Chapter XXIX: A Land of the Heart’s Desire 243 (4)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

XVI.
FOLLOWING THE PACEMAKER.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Try both,” I breathed.

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

SKETCH FROM MR. CHASE’S NOTE-BOOK.
]

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

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

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

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

“Wet, but safe. How’s Johnnie?”

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

Gale would always be Gale.

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

I heard him now give an order to put off two boats for us, at once, in case the launch had been destroyed. I called this across to Edith Gale, who immediately set out for the landing place, after bidding me not to be uneasy, and to be careful about taking cold. She added that I was sure to be taken off, soon, though by what special means she had acquired this information I have yet to learn. She disappeared down the snow stairway, and I was alone.

I could still talk to Gale, however, and I told him just what we had seen before we struck. I said I would go back over there now and take another look. But this he counselled against, as we were still grinding away at the wall, and there would be great danger from crumbling fragments. I realized, now, why the older bergs were battered and so much smaller. Pounding along that wall for a thousand miles or so is not calculated to encourage the growth or improve the appearance of even the best constructed iceberg.

Then Gale told me what had happened on the ship. Officer Larkins and one sailor had been on deck when the upheaval came. They had seized ropes on the upward lift, and though very wet and breathless after the plunge, had come up safely. The water had not been fierce, but very deep. Larkins had interviewed, and named, a few fish while he was down. The Billowcrest had fully earned her title.

“But where were _you_?” I called.

“Playing euchre with Biffer, in the cabin. It was my deal. I shuffled as we went up and dealt as we came down. I had plenty of time to get through and turn trump while we were under. Then Biff said, ‘I order you up!’ and up we come. ‘Guess our Pacemaker’s hit the South Pole,’ says Biff, ‘an’ knocked it over!’ Then I remembered right away about you an’ Johnnie.”

A little later he called to me that “Johnnie” had got back safely. When the upheaval came, the launch had been swamped but did not sink because of her air-tight compartments. The men had scrambled to the berg and had the water about pumped out by the time Miss Gale reached them. I might expect rescue any time, and I’d better walk about to keep warm.

I could do this and talk, too. Edith Gale took the telephone then, and told me in detail all that had happened, and encouraged me in my long waiting. Incidentally I looked about for a way down, but without success. By and by I heard her speaking to some one, but so low that I could not distinguish the words. Then to me, and it seemed that there was a note of anxiety in her voice:

“How wide is the chasm, now?”

I walked over nearer and answered.

“About as it was—perhaps narrower. It seems to be drawing together again.”

“Oh, I’m _so_ glad!”

“Why, has anything——?”

“Oh, no, don’t be frightened! But the men have returned and can’t find any place to scale the berg on that side. They are going now with ropes and ladders to get you across the chasm.”

I tried to reply, but the first effort was unsuccessful. I could never, even as a boy, walk a beam that was more than ten feet from the ground. The thought of crossing that chasm on anything to which I was not securely tied made me colder than any Antarctic climate.

“Oh,” I managed to say at last, “tell them to bring ropes, plenty of them, and a—a derrick, if they happen to have such a thing.”

Through another cold, wretched hour—warmed and encouraged only by messages from the ship. At last I heard voices, and then there were men with ropes and ladders on the other side of the chasm, which by this time was no more than fifteen feet across. Their ladders they had expected to splice end to end, but as each was long enough to reach, I insisted that they be spliced side by side. They threw me a rope, and one end of this bridge I dragged over and jammed securely into the snow. Then, untying the rope, I fastened it under my arms and threw them the other end; after which I lay down, for I could never have walked, and was hauled ignominiously across.

“Got a pretty cold shake, didn’t you?” said Gale as he welcomed me back to the ship.

And so it was that we reached the great Antarctic barrier, at last. We came around to the westward of old Pacemaker, who in two parts was still grinding along to the eastward. We found open water and a northerly current, which, on examination, we accepted as our warm surface river, and this we followed directly to an anchorage in a small ice-bound bay or bottle, for it seemed more like a tall glass tube with a strip out of the side than anything I can think of, while its height gave it the appearance of drawing together at the top. We half hoped to find a way into the continent when we entered this ice-locked harbor, but the warm fresh current flowed, as I had rather expected it would from _beneath_ the barrier, and apparently in great volume. The water in the harbor was only slightly brackish, and its temperature on our arrival about 36° Fahrenheit. How far it had come through the ice we could only surmise, or to what extent it would affect our winter climate. It would freeze solidly, no doubt, during the long winter, but even then we believed it would be only an added protection against the floes outside, and the squeeze of the pack. Altogether, we were mightily pleased with our winter quarters, and warmed and fed, and safe again on the old Billowcrest with those I loved, I was happier than I can say.

XVII.
INVESTIGATION AND DISCOVERY.

Our days grew shorter rapidly. In the fading light we made haste to examine our surroundings with care, and to make sure that we could not find a still better location for the long winter ahead. When the water outside was clear of ice we cruised in the launch along the barrier to make what Chauncey Gale called “scientific developments.” We became convinced, soon, that our warm river formed at its mouth the only available retreat for the Billowcrest, and further, that this river, following up the coast of Victoria Land, was without doubt the current noted by Borchgrevink, who seems not to have thought of tasting as well as testing its waters. Just outside the harbor this river is met by the slow-moving, southward flowing salt current, and forced aside. The ice-wall to the left, or westward, angles somewhat to the north, and the deflected current naturally follows this coast, diffusing itself gradually over the opposite-flowing, sluggish ocean current.

Examining our river at the point where it emerged from the ice, we found that at low tide there was a space of several feet between its normal surface and the massy barrier above, and in this we recognized a possible entrance to the inland continent, had there been any assurance that we should reach the other side, or, at least, a point above highwater mark before the tide’s return. Chauncey Gale peered into the blackness, and shook his head.

“I don’t like to go into a hole and pull the hole in after me,” he said, “and it seems to me that’s about what we’d do in this case.”

We decided therefore not to attempt this, at most not until the return of summer, and after we had tested the efficiency of our balloon.

The river, we concluded, had been one day open to the sky throughout, but at some far-off period the ice and snows of winter had formed so deeply upon it that the summer warmth could not entirely dissolve them. Each year and century had added thickness and strength to this crystal bridge, until were it not for the widening harbor at the mouth, above which the ice appears never to have remained throughout the year, there would be little to mark the point of entrance.

Concerning the barrier itself, I became convinced that it was not, as reported by others, from points farther north, a mass formed about, or abreast of a mountain range; but that where we were at least, it was the accumulation on a _comparatively flat shore_ of the solidified snows of centuries. There is, of course, a heavy Antarctic snowfall each year, and this is partly melted and frozen again during almost every day of the long polar summer. The stratified lines in the barrier showed us clearly the formation of the upper layers, while the lower layers, formed countless ages ago, had settled and congealed into a concrete crystal mass. We decided that it was the formation of this mass out over the sea, and the final breaking off by its own weight, that produced the Antarctic berg, always recognized by its tabular, or flat, top and blue strata lines, the latter often showing throughout the full height of the berg’s exposed surface—an elevation of two hundred feet or more.

But these lines above the water reveal merely what have been the topmost layers of the towering wall from whence the berg came. Below the water-line the ice extends downward for perhaps eighteen hundred feet, and this added to the height above gives approximately the elevation of the great Antarctic Barrier! For full two thousand feet above the Billowcrest rose this almost perpendicular blue precipice. Our harbor formed a little more than half a circle, and was something less than half a mile across. It will be seen, therefore, that our name of Bottle Bay, conferred by Chauncey Gale on the moment of our arrival, was not inaptly chosen.

For a time we could not get rid of the feeling that the surrounding wall would presently topple and destroy us. But as days passed we grew strong in our security, while our opening to the north, whence, in this latitude, the sun sends its warmest comfort, became at midday a wonderful gate of gold. We named it the “Portal of the Sun,” and through it, less than two months later, we were to see that life-giving luminary disappear. Would we be there to watch for its return when the long winter night had passed? Who should say?

XVIII.
A “BORNING” AND A MYSTERY.

One morning, a week after our arrival, as we sat at breakfast, we felt the Billowcrest suddenly rock beneath us, and a moment later there came a roar so mighty that it seemed the whole world must shudder with it. We looked at each other, our minds reverting to the moment of our arrival with the Pacemaker. But there was a difference in the sound. That had been a splitting, crashing terror. This also seemed the cry of a great rending asunder, but followed by a splendid, universal groan of peace. At first no one spoke, and we half rose to hasten on deck. But then, to Ferratoni, came the truth.

“Have no fright,” he said, “it was but the borning of a giant.”

We felt the vessel now slowly rising beneath us. Going out we found the water pouring into our harbor, displaced by the new-born berg. Had we been outside, the Billowcrest might have repeated her diving experiment.

When the water receded we went out in the launch to investigate. Following the wall for more than a mile we came to a wonderful gleaming monster, an infant Titan, setting out clumsily on its first voyage. Already there was a space between it and the mother barrier, and the great life current of the ocean was tugging it to the east.

“It’s got a long trip before it,” said Gale. “It’ll be in many a tight place and get lots of hard rubs before it sees home again. How long do you suppose it will be?”

I shook my head.

“Depends a good deal on what luck it has, I suppose; same as with the rest of us.”

We went a little way in behind the berg to inspect the new surface there. It was smooth and transparent.

“Look!” cried Edith Gale, pointing up.

Our eyes followed in the direction indicated, and we saw in the clear ice just above our heads something frozen. The light dazzled at first and we moved to the other side. Then we saw a huge animal form enclosed in the crystal. It was perfectly preserved. The body was smooth and dark, with long flippers, and extending in front for many feet was a slender neck or throat, ending in a head something like that of a great bird. We looked at it in silence for some moments; Gale said:

“Are we going to find such things as that when we get inside? If we are you can refund _my_ money, now.”

“That,” I said, “is a plesiosaurus, or an ichthyosaurus. I can never quite remember which is which. But it’s some kind of a ‘saurus,’ and it was washed up, or crept up there to die, probably more than a million years ago. If this were a scientific expedition we would rejoice, and dig it out. We might, anyway.”

“No,” dissented Gale, “I don’t want to bring down another iceberg just yet, and besides, we’ve got other fish to fry.”

“One might say other _sauruses_ of amusement,” added Edith Gale, with becoming solemnity.

“I think we’d better go home after that,” said her father.

Entering the harbor, Ferratoni pointed to the surface of the water, a little way ahead, where something appeared to be floating. As we drew nearer our wonder increased, for it proved to be a part of a small boat, or canoe. It did not appear to have been in the water for any great length of time, and did not much resemble any craft we could recall. Captain Biffer decided that it was from some island of the South Pacific, and had been brought to us by the salt undercurrent. It had been forced into the harbor, he said, by the recent in-tide caused by the new berg. To me, however, his argument did not seem tenable. I believed the craft had been brought by our warm river from the inner continent, battered to pieces on the way by rocks or crushed against the ice overhead. Edith Gale quite agreed with me in this, as did Ferratoni. Her father also seemed to favor the idea. We took the fragment—it was a piece of a sharp bow—to the forward cabin of the Billowcrest. Here we placed it on a little table, and gathering about it, Edith Gale, Ferratoni, and I constructed some curious fancies of those whose hands had fashioned it. To Ferratoni more than to us it seemed to speak; but, on the other hand, he revealed less of what it told him.

XIX.
A LONG FAREWELL.

And now indeed the shadows gathered and closed in about us. Already our day was but a brief period of mournful twilight. Soon there would be only a chill redness in the northern sky at midday. Then this too would leave us, and the electric glow of the Billowcrest would be our only cheer.

With the coming of the dark, the friendly sea life—the penguins and the seals—vanished. They had visited us numerously during the early days of our arrival in Bottle Bay, and we did not realize what a comfort they had been until they were gone. Neither did we quite understand why they should go, when the water of the bay was still open. Yet we knew that they must be wiser in the matter than we, and we could not help being a bit depressed as we watched them becoming fewer each day, until the last one had regarded us solemnly and with a harsh note of farewell had deserted us for the open waters of the north.

Instinctively we drew nearer together and our interdependence became daily more evident. What gave trifling pleasure to one was a signal for a general rejoicing, while the slightest individual ailment became a matter of heavy concern to all.

There were so few of us, and the darkening waste about was so wide and desolate. Personal consideration and even tenderness crept into our daily round, and any dim shadows of discontent that may have lingered among us were gathered up by the approaching gloom.

The Captain informed us that on the Saturday before Easter we should see the sun for the last time. Gale said he was glad Easter fell late that year, and that we ought to do something special in the way of farewell ceremonies.

So on Saturday immediately after breakfast we began our programme. We were to have many other such diversions during the long night that followed, and as our first was fairly representative of the others I will give it somewhat in detail. There were a number of musical instruments on board and most of us could play, or at least strum a little. Edith Gale, who was a skilled musician, had composed something for the occasion, and led on the harp. Ferratoni played well on the violin, Gale had some mastery of the flute, and I could follow with chords on the piano. Then we had singing, in which all joined, and the great barrier behind us echoed for the first time in all its million years to a grand old English ballad with a rousing chorus.

Now followed a literary series in which we were to give things of our own composition. Edith Gale was first on this programme. She did not need to read her effort. It was very brief.

“Beauty,” she said, “and a love of the truly beautiful, are nature’s best gifts to men and women. We have only to look and to listen, and we learn something of the joy of the Universe and the soothing spirit of peace. Even in this loneliness, and through the long night that lies now at our Gateway of the Sun, we may find, if we will understand it, something beside desolation and unillumined dark. Within, we shall keep the semblance and memories of summertime. Without, will fall a night, mighty and solemn, and terrifying, but always majestic, always beautiful. And in our hearts we shall not grow faint, or despair.”

After the acknowledgments Gale said:

“That’s the sort of thing that Johnnie used to carry to the homes and hearthstones of Tangleside, and it’s wonderful the way they seemed to take to it. What do you think about it, Bill? Do you think a love of the beautiful will be our greatest comfort during a hundred-day night? Let’s hear from you.”

Mr. Sturritt rose nervously.

“I—I am quite sure,” he began, “that Miss Gale understands her bus—er—subject, I should say, but I would suggest, that, without proper nourishment—that is—food we would find it not easy to appreciate the less filling—er, I mean less material comforts of beauty.”

Here Mr. Sturritt glanced at a little paper in his hand and continued more steadily.

“Without proper food man becomes ill in body and morals. With it, he becomes hopeful, and inspired to high achievements. Different foods result in varied trains of thought. Acting upon this I hope to produce a condensed lozenge or wafer that shall assist each according to his needs. The inventor, the artist and the poet will then be gently stimulated in imagination, command of words or rhythmic forces, as may be required.”

Mr. Sturritt lowered his paper.

“For those lacking in their love of the truly beautiful I may also get up a dose—er, I should say—prepare a lozenge. For our long winter, however, I have laid in a line of—er—uncondensed supplies which I hope will make our memories of summer fonder, and the strangeness of the night less—less discouraging.”

“Good for you, Bill,” laughed Gale as he sat down. “Johnnie’s all right too, but in a case of this kind it’s the food question that I’m thinking of. Who’s next? Let’s hear from you, Biffer.”

The Captain rose with some embarrassment, and rather ponderously.

“I’m with Miss Gale, mostly,” he began. “I’ve seen the sea in a storm so beautiful that I wasn’t afraid, but the story I’m going to tell may seem to side some with Mr. Sturritt, too.

“Twenty-five years ago last January I was captain of a three-masted schooner in the colony trade, bound from Liverpool to Halifax. Five days out we struck one of the hardest no’theast storms I ever met. In less than an hour after she hit us we’d lost our mainmast, and our cook’s galley was a wreck. Our deck was open at the seams in forty places and everything, including our provision, was wet with salt water. I ought to have run back but I didn’t, and we hadn’t more’n got out of that storm till another hit us, and then another, until we’d had eleven hurricanes in less than that many days, and were in the worst condition a vessel could get into and keep afloat. We had none too much provision to start with, and most of what we’d had was lost. There was no way to cook what we did have, so it was half a loaf of bread and a pint of water a day, and drifting along under a little dinky sail, with a signal of distress flying. Well, the wind kept up and blew us across the ocean, somehow. We got in sight of Halifax light one evening, and right there we struck a nor’wester that laid us out proper. We rolled and pitched and waterlogged, and went back to sea again—God knows where.

“Then hard times did begin. It was four ounces of bread and half a gill of water a day for fifty days, and cold and freezing, trying to keep afloat.”

“And then you were rescued! Then you were taken off!”

It was Edith Gale. She was leaning forward, and her eyes glistening.

“No, Miss Gale, then we ran out of bread and water.”

“Oh, Captain Biffer!”

“For seven days there wa’n’t any of either. Everybody laid down to die except me. I kep’ up on responsibility, and stood at the wheel day and night. I didn’t know where we was, and I didn’t care, but somehow I couldn’t let go of the wheel. Mebbe, if I’d appreciated nature a little more it would have helped, too, and I know a little food would have gone a long ways. But nature didn’t seem to need us, and we didn’t need nature. And all the food and water were gone, though pretty soon I didn’t care for that, either. I didn’t even care much when I saw a big steamer coming right toward us. I was glad, of course, but I didn’t care enough to make any hurrah over it, and neither did the men. But after we’d been carried on board, and I’d got through with a plate of soup, down in the Captain’s room, I says; ‘What day is it, Captain?’ ‘Why,’ he says, ‘didn’t you know? It’s Easter Sunday.’ ‘No,’ I says, ‘but the Lord be praised.’”

The glisten in Edith Gale’s eyes had become tears. Captain Biffer and I had had our differences. Perhaps in a general way he still believed me an ass. But I had walked over and taken his hand before I remembered it.

“I want to shake a brave man’s hand,” I said.

“Mr. Larkins,” said Gale, “suppose you give us your experience. What’s the best thing to keep up on through a long dark night?”

“Well, Admiral,” began Mr. Larkins, “I’ve never been shipwrecked, but I remember something about a dark night, and a man as got out into the wet of it. It was tin year ago, and I was comin’ out of Manchester on the bark Mary Collins, bound fer Bombay. She was a shlow old towboat, an’ the sailors were makin’ fun of her from the shtarrt. But there was one felly, named Doolan, who kep’ at it continual, an’ repeatin’ all day that he could shwim to Bombay sooner than we could get there on the Mary Collins. ‘An,’ Doolan,’ I says, ‘you may get a chance to thry it, if we hit one o’ thim shqualls that I run into here two year ago.’ An’ it was the next night that we did that same, an’ Doolan was up on the top-s’l yarrd. An’ whin the thwist of the shquall hit Doolan, he wint off wid a whoop an’ a currvin’ ploonge, an’ one of the men below yells out ‘Man overboard!’ an’ heaves a life-buoy into the blackness of it. But by the time we could put her about in that shquall, an’ get back, there was no Doolan. We hadn’t expected there would be. For whin a man dhrifts ashtern in a shquall on a darrk night his name _may_ shtay Doolan, but it’s more than likely to be Dinnis. So afther callin’ an’ showin’ lights a bit, we wint on to Bombay in the direction that Doolan might be shwimmin’, if he had a mind, now, to thry. An’ whin we got to Bombay an’ I wint to the Cushtom House an’ walked in, I see a felly sthandin’ by the rail, an’ a-grinnin’, an’ by the Ghost of me Great Gran’mother if it wasn’t Doolan! ‘Don’t be frightened, sur,’ he says, ‘it’s me.’ ‘An’ Doolan!’ I says, ‘an’ how did you get here? ‘Shwimmin’,’ says Doolan, ‘an’ I told you I could beat the Mary Collins.’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Come, Chase, it’s your turn, now!”

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

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

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

SEA HERITAGE.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Force, and its visible symbol, vibration!

“Sound—it is vibration—all know it.

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

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

“And from vibrations—harmony.

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

He paused and looked toward Edith Gale.

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

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

His eyes wandered about to the others in the room.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The old woman turned suddenly.

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

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

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

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

“Sweetheart!” I whispered.

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

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

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

My heart bounded. She had remembered, then.

“Yes—I wish only to _name_ it, now.”

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

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

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

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