it than ever. The surface ice is certainly drifting slowly northward,
for we can now gauge its movement by the shore, while we and the bergs
are drifting to the south. The Captain says that it is not uncommon for
currents to flow in opposite directions, one above the other, for a
short distance, and that they are called “witch tides,” for the reason
that ships are sometimes unable to move in them, even with a fair wind,
but that he has never seen anything just like this. Can it be that this
upper drift from the south is our warm current, and that we have been in
it for days without knowing it? Certainly it is but a feeble current as
yet, and there is no warmth in it that we can discover. There is no pack
here, and we shall keep on going. Borchgrevink found open water as low
as 74°.
Jan. 13. It _is_ our warm current from the south! There is no doubt of
this to-day, and there is more to be told! When I went on deck this
morning, Officer Larkins, who was on watch, reported that the ice seemed
to run north a bit stronger, and that our drift southward was
proportionately less rapid. I immediately had a pail of water drawn up,
and tested it. It was 32°. Yesterday it had tested 30°! There was
something about the look of the water that made me taste it. Larkins
said he thought it had thrown me into a fit, and I suppose I did make
some sort of a demonstration, for it was fresh! At least it was only
brackish, from the melting in it of the salt-water ice. I don’t remember
just what I did at first, but I know that when I turned around and saw
Edith Gale coming out of the cabin, I found it not easy to keep from
behaving in a manner which I feel quite certain she would have
disapproved. As it was, I rushed up to her with the glass. “Taste it!” I
urged. “Taste it! It’s fresh water from a warm river flowing straight
from the South Pole!” She tasted and rejoiced with me. That it came from
inland warmth we could not doubt. And now the mystery of these currents
becomes clearer. Above the heavily-moving ocean current below us there
is the lighter, shallower current of fresh warm water, carried by its
force in the opposite direction, and finally spreading and losing itself
in the sea. It was doubtless this strange combination that helped to
open our way through the pack, and that we believe now will show us the
way to our destination. In celebration of the event we have just had a
great feasting, at which I was the guest of honor. I cannot sleep, so I
must go back to the deck to watch and rejoice.
Later—Edith Gale was there, and we walked up and down for an hour,
constructing wild theories. We still drift southward against our new
warm river. The drift of the great salt current a few feet below the
surface is strong, and we let it carry us—whither?
Jan. 15. We are in the midst of a fierce, northeasterly storm that has
brought a world of grinding pack-ice about us. All trace of our warm
current is lost, of course, and we are fighting now with steam and sail
to keep from being driven upon the ragged shores of Victoria Land. We
cannot see the coast, for a thick mist has shut us in, but we know by
the screaming flocks of birds whirling about us that it is not far
distant. At any moment we may strike a hidden reef or rock, or be
crushed by a toppling berg. No one slept last night, and one of the
officers has been in the crow’s-nest constantly. Two days ago all seemed
joy. To-night I am heartsick, and only for the abiding courage and faith
of Chauncey and Edith Gale would be despairing. Gale is a king among
men, and Edith——
Jan. 20. Five days in the clutch of this fearful storm. I seem to have
lived as many years since we found the warm current. If I have slept I
do not know it. I am thin and haggard with watching and anxiety. But now
the wind has gone down, and there is hope, though we are still beset
with this pounding, maddening ice, and the Captain has taken no
observation since the 14th. I shall try to sleep.
Jan. 21. The sun came out this morning, and Biffer got our position.
There has been little change in the past week. We have just about held
our own in keeping off shore. Now we are hemmed in by ice and our
currents are lost beneath it. We shall try to push southward, however,
in the hope of reaching clear water. The wind is behind us, but the
drift ice ahead packs fearfully, perhaps because of the opposite flowing
current.
Jan. 26. This morning I was called before I was awake, and hurried on
deck to find Captain Biffer looking through a glass at a grim outline
ahead.
“There’s your ice-wall,” he said, as I approached.
“What’s our latitude?” I asked.
“72° 33´.”
“Then it can’t be the wall,” I said. “It lies somewhere below 74°.”
The Captain looked again through his glass. Then we ascended to the
crow’s-nest for a better view.
“Well,” he declared, at last, “if that ain’t the ice-wall, it’s the
father of all the icebergs we’ve seen yet.”
And an iceberg it proved to be. We pushed and worked our way toward it
all the forenoon, and about two o’clock came near enough to make out an
area of open water adjacent to it, by which we knew it was being carried
southward against the surface current thus leaving a clear space behind.
Into this we pushed a little later, and steaming in close, found that in
the back of our ice giant there was a hollow of considerable size. It
was, in fact, a sort of harbor for us, though not without its drawbacks.
For to the right and left and behind lay pack-ice, so solid that escape
in any direction seemed impossible, and ready to close in upon us should
the great berg halt or hesitate in its progress poleward.
“We are going now, whether we want to or not,” said Chauncey Gale.
“Yes,” laughed Captain Biffer, “we’ve got a pacemaker.”
And this is so. Borne on by the vast salt current far beneath, our giant
berg, regardless of drift ice and feeble fresh-water resistance, is
pushing slowly steadily to the southward, whence it came. I believe now
that this salt undercurrent describes a huge circle in the Antarctic
Ocean; that it bends to the eastward when it reaches the great southern
barrier, thence northward, detaching and carrying with it into the upper
seas these giant sections of the wall, drifting them across westward and
bringing them back southward, at last, as this one is being brought, to
the point of its titanic birth. The bergs we met over by the Shetlands
were drifting northward. Those along the way came as we came. Some of
them looked worn and travel-stained, as if they had been swinging around
the circle for a long time; bruised and battered for perhaps centuries.
The one we are following must be on its first trip, for it is a giant of
giants, going home mighty and magnificent after its first trip abroad.
And we are going with it. We shall not attempt to force our way out, and
why should we? We set out for the South. We believe now—all of us, I
think—that there is a land there from whence can flow a warm river. We
are going to find it!
XVI.
FOLLOWING THE PACEMAKER.
For a full month we drifted slowly with our monster berg. So slowly that
at times, when the wind shifted, we were almost at a standstill, and the
drift-ice was ready to shut us in. But within our big giant’s lap we
were well protected, and lying idly were borne steadily to the south. We
grew presently to love our big protector, and had the Captain’s name of
Pacemaker not clung to him we should have christened him something very
grand, indeed. For as a pacemaker he was not a success. An average of
twenty miles a day was about the best we could do, and at times we did
even worse. Still, we gave him great credit, for without him we might,
as Gale said, “have gone to the wall” before we were ready to.
As the days passed I found that I must change my calculations somewhat
concerning the position of the barrier. I had located it not lower than
75°, but by the 25th we were below 76°, and no barrier as yet. Could it
be that this undercurrent flowed _through_ the Antarctic Continent? But
this, I decided, would be impossible.
We were not idle during this period of drifting, and the month as a
whole was one of enjoyment. When we no longer had the sun at midnight,
we began preparing for winter. From the skins obtained by the sailors we
rigged ourselves out in new suits, according to the best polar
authorities. It was not seriously cold as yet, but with the advent of
the Antarctic night who could say what cold might come? Gale was fondly
referred to as Jumbo when he got properly put together. One day,
however, he got down on his back and could not get up again. Then he was
christened the “Turtle.”
“I’ve heard of people being as big as a barrel,” he said, “but in this
outfit I’m as big as a whole cooper-shop.”
We were frequently tempted to try scaling our big Pacemaker to make
observations ahead. Edith Gale would have gone promptly had her father
consented. Ferratoni, too, was eager to make some further experiments,
testing his apparatus with the berg as an elevation. With our little
steam launch we believed we might be able to find a place where the
ascent would not be difficult, and as days passed and brought still
deeper latitudes, the temptation grew even stronger.
We yielded to it, at last, on the second of March, a momentous day in
our calendar. Immediately after breakfast that morning we discovered
that our pacemaker was moving considerably faster than at any previous
time, and that its great right wing was swinging ahead of the left. I
argued at once that we had reached a bend in the current, where the
outer edge would have the greater speed. It seemed to me that we must be
near the barrier by these indications, and that it was now more
important than ever that we should know how the land, or rather the
water, lay ahead, that we might decide whether to continue with the
berg, or to strike out now on our own account and endeavor to find a way
around to the south. Gale was for sending up the balloon, but this would
have required two days’ preparation, and seemed unnecessary. I was
greatly in favor of trying to scale the berg ahead, which plan was
finally adopted.
I had thought of going with two sailors only, one to remain with the
launch, and one to assist me in the ascent, but when the launch was
ready Edith Gale suddenly appeared, panoplied for the undertaking, and
finally coaxed and intimidated her father into yielding. It was against
his judgment and mine, but she had been confined to the ship so long,
and our old friend ahead had been so steady and faithful, that it seemed
there could be no more danger than in scaling a mountain, provided we
found an accessible and easy path. This we did without much difficulty,
and just outside of the little hollow where the Billowcrest lay. Here
the berg appeared to have been washed or gullied out by snow melting
from above, which had formed a sort of natural snow-carpeted stairway,
similar to that made by a mountain brook in winter. There was also a
good landing below, and here we left the sailors with the launch, which
we thought was more likely to need them than we. Then we ran and
stumbled up the snowy stair like two children.
It was not quite so easy and safe as it looked. At one place I slipped
into a narrow crevice and came near breaking my ankle, as well as
Ferratoni’s telephone apparatus, which I carried. After this we went
more carefully. The berg was even higher than it appeared, but we soon
reached the top, which we were glad to find comparatively level and
firmly crusted over. Here we tried the telephone with great success.
Chauncey Gale asked if we could see the South Pole from where we were,
and cautioned “Johnnie” to be careful. By going near the brink we could
have looked down on the vessel, but this we would not risk.
We now hastened across to the opposite side of the berg, not more than a
third of a mile distant, for the Pacemaker was a long, narrow section of
the barrier, and the hollow in which the Billowcrest was lying made it
still narrower at this point. There was a light mist rising from the ice
that obstructed our vision somewhat, and there was a dazzle, too, that
we thought must be the sun shining on the ice-pack ahead. It was not
until we were quite near the edge that we realized our mistake.
Then, suddenly we stopped dead still. Out of the mist, the dazzle had
crystallized into definite form. It was ice, truly, but not the
far-lying level of the pack. Steadily, surely, inevitably, we were being
borne forward to a towering, gleaming wall! It loomed far above us, and
extended to the east and west as far as our eyes could follow. No need
to guess what it was—we knew! We were face to face with the great
barrier—the huge, impregnable fortress of the Antarctic world.
For a moment we stood stupefied, spellbound. Then came a realization of
doom. The Pacemaker would strike presently, with its irresistible,
crushing momentum. The right wing seemed to us even now touching.
Rending destruction, perhaps annihilation, must follow.
There was no necessity of discussion. As usual we were of one mind, and
were on our way back to the ship quicker than anything Ferratoni could
produce. We even forgot we had the telephone and could warn the others.
What we desired most was to get off from that berg before the
earthquake.
“This is the way,” panted Edith Gale, presently.
“No, this!” I panted back, bending a little to the east.
In our haste and excitement we had grown a bit confused.
“Try both,” I breathed.
But at that instant there came a vast trembling under our feet, and the
next I was lying upon the snow, while the air about me was being rent by
a sound so awful as to batter into my brain the thought that we had
struck the Antarctic Continent and split it in two! I was nearly right,
only that, when a second later I opened my eyes, I saw that the split
was the Pacemaker’s, and that I was lying within six inches of its edge.
Just across, perhaps ten yards away, lay Edith Gale. More than two
hundred feet below was the sea, and at that instant I saw the
Billowcrest being lifted up and up by the mightiest, slowest wave that
ever sea was heir to. It seemed to me that she would never stop, and I
remember thinking dimly that if she kept on coming I could get aboard.
Then at last she fell back and the sea swallowed her. Again I could
count time, and I was sure she was on her way to the bottom when she
reappeared, swinging and rolling, but apparently undamaged. I saw black
figures on her begin to move; then I looked across once more to Edith
Gale, who was slowly drifting farther from me. She was sitting upright,
half dazed as it seemed. I called across to her. She assured me that she
was not in the least injured—only a bit shaken up and confused. Then I
saw she had been correct in the position of the launch.
[Illustration:
SKETCH FROM MR. CHASE’S NOTE-BOOK.
]
“Go to the boat,” I said. “If they are not lost, they can take you to
the ship, and then try to get me. I can see the ship from here. It seems
safe.”
“Keep away from that edge!” she called back. “And why don’t you use the
telephone?”
I had forgotten it entirely. Even as she spoke it began ringing, and
holding it to my ear I distinguished the eager “hello” of Chauncey Gale.
“Hello!” I called, “all right up here! How’s the ship?”
“Wet, but safe. How’s Johnnie?”
“Safe. We were separated when the shake-up came and the berg broke
between us. She’s on the side where the launch is.”
Gale would always be Gale.
“No danger of your fighting then about whose fault it was.”
I heard him now give an order to put off two boats for us, at once, in
case the launch had been destroyed. I called this across to Edith Gale,
who immediately set out for the landing place, after bidding me not to
be uneasy, and to be careful about taking cold. She added that I was
sure to be taken off, soon, though by what special means she had
acquired this information I have yet to learn. She disappeared down the
snow stairway, and I was alone.
I could still talk to Gale, however, and I told him just what we had
seen before we struck. I said I would go back over there now and take
another look. But this he counselled against, as we were still grinding
away at the wall, and there would be great danger from crumbling
fragments. I realized, now, why the older bergs were battered and so
much smaller. Pounding along that wall for a thousand miles or so is not
calculated to encourage the growth or improve the appearance of even the
best constructed iceberg.
Then Gale told me what had happened on the ship. Officer Larkins and one
sailor had been on deck when the upheaval came. They had seized ropes on
the upward lift, and though very wet and breathless after the plunge,
had come up safely. The water had not been fierce, but very deep.
Larkins had interviewed, and named, a few fish while he was down. The
Billowcrest had fully earned her title.
“But where were _you_?” I called.
“Playing euchre with Biffer, in the cabin. It was my deal. I shuffled as
we went up and dealt as we came down. I had plenty of time to get
through and turn trump while we were under. Then Biff said, ‘I order you
up!’ and up we come. ‘Guess our Pacemaker’s hit the South Pole,’ says
Biff, ‘an’ knocked it over!’ Then I remembered right away about you an’
Johnnie.”
A little later he called to me that “Johnnie” had got back safely. When
the upheaval came, the launch had been swamped but did not sink because
of her air-tight compartments. The men had scrambled to the berg and had
the water about pumped out by the time Miss Gale reached them. I might
expect rescue any time, and I’d better walk about to keep warm.
I could do this and talk, too. Edith Gale took the telephone then, and
told me in detail all that had happened, and encouraged me in my long
waiting. Incidentally I looked about for a way down, but without
success. By and by I heard her speaking to some one, but so low that I
could not distinguish the words. Then to me, and it seemed that there
was a note of anxiety in her voice:
“How wide is the chasm, now?”
I walked over nearer and answered.
“About as it was—perhaps narrower. It seems to be drawing together
again.”
“Oh, I’m _so_ glad!”
“Why, has anything——?”
“Oh, no, don’t be frightened! But the men have returned and can’t find
any place to scale the berg on that side. They are going now with ropes
and ladders to get you across the chasm.”
I tried to reply, but the first effort was unsuccessful. I could never,
even as a boy, walk a beam that was more than ten feet from the ground.
The thought of crossing that chasm on anything to which I was not
securely tied made me colder than any Antarctic climate.
“Oh,” I managed to say at last, “tell them to bring ropes, plenty of
them, and a—a derrick, if they happen to have such a thing.”
Through another cold, wretched hour—warmed and encouraged only by
messages from the ship. At last I heard voices, and then there were men
with ropes and ladders on the other side of the chasm, which by this
time was no more than fifteen feet across. Their ladders they had
expected to splice end to end, but as each was long enough to reach, I
insisted that they be spliced side by side. They threw me a rope, and
one end of this bridge I dragged over and jammed securely into the snow.
Then, untying the rope, I fastened it under my arms and threw them the
other end; after which I lay down, for I could never have walked, and
was hauled ignominiously across.
“Got a pretty cold shake, didn’t you?” said Gale as he welcomed me back
to the ship.
And so it was that we reached the great Antarctic barrier, at last. We
came around to the westward of old Pacemaker, who in two parts was still
grinding along to the eastward. We found open water and a northerly
current, which, on examination, we accepted as our warm surface river,
and this we followed directly to an anchorage in a small ice-bound bay
or bottle, for it seemed more like a tall glass tube with a strip out of
the side than anything I can think of, while its height gave it the
appearance of drawing together at the top. We half hoped to find a way
into the continent when we entered this ice-locked harbor, but the warm
fresh current flowed, as I had rather expected it would from _beneath_
the barrier, and apparently in great volume. The water in the harbor was
only slightly brackish, and its temperature on our arrival about 36°
Fahrenheit. How far it had come through the ice we could only surmise,
or to what extent it would affect our winter climate. It would freeze
solidly, no doubt, during the long winter, but even then we believed it
would be only an added protection against the floes outside, and the
squeeze of the pack. Altogether, we were mightily pleased with our
winter quarters, and warmed and fed, and safe again on the old
Billowcrest with those I loved, I was happier than I can say.
XVII.
INVESTIGATION AND DISCOVERY.
Our days grew shorter rapidly. In the fading light we made haste to
examine our surroundings with care, and to make sure that we could not
find a still better location for the long winter ahead. When the water
outside was clear of ice we cruised in the launch along the barrier to
make what Chauncey Gale called “scientific developments.” We became
convinced, soon, that our warm river formed at its mouth the only
available retreat for the Billowcrest, and further, that this river,
following up the coast of Victoria Land, was without doubt the current
noted by Borchgrevink, who seems not to have thought of tasting as well
as testing its waters. Just outside the harbor this river is met by the
slow-moving, southward flowing salt current, and forced aside. The
ice-wall to the left, or westward, angles somewhat to the north, and the
deflected current naturally follows this coast, diffusing itself
gradually over the opposite-flowing, sluggish ocean current.
Examining our river at the point where it emerged from the ice, we found
that at low tide there was a space of several feet between its normal
surface and the massy barrier above, and in this we recognized a
possible entrance to the inland continent, had there been any assurance
that we should reach the other side, or, at least, a point above
highwater mark before the tide’s return. Chauncey Gale peered into the
blackness, and shook his head.
“I don’t like to go into a hole and pull the hole in after me,” he said,
“and it seems to me that’s about what we’d do in this case.”
We decided therefore not to attempt this, at most not until the return
of summer, and after we had tested the efficiency of our balloon.
The river, we concluded, had been one day open to the sky throughout,
but at some far-off period the ice and snows of winter had formed so
deeply upon it that the summer warmth could not entirely dissolve them.
Each year and century had added thickness and strength to this crystal
bridge, until were it not for the widening harbor at the mouth, above
which the ice appears never to have remained throughout the year, there
would be little to mark the point of entrance.
Concerning the barrier itself, I became convinced that it was not, as
reported by others, from points farther north, a mass formed about, or
abreast of a mountain range; but that where we were at least, it was the
accumulation on a _comparatively flat shore_ of the solidified snows of
centuries. There is, of course, a heavy Antarctic snowfall each year,
and this is partly melted and frozen again during almost every day of
the long polar summer. The stratified lines in the barrier showed us
clearly the formation of the upper layers, while the lower layers,
formed countless ages ago, had settled and congealed into a concrete
crystal mass. We decided that it was the formation of this mass out over
the sea, and the final breaking off by its own weight, that produced the
Antarctic berg, always recognized by its tabular, or flat, top and blue
strata lines, the latter often showing throughout the full height of the
berg’s exposed surface—an elevation of two hundred feet or more.
But these lines above the water reveal merely what have been the topmost
layers of the towering wall from whence the berg came. Below the
water-line the ice extends downward for perhaps eighteen hundred feet,
and this added to the height above gives approximately the elevation of
the great Antarctic Barrier! For full two thousand feet above the
Billowcrest rose this almost perpendicular blue precipice. Our harbor
formed a little more than half a circle, and was something less than
half a mile across. It will be seen, therefore, that our name of Bottle
Bay, conferred by Chauncey Gale on the moment of our arrival, was not
inaptly chosen.