horizon was almost continual, and when not actively engaged in the
combats, I was supposed to adjust them. They occurred most frequently
between Edith Gale and her father, both of whom delighted in our
lookout, and remained with me there a greater part of the time, in spite
of bitter cold, and even the wet freezing discomfort that often swept in
about us.
A paragraph of Borchgrevink’s came back to me now—the fulness of which I
had not before realized. “Only from the crow’s nest,” he says, “can one
fully appreciate the supernatural charm of Antarctic scenery. Up there
you seem lifted above the pettiness and troubles of everyday life. Your
horizon is wide, and from your high position you rule the little world
below you. Onward, onward stretch the ice-fields, the narrow channels
about the ship are opened and closed again by the current and wind, and
as you strain your sight to the utmost to find the best places for the
vessel to penetrate, your eyes wander from the ship’s bow out toward the
horizon, where floes and channels seem to form one dense vast ice-field.
Ice and snow cover spars and ropes, and everywhere are perfect peace and
silence.”
I have quoted this because we felt it all, and he has given it to us so
much better than I could say it. No ordinary attempt of the elements
could dismay us, or chill the exalted joy of our high, swinging perch.
From our fighting-top we looked away to the south, across leagues of
lifting, shifting, grinding ice—split here and there by long, black
waterways—studded by iridescent island bergs—garish with every splendor
of the spectrum, and blending at last into that overwhelming fathomless
hue of the South, Antarctic Violet.
New wonders were constantly appearing before and below us. From our
lofty vantage we discussed them fully, and photographed them when they
came within range. With the luminous icy mist about us, there was still
a gratification and a rapture, and when it passed and the sun returned,
a new blazing enchantment lay all below us, even to the northward,
where, beyond the dazzle of drifting ice-pans, rolled the black,
uplifting sea.
We observed and studied the haze or “blink” in the sky that always
indicates the presence of ice, and the black, or “water” sky that tells
of an open way—keeping well in among the floes, that we might not miss
any lead or northward drift that would reveal our current from the
South.
I did not expect it for a long distance yet, but it was our plan to
leave no step of the way unexamined, and certainly there was plenty
beside to repay us. Edith Gale seemed fairly lost in the color glories
of this supernatural, elemental world. Chauncey Gale declared it was
like the Chicago Fair, where one could have spent a lifetime and still
not have seen it all. He made his initial attempt at naming birds one
morning when a penguin, the first we had seen, came by on a small pan of
ice. The bird regarded us solemnly, and in return we laughed at him.
Edith Gale was overjoyed at his arrival.
“Now, Daddy, what’s that? You were going to name things, you know.”
“That,” replied Gale gravely, “is a ‘Billy Watson.’ He looks exactly
like a fellow I used to know by that name, when he had his dress suit
on.”
We didn’t consider it much of a name, but it had a sticking quality, and
all penguins became “Billy Watsons” to us thereafter. There were “Big
Billy Watsons” and “Little Billy Watsons.” Also, some that had feathers
in their hats, and these we called “Dandy Billy Watsons.” When we came
to some sea-leopards and crab-eating seals he tried his hand again as a
naturalist.
[Illustration:
TWO IMPRESSIONS OF BILLY WATSON. FIRST, BY CHAUNCEY GALE. SECOND,
BY NICHOLAS CHASE.
]
“Those,” he said, “are ‘Moon-faced Mollies.’”
But this was regarded as a failure. Anyhow, it was my turn. The Captain
had referred to them indiscriminately as seals, whereupon I produced
their true names and my authority for conferring them, thus adding
another instalment to Mr. Biffer’s respect for my scientific
attainments, which, though slight enough, were sufficient to impress him
considerably.
During these days Ferratoni had almost nothing to say. He walked the
deck for hours as we pushed through the drifting ice, listening to its
crushing under the iron sheathing below and looking always to the south,
as if something lay there from which, across that wireless, frozen
waste, to him alone came tidings. Now and then he ascended to our
fighting-top to peer still farther into those polar depths. We all felt
very close to creation’s secrets here in this primeval world, but we
realized that Ferratoni was nearer to the invisible than the others.
“I feel sometimes that he can read our very souls and all the mystery of
the air,” Edith Gale said to me, after one of these visits. “When he
looks at me I know that I may as well have put my thoughts into words.
He believes, too, you know, that we shall be able to converse mentally,
by and by, and at any distance. It would be simply the chording of the
thought vibration, he says, and that there is really no need of
words—that they are but a poor medium at best, and, as somebody has
said, invented more to conceal thought than to convey it.”
“We shall have wordless telepathy, then, instead of wireless
telegraphy,” I assented, “and I believe Ferratoni is nearer right than
most people would admit. Why, when we are up here alone together,
sometimes, it seems to me that we——” I hesitated, and she interrupted me
rather hastily.
“Yes, when we are looking out at all this, we are so often silent
because there are no words to convey it; but I know what you are
thinking better than if you tried to tell it.”
I do not think this was quite what I had started to say, but I was
grateful for the interruption. I should doubtless have got into deep
water and difficulties.
Each day the sun rose earlier, shone warmer, and set later. What we
referred to as night no longer bore even the semblance of a night, and
its darkest hour was but a brief period of lambent twilight. The weather
continued unusually good for the latitude, and Thanksgiving Day, on the
edge of the Antarctic Zone, was a complete golden cycle. After a
bounteous dinner planned by Mr. Sturritt, and joined in by all the
officers of the Billowcrest, we ascended by turns to the fighting-top to
look for the first time on the midnight sun. Captain Biffer came back to
the deck rather solemnly.
“It’s more than likely we won’t see it again, right away,” he announced.
“If I’m not mistaken, there’s a blow coming off there to the northeast.”
The Captain was _not_ mistaken, this time. Within an hour after midnight
we were pitching in the midst of real darkness, fearsome and
impenetrable. Icy waves were breaking over the decks of the Billowcrest,
and the crash of ice under her hull was terrifying in its deafening
fury.
There was no sail to take in, for we were running under steam only, now,
but the sailors had enough to do at first to keep everything movable
from washing overboard, and then, a little later, themselves. At each
end of the vessel the officers were roaring out commands, and the men
striving to obey.
There was no thought of sleep, of course, and everybody was on deck or
in the cabins. Zar was praying swiftly and inclusively so as to have
everybody in readiness at a moment’s notice, and nobody discouraged this
undertaking. From stray bits that came to me now and then above the
uproar I gathered that she believed our Thanksgiving services, as well
as the expedition generally, had been of a character to provoke Divine
wrath.
“Oh, Lawd,” she howled, “what can dese po’ sinful people expect, a-goin’
a hop-scotchin’ aroun’ on Thanksgivin’ Day, an’ a-huntin’ foh a fool
pole in a lan’ wheah dey ain’ nuffin but ice, an’ wheah de sun shine at
midnight? What can dey spect, Lawd? What can dey spect?”
As a matter of fact we were expecting almost anything at that moment,
and we were not surprised, or more frightened than we had been, when
Captain Biffer came in and roared at us that we were being driven into
the pack!
“Let her go in!” yelled Gale.
“Be smashed, if we do. Go to hell in five minutes!”
“Don’t care! hell can’t be worse than this!”
In the electric blaze of the cabin I looked more closely at Gale. There
was a green pallor over his features that was not due to fright. Even in
that awful hour there came upon me a proper and malicious joy. He was
seasick! I did not blame him. We were rolling fearfully and I felt some
discomfort, myself. But the spirit of my ancestors had waxed strong now,
and prevailed. The others, too, were getting pale, all except Zar, who
turned a peculiar blue, and discontinued her prayer service. The brawny
stewardess and myself assisted both her and her mistress to their
staterooms, where I spoke a reassuring word to Edith Gale, and hastened
back to the others. But Gale and Ferratoni had both disappeared, and I
saw them no more during that fearful night.
Plunging and battering we jammed our way into that mass of thundering
ice. Our search-lights, of which we had two, were kept going constantly,
but even so, we were likely at any moment to collide with a berg in that
surging blackness. The sight from the deck—the shouting sea, with the
ice tossing and flashing as it was borne into the angle of our electric
rays—was as the view of a riotous inferno that was making ready to crush
us into its sombre depths.
But by morning we had penetrated the pack to a point where the violence
beneath produced on the surface only a heaving, groaning protest at our
presence. With the return of light, I went out to view our condition,
and when I realized that our invincible Billowcrest had battled unhurt
through it all, that noble vessel—whatever may have been her faults, and
in spite of all disparagement—took a place in my affections that was
only outranked by those of her builder and her mistress. The wind
slackened in the afternoon, and with the calm there came clear, intense
cold. By morning the great ice-floes about us were cemented together. We
were frozen solidly in the pack.
XIV.
AN EXCURSION AND AN EXPERIMENT.
“Well, here we are,” announced Captain Biffer, as we grouped together on
the deck to survey the scene. “And here we’re likely to stay for one
while, I’m thinking. This is your warm world—how do you like it?”
“Better than a cold sea,” I said, “when there’s a northeast gale
blowing.”
“How long do we lay up here, Chase?” asked Chauncey Gale. “You’re
running this excursion.”
I was secretly uneasy, but I made light of the situation.
“Oh, this is the usual thing. We’ll be here a day or two, perhaps, then
the ice will separate again, or a lead form that will let us back to
open water. We could hardly be shut in long at this season.”
“I’d invent something to beat this game if I was going to play it
regular,” said Gale, then added, “Great place this to lay out an
addition. ‘Frozenhurst,’ how’s that for a name?”
“Can we go out on the ice?” asked Edith Gale.
“Of course, if we are careful, and do not go far from the ship,” I said.
“We can try our new snow-shoes.”
“I shall make the first Antarctic experiment in wireless communication,”
observed Ferratoni.
“Good time to look for the bake-apple,” suggested Mr. Larkins.
But just here came a sharp protest from Zar.
“Yas, I sh’d say _baked apples_! Well, I reckon we jes’ ’bout as apt to
fin’ baked apples as anything else in dis refrigidous country! Not much,
my Miss Edith ain’ gwine out on dat ol’ humpety, bow-back ice-pon’! No,
sah!”
Zar’s characterization of the sea’s aspect referred to the huge hummocks
and heaved appearance of the ice in places. There were also many bergs,
apparently at no great distance, and in spite of the old woman’s
strenuous objections, Edith Gale and I planned to visit the nearest of
these.
We did so in the afternoon. Numberless penguins, sea-leopards and other
species of Antarctic life had gathered curiously about the Billowcrest
during the day, and some of these waddled and floundered after us when
we set out. We could not make very rapid progress with our new
foot-gear, and for a little distance made an interesting spectacle, with
our procession of followers trailing out behind. “All hands and the
cook” gathered on the deck to enjoy it.
[Illustration:
“From our high vantage we could command a vast circle of sunless,
melancholy cold.”—Page 117.
]
We carried one of Ferratoni’s telephones—a neat, compact little affair,
with handles for convenience, and from nearly a mile distant
communicated with the inventor, who had ascended to the crow’s-nest for
the experiment. It was a successful trial, and we believed it would have
been equally so had the distance been much greater.
Then we pushed in among the silent bergs, and ascending by a circuitous
path to the battlements of a great ice fortress, tried it again.
“Hello,” I called, “can you hear a message from the South Pole?”
The answer that came back was as prompt as it was unexpected.
“There is a message in the air,” said the voice of Ferratoni. “It is
very close—around and about us. Some day—perhaps soon—I shall hear it.”
I repeated this to Edith Gale, wonderingly.
“What do you suppose he means?” I whispered.
“You remember what I told you in the fighting-top,” she said. “I am sure
of it now.”
I did not answer, but together our eyes followed the white way to the
south.
A light snow had fallen during the forenoon, and dull clouds were banked
heavily against the sky. From our high vantage we could command a vast
circle of sunless, melancholy cold. Beyond this there lay another
horizon, and beyond that still another, and yet another. In this deep
solitude the distant black outline of the Billowcrest marked our only
human tie.
A silence and an awe fell upon us—a mysterious fear of this pale land
that was not a land, but a chill spectral semblance, with amazing forces
and surprising shapes. We descended hastily and set out for the ship
without speaking. From among the bergs the creeping gloom gathered and
shut us in. Uncanny sea-leopards and mournful penguins regarded us as we
hurried past.
We were clumsy on our snow-shoes, but we consumed no unnecessary time in
reaching the vessel, and not until we were warmed and cheered by a good
dinner were we altogether restored. But then came weariness, and with
the Billowcrest now moveless and silent, we realized that night more
fully than ever before the perfect blessing of dreamless, Antarctic
sleep.
And now passed some days in which I grew ever more uneasy, but
maintained as far as possible a cheerful outward calm. The cold
lingered, and the way seaward did not open. Huge cracks split the pack
here and there, but they did not reach the Billowcrest. Then came that
terror of all polar expeditions—the ice pressure—the meeting and closing
in of enormous ice-fields moving irresistibly in opposite directions.
We were awakened rather rudely by a sudden harsh grinding below, and
felt the vessel heave, first to one side, then to the other. Then there
was an ominous rumble, which became a deafening roar. I hurried on deck,
to find that a strong pressure was taking place, and that we were
directly in its midst. Our peril was great and imminent. I was turning
hastily toward the cabin, when Captain Biffer ran down the deck yelling:
“Take to the ice! Take to the ice! She’s going down!”
At the same instant Chauncey Gale hurried out of the cabin, followed by
Edith Gale and the others. The sailors were skurrying about helplessly.
“To the ice!” roared the Captain. “To the ice! She’s going down!”
Most of us scrambled for the rail. If I did not do so it was perhaps
because there were others in my way. But Chauncey Gale, his hand on his
daughter’s arm, stood firm.
“Stop!” he shouted. “Going down, _nothing_! She’s going up!”
And this was true. Everybody saw it, now it was pointed out to them.
Thanks to the shape and strength of her hull, the sturdy Billowcrest was
being squeezed and lifted bodily into the air, instead of being crushed
like a peanut, as would have been the case with an ordinary vessel.
For ten minutes or more the heaving and grinding continued. Huge
pressure ridges formed on every side, and the ice world about us was a
living, groaning agony. Then it seemed that there came relief. The pack
split and thundered apart in every direction. The Billowcrest settled
back into place, and before us lay a long way of open water, stretching
northward as far as the eye could reach. Our steam was ready, and in a
very brief time we were on our way back to the sea.
“That was about the tightest squeeze I ever got caught in,” observed
Gale, “and, say, I didn’t build her for a nip like that, but didn’t the
old Billowcrest do noble?”
“Chauncey Gale,” I said, “you’re the best ship builder, and the bravest
man God ever made!”
“How much do you want to borrow?” asked Gale, but he said it without
bitterness.
XV.
AS REPORTED BY MY NOTE-BOOK.
If we were more fearless now, we were also more careful. Our faith in
the Billowcrest was complete, but we profited by experience. At the next
indication of bad weather, we headed northward in time, and rode out the
storm at sea.
I think Captain Biffer had hoped that we would abandon our project after
the ice squeeze, but Christmas Day found us far to the westward, and
still creeping slowly along the edge of the ice-fields. Our days were a
never-ending glory now, for it was midsummer, and of good weather we
were having far more than we had been led to expect. We did not need to
go to the crow’s-nest to see the midnight sun on Christmas Eve, and
Christmas Day we celebrated by crossing the one hundred and fortieth
meridian, and by telling, after dinner, where we had been and what had
happened to us the year before.
The Gales, with the yacht and its present officers, had been in Naples,
where they had met Ferratoni, who was then perfecting his experiments. I
had been in the interior of the “States,” making ready to drift, I knew
not where. Now all were here together, in the luminous, and fantastic
midsummer of the farther South, seeking at my direction a half mythical
highway to what might be a wholly mythical destination. Edith Gale had
referred to me once, in jest, as a new Lochinvar. I said that I would
strive to be that, but there were nights when I woke and remembered what
all those men of science had said, and just how they had said it; and on
those nights I trembled and weakened a little at the thought of the
responsibility of life and expenditure I had assumed, and might have
faltered still more, perhaps, had I not been strong in my determination
to prove those sages of the test-tube and microscope at fault.
Thus far we had found no indication of a warm current, nor, in fact,
anything else suggestive of warmth in the latitudes below the Antarctic
Circle, but, as the books say, there had been plenty to amuse and
instruct. Our days were a good deal alike, but they were never
monotonous. As we approached the point where Borchgrevink had penetrated
the ice-pack, our expectations increased and our painstaking scrutiny of
each step of the way was redoubled. Perhaps the brief daily record of my
notebook will best continue the narrative at this point.
Jan. 1. Still pushing westward, slightly south. The New Year finds us at
latitude 68° 12´, longitude 163° 44´. We are going very slowly now,
barely thirty miles a day. The weather is excellent, and seems very
warm. I spend fifteen hours out of the twenty-four in the fighting-top.
When I am not there we lie to, or drift. There appears to be a slight
westward movement in the ice, and we go with it during the night, or
rather while I am asleep, for, of course, there is no night yet. Plenty
of life here. Several sorts of whales appear in the open water, and
penguins visit the ship daily. Edith Gale declares that some of them are
the same ones that we first saw, and that they have taken a fancy to us.
[Illustration:
FROM MR. CHASE’S NOTE-BOOK.
]
Jan. 2. We cannot be far now from Victoria Land, but still no sign of
the warm current. True, Borchgrevink pushed thirty-eight days through
the pack-ice before he came to this current, but these things vary in
different years, and it is more than likely that we are already nearing
the point where he emerged from the pack. The slight drift we have
noticed continues and appears to bend to the south as we approach the
coast.
Jan. 3. Edith and Chauncey Gale were with me almost constantly to-day in
the crow’s-nest. The sailors to-night claim they can “smell” land. As we
approach it, life becomes much more frequent, though not more cheerful.
It is either white or black, and unmusical. The chant of the seals is
depressing, and the chorus of the penguins a thing to be avoided.
However, they always amuse us, and we appear to furnish entertainment
for them. Also, they are fond of good music, perhaps because they cannot
make it themselves. Edith Gale played the piano last night, and a whole
flock of “Billy Watsons” in dress suits crowded on deck to listen to it.
Probably they thought it a musicale given for their benefit. The
sea-leopards and crab-eaters gathered about the ship, too, and would
have come on board if they had been able. Mr. Sturritt is experimenting
with all of these from a food standpoint, and the sailors are collecting
many skins and feathers.
[Illustration:
AN IMPRESSION BY CHAUNCEY GALE.
]
Jan. 5. Borchgrevink must have found very different conditions, indeed,
from the westward, for we are at latitude 70°, or very near it, and we
have not yet found it necessary to penetrate the ice. This current that
now appears to drift us to the southwest may have something to do with
it, or it may be that this is a warmer summer, hence the different
conditions.
Jan. 6. This current, if it is a current, puzzles us all. It is not
noticeable on the surface, where the ice moves with the wind (I have
even fancied to-day when there was no wind that the floes drifted
northward), but seems to grip us from beneath and push us slowly, very
slowly, but surely, to the southwest. Gale said to-day it was like the
illness, “grip.” We were sure we had it, but we didn’t know just where.
Jan. 8. Whatever this current is, it is carrying us in the right
direction. It has brought us safely through the waters explored by Sir
James Ross fifty years ago, and where pack-ice delayed Borchgrevink
thirty-eight days. The Captain thinks it a slight undercurrent that
curves in around Possession Island, which we shall see to-morrow, if all
goes well. We are all eager for the first sight of Antarctic land. Again
to-day there was no wind, and both Edith Gale and I held that the
surface ice was drifting to the north, but the others thought it only
_seemed_ so because of our movement to the southward. We did not change
our opinion, however. It is curious, but we almost invariably agree. It
is as if we were two parts of one mind. How beautiful she was to-day in
her new seal hood, with the funny little point at the top. I....
[Illustration:
“PROCESSION ISLAND” BY CHAUNCEY GALE.
]
Jan. 9. We have seen the coast to-day, but did not think it wise to
attempt a landing. From the deck we could view with our glasses
Possession Island, with its millions of penguin inhabitants. Their
lookouts screamed and yelled at us to keep off, and their bleak shore is
well defended by jagged rocks and long glacier points that push out into
the water. We observed the perfect system of order and highways
maintained by these solemn creatures as they moved procession-like to
and from the shore—the fat ones on one side all proceeding to their
nests in the cliffs, and the thin ones coming to the sea for food. They
did not quarrel, or get in each other’s way. It seemed that we could
never get through laughing at them. Gale says the place should be named
Procession Island, and that the first addition he lays out down here
he’s going to get “Billy Watsons” to build the streets for him. There
are many icebergs about, nearly all with the blue lines and the tabular
top. They are from the great barrier to the south, whence they have
doubtless been blown by the gales of last winter, and now seem to be
drifting homeward to be there in time for next.