near our camp, and Gale shot it with his revolver. It was a fine shot,
for the bird was not large—barely a good bite apiece. It revived us more
than would seem possible, and encouraged us in the belief that we are
nearing bare ground. We pushed on to the south, though very slowly. We
have made no more than twenty miles in the past three days. Other birds
passed, but neither Gale nor the rest of us could hit them. We were soon
wretchedly hungry again, and desperate.
About noon Gale was taken quite unexpectedly with a religious turn, and
offered a prayer. It seemed fervent enough, but on the whole I did not
think much of it. He said:
“Oh, Lord, we seem to have run the lines of this addition wrong. We’ve
made a poor survey and we can’t find any corner-stones. There’s no use
trying to get back to the ship, and we don’t seem to be able to get
anywhere else. We’re hungry, Lord, too, and we can’t eat any more of
Bill’s tablets. He can’t eat ’em himself. I’ve tried to shoot birds, but
I only hit one, and I think that was an accident. I’ve shot and shot and
used up about all my ammunition. I can’t hit a thing, Lord, and the
other boys shoot worse than I do. It’s your turn now, Lord. Amen.”
It may be that this prayer did some good, for in the afternoon a whole
flock of birds lit near us, and Gale threw his revolver among them,
killing two. We feel sure these birds indicate bare earth not far away.
But we must reach it soon. Gale is, as ever, full of cheer. Ferratoni
does not seem to flag, while I am buoyed up by hope, and still have,
though it comes each day more faintly, the voice of the woman I love, to
give me strength and courage. But poor old Sturritt, who is heart-broken
over the failure of his food lozenge, won’t last long as things are. I
gave him my part of the last birds to-day. I divided them, so he didn’t
know the difference.
XXV.
WHERE THE WAY ENDS.
But now came a great day.
It began with a discovery. My pockets had been full of lozenges which I
could not eat, and I had emptied them out on the snow. It seems,
however, that I had left two in my coat pocket—a white one and a brown
one. I had such a gnawing hunger after we started that when I felt these
there, I put them both in my mouth together, thinking to hold them a
moment and then take them out before they sickened me.
But, strangely enough, they did not do so. As they dissolved I swallowed
them, and when they were gone I felt strengthened. Then I asked Mr.
Sturritt if he had ever tried this particular combination. He shook his
head sadly and said no, but that it was no use. I then told him what I
had done, and he made the experiment. Presently we were all consuming
brown and white lozenges, and satisfying what the advertisements refer
to as a “long-felt want.” Mr. Sturritt was almost mad with delight. He
grew ten years younger in as many minutes, and capered about in the snow
until he caught his foot in one of the runners and fell head-first into
a drift. Then we all laughed, and got hold of the boat and sent it ahead
faster than it had gone since we landed. The brown was the medicated
lozenge, intended for extreme cold and exhaustion. Combined with the
white soup lozenge, it formed an acceptable nourishment, and we had an
ample store of both colors.
The next event of the day came about eleven o’clock. Gale, who was
looking ahead, stopped suddenly.
“Hey! Black snow on the port bow!” he called.
We all looked where he pointed. Then I gave a whoop.
“Not snow!” I cried, “but land!”
We ran forward like boys. No, it was not land, after all, but the next
thing to it—a great black expanse of bare, wind-swept rock! We could not
tell, of course, how high it rose above the normal surface, but we did
not believe it could be many feet. Looking ahead with the glass we saw
many other black patches, stretching away and blending together, as it
seemed, on the horizon. We made all haste forward, and when we stopped
for our noon rest I made a calculation of our position. We were not
quite to the eighty-third parallel, and a little more than two hundred
miles from the Billowcrest. I had calculated that the habitable zone
would begin here, but it appeared that I had been in error. The cold
from the sea reached farther inland than I had supposed. Still, I
reflected, this place might be altogether clear of snow a month later,
and only uninhabitable because of barrenness.
Immediately after our coffee we pushed on again. All at once I made out
what seemed to be the opening, or chasm, among the bare patches to the
right. Leaving the others, I ran over to investigate and came back
shouting and breathless.
“A river! a river!” I called, “and smooth ice. We can sail on it!”
We steered our boat-sled over there as rapidly as possible. It was
difficult getting down to the surface, some forty feet below, but we
managed it at last. Then we stopped for breath and observation.
“I’ll bet this is _our_ river,” said Gale, “and that we haven’t been
more than a mile from it since we started.”
“No doubt of it,” I said, “and we even may have been on top of it part
of the time. Of course it’s filled level full of snow somewhere below
here, and we shouldn’t have known the difference. It is a channel that
cuts through and carries the melting snow to the sea. If it didn’t the
center of the Antarctic Continent would be a big circular pond. There
may be many of these rivers.”
“Well, one is enough for us, just now,” said Gale. Then he promptly
confessed to Edith that we had “abandoned” our balloon bag, owing to
“adverse winds,” but that we didn’t care, for we had reached a river and
“good sailing.” She didn’t appear to notice any discrepancy in this
statement, and we decided that it would be unsafe to attempt to mend it.
The “good sailing,” at least, was true, for the wind continued
favorable, and we were presently going up-stream at a fair rate of
speed. Gale leaned back and lit a cigar.
“This beats pushing,” he said. “Good boat, good crowd, good cigar. What
is joy without a jews-harp!”
By nightfall—it fell much later now—the snowbanks on either side were no
more than ten feet high on a level, and when we stopped for camp we
found the country above almost more black than white—the bare rocks
showing in masses in all directions.
We rejoiced greatly, and fondly hoped to be out of the snow altogether
by the following evening, though I was a bit uneasy about the rock. If
the Antarctic Continent proved to be nothing but barren granite it would
be of as little value as if it were a waste of snow. Still, a circle of
nearly a thousand miles in diameter could hardly be the same throughout.
Our failing telephone, however, was a real sorrow. Though still
distinct, the voices were very faint, now. Unless Ferratoni could do
something, it would fail us altogether, soon. He believed its condition
due mainly to our lower altitude, and the vast obstruction that was now
lying between us and the Billowcrest. But it had been a great comfort to
us all through our hardest hours, and I would be content. The mental
vibrations from the vessel, Ferratoni said, were similarly affected, and
much confused.
Another day of discovery followed. The wind and weather being too good
to waste, by five o’clock we were on our way up the river. The snow
crust thinned out rapidly, until, by ten o’clock, there was no more than
a foot on the banks above, and we were sailing between shores of genuine
stone and clay, the first soil we had seen for a year. Flocks of birds
became plentiful, and at one place we saw some strange, brown animals,
about the size and shape of rabbits, but with very long hind legs and
with a method of locomotion similar to that of a frog. Gale named them
“Skipteroons” because of their lightsome mode of travel, and shot at
them, without success.
The temperature was barely freezing, now, and we were altogether happy.
So much so that we confessed to Edith all the affair of the balloon, and
our subsequent difficulties. She was less surprised than we had
expected. She had suspected, it seems, that all was not so well as we
had pretended, and of course our statements _had_ been a trifle
contradictory at times. But she rejoiced now in the reality of good
fortune that had come to us, the genuineness of which could not be
mistaken, even through our fast failing telephone.
Several times we halted and climbed up on the shore to look at the
country for possible inhabitants, but there was as yet no human sign,
though much bird life, and some more of the funny half-rabbit creatures,
one of which Gale succeeded in killing at last, a welcome addition to
our bill-of-fare. All at once, about four o’clock, Ferratoni held out
his hand. “Listen!” he said.
We listened very hard, and thought we heard a roaring sound ahead, but
as the wind was blowing in that direction, we could not be sure. It grew
stronger, however, as we ascended, and was steady and continuous. We
decided that it was a fall, and not far away. Hardly had we made this
conclusion when there was a cracking sound beneath us, followed by a
crash of ice and a splash of water, and our boat-sleigh was no longer a
sleigh at all, but a genuine boat, battling with a strong current and
broken ice. Our momentum had sent us ahead a few feet, but our sail was
too small to stem the current and we were drifting back to the jagged
ice. This time it was Ferratoni who saved the situation. He had foreseen
just such an emergency and had at hand the little propeller wheel for
water. With a quick movement, now, he plunged it beneath the surface at
the stern, and deftly slipping and locking it into place, pressed the
button of the dynamo. We were off, like a trolley car. The thin ice
ahead parted before our sharp bow, and in a few moments we were in open
water, heading up-stream under both electricity and sail.
“Like gettin’ money from home,” said Gale. “Look here, Nick, where would
your boat scheme have been, anyway, without Tony and me to help you
out?”
Certainly the propeller was a success, and I approved it heartily.
We rounded a bend a little later, and the fall came in sight. It was
perhaps a mile away and was a long rapid, rather than a fall. There was
no thought of ascending it with the boat. Already the current was very
swift, and the shores narrowing together. We headed in for the bank.
Landing proved a hard job, for the bank here was rather high, and very
steep. We had to unload most of our things and carry them up in our
arms. By the time we got everything up we were too tired to attempt to
climb the long hill which we now saw rose ahead of us. It was this rise
that formed the rapid, and against it the snow had blown and drifted,
though this was all the better for us, as it made the ascent easier for
the boat, which would have been hard to push up over rough, bare rocks.
To-morrow morning we would know what lay beyond that hill. To-night we
were resting, and getting strength from the “skipteroon” for a long tug.
Zar had promised to sing “Brown Cows” to me, and perhaps for the last
time, for Edith Gale’s voice when I had called to her just now was
barely audible, even though she must have spoken very loudly. I was
obliged to shout to make her hear, which made any expression of
tenderness between us somewhat difficult. Zar’s voice, however, would
probably carry.
XXVI.
THE WELCOME TO THE UNKNOWN.
And now came the day of days! Early in the morning we reloaded our boat,
and set out eagerly. The wind helped us somewhat in our upward pull but
it was a hard tug. Often we propped our load, and halted for breath. The
hill seemed to grow longer as we ascended.
“Nick,” said Gale, “I believe this is the South Pole, and that we’re
climbing it.”
“It isn’t quite that,” I said, “but it may be the end of the bare rocks
and snow. I shouldn’t wonder if all this bare rock has had the dirt
washed off by the million years or so of melting drifts. We’ve already
seen dirt along the river bank, and there should be more of it where the
snow ends. If this is the place, it explains this rise.”
We tugged on and up. When at last we were within a stone’s throw of the
summit, our eagerness made us silent. We halted once more before the
final effort.
“Nick,” panted Gale, “it’s the Promised Land. You’re entitled to the
first look. Go on ahead, and come back and tell us.”
“No,” I said, “we’ll leave the boat here, and go up four abreast, to
look over.”
“Anyhow, you’ll see it first, that way,” said Gale, “and Bill next.”
Side by side we hurried forward. Just at the brow, the hill was a bit
steeper, and there was a surface of bare rock, over which we scrambled,
and a moment later stood on the summit. Then——
Before us—level upland with here and there a patch of white, where snow
still lingered. But between and beyond the white, beginning at our feet,
and stretching away to the farthest horizon limits, a thick, yielding
carpet of wonderful Purple Violets!
Mr. Sturritt was first to speak.
“The Lord be praised for all His mercies!” he said.
Ferratoni was down with his face among the leaves and blossoms.
Gale said: “I’ve been to violet receptions before, but this rather lays
it over anything, so far.”
As for me, I was silent. I hardly knew what I had expected to see.
Perhaps trees—perhaps a distant city—perhaps a waste of barren downs.
But certainly not this. I knew, of course, that flowers bloomed at the
very edge of Alaskan glaciers, but perhaps I had forgotten. Like
Ferratoni, I got down to feel and smell them. They had a sweet, delicate
odor, that had been borne from us by the wind. The blossom itself was
somewhat different in form from our northern violets, and was of a
darker hue. The leaf was smaller.
Through a sea of bloom we pushed our boat toward the river above the
rapids. The banks were lower, here, and there was no more ice. We were
presently sailing between violet-scented shores, and the silence and
balm that was in the air brought forgetfulness of our difficulties. To
the ship we attempted to convey the great news, but now our telephone
failed us almost entirely, and in spite of all that Ferratoni could do
to it, it was with the greatest difficulty that we finally conveyed the
bare facts, sacrificing altogether the poetic details of the scene about
us.
My first attempt to explain to Edith that we were met with violets was
understood by her to be “violence,” and this was not easy to get rid of.
However, she comprehended at last, and had she been standing on top of
the ice-barrier, I think she could have heard me, without the telephone.
As for her voice, it was lost utterly in the wide space between, and
only the searching quality of Captain Biffer’s tones could convey to us
her replies. Even these were lost when we tried again, a little later.
Being thus cut off from the ship saddened us, in spite of our pleasant
surroundings.
“We’ll have to go it alone,” commented Gale. “Mebbe we’ll hit another
set of vibrations up here, somewhere, and be all right again. We’re
likely to strike most anything now. Anyway Johnnie knows we were doing
well at last accounts. Do you know,” he added, some minutes later, “this
would be a great place to lay out an addition. Violet Mead—how’s that
for a name? Acre property, no grading, and if there was any way of
getting over that ice-wall, it would be the easiest thing in the world
to run a gravity railroad down the snowbank from Bottle Bay right to
this meadow. There’s a steady incline and the drifts would be easy to
cut through.”
“How about the melting underneath in the summer, and the drifting
overhead in the winter?” I asked. “I think a line of balloons would be
more practical.”
Gale shook his head.
“No more balloons in mine. The going is well enough, but it’s the free
and easy way you have of starting and stopping that I object to.”
Gradually the sun slipped down behind the violet fields. The wind died,
and a scented, luminous twilight fell. The atmosphere was like an
evening in late April. We were preparing to land for the night, when a
dark speck appeared on the river ahead. The surface of the water was a
dull red gold, reflecting the western sky. Into this there had drifted a
sharp, black outline—a boat, we saw presently—a sort of canoe. It was
the first indication of human life, and we held our breath, wondering.
As it approached, it appeared empty.
We turned our craft toward it, and it drifted just under our side. We
leaned over and looked down. A face looked up into ours—the white, dead
face of a beautiful young girl, and above and about her there were
masses and festoons of flowers.
We held the boat a little, and regarded the sleeper without speaking.
She was so beautiful, and had come to us so silently out of the unknown
land.
Twilight deepened.
Then presently we loosed the little funeral boat, and saw it pass down
into the dimness of evening to the land of eternal cold.
“It was a part of just such a boat that we found in Bottle Bay,” Gale
said, as we drew near the shore. “This accounts for its being there.”
I assented, but we did not discuss the matter further, and we spoke but
little as we prepared for the night. Communication with those behind had
ceased. Before us was mystery, and about us silence. Cut off from every
tie we knew, we had entered an enchanted land, and the spell of its
potent magic came down with the perfumed dark.
XXVII.
THE PRINCE OF THE PURPLE FIELDS.
I woke next morning to an odor even more inspiring than the smell of
violets. There was that about it which at first made me distrust my
senses. It seemed too good to be true—that searching, pervading,
heavenly odor. I closed my eyes and opened them to make sure I was
awake. Then it came again—more persistent than before—and with it a
sputter and a crackle. It was! It was! I could not be deceived—it was
frying fish!
Gale, it seems, had risen early, upturned some insects and worms from
under the violet sod, and found splendid fishing but a step away. Mr.
Sturritt had promptly joined him, and now there was ready a breakfast
that made up for many days of fasting and tablets.
“I don’t know what kind of fish they are,” explained Gale, “but they
seemed as hungry as we were, so we formed a sort of mutual benefit
association. Sort of a first aid to the famished.”
The morning was still and beautiful. We had rested on violet beds, and
after our bounteous breakfast we set out southward again, in the joyous
expectation of further discovery. We were in excellent spirits; the air
was balm and the dangers of cold and hunger were behind us. It is true
that the Billowcrest was also there, and between, a wide desolation
which we could hardly hope to surmount with our present resources. But
this fact we kept in the background. It was not an immediate concern,
and we were willing to believe that to-morrow, and the day after, and
the month following would in some manner provide ways and develop means.
Chauncey Gale became particularly jubilant as we ascended.
“If all the people are like that girl we saw last night,” he said at
last,—“I don’t mean of course if they are all dead, but if they all
_look_ like that,—it seems to me that this is about the best addition
the Lord has yet laid out. Maybe this is His own little pet corner down
here, and He didn’t think anybody else would find it. You know I felt a
good deal that way when I laid out Tangleside. It was a little shut-in
neck of woods, and some of Johnnie’s friends liked it, so we just bought
it and let ’em have it. I didn’t suppose anybody else would ever think
of wanting to live there, but they did. People found out that we didn’t
want them, and you couldn’t keep them away with clubs. They overrun the
place and ruined it. Johnnie couldn’t do a thing with them. They cut out
the trees and bushes that grew there, and set out a lot of nursery stuff
that broke Johnnie’s heart in six months. If this place should turn out
to be a sort of Tangleside of the Lord’s, I suppose He’d like it just as
well if we kept out. But if the people are all like that girl——”
“You shall know presently,” interrupted Ferratoni. “They are just
ahead.”
He had scarcely spoken before during the morning, and there was now a
quality in his voice that made us all look first at him, and then in the
direction his eyes followed. We thought he might have received some
mental impression, but saw now that just beyond a little knoll on the
shore, and coming down to the marge to meet us, were the figures of men.
It did not surprise us; we had expected them even sooner. During our
approach they regarded us, as we them, in silence.
They were very fair—almost pallid of countenance—graceful rather than
robust. Their dress was quite simple in form. Something akin to both the
early Syrian and Japanese it seemed, and appeared to have grown for
them, rather than to have been constructed by artificial devices. Their
faces were smooth, and their hair long—parted on top and gathered
loosely at the back with a sort of circlet or band. To me they seemed as
a part with the fields and sky behind them—some new flowering of our
enchanted land.
All were young, but one younger and handsomer than the others advanced
as our boat grounded. His wide-sleeved coat, or tunic, of soft
glistening white was embroidered over with the flower of the plains
above us. That he was of rank seemed evident. Gale, who was in the bow,
stepped ashore and held out his hand to this fair youth, who laid his
own in it, unhesitatingly.
“How are you?” greeted Gale, heartily. “Glad to see you. We’ve had all
kinds of a time getting here, and it’s good to find somebody at home. My
name is Gale, Chauncey Gale, and these are my friends. We’re from New
York City, United States of America—best town and biggest country on
earth. We’ve come down here to discover you, and take a look at your
country to see whether we want to annex it or not. Up till yesterday we
didn’t think we did, but the farther we get into your proposition the
better we like it. Now, tell us who _you_ are.”
During this rather characteristic greeting the youth had been regarding
Gale with puzzled inquiry. He answered now with a gentle flow of
aspirate syllables—a little address it seemed. The sounds were pleasant
to the ear, but often barely audible. As he spoke, he pointed now and
then to the half-dozen others about him.
We followed Gale ashore, and something like a general hand-shaking took
place. The youth’s followers, however, showed no disposition to do more
than lay their palms to ours for a brief instant, and then retire. But
when the youth himself came to Ferratoni, their hands lingered together,
and the puzzled look that had been on the face of each melted away. Then
the youth spoke again, still holding Ferratoni’s hand. When he had
finished, the latter, turning to us, said:
“He is the Prince of the Purple Fields. We are in the borders of his
domain. With his followers he escorted until yesterday a young lady of
his court for a distance on her journey to the Land of the Silent Cold.
It was she we passed. Two days ago something which must have been our
balloon bag was blown to them, and it was thought we were not far
distant. They have dimly known of our coming, somewhat as I had received
an impression of their existence.”
We regarded our companion with increasing wonder and amazement.
“But, Ferratoni,” I said, “you do not mean to say that you understand
their language.”
“Not the words. The language of thought is the same to all men. The
vibration between us is by no means perfect, but when timed to the slow
measure of speech, the mental echo is sufficiently good to follow his
meaning.”
“Look here,” asked Gale, “can’t you twist up my strings a little? I’d
like to get in key and know what’s going on, too.”
“And does he also follow your thought?” I put in.
But the youth was speaking again and Ferratoni gave him close attention.
Then he interpreted.
“The conscious exchange of thought without words, he tells me, marks
their advancement in communication—perhaps somewhat as the wireless
interchange of words marks ours. Their progress has been along different
lines it seems. The Prince and his sister, the Princess of the Lilied
Hills, whose domain lies beyond this, bid us welcome. Your thought,
however, he does not reach as yet, except through me, and this requires
a double or repeated process, somewhat like translation.”
“Well,” muttered Gale, “I’m rather glad of that. I want to have a few
thinks all to myself when I’m in a new place and seeing things.”
The Prince now said something further to Ferratoni, and then with his
suite set off up the bank.