"WE WERE THE FIRST."
Two days later not one of the survivors from the two schooners, the
_Jane_ and the _Halbrane_, remained upon any coast of the Antarctic
region.
On the 21st of February, at six o'clock in the morning, the boat,
with us all (we numbered thirteen) in it, left the little creek and
doubled the point of Halbrane Land. On the previous day we had fully
and finally debated the question of our departure, with the
understanding that if it were settled in the affirmative, we should
start without delay.
The captain of the _Jane_ was for an immediate departure, and Captain
Len Guy was not opposed to it. I willingly sided with them, and West
was of a similar opinion. The boatswain was inclined to oppose us.
He considered it imprudent to give up a certainty for the uncertain,
and he was backed by Endicott, who would in any case say "ditto"
to his "Mr. Burke." However, when the time came, Hurliguerly
conformed to the view of the majority with a good grace, and
declared himself quite ready to set out, since we were all of that
way of thinking.
Our boat was one of those in use in the Tsalal Archipelago for
plying between the islands. We knew, from the narrative of Arthur
Pym, that these boats are of two kinds, one resembling rafts or flat
boats, the other strongly-built pirogues. Our boat was of the former
kind, forty feet long, six feet in width, and worked by several
paddles.
We called our little craft the _Paracuta_, after a fish which abounds
in these waters. A rough image of that denizen of the southern deep
was cut upon the gunwale.
Needless to say that the greater part of the cargo of the _Halbrane_
was left in our cavern, fully protected from the weather, at the
disposal of any shipwrecked people who might chance to be thrown on
the coast of Halbrane Land. The boatswain had planted a spar on the
top of this slope to attract attention. But, our two schooners
notwithstanding, what vessel would ever venture into such latitudes?
_Nota Bene_.--We were just thirteen--the fatal number. Perfectly
good relations subsisted among us. We had no longer to dread the
rebellion of a Hearne. (How often we speculated upon the fate of
those whom he had beguiled!)
At seven o'clock, the extreme point of Halbrane Land lay five
miles behind us, and in the evening we gradually lost sight of the
heights that variated that part of the coast.
I desire to lay special stress on the fact that not a single scrap
of iron entered into the construction of this boat, not so much as a
nail or a bolt, for that metal was entirely unknown to the Tsalal
islanders. The planks were bound together by a sort of liana, or
creeping-plant, and caulked with moss steeped in pitch, which was
turned by contact with the sea-water to a substance as hard as metal.
I have nothing special to record during the week that succeeded our
departure. The breeze blew steadily from the south, and we did not
meet with any unfavourable current between the banks of the Jane
Sound.
During those first eight days, the _Paracuta_, by paddling when the
wind fell, had kept up the speed that was indispensable for our
reaching the Pacific Ocean within a short time.
The desolate aspect of the land remained the same, while the strait
was already visited by floating drifts, packs of one to two hundred
feet in length, some oblong, others circular, and also by icebergs
which our boat passed easily. We were made anxious, however, by the
fact that these masses were proceeding towards the iceberg barrier,
for would they not close the passages, which ought to be still open
at this time?
I shall mention here that in proportion as Dirk Peters was carried
farther and farther from the places wherein no trace of his poor Pym
had been found, he was more silent than ever, and no longer even
answered me when I addressed him.
It must not be forgotten that since our iceberg had passed beyond
the south pole, we were in the zone of eastern longitudes counted
from the zero of Greenwich to the hundred and eightieth degree. All
hope must therefore be abandoned of our either touching at the
Falklands, or finding whaling-ships in the waters of the Sandwich
Islands, the South Orkneys, or South Georgia.
Our voyage proceeded under unaltered conditions for ten days. Our
little craft was perfectly sea-worthy. The two captains and West
fully appreciated its soundness, although, as I have previously
said, not a scrap of iron had a place in its construction. It had
not once been necessary to repair its seams, so staunch were they.
To be sure, the sea was smooth, its long, rolling waves were hardly
ruffled on their surface.
On the 10th of March, with the same longitude the observation gave
7° 13' for latitude. The speed of the _Paracuta_ had then been
thirty miles in each twenty-four hours. If this rate of progress
could be maintained for three weeks, there was every chance of our
finding the passes open, and being able to get round the iceberg
barrier; also that the whaling-ships would not yet have left the
fishing-grounds.
The sun was on the verge of the horizon, and the time was
approaching when the Antarctic region would be shrouded in polar
night. Fortunately, in re-ascending towards the north we were
getting into waters from whence light was not yet banished. Then did
we witness a phenomenon as extraordinary as any of those described
by Arthur Pym. For three or four hours, sparks, accompanied by a
sharp noise, shot out of our fingers' ends, our hair, and our
beards. There was an electric snowstorm, with great flakes falling
loosely, and the contact produced this strange luminosity. The sea
rose so suddenly and tumbled about so wildly that the _Paracuta_ was
several times in danger of being swallowed up by the waves, but we
got through the mystic-seeming tempest all safe and sound.
Nevertheless, space was thenceforth but imperfectly lighted.
Frequent mists came up and bounded our outlook to a few
cable-lengths. Extreme watchfulness and caution were necessary to
avoid collision with the floating masses of ice, which were
travelling more slowly than the _Paracuta_.
It is also to be noted that, on the southern side, the sky was
frequently lighted up by the broad and brilliant rays of the polar
aurora.
The temperature fell very perceptibly, and no longer rose above
twenty-three degrees.
Forty-eight hours later Captain Len Guy and his brother succeeded
with great difficulty in taking an approximate observation, with the
following results of their calculations:
Latitude: 75° 17' south.
Latitude: 118° 3' east.
At this date, therefore (12th March), the _Paracuta_ was distant from
the waters of the Antarctic Circle only four hundred miles.
During the night a thick fog came on, with a subsidence of the
breeze. This was to be regretted, for it increased the risk of
collision with the floating ice. Of course fog could not be a
surprise to us, being where we were, but what did surprise us was
the gradually increasing speed of our boat, although the falling of
the wind ought to have lessened it.
This increase of speed could not be due to the current for we were
going more quickly than it.
This state of things lasted until morning, without our being able to
account for what was happening, when at about ten o'clock the mist
began to disperse in the low zones. The coast on the west
reappeared--a rocky coast, without a mountainous background; the
_Paracuta_ was following its line.
And then, no more than a quarter of a mile away, we beheld a huge
mound, reared above the plain to a height of three hundred feet,
with a circumference of from two to three hundred feet. In its
strange form this great mound resembled an enormous sphinx; the body
upright, the paws stretched out, crouching in the attitude of the
winged monster which Grecian Mythology has placed upon the way to
Thebes.
Was this a living animal, a gigantic monster, a mastodon a thousand
times the size of those enormous elephants of the polar seas whose
remains are still found in the ice? In our frame of mind we might
have believed that it was such a creature, and believed also that
the mastodon was about to hurl itself on our little craft and crush
it to atoms.
After a few moments of unreasoning and unreasonable fright, we
recognized that the strange object was only a great mound,
singularly shaped, and that the mist had just rolled off its head,
leaving it to stand out and confront us.
Ah! that sphinx! I remembered, at sight of it, that on the night
when the iceberg was overturned and the _Halbrane_ was carried away, I
had dreamed of a fabulous animal of this kind, seated at the pole of
the world, and from whom Edgar Poe could only wrest its secrets.
But our attention was to be attracted, our surprise, even our alarm,
was evoked soon by phenomena still more strange than the mysterious
earth form upon which the mist-curtain had been raised so suddenly.
I have said that the speed of the _Paracuta_ was gradually increasing;
now it was excessive, that of the current remaining inferior to it.
Now, of a sudden, the grapnel that had belonged to the _Halbrane_, and
was in the bow of the boat, flew out of its socket as though drawn
by an irresistible power, and the rope that held it was strained to
breaking point. It seemed to tow us, as it grazed the surface of the
water towards the shore.
"What's the matter?" cried William Guy. "Cut away, boatswain, cut
away!" shouted West, "or we shall be dragged against the rocks."
Hurliguerly hurried to the bow of the _Paracuta_ to cut away the rope.
Of a sudden the knife he held was snatched out of his hand, the rope
broke, and the grapnel, like a projectile, shot off in the direction
of the sphinx.
At the same moment, all the articles on board the boat that were
made of iron or steel--cooking utensils, arms, Endicott's stove,
our knives, which were torn from our pockets--took flight after a
similar fashion in the same direction, while the boat, quickening
its course, brought up against the beach.
What was happening? In order to explain these inexplicable things,
were we not obliged to acknowledge that we had come into the region
of those wonders which I attributed to the hallucinations of Arthur
Pym?
No! These were physical facts which we had just witnessed, and not
imaginary phenomena!
We had, however, no time for reflection, and immediately upon our
landing, our attention was turned in another direction by the sight
of a boat lying wrecked upon the sand.
"The _Halbrane's_ boat!" cried Hurliguerly. It was indeed the
boat which Hearne had stolen, and it was simply smashed to pieces;
in a word, only the formless wreckage of a craft which has been
flung against rocks by the sea, remained.
We observed immediately that all the ironwork of the boat had
disappeared, down to the hinges of the rudder. Not one trace of the
metal existed.
What could be the meaning of this?
A loud call from West brought us to a little strip of beach on the
right of our stranded boat.
Three corpses lay upon the stony soil, that of Hearne, that of
Martin Holt, and that of one of the Falklands men.
Of the thirteen who had gone with the sealing-master, there remained
only these three, who had evidently been dead some days.
What had become of the ten missing men? Had their bodies been
carried out to sea?
We searched all along the coast, into the creeks, and between the
outlying rocks, but in vain. Nothing was to be found, no traces of a
camp, not even the vestiges of a landing.
"Their boat," said William Guy, "must have been struck by a
drifting iceberg. The rest of Hearne's companions have been
drowned, and only these three bodies have come ashore, lifeless."
"But," asked the boatswain, "how is the state the boat is in
to be explained?"
"And especially," added West, "the disappearance of all the
iron?"
"Indeed," said I, "it looks as though every bit had been
violently torn off."
Leaving the _Paracuta_ in the charge of two men, we again took our way
to the interior, in order to extend our search over a wider expanse.
As we were approaching the huge mound the mist cleared away, and the
form stood out with greater distinctness. It was, as I have said,
almost that of a sphinx, a dusky-hued sphinx, as though the matter
which composed it had been oxidized by the inclemency of the polar
climate.
And then a possibility flashed into my mind, an hypothesis which
explained these astonishing phenomena.
"Ah!" I exclaimed, "a loadstone! that is it! A magnet with
prodigious power of attraction!"
I was understood, and in an instant the final catastrophe, to which
Hearne and his companions were victims, was explained with terrible
clearness.
The Antarctic Sphinx was simply a colossal magnet. Under the
influence of that magnet the iron bands of the _Halbrane's_ boat had
been torn out and projected as though by the action of a catapult.
This was the occult force that had irresistibly attracted everything
made of iron on the _Paracuta_. And the boat itself would have shared
the fate of the _Halbrane's_ boat had a single bit of that metal
been employed in its construction. Was it, then, the proximity of
the magnetic pole that produced such effects?
[Illustration: An antarctic mystery.]
At first we entertained this idea, but on reflection we rejected it.
At the place where the magnetic meridians cross, the only phenomenon
produced is the vertical position of the magnetic needle in two
similar points of the terrestrial globe. This phenomenon, already
proved by observations made on the spot, must be identical in the
Antarctic regions.
Thus, then, there did exist a magnet of prodigious intensity in the
zone of attraction which we had entered. Under our eyes one of those
surprising effects which had hitherto been classed among fables was
actually produced.
The following appeared to me to be the true explanation.
The Trade-winds bring a constant succession of clouds or mists in
which immense quantities of electricity not completely exhausted by
storms, are stored. Hence there exists a formidable accumulation of
electric fluid at the poles, and it flows towards the land in a
permanent stream.
From this cause come the northern and southern auroras, whose
luminous splendours shine above the horizon, especially during the
long polar night, and are visible even in the temperate zones when
they attain their maximum of culmination.
These continuous currents at the poles, which bewilder our
compasses, must possess an extraordinary influence. And it would
suffice that a block of iron should be subjected to their action for
it to be changed into a magnet of power proportioned to the
intensity of the current, to the number of turns of the electric
helix, and to the square root of the diameter of the block of
magnetized iron. Thus, then, the bulk of the sphinx which upreared
its mystic form upon this outer edge of the southern lands might be
calculated by thousands of cubic yards.
Now, in order that the current should circulate around it and make a
magnet of it by induction, what was required? Nothing but a metallic
lode, whose innumerable windings through the bowels of the soil
should be connected subterraneously at the base of the block.
It seemed to me also that the place of this block ought to be in the
magnetic axis, as a sort of gigantic calamite, from whence the
imponderable fluid whose currents made an inexhaustible accumulator
set up at the confines of the world should issue. Our compass could
not have enabled us to determine whether the marvel before our eyes
really was at the magnetic pole of the southern regions. All I can
say is, that its needle staggered about, helpless and useless. And
in fact the exact location of the Antarctic Sphinx mattered little
in respect of the constitution of that artificial loadstone, and the
manner in which the clouds and metallic lode supplied its attractive
power.
In this very plausible fashion I was led to explain the phenomenon
by instinct. It could not be doubted that we were in the vicinity of
a magnet which produced these terrible but strictly natural effects
by its attraction.
I communicated my idea to my companions, and they regarded this
explanation as conclusive, in presence of the physical facts of
which we were the actual witnesses.
"We shall incur no risk by going to the foot of the mound, I
suppose," said Captain Len Guy.
"None," I replied.
"There--yes--there!"
I could not describe the impression those three words made upon us.
Edgar Poe would have said that they were three cries from the depths
of the under world.
It was Dirk Peters who had spoken, and his body was stretched out in
the direction of the sphinx, as though it had been turned to iron
and was attracted by the magnet.
Then he sped swiftly towards the sphinx-like mound, and his
companions followed him over rough ground strewn with volcanic
remains of all sorts.
The monster grew larger as we neared it, but lost none of its
mythological shape. Alone on that vast plain it produced a sense of
awe. And--but this could only have been a delusion--we seemed to
be drawn towards it by the force of its magnetic attraction.
On arriving at the base of the mound, we found there the various
articles on which the magnet had exerted its power; arms, utensils,
the grapnel of the _Paracuta_, all adhering to the sides of the
monster. There also were the iron relics of the _Halbrane's_ boat,
all her utensils, arms, and fittings, even to the nails and the iron
portions of the rudder.
There was no possibility of regaining possession of any of these
things. Even had they not adhered to the loadstone rock at too great
a height to be reached, they adhered to it too closely to be
detached. Hurliguerly was infuriated by the impossibility of
recovering his knife, which he recognized at fifty feet above his
head, and cried as he shook his clenched fist at the imperturbable
monster,--
"Thief of a sphinx!"
Of course the things which had belonged to the _Halbrane's_ boat
and the _Paracuta's_ were the only articles that adorned the mighty
sides of the lonely mystic form. Never had any ship reached such a
latitude of the Antarctic Sea. Hearne and his accomplices, Captain
Len Guy and his companions, were the first who had trodden this
point of the southern continent. And any vessel that might have
approached this colossal magnet must have incurred certain
destruction. Our schooner must have perished, even as its boat had
been dashed into a shapeless wreck.
West now reminded us that it was imprudent to prolong our stay upon
this Land of the Sphinx--a name to be retained. Time pressed, and a
few days' delay would have entailed our wintering at the foot of
the ice-barrier.
The order to return to the beach had just been given, when the voice
of the half-breed was again heard, as he cried out:
"There! There! There!"
We followed the sounds to the back of the monster's right paw, and
we found Dirk Peters on his knees, with his hands stretched out
before an almost naked corpse, which had been preserved intact by
the cold of these regions, and was as rigid as iron. The head was
bent, a white beard hung down to the waist, the nails of the feet
and hands were like claws.
How had this corpse been fixed to the side of the mound at six feet
above the ground?
Across the body, held in place by its cross-belt, we saw the twisted
barrel of a musket, half-eaten by rust.
"Pym--my poor Pym!" groaned Dirk Peters.
He tried to rise, that he might approach and kiss the ossified
corpse. But his knees bent under him, a strangled sob seemed to rend
his throat, with a terrible spasm his faithful heart broke, and the
half-breed fell back--dead!
The story was easy to read. After their separation, the boat had
carried Arthur Pym through these Antarctic regions! Like us, once he
had passed beyond the south pole, he came into the zone of the
monster! And there, while his boat was swept along on the northern
current, he was seized by the magnetic fluid before he could get rid
of the gun which was slung over his shoulder, and hurled against the
fatal loadstone Sphinx of the Ice-realm.
Now the faithful half-breed rests under the clay of the Land of the
Antarctic Mystery, by the side of his "poor Pym," that hero
whose strange adventures found a chronicler no less strange in the
great American poet!