"Perseverando."
"There is nothing like perseverance," said Allan. "The little coral
insect thereby builds islands, ay, and founds continents, destined to be
stages on which will be worked out or fought out the histories of
nations yet unborn. `Perseverando!' it is a grand and bold motto, and I
love it."
The Frenchman had been standing before the casket; he now turned quickly
round to Allan and held out his hand.
"You are a bold man," he said; "you will come with me to-day in de
balloon?"
"I will," said Allan.
"We vill soar far above yonder mountain," continued De Vere; "we vill
descend into the crater. We vill do vat mortal man has neever done
before. Perseverando! Do you fear?"
"Fear?" said Allan; "no! I fear nothing under the sun. Whate'er a man
dares he can do."
"Bravely spoken," cried the Frenchman. "Perseverando! I have room for
two more."
"Perseverando!" says Rory. "Perseverando for ever! Hoorah! I'm one of
you, boys."
Ralph was lying on the sofa, reading a book. But he doubled down a
leaf, got up, and stretched himself.
"Here," he said, quietly, "you fellows mustn't have all the fun; I'll go
toe, just to see fair play. But, I say," he added, after a moment's
pause, "I don't suppose there will be any refreshment-stalls down
there--eh?"
"No, that there won't," cried Allan. "Hi! Peter, pack a basket for
four."
"Ay, ay, sir?" said Peter.
"And, I say, Peter--" This from Ralph.
"Yes, sir," said the steward, pausing in the doorway.
"Enough for twenty," said Ralph. "That's all, Peter."
"Thank'ee, sir," said Peter, laughing; "I'll see to that, sir."
It was some time before De Vere succeeded in gaining Captain McBain's
consent to the embarkation of his boys on this wild and strange
adventure, but he was talked over at last.
"It is all for the good of science, I suppose," he said, half
doubtfully, as he shook hands with our heroes before they took their
places in the car. "God keep you, boys. I'm not at all sure I'll ever
see one of you again."
The ropes were let go, and upwards into the clear air rose the mighty
balloon.
"Here's a lark," said Allan.
"A skylark," said Rory. "Let us sing, boys--let us sing as we soar,
`Rule Britannia, Britannia rules the waves.'"
Standing on the quarter-deck, and gazing upwards, McBain heard the
voices growing fainter and fainter, and saw the balloon lessening and
lessening, till the song could no longer be heard, and the balloon
itself was but a tiny speck in the heaven's blue. Then he went down
below, and busied himself all day with calculations. He didn't want to
think.
Meanwhile, how fared it with our boys? Here they were, all together,
embarked upon as strange an expedition as it has ever probably been the
lot of any youth or youths to try the chance of. Yet I do not think
that anything approaching to fear found place in the hearts of one of
them. The situation was novel in the extreme. With a slow and steady
but imperceptible motion--for she was weightily ballasted--the
"Perseverando," as they had named the balloon, was mounting skywards.
There was not the slightest air or wind, nor the tiniest of clouds to be
seen anywhere, and down beneath and around them was spread out a
panorama, which but to gaze upon held them spell-bound.
There was the island itself, with its rugged hills looking now so
strangely flattened and so grotesquely contorted; to the west and to the
north lay the white and boundless sea of ice, but far to the eastward
and south was the ocean itself, looking dark as night in contrast with
the solid ice.
But see, yonder, where the ice joins the water, and just a little way
from its edge, lie stately ships--two, three, five in all can be
counted, and their sails are all clewed; and those innumerable black
ticks on the snow, what can they be but seals, and men sealing?
"Don't you long to join them?" said Allan, addressing his companions.
"I don't," replied Rory; "in spite of the cold I feel a strange, dreamy
kind of happiness all over heart and brain. Troth! I feel as if I had
breakfasted on lotus-leaves."
"And I," said Ralph, "feel as I hadn't breakfasted on anything in
particular. Let us see what Peter has done up for us."
And he stretched out his hand as he spoke towards a basket.
"Ah?" cried the Frenchman, "not dat basket; dat is my Bagdads--my
pigeons, my letter-carriers! You see, gentlemen, I have come prepared
to combat eevery deeficulty."
"So I see," said Ralph, coolly undoing the other basket; "what an
appetite the fresh air gives a fellow, to be sure!"
"Indeed," says Rory, archly, "it is never very far from home you've got
to go for that same, big brother Ralph. But it's hardly fair, after
all, to try to eat the Bagdads."
"Remember one thing, though," replied Ralph; "if it should occur to me
suddenly that you want your ears pulled you cannot run away to save
yourself."
"Indeed," said Rory, "I don't think that the frost has left any ears at
all on me worth pulling, or worth speaking about either."
"Ha?" cried Allan, "that reminds me; I've got those face mufflers.
There! I'll show you how to put one on. The fur side goes inside--
thus; now I have a hole to breathe through, and a couple of holes for
vision."
"And a pretty guy you look!"
"Oh! bother the looks," responded Ralph, "let us all be guys. Give us a
mask, old man."
They did feel more comfortable now that they had the masks on, and could
gaze about them without the risk of being frozen.
The cold was intense; it was bitter.
"I'd beat my feet to keep them warm," said Rory, "if I didn't think I'd
beat the bottom of the car out. Then we'd all go fluttering down like
so many kittywakes, and it's Captain McBain himself that would be
astounded to see us back so soon."
"Gentlemen," said the Frenchman, "we are right over the mouth of the
crater. I shall now make descent, with your permission. Then it vill
not be so cold."
"And is it inside the volcano," cries Rory, "you'd be taking us to warm
us? Down into the crater, to toast our toes at Vulcan's own fireside?
Sure, Captain De Vere, it is splicing the main-brace you're after, for
you want to give us all a drop of the craytur."
"Oh!--oh!" this from Ralph. "Oh! Rory--oh! how can you make so vile a
pun? In such a situation, too!"
The gentlest of breezes was carrying the balloon almost imperceptibly
towards the north and west; meanwhile De Vere was permitting a gradual
escape of gas, and the _Perseverando_ sunk gradually towards the
mountain-top, the mouth of which seemed to yawn to swallow them up.
There was a terrible earnestness about this daring aeronaut's face that
awed even Rory into silence.
"Stand by," he whispered; for in the dread silence even a whisper could
be heard,--"stand by, Allan, to throw that bag of ballast over the
moment I say the word."
Viewing it from the sea of ice, no one could calculate how large is the
extent of the crater on the top of that mighty mountain cone. It is
perfectly circular, and five hundred yards at least in circumference,
but it is deeper, far and away, than any volcanic crater into which it
has ever been my fortune to peer. Even when the great balloon began to
alight in its centre the gulf below seemed bottomless. The
_Perseverando_ appeared to be sinking down--down--down into the
blackness of darkness. To the perceptions of our heroes, who peered
fearfully over the car and gazed below, the gulf was rising towards them
and swallowing them up.
I do not think I am detracting in the slightest from their character for
bravery, when I say that the hearts of Ralph, Rory, and Allan, at all
events, felt as if standing still, so terrible was the feeling of dread
of some unknown danger that crept over them. As for De Vere, he was a
fatalist of the newest French school, and a man that carried his life in
his hand. He never attempted, it is true, any feat which he deemed all
but impossible to perform; but, having embarked on an enterprise, he
would go through with it, or he cared not to live.
Strange though it may appear, it is just men like this that fortune
favours. Probably because the wish to continue to exist is not
uppermost in their minds, the wish and the hope to achieve success is
the paramount feeling.
Still slowly, very slowly, sunk the balloon, as if unwilling to leave
her aerial home. And now a faint shade of light begins to mingle with
the darkness beneath them; they are near the bottom of the crater at
last.
"Stand by once again," whispers De Vere, "to throw that anchor over as
soon as I tell you."
A moment of awful suspense.
"Now! now!" hisses De Vere.
Two anchors quit the car at the same time--one thrown by the aeronaut
himself, one by Allan, and the ropes are speedily made fast. The
balloon gives an upward plunge, the cables tighten, then all is still!
"Ha! ha! she is fast!" cried De Vere, now for the first time showing a
little excitement. "Oh, she is a beauty! she has behave most lofely!
Look up, gentlemen!--look up!--behold the mighty walls of blue ice that
surround us!--behold the circle of blue sky dat over-canopies us!--look,
the stars are shining!"
"Can it be night so soon?" exclaimed Allan, in alarm.
"Nay, nay, gentlemen," said the enthusiastic Frenchman, "be easy of your
minds. It is not night in the vorld outside, but here it is alvays
night; up yonder the stars shine alvays, alvays, when de clouds are
absent. And shine dey vill until de crack of doom. Now gaze around
you. See, the darkness already begins to vanish, and you can see the
vast and mighty cavern into which I have brought you. If my judgment
serves me, it extends for miles around beneath de mountain. There!--you
begin to perceive the gigantic stalactites that seem to support the
roof!"
"Ralph," cried Rory, seizing his friend by the hand, "do you remember,
years and years ago, while we all sat round the fire in the tartan
parlour of Arrandoon Castle, wishing we might be able to do something
that no one, man or boy, had ever done before?"
"I do--I do," answered Ralph.
"Descend with me here, then," continued Rory, "and let us explore the
cavern. Only a little, _little_ way, captain," he pleaded, seeing that
De Vere shook his head in strong dissent.
"You know not vat you do ask," said De Vere, solemnly. "Here are caves
within caves, one cavern but hides a thousand more; besides, there are,
maybe, and doubtless are, crevasses in de floor of dis awful crater,
into which you may tumble, neever, neever to be seen again. Pray do not
think of risking a danger so vast."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The day wore slowly to a close; many and many an anxious look did McBain
take skywards, in hopes of seeing the returning balloon. But the sun
set, tipping the distant hills with brightest crimson, twilight died
away in the west, and one by one shone out the stars, till night and
darkness and silence reigned over all the sea of ice.
He went below at last. His feelings may be better imagined then
described. He tried to make himself believe that nothing had occurred,
and that the balloon had safely descended in some snow-clad valley, and
that morning would bring good tidings. But for all this he could not
for the life of him banish a dread, cold feeling that something terrible
had occurred, the very novelty of which made it all the more appalling
to think of. Presently the mate entered the saloon.
"What cheer, Stevenson! Any tidings?"
"A pigeon, sir," replied the mate, handing the bird into the captain's
grasp.
McBain's hands shook as he had never remembered them shake before, as he
undid the tiny missive from the pigeon's leg.