"Come," said the doctor, "let us take heart against our bad fortune."
"We must confess," said Johnson, without being heard by Altamont,
"that if we find the place taken, it would disgust us with journeying
to the Pole."
"And yet," answered Bell, "there is no possibility of doubting--"
"No," retorted the doctor; "I turn it all over in vain, and say it is
improbable, impossible; I have to give it up. This shoe was not
pressed into the snow without being at the end of a leg, and without
the leg being attached to a human body. I could forgive Esquimaux, but
a European!"
"The fact is," answered Johnson, "that if we are going to find all the
rooms taken in the hotel of the end of the world, it would be
annoying."
"Very annoying," said Altamont.
"Well, we shall see," said the doctor.
And they pushed on. The day ended without any new fact to indicate the
presence of strangers in this part of New America, and they at last
encamped for the evening.
A rather strong wind from the south had sprung up, and obliged them to
seek a secure shelter for their tent in the bottom of a ravine. The
sky was threatening; long clouds passed rapidly through the air; they
passed near the ground, and so quickly that the eye could hardly
follow them. At times some of the mist touched the ground, and the
tent resisted with difficulty the violence of the hurricane.
[Illustration: The hut was pitched in a ravine for shelter.]
"It's going to be a nasty night," said Johnson, after supper.
"It won't be cold, but stormy," answered the doctor; "let us take
precautions, and make the tent firm with large stones."
"You are right, Doctor; if the wind should carry away the canvas,
Heaven alone knows where we should find it again."
Hence they took every precaution against such a danger, and the
wearied travellers lay down to sleep. But they found it impossible.
The tempest was loose, and hastened northward with incomparable
violence; the clouds were whirling about like steam which has just
escaped from a boiler; the last avalanches, under the force of the
hurricane, fell into the ravines, and their dull echoes were
distinctly heard; the air seemed to be struggling with the water, and
fire alone was absent from this contest of the elements.
Amid the general tumult their ears distinguished separate sounds, not
the crash of heavy falling bodies, but the distinct cracking of bodies
breaking; a clear snap was frequently heard, like breaking steel, amid
the roar of the tempest. These last sounds were evidently avalanches
torn off by the gusts, but the doctor could not explain the others. In
the few moments of anxious silence, when the hurricane seemed to be
taking breath in order to blow with greater violence, the travellers
exchanged their suppositions.
"There is a sound of crashing," said the doctor, "as if icebergs and
ice-fields were being blown against one another."
"Yes," answered Altamont; "one would say the whole crust of the globe
was falling in. Say, did you hear that?"
"If we were near the sea," the doctor went on, "I should think it was
ice breaking."
"In fact," said Johnson, "there is no other explanation possible."
"Can we have reached the coast?" asked Hatteras.
"It's not impossible," answered the doctor. "Hold on," he said, after
a very distinct sound; "shouldn't you say that was the crashing of
ice? We may be very near the ocean."
"If it is," continued Hatteras, "I should not be afraid to go across
the ice-fields."
"O," said the doctor, "they must be broken by such a tempest! We shall
see to-morrow. However that may be, if any men have to travel in such
a night as this, I pity them."
The hurricane raged ten hours without cessation, and no one of those
in the tent had a moment's sleep; the night passed in profound
uneasiness. In fact, under such circumstances, every new incident, a
tempest, an avalanche, might bring serious consequences. The doctor
would gladly have gone out to reconnoitre, but how could he with such
a wind raging?
Fortunately the hurricane grew less violent early the next day; they
could leave the tent which had resisted so sturdily. The doctor,
Hatteras, and Johnson went to a hill about three hundred feet high,
which they ascended without difficulty. Their eyes beheld an entirely
altered country, composed of bare rocks, sharp ridges entirely clear
of ice. It was summer succeeding winter, which had been driven away by
the tempest; the snow had been blown away by the wind before it could
melt, and the barren soil reappeared.
[Illustration: "They climbed a hill which commanded a wide view."]
But Hatteras's glances were all turned towards the north, where the
horizon appeared to be hidden by dark mist.
"That may be the effect of the ocean," said the doctor.
"You are right," said Hatteras; "the sea must be there."
"That's what we call the blink of the water," said Johnson.
"Exactly," said the doctor.
"Well, let us start," said Hatteras, "and push on to this new ocean."
"That rejoices my heart," said Clawbonny to the captain.
"Certainly," was the enthusiastic answer. "Soon we shall have reached
the Pole! and doesn't the prospect delight you, too, Doctor?"
"It does. I am always happy, and especially about the happiness of
others!"
The three Englishmen returned to the ravine; the sledge was made
ready, and they left the camp and resumed their march. Each one
dreaded finding new tracks, but all the rest of the way they saw no
trace of any human being. Three hours later they reached the coast.
"The sea! the sea!" they all shouted.
"And the open sea!" cried the captain.
[Illustration: "Three hours later they reached the coast. 'The sea!
the sea!' they all shouted."]
It was ten o'clock in the morning.
In fact, the hurricane had cleared up the polar basin; the shattered
ice was floating away in every direction; the largest pieces, forming
icebergs, had just weighed anchor and were sailing on the open sea.
The wind had made a harsh attack upon the field. Fragments of ice
covered the surrounding rocks. The little which was left of the
ice-field seemed very soft; on the rocks were large pieces of
sea-weed. The ocean stretched beyond the line of vision, with no
island or new land peering above the horizon.
In the east and west were two capes gently sloping to the water; at
their end the sea was breaking, and the wind was carrying a slight
foam. The land of New America thus died away in the Polar Ocean,
quietly and gently. It rounded into an open bay, with roadstead
enclosed by the two promontories. In the middle a rock made a little
natural harbor, sheltered against three points of the compass; it ran
back into the land in the broad bed of a stream, through which ran
down the melted snows of winter, now forming a perfect torrent.
Hatteras, after noticing the outline of the coast, resolved to make
the preparations for departure that very day, to launch the boat, to
put the unloaded sledge on board for future excursions. That took all
day; then the tent was raised, and after a comfortable meal work
began. Meanwhile the doctor took out his instruments to take an
observation and determine the position of a part of the bay. Hatteras
hurried on the work; he was anxious to start; he wanted to leave the
land, and to be in advance in case any others should reach the sea.
At five o'clock in the evening Johnson and Bell had nothing to do but
to fold their arms. The launch was rocking gently in her little
harbor, with her mast set, her jib lowered, and her foresail in the
brails; the provisions and most of the things on the sledge had been
put on board; only the tent and a little of the camping material
remained to be put on board the next day. The doctor found all these
preparations complete on his return. When he saw the launch quietly
sheltered from the wind, it occurred to him to give a name to the
little harbor, and he proposed that of Altamont. This proposition was
unanimously agreed to. So it was named Altamont Harbor.
[Illustration: "The launch was rocking gently in her little harbor."]
According to the doctor's calculations, it lay in latitude 87° 5', and
longitude 118° 35' E. of Greenwich; that is to say, less than three
degrees from the Pole. The band had gone more than two hundred miles
from Victoria Bay to Altamont Harbor.
CHAPTER XXI.
THE OPEN SEA.
The next morning Johnson and Bell set about carrying on board the
camping material. At eight o'clock all the preparations for departure
were complete. At the moment of starting the doctor's thoughts
returned to the footprints they had seen. Were these men trying to
gain the North? Had they any means of crossing the Polar Sea! Should
they meet them again? For three days they had come across no trace of
the travellers, and certainly, whoever they were, they could not have
reached Altamont Harbor. That was a place which they were the first to
set foot in. But the doctor, who was harassed by his thoughts, wanted
to take a last view of the country, and he ascended a little hill
about a hundred feet high, whence he had a distant view to the south.
When he had reached the top, he put his glass to his eyes. Great was
his surprise when he found he could not see anything, either at a
distance on the plains, or within a few feet of him. This seemed very
odd; he made another examination, and at last he looked at the
glass,--the object-glass was missing.
[Illustration]
"The object-glass!" he cried.
The sudden revelation may be imagined; he uttered a cry so loud as to
be heard by his companions, and they were much astonished at seeing
him running down the hill.
"Well, what's the matter now?" asked Johnson.
The doctor was out of breath, and unable to speak. At length he
managed to bring out,--
"The footprints!--the expedition!--"
"Well, what?" said Hatteras; "are they here?"
"No, no!" resumed the doctor,--"the object-glass, mine!"
And he showed his own glass.
"O, ho!" cried the American, "so you lost--"
"Yes!"
"But then the footprints--"
"Our own!" cried the doctor. "We lost our way in the fog! We went
around in a circle, and came across our own footprints!"
"But the print of the shoes?" asked Hatteras.
"Bell's, you know, who walked all day in the snow after breaking his
snow-shoes."
"That's true," said Bell.
Their mistake was so clear, that they all, except Hatteras, burst out
laughing, and he was none the less pleased at the discovery.
"We were stupid enough," said the doctor, when they had stopped
laughing. What good guesses we made! Strangers up here! Really, we
ought to think before speaking. Well, since we are easy on this point,
we can't do better than start."
"Forward!" said Hatteras.
A quarter of an hour later each one had taken his place on board of
the launch, which sailed out of Altamont Harbor under mainsail and
jib. This voyage began Wednesday, July 10th; they were then very near
the Pole, exactly one hundred and seventy-five miles from it. However
small the land might be at that point of the globe, the voyage would
certainly be a short one. The wind was light, but fair. The
thermometer stood at 50°; it was really warm.
The launch had not been injured by the journey on the sledge; it was
in perfect order, and sailed easily. Johnson was at the helm; the
doctor, Bell, and Altamont were lying as best they might among the
load, partly on deck, partly below.
Hatteras stood forward, with his eyes turned to the mysterious point,
which attracted him with an irresistible power, as the magnetic pole
attracts the needle. If there should be any land, he wanted to be the
first to see it. This honor really belonged to him. He noticed,
besides, that the surface of the Polar Sea was covered with short
waves, like those of land locked seas. This he considered a proof of
the nearness of the opposite shore, and the doctor shared his opinion.
Hatteras's desire to find land at the North Pole is perfectly
comprehensible. His disappointment would have been great if the
uncertain sea covered the place where he wanted to find a piece of
land, no matter how small! In fact, how could he give a special name
to an uncertain portion of the sea? How plant the flag of his country
among the waves? How take possession, in the name of her Gracious
Majesty, of the liquid element?
So Hatteras, compass in hand, gazed steadily at the north. There was
nothing that he could see between him and the horizon, where the line
of the blue water met the blue sky. A few floating icebergs seemed to
be leaving the way free for these bold sailors. The appearance of this
region was singularly strange. Was this impression simply the result
of the nervous excitement of the travellers? It is hard to say. Still,
the doctor in his journal has described the singular appearance of the
ocean; he spoke of it as Penny did, according to whom these countries
present an appearance "offering the most striking contrast of a sea
filled with millions of living creatures."
The sea, with its various colors, appeared strangely transparent, and
endowed with a wonderful dispersive quality, as if it had been made
with carburet of sulphur. This clearness let them see down into
immeasurable depths; it seemed as if the sea were lit up like a large
aquarium; probably some electric phenomenon at the bottom of the sea
lit it up. So the launch seemed hung in a bottomless abyss.
[Illustration]
On the surface of the water the birds were flying in large flocks,
like thick clouds big with a storm. Aquatic birds of all sorts were
there, from the albatross which is common to the south, to the penguin
of the arctic seas, but of enormous size. Their cries were deafening.
In considering them the doctor found his knowledge of natural history
too scanty; many of the names escaped him, and he found himself bowing
his head when their wings beat the air.
[Illustration: "Aquatic birds of all sorts were there."]
Some of these large birds measured twenty feet from tip to tip; they
covered the whole launch with their expanded wings; and there were
legions of these birds, of which the names had never appeared in the
London "Index Ornithologus." The doctor was dejected and stupefied at
finding his science so faulty. Then, when his glance fell from the
wonders of the air to the calm surface of the ocean, he saw no less
astonishing productions of the animal kingdom, among others, medusæ
thirty feet broad; they served as food for the other fish, and they
floated like islands amid the sea-weed. What a difference from the
microscopic medusæ observed in the seas of Greenland by Scoresby, and
of which that explorer estimated the number at twenty-three trillions
eight hundred and ninety-eight billions of millions in a space of two
square miles!
Then the eye glancing down into the transparent water, the sight was
equally strange, so full was it of fishes; sometimes the animals were
swimming about below, and the eye saw them gradually disappearing, and
fading away like spectres; then they would leave the lower layers and
rise to the surface. The monsters seemed in no way alarmed at the
presence of the launch; they even passed near it, rubbing their fins
against it; this, which would have alarmed whalers, did not disturb
these men, and yet the sea-monsters were very large.
[Illustration: "Then the eye glancing down into the transparent water,
the sight was equally strange."]
Young sea-calves played about them; the sword-fish, with its long,
narrow, conical sword, with which it cleaves the ice, was chasing the
more timid cetacea; numberless spouting whales were clearly to be
heard. The sword-caper, with its delicate tail and large caudal fins,
swam with incomprehensible quickness, feeding on smaller animals, such
as the cod, as swift as itself; while the white whale, which is more
inactive, swallowed peacefully the tranquil, lazy mollusks.
Farther down were Greenland anamaks, long and dark; huge sperm-whales,
swimming in the midst of ambergris, in which took place thomeric
battles that reddened the ocean for many miles around; the great
Labrador tegusik. Sharp-backed dolphins, the whole family of seals and
walruses, sea-dogs, horses and bears, lions and elephants, seemed to
be feeding on the rich pastures; and the doctor admired the numberless
animals, as he would have done the crustacea in the crystal basins of
the zoölogical garden.
What beauty, variety, and power in nature! How strange and wonderful
everything seemed in the polar regions!
The air acquired an unnatural purity; one would have said it was full
of oxygen; the explorers breathed with delight this air, which filled
them with fresher life; without taking account of the result, they
were, so to speak, exposed to a real consuming fire, of which one can
give no idea, not even a feeble one. Their emotions, their breathing
and digestion, were endowed with superhuman energy; their ideas became
more excited; they lived a whole day in an hour.
Through all these wonders the launch pushed on before a moderate
breeze, occasionally feeling the air moved by the albatrosses' wings.
Towards evening, the coast of New America disappeared beneath the
horizon. In the temperate zones, as well as at the equator, night
falls; but here the sun simply described a circle parallel to the line
of the horizon. The launch, bathed in its oblique rays, could not lose
sight of it.
The animate beings of these regions seemed to know the approach of
evening as truly as if the sun had set; birds, fish, cetacea, all
disappeared. Whither? To the depths of the ocean? Who could say? But
soon total silence succeeded to their cries, and the sound of their
passage through the water; the sea grew calmer and calmer, and night
retained its gentle peace even beneath the glowing sun.
Since leaving Altamont Harbor the launch had made one degree to the
north; the next day nothing appeared on the horizon, neither
projecting peaks nor those vague signs by which sailors detect their
nearness to land.
The wind was good, but not strong, the sea not high; the birds and
fish came as thick as the day before; the doctor, leaning over the
gunwale, could see the cetacea rising slowly to the surface; a few
icebergs and scattered pieces of ice alone broke the monotony of the
ocean.
But the ice grew rarer, and was not enough to interfere with the boat.
It is to be remembered that the launch was then ten degrees above the
pole of cold; and as to the parallels of temperature, they might as
well have been ten degrees to the other side. There was nothing
surprising in the sea being open at this epoch, as it must have been
at Disco Island in Baffin's Bay. So a sailing vessel would have plenty
of sailing room in the summer months.
This observation had a great practical importance; in fact, if whalers
can ever get to the polar basin, either by the seas of North America
or those of the north of Asia, they are sure of getting full cargoes,
for this part of the ocean seems to be the universal fishing-pond, the
general reservoir of whales, seals, and all marine animals. At noon
the line of the horizon was still unbroken; the doctor began to doubt
of the existence of a continent in so high latitudes.
Still, as he reflected, he was compelled to believe in the existence
of an arctic continent; in fact, at the creation of the world, after
the cooling of the terrestrial crust, the waters formed by the
condensation of the atmospheric vapor were compelled to obey the
centrifugal force, to fly to the equator and leave the motionless
extremities of the globe. Hence the necessary emersion of the
countries near the Pole. The doctor considered this reasoning very
just. And so it seemed to Hatteras.
[Illustration]
Hence the captain still tried to pierce the mists of the horizon. His
glass never left his eyes. In the color of the water, the shape of the
waves, the direction of the wind, he tried to find traces of
neighboring land. His head was bent forward, and even one who did not
know his thoughts would have admired, so full was his attitude of
energetic desire and anxious interrogation.
CHAPTER XXII.
THE APPROACH TO THE POLE.
The time flew by in this uncertainty. Nothing appeared on the sharply
defined circle of the sea; nothing was to be seen save sky and
sea,--not one of those floating land-plants which rejoiced the heart
of Christopher Columbus as he was about to discover America. Hatteras
was still gazing. At length, at about six o'clock in the evening, a
shapeless vapor appeared at a little height above the level of the
sea; it looked like a puff of smoke; the sky was perfectly cold, so
this vapor was no cloud; it would keep appearing and disappearing, as
if it were in commotion. Hatteras was the first to detect this
phenomenon; he examined it with his glass for a whole hour.
Suddenly, some sure sign apparently occurred to him, for he stretched
out his arms to the horizon and cried in a loud voice,--
"Land, ho!"
At these words each one sprang to his feet as if moved by electricity.
A sort of smoke was clearly rising above the sea.
[Illustration]
"I see it," cried the doctor.
"Yes! certainly!--yes!" said Johnson.
"It's a cloud," said Altamont.
"It's land!" answered Hatteras, as if perfectly convinced.
But, as often happens with objects that are indistinct in the
distance, the point they had been looking at seemed to have
disappeared. At length they found it again, and the doctor even
fancied that he could see a swift light twenty or twenty-five miles to
the north.
"It's a volcano!" he cried.
[Illustration: "'It's a volcano!' he cried."]
"A volcano?" said Altamont.
"Without doubt."
"At this high latitude?"
"And why not?" continued the doctor; "isn't Iceland a volcanic land,
so to speak, made of volcanoes?"
"Yes, Iceland," said the American, "but so near the Pole!"
"Well, didn't Commodore James Ross find in the Southern Continent two
active volcanoes, Erebus and Terror by name, in longitude 170° and
latitude 78°? Why then shouldn't there be volcanoes at the North
Pole?"
"It may be so, after all," answered Altamont.
"Ah," cried the doctor, "I see it clearly! It is a volcano."
"Well," said Hatteras, "let us sail straight towards it."
"The wind is changing," said Johnson.
"Haul on the fore-sheet, and bring her nearer the wind."
But this manoeuvre only turned the launch away from the point they had
been gazing at, and even with their closest examination they could not
find it again. Still, they could not doubt that they were nearing
land. They had seen, if they had not reached, the object of their
voyage, and within twenty-four hours they would set foot on this
unknown shore. Providence, after letting them get so near, would not
drive them back at the last moment.
Still, no one manifested the joy which might have been expected under
the circumstances; each one wondered in silence what this polar land
might be. The animals seemed to shun it; at evening the birds, instead
of seeking refuge there, flew with all speed to the south. Could not a
single gull or ptarmigan find a resting-place there? Even the fish,
the large cetacea, avoided that coast. Whence came this repugnance,
which was shared by all the animals they saw, unless from terror?
The sailors experienced the same feeling; they gave way to the
feelings inspired by the situation, and gradually each one felt his
eyelids grow heavy. It was Hatteras's watch. He took the tiller; the
doctor, Altamont, Johnson, and Bell fell asleep, stretched on the
benches, and soon were dreaming soundly. Hatteras struggled against
his sleepiness; he wished to lose not a moment; but the gentle motion
of the launch rocked him, in spite of himself, into a gentle sleep.
The boat made hardly any headway; the wind did not keep her sails
full. Far off in the west a few icebergs were reflecting the sun's
rays, and glowing brightly in the midst of the ocean.
Hatteras began to dream. He recalled his whole life, with the
incalculable speed of dreams; he went through the winter again, the
scenes at Victoria Bay, Fort Providence, Doctor's House, the finding
the American beneath the snow. Here remoter incidents came up before
him; he dreamed of the burning of the -Forward-, of his treacherous
companions who had abandoned him. What had become of them? He thought
of Shandon, Wall, and the brutal Pen. Where were they now? Had they
succeeded in reaching Baffin's Bay across the ice? Then he went
further back, to his departure from England, to his previous voyages,
his failures and misfortunes. Then he forgot his present situation,
his success so near at hand, his hopes half realized. His dreams
carried him from joy to agony. So it went on for two hours; then his
thoughts changed; he began to think of the Pole, and he saw himself at
last setting foot on this English continent, and unfolding the flag of
the United Kingdom. While he was dozing in this way a huge, dark cloud
was climbing across the sky, throwing a deep shadow over the sea.
[Illustration]
It is difficult to imagine the great speed with which hurricanes arise
in the arctic seas. The vapors which rise under the equator are
condensed above the great glaciers of the North, and large masses of
air are needed to take their place. This can explain the severity of
arctic storms.
At the first shock of the wind the captain and his friends awoke from
their sleep, ready to manage the launch. The waves were high and
steep. The launch tossed helplessly about, now plunged into deep
abysses, now oscillated on the pointed crest of a wave, inclining
often at an angle of more than forty-five degrees. Hatteras took firm
hold of the tiller, which was noisily sliding from one side to the
other. Every now and then some strong wave would strike it and nearly
throw him over. Johnson and Bell were busily occupied in bailing out
the water which the launch would occasionally ship.
[Illustration: "The launch tossed helplessly about."]
"This is a storm we hardly expected," said Altamont, holding fast to
his bench.
"We ought to expect anything here," answered the doctor.
These remarks were made amid the roar of the tempest and the hissing
of the waves, which the violence of the wind reduced to a fine spray.
It was nearly impossible for one to hear his neighbor. It was hard to
keep the boat's head to the north; the clouds hid everything a few
fathoms from the boat, and they had no mark to sail by. This sudden
tempest, just as they were about attaining their object, seemed full
of warning; to their excited minds it came like an order to go no
farther. Did Nature forbid approach to the Pole? Was this point of the
globe surrounded by hurricanes and tempests which rendered access
impossible? But any one who had caught sight of those men could have
seen that they did not flinch before wind or wave, and that they would
push on to the end. So they struggled on all day, braving death at
every instant, and making no progress northward, but also losing no
ground; they were wet through by the rain and waves; above the din of
the storm they could hear the hoarse cries of the birds.
But at six o'clock in the evening, while the waves were rising, there
came a sudden calm. The wind stopped as if by a miracle. The sea was
smooth, as if it had not felt a puff of wind for twelve hours. The
hurricane seemed to have respected this part of the Polar Ocean. What
was the reason? It was an extraordinary phenomenon, which Captain
Sabine had witnessed in his voyages in Greenland seas. The fog,
without lifting, was very bright. The launch drifted along in a zone
of electric light, an immense St. Elmo fire, brilliant but without
heat. The mast, sail, and rigging stood out black against the
phosphorescent air; the men seemed to have plunged into a bath of
transparent rays, and their faces were all lit up. The sudden calm of
this portion of the ocean came, without doubt, from the ascending
motion of the columns of air, while the tempest, which was a cyclone,
turned rapidly about this peaceful centre. But this atmosphere on fire
suggested a thought to Hatteras.
[Illustration: "The fog, without lifting, was very bright."]
"The volcano!" he cried.
"Is it possible?" asked Bell.
"No, no!" answered the doctor; "we should be smothered if the flames
were to reach us."
"Perhaps it is its reflection in the fog," said Altamont.
"No. We should have to admit that we were near land, and in that case
we should hear the eruption."
"But then?" asked the captain.
"It is a phenomenon," said the doctor, "which has been seldom observed
hitherto. If we go on we cannot help leaving this luminous sphere and
re-entering storm and darkness."
"Whatever it is, push on!" said Hatteras.
"Forward!" cried his companions, who did not wish to delay even for
breathing-time in this quiet spot. The bright sail hung down the
glistening mast; the oars dipped into the glowing waves, and appeared
to drip with sparks. Hatteras, compass in hand, turned the boat's head
to the north; gradually the mist lost its brightness and transparency;
the wind could be heard roaring a short distance off; and soon the
launch, lying over before a strong gust, re-entered the zone of
storms. Fortunately, the hurricane had shifted a point towards the
south, and the launch was able to run before the wind, straight for
the Pole, running the risk of foundering, but sailing very fast; a
rock, reef, or piece of ice might at any moment rise before them, and
crush them to atoms. Still, no one of these men raised a single
objection, nor suggested prudence. They were seized with the madness
of danger. Thirst for the unknown took possession of them. They were
going along, not blinded, but blindly, finding their speed only too
slow for their impatience. Hatteras held the tiller firm amid the
waves lashed into foam by the tempest. Still the proximity of land
became evident. Strange signs filled the air. Suddenly the mist parted
like a curtain torn by the wind, and for a moment, brief as a flash of
lightning, a great burst of flame could be seen rising towards the
sky.
"The volcano! the volcano!" was the cry which escaped from the lips of
all; but the strange vision disappeared at once; the wind shifted to
the southeast, took the launch on her quarter, and drove her from this
unapproachable land.
"Malediction!" said Hatteras, shifting her sail; "we were not three
miles from land!"
Hatteras could not resist the force of the tempest; but without
yielding to it, he brought the boat about in the wind, which was
blowing with fearful violence. Every now and then the launch leaned to
one side, so that almost her whole keel was exposed; still she obeyed
her rudder, and rose like a stumbling horse which his rider brings up
by spur and reins. Hatteras, with his hair flying and his hand on the
tiller, seemed to be part of the boat, like horse and man at the time
of the centaurs. Suddenly a terrible sight presented itself to their
eyes. Within less than ten fathoms a floe was balancing on the waves;
it fell and rose like the launch, threatening in its fall to crush it
to atoms. But to this danger of being plunged into the abyss was added
another no less terrible; for this drifting floe was covered with
white bears, crowded together and wild with terror.
[Illustration: "This drifting floe was covered with white bears,
crowded together."]
"Bears! bears!" cried Bell, in terror.
And each one gazed with terror. The floe pitched fearfully, sometimes
at such an angle that the bears were all rolled together. Then their
roars were almost as loud as the tempest; a formidable din arose from
the floating menagerie.
If the floe had upset, the bears would have swum to the boat and
clambered aboard.
For a quarter of an hour, which was as long as a century, the launch
and floe drifted along in consort, twenty fathoms from one another at
one moment and nearly running together the next, and at times they
were so near to one another, the bears need only have dropped to have
got on board. The Greenland dogs trembled from terror; Duke remained
motionless. Hatteras and his companions were silent; it did not occur
to them to put the helm down and sail away, and they went straight on.
A vague feeling, of astonishment rather than terror, took possession
of them; they admired this spectacle which completed the struggle of
the elements. Finally the floe drifted away, borne by the wind, which
the launch was able to withstand, as she lay with her head to the
wind, and it disappeared in the mist, its presence being known merely
by the distant roaring of the bears.
At that moment the fury of the tempest redoubled; there was an endless
unchaining of atmospheric waves; the boat, borne by the waves, was
tossed about giddily; her sail flew away like a huge white bird; a
whirlpool, a new Maelstrom, formed among the waves; the boat was
carried so fast that it seemed to the men as if the rapidly revolving
water were motionless. They were gradually sinking down. There was an
irresistible power dragging them down and ingulfing them alive. All
five arose. They looked at one another with terror. They grew dizzy.
They felt an undefinable dread of the abyss! But suddenly the launch
arose perpendicularly. Her prow was higher than the whirling waves;
the speed with which she was moving hurled her beyond the centre of
attraction, and escaping by the tangent of this circumference which
was making more than a thousand turns a second, she was hurled away
with the rapidity of a cannon-ball.
[Illustration: "Her sail flew away like a huge white bird; a
whirlpool, a new Maelstrom, formed among the waves."]
Altamont, the doctor, Johnson, and Bell were thrown down among the
seats. When they rose, Hatteras had disappeared. It was two o'clock in
the morning.
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE ENGLISH FLAG.
One cry, bursting from the lips of the other four, succeeded their
first stupefaction.
"Hatteras!" cried the doctor.
"Gone!" said Johnson and Bell.
"Lost!"
They looked about, but nothing was to be seen on the storm-tossed sea.
Duke barked despairingly; he tried to spring into the water, but Bell
managed to hold him.
"Take a place at the helm, Altamont," said the doctor; "let us try
everything to save the captain."
Johnson and Bell took their seats. Altamont took the helm, and the
launch came into wind again. Johnson and Bell began to row vigorously;
for an hour they remained at the scene of the accident. They sought
earnestly, but in vain. The unfortunate Hatteras was lost in the
storm! Lost, so near the Pole, so near the end, of which he had had
but a glimpse!
The doctor called aloud, and fired the guns; Duke added his howling,
but there was no answer. Then profound grief seized Clawbonny; his
head sank into his hands, and his companions saw that he was weeping.
In fact, at this distance from land, with a scrap of wood to hold him
up, Hatteras could not reach the shore alive; and if anything did come
ashore, it would be his disfigured corpse. After hunting for an hour,
they decided to turn to the north, and struggle against the last
furies of the tempest.
At five o'clock in the morning of July 11th the wind went down; the
sea grew quieter; the sky regained its polar clearness, and within
three miles of them appeared the land. This continent was but an
island, or rather a volcano, peering up like a lighthouse at the North
Pole. The mountain, in full eruption, was hurling forth a mass of
burning stones and melting rocks. It seemed to be rising and falling
beneath the successive blasts as if it were breathing; the things
which were cast out reached a great height in the air; amid the jets
of flame, torrents of lava were flowing down the side of the mountain;
here creeping between steaming rocks, there falling in cascades amid
the purple vapor: and lower down a thousand streams united in one
large river, which ran boiling into the sea.
[Illustration: "The mountain was in full eruption."]
The volcano seemed to have but a single crater, whence arose a column
of fire, lighted by transverse rays; one would have said that part of
the magnificence of the phenomenon was due to electricity. Above the
flames floated an immense cloud of smoke, red below, black above. It
rose with great majesty, and unrolled into huge layers.
The sky at a considerable height had an ashy hue; the darkness, which
was so marked during the tempest, and of which the doctor could give
no satisfactory explanation, evidently came from the ashes, which
completely hid the sun. He remembered a similar fact that took place
in 1812, at the Barbadoes, which at noon was plunged into total
darkness by the mass of cinders thrown from the crater of Isle St.
Vincent.
This enormous volcano, jutting up in mid-ocean, was about six thousand
feet high, very nearly the altitude of Hecla. A line from the summit
to the base would form with the horizon an angle of about eleven
degrees. It seemed to rise from the bosom of the waves as the launch
approached it. There was no trace of vegetation. There was no shore;
it ran down steep to the sea.
"Shall we be able to land?" said the doctor.
"The wind is carrying us there," answered Altamont.
"But I can't see any beach on which we could set foot."
"So it seems from here," answered Johnson; "but we shall find some
place for our boat; that is all we need."
"Let us go on, then!" answered Clawbonny, sadly.
The doctor had no eyes for the strange continent which was rising
before him. The land of the Pole was there, but not the man who had
discovered it. Five hundred feet from the rocks the sea was boiling
under the action of subterraneous fires. The island was from eight to
ten miles in circumference, no more; and, according to their
calculation, it was very near the Pole, if indeed the axis of the
world did not pass exactly through it. As they drew near they noticed
a little fiord large enough to shelter their boat; they sailed towards
it, filled with the fear of finding the captain's body cast ashore by
the tempest.
[Illustration: "They noticed a little fiord."]
Still, it seemed unlikely that any corpse should rest there; there was
no beach, and the sea beat against the steep rocks; thick ashes, on
which no human foot had ever stepped, covered the ground beyond the
reach of the waves. At last the launch slipped between the breakers,
and there she was perfectly sheltered against the surf. Then Duke's
lamentable howling redoubled; the poor animal called for the captain
with his sad wails among the rocks. His barking was vain; and the
doctor caressed him, without being able to calm him, when the faithful
dog, as if he wanted to replace his master, made a prodigious leap,
and was the first to get ashore amid the dust and ashes which flew
about him.
"Duke! Duke!" said the doctor.
Duke did not hear him, but disappeared. The men then went ashore, and
made the launch fast. Altamont was preparing to climb up a large pile
of rocks, when Duke's distant barking was heard; it expressed pain,
not wrath.
"Listen!" said the doctor.
"Has he got on the track of some animal?" asked the boatswain.
"No," answered the doctor, quivering with emotion; "he's mourning,
crying! Hatteras's body is there!"
At these words the four men started after Duke, in the midst of
blinding cinders; they reached the end of the fiord, a little place
ten feet broad, where the waves were gently breaking. There Duke was
barking near a body wrapped up in the English flag.
"Hatteras, Hatteras!" cried the doctor, rushing to the body of his
friend.
But at once he uttered an explanation which it is impossible to
render. This bleeding and apparently lifeless body had just given
signs of life.
"Alive, alive!" he cried.
"Yes," said a feeble voice, "living on the land of the Pole, where the
tempest cast me up! Living on Queen Island!"
"Hurrah for England!" cried the five together.
"And for America!" added the doctor, holding out one hand to Hatteras
and the other to Altamont. Duke, too, hurrahed in his own way, which
was as good as any other.
At first these kind-hearted men were wholly given up to the pleasure
of seeing their captain again; they felt the tears welling up into
their eyes. The doctor examined Hatteras's condition. He was not
seriously injured. The wind had carried him to the shore, where it was
hard to land; the bold sailor, often beaten back, at last succeeded in
clambering upon a rock above the reach of the waves. Then he lost
consciousness, after wrapping himself up in his flag, and he only came
to himself under Duke's caresses and barking. After receiving a few
attentions, Hatteras was able to rise, and, leaning on the doctor's
arm, to go to the launch.
"The Pole, the North Pole!" he repeated as he walked along.
"You are happy!" the doctor said to him.
"Yes, happy! And you, my friend, don't you feel happy at being here?
This land is the land of the Pole! This sea we have crossed is the sea
of the Pole! This air we breathe is the air of the Pole! O, the North
Pole, the North Pole!"
As he spoke, Hatteras was the victim of a violent excitement, a sort
of fever, and the doctor in vain tried to calm him. His eyes were
strangely bright, and his thoughts were boiling within him. Clawbonny
ascribed this condition to the terrible perils he had gone through.
Hatteras evidently needed rest, and they set about seeking a place to
camp. Altamont soon found a grotto in the rocks, which had fallen in
such a way as to form a cavern. Johnson and Bell brought provisions
there, and let loose the dogs. Towards eleven o'clock everything was
prepared for a meal; the canvas of the tent served as a cloth; the
breakfast, consisting of pemmican, salt meat, tea and coffee, was set
and soon devoured. But first, Hatteras demanded that an observation
should be made; he wanted to know its position exactly. The doctor and
Altamont then took their instruments, and after taking an observation
they found the precise position of the grotto to be latitude 89° 59'
15". The longitude at this height was of no importance, for all the
meridians run together within a few hundred feet higher. So in reality
the island was situated at the North Pole, and the ninetieth degree of
latitude was only forty-five seconds from there, exactly three
quarters of a mile, that is to say, towards the top of the volcano.
When Hatteras knew this result, he asked that it should be stated in
two documents, one to be placed in a cairn on the shore. So at once
the doctor took his pen and wrote the following document, one copy of
which is now in the archives of the Royal Geographical Society in
London:--
"July 11, 1861, in north latitude 89° 59' 15", 'Queen Island' was
discovered at the North Pole by Captain Hatteras, commanding the brig
-Forward- of Liverpool, who has set his name hereto, with his
companions. Whoever shall find this document is entreated to forward
it to the Admiralty.
(Signed) JOHN HATTERAS, Captain of the -Forward-.
DR. CLAWBONNY.
ALTAMONT, Captain of the -Porpoise-.
JOHNSON, Boatswain.
BELL, Carpenter."
"And now, my friends, to table!" said the doctor, gayly.
[Illustration: "Altamont soon found a grotto in the rocks."]
CHAPTER XXIV.
POLAR COSMOGRAPHY.
Of course, to eat at table, they were obliged to sit on the ground.
"But," said Clawbonny, "who wouldn't give all the tables and
dining-rooms in the world, to dine in north latitude 89° 59' 15"?"
The thoughts of each one were about their situation. They had no other
idea than the North Pole. The dangers they had undergone to reach it,
those to overcome before returning, were forgotten in their
unprecedented success. What neither Europeans, Americans, nor Asiatics
had been able to do, they had accomplished. Hence they were all ready
to listen to the doctor when he told them all that his inexhaustible
memory could recall about their position. It was with real enthusiasm
that he first proposed their captain's health.
[Illustration: "They were all ready to listen to the doctor."]
"To John Hatteras!" he said.
"To John Hatteras!" repeated the others.
"To the North Pole!" answered the captain, with a warmth that was
unusual in this man who was usually so self-restrained, but who now
was in a state of great nervous excitement. They touched glasses, and
the toasts were followed by earnest hand-shakings.
"It is," said the doctor, "the most important geographical fact of our
day! Who would have thought that this discovery would precede that of
the centre of Africa or Australia? Really, Hatteras, you are greater
than Livingstone, Burton, and Barth! All honor to you!"
"You are right, Doctor," said Altamont; "it would seem, from the
difficulty of the undertaking, that the Pole would be the last place
discovered. Whenever the government was absolutely determined to know
the middle of Africa, it would have succeeded at the cost of so many
men and so much money; but here nothing is less certain than success,
and there might be obstacles really insuperable."
"Insuperable!" cried Hatteras with warmth; "there are no insuperable
obstacles; there are more or less determined minds, that is all!"
"Well," said Johnson, "we are here, and it is well. But, Doctor, will
you tell me, once for all, what there is so remarkable about the
Pole?"
"It is this, Johnson, that it is the only motionless part of the
globe, while all the rest is turning with extreme rapidity."
"But I don't see that we are more motionless here than at Liverpool."
"No more than you perceive the motion at Liverpool; and that is
because in both cases you participate in the movement or the repose.
But the fact is no less certain. The earth rotates in twenty-four
hours, and this motion is on an axis with its extremities at the two
poles. Well, we are at one of the extremities of the axis, which is
necessarily motionless."
"So," said Bell, "when our countrymen are turning rapidly, we are
perfectly still?"
"Very nearly, for we are not exactly at the Pole."
"You are right, Doctor," said Hatteras seriously, and shaking his
head; "we are still forty-five seconds from the precise spot."
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.
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