Chapter XXIX: A Land of the Heart’s Desire 243 (3)

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!

“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.

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.

“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.

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.

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....

“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°.”