who sleep through much of the sun’s absence come naturally to
regard it somewhat as a useful and not always agreeable adjunct to our
lives. Yet even we, after days of dull weather—black nights and murky
mornings—welcome joyously the return of the life-giver, while to these
people it would be strange indeed if the great luminary had not become
at least the shining symbol of Infinity. The terrace form of their
dwelling is, I think, suggested by the sun’s gradual circling ascent and
descent of the sky, and from the topmost step or story they assemble to
bid it joyous welcome and reverential farewell. The world itself here
appears to be a sort of terrace, the first step of which we ascended
when we reached the Violet Fields. The next is the approach to the land
ruled over by the Prince’s serene sister, whom we are soon to see, for
though we are loth to depart from this pleasant vale, we are daily
required by a mental message from her to proceed farther on our journey.

To-morrow, therefore, or the next day, or the day after, we must ascend
still higher this enchanted river and “pause not unduly, nor idly
linger”—so her august message runs—until we shall arrive at the palace
of the Lady of the Lilied Hills.




                                  XXX.
                        THE LADY OF THE LILIES.


And now, indeed, we are in the land of anodyne and oblivion. Once more
we dream and forget, and the palace of the Prince dims out and fades,
even as the barges that brought us drift back down the tide and
disappear in the distant blue. Here is the world’s enchanted and
perfumed casket, and here within it lies the world’s rarest jewel of
sorcery—the Princess of the Lilied Hills.

We have been here but a brief time—I no longer keep a record of the
days—and we are bound hand and foot, as it were, by the spell of this
Circe of the South. In the first moment that we were ushered into her
presence, and beheld her in her white robe of state, embroidered with
the pale yellow flower of her kingdom, whatever remained to us of the
past slipped away like water through the fingers. Chauncey Gale forgot
that he had a yacht, and both of us that he had a daughter. Mr. Sturritt
forgot everything but his packages of pink lozenges, which he
reverentially laid at her feet, thereby earning her cordial
acknowledgments and our bitter jealousy.

Ferratoni, however, was not long at a loss. He could converse with her,
and it became evident almost from the start that he did not care to
translate either fully or literally. He cut out, and revised, and
stumbled. She detected his difficulty, of course, and seemed to reprove
him. Then he gave up translating altogether, and the rest of us sat
there, simply staring at her, until Gale got himself together and
recited the “Burning Deck,” while I suffered in spirit because reciting
did not seem to be quite what I wanted to do, and I could remember no
other tricks to perform.

I finally prevailed upon Ferratoni to tell her that it was I who had
conceived the expedition, whereupon Gale hastily claimed credit for
having made it possible, while Mr. Sturritt—Sturritt the timid and
unassuming—boldly stated that without him and his tablets we should have
perished by the wayside. It was altogether distressing to hear them.

When we were through, she looked fondly at Ferratoni, and then, still
tenderly regarding him, expressed thanks to all of us with a fervency
that was gratifying to him no doubt, but that to the rest of us seemed a
poor reward.

She added, presently, that as I was interested in the central point of
the kingdom—the South Pole, of course—and that as Gale was interested in
the people’s homes and firesides, and Mr. Sturritt in the matter of
their food, she would have us escorted about with a view to our
observation of these things, but that Ferratoni, whose life and aims
were not so widely different from her own, would remain with her to
discuss the problems in which they were mutually interested.

Perhaps she did not put it just in this way, but Ferratoni did in his
translation; then they both turned away and forgot our existence. We
were conducted outside, ere long, and there was a barge at the door into
which it was indicated that we should enter.

We did not do so, however. The boatmen were in no haste and neither were
we. There is no haste in this land. We lay down by the shore and looked
serenely to the south where rose a lofty terraced temple, the top of
which we had observed from a great distance. We had been told it was
their chief temple of worship, and located exactly in the center of the
sun’s daily circuit. Resting thus on the earth’s axis, it became for us
the outward and material symbol of our objective point—of my life’s
ambition. It was the South Pole!

And now that we are here and it rises before us, the eagerness to set
foot upon that magic point—to scale and stand triumphant on the apex of
the pole itself, as it were, has passed.

“So that is the South Pole,” murmurs Gale. “Well, I never would have
recognized it if I’d seen it any place else. Let’s don’t be in too big a
hurry to get to it, Nick.”

“No,” I answer, “suppose we wait awhile. Perhaps if we wait long enough
the South Pole will come to _us_.”

For there can be no eagerness in this land. It would be wholly out of
place. Neither are we acutely jealous of Ferratoni. Acuteness would be
out of place also.

And so we drowse in the fragrance of the lilies, and soft-eyed,
soft-voiced people come and sing to us, while the barge waits and
becomes a picture on the tide.

And then there falls silence, and it is as if the world and the palace
slept, and so would sleep until the wakening kiss.




                                 XXXI.
                           THE POLE AT LAST.


November (  ). At the top of the Temple of the Sun.

I do not know the precise date, or the hour. Our watches have long since
stopped, and there has been neither the desire nor the need to wind
them. In a land where the sun slips round the sky, and for half a year
no night cometh, the proper measure of time is of little matter.

Neither have I continued the record of these notes, for I thought each
day to visit this spot, and so waited. In the light of the Lily Princess
we have lingered and drowsed. From the peace of her pleasant palace we
have not cared to stray. And she has smiled kindly upon us all, though
from the first it has been evident that her joy lies in Ferratoni, and
that, in the princess, he too has found at last the ideal—the perfect
spirit vibration that completes the chord of souls.

We have become glad of this and rejoice in his happiness. That is, we
have rejoiced as much as anybody ever rejoices in this halcyon land. We
have been peacefully and limpidly content, and their serene bliss has
been our compensation.

Yet there have been other rewards. We have mingled with the fair people
of the court and found something of the bliss of their untroubled lives.

Also, we have learned somewhat of their converse—that is, we have
learned to imagine that we know what they are thinking and saying, while
they have learned, or imagine they have learned, about us, too; and in
this land to imagine that you have learned these things is much the same
as if you had really done so, for in a place where life is reduced to a
few simple principles, and there is neither the reason nor the wish to
plan, or discuss, or quarrel about anything, what you say and think, or
what they say and think in reply, cannot be wide of the mark in any
case. As with time, exactness, or the lack of it, does not matter.
Indeed, nothing matters much in this balmy vale. Lingering on a lilied
bank in the sun—with—with any one of these gentle people, life becomes a
soothing impression which minuteness and detail would only mar.

We have learned, too, though rather vaguely, something of the customs of
the race, and the life of those who dwell beyond the palace gates. They
are not a numerous people and their ways are primitive. Nature provides
their food, and their garments are few and simple. Only the construction
of their dwellings calls for any serious outlay of toil, and in this
they unite as in a festival until the labor is complete. Their harvests
are conducted in the same manner, and in these things they are not
widely different from our pioneer ancestors, who exchanged labors of the
field, and merrily joined in their house-raisings.

Like the people of the Incas, the Antarcticans have no money and no need
of it. The lands are held in common, and the harvests yield more than
enough for all. Great storehouses hold the surplus, from which any one
may be provided in time of need. Famine, war, and the complications of
law are unknown. Indeed, the necessity of law here seems slight. For in
a land where there can be no concealment, crime must languish and only
such laws result as find natural and willing observance.

Although what we regarded as life is very brief here, there is no dread
of that which we know as death. Death in fact appears to have no real
empire in this land, for Ferratoni assures us that the disembodied
intelligence still vibrates to many of those clothed in the physical
life, until it passes altogether out of range in its progress toward
that great central force, which they believe to be the sun. To Ferratoni
this is no surprise. To the rest of us it is a matter of vague wonder,
which we have accepted as we have accepted everything else of this
mystic land and race.

There are no schools. Education appears to be absorbed through their
peculiar faculty of mental communication or “silent speech,” which
develops in childhood, and is now almost universal. A few appear to be
unable to master it, though their number is much less in proportion to
the race than is the number of those who with us are lacking in the
musical sense. In fact there seems to be a close analogy, or possibly a
relation between mental speech and the musical vibration—those lacking
the ear for tune and melody, they tell us, being deficient in the mental
perception as well. The number of these is decreasing, however, with
each generation, and in a land where the whole atmosphere breathes
harmony the false notes must blend out in time, and the chord at last
become universal and complete. There is a written language—a sort of
symbolic ideograph—but with the perfection of their mental attainments,
it has fallen gradually into disuse, and is now mainly employed in
ornamental decoration, and for preserving the songs and records of the
people.[3]

Footnote 3:

  In no place does Mr. Chase give an example of the Antarctic speech or
  writing. Even the native word for their deity or their country is
  avoided, whether by intention or oversight cannot now be ascertained.

Of the latter we know but little. They are in the keeping of the
Princess, who, since our arrival, has been altogether too happy in the
present to go delving back into the myths of her ancestors. We are told
that the first Princess came from the sun, and in this, too, the
Antarcticans somewhat resemble the people of the Incas. In fact, they
have so much in common with the ancient Peruvians that we might suspect
a common origin, were it not for their difference of color, and even
this becomes less marked with each round of their ascending deity.

We are told further that when the first Princess came to the earth she
brought so much of the sunlight with her that the great luminary was
dark for three days, and that all the light there was came from the
heaven-sent being. It is said she found the people a benighted and
unsceptred race, even then ready to destroy the life of a gentle youth
who had risen up among them as a teacher and a prophet. Overawed by her
glory, they had dragged him before her for final judgment. But when the
Princess had looked upon the fair youth, and searched with her great
radiance his innermost heart, she had laid her arms about his shoulders
and declared him her spouse, beloved of heaven, and to be honored only
next to herself. And when she had wedded him there before all the
people, the sun had suddenly burst forth and laid its golden blessing
upon them, and they had lived and reigned and enlightened the race for
many years. And their land she had called the Land of the Sloping Sun,
and divided it into the Lilied Hills and the Purple Fields, and over the
one the eldest daughter, and over the other the eldest son of each
generation had ruled.

Two thousand long nights have elapsed, they tell us, since the coming of
the first Sun Princess, and though the race has never grown numerous or
hardy, it has become gentle and content, and human life has not been
destroyed for many generations.

They are deeply opposed to what we know as progress,[4] believing it
conducive only to discontent and evils innumerable. They regard with
sorrowful distrust our various mechanical contrivances. They are not
surprised to learn that men are still condemned to death in our country,
for the last man so condemned here was convicted of contriving a means
to propel a craft without oars—in fact, a sail. It was a poor sail at
that, and of little value save as an ornament. I said we might punish a
man in our country, too, for inventing such a sail, though I thought we
would hardly kill him. And then we learned that this man wasn’t killed
either, for the Princess of that time, being still very young and
unmarried, had, in accordance with divine precedent, looked upon the
inventor and loved him, and granted him her hand in marriage—for this,
it appears, was their one method of royal pardon, and certainly a
pleasant one for the inventor. The sail, she told them, had been sent
from the sun, so that the winds of the fields might aid them, which was
all very beautiful, though it seems that the sun might have sent a
better sail.

Footnote 4:

  In comparing Mr. Chase’s record of the customs and characteristics of
  the Antarctic race with those of the ancient Peruvians, we find in
  Prescott (The Conquest) a paragraph which reveals still further the
  striking similarity between the two races. Prescott says:

  “Ambition, avarice, the love of change, the morbid spirit of
  discontent, those passions which most agitate the minds of men, found
  no place in the bosom of the Peruvian. The very condition of his being
  seemed to be at war with change. He moved on in the same unbroken
  circle in which his fathers had moved before him, and in which his
  children were to follow. It was the object of the Incas to infuse into
  their subjects a spirit of tranquillity, a perfect acquiescence in the
  established order of things.”

It was the same Princess and her consort who began this great central
temple in honor of their happiness, and who established as universal
throughout the nation the “Pardon of Love”—that forever after no one who
truly loved, and was so beloved in return, could perish by violence, and
no one has so perished for more than five hundred of their long nights.
The invention of the present Princess and her brother—the
dark-dispeller—has been explained to them as also a gift of the sun, to
aid it in vanquishing the long night, though, as it has thus far never
been made to work and is regarded by Gale as hopeless, it would seem
that in this case, as in the other, the sun might have sent a better
one.

This temple, however, is flawless. It stands on an island in the midst
of a lake, or rather a widening of the river, and is, as before noted,
located exactly at the point where the sun, during its daily circuit,
appears always equidistant, above the horizon.[5] It is therefore on the
earth’s southern axis, and represents, to us, the South Pole.

Footnote 5:

  It is noticeable that Mr. Chase furnishes us with no clue as to the
  astronomical knowledge of the Antarctic people. We are left to surmise
  that they believe the earth to be a flat circle about which the sun
  travels, instead of a revolving orb such as we know it to be. Many
  other things which seem of importance are also overlooked. We would be
  glad to know more of the yellow metal once referred to, and something
  of their minerals and precious stones, which are nowhere mentioned.

Each day we have come to the borders of the lake and viewed this
wonderful edifice from afar. When I say “each day,” I mean about as
often as that, if time were divided in the old way, and when I say “we”
I refer to Chauncey Gale, Mr. Sturritt and myself, also to the Princess
and Ferratoni when they chose to honor us, and to such others of the
court as cared to follow.

We have meant to cross over to this island, but we could come any time,
and when we did come we would have to ascend the long Ladder of the
Sun—the steps leading to the top—so it was not well to hurry. To-day,
however, is a sort of ceremonial—the end, or somewhere near it, of the
first period of their long day, which they divide into four parts, as we
do our lunar periods. The Princess and Ferratoni and a train of
followers are coming, so we have set out ahead, and are resting here on
the upper or topmost terrace, awaiting them.

There are four of these terraces, and they are very high. They represent
the four divisions of the day period—the Flowers, the Fruitage, the
Harvest, and the Farewell. They are connected by long stairs—two series,
on opposite sides of the temple—one for the sun to climb, and one by
which it is supposed to descend after the midsummer solstice. As I
suspected, the people build their habitations to conform, not only to
the earth’s surface, but also to the solar phases, and this temple is
their great architectural culmination and model.

In the center of the upper terrace there is carved a huge dial, or
calendar, somewhat resembling that used by the Aztecs. It is divided
into four equal parts, and two of these into smaller divisions by rays
from a central sun, each ray signifying a solar circuit—one hundred and
eighty-two and one-half such divisions representing their entire summer
day. The other half of the dial is left unilluminated, so to speak, thus
to signify the long night. In this dial the point of beginning indicates
the direction opposite to that from which we came. Here, also, ends the
stairway by which the sun is supposed to climb, and from this direction,
out of the unknown and uninhabited lands beyond, a fair river flows into
the central lake. Between two hills in the far distance its waters touch
the sky, thus forming a narrow gateway on the horizon. And through this
come the earliest rays of morning after the period of darkness. The
first returning gleams are caught and borne to the waiting people by the
ripple of the inward flowing stream. And for this they have named it the
“River of Living Dawn.”

[Illustration:

  THE ANTARCTIC CALENDAR. RUDE SKETCH FROM MR. CHASE’S NOTE-BOOK.
]

Directly across from this is the sun’s descending stairway, and there
also, and flowing out of the lake, is the river by which we came. It,
too, has a horizon gate, and through it, when its last half-circle is
complete, linger the feeble rays of the parting sun. So they have named
this the “River of Coming Dark,” and down its still current are sent
those to whom night and cold no longer matter.




                                 XXXII.
                        AN OFFERING TO THE SUN.


“Which way is north?” asked Gale, as we looked down at the huge
compass-like carving.

“All ways,” I said. “We are at the end of South, here. The center of
that diagram is the spot we set out to reach. It is the South Pole.”

Gale reflected on this a moment, and then with something of the old
spirit said:

“I’d like to know how anybody is ever going to lay out an addition here!
Latitudes and longitudes, and directions, and hemispheres, all mixed up,
and no difference in east and west fronts, or afternoon sun.” He paused
a moment, and seemed reflecting; then he grew even more like the Gale of
earlier days. “Say,” he added suddenly, “but wouldn’t this temple make a
great hotel, though! Center of everything, and sun in every window once
in twenty-four hours. Do you know, if it wasn’t for Ferratoni, I’d try
to make some sort of a—a matrimonial alliance with the Princess, and get
her interested in developing this country and stirring things up. I’d
pitch that jim-crow electric apparatus, that don’t work, into this lake,
and I’d put a light on top of this pyramid that would show from here to
the snow-line. Then I’d run an elevator up here, and have trolley cars
connecting all over, and steam launches going up and down these rivers.”
He paused for breath, and then his face saddened. “But what’s the use,
Nick?” he said mournfully. “How is anybody going to do business here?
Nobody wants any homes and firesides, or trolleys, or steamboats, and if
they did, they haven’t got any money to pay for anything with. Think of
it! Not a dollar in the whole country! Not a nickel! Not a red penny!”

It was as the flare of the expiring candle. He ceased. The spell of the
country once more lay upon him. The ways of progress such as he had
known seemed as far off and forgotten as the cold northern pole beneath
us.

Mr. Sturritt looked sad, too, and shook his head silently. There seemed
no need of his food preparations in a land where people never journeyed
afar, and had ample time to consume the ample stores so lavishly
provided by nature, and in such uncondensed forms. Like the rest of us,
he would forget, and let the world go by.

We loitered back to the edge of the terrace and looked down. Far below,
the Princess and her court were just arriving. We watched them alight
from their barges and ascend the stairway that led to the first terrace.
They were a fair throng, and the sight from above was beautiful in the
extreme. In front there came a troop of singing children with garlands
of flowers. Just behind these walked the Princess in her robe of state,
and by her side, our companion, Ferratoni, her guest of honor. After
them followed the people of the court, young men and maids—all laden
with great floral bonds, festooned from one couple to the next in a
mighty double chain. There was no solemnity. All were chanting gaily. As
they reached the top of each stairway, they paused to face the sun and
unite in a jubilant chorus. Truly, I thought, theirs is a religion of
joy and goodwill.

“I’m sorry, now, we didn’t wait and come up with the crowd,” said Gale.
“Still, we get a better view by not being in it. But will you just look
at Tony! Talk about catching on! Why, if I didn’t know better, I’d say
this was a wedding performance and that Tony had the star part.”

They were near enough now for us to see that Ferratoni’s face was
lighted with smiles, and that the Princess, too, looked very happy.

“It is hardly that, yet,” I said, “but I think we need not be surprised
at anything. Though such an alliance, I suppose, would require some
special dispensation or sanction of the sun.”

“Yes,” assented Gale, “and, by the way, Nick, who is that little
yellow-haired girl that is setting up to you—the one that sings a good
deal and plays on that little bandolin arrangement—and that other one,
Bill, that dark-eyed one who walks about with you so much, holding
hands, and wondering how old you could live to be, if you really tried?”

I made no immediate reply, and Mr. Sturritt showed languid confusion.

“I—that is——” he began, “she—she is——”

“I think,” I interposed, “she is a cousin to that very delightful little
auburn-haired creature, who sits all day at the feet of our Admiral,
listening to “How Doth the Little Busy Bee” and “Twinkle, Twinkle,
Little Star.”

“Nick,” said Gale, “if anything should happen that we ever did get out
of this snap, and back to—to people—the yacht, and Biff, and Johnnie, I
mean—I suppose it would be just as well not to mention some of the
things that happen down here. They wouldn’t quite understand the
conditions, you see—the—the atmosphere, as the artists say—the poetry of
it, you know. You wouldn’t want to say anything, yourself——”

He was interrupted at this point by the arrival on our terrace of the
singing children. I had no opportunity to reply, but I did not at once
join very heartily in the ceremonies.

The latter were very simple, and consisted of little more than a
continuance of the marching and singing, with a pause at short intervals
to shout a great pæan to their divinity. Then there ensued a wonderfully
graceful dance, and after this a marvellous floral decoration of the
entire temple, within and without. In this the Princess took but a brief
initiatory part, and presently, when the upper terrace was finished,
most of her followers descended to the work below, leaving with her only
her ladies-in-waiting, a few gentlemen of the court, and ourselves.

We reclined among the flowers, and for a time there was a silence,
broken only by the distant singing voices of those still busy below. It
seemed a sort of benediction after the offering, and then for some
reason there came upon me a feeling like that when at the opera the
curtain descends and the chorus dies into the distance; the feeling that
something is over and completed—that something new and different is
about to begin.




                                XXXIII.
                           THE TOUCH OF LIFE.


The music below grew fainter and died. Those with us upon the terrace
remained silent, awaiting the pleasure of the Princess. When she spoke
at last it was to Ferratoni, and then I noticed for the first time that
he had brought, or caused to be brought, a little case which I
recognized as one of his telephones. We had known that for the
entertainment of the Princess he had been experimenting with his
materials, and we realized that he was about to demonstrate from the
elevation of the temple the practicability of his invention. Remembering
what we had been told of the national prejudice against mechanical
progress, I momentarily doubted the wisdom of such an exhibition, but
reflected that with the approval of the Princess the result could hardly
be otherwise than pleasant. Those who remained with us seemed also to
encourage the experiment, and showed some interest as to the outcome.

They were those of the inner household. Among them were the three to
whom Chauncey Gale, Mr. Sturritt and myself had paid some slight social
attention (the merest courtesies, indeed, as courtesies go in that land)
since our arrival in the Lilied Hills.

Ferratoni now arranged the telephone apparatus and adjusted it
carefully, explaining to us, meantime, that he had constructed another
which he had left at the palace below, whence a little party of those
returning would presently communicate with us. When all was ready, he
touched the annunciator bell, but there came no response. Evidently
those who were to answer had not yet reached the palace. We waited a
little in expectant silence—then once more he touched the bell. Still no
response—our friends at court were proceeding but leisurely, as was
their wont. Indeed a mental communication just then established the fact
that they had paused for refreshments in the palace gardens. I thought
Ferratoni looked a little annoyed. He was anxious, I suppose, to please
the Princess, though the latter showed no impatience. Refreshments and
pausing were the peaceful characteristics of her gentle race.

While we waited I found myself recalling some of the former times when
the little telephone had brought messages from the unseen. I recalled
the first trial, when we were frozen in the pack, and Edith Gale and I
had carried it to the top of the lonely berg, and so listened to
Ferratoni’s mysterious message from the ship—the message all now could
understand. I remembered, too, the chill waiting on the top of the
Pacemaker when voices from the Billowcrest heartened me and gave me
comfort and hope. And then there came the recollection of the weary days
when, toiling down the great white way, we had been cheered and
encouraged by the voices of those behind, and of the desolate nights
when I had found peace and repose in the soothing influence of “Old
Brown Cows.”

Recalling these things dreamily, I was almost as much startled as the
listless ones about us, when suddenly on the little telephone in our
midst there came a sharp returning ring. Not a timid and hesitating
signal, as from one unused and half afraid, but emphatic, eager and
prolonged. There was something about it that thrilled me, and I saw
Chauncey Gale suddenly sit upright. Ferratoni, however, quickly handed
the transmitter to the Princess, and held the receiver to her ear. But
as she listened there came into her face only a strange, puzzled
expression, and she did not answer. Instead, she returned the
transmitter to Ferratoni, who now held the receiver to his own ear. For
a moment only, then hastily turning, and with eager, outstretched hands
he held the telephone complete toward Chauncey Gale and me!

We grabbed for it as children scramble for a toy. It was an unseemly
display to those serene ones about us, and in a brief instant must have
damaged their good opinion of us, and their regard. We did not think of
that, and we did not care. We knew that in that telephone were voices
for us only—voices long silent to us—at times almost forgotten,—but that
now, from far across the snowy wastes and scented fields, were calling
us to awake, and remember, and reply.

I seized the receiver. Gale, who had managed to get hold of the
transmitter, commenced shouting in it.

“Hello! Hello, Johnnie! Hello! Hello! Why don’t you answer?” Then,
suddenly realizing that I held the receiver, he snatched it to his own
ear, but not before I had caught a few brief joyous words in the voice
of Edith Gale.

“Yes, it’s us!” he called frantically. “All right, yes!—Yes, as well and
happy as—that is, of course we’re awful homesick!—I mean not suffering
any.—Yes, warm, and fine country!—Oh, yes, nice people!—Girls? Oh,
yes.—N—no, I don’t think you’d think so—some people might, but we don’t.
Matter of taste, you know.—How’s the ship?—That’s good.—Biff, too?—What?
Oh, ice out of the bay. Bully!—No—it didn’t work till just now. Too low
down.—Why, on top of the South Pole.—Ha, ha, yes.—No. Temple of
worship.—Yes, high! High as Washington monument!—Why didn’t we try it
before?—Why, we—that is—we’ve been busy—very busy!—Doing? Us? Oh, why,
we’ve been—that is—we—we’ve been studying habits—and customs—customs of
the people.—Yes, interesting.—Yes.”

I had been so absorbed in Gale’s one-sided dialogue that I had forgotten
the presence of those about us. He ceased speaking now, for a moment,
evidently listening to a lengthier communication. Recalling myself, I
glanced about at the others, wondering how much or how little of it they
had comprehended. Probably very little, yet the effect upon them had
been startling. They had witnessed our sudden transformation from people
not greatly different to themselves into what must have appeared to them
unholy barbarians—wild untamed savages, awakened to a fierce and to them
brutal frenzy by the unseen electric summons. In their faces was a
horror and condemnation never before written there. An awakening,
indeed, had followed the galvanic touch. Gale, all unconscious of this,
now broke loose again.

“No, we haven’t done anything yet in that line. They don’t need any
missionary work here, or homes, but they need everything else. I was
just telling Nick a scheme a while ago. We felt a little discouraged,
then, because we couldn’t get word from the ship, but I’m waked up now,
and we’ll make things hum. We’ll get franchises from the government for
electric lights and trolley lines, and steamboat traffic, and we’ll
build some factories, and I’ll put a head-light on this temple, and an
elevator inside, and we’ll lay out additions in all directions. Vacant
property here as far as you can see, and just going to waste. Of course
we’ll have to fix up some easy way to get people over the ice-wall, and
run sledge trains over the snow between here and Bottle Bay, like they
do in the Klondike. It may take a year or two to get the place opened
up, but we can do it, and when we do, it’ll be the greatest spot on
earth. We didn’t know just how we were going to get out of here before,
though we haven’t worried any, but now you and Biff can take the yacht
back to New York and make up a big expedition. You’ll have to bring a
lot of stuff we didn’t have this time, and a lot of money—small
money—silver change, and nickels. These jays haven’t got any, and don’t
know what it is, but it won’t take ’em long to find out when they find
they can get it for some of their stuff and give it back for trolley
rides. Nick and I’ll just camp right up here on this temple, and we’ll
plan the whole thing, so——”

But Ferratoni, who had risen, at this point laid his hand on Gale’s arm.
I did not hear what he whispered, but Gale suddenly handed me the
apparatus, and they drew apart. I was anxious to talk with Edith, but I
had been taking note of those about us, and I had rather more anxiety
just then concerning developments close at hand. Gale and Ferratoni
stood before the Princess and the others assembled near. The Princess
began speaking and Ferratoni translated to Gale, whose knowledge of the
Antarctic converse was an uncertain quantity. Mr. Sturritt and I drew
into the circle to listen. Perhaps not for a thousand years had there
been such a turbulence of spirit in the Land of the Sloping Sun.

The Princess and the others, Ferratoni said, had been able to
understand, through him, something of Mr. Gale’s plans, as briefly
outlined to his daughter. As a people they were opposed to such
innovations, and they earnestly deprecated the state of mind and sudden
change of attitude occasioned in us by the renewal of the telephone
connection with our vessel and friends.

They reasoned, he said, that if a very small thing like the telephone
had produced upon us results so manifest, and so unpleasant to behold,
they were sure that still larger mechanisms—of the size of a trolley
car, for instance—would be a national calamity, and result only in
demoralization and ruin. They therefore protested most vigorously
against a further pursuit of these schemes, and suggested that even the
telephone itself be instantly demolished.

The Princess, personally, was not opposed to any appliance that would
benefit her people without destroying their lives or repose of spirit,
but the radical changes contemplated in the mind of our Admiral were
abhorrent to her, and she would not be responsible for our welfare or
even our personal safety unless these plans were immediately abandoned.
The matter of some new means of dispelling the long dark she would be
glad to consider. Even some easier method of ascending the temple
might——

But this gave Gale an opportunity to present his case, which he did with
considerable force. He made an address in favor of mechanical progress,
well worthy of recording here if I could remember it. Ferratoni
translated rapidly, and I could see that the Princess and her companion
were somewhat impressed. As had been shown by her attempted invention
for lighting, she was really more inclined to such advancement than most
of her race, while those about her were the staunchest of her followers.
She made little reply, however, to Gale’s speech, though her general
attitude suggested that the matter in it might be taken under
advisement. The telephone was not immediately destroyed, and I was now
permitted to have a brief and quiet conversation with Edith Gale—a
conversation which the reader’s imagination will best supply.

At the end I had spoken of the rare beauty and qualities of the Princess
and how we were trying to convert her to our way of thinking.

“Is she really so beautiful? And are the others too? Daddy thought I
wouldn’t care for them——”

“Um—did he? Oh, but you’d love the Princess. She is so beautiful and
so—so gentle——”

A pause, then—

“Nicholas!—_Hello! Nicholas!_”

“Yes.”

“I wouldn’t try to convert the Princess, if I were you!”

As we prepared to descend to the waiting barges, Gale was inclined to be
in good spirits over the prospect ahead. But I noticed that the Princess
seemed more disquieted than I had ever seen her, and that Ferratoni, and
the others, looked somber and unhappy.

And now, too, for the first time since our arrival, we saw that a
storm-cloud had gathered upon the horizon—a blackness that rose swiftly
and extinguished the sun.

Quick lightning parted it here and there and the roll of distant thunder
came ominously. A portentous dark settled on the lands below us, and the
waters of the lake became spectral. A few drops of rain fell.

A canopy was brought from the temple and lifted above the Princess.
Silence came upon us. The smile faded from Gale’s features, and Mr.
Sturritt’s face grew pale and anxious.

For myself, I had the feeling of being a part of some weird half-waking
dream, in which fact and fantastic imagery mingled with a sense of heavy
foreboding. Only the recent words of Edith Gale lingered as a ray from
some far-off beacon.




                                 XXXIV.
                          THE PARDON OF LOVE.


In the Antarctic land, news is the one thing that travels fast. Thought
still moves with comparative quickness there, and whatever lies in the
mind of one is as though put on a bulletin board, to become the property
of all.

Through the darkness of the approaching storm we saw before we reached
the foot of the stairway the gathering of many torches on the shore
beyond. Evidently there was some unusual movement abroad which could not
be wholly due to the coming tempest. In the gathering dusk I saw now
that the faces of those about us were filled with deep and increasing
concern. At the water’s edge Ferratoni turned to us and said hurriedly:

“The people are much aroused at the plans we have discussed on the
temple. They believe the innovations proposed would destroy their
present mode of life and result in their downfall as a race. They
believe, too, that the Sun has darkened in anger, and they have joined
it yonder in a great protest against us. The Princess considers it
unsafe that we should cross over until she has pacified them with her
presence. She asks that we keep here the smaller barge, and remain for
the present in the sanctity of the temple, where harm may not befall us.
She will communicate with me mentally, and inform us as to further
advisabilities.”

We gazed across at the torches that were now crowding to the water’s
edge. Gale had said that we would make things hum, but he had not
counted on the humming beginning with such promptness. A medley of
mingled voices and angry shouts was borne to us by the cool air that
preceded the coming storm. We could see faces distorted by the
torch-flare and strange rage until they had lost all semblance to those
of the gentle people we had known. The old savagery of the benighted and
unsceptred race that two thousand years before had been eager to destroy
the gentle prophet risen among them, and that again long afterwards had
sought the life of him who would harness the winds to serve them, was
once more abroad, and its cry was for blood.

“But see here, Tony,” protested Gale. “We’re not going to let the
Princess and these friends of ours go over into that mob. I stirred up
this racket, and I’ll see it through. Any one of us can handle a dozen
of those sissies. They might make a set at their own people, but four
fellows like us can wade through them like a cyclone.”

“Not as they are now,” said Ferratoni. “They are not the people we have
known. As for the Princess, she is holy—they will not harm her—and these
others have in no way offended. It is wiser to accept the advice of the
Princess and remain here. We should only make her task harder by going.”

I had been ready to join with Gale in facing the people beyond the lake,
but I realized the wisdom of Ferratoni’s words and said nothing. Mr.
Sturritt too was silent, though I could see that, as usual, he was “with
the Admiral,” in whatever the latter might undertake or agree upon.

The Princess and the others now embarked without further delay. The
storm overhead was almost upon us. Lightning was more frequent, and the
thunder rolling nearer. Large drops of rain were already falling.

The Princess was first to enter her barge. As she did so, she turned and
took both of Ferratoni’s hands. Whereupon the three maidens to whom we
others had paid some slight attention, likewise turned, and each
followed her royal example. Through the mirk a gentle face for a brief
instant looked up into mine. Then there came a flash of lightning that
turned into an aureola her silken yellow hair. Our attentions had been
the merest courtesies, as I have said, but in the instant of blackness
that followed I leaned hastily down, and——

What the others did I do not know; I could not see well in the darkness.

We watched them until they reached the other side. The torches crowded
thickly to the landing as the barge approached, and a wave of turbulent
voices was borne across to us. We saw the torches go swaying to the
palace, and a flash of lightning showed them crowding through the
gates—the canopy of the Princess borne ahead. Then we retired within the
temple, for the storm broke heavily.

It was dark in there, and the air was heavy with the odor of mingled
flowers. We groped about until we found something that had steps and
cushions on it, where we sat down. We believed it to be the great altar
of the sun, which we had been told was so placed in the center of the
temple that from every point the sun’s rays touched it, and so lingered
throughout the long day. It was probably about the safest spot we could
find for the present. Then we waited, while the thunder roared and
crashed and the rain outside came down.

“Say,” whispered Gale, “but haven’t I set them swarming! Oh, Lord—what’s
a bull without a bee-hive!”

Ferratoni left us presently and went to the doorway, perhaps for a
better mental current. We followed him, but all was dark beyond the
lake. We presently left him there and returned to our comfort within.
The thunder gradually died and the rain slackened, though the darkness
did not pass. Suddenly Ferratoni hurried back to us.

They were coming, he said. They had refused to respect the desires of
the Princess, or even the sanctity of the temple. They considered that
we had violated their hospitality, and they demanded our lives. They had
not put anybody to death in that country for five hundred years, but
they were ready to do so now, and to begin with us. They had condemned
all new mechanisms, and even the invention of the Princess and her
brother—the dark-dispeller—they were at this moment preparing to throw
into the lake. The telephones they had destroyed, utterly.

“Don’t blame ’em much for pitching that lighting machine into the lake,”
muttered Gale, “I wanted to do that, myself. But how about _us_? Are we
going to let ’em pitch _us_ in?”

“There are two chances,” replied Ferratoni. “One is immediate flight to
the court of the Prince, who will endeavor to give protection and
assistance. The other is safety, here. It is pardon—the Pardon of Love.”

“The what?” asked Gale. “Oh, yes, I remember, now. The old law
that—um—yes—who are they?”

“The three,” said Ferratoni, “the three whose hands were pressed in
parting. They are willing to grant life—and love. They are coming even
now, with the others. You must decide—and quickly!”

It had grown very still in the temple. So still that Gale said
afterwards he could hear his hair falling out. It was probably but a few
seconds before he spoke, though it seemed much longer.

“Nick,” he said, “we’re up against it, hard. It’s marry or move; which
will you do?”

My mind was a tumult and a confusion, but the memory of Edith Gale’s
words became a path of light.

“Move!” I said, “and with no waste of time!”

“What about you, Tony? Are you in on the deal, too?”

“I know not. I am at the will and service of the Princess. She has not
yet spoken.”

“And you, Bill, what do you vote for?”

“I—I—that is—I’m with the Admiral, as always.”

“And the Admiral is for getting out of here. I’ve no fault to find with
the young ladies, but I’ve got business in Bottle Bay. Come!”

We hastened outside. It was still dark and a second shower had gathered,
though we did not notice this fact. What we did see was that more than
half-way across the strip of water that separated us from the shore
there was a crowd of torchlit barges, and that they were coming rapidly.
For once in their lives these people had forgotten, and were hurrying.
In front of the others came a smaller barge, driven by the sturdiest of
their rowers. In it sat the Lady of the Lilies, and the three who had
pressed our hands at parting. Clearly, there was no time to lose.

We made a hasty attempt to loosen our boat, but fumbled the knot and
lost time.

“Haste, or you will be too late,” urged Ferratoni.

“Oh, Lord,” groaned Gale, “if we just hadn’t left our propeller boat
down yonder!”

But at that instant the knot untied, and we tumbled in. We had no light
and we did not believe they could see us, though they were now very
near. Ferratoni still lingered on the step, looking at the approaching
barges.

“Come on, Tony,” urged Gale, “don’t take any chances!”

But bending over he caught our boat, and with a push sent us down the
tide.

“Go,” he said, “I am not coming. I wait the will and service of the
Princess!”

Yet we hesitated to leave him. A heavy projection, or coping, extended
from the lower terrace out over the water, and in the blackness beneath
we drifted and waited. We could not see Ferratoni from where we lay, but
we could watch the oncoming barges and were near enough to get quickly
into the midst of things in case of violence. In the end it would almost
certainly mean death to us all, but we felt that with the serviceable
oars as weapons, we could give some previous account of ourselves.

On came the barges. The first with the Princess was presently at the
steps, and almost immediately the others. We saw the Lady of the Lilies
and her three companions ascend hastily to where we had left Ferratoni.
From the other barges poured a horde of wild-faced creatures, curiously
armed with quaint weapons of a forgotten age. We waited until with a
fierce clamor they were rushing up the stairs, then with a push against
the abutment to which we were clinging, we sent our boat up nearer, and
out where we could see.

And now we realized that Ferratoni was no longer where we had left him,
but had retired within the temple that we might have a better
opportunity to escape unseen. The mob was pushing through the entrance
noisily.

“We’ll get round to the north door quick!” whispered Gale. “Mebbe we can
see there what’s going on inside, and it’ll be handier to leave suddenly
if we decide to.”

By north, Gale meant the direction from which we had entered the
country, and by which we now hoped to get out of it. The current ran
strongly in that direction, and a stroke of the oars sent us swiftly
along the wall. A vivid flash of lightning as we turned the corner,
followed by quick thunder, told that the second shower was upon us.

Just below the temple we were caught in a fierce swirl. For a moment it
well-nigh swamped our light craft. Then with scornful violence it flung
us to the landing steps on that side. We leaped out, each with an oar,
and seizing the barge drew it up a little on the lower step, so that it
would hold, without fastening. Then we hurried up the stair, and crept
cautiously to the entrance.

From the great depths within, there came a general babel that seemed to
increase as we approached. By the tone of it they had not yet found
Ferratoni. I believe now that in the turbulence of an anger heretofore
unknown to them, their perceptions must have been disordered, that they
had become mentally blind. But suddenly, just as we slipped into the
dark tunnel-like entrance, and parted the heavy curtains beyond, there
came a wild uproar as of discovery, then—silence.

We had been about to rush in and do what we could to aid our companion,
but Gale, who was ahead and got the first glimpse beyond the curtain,
stopped us. Then he drew the curtain still farther aside, and we all
looked in.

About the center of the vast depths, the crowded torches were swaying.
They made a lurid circle, beyond which the symboled and draped walls
melted into shadows and blackness. But in the midst of the torches rose
the great central altar, still bestrewn with the flowers of their recent
ceremonial. About its base the angry ones had gathered, while above
them, before the very shrine of the Sun itself, there stood two of the
fairest creatures under heaven—our own beautiful Ferratoni, and at his
side, her arms laid about his shoulders, the Princess of the Lilied
Hills.

Chauncey Gale insists that grouped on a lower step of the altar, bowed
like the children of Niobe, were those who would have granted also to us
the sacred Pardon of Love. But I did not see them, nor did Mr. Sturritt,
and I do not believe Gale did, either. Indeed, we had eyes only for
those other two. Like the populace, spellbound and speechless,
forgetting our own existence, we stood and gaped at them. Gale was first
to recall himself.

“Tableau!” he said, “show’s over! Let’s ring down the curtain, now, and
get out of here, quick!”

[Illustration:

  THE PARDON OF LOVE.

  “There fell upon them a long golden bar of the returning
    sunlight.”—Page 288.
]

Yet we lingered for one final look. And lo, all at once, from some high
oriel window, there fell upon them a long golden bar of the returning
sunlight. And the silence about them awakened to a wondering murmur that
grew to a low chant, then quickly increased in volume, bursting at last
into a mighty anthem which we recognized as their marriage chorus.

“Come! Come!” insisted Gale. “That isn’t for us. The orchestra is
playing us out. Let’s take the hint and go before they change their
minds. ’Tisn’t our wedding, and we don’t want it to be our funeral,
either.”

Reluctantly we dropped the curtains then, and hastened down the steps.
It was still raining wispily, but the sun was rifting through, and a
wonderful rainbow arched the black sky opposite. We pushed off our boat,
and bent to the oars with all our strength, sending the light barge
swiftly down the tide that between the Lilied Hills, through the Purple
Fields, and under the Plains of White found its way at last to the
far-off Billowcrest—and home.




                                 XXXV.
                     DOWN THE RIVER OF COMING DARK.


We were not pursued, or, if we were, we saw nothing of our pursuers.
When the storm had all cleared away, we saw here and there people along
the shore, but they did not offer to interfere with our flight. On the
contrary, they seemed rather interested, and even pleased at our rate of
speed. We believed that with the wedding ceremony of the Princess and
Ferratoni the better nature of the race once more got the upper hand,
and that they were satisfied to know that we were getting out of the
country as rapidly as our skill and muscular development would permit.

Some mental communication to this effect must have passed between the
court of the Lily Princess and that of her brother, the Prince of the
Purple Fields, for when some twenty hours later (we had wound our
watches now) we reached his palace, we found the Prince and his court
assembled at the outer entrance, and our own beautiful propeller boat
waiting in readiness for the immediate continuance of our journey.

Noticing the assembly as we came on we had some doubts as to their
intentions, but we did not hesitate, and we found the Prince and those
about him gentle and kindly as before. Their willingness that we should
continue our journey, however, was quite apparent, and as our boat
contained all our belongings and had been fully provisioned by the
Prince’s household, there was no excuse for delay.

Indeed, we were as eager to get out of their halcyon vale as they were
to have us, and we did not remain longer in it than it took for us to
climb from one boat into the other and touch the button that started the
propeller. The battery had not failed, and aided by the tide we were off
with a speed that seemed to us like that of a torpedo boat. We turned
then and waved our hands and called good-byes to the gentle Prince and
those of his pleasant palace.

And so adieu to the land of my fancy—my isle of lost argosies and
forgotten songs. One among us had found there the ideal he sought—life’s
perfect chord. For the others—the lives we had lived and the lives of
those who had lived before us, had not fitted us for that Port of
Dreams.

We would return to our own. When or by what means we did not know—the
way ahead seemed long and weary—but come what might, we had resolved to
reach once more those who waited beyond the cold desolation between, and
with them to go back to the only life we knew, in a world of growth and
change.




                                 XXXVI.
                       THE “PASSAGE OF THE DEAD.”


We made time, now. We were not creeping up-stream, delayed by
slow-moving barges. We were going with the tide and all handicaps had
been removed. In less than thirty hours, including all stops, we had
covered the distance that it had taken us days to ascend, and camped
once more in the violet fields above the rapids. I had taken an
observation at this point, and by taking another now I was able from the
position of the sun and a reference to my charts to establish the date
and, approximately, the hour. My calculation showed that it was November
the Ninth. Seven weeks had elapsed since our departure from the
Billowcrest. It seemed as many ages.

The purple flowers that had welcomed us to the enchanted land were
withered, but their leaves remained, and in every direction showed as a
level carpet of green. Reaching the rapids we once more removed our boat
from the water. The snow on the hillside was gone, but we trundled our
craft down over the bare rock and shale without serious difficulty, and
launched it again in the swift current below. Neither was there any snow
on the barren lands ahead as far as we could see, and it was not until
some hours later that it began to show along the banks.

The ice, too, seemed entirely gone from the river, but as the snow
deepened along the shores we knew we must ere long reach the point where
the current plunged beneath the eternal barrier into that darksome
passage by which so many of the Antarctic dead had found their way to
the Land of the Silent Cold.

The walls of ice and snow on either side of us deepened rapidly. Soon we
were sweeping through a chill canyon down whose glittering sides dashed
crystal streams from the melting snow above. Here and there appeared
places by which it seemed possible to ascend to the snow level, but no
one as yet spoke of halting. It would mean the deserting of our boat,
which three of us could hardly attempt to push up the homeward incline,
and the bundling upon our backs of such supplies and comforts as we
could carry, to toil with them across the drifted wastes that lay
between us and the Billowcrest. And at the end of that journey—if we
ever reached the end—lay the huge perpendicular wall down which we must
still find our way. In fact, neither our prospect nor our surroundings
were conducive to conversation, and with the increasing cold, and the
black, semi-transparent walls becoming rapidly loftier, we said not many
words, and these in low voices, as if we were indeed among the dead.

“Do you suppose any of their funeral boats ever get down those rapids
without being upset?” whispered Gale, at last.

“It is possible,” I said, “it is only a question of avoiding the rocks.
No doubt many of them do. They are of course sunken in the tunnel
afterwards. The tide must fill it for a good way up, you know.”

“Nick,” said Gale suddenly, “what would you think of _us_ trying to go
through that tunnel?”

I gave a great spasmodic shudder.

“Don’t! I have already thought of it,” I managed to say. “It makes me
ill!”

“But I mean it, Nick,” persisted Gale. “There can’t be more than a
hundred and fifty miles of it, and it’s not so much colder inside than
it is here. We’ve got our electric lamp ahead, and we could make it in
seven or eight hours, the way we are going. If we can hit the tide right
we might do it as easy as nothing. If we did, we’d be home for dinner.
If we didn’t—well, Nick, to talk right out in meeting, I don’t believe
we’d have a bit more chance of getting home the other way, and a good
deal longer misery before—before we quit trying. Ain’t that so, now?
What do you think, Bill?”

Neither of us could reply immediately. The thought had lurked in the
minds of all, but when put into words it was a bit staggering. Yet the
prospect of being, within a few hours, on the Billowcrest with Edith—for
dinner, as her father put it—started the warm blood once more in my
veins. Perhaps the latter appealed to Mr. Sturritt also.

“I—I—that is—I’m with—er—the Admiral,” he managed to say at last, “as
usual.”

“And so am I,” I agreed. “We can only die once wherever we are, and it
is better to take the chances where we will go all together, in a
minute, and be carried somewhere near our friends, than to perish
lingeringly one after another, away off up yonder in the snow.”

“That’s my ticket!” assented Gale. “And anyway, our boat, some of it,
will get through, with all these air-tight compartments, and we can put
some messages in each one, so if any pieces are picked up the folks will
know what became of us.”

We began doing this at once, for we felt that the entrance to the dark
tunnel could not be far distant. The walls on either side were becoming
very high, and in places drew inward alarmingly. The river was narrowing
too, and was much swifter.

“We couldn’t get up, now, if we wanted to,” commented Gale, presently,
“and say, Nick, there’s a bend just ahead.”

But it was not a bend. The walls bent, truly, but they bent inward, and
far above they joined. Below was a depth of blackness into which our
eyes could pierce but a little way.

It was the “Passage of the Dead!”

We hastily slackened our speed to consider a little. Gale was making a
calculation.

“It’s now ten o’clock,” he said, at last, “and as nearly as I can
figure, the tide ought to be about half down in Bottle Bay. It’ll be low
tide at—say one o’clock, and high tide again about seven, unless the
wind’s blowing in there. That would bring the tide up earlier. What we
want to do, Nick, is not to waste a minute, so’s to get there if we can
before the tide closes the entrance again.”

“Why run that risk?” I shivered. “Why not figure to get there at low
tide?”

“Because,” explained Gale, “that tide don’t stop at the opening. It
comes on up—perhaps a good ways. When it’s low tide there, there’s a
high tide somewhere this side, and coming this way. I don’t know how
fast, or how far it would come, or how far up it would close this
passage. But somewhere we’ve probably got to meet that tide, and the
farther up this way it is, the less likely it’ll be to rise higher than
the ceiling.”

I had another spasmodic seizure at this suggestion. It amounted to
almost a chill, in fact, and Gale considerately waited until I was
better. Then he said:

“If we pass that tide all right, we’ll have a clear run for the
entrance, and if I’ve counted the time right we ought to make it before
it closes. Of course if there’s a head wind, or our propeller gives
out—why——”

“I know,” I said hastily, though with some attempt at calmness, “we
wouldn’t get through.”

“Oh, yes we would,” said Gale cheerfully, “we’d get through all right,
but we wouldn’t be worth picking up, afterwards.”

We were now at the entrance of the great tunnel. The ceiling above was a
vast black arch, hollowed out by the warmer waters of the river, during
its great freshets. At the opening it was very high, and the span above
thin and crumbling, and hung with huge icicles. Streams of water were
pouring from it, and we had barely passed beneath when just behind there
came the crash of falling fragments.

We were nearly upset by the upheaval of water, but were presently beyond
the reach of this danger. We had turned on our light, and it threw a
long white radiance ahead that dazzled back and forth, and up and down,
between ice and water in a wonderful iridescence. The wide ceiling
lowered rapidly until it was perhaps fifteen feet above our heads and
seemed much closer. We remembered that at Bottle Bay it was less than
ten, and the tides there rose very high.

We were running at full speed and the current was swift. Our log showed
that we were making twenty miles an hour. At this rate we believed that
a little more than seven hours would bring us through. Perhaps even less
than that. In spite of the vault-like cold and stillness about us, we
grew mildly cheerful.

“Nick,” said Gale, “we’re going home in style. What do you suppose
Johnnie and Biff will say, if they happen to see us pop out into Bottle
Bay, as if we’d been shot out of a gun?”

The prospect seemed almost too joyful to consider.

Gale, meantime, had opened one of the compartments, and brought forth a
small flask containing what was left of our supply of brandy. He held it
up to the light.

“Just about one apiece,” he commented cheerfully. “If we get through all
right, we’ll have plenty more. If we don’t we won’t need it. What is
hope without a high-ball? Age before beauty, Bill, you first.”

Mr. Sturritt shook his head. I think he seldom tasted liquors.

“I—er—I have a few of the brown lozenges,” he explained. “They are very
stim—that is—sustaining during cold, as you remember.”

“What’s that ahead, Nick?” Gale asked suddenly.

There was an outline in the light over our bow that stopped all tendency
to mirth. It was that of a canoe, and presently when we swept by it, we
got a glimpse of a white, dead face within.

Silently Gale once more extended toward Mr. Sturritt the depleted flask.
This time he did not refuse.




                                XXXVII.
                            THE RISING TIDE.


It was about three o’clock in the afternoon when we noticed that the
ceiling seemed to be drawing nearer to our heads. The change was very
gradual and at first we could not be sure. Then Gale said:

“It’s getting closer, boys—there’s no doubt of it. We’re probably down
to tide-water, and I believe we’re hitting it just about right—it can’t
fill up along here.”

We steered the boat toward the side of the passage and examined the ice
closely as we passed. Then he indicated a faint line about three feet
above us.

“There’s where it gets to, here,” he said; “of course it gets higher
farther down. If it gets too high, well——”

He did not finish, and we went on at full speed.

Lower and lower descended the wall above. At half-past four it was
within two feet of our heads, when we sat upright, and stretching away
into the blackness on either side it seemed an irresistible mountain
mass that was to crush us beneath the flood. We felt that we were going
slower, too, for the tide had opposed and checked the current.

At quarter of five I was obliged to stoop.

“Low bridge,” said Gale, but less than an hour later the situation lost
its last vestige of humor, even for him.

From the bottom of the boat where we were lying, he called:

“Nick, I forgot one thing. The ebb tide and the incoming tide probably
meet about here. I think we’re goners.”

I lay in the bow, which still lacked a few inches of touching the ice
above. I had my eyes lifted as high as possible, looking ahead. The
world weight of ice was coming down—down—the world of water rising, and
steadily rising from below. Between, the space was narrowing from feet
to inches, and the line of meeting seemed just ahead. Once I thought I
saw there a tiny spark that was not of our own light. Then it
disappeared, came again, disappeared—I could not look. I felt already
that I was being crushed, smothered, drowned.

The ice above brushed against my hair. I lowered my head quickly until
like the others I lay full length in the bottom of the boat.

“Gale—Sturritt,” I groaned, “forgive me! I got you into all this.”

Chauncey Gale’s smothered voice was first to answer.

“Not a word, Nick! We went into the game with our eyes open. Besides,
this deal is mine.”

And from Mr. Sturritt:

“It’s—it’s all right. I—I’m with the Admiral!”

And now the bow was touching and sliding on the ice above. It was
several inches higher than the stern, but presently that touched also.
We were being pressed slowly, surely downward. I don’t know what the
others were doing, but I was praying, hard.

Lower, and still lower. Water splashed cold against my face, and choked
the good-by I was about to utter. Then came another splash, and
another—then a great cold stream, and then——

A sharp grating above—a roaring of waters all about—a lifting—a
tossing—and a burst of something that brought me suddenly upright to
God’s daylight, and the fresh salt air of Bottle Bay!

Behind us, the rising tide was roaring into the opening of the tunnel,
that was now open and now closed by the billows. Our boat was more than
half filled with water and we were choking and gasping, but above us was
blue sky, and before us, not two hundred yards away, our stanch, our
noble, our beautiful Billowcrest. Somebody was on deck. Somebody with a
peaked fur hood—somebody who gave a great shout that brought others from
everywhere. And a moment later we were on board—welcomed by those who
loved us!

“Biff,” said Gale, as he greeted him, “have you got up steam?”

“A little, and I can get up a good deal more in five minutes.”

“Well, get her up, and let’s pull out of here, quick!”

Then turning to me:

“Come, Nick, break away there, and let’s get these wet clothes off while
Johnnie’s looking after something extra for dinner. I told you we’d get
here in time.”




                                XXXVIII.
                           STORM AND STRESS.


Upon our voyage to the north I shall not dwell. I have neither the time
nor the willingness to do so. The memory of those days is weird and
depressing. I would cover with all speed the place they occupy in this
history.

From Bottle Bay we followed the great salt current eastward, as we did
not believe it possible to work northward against it. For two days all
went well, and we found happiness in our reunion and homeward progress.
Then all the joyless misery of Antarctic lands and seas seemed to gather
and shut us in.

For five weeks through this blinding fog, crashing ice, and imminent,
sleep-destroying peril we crept, and toiled, and struggled, and battled
our way toward open water. For days we did not remove our clothing to
rest, but lay down ready for instant action, whether to save or desert
the ship.

Depression seized upon us all. Edith Gale was ill much of the time and
lost her appreciation of the beauties of nature. Even Gale himself found
it hard to create cheer through this grim period. During moments of
comparative calm he wandered about with his hands in his pockets, trying
to whistle, but it was a dismal tune.

As for myself, I despaired utterly. More than ever I realized what I had
done in bringing those who had trusted me into so dire a plight. And for
what? To prove a theory that was worth nothing to them or to me, after
all was told. To seek out a practically inaccessible land, and what now
seemed to me a paltry, indolent race that added nothing to the world’s
store of wealth or progress—to pay for it with our lives. I had promised
a new world, perhaps wealth beyond our wildest dreams. I had found,
instead, a land of dreams only, and of shadows. I had brought us all, at
last, face to face with privation, suffering—death. Even should we
eventually reach home, it seemed to me that I, still a penniless
adventurer, could not presume to claim the hand of Edith Gale. Truly I
was in the depths.

Whether we kept with the current, or what part it played in our
struggles, we could not tell, but we reached at last the easier seas
below Cape Horn, and here we were met by what seemed to us the King of
All Storms, determined at last to destroy us for having penetrated the
depths of his domain.

We were off the South Shetlands again, somewhere near the spot where,
twenty years before, my uncle’s vessel had been last seen battling with
a mighty tempest, and was supposed to have gone down. I reflected
vaguely that it must have been another just such as this, and that it
was a curious fate that had brought me with those I loved to find a
grave in the same unfriendly waters.

There were nights, now, and the black sea and sky made this one a memory
that divides as with a sable curtain all that went before it from all
that followed after.

Once there came a heavy jar as our keel struck and grated over some
hidden reef. We had no means of knowing where we were, and even had we
known, the knowledge would have availed us little in these uncharted
seas.

Suddenly, in the electric glow of our searchlight, there rose straight
before us a black wall that was not the penetrable night. A great wave
just then lifted us and bore us forward. An instant later there came a
jar that threw us from our feet, and then the stanch old Billowcrest no
longer tossed and pitched and battled, but lay rocking helplessly, as
though wounded to the life.

There came first a quick order to lower the boats. Then another to hold
them in readiness, but not to launch until the vessel gave signs of
breaking up. It was better to remain where we were, as long as we
could—to wait for daylight, if possible. Examined below, the Billowcrest
showed as yet no opening, and seemed to be lying easily.

Morning dawned at last on a gray, desolate shore, with a sea as gray and
desolate, between. But the King of Storms, satisfied, perhaps, that he
had stranded us on a desert island, had gone his way.

Chauncey Gale came on deck presently with Edith, still pale and ill, but
more animated than she had been for days. With Captain Biffer I had come
out early to view the shore.

“Well, Biff,” greeted Gale, “you seem to have got us anchored some place
at last. Don’t look much like the last place we stopped, but I s’pose
it’s all in a day’s work. What do you call it?”

“One of the South Shetlands, I should say. I don’t know which.”

“How’s the ship? Any holes in her yet?”

“No, and she ain’t grinding any that I can hear. But she’s aground good
and hard. She seems to be on a flat surface—mebbe sand. The sea’s
running down, too, and I shouldn’t wonder if we were left high and dry
before long.”

“Oh, can’t we go ashore?” asked Edith Gale, eagerly.

Poor girl, it was the first real land she had seen for more than a year,
and even this cheerless coast seemed inviting.

Captain Biffer nodded grimly.

“We’ll have plenty of time to do that, ma’am,” he said, “before we get
out of here, I’m thinking.”

“Oh, Nicholas, will you take me right away? I do so want to set foot on
solid ground again.”

“We will go as soon as the Captain will let us,” I said, “and give us
somebody to take us over.”

The sea continued to run down, and during the forenoon the Billowcrest
listed, though far less than if she had been a deeper vessel. The
weather cleared just before luncheon, and soon afterwards Chauncey and
Edith Gale, with Officer Larkins and myself, and a small crew, made
ready to set out in the launch for investigation. At the last moment, we
heard somebody come puffing up the companion-way, and Zar, fully arrayed
for the trip, stood before us.

“Look heah, I wan’ you take me in dat boat! I jes’ wan’ to set dis old
foot on solidificated groun’ once more befo’ I die. I mighty tiahd dis
ole ship dat toss, an’ tip, an’ spread-eagle, and doubleshuffle, an’
keep hit up foh six weeks at a stretch, an’ now tip ovah like a
side-hill, so a’ old, fat ’ooman like me cain’t fin’ her balance, nohow.
I wan’ go long, I tell you.”

So Zar accompanied us, and we landed presently at a shelving beach,
where we were greeted by some noisy birds, and a few small hair-seals,
who slipped into the water as we approached. Leaving the crew we made
our way between barren hills to the country beyond.

The sun had come out, now, and being midsummer it seemed warm and
genial, especially to those who had seen no other land for so long.

“Not much like our violet reception in the Antarctics, eh, Nick?” said
Gale.

“Oh, but it’s land! land!” breathed Edith “Warm, solid land! Aren’t we
glad to see it, Zar?” and it seemed to me that she grew well as I
watched her.

“Yes, _ma’am_! We is _dat_! Hit’s a mighty po’ country, I spec’, but hit
seem to me right now as fine an’ proliferous as ole Vaginny!”

Even Mr. Larkins seemed to joy in the land feeling, and said that it
reminded him of places in Newfoundland, where as a boy he had found the
bake-apple. He believed we could find it here, if we looked about a
little.

We pushed our way inland, and farther down the coast. There was a sparse
moss vegetation here and there, and on one sunny bank we found a
considerable bed of this growth. Edith Gale dropped down upon it
luxuriously, and the rest of us followed her example.

“Oh, how beautiful!” she cried, “and how I loathe the ship! It seems to
me that I could stay here forever!”

Zar grunted approvingly, but Gale said:

“I’d be glad enough to hurry back to the old Billowcrest if she was only
afloat. We’ll get tired enough of this, I’m thinking, before that
happens.”

I made no comment on this, but called attention to a ledge of rocks just
beyond.

“Looks as if somebody had been hammering on it,” I said. “I suppose
nobody lives on these islands.”

“Not a soul crreature,” declared Mr. Larkins. “Forthy year ago they used
to come here for the furr-seals, but they got the last of ’em in a
shmall bit of a time. No pay in comin’ for the little hair fellies. ’Tis
said they’s gold here, too, but I’ve never met the man that saw the
color of it.”

We rose and walked on. We had grown a bit chilly, sitting, and would
presently return to the vessel. All at once, Edith Gale stopped and held
up her hand.

“Wait—listen!” she commanded.

Borne to us on a light breeze from the south, came the sound of a voice
singing.

We looked at each other startled. There was something about it, most
uncanny.

“My good lawd!” groaned Zar. “Dat’s a sho sperritt! Lemme get outen heah
an’ back to dat boat.”

Mr. Larkins detained her.

“Wait,” he said. “There’s a bit of an echo hereabout. The singin’ ’ll be
comin’ from the ship, I think.”

There was a wave of relief. Then Gale dissented.

“That’s not from the ship. The wind isn’t right. It’s from the land——”

We hurried to the top of a little rise, just ahead; here we halted and
listened again. We could hear much more plainly now. Even the words came
quite distinctly.

                   “I’m out of humanity’s reach—
                     I must finish my journey alone.
                    Afar from the music of speech—
                     I start at the sound of my own.”

“Selkirk’s hymn,” I whispered. “I know it perfectly. My grandmother sang
it to her children, and my mother to me.”

                “I am monarch of all I survey—
                  My right there is none to dispute—
                From the center all round to the sea,
                  I am lord of the fowl and the brute.”

“Yes! yes! and that, too!” I added, excitedly. “Some one is cast away in
this place. Come, we must find him!”

“Oh, and quickly!” urged Edith; but the singing had begun again and we
hesitated, to listen.

                “There is a calm for those who weep,
                  A rest for weary pilgrims found.
                They softly lie and sweetly sleep,
                  Low in the ground.”

                “The storm that wrecks the winter’s sky
                  No more disturbs their sweet repose
                Than summer evening’s latest sigh
                  That shuts the rose.

“I know that, too,” said Edith. “It is by James Montgomery. It is also a
hymn.”

“And another of those I heard in childhood,” I answered eagerly. “The
favorite of—of one who perished—Come on! everybody, I must see what this
means!”

The singing had ceased now, but we hastily scrambled over the rocks in
the direction from which it had come. Pushing out from behind a great
bowlder we looked down a little <DW72> upon what at first seemed to be a
heap of bowlders. Then we saw that it was the construction of human
hands—a habitation. We descended quickly, though almost in silence, only
whispering caution to each other. A rolling stone, however, slipped from
beneath my foot and went plunging to the side of the hut. A moment later
there stepped out into view a curious fur-clad figure—tall, bearded, and
with masses of grizzled hair upon his shoulders. An aged man he seemed,
but bronzed, erect, and with the movement of strength.

A moment he looked at us as if doubting his vision. Then, flinging both
arms in the air, he gave a great cry of welcome.

We rushed down and surrounded him. He seized our hands wildly.

“Who are you?” he cried. “Who are you? And why are you here?”

But I besought him with fierce eagerness.

“Tell us, first, who _you_ are!” I commanded, “and why _you_ are here!”

“Oh, it does not matter,” he answered, “I have been dead twenty years!
But when I was in the world of men I was called Nicholas Lovejoy.”

“Then,” I shouted, “you are my uncle—for I am Nicholas Chase!”




                                 XXXIX.
                       WHERE DREAMS BECOME REAL.


In the little hut which he had built, and where all the years he had
lived alone, he told us his story. It was hardly more than a word. When
the vessel went down, he had drifted with one other, on a spar, to this
island. The other had died next day from exposure, and was buried not
far away. And winter and summer for twenty-one years the survivor had
waited for those who never came.

At first he had hoisted the spar with a signal, but long since he had
lost hope, and when at last a wind blew it down he had not replaced it.
His speech he had preserved by singing and reciting such things as he
knew, and so comforted himself. Less than seventy years old, he was
still a man of strength and vigor.

In return I informed him of our plight and briefly outlined our previous
expedition. When I had finished my Uncle Nicholas regarded me for a
moment in silence. Then, smiling:

“So, Nick, you found the warm South Pole. My boy, I have believed in it
for fifty years.”

“I always thought of you in that way,” I said. “I knew you would have
helped me. I even thought you might have gone there.”

“And so I might if my ship had come into port,” he sighed. Then, to
Gale, “As for _your_ ship, I think she is safe enough. She is probably
on the sand only. It makes in and out of that place as the winds change.
You may have twenty feet of water there in a week.”

He set out with us for the vessel. At first sight of the Billowcrest, he
paused and regarded her rapturously.

“Oh, that beautiful ship,” he cried. “How I have longed for this
moment.”

It was with him as with Edith when she had welcomed his desert island.
The Billowcrest was not really beautiful after her long battle with the
elements, and perhaps later he might not altogether approve of her
model, but now she seemed as a winged messenger from Paradise.

When we reached the launch the sailors regarded our companion with
wonder, and as we drew near the Billowcrest a curious group gathered on
the deck forward.

Foremost of these was Captain Biffer. I had never spoken to him of my
sailor uncle. My former experiences in that line may have resulted in
this delicacy, or it may have been out of consideration for my relative,
whose skill as a navigator might have been judged by that of his nephew.
Now, however, I ascended proudly to the deck.

“Captain Biffer,” I said, “I want to present to you my uncle, Captain
Nicholas Lovejoy.”

With his deflected orb Captain Biffer pierced my innermost being, while
with his good eye he searched deeply the soul of the man before him. He
tried to speak, but at first his voice failed him. Then he said huskily:

“Captain Nick Lovejoy, don’t you know your old shipmate, Joe Biffer?”

My uncle, too, started and gasped.

“My God, yes!” he said, “it’s Joe—Joe Biffer of Boston!”

A moment later Captain Biffer turned and seized my hand.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he demanded; “and say, Chase, I’ve learned to
like a good many things about you since we’ve been together, but this is
the best yet.”

At which Zar, who was standing by, added:

“An’ to think dat ole Aunt Artics o’ his turned out to be a’ uncle,
aftah all!”

That night in my stateroom my Uncle Nicholas and I talked until near
morning. I told him of events that had come and gone, and of family
changes. Then more fully of our expedition, my love for Edith Gale, and
how, as matters had turned out, I did not feel justified in claiming the
promise she had made me.

He listened quietly and when I had finished, he said:

“It’s the money difference you feel most, isn’t it?”

I nodded.

“I have only a few thousand dollars,” I said, “a mere drop with a man
like Gale.”

He took my hand.

“Never mind, my boy. Money isn’t everything. You are about to give to
the world a knowledge it has long hungered for, and true love is of more
value than either. Besides you are—or would have been—my heir, if my
ship had come into port. As it is, perhaps I can help a little. I have
had a good deal of time to prospect, over yonder, during the past twenty
years, and I have found indications that may develop something in the
way of mining. We’ll go over to-morrow, and take a look. Good night,
now—I mean good morning—you must try and rest some.”

I retired, but sleep seemed far from me. The events of the day had been
too momentous. And then my uncle’s words had left in me a spark of
comfort—of hope. Yet, from somewhere out of the spaces sleep did come,
and the sun was pouring into the uptilted port-hole of my stateroom when
I awoke.

We were off for the island again, immediately after breakfast. My uncle,
trimmed, and arrayed in one of Captain Biffer’s uniforms, made now a
most imposing figure, and this time Captain Biffer himself, with
Chauncey and Edith Gale, completed the party.

As we passed the point of rock where I had noticed what had seemed to me
signs of hammering, my uncle paused.

“Here is one place where I prospected,” he said. He pointed to a
thread-like vein of yellow. “I believe that is gold. But I have never
had tools to follow a ledge vein, and have done rather more at looking
for placers, such as I saw in California, in the fifties.”

My hopes withered. The tiny yellow streak seemed to me so small and
uncertain. As for “placers,” I only knew dimly that they were connected
in some way with “pockets,” and “washing.”

We pushed on to his hut of stones. A very comfortable hut we had found
it to be, and more roomy than it had appeared from without. My uncle
entered first, and presently called to us. Within, he indicated seats on
the stone benches ranged around the walls. He first exhibited a few
curiosities he had gathered during his long exile, then also seating
himself, he said:

“My nephew Nicholas confided to me last night a matter I take to be well
understood by all present. It concerns chiefly himself and a certain
young lady, who is not far away.” He looked toward Edith Gale, who
blushed and smiled, but said nothing. “Nicholas told me further,” my
uncle continued, “of his lack of fortune, and his unwillingness to hold
her to a promise made with different prospects ahead.”

At this point Chauncey Gale started to speak, but my Uncle Nicholas
checked him. I did not look at Edith, but she told me afterwards how she
felt, and I sympathized with her. My uncle proceeded.

“I told my nephew that money was not all of life. That he would give to
the world a treasure of information, and that love was still greater
than either knowledge or riches.”

I began to grow uncomfortable. Also, less glad than I had been that we
had discovered my uncle. True, he had not talked to anybody for so long
that he was doubtless anxious to make up for lost time, but I wished he
had selected some other subject. We waited the end in silence.

“He would have been my heir,” he went on, “had my ship come into port.
He is my heir to-day of whatever of property or prospect I may leave
behind. Of prospect I believe there is considerable on this island. Of
property—well, as I told Nick, I have had a good deal of time on my
hands during the past twenty-one years, and the result”—turning, he laid
his hand on a great flat stone in the wall near him, and swung it
aside—“it is in there—you can see it for yourselves.”

We leaned forward and looked into the opening made. Beyond, there was a
sort of storehouse or small room, the floor smoothly covered with skins.
In the center arose a heap or pyramid of what appeared to be irregular
yellow lumps of earth, or pebbles, of varying sizes—some very
small—others quite large. No one spoke, but we looked at him
questioningly.

“Those are nuggets,” he said. “That pile contains, I believe, about two
tons of solid gold!”




                                  XL.
                          CLAIMING THE REWARD.


For three weeks the Billowcrest lay a prisoner off the South
Shetlands—just which of these islands, I do not consider it proper at
this time to say. Assisted by Chauncey and Edith Gale, my uncle and I
put the treasure into bags and had it conveyed to the vessel as “mineral
specimens,” for we felt that we could not wholly trust our crew. Then at
length a wind from the northwest set the currents a new pace and altered
the sand drift. We found ourselves afloat one morning, and crowding on
sail and steam made all speed northward, arriving safely in New York
harbor on the evening of February second, after an absence of nearly
eighteen months.

As we came in through the dusk, the splendid cities and the bridge
between to us seemed gloriously illuminated; but if so, it was not in
our honor. Nobody knew that we had returned, or even that we had gone.

We steamed up North River to our old dock, and Chauncey Gale set forth
at once to catch a Broadway car for a certain down-town theater, which
he greatly feared had been discontinued during our absence. Next morning
I went with my uncle to establish some desirable banking connections,
through which his treasure might be properly transferred, and converted
into funds.

As to when and in what manner we should make our adventures, and the
results of the expedition, public property, we were at first undecided.
Newspaper notoriety was not a pleasant prospect, particularly as we were
already contemplating a second voyage to the South. We therefore
concluded to say nothing immediately, and meanwhile to have the old
Billowcrest thoroughly overhauled and outfitted for the voyage to be
undertaken in the late summer—not to the South Pole this time, but to
the South Shetlands, to develop in the spot of his exile the mines which
my uncle believes to be almost inexhaustible.

And so—to use the so-called Irish form—we have “continued to say
nothing” through the spring and summer, during which period I have
prepared the matter already in the proper hands for publication.

We are about to sail again now, and by the time my report is given to
the reader I shall be beyond the reach of either approval or
condemnation—far on my way to our new “Treasure Island” of the South,
where the rarest treasure will be one who joins in this, our unique
honeymoon—she who was Edith Gale.

For I claimed my reward this morning—two years from the day when she
jestingly agreed that I should name my price for a new world—and in the
little forward cabin of the Billowcrest where the agreement was made.

[Illustration]

“It was hardly fair,” she whispered, just before the ceremony. “I am
paying to the full, while you, though you found the world, could not
deliver it into my hands.”

“It is the old story,” I said. “The man always gets more than he
bargained for, and the woman less.”

And Chauncey Gale, when he took our hands in congratulation, repeated
the first comment that was made when my uncle showed us his store of
gold.

“Well, Nick,” he said, “as I remarked once before, I’m something of a
speculator, myself, but I give you credit for making the smallest
investments and raking off the biggest returns on record.”

He accompanies us on our expedition. He hesitated somewhat at first, but
a few months of New York and a warm northern summer have brought back
the memory and nameless fascination of the glacial atmosphere and
trackless seas of the far south.

“Besides,” he said, “I’m not going to become a vagrant in my old age.
Think of me being homeless in the streets of New York, with no place to
hang up in, except the police station of the Waldoria. Oh, Lord, what’s
a hat without a hall-tree!”

Mr. Sturritt, too, remains “with the Admiral, as usual.” He has prepared
lozenges in new and improved combinations, and especially adapted to the
exertions of a miner’s life. Even Zar is not going to desert us. Our
former voyage, with Mr. Sturritt in charge of the commissary, was not
without its attractions for her, and she now declares that “if we jus’
give up huntin’ foh poles, an’ stick to lookin’ up our los’ relation,
she has no rejections to he’pin’ us all she can. Besides,” she says, “my
Miss Edith ain’ gwine off down dere widout her ole mammy to sing ‘Brown
Cows’ when that po’ li’l’ gal cain’t sleep.”

My Uncle Nicholas, who has spent much of the summer with relatives, will
naturally be in charge of the expedition, though Captain Biffer will
continue in command of the Billowcrest, with Officers Larkins and Emory
as heretofore.

“Thim’s the bake-apple,” said the former, when I first showed him a
handful of the nuggets. “The little yellow berries that grow one on a
shtalk—I felt in me bones that they grew there. I’ll be helpin’ ye hunt
fer thim.”

And so it is, that of those who sailed with us before, only Ferratoni is
missing. He has become to us as a sweet memory, but far to the south,
where lies my long-ago fancy, he has found that of which he also,
dreamed. The long, polar night now lingers there, but I recall that
enchanted land only as bathed in the light of an eternal afternoon,
wherein, after our weary struggle, we found for a time the anodyne of
forgetfulness and rest. Perhaps ere this he has learned a way to lighten
the burden of their long dark, and however this may be, we are happy in
knowing that he, too, walks in the light of love, and that his gentle
soul is chorded at last with the perfect ideal.

But I am writing—writing. Already both Chauncey Gale and my Uncle
Nicholas have looked in to say that Captain Biffer is ready to cast off,
while Edith, who sits by to read as I finish these last lines, whispers
that the messenger boy is eagerly afraid we are going to carry him away
with us.

There came to me last night, once more, the old childhood dream of blue
water and white sails.

And the tide still calls, and the wind is fair, and I am going back to
the sea.


                                THE END.

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                          TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES


 1. Silently corrected typographical errors.
 2. Retained anachronistic and non-standard spellings as printed.
 3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.





End of Project Gutenberg's The great White way, by Albert Bigelow Paine

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