Chapter VIII: The Dash for the Pole--A Wondrous Scene

I was obliged to belay my jawing tackle, as sailors say, in that last chapter, and to cut short my yarn, else my subject, which is to me a most interesting one, might have led me to forget poor lonesome Curtis and Ingomar, sledging, ski-ing, and toiling on and on across bitter untrodden tracks to plant the British and American flags further south on solid land than ever they have been hoisted before.

The same plan was adopted as before, of climbing hills every day to plan out the next day’s journey.

The same method, too, of feeding dogs and men. Just enough to work upon, and no more. For they _must_ keep food enough to get home on--back to Dr. Wright’s camp, I mean--or they would have to kill a dog and eat it.

The “road” was devious enough and toilsome in the extreme for the first week, after which they gradually got into higher regions with fewer mountains, though mostly volcanic, some emitting clouds of rolling smoke, which would have been pillars of fire by night had the sun gone down.

It would be impossible to describe the character and appearance of the scenery without illustrations. I only wish you to understand that if you place on your table a lot of limpet shells, and call them mountains and the spaces between glens or valleys, you have no more idea of this territory than you have of the surface of the moon. Such mountains as they beheld, I believe, are not to be seen in any other country in the world. There were cone-shaped hills, it is true, and rolling brae lands; but there were those, too, of every shape you could imagine. It was evident to Ingomar even, that the gigantic forces of nature had been at war here for ages and ages, terrible earthquakes, awful explosions, volcanic eruptions, such as not even the people of Iceland ever experienced in the awful days and weeks of darkness long ago.

See yonder half mountain. It stands there in its somewhat solitary grandeur in a plain of snow, as evenly cut down the centre as you see a cheese. Where is the other half? What force divided it? None can answer that. Here, again, is a kind of chaotic heap of hills. That nearest to the plane is a gigantic cliff fully one thousand feet in height, and over the ridge of this a stream must have at one time dashed. Here it is still, a motionless cataract of ice!

And many miles farther on, and nearer to this Pole, is a marvellous monument. You could not call it a hill, it is an almost square slab, like an old-fashioned tombstone, about fifty yards from back to front, a thousand yards wide, and about two thousand feet in height.

It looks as if a piece of ground as big as an ordinary English field had been thrown up and left standing on end. Explain it who can. I cannot.

And here is an almost circular lake of great extent, in configuration not unlike Loch Ness in Scotland, with mountains rising up from its banks in the same wild way, all ice, all snow, a frozen river leading in and out of it and more than one frozen cataract.

Even Curtis, with all his science, felt puzzled, and could only reply to Ingomar’s queries by taking photographic snap-shots everywhere around him.

Perhaps our heroes were favoured during this dash towards the Pole with exceptionally fine weather, but the storms they did encounter were certainly most trying and severe. It was well for the dogs during those blizzards that snow fell and was blown or heaped over them--the Eskimo dog can live under snow as long as a Highland wether can--else their poor coats would have been frozen to the ground.

From this elevated region the land began to sink gradually, the track became easier, the mountains less high.

Then, one morning, shortly after starting, they came suddenly to cliffs or braes that led sheer down many hundred feet to a sea!

Curtis looked at Ingomar, who could only reply by smiling.

Do not mistake me, this was a frozen ocean, and a rough one too.

Descending by what they called a footpath, for want of a better name, the sledges remaining behind, accompanied only by the collie Wallace, they walked a good mile into or across this strange ocean.

The ice was examined, here and there wherever possible, and except on the top of the rugged bergs, which was melted and re-frozen snow, it was everywhere found to be green and salt.

Not far inland was a high hill. This was _limpet_ shaped, and coned at the top--an extinct volcano, in fact, but with its crater still unfilled, showing that it still retained heat.

This our heroes climbed with great perseverance and difficulty.

Then, aided by their telescopes, they turned their attention to the south.

Before starting to climb this hill, Curtis quietly surveyed it, and made its height out to be about 1800 feet.

While he was taking his angles, Ingomar just as quietly brought out a strange-looking flag from under the sledge baggage, and with it a pole.

From the great height at which they now stood the visible horizon would be about forty-eight miles, and looking southwards, eastwards, or westwards nothing was visible except this cold rough sea of ice.

The finger of time had touched it, and lo! for uncounted ages all had been solid and still.

It was the burial-place of the Past. And yet this marvellous ocean had once glimmered blue and beautiful in the sunshine, life had been in its waters, and life in the dead and frozen hill, from which our heroes now were looking down.

Some such thoughts as these must have been passing through their minds at this supreme moment.

Their faces, however, were grave almost to sadness, and neither said a word for at least a minute.

Then Curtis turned to Ingomar, and hand met hand once more in loving clasp.

“Brother,” he said simply, “we have made our record, we must now go ‘home.’”

“We have made our record,” replied Ingomar; “we are standing further south, and nearer to yonder Pole, than man ever stood before, and I think our record proves, or seems to me to prove, that this is the end of the ‘Antarctic continent,’ that a sea of ice alone sweeps round the Pole, for not in the furthest distance can we see a single mountain-peak.

“Brother Curtis,” he added, “how do you feel about it?”

Curtis smiled.

“To tell you the truth, my friend, I feel no positive inclination to toss my cap in the air. Do you?”

“No, I feel no over-brimming of enthusiasm in my heart or eyes.”

“Well, Ingomar, though you and I are both but young, with the world still before us----”

“Stay!” cried Ingomar, laughing a little now. “You say the world is still before us. Don’t you think that the world is really all behind us--that we are now at the other end of it?”

“We are young, my friend; but, nevertheless, it must seem, even to us, at this our moment of victory, that exaltation of spirits does not, as a rule, crown real success.”

“You are right. All is change in this world, and happiness lies only in onwardness.

‘Man never is, but always to be blest.’

“Happiness lies in onwardness, in forwardness, in action, in the doing of a work and not in its completion.”

“Just for all the world, Ingomar, like the boy who sets out to scamper half a mile over field and moor to find the cup of gold at the point of the rainbow. The glory of the coloured arch makes him so happy all the while till it vanishes, but he returns disappointed because he has not found the cup of gold at the spot where he made certain it lay.”

“But now, away with all thoughts of sadness. I _think_ we’ve made a noble record, so let us sing _your_ national hymn, then plant our flag.”

“We’ll sing both,” said Curtis, lifting his cap; “but you first, lad, you first.”

The American National Anthem was sung in fine form, and after they had raised the united standard--Stars and Stripes and Union Jack--and given three cheers thereto, still with bared heads in that zero air they sang God save the Queen, for our dear old Empress was then alive--

“God save our gracious Queen,
Long may Victoria reign,
God save the Queen.
Send her victorious,
Happy and glorious,
Long to reign over us,
God save the Queen.”

As if by mutual consent, they paused for a few minutes to gaze once more, and for the last time, on their new country--on the cold and silent land and sea.

Their own country! Well, they seemed to have conquered it, but it was God’s country--the country of the Power which is working out the destiny of this world, and every planet and sun-star we see around us in the solemnity of a winter’s night--He has placed the finger of death upon this Great White Land, and it lies sealed in eternal snows. Ah! no, though, not eternal!

There will come a time when all will be changed, for matter cannot die.

How silent! It is a silence that eternals the very heart, and takes possession of the soul.

Not a sound to be heard! Yes, for up the mountain-side comes now the joyous bark of honest Collie.

And so, the flag being planted, Ingomar and Curtis came slowly down the hill.

They had made their record.