THE PERPETUAL NIMBUS
You probably might recall, Mr. Link, that wonderful chapter in “Robinson
Crusoe,” where Defoe describes the feelings of his hero after he found
the footprints in the sand. I mention it here because I am amused at the
memory of how different were our emotions as Goritz showed us the gold
belt. I turned last night to the pages of Defoe’s masterpiece and jotted
down this appropriate quotation; it illustrates completely what I mean.
“I slept none that night: the farther I was from the occasion of
my fright, the greater my apprehensions were: which is something
contrary to the nature of such things, and especially to the
usual practice of all creatures in fear: but I was so
embarrassed with my own frightful ideas of the thing, that I
formed nothing but dismal imaginations to myself, even though I
was not a great way off from it. Sometimes I fancied it must be
the Devil, and reason joined in with me upon this supposition;
for how should any other thing in human shape come into the
place?”
That gold belt to us we knew meant human occupation of this New
Continent, and it was almost impossible for us to control our violent
joy over the discovery. We were not worrying as to whether it was the
Devil or savages, and we felt sure we were not the victims of illusion.
Perhaps a little trepidation crept in later, but for that moment we were
beside ourselves with happiness and wonder. And yet we were at first
silent, dumbfounded, bending over the strange find in dazed delight,
eager yet incredulous, lost in a bewilderment of anticipation.
The Professor had produced a small pocket glass and was nervously
inspecting the plates, very much to our annoyance, his ears and head
seeming constantly to be pushing our faces away. A look of profound
vindication appeared on his features, and I think we sympathized with
his feelings and applauded them. Goritz beamed benignantly, and I knew
Hopkins was on the verge of a metrical quotation. But the Professor had
the floor.
“Gentlemen,” he began, “this belt has no possible relation to any know
human culture. The fabricators of this _chef d’oeuvre_—it’s such in
every sense—have probably never existed outside of the eccentric
depression—the size of a small continent—into which we shall be
privileged to descend.” The Professor bowed to Goritz, who was radiant
from his approbation.
He continued: “The figures engraved on these plates, the relievos on
this buckle, are autochthonous”—Hopkins emitted a low whistle. “They
are, however, distinctly colubrine, reptilian, crotaline, lacertilian,
poly-catabolic-arbori-animalistic. They indicate a serpent worship and a
tree worship, and are reminiscent of the Fall; I may call it the
recapitulative survival of myth.”
Hopkins’ whistle had been attempting some shriller ejaculations of
surprise, but the verbal avalanche smothered it. It was a suffocating
moment for all of us, and when Hopkins said, “Professor, with a cocktail
on top of this I believe our cerebral intoxication would be complete,”
the interior danger of explosion increased almost beyond control. But
the Professor kept on, and a little “plain stuff,” as Hopkins called it
helped us out of our embarrassment.
“An animal like a crocodile or an alligator, in a peculiar stage of
evolution, approaching that of a serpent, is depicted here,” his finger
touched the buckle, “and everywhere else are variations of one theme,
the Serpent and the Tree. The people of this _Navel of the World_ retain
the traditions of our religion.”
After that we all became intensely interested in the belt or girdle, but
we withheld our comments. Our pretense was sincere enough. We were
interested, so interested that it would have been impossible for any of
us—the Professor alone was capable of such sublime detachment—to have
slept a wink if we had tried to, but then our interest, in which mingled
the elixir of a fabulous Hope, succeeding days and weeks of danger and
uncertainty, was satisfied at a lower stage of realization. With us it
was MEN and GOLD, and, scintillating back of these noble facts, was the
speechless marveling of the world of letters, of science, at our
recital, if ever we got back to those things.
I asked Goritz all about it when we were together outside of the tent.
It seems he had walked about three miles from the camp, and was watching
a flurry of wind tear up the water of a little pool, literally boring it
all out in spray, when, as the action was accomplished, he saw the glint
of the gold. Another look and the belt was in his hand. He sat down to
catch his breath, and to quiet the beating of his heart, and then when
he had recovered his composure, he had gone on, believing that other
trinkets might turn up, or that he might encounter its makers, or
anything in fact that might explain the treasure trove—but the search
had been unavailing.
“Well,” I said as he finished, “what do you think? The Professor has
some wild notions about it, but it looks to me as if the Professor has
all along sailed pretty close to the wind.”
“Yes, Alfred,” he answered, “there’s a kernel of truth in his talk. Of
course I always thought so or I wouldn’t have come at all—And Alfred,”
his splendid eyes searched my own in that great way he had, “I have had
curious premonitions just now, as I walked back to the camp. We are
coming upon incomprehensible things. We must go on, though we may cross
starvation before we reach food, and—the _marvels beyond_. The rations I
know are low, and I know too we’ve a bad way ahead—_Mais, esperons_.”
I would have said more but before us stood Hopkins. He was actually
smoking—“to keep from going bug-house,” he explained, and then he
muttered:
“Send me to the Arctic regions, or illimitable azure.
On a scientific goosechase, with my Coxwell or my Glaisher.”
Camp was broken up the next morning. We were wild to get away. Before we
started the dogs were fed the last of the bear meat, and we were all put
on half rations; the demands on our strength for the work immediately
before us would not be great.
I also got a chance to see the belt better. It was very short and made
up of plates hooked together with a larger buckle. There was absolutely
no metal but gold in it. The buckle was decorated with an impossible
serpentine monster with legs and a snout-bearing head, indeed a thing
very well described by the Professor as a cross or mixture of a huge
snake and an alligator, and the plates were engraved with hieratic
markings that looked like poles encircled by spiral lines.
“So,” I said to myself, “these are the reminiscent Tree and the
Serpent.”
“Look to me like bean poles,” remarked Hopkins, who was looking over my
shoulder.
On we went west. It seemed as if the abominable rocks and sand would
never come to an end, the former sharp and knife-like, cutting our
shoes, the latter whirling in blinding sheets against our faces, in
spite of the almost constant fog, and even the occasional rain. The
sledge was lightened and moved as carefully as possible, but the
obstacles could not be avoided in the mist, and before the day was half
over it was a wreck, so that its load had to be distributed among us.
There was made at once a concentration of everything indispensable, and
the rest was abandoned. Our heavy packs did not help our progress. The
wind kept westerly. It was strong. We were astonished at the absence of
snow and at the moderate temperature. The thermometer denoted 0° and 2°,
Centigrade. These conditions seemed to bear out the Professor’s claims,
and the altitude was decreasing too. Then came a desperately stony
hollow, and the land rose steadily until we were even higher than we had
been at the start. But there were no mountains about us, just a broad
back of sloping rock, “a gigantic, intrusive, basaltic dike,” said the
Professor, between gasps, as fog smote us with almost the solidity of
water.
We had made thirty miles, and nature and the day were united in protest
against a longer drive. A yelp ahead, a shout from Goritz to “fall
back,” showed some danger line in our vicinity. We had not stopped one
instant too soon. One of the dogs had plunged over a precipice, and we
were then standing on its crumbling edge. By one of those sudden changes
in nature which call to mind a _divertissement_ in a scenic theatrical
display, the fogbanks now drifted off and in the light of the low
western sun we looked out over a strange land.
The barren and roughened ridge at last ended in this inner line of the
Krocker Land Rim. It abruptly, like a palisade escarpment, fell off into
declivities or occasional slopes made up of the talus of its
decomposition or dilapidation. We gazed now on a singular barrenness of
steeply slanting land, ribbed with asperities like hogs’ backs, of
parallel hills. Over this land, in the channels that they had made for
themselves, some entrenched in precipitous valleys, rushed streams fed
by that continual precipitation which toward the sea became snow, and
inland away from a colder atmosphere fell in torrents of rain.
The scene was indescribable, not by reason of variety but of monotony of
detail, and because beyond it, far along a horizon that may have been
fifty or more miles distant the most perplexing vaporous effects
prevailed. What it might be it was impossible to determine. There were
constant motions there, motions explosive and gradual, for we could
almost be sure that the cloudy masses were processioning now measuredly
in huge volume and then disordered by internal rupture. We thought we
caught the flashes of electric storms.
The scene below us was most repellent. The vicissitudes of cold and
storm had ejected all semblance of charm from those black, denuded
rocks. Their asperities, which were pinnacles hundreds of feet high,
were united by valleys bare to the eye, from our point of view, of all
vegetation, the whole combination slanting inward, and composing a
broad, melanic sterility perhaps only paralleled on the lifeless and
crater-pitted plains of the moon. The violent tossing streams, many of
them hidden in defiles of erosion, alone imparted the sense of
animation, and even this animation seemed ruthless and destructive. It
was utterly sullen, and when it was not sullen, it was savage and
threatening. It was all so overwhelming that we simply stared at it,
voiceless and despairing.
Hopkins broke the spell of our dismay: “Well, Professor, this certainly
is not Paradise, but I’m willing to believe that it’s the shell, the
outside of it, and a pretty hard kind of a nut it makes. _Can we crack
it?_”
That indeed was the question we all silently asked. Where would this
wilderness of rocks and waters lead us? Could we expect to find game or
any sort of food in this tableland of sheer, stark, desolation? Our
supplies were daily shrinking, and we had been a little wasteful too,
deluded by the false hope of soon securing succor. It was a long way
back to the cache on the tableland, and a longer one to the anchored
launch on the sands of the coast, but how far was it ahead of us to
life? At least behind there were bears and musk oxen, and seal and duck;
did anything replace them before us? It made us pause; the risk of going
on was considerable.
Our council convened under rather straightened circumstances of
confidence and hope. The dogs would be of no use in the marches before
us, unless indeed we threw them into the larder, and their upkeep was an
equivocal handicap, which might more than offset their value as an aid
to the commissariat. Goritz said we had forty pounds of provisions,
about a pound a day for each man for ten days; and there were the guns
and ammunition to be carried too, the instruments and the stoves and
oil. The tent outfit could be left behind; at a pinch we might battle
through without it. Battle, though, to WHAT? Ah! That was the question.
Were we in a dead land? Was the gold belt a prehistoric relic, having no
relation to any living race, a token of past occupancy by a people who
had fled from the fast contracting opportunities of life in this Arctic
inferno? It was a good illustration of the caprice of human feelings,
our total rejection of the considerations that a few days before had
made us jubilant, boastful, careless; so quickly does the average man
reflect the color of his surroundings.
Our position was dismal indeed. The inexplicable fogs settled around us,
or, if the west wind blew—and only for that brief interval when we
caught sight of the bewildering landscape below us, had it ceased to
blow—drifted over us in endless cloud-like masses. A precipice was
before us, how many more were beyond that? And then the return. The
longer we thought over it, and turned the angles of possibility to
inspection the more hopeless the prospect grew. But again the Gold Belt?
A shining lure of the Demon of Death to tempt us to a horrible doom. As
Goritz ostentatiously showed it to us it became loathsome, sinister, a
delusive snare!
And this led to our great surprise. Goritz wished to go on. He said so.
This quiet, reserved, strong man handed back to the Professor his
predictions, subscribed to with his own enthusiastic acceptance, and the
Professor, pirouette-fashion, had wheeled around in a rather dogged
scepticism. I think Hopkins and myself, out of pure dread, favored the
return. Goritz had always resisted the quest. The gold bauble was
“getting in its fatal work,” whispered Hopkins.
Goritz put it this way: We couldn’t get back. The return trip would be
far harder than to progress in our present course. We had no sledge.
Everything pointed to success if we could keep on. The land beyond us
indicated a great depression, the fogs rolling over us showed an
approaching warmer area; the glimpse that had been permitted us was
conclusive; once beyond that cloud zone and the realities, the living
realities, would begin. This gold belt (he held up the glittering charm
that had turned his head) was no relic, its engraving was too fresh, its
outlines too sharp; it had been brought where he had found it, it must
have come from the west, and the way, practicable for its former
wearers, was practicable for us.
“How about a balloon, an aeroplane, anything that flies?” suggested
Hopkins. Antoine Goritz became scornful, his French blood often came to
the surface. He looked straight at Hopkins, and a frown clouded his
face; it did not become him.
“_Parbleu vous etes fou, mon frère, que Je crois,
Avec de tels discours vous moquez-vous de moi?_”
Hopkins didn’t wince; it wasn’t his fashion.
“Well, Goritz, I’m game for the deal. You can’t put it over me with your
_parlez-vous_. But listen, we’ll never agree on this stake. It’s up to
the little Goddess on the Wheel. What do you say?” He tossed something
in the air and shouted:
“Fair or Foul?”
“Fair,” called Goritz.
The shining object rattled among the stones; it had a silvery lustre,
and as the Yankee stooped and picked it up, there was something
strangely grave in his face.
“You win, Goritz,” he calmly said, as he pocketed the trinket, “and I’ll
follow you till the curtain drops.”
He rose and extended his hand; it was grasped cordially by the big Dane,
the two men facing each other at almost the same level, both beautiful
types of manhood.
“Mr. Link, the object that Spruce Hopkins flung upwards, and cast as the
die of our destiny that day is in my hand.” (He laid a flat silver medal
on the table between us. I picked it up; on one side was a masterly
execution of the face of a lovely woman; on the other was a sort of
Satan.)
“Mr. Link,” resumed Erickson, “that woman is Angelica Sigurda Tabasco,
and that man Diaz Ilario Aguadiente, the two interesting occupants of
No. — east Fifty-eighth Street, from whose unpleasant society you freed
me. Hopkins gave me that the last time I saw him alive. What he told me
then had something to do with the predicament you found me in.”
(Mr. Erickson again retired into his obviously gloomy thoughts, which I
did not attempt to disturb, and, on his emergence, continued his story.)
This impromptu solution won the day, and we prepared for the unknown
transit over that unknown territory of which we had had one fleeting
glimpse, and which lay somewhere before us, in a vast milkness of mist.
We concluded to take with us two dogs; the rest—now three, one had gone
mad (_piblocto_) and had been shot—were killed, and a cannibalistic
feast offered to the survivors. The oil and stoves were left behind;
there might be enough fibre or wood for fire, at least we hoped so. Our
packs were made as light as possible. We were in a race, like
Mikkelsen’s last lap, _a Race against Hunger_. The sleeping-bags were
discarded, the tent we carried a short distance only. No grimmer or
braver determination ever animated explorers; we were not running for
safety, we were running _away_ from it. The step taken, our spirits
rose, the former fancies swarmed upon us, and perhaps the gold belt
again floated before our vision, an omen and a guide. This imaginative
sway of anticipation was needed, or else we could never have plucked up
courage to make the fateful start.
The beginning was symptomatic enough of our coming dangers. To get over
and down the precipice on whose edge we stood was impossible without a
clearance of the besetting fogs, and fortunately, as if by invitation
for us to retain our resolution, the fog lifted on the morning we
started. We were on the brink of a high columnar black wall, rising from
200 feet or less to 600 feet or more, from the rocky floor of the
country beyond. We searched for some pathway for descent. Innumerable
shelves and footholds diversified the precipitous faces but they were
far apart, and often offered little more than space for a bird or a
goat. Once down the first vertical cliffs the gigantic heaps of talus
leaning against their bases would afford us a practicable though rough
way to the bottom. And now we saw with astonishment the obvious
inclination of the farther land. It seemed an almost unbroken hillside,
coursed by streams and stream beds, furrowed by dry, stony valleys, cut
by the low, serrated backs of steep hills, the whole landscape
terminating in that distant medley of rolling clouds, streaming vapor
banks barely discernible, except as, so it seemed, they were lit by
flashes of light. Were we on the outer flanks of a continental lava bed,
and was that cloud space beyond the lip of a vast volcanic confusion?
The question was not asked aloud, but its staggering terror made us
tremble. Never, Mr. Link, did men more heroically walk into the shadows
of the Valley of Death than did we.
The morning sun sent long shadows westward; the day was actually warm; a
sudden brightness encouraged us. If the food lasted! That was the terror
that haunted us. Could it? At last Goritz discovered far northward a
gorge or ravine reaching almost to the top of the palisade. Down this we
scrambled and found ourselves in the bed of a low stream, which a day
later became a swollen torrent, so quickly did precipitation feed the
rivers, and so enormous was its volume. This made our daily progress
more dangerous. We were soaked and miserable ourselves, but the
protection to our food was imperfect, and that gave rise to serious
doubts as to whether it would last us ten days, the calculated limit
before its exhaustion. The biscuit half turned to dough and the drenched
tea exuded in tawny drops from our packs. This led to a readjustment and
each man carried his rations of tea and biscuit and chocolate underneath
his coat. The pemmican, force meat, cabbage and beans are safe enough on
our backs.
It soon became necessary to desert the watery defile which we had first
entered; it became more and more confined, the banks were literally
stone heaps, and after one or two perilous slips which might have
accelerated our progress by dumping us into the chasing flood we
painfully climbed out over a high rocky ridge on the summit of which our
sight was cheered to find low, herbaceous growths. Here we managed to
extort a niggardly flame which was assisted by oil Goritz alone had had
the prudence to add to his load, and our evening meal was eaten in some
gratitude.
The rains, distressing as they were at intervals, when the downpour
became most vehement, were on the whole preferable to the fogs. They
cleared the air, and we could see our way, calculate interruptions and
avoid disaster. As we went on the vegetation increased in quantity, and
often smiling—they seemed smiling to our tired eyes although lit by no
sunlight—patches around us in sheltered corners afforded welcome though
damp camping grounds. Our clothes were torn by frequent falls, and our
shoes are turning into tangled shreds. The Professor had sprained his
wrist badly—he narrowly escaped rolling down an embankment which might
have put him out of the running altogether—and Goritz is in pain. I know
it by his limping gait, and the twitches of suffering that cross his
face. Something is the matter with me too, fatigue and the insufficient
or canned food is telling on me. My muscles are stiff and aching, the
joints of my limbs red and swollen, and dark blue spots were showing on
my skin. Is it scurvy?
It is the sixth day, and we believe we have made seventy miles. The
cloud zone is approaching; our prospect every day grows more
extraordinary, more terrifying; we encamp behind a shoulder of rock, on
a low upland which separated two roaring rivers. The rain had stopped
and a colder atmosphere reveals the scene. The temperature is just above
2° Centigrade, the aneroid shows we had fallen two thousand feet since
we had left the Krocker Land Rim. We are immobile, in a sort of stupor,
yet fascinated by the spectacle. Hopkins alone remains cheerful and
garrulous.
“Professor,” he chatters, “the Rocky Road to Dublin had nothing on this
boulevard. The gentleman who, by reason of a congenital failing, which
was assisted by circumstances outside of his control, complained of the
narrowness rather than the length of the street would be inclined to
make some severe reflections on this thoroughfare also. But we can be
pretty sure the transformation takes place the other side of the
proscenium-show yonder.”
Poor Spruce Hopkins, he kept up his joviality for our benefit, but we
didn’t care much and I don’t think he did. We were starving; it was half
a pound now a day. But Goritz never wavered a hair, he urged us on, he
promised food, rest, recreation even, if we would persevere through the
cloud curtain.
And now we were under it, cowering in dread before the awfulness and
magnitude of it. It rose in towering gushes of stream, belched forth
from a huge crack in the crust of the earth in which poured the full
rivers that had accompanied our march. Those rivers entered recesses of
the heated earth, and were returned in steam with detonations and
earthquakes, so that
_The frame and huge foundation of the earth
Shak’d like a coward._
Reviewing it now, as it was revealed to us later upon examination and
study, the physiography of the stupendous phenomenon we had reached was
this. Some strain had cracked the crust of the earth in a long arcuate
rift; it suggested the crevice and it was irregular in the same way,
which is seen in the Almannaja in Iceland, but it was profoundly deep,
and the area communicated with the igneous interior. The water that was
continually condensed from the steam that poured upward from the huge
fissure, as continually was returned, and, except for interruptions in
the reciprocal exchange produced by meteorological conditions, such as
cold, heat and varying winds, this curious equilibration was unbroken,
had been for ages. The emergence of the steam was irregular, though it
was always coming up at some points, and there was a synchrony between
points. We discovered later that at very distant places from our
position on the great circular break there was no steam. The rock
beneath had become thoroughly cooled and congealed, or the inner fires
were absent, and the water entering the chasm was lost within the crust,
or else, deviously percolating laterally may have subsequently
contributed its supply to the active steam geysers when it touched the
heated surfaces which formed the sources of the latter’s energy.
Therefore you may place this picture before your mind, of a steam wall
projected from a raggedly edged, very broad earth rift, absorbed by the
atmosphere, or condensed in clouds, and intermittently returned to the
earth in rain or if transferred by westerly winds, falling outside of
the Krocker Land Rim in snow.
The explosions that rent and shattered this steam veil, or shattered the
cloud masses above us, were at first difficult to explain. It was after
we had penetrated and crossed the abyss that the Professor suggested
that they were due to a partial decomposition of some part—a very, very
small part—of the steam into the gases hydrogen and carbonic oxide,
where coal or carbonaceous deposits existed at rare or higher heats, and
that these explosive mixtures, retained somehow in the steam,
undiffused, were fired by electric-lightning sparks. This theory never
seemed scientific to me. But the fact of such disturbances remained, and
it was owing to the momentary glimpse a terrific shock of this kind
permitted us across the void, that we picked up daring enough to make
the attempt to cross the horrid gap.
We were within perhaps five hundred feet of the spouting cauldron, where
rain was constantly falling, crawling over rocks wet and slippery,
astonished and half delighted at the luxuriant development of moss on
the lips of pools or saucers of water, and noting a great rise in
temperature, with that peculiar buried tumult of hissing, issuing from
the earth, when this happened. There was a flash, a roar, and, as if a
gigantic hand had parted the dense curtain before us, our eyes crossed
the gulf, and we saw a land of greenness and of light!
Stunned, half sick, hungry, with a gnawing wretchedness of desire, it
almost seemed that we had been duped by some illusion born of our
weakness and the deceptive play of the illuminated mist. Huddled
together in a niche of the rocks that were in places dissected by
cracks, that also discharged tenuous lines of steam, we talked in
whispers over the marvelous apparition. Yes, we had all seen it. There
could be no mistake, but Goritz had seen more. Across the black,
vomiting pit was a bridge of rock! It might have been some remaining
partition, holding its place against disintegration, spared in some way
for our salvation from the destructive agencies that had here ripped the
crust asunder, or indeed it might have been built up from some later
solidified eruption. _Had_ he seen it?
Goritz was madly certain about that. Well, and if he had, could we use
it? There are desperate stages in desperation that breed, Ajax-like,
defiance of danger. The sudden realization of a world of beauty, a world
of food, on the other side of the steaming pit, nerved our poor flagging
bodies, and summoned an audacity of will to our minds! It was our last
chance. Myths of the past in that delirious moment flocked back to my
mind, which pictured guarded paradises, defended gardens of delight,
treasures watched by dragons, elysiums hedged with terrors, and always,
always courage won the prize, and passed the dangers. And yet there must
be caution; the old refrain sounded in my ears, _Be not too bold!_
Goritz and Hopkins, the least impaired, reconnoitered the pass. They
moved down some stepped ledges and were lost to sight. In an hour or so
they returned. Their faces were lighted with hopefulness. They both
believed the path was negotiable, and they both agreed that there were
periodic cessations of the fiercer ebullitions from below. It was also
discovered that we could not make our way to the right or left for any
considerable distance. We had trailed our way to an isthmus of land,
enclosed by two impassable streams, shooting in rugged wild channels. To
think of crossing them was sheer madness. Goritz and Hopkins had
actually advanced a little way on the bridge, straining their eyes to
catch some further intimations of the delectable country we now believed
would be attained were we once over this inscrutable fissure. The
daylight, when the sun was highest and easterly, was now short, and in
the mist-encumbered land, in the cloud-swept skies, that light was
almost eclipsed. Everything contributed to our uncertainty and danger.
We made ready for the start. We consumed every scrap of food, divested
ourselves of unnecessary outer clothing, which had already become
insufferably warm—_kamiks_, _nanookis_, _kooletah_—packed our ammunition
on our breasts, reversed and strapped our guns on our backs (the
Professor added to his burden a pot and a fryingpan), tucked away our
matches, chewed the last tea leaves our canister afforded, and with a
few chocolate cakes in our pockets went down the steps,
“*** _with a heart for any fate._”
I was indeed sick; exertion pained me, and a nauseating weariness
threatened at moments to rob me of consciousness. The two poor dogs
which had escaped the extremity of our needs, less through mercy than
through revulsion, were turned loose. Yet as we went down the ledges to
the brink, I saw them chasing us. Goritz roped us together again, gave a
few orders as to signals, and ordered the descent.
We went _a tatons_, literally on all fours; Goritz first, then the
Professor, then myself, then Hopkins. As we drew near to the ominous
edge, and felt our way over the first steps of the stony crossing it
required all my strength of will to draw my legs after my groping hands.
At first it presented a tolerable pathway, flat, narrow, but sloping
dangerously to either side, slippery from the constant rain that fell
from the saturated air. We silently pushed on, Goritz by agreement
stopping every thirty counts (seconds), and resting five. Gradually the
path contracted and, in about thirty feet, became a sharp backbone over
whose sides our legs dangled in the constantly steaming vault. It was
warm and almost stifling at intervals and then came relief in the shape
of whirling gusts of wind, which however were disconcerting, and made
our precarious balance still more uncertain.
We had probably proceeded fifty feet in all, when a blackness shot
through with red darts came before my eyes; I reeled slightly and
dropped forward, instinctively clutching the wet rock and jerking the
rope that bound me to the Professor. The Professor in turn pulled on
Goritz, and our thin line halted. It was arduous work for the Professor,
whose wrist was still aching.
A detonation thundered far away below us. The spasm passed; I pulled the
rope, the Professor passed the signal, and we resumed our insect-like
progress. Singular that, as I moved again, the thought of Dante and
Virgil crossing the bridge over the tenth circle, as illustrated by
Dore, rose distinctly, clear, indubitable, in front of me. It even
seemed possible for me to define the pagination of the leaf I actually
saw. This strange resuscitated impression kept me conscious.
[Illustration:
THE PERPETUAL NIMBUS
]
On, on; the arete remained unchanged; our progress was encouraging; I
seemed cognizant of a deeper gloom; it was the opposite wall. We had
reached it. Alas! It rose above our heads and _must_ be scaled! Goritz
pulled the rope, the signal ran through the file and we halted again.
The path broadened now, as at its eastern end, and our legs were
relieved from the irksome straddle they had been subjected to. It was a
welcome pause to me. I knew that the last scrap of effort I was capable
of was needed now, if some vertical wet wall was to be surmounted in
that almost impenetrable blackness.
In about fifteen minutes the tug came again, and we knew Goritz had
solved some problem of the ascent confronting us. I heard him calling
back, and the Professor answering. Then I found myself in this
situation; on a fairly wide platform against a broken wall and up it I
heard the scratching exertion of the Professor as he seemed to be bodily
pulled up the ragged face. The constantly falling rain had ceased. But
as the Professor rose, I felt he was no longer attached to me. I drew in
the rope before me and came to its loose end. We were separated! Aghast,
I was unable to speak, but my outstretched arms encountered Hopkins.
“Hopkins, Hopkins,” I hoarsely whispered, “the rope has parted. We are
alone!”
“Don’t worry,” replied that extraordinary man, “we couldn’t be lonelier
than we have been. This solitude is the most unbroken bit of isolation I
ever walked into. Of course we’re separated. This interesting masonry
we’ve struck isn’t very well constructed. It isn’t plumb. It hangs out a
_leetle_ above. Goritz found it out, uncoiled himself, got to the top,
told the Professor to drop you and me, and is now engaged in hoisting
that scientific encyclopedia up to bliss and safety. We won’t stay
dropped long. We’re to go the same way, and really, admirably adapted
for concealment of an escaped felon as is this retreat, honest men could
afford to dispense with its protection.”
I sometimes thought that when Hopkins talked this way on the verge of
destruction he was a little demented from fear. Perhaps I wronged him.
“But say, Erickson, you’re not well, old fellow.”
I had fallen against him; another surge of giddiness and harsh pains
lacerating my joints had overcome me. Then I was struck by a rope end;
it had descended from above. Understanding it all now, and clutching at
the hope of deliverance from the terrors around us, I roused myself.
I heard the voice of Goritz shouting, “Tie up.” And then Hopkins
replying, “All right! Alfred is a little out of sorts. He can’t help you
much. When I _say_, pull together.”
Hopkins unloosed our connection, firmly fastened me to the rope and,
indicating my upward course, telling me to “brace up,” and that it was
the last lap, pushed me up a declivity bristling with sharp projections.
For the first time I saw a dim light filtering from above. I did not
attempt to look upward. The pull came, and I scrambled weakly forward.
Again the dark, red-riven cloud overwhelmed me, my limbs seemed
disjointed; a picture of home, I thought, filled my eyes; a blow on my
head, then a vast detachment as if I were falling through space
succeeded, and I lost consciousness.
And when I awoke! Ah! Mr. Link I have since often believed that our
first glimpse of heaven may be like the vision of loveliness that
surrounded me when slowly my eyes took on their functions, and my head
cleared, and rational observation again began. My pains, too, had for
the instant subsided. I felt almost disembodied, as if indeed in some
spiritual trance I had reached the other side of death.
I was lying in deep grass on a hillside, bathed in light; my friends
around me—No, Hopkins was not there. I noted that. Backward the steaming
wall of vapor was lit with a soft radiance, and resembled an
ever-changing cloud land. Above, the sky was clear and blue; the
distance was a revelation of beauty, ponds and lakes separated by low
hills, whose summits held coppices of trees and shrubs, sparkled and
shone in far flung chains and groups, and below, in a softly radiant
vale, the slim, long outline of a little lakelet, embosomed in tall,
waving reeds or grasses, like some titanic jewel, gleamed, crystalline
and keen.
Ducks were swimming on its surface, and skimming with beating wings its
tiny waves. Herons or cranes were wading in the sedges on its shores,
and a stirring and noisy aquatic bird life everywhere about it, made it
vocal and animated. Far away a strange, soft light burned in the heaven,
and for a moment it seemed as if another sun had replaced the diurnal
traveler of the skies.
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