HOPE--AND A WILL
Without arousing the girl, Polaris made hasty search. Some rods along
the back trail, he saw a break in the snow at the side of the trail.
There he found the priest lying on his back, with his face turned up to
the sun and his keen-pointed dagger piercing his heart. He had stumbled
thither as far as his endurance would sustain him. More joyful than
ever it had seemed in life was the half smile at the lips of the dead
man.
That smile was the only message he had left. He had been dead for hours.
Polaris drew the dagger from the dead heart that had loved him well and
hurled it afar in the snow. He smoothed the dress of the priest and
bore the body to the camp. Before he aroused the girl he placed the
corpse again in the sleeping parka.
Then he called the girl and told her that Kalin was dead, but made no
mention of the way the priest had taken.
"Ah, another brave heart stilled--and because of me!" she cried, and
the tears came, for she had liked the priest well. As she wept, Polaris
told her of the love the man had borne her.
"And, lady," he said, "wherever Kalin is, he is well content, for he
has aided you toward your dearest wishes and his soul asked no more
than that."
He dug with the blade of a spear at the foot of one of the icy
monoliths, and laid the corpse of Kalin there, while the dogs, which
always seemed to sense the presence of death, bayed a hoarse requiem
above the grave. But neither then nor at any future time did Polaris
tell the girl of the supreme sacrifice Kalin made at the last, not
wishing to make her suffer more regret.
On the rude grave he had made he piled a few loose fragments of rock,
and turned to the task of breaking camp for the next northward lap into
the wild land.
* * * * *
Two hundred miles to the north and east, three men were gathered on the
snow crust in a little valley, wrenching and thrumming at the wires and
pinions of the first bird-machine that ever had penetrated into the
fastnesses of the antarctic.
All was taut for the start. The wings were set. The engines responded
to the power. The propeller thrilled the air. Into the seat climbed a
lean, fur-clad young man, with a thin face, high cheek-bones shadowing
deep-set, cold, blue eyes, and a wisp of drab moustache above thin,
eager lips.
"Ready there, Aronson," he said, to a man standing by.
A second later Captain James Scoland sailed majestically away into the
white mystery of the unknown polar land.
At the door of the snow house that had been their home for days,
Aronson and Mikel, who had pressed with him to his farthest south camp,
watched his going with shaded eyes. A tiny silken flag bearing the
stars and stripes, fluttered from one of the canvas plane wings. Mikel
watched it as far as it was distinguishable.
"An' here's hopin' he carries Old Glory safely through to the pole--an'
back again!" he shouted.
Leagues farther to the north, in another tiny camp, three other men
were waiting, also. Still farther on, in an ice-locked harbor, the good
ship Felix rode day by day, the little company of its crew watching
the slow passing of the hours, with every ear attuned to catch the
first voice returning from the south that should tell of success, or of
defeat and death.
And were that tale of success, those on the ship nursed a heavy sorrow,
that would turn into bitterness all the glory of success. A glorious
maid and two men who had been of their company had strayed from the
ship and perished in the wilderness.
* * * * *
Silence.
As far as the eye could reach, a dull wilderness, stretching wearily
under a leaden, sunless sky. A rolling plain of lusterless snow, cut
sharply here and there by crevasses, gashed at intervals by rifts of
unknown depths and tortuous gulleys. North and south seemingly without
bounds; east and west, many a mile of bleak fatigue between low, sullen
hills of gray.
A land without sound, without life, and without hope.
Yet, among the ridges in that dead and twilight chaos, something
stirred. A dark speck crawled on and on, writhing along the brinks of
the crevasses, skirting the yawning rifts, twisting in and out around
the hummocks, like the course of some wriggling vermin across the
cracked and gaping skin of a white, unholy corpse.
Northward, ever northward, the blot dragged its crooked way. Nearer
would it resolve itself into two wearily plodding beasts, tugging,
slipping, stumbling, but going on, the creaking straps of their
leathern harness pulling a sledge with a heap of skins upon it. Still
nearer--a fur-clad, haggard man with hollow blazing eyes glittering
through an unkempt shock of golden hair and a gaunt gray dog with
drooping tail picking their way with soundless feet through the white
reaches, dragging their sledge; like a fantasy passing across the white
and silent dream of the cold end of the world.
Once the dog had looked up into the face of the master, the dumb
eloquence of sacrifice shining through its eyes, an age-old fire. The
massive jaws slipped apart, but closed again; only a sigh was breathed
from the beast's broad chest.
"Aye, Marcus, I know," muttered the man. "I know that you'll die on
your four feet, if you can, and in the straps. And I, Marcus," his
voice dropped to a whisper, "I'll die, too, Marcus, as you will--for
the Rose--all for the Rose--But not yet, Marcus; for the Rose yet
lives, and death is slow for the very strong."
Five luckless days had passed since the priest had laid his burdens by.
One by one the cruel south had taken lives in toll, until only Polaris
and the grim pack leader stood in harness to race with death on the
course to the north.
First polar bears, made mad by hunger, attacked the party, and two of
the dogs, Juno and Nero, died under the sweeping crescent claws.
A nameless distemper, from which no dog, however carefully bred, is
quite immune, had seized both Hector and Julius. For hours they acted
strangely as they ran, and then, at a stopping place, they went quite
mad and turned on the man and girl.
Hector went down to silence under the crushing jaws of Marcus, who rose
with a mighty roar to quell this insane mutiny; and Julius died on the
spear of Polaris. There were tears on the cheek of the man as he drove
the weapon home.
Refashioning the harness to suit his own wide shoulders, Polaris then
took up the work of the lost dogs. For two long days of many marches he
and Marcus had dragged the sledge. Now, with their stock of provisions
dwindled away and their rations slender, the terrific strain of the
journey was telling almost to madness on the man and the dog.
They came to rest in the shelter of one of the thousands of hummocks,
and Polaris realized, with a chill at his stout heart, that their march
had advanced them a bare score of miles from their last stopping place,
when they should have covered at least twice that distance.
From her nestling place beneath the heap of furs on the sledge he
gently aroused Rose Emer. The girl rode most of the weary miles in
light and fitful slumbers, drowsy with the cold, and her brain at times
benumbed by the prospect, now nearer and nearer, of almost certain
disaster--a contingency which the man would not admit.
She came forth listlessly, and they prepared their poor meal over the
fame of the little oil-burner, and ate it within the shelter of the
skins which the man stretched to confine the heat from the stove. They
divided their rations with Marcus, and girl and man and dog huddled at
the side of the sledge, to sleep if they might until the time for the
next setting forth along the terrible way.
* * * * *
Some hours later, when Polaris awakened her, ready for the next march
forward, she shook her head wearily.
"No, my dear friend, you will have to go on without me. No," as he
opened his mouth in quick question, "listen to me. I have thought
it all out. If we continue on in this way we can proceed but a few
miserable miles at the best, and then perish in the snow. I am the
handicap. Without me, you and the dog could leave the sledge and go
on alone, and, perhaps, save yourselves. You were born and have lived
in this land, and you could get through alone; where, with me to look
after, you will not succeed."
Polaris listened in silence, and a smile gathered at the corners of
his mouth, as sad and wistful as any of Kalin's.
"Too much has been done and suffered already on my account," the girl
went on. "I cannot let you make this sacrifice. You are as brave and
true a gentleman as lives in the world to-day. All that human being can
do, you have done for me. You must not die for me. You must go on and
leave me--"
Her voice broke, and she hid her face in her hands. She felt the touch
of Polaris's hand on her shoulder.
"Lady," he began, and his strong voice quivered. "Lady, what has
Polaris done that you judge him so."
"Ah, no, no!" she sobbed, "you have been good and brave and true, even
to the end--but the end is here. Oh, you _must_ go on--"
For a moment the man stood and gazed down on her, as she sat with
her head bent low. He started to hold out his arms toward her, then
clenched his hands at his sides. Immediately he relaxed them, stooped,
and swung her lightly from her seat on the furs, and tucked her
tenderly in her place on the sledge.
"Dear lady," he said softly, "never did Polaris think to quarrel with
you, and here, least of all places, is fitting for it. Yet speak no
more like this. Polaris will, he _must_ go on as he has gone. If he
dies, it will be the death of an American gentleman, not that of a
savage and a coward. Come, Marcus!"
He slipped his shoulders into the harness with the dog, and again they
went forward into the gray unknown. Through tears the girl watched the
strong back bending to its task ahead of her. In her eyes a great light
kindled and burned steadily. Not all the antarctic snows might quench
it.
They traversed four more laps across the snows, and were starting on
their fifth when the final calamity fell.
As usual, they had camped close against the side of one of the larger
mounds or hummocks. It was of rock, coated heavily with ice and frozen
snow. On its beetling side, just above their little camp, a mass of
rock had cracked away from the main body of the hummock. Its slow
separation had been a matter of years, perhaps ages. That fracture
might have been begun by the grinding fangs of a glacier five thousand
years ago, and completed by the tireless and eternal frosts.
There it was poised, masked by the snow and ice, waiting its time to
fall.
At the moment that the travelers turned their faces from camp, and
Polaris started to assist Rose Emer to her seat on the sledge, the
hour struck for the fall. Rock grated on rock above them, warning the
man to spring back. He dragged the girl aside. A few pieces of ice
rattled down. Then the fragment, a weight of tons, toppled squarely
down upon the rear of the sledge, crushing it to splinters, and burying
it in the loose snow.
They stared at the wreck, and Marcus growled and strained to free
himself from the harness.
Polaris dug aside the covering snow. A moment's inspection showed that
the sledge was nothing but shattered uselessness. Indeed, could he have
repaired it, he had not the chance. It was beneath the mass of the
fallen rock, too great a weight for even his powers to remove. Some of
their vanishing store of provisions also lay under the rock.
"We still can walk, lady," Polaris said. "We will go on together."
"No, dear friend, we will not walk on," she replied. "See, my foot is
hurt, and I can scarcely stand upon it. A splinter of ice struck it
when the rock fell--"
Polaris leaped to her side and examined the extended ankle. He found
it not broken, but bruised and swelling rapidly. It was true that she
could not walk on it, nor would for many days.
* * * * *
He made no answer to her last argument. He tore several skins robes
from the fore part of the sledge, and set her down on them. Then, as
well as he could, he bandaged the bruised ankle, winding it with strips
of hide, outside the girl's boot, for he dared not remove the coverings
from the injured limb lest the cold do it irreparable injury.
His hasty surgery completed, he stepped to the ruin of the sledge and
filled two skin sacks with the remains of the meat which he could come
at. He strapped one of them on the back of Marcus, and the other he
slung on his own shoulders.
With his knife he cut and fashioned at one of the skin robes. When he
approached the girl again he wore a rude sling, which he had passed
about his neck and shoulders, so that it hung across his broad chest.
He plucked her from the snow, wrapped her in a robe, and set her in the
sling at his breast. He stooped, and with his knife cut Marcus out of
the useless harness.
Unbelievable as it was that human beings so beset could continue to
exist, they proceeded thus for the space of two days. At the end of
each short march they huddled together in their robes--the girl and the
dog and the man, and warmed with the heat of their bodies their frozen
food, until they might chew and mumble it. Still closer they huddled
for their fitful slumbers.
On the march the girl swooned many times with the throbbing pain of her
swollen ankle. Always she awoke to find herself in the man's arms. They
wound about her, a living barrier, which death itself could not pass.
All the weary miles of the weary marches he carried her.
Under her weight, every muscle of his splendid body was racked with the
pangs of torture, until the fierce pain was succeeded by a numbness
that slowly enveloped his body and crept up to his brain. He felt that
he had been transformed into a marching machine of unfeeling steel.
He went on, bearing his burden, mile after mile, stolidly, doggedly,
splendidly.
Two days passed. Polaris roused himself from where they slept huddled
in a little hollow in the snow.
The mere rising to his feet was a matter of minutes, and he swayed
uncertainly. Once more he fought fiercely with the temptation to
acknowledge that this, indeed, was the end, and to follow the footsteps
of Kalin. Once more his courage upheld his resolve. He would go on. He
would walk until he could walk no longer. Then he would crawl on his
hands and knees, drag himself forward with his hands, but he would go
on.
As he stooped there came to his ears a humming, faint and far away.
He arranged the robe and gathered Rose Emer gently into the sling.
With immense effort he straightened his knees and back and stood
erect again. Again the humming noise, nearer now, and louder! Marcus
floundered out of the hollow, both ears pricked, and growled a weak,
hoarse defiance. Polaris followed.
From a distant humming the noise rose to a shrilling; from a shrilling
to a prolonged shriek. The man came out of the hollow, and his eyes
sought the sky, whence came the sound. His heart bounded and threatened
to burst in his breast.
* * * * *
Sharply outlined against the dazzling sky, sailing along on steady
planes like a great white bird of the air, her engine purring and
thrilling, and her propeller screaming, an air-ship passed athwart his
vision!
Enthralled, his eyes followed it. It was less than half a mile away
to his right. He tried to shout aloud, but his voice was feeble, and
seemed to be thrown back at him from the air. Before he could rouse the
girl, or convey to her senses what was occurring, the ship of the air
had vanished. It dipped out of sight into the mouth of a little valley.
He looked again. No, his eyes did not deceive. Smoke was curling up
from the valley, a thin blue spiral. The bird man had alighted there.
There was a camp of men. Food and warmth, rescue and life for his
precious burden--all were there in that little valley, a bare quarter
of a mile away across the snow. Could he ever reach it?
Into his brain leaped a multitude of quick thoughts. Joy and the shadow
of an old suspicion came together. He knelt again in the snow and
aroused Rose Emer.
"Lady," he said very softly, "you are saved. Yonder," and he pointed
across the snow toward the valley--"yonder is the smoke of a camp, and
an air-ship from the south just landed in that valley."
Rose Emer strained her eyes across the snow. She saw the smoke and
comprehended. For an instant she bowed her face on her arms. When she
raised it her eyes were streaming. Out of hard despair tear time had
come again. She caught his hand to her breast, and then raised it to
her lips. He snatched it from her.
"Oh, but I thank you; words are too feeble to say it. I thank you for
life, Polaris!"
"Lady," he made answer, "I am going to make a strange request of you.
Yonder are those of your own people--the American captain and his men.
It is my wish that when we come among them you will say nothing of my
origin, of where you found me, or what has befallen us, more than is
necessary to tell--"
"It is enough that you ask it," the girl broke in. "Never mind any
further reason. I will do as you say."
He groped within the breast of his furred waistcoat and took out a
small, flat packet, sewn in membranous parchment. "One more favor of
your kindness, lady," he asked. "Please keep this packet until I ask
it of you again. It is the message which I carry to the world at the
north. Should I pass into the world of shadows, you will do me a
great service if you will open it and send its contents to whom it is
directed."
Rose Emer took the packet and hid it in her bosom.
"Now we will go on to the valley, before strength fails entirely," he
said. He straightened up again, and bent to the toil of the pathway
which he had marked out for himself. The girl leaned back against his
straining breast. Once more, when she might have spoken, she kept
silence.
They went on. Slowly, uncertainly, for Polaris staggered much, foot by
foot, he fought his way across that bleak and endless quarter of a mile
of snow.
Three hours after the air-ship had landed from its history-making dash
in and out of the jaws of the antarctic, Captain Scoland and his two
men were startled in their camp by an apparition.
Down the slope of the valley and through a circle of snarling dogs that
rushed to attack and then slunk back affrighted, strode a grim-faced
and silent man. On he came like a machine, or like one who walks
wide-eyed at night. Behind him crept the tottering skeleton of a great
gray wolf dog.
Slung across the breast of the man was a fur-wrapped bundle. With
measured tread he walked on to the door of the shelter, paused, and
with no word let his burden gently down into the snow. A corner of the
robe fell aside and disclosed the face of Rose Emer. She had swooned,
and lay like one dead.
Captain Scoland sprang forward with a strained cry of surprise and
question. The strange man stood for an instant, his unseeing eyes fixed
on the snow reaches beyond the valley. Then he tossed his arms above
his head and pitched backward, inert and lifeless. The tottering wreck
of a dog crept up and licked his face.