Huddled on the trembling ice they set their teeth and prayed inwardly,
expecting to be hurled skyward. A rushing roar, like the tumbling
of flames in a furnace when the door is suddenly opened, rose with
incredible speed to a high, singing pitch of shattering intensity.
Just when the shrill whistling grew unendurable there shot from the
innumerable wells dotted over the ice hard white pillars of compressed
mist. With explosive violence the fog which the wind had sucked down
into the bowels of the rocks was being expelled.
Straight up shot the thousands upon thousands of dense white columns to
fray themselves out in a whirling tracery on the roof of the sky like
the groining of a vast cathedral.
Then the bottoms of the rushing fog pillars soared free of the wells.
The shortening columns, sucked up into the newly formed clouds
flattened themselves upon the misty roof in thousands of rings that
vibrated, clashed into one another, rebounded, clashed again, and
finally rolled along the underside of the cloudy dome in a mazy tangle
of spinning filaments.
The pitch of the singing note from the blowholes heightened. Air or
gas was being forced up under tremendous pressure from the interior of
the earth. Speechless with awe, the huddled watchers beheld the tops
of the invisible columns burst into pale blue conical flames. Almost
immediately after they heard the thudding of the ignition.
For perhaps ten seconds the whole cloud roof over the vast ice trough
was hung with the thousands of these pendant cones of blue flame. As
the sustaining pressure now rapidly dropped the shrillness of the
whistling diminished, and by great trembling bounds the blue cones
descended toward the wells, reddening as they fell.
Half-way between the blood-red ice and the crimsoned cloud roof the
downward-rushing cones of red flame halted, suspended in mid-air,
roaring like ten thousand blast furnaces. Then with a tumbling
reverberation the innumerable tongues of crimson lengthened, swooped
upon the wells, and with a last earth-shaking thunder disappeared.
Although daylight still lingered beneath the high gray pall of fog,
the party, blinded by that last downward rush of fire, saw nothing.
Dazed and trembling, they got to their feet. Gradually vision returned.
Without a word Anderson peered at his compass and led off. They were
too stunned by the mere magnitude of what they had seen to attempt as
yet to comprehend it. Only the instinct of self-preservation urged them
to immediate flight.
They had made a little less than a mile when again the subterranean
thunder shook the ice under their feet. Then they remembered for the
first time their night vigil on the deck of the _Edith_. That periodic
glow on the distant clouds had recurred every thirteen and a half
minutes.
For safety they again huddled together on the ice. Again the surface
air was sucked down the wells, but with considerably less violence.
Apparently the initial disturbance had stored up fuel for the
succeeding flames. Once more the shrill whistle from innumerable vents
announced the coming of the fires, and again the blue cones hung from
the massive cloud roof, to hover down presently in crimson fire before
the final swift plunge to the darkness of the wells.
Long before they escaped from the trap night overtook them. Their march
had been a succession of panting runs while the tumbling flames and the
crimson glow lit up the icy desolation like a frozen hell. When the
flames vanished, and the air all about them became a black well, they
halted breathless with fear while the rapid jarring of the ice rocked
their brains, and the fierce whirlwinds clutched at their bodies to
hurl them down the bottomless pits of fire.
The terror of the fiftieth grim watch was no less than that of the
first. At any instant the gyrating wind might get a surer hold of
their shrinking bodies and dash them all to a horrible death. Ordinary
courage, steeled by lifelong habit to brave the commonplace dangers of
human existence, availed them nothing. Their minds being unprepared for
this torture they could only cower under its fiendish recurrence.
Dawn found them still crouched in the trap or stumbling blindly forward
under the lash of instinct. They had no idea how many miles they had
reeled through during the night. For all they knew they might be two
miles or twenty from the comparative heaven of the icy desolation
between them and the ship.
With the coming of full daylight the temperature rose and the heavy
pall above them began slowly to descend. A new terror gripped them when
the icy mists swirled down, enveloping the party in impenetrable gray.
They must now grope their way forward a step at a time. Haste meant
death in the wells, which still with maddening regularity shot up their
pillars of descending flame. Numb with cold and stupefied by fatigue as
they were, they yet had feelings of awe for the mysterious beauty of
the infernal dream when the crimson flames, smoky as milky-red opals
through the shrouding mists, paused for a fraction of a second above
the wells for their final plunge.
Three hours after dawn the last rumble jarred the ice, and the
blowholes droned wearily, but no flame issued. It was as if some titan
chained beneath the rock had expired his last flaming breath. For that
day at least the strange terror was ended.
Through the searching cold of the dead mist they groped their way in
stunned misery for another four hours. Only the necessary words of
caution as the leader avoided the pitfalls at his feet broke their
dazed silence.
At last they felt themselves climbing uphill. They were out of the
inferno. Urging their jaded bodies to the limit of endurance, they
panted up the long slope. Two hours later they flung themselves on the
ice, face up in the glorious sunlight.
For half an hour they lay there in silence, soaking in the light of
heaven. The heat of their bodies melting the ice, presently their
clothes were sagging with freezing water. In spite of themselves they
slept.
"We can't stay here," Anderson said, getting to his feet. "Wake up,
everybody. We must go on as far as we can and trust that Bronson will
find us."
The Captain was right. Sleep with no covering but their clothes, even
in the afternoon sunshine, was almost certain suicide. Like automatons
they followed Anderson over the dazzling snowfields, tramping
monotonously till dark. Among the weary five of them there was not a
particle of food. And having no fuel they could not thaw out the hard
frozen snow or ice to drink. The bits of ice which they sucked in the
stinging cold to allay the raging thirst cracked their lips and seared
their tongues, causing them exquisite torture.
Never slacking his gait, Anderson crunched steadily ahead. Fatigue
to him might have been an alien mystery. The three men followed him
doggedly. Hansen appeared to notice nothing more than the ordinary
day's work. He bobbed along like a jogging barrel directly behind
Anderson, treading down a firm foothold for Edith, who trudged after
him. Lane came next, some yards behind, and Drake, cursing softly to
himself to keep up his spirits, brought up the rear.
The deepest darkness of the early morning made no difference to
Anderson. He kept on. It is a perennial miracle what the human body can
stand when it is driven by a relentless mind. All that night, half-mad
with thirst, the party slogged on through the black cold.
Dawn found them still marching.
"Anybody for a rest?" Anderson croaked through his cracked lips.
Edith nodded, and sank down in her tracks. Instantly she was asleep.
Taking off his outer coat, Ole rolled her in it and slapped his sides
to keep from freezing. To the protests of Drake and Lane, who peeled
their coats, Ole replied that he, having more blubber than both of them
together, could better stand a freeze.
None of the men attempted to sleep. They sat on the ice or stamped
about when they began to stiffen.
"Hereafter I carry my sleeping bag on my back," the Captain croaked.
"Damn the dogs."
"Captain Anderson!" Ole reproved him.
"She's asleep, idiot. Shut up."
Stirring uneasily, Edith rolled over on her side. Suddenly she sat up
with a start.
"O, I'm dreadfully ashamed," she cried, scrambling painfully to her
feet.
"How long have I slept?"
"Five minutes," Anderson lied nobly, and Drake nodded.
"It felt like five seconds," Edith sighed. Then she noticed Ole's coat.
"Oh Ole, how generous of you," she exclaimed, helping him into it. "But
you shouldn't have done it; I'm not a baby."
"That's nothing," Ole protested.
"It's a great deal," she replied. "My, but it's cold."
"All right," Anderson croaked, "we'll go on. You will soon warm up."
From that hour Edith became a firm adherent of the theory that five
minute naps at the proper time are as refreshing as a night's sleep.
None of the men had the heart to explode her theory. They never told
her that she had slept three hours and twelve minutes.
Another rest of two hours in mid-afternoon refreshed them all. By
huddling together three of the men generated warmth enough in the clear
sunshine to enjoy a profound sleep. The fourth kept watch, rousing
the next man when his turn came. Edith slept straight through the two
hours.
That night they marched briskly from dusk to dawn without a halt.
Another two hour rest restored them for the final effort. The men had
found their second wind. Edith's sufficient sleep and youth made her
a good match for the men. She would go through with it to the end and
come out smiling. Curiously enough, hunger did not greatly distress
them. After the first sharp pangs they forgot food in the intense
longing for copious draughts of water. Putting their wills to it they
forged ahead almost at a run over the hard, packed snow.
Seventeen hours later they saw the rubies and emeralds of the ship's
lights gleaming through the crystal night air. In fifteen minutes they
were wallowing alternately in cold water and steaming hot chocolate.
"Never again," said the Captain, limping off to his cabin. "I'll leave
that sort of thing to professional explorers who enjoy talking about it
afterwards from a platform."
This, however, was the rash statement of a pessimistic and leg-weary
man. By twelve o'clock the next day he was up to his neck in plans for
another assault on the black barrier which he was determined to cross.
He persisted in his belief that oceans of oil lapped the farther side
of the jagged range which they had failed to reach.
Lane regarded this as a delusion. Finally as a geological expert he
convinced the Captain that sweet pickles were a likelier prospect than
oil in a rock formation such as they had seen. Later he modified this
verdict.
"Have patience," he said, "and you will get your oil. Don't expect it
to rain down on your head like blessings from above."
"Listen to me," Ole broke in. For some time he had been suffering
agonies from the high pressure of his superheated theories. "Those
blowholes," he said impressively, "spouted natural gas. Therefore there
is oil at the bottom of them. There are our wells, Captain."
"Idiot," said the Captain, "how are we to get at the oil if it is at
the bottom of those hell holes?"
"Pumps."
"Pump yourself and dry up." The Captain turned to Lane. "What is it to
be?"
"Full steam ahead as far as we can go. Then deposit a cache of dynamite
and provisions, send the ship downstream a safe distance, and make it
inland by sledges to your volcano."
"Burning oil well," Ole corrected under his breath.
"We shall see when we get there," said the Doctor. "Suppose we can
approach to within fifty or even a hundred miles of the volcano--pardon
me, Ole, burning oil well. We could establish a base there--bury our
supplies in the ice, if necessary--and deposit caches of food and fuel
every ten miles to the place itself. There are plenty of able-bodied
men aboard to chop holes in the ice and pack in the stuff. Then we
won't be bothered with those beastly dogs."
"There are only two teams left, anyway," said the Captain. "Your plan
sounds reasonable."
"And I know John will go wild over it," Edith added. "He would rather
fall down one of those wells than coo to a dogteam again."
Drake was absent from the council, having locked himself in with Ole's
photographs.
"Oh," the Doctor replied, "I was planning on Drake managing one sledge
and you the other. We shall need all the transport we can scrape
together, for there is no telling how long we may be away from our
base. Ole, Anderson and I will be busy looking for oil wells."
Edith ignored the suggestion.
"May a mere woman participate in the councils of the gods?" she asked
with mock humility.
"Yea," her father answered, "even a mere child may prattle about our
feet. 'Out of the mouths of babes--' you know. Proceed, infant."
"I shall do so," the child replied. "And presently you won't be able
to see me for my smoke. For I intend to take Ole with me on a tour of
inspection while you and the others are breaking pickaxes and your
backs over cast iron ice."
"How so, child?"
"I have wings, have I not?"
"Even so, angel child. You were born with feathers on your back."
"Then I shall fly. In three hours I shall find out more about this
country than you and the blessed dogs will learn in ten years. If
Ole's cameras are good for anything we shall supply you with a map of
the continent from here to the South Pole. Then you will be able to
find your way to the Captain's oil field without stubbing your toes
over every brick on the road as poor John did. Ole, consider yourself
engaged as official photographer of the air reconnaissance. In the
meantime, Captain Anderson, full steam ahead while our luck lasts."
The last order being confirmed by Lane, the Captain obeyed. Returning
to the cabin, he found Lane with his back to the wall fighting his last
battle against Ole and Edith.
"Help me talk these lunatics out of their insanity," he begged, "before
they break their silly necks."
But the Captain, having reflected, was less inclined than the Doctor to
the lunacy theory.
"Let me take a squint at the barometer, first," he said.
"Set fair," he announced. "This seems to be an almost windless region.
Those tornadoes round the blowholes don't count. The devil alone is
responsible for them. Having his hands full there he won't bother us
here--at least not for twelve hours unless the barometer is a worse
liar than he is.
"Now here is my vote," he continued. "If the weather stays set until
we reach our anchorage I say Edith and Ole should go. She is right. In
three hours they can find out what it would take us years to bungle
through. At the first sign of wind or dirty weather she can scoot back
to the ship. She is the best air pilot of us all. And I'll say this of
Ole: he is second best."