further and further into the narrowing plain, their slopes became
steeper and more rugged, and rocks began to crop out here and there with
increasing frequency through the lessening soil. A corresponding change
of course occurred in the character of the landscape; it grew
increasingly picturesque and wild at every step, and at length the
travellers found themselves at the mouth of a narrow rocky boulder-
strewn gorge bounded on either side by titanic masses of volcanic rock,
rugged and moss-grown, with little patches of herbage here and there, or
an occasional stunted pine growing out of an almost imperceptible
fissure. The only signs of life in this wild spot consisted of a
diminutive musk-ox here and there cropping the scanty herbage half-way
up the apparently inaccessible height in spots from which it appeared
equally impossible for the creature to advance or to retreat.
Plunging into this defile, the travellers advanced with steadily
increasing difficulty, the boulders with which their path was strewed
growing ever larger and more numerous until at length the narrowing road
became completely choked with them, and the only mode of progression was
that of a slow, toilsome, dangerous scramble. Still the pair pushed
resolutely on, every minute hoping that the difficulties of the journey
would come to an end, and every minute less willing to turn back and
again encounter the obstacles already surmounted. At length the path
became so narrow that one enormous boulder sufficed to completely block
the way, whilst the perpendicular rocky walls of the chasm towered so
far aloft that only the merest thread of sky was visible; the air grew
chill and damp, and so deep a twilight gloom pervaded the place that it
was difficult to distinguish any object more than half a dozen yards
distant.
The weary travellers looked at each other in dismay. Was this to be the
ineffectual ending of that long and toilsome scramble through the
ravine? There was just one single narrow crevice between the huge
boulder which blocked their way, and one of the precipitous walls which
pressed so closely in upon them--a crevice left by the irregular shape
of the block, and affording barely space enough for a man of robust
proportions to squeeze himself through--and they determined that, before
retracing their steps, they would at least satisfy their curiosity so
far as to creep through this crevice and see what lay on the farther
side. The baronet with some little difficulty squeezed through first,
and his exclamation of astonishment quickly took the colonel to his
side.
The pair found themselves in a narrow rent between the two vertical
faces of rock--the projections of the one accurately corresponding with
the indentations of the other, and clearly demonstrating that, at some
distant period of the earth's history, that mighty chasm had been
suddenly torn open by a great natural convulsion awful in its intensity
beyond all power of imagination. The rent was roofed in as it were by
boulders which thickly hung suspended and jammed in at varying heights
between the almost touching walls of the rift; and the adventurous
explorers could not repress a shudder as they glanced aloft at these
huge masses and thought of the consequences to themselves which would
ensue should a projecting corner just then yield and suffer its parent
rock to come crashing down to the bottom. Their first impulse was to
beat a precipitate retreat; their second, to go forward; for at only a
few yards' distance before them the rift closed altogether, except at
the very bottom, where a low cavern-like fissure dimly appeared. A
hasty consultation passed between them, resulting in a determination to
go forward and explore the fissure.
Fortunately for their purpose they had, at an early stage of their
difficulties, provided themselves with a couple of stoutish pine
branches--wrenched from their parent stems and hurled into the ravine
perchance by some winter storm--to aid them in surmounting the
difficulties of the way, and these they now determined to utilise if
possible as torches.
With some little difficulty the smaller ends of these brands were
induced to kindle; but, once fairly ignited, they blazed up bravely, and
thus provided with the necessary lights the adventurers boldly pushed
forward and plunged into the recesses of the fissure.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN.
AT THE NORTH POLE.
The opening was so low and so narrow, that for the first fifty or sixty
feet the explorers were I obliged to creep forward on their hands and
knees; then it widened and became gradually higher, so that by the time
they had penetrated a couple of hundred feet they were able to resume a
perpendicular attitude. The cavern, if such it could be called, still
however remained so narrow that it was only here and there possible for
them to walk side by side. It was also very tortuous; and the heights
varied momentarily, at one time compelling them to stoop almost double
in order to pass beneath some immense projection, and anon increasing so
greatly that the light of their torches failed to reach and reveal the
roof. They observed several rifts or crevices to the right and left of
them as they pressed forward, but, with one or two exceptions, these
were quite impassable, and those which were not so were still so cramped
that they offered no inducement to deviate from the main passage.
Groping thus in semi-darkness over painfully rough and broken ground, a
full hour was spent, and the colonel was just expressing his conviction
that they must have traversed a distance of fully two miles when a faint
glimmer of daylight revealed itself on one of the rocky walls of the
passage; and, turning sharply round an angle, the pair suddenly found
themselves once more within a few yards of the open air.
Emerging into broad daylight a most wonderful spectacle greeted the two
adventurous explorers. They found themselves standing on a narrow strip
of coarse sandy beach at the bottom of an immense basin, measuring fully
a mile in diameter, the sides of which were formed of lofty precipitous
cliffs of volcanic rock, so smooth and so nearly vertical that nowhere,
at least in their immediate neighbourhood, could they discover a spot
capable of being scaled. Before them, and occupying the whole bottom of
this enormous basin, stretched a placid lake, the water of which was as
clear as crystal. A thin filmy veil of vapour rose everywhere from the
surface of the water, softening the hard outlines of the more distant
landscape, and imparting an aspect of dreamlike witchery and unreality
which it would certainly have otherwise lacked.
"Why, the water is tepid!" exclaimed Sir Reginald, plunging his hand
into the lake and raising a small quantity of its water in his palm, to
ascertain by taste whether it was fresh or salt.
The colonel thereupon thrust _his_ hand down, and satisfied himself by
experiment of the truth of his companion's statement. It was even more
than tepid, it was positively _warm_.
The two were still discussing the probable reason for this phenomenon
when their attention was suddenly arrested by a curious movement of the
water in the centre of the lake. First a few tremulous ripples
appeared, spreading outward from the centre; then the disturbance became
more pronounced, until, within a minute, an area of some thirty or forty
yards in diameter had assumed an appearance of violent ebullition.
Suddenly a jet of steam and spray shot up out of the centre of this
disturbed spot; and then, before either of the two bewildered spectators
could find time to remark upon so curious a phenomenon, an immense
column of purest crystal water shot into the air to a height of at least
two hundred feet, and, gleaming and flashing in the sunbeams as it
soared away above the level of the encircling cliffs, spread out into a
dome-like sheet, and, leaving behind it aloft a dense cloud of vapour of
dazzling whiteness, fell again into the lake in the form of a shower of
boiling water.
"A geyser!" exclaimed the baronet. "A geyser! and of such grandeur that
the Great Geyser of Iceland, which I have seen, sinks into the utmost
insignificance compared with it."
"You are right," acquiesced Lethbridge. "I too have seen the so-called
Great Geyser, and admired it immensely; but after this--"
He finished with a shrug of the shoulders so expressive that there was
not the slightest need for words to explain his meaning.
"We must bring the professor to see this," he continued after a slight
pause. "And--look here, Elphinstone--if you wish to intensely gratify
the worthy man, call this geyser after him--`The Von Schalckenberg
Geyser'--eh? It doesn't sound half bad, does it?"
The baronet laughingly consented to his friend's proposal, the more
readily as he knew that what Lethbridge had said as to the professor's
gratification was perfectly true; and then the wanderers resumed their
journey, passing along the narrow strip of sand which divided the edge
of the water from the base of the cliffs.
"There is no doubt, I think, that this geyser produces the cloud of
vapour and the sudden flashing gleam, at tolerably regular intervals,
which so aroused our curiosity this morning," remarked the baronet as
they plodded somewhat wearily along side by side over the sand.
His companion assented, and then they both paused, and finally flung
themselves down upon the sand to witness a repetition of the eruption,
the premonitory signs of which at that moment made their appearance.
Then, when it was over, finding themselves very comfortable--and very
hungry--they concluded to take luncheon before again moving; and, this
being followed by a pipe, it was after four o'clock in the afternoon
when they once more made a move.
A saunter for three-quarters of an hour along the margin of the lake
enabled them to reach a spot almost directly opposite that where they
had emerged into daylight from the interior of the cavern; and here they
found the point of overflow from the lake. The chain of hills, which
from their first point of sight had appeared to completely surround the
sheet of water, was here pierced by a narrow valley, through which a
small shallow stream, emanating from the geyser lake, made its devious
way. As the course of this valley appeared to trend generally in a
northerly direction, or toward the high table-land of which the
travellers were in quest, and as, moreover, the valley appeared to offer
the only exit from the lake basin in a northerly direction, the
travellers decided to follow its course, which they did by keeping close
to the margin of the stream. This mode of procedure, whilst it afforded
them tolerably easy walking, also enabled them to estimate more
accurately than they had hitherto done, the enormous quantity of water
projected into the air by the geyser; for whilst the stream normally
consisted of a body of water some ten feet wide by three or four inches
deep, it was swollen--at regular intervals of twenty minutes each,
corresponding with the periodical discharge of the geyser--into a
rushing and foaming torrent of about ten feet wide and four feet deep,
lasting thus for about a minute, when the stream again rapidly subsided
to its previous depth.
For a distance of about two miles the stream wound its way over a bed of
exposed rock, beyond which occurred a considerable stretch of coarse
gravelly soil, thickly overgrown with long grass. The constant flow of
water for untold ages through this bed of gravel had scoured out a
channel nearly forty feet wide by half that depth; the banks being
perfectly vertical, except in a few places where the gravel had crumbled
away to a rather steep slope.
It was whilst the wanderers were passing one of these places that--the
sun being by this time in the western quarter of the heavens, and his
level rays falling directly upon the right bank of the stream--the
baronet's attention was arrested by the appearance of several bright
sparkling gleams emanating from among the _debris_ of the crumbling
bank. He directed the colonel's attention to these, whereupon the
latter, seized with sudden excitement, scrambled down the bank, waded
across the shallow stream, and in another instant flung himself down
upon his knees on the gravel. Before the astonished baronet could
follow him he leaped to his feet again, and, whilst he waved some
glittering object above his head, shouted:
"Hurrah! hurrah! Elphinstone, my dear fellow, we are in luck to-day.
Here is a fabulous fortune for every one of us, to be had merely for the
trouble of picking up. _This is a bed of diamondiferous gravel_."
Sir Reginald hastened across the stream, and, scrambling half-way up the
bank, joined his companion on the spot where the latter had halted.
"Look here!" exclaimed Lethbridge, holding out for inspection a crystal
as large as a pigeon's egg; "what think you of that for a first find?
And it is of the first water, too."
The baronet took it in his hand and examined it critically. Then he
handed it back with the remark:
"Well, my dear fellow, I am no judge of diamonds, at least in their
natural uncut state; but if your supposition--that you have discovered a
`bed' or `pocket,' or whatever you call it, of diamonds--be correct, I
most heartily congratulate you."
"You--congratulate--_me_?" gasped the colonel. "Why, my dear
Elphinstone, what on earth do you mean? I am much obliged for your
congratulations, certainly; but whether the diamonds here be many or
few, we shall of course all share alike, so you may also congratulate
yourself and our absent friends at the same time. And as to my
supposition being correct, I have had too much experience at the South
African diamond-fields to make a mistake in such a matter. Why," he
continued, looking round and picking up two or three more stones, "they
are positively sown broadcast just here--an hour's diligent work in this
spot will make us all rich beyond the power of computation."
"If that be the case," returned the baronet, "then here goes to help
you. But, mind, I am a rich man already; and not a single stone will I
accept until all three of you are perfectly satisfied that you have
abundantly sufficient for all your requirements."
"Very well," said the colonel. "Go ahead with that understanding if you
like. I feel pretty confident that, even upon such terms, you will be
able to take back to England, if all goes well, sufficient gems to make
the future Lady Elphinstone--should there ever be such a personage--a
diamond suite which shall cause her to be the envied of all beholders."
Sir Reginald laughed gleefully. "I have never yet met a woman charming
enough to induce me to yield up my freedom of action and movement for
her sake, and I do not think it likely I ever shall," he said.
Lethbridge shook his head a little doubtfully, but he was just then so
busy digging down into the gravel with his hunting-knife that he had no
breath to waste in the words of a disclaimer.
The baronet moved away to a distance of some twenty feet, and began
poking about the gravel in a very careless, half-hearted sort of way,
occasionally picking up and slipping into one of his capacious pockets
such crystals as he thought likely to be of value.
Half an hour of this work sufficed him; and, rising to his feet, he
cried: "Spell, ho! as our friend Mildmay would probably observe. Now,
Lethbridge," as he sauntered up to his companion, "let us compare the
results of our labour."
With this he flung himself down upon the gravel, and, plunging his hand
into his pocket three or four times, produced a goodly little heap of
gems of all sizes, ranging from that of a pea up to stones of fully one
ounce in weight. Meanwhile the colonel brought his collection to light,
and a very fine one it was, the stones being nearly twice as many as
those gathered by the baronet, though many of them were much smaller.
"Is that all?" asked Sir Reginald.
"_All_?" echoed Lethbridge; "why, my dear sir, what would you have? If,
after we have quite exhausted the ground here, my share amounts to such
a handsome collection as this, I can assure you I shall be exceedingly
well satisfied. You have made a most excellent haul too, but I think
mine is the more valuable of the two."
"Perhaps," said the baronet, "_this_ will go some way toward equalising
our finds." And as he spoke he quietly slipped his hand into his pocket
and smilingly produced a stone fully as large as a hen's egg.
The colonel took it into his hands and critically examined it for
several minutes. It was most unmistakably a diamond, and that, too, of
the very finest water, without the faintest trace of a flaw of any kind.
He remained silent so long that Sir Reginald grew impatient and finally
blurted out:
"Well, man, what is it? Is it a diamond, or is it merely a worthless
piece of crystal? Why don't you speak?"
"Simply," said the colonel as he took a final look at it against the
light and then handed it back, "because I am at a loss for words to
express my admiration. It _is_ a diamond, and, so far as I know, the
finest that has ever yet been brought to light. Its value must be
simply fabulous, and I heartily congratulate you on its discovery.
Where did you find it? Was it deep in the gravel?"
"Come with me and I'll show you," was the reply; and, leading the
colonel back to the spot, Sir Reginald quietly pointed to a hole about
eighteen inches deep which he had excavated, and wherein lay, side by
side, seven other gems equally as fine as the one he had produced.
"Help yourself, my dear fellow," he said with a laugh, "and then let us
be moving; we have our dinner to find yet, you know."
Lethbridge fairly gasped for breath as his eyes first fell upon the
magnificent jewels; but he lost no time in transferring them to his
pocket, and then he turned to the baronet and asked what would be the
best thing for them to do next.
"Let us simply continue our journey," answered the baronet. "Of course
if these stones which we have found are really diamonds, which I do not
doubt, since you assure me that they are, I am as fully alive as
yourself to the fact that a mine of incalculable wealth lies here at our
feet. But it will not run away within the next few days. Let us finish
our exploration and return to the _Flying Fish_. We will then move her
to this spot, and all hands of us can then go to work at diamond-hunting
in good earnest. Meanwhile, if these large stones are of such
inestimable value, it seems to me that they are likely to prove, after
all, practically valueless, for the simple reason that nobody will be
found willing to spend the enormous sum which would enable him to become
a purchaser."
"That is very true," answered the colonel with a laugh. "The stones of
moderate size are what we must hope to realise upon; nevertheless, I
shall not pass over such large ones as may happen to thrust themselves
under my notice, for if we should fail to dispose of them, they will
still come in handy as ornaments for our future wives, in which,
notwithstanding a remark you made a little while ago, I somehow have a
profound belief. Now, if you are ready to march, so am I."
The pair accordingly shouldered their guns, and, turning their backs for
the time being upon the diamond mine, continued their course down the
valley.
Half an hour later a herd of reindeer was discovered browsing upon the
lichens and mosses which grew plentifully on the rocky spurs of the
range of hills from which the travellers were now emerging, and one of
these was soon afterwards killed with little or no difficulty by means
of a bullet from one of the rifles. To such experienced hunters as Sir
Reginald and the colonel the task of "breaking up" the deer was an easy
one, and, that done, they went into camp on the spot, and feasted
royally that night upon reindeer tongue and marrow-bones.
The two following days passed uneventfully, that is to say the
travellers met with no adventure specially worth recording. They passed
through extensive tracts of pine forest, and saw plenty of game, to say
nothing of such valuable fur-bearing animals as the sable and ermine,
both of which animals seemed to be extraordinarily abundant, and late on
the evening of the third day they found themselves at the base of the
table-land, after a somewhat fatiguing but most enjoyable tramp.
The next day was devoted to a thorough examination of the somewhat
remarkable object which they had set out to visit. It proved to be an
enormous mass of rock, nearly circular in shape, about three miles in
circumference, and towering aloft from the surface of the surrounding
plain to a height of between three and four thousand feet, as nearly as
could be measured without the aid of instruments. Their idea had of
course been not only to reach this enormous rock, but also to ascend to
its summit, but this they found to be quite impracticable, a journey
round it demonstrating the fact that on all sides its cliffs rose
perpendicularly and without a single break from the base to the flat
summit. For that time at least they were defeated; but when they
finally turned their backs upon "Mount Mildmay," as they determined to
name it, it was with a fixed resolve that, before many days were over,
they would reach the summit with the aid of the _Flying Fish_.
Their journey back to the ship was marked by no more noteworthy incident
than the sighting in the distance of a herd of mammoths, apparently the
identical animals with which they had already had an encounter. They
followed a somewhat different route from their outward one, making a
detour round the group of hills which inclosed the "Schalckenberg
Geyser," and arrived at the ship late on the evening of the sixth day
from their departure, weary and somewhat foot-sore it is true, but in
all other respects in the very best of health, and with thoroughly
pleasant memories of their journey.
They were of course welcomed with open arms by the two friends they had
left behind them. Mildmay, under the professor's skilful treatment, was
rapidly advancing toward complete recovery; and as for the scientist
himself, he was jubilant in the highest degree over the fact that he had
been thoroughly successful in his preparation of that gigantic
"specimen," the mammoth. A great deal of desultory conversation of
course took place within the first hour of the wanderers' return; but at
last the party settled down, and then followed a recital by Sir Reginald
of the particulars of the journey. Both the professor and Mildmay were
of course intensely interested in the story, but in different ways.
Mildmay's interest was merely that of the ordinary travelled man of
culture, but von Schalckenberg was disposed to regard everything from
the scientist's view-point, and incessantly broke the continuity of the
narrative by a whole string of questions which neither Sir Reginald nor
the colonel could possibly answer. He was extravagantly delighted with
both the description of the geyser and the sight of the diamonds, and it
was difficult to say which pleased him most; perhaps the most gratifying
circumstance to him was the information that the geyser had been named
after him, at all events he begged most pathetically that the projected
visit to this most interesting object might be allowed to take
precedence of that to the diamond mine.
Such being the case, it will readily be understood that no pen of mere
ordinary graphic power could hope to adequately portray the ecstasy of
enthusiasm with which the worthy man, two days later, actually viewed
the geyser itself from so advantageous a stand-point as the deck of the
_Flying Fish_; such a task is utterly beyond the powers of the present
narrator and must be left to the vivid imagination of the indulgent
reader. For over two hours did that amiable and learned scientist sit
immovably in his deck chair with a meerschaum of abnormal dimensions in
his mouth, and with his eyes beaming in a rapt admiration, which was
almost adoration, upon the magnificent spectacle; and it was not until
he had been solemnly assured by the others that he would be excused from
all participation in the task of diamond-hunting and have full liberty
to return to the geyser and spend there the whole of the time during
which the rest of the party might be so engaged, that he consented to
leave the spot at all.
Three days were spent at the diamond mine; and, with the aid of proper
tools obtained from the ship, this time proved sufficient for the
accumulation of such a hoard of priceless gems as would, if disposed of
at even half their market value, realise a magnificent fortune for each
of the lucky finders.