THE DEN OF DEATH.
The bed in which I lay was wondrous soft and downy; and the cold gave
me deep sleep, so that I awoke at a late hour to find the sun streaming
through my rock window, and the negro telling me, as he was wont to do
in the ship, that my bath was ready. The bath-room lay away a few paces
from my chamber; but the water that flowed from the silver taps was
icily cold; and I shivered after my plunge, though the beauty and
luxury of the place compelled my admiration. It was no ordinary
bath-room, even in its arrangement, the great well of water being large
enough to swim in, and the basin of pure white marble; while soft and
brightly-coloured rugs were laid on the couches around, and the arched
roof was Eastern in design and decoration. When we returned to my
sleeping-place, I found the bed curtained off, leaving a commodious
apartment, with books, armchairs, a writing-table, and a fireplace, in
which a coal fire burned brightly. But the greater surprise was the
view from my window, a view over a sunlit fjord, away to mountain
peaks, snow-capped and shining; and between them to a vista of an
endless snow-plain, white, dazzling, and not altogether unmonotonous,
yet relieved by the nearer patches of green and almost garden-land
which seemed to stretch towards the sea.
My new home was, as I had thought, upon the side of a fjord which led
through a canyon to the outer basin. There was beach at the upper end of
it, and grass-land where several canoes and kayaks lay; and I saw that
many of the men who had watched the horrors of the night were working
lustily now, dragging stores and barrels from a heavily-charged screw
steamer which was anchored near the beach. The rocks which bound the
opposite side of the bay did not appear to be cut for dwellings as on
our side: but I saw trace of several passages in them; and away above
them there was a small mountain peak by which a river of ice ran into
the sea. But of the outer cave I could observe nothing; or of the shore
itself, though away at a greater distance, over some of the ravines, I
made out the clear blue of the Atlantic, and a waste of peaceful water.
The doctor came to me while I was at breakfast. He was very cheerful,
and began to talk at once.
"The captain sends you his compliments," he said; "and hopes you have
slept. _Entre nous_, you know, he doesn't care a brass button for such
things as we saw last night; but if we didn't keep discipline here, we
should have our throats cut in a week."
I gave him civil words in return, and he went on to speak of personal
matters.
"The men are inclined to resent the exception that has been made in
your case. I am afraid it will lead to trouble by-and-by, unless, of
course, you choose to close with the offer that Black makes to you."
"You speak of an 'exception,' and an 'offer,'" said I; "but for the
life of me, I don't quite know what you mean. How has an exception been
made in my case, and what is the offer?"
"I will tell you in a minute; Captain Black has brought thirty or forty
Englishmen of your position, or better, to this place within the last
three years; not one of them has lived twenty hours from the time he
set foot in the rock-house. As for the offer, it is evident to you that
we could not permit any man to share our privileges, and to be one of
us, unless he shared also our dangers and our risks. In other words,
the time will come when you must sign an agreement such as I have
signed, and these men have signed--and I don't believe that you will
refuse. It is either that, which means full liberty, plenty of money, a
life which is never monotonous, often amusing, and sometimes dangerous;
or an alternative which I really won't dilate on."
"You lay it all down very clearly," I replied, "but you can have my
answer now if you like."
He raised his hand laughingly.
"Curse all emotion," he said, "it affects digestion. Black won't hurry
you--why, for the life of me, I can't tell, but he won't. You can't do
better than take things easy, and see the place. I've brought you a
'Panama,' for the sun can advertise himself at eight bells still; and
if you have nothing better to do, put it on, and light a cigar as we
stroll round."
The idea of inspecting the place pleased me. I followed Doctor
Osbart--for such his name was--down the rock slope we had trodden on
the previous evening; and thence to the beach, hard and baked with the
sun. The men, who had ceased the labour of discharging the steamer,
were lying about on the grassy knolls, smoking and dozing, and they
cast no friendly glances on me as we passed along the shore round the
edge of the bay, and mounted a soft grass slope which led to the
cliff-head on the other side. It was a long walk, but not unpleasant,
in the crisp, sweet, odour-bearing air; and when we had attained the
summit, a glorious seascape was spread before us. All about were the
white peaks and the basaltic rocks, towering above ravines where ice
flowed, or falling away to bright green pastures where reindeer trod.
The coast-line was lofty and awe-inspiring, often showing a precipitous
face to the sea, which beat upon it with the booming of heavy breakers;
and spread surf all foaming upon its ridges and promontories. I stood
entranced with the vigour born of that life-giving breeze; and the
young doctor stood with me watching. At last he touched me upon the
shoulder, and pointed to the first cave, where the nameless ship lay
snugly moored in the creek, with many seamen at work upon her.
"Look," he said, "look there, where is the instrument of our power. Is
not she magnificent? Do you wonder at my warmth--yet why? for without
her we here are helpless children, victims of poverty, of law, of
society. With her we defy the world. In all Europe there is no like to
her; no ship which should live with her. Ask her for speed, and she
will give you thirty knots; tell her that you have no coal, and she
will carry you day after day and demand none. Aboard her, we are
superior to fleets and nations; we ravage where we will; we laugh at
the fastest cruisers and the biggest warships. Are you surprised that
we love her?"
He spoke with extraordinary enthusiasm--the enthusiasm of a fanatic or
a lover. The great ship reflected the sun's glow from her many bright
parts, and was indeed a beauteous object, yet swan-like, the guns
uncovered as the men worked at them, and a newer lustre added to her
splendour.
"She is a wonderful ship," said I, "and built of metal I never met
with."
"Her hull is constructed of phosphor-bronze," he answered, "and she is
driven by gas. The metal is the finest in the world for all
shipbuilding purposes, but its price is ruinous. None but a man worth
millions could build the like to her."
"Then Captain Black is such a man?" I said.
"Exactly, or he wouldn't be the master of her--and of Europe. Doesn't
it occur to you that you were a fool ever to set out on the enterprise
of coping with him?"
I did not answer the taunt, but looked seaward, away across the west,
where Roderick and Mary were. The boundless spread of water reminded me
how small was the hope that I should ever see them again; ever hear a
voice I had known in the old time, or clasp a hand in fellowship that
had oft been clasped. They thought me dead, no doubt; and to take the
grief from them was forbidden, then and until the end of it, I felt
sure.
But the doctor was still occupied with the great ship, looking down
upon her as she lay, and he called my attention to a fact I had not
been cognisant of.
"We are coaling here, do you see?" he said. "It was one of Black's
inspirations to choose Greenland for his hole; it is one of the few
comparatively uninhabited countries in the world where coal is to be
had, somewhat of a poorer quality than the anthracite we are accustomed
to use, but very welcome when we are close pressed. He is filling his
bunkers now, in case we should decide to break up this party before the
end of the winter. That will depend on our friends over in Europe. We
have given them a nightmare, but it won't last, and they'll go to bed
again to get another."
"Who are your miners?" I asked suddenly, interrupting him, for I saw
that the rock above the nameless ship was pierced with tunnels leading
down to the shafts, and that forty or fifty coal-black fellows were
shooting the stuff into the bunkers.
"These are our guests," he said lightly, "honest British seamen whose
voyages have been interrupted. We give them the alternative of work in
the mine, or their liberty on the snow yonder."
"But how can they live in such a place?"
He laughed as though the whole thing were a joke.
"They don't live," said he. "They die like vermin."
"I'm evidently afloat with a lot of fine-spirited fellows," said I;
"or, to put it in plain English, with a beautiful company of
blackguards."
"Why not say with a lot of devils--that would be more accurate? But you
can't forget that you came to us unasked, and now you must stop."
His leer at this sally was terribly expressive, and I showed all the
contempt I felt for him, turning away to the sea fondly, as the hope of
my liberty, since thence only should it come. He read my thoughts,
perhaps, taking me by the arm with unsought pretence of kindness, and
he said--
"Don't let's dissect each other's morals; we have the place to see, and
you must be getting hungry. I will show you only one thing before we
go--it is our cemetery."
It was not a fascinating prospect, yet I followed him across the high
plateau to the creek wherein the rock-house was, but to the side which
was opposite to my bedroom window. There he descended the face of the
cliff by rough steps; and entered one of the passages which I had
observed from my chamber. The passage was long and low, lighted by
ships' lanterns at intervals, and I discovered that it led to a great
cavern which opened to the face of one of the glaciers going down to
the sea on the farther side. Nor have I entered a sepulchre which ever
gave me such an infinite horror of death, or such a realisation of its
terrors.
The end of the cavern was nothing but a wall of ice, clear as glass,
admitting a soft light which illuminated the whole place with dim rays,
making it a place of mystery and awe. Yet I had not noticed its more
dreadful aspect at the first coming; and, when I did so, I gave a cry
of horror and turned away my face, fearing to see again that most
overwhelming spectacle. For blocks had been cut from the clear ice, and
the dead seamen had been laid in the frozen mass just as they had died,
without coffin or other covering than their clothes. There they lay,
their faces upturned, many of them displaying all the placid
peacefulness of death; but some grinned with horrible grimaces, and the
eyes of some started from their heads, and there were teeth that seemed
to be biting into the ice, and hands clenched as though the fierce
activity of life pursued them beyond the veil. Yet the frightful
mausoleum, the den of death, was pure in its atmosphere as a garden of
snow, cool as grass after rain, silent as a tomb of the sea. Not a
sound even of dripping water, not a motion of life without, not a sigh
or dull echo disturbed its repose. Only the dead with hands uplifted,
the dead in frozen rest, the dead with the smile of death, or the hate
of death, or the terror of death written upon their faces, seemed to
watch and to wait in the chamber of the sepulchre.
I have said that the sight terrified me; yet the whole of my fear I
could not write, though the pen of Death himself were in my hands. So
profoundly did the agony of it appeal to me that for many minutes
together I dare not raise my eyes, could scarce restrain myself from
flying, leaving the dreadful picture to those that should care to gaze
upon it. Yet its spell was too terrible, the morbid magnetism of it too
potent; and I looked again and again, and turned away, and looked yet
once more; and went to the ice to gaze more closely at the dead faces,
and was so carried away with the trance of it that I seemed to forget
the dead men, and thought that they lived. When I recalled myself, I
observed Doctor Osbart watching me intently.
"A strange place, isn't it?" he said. "Observe it closely, for some day
you will be here with the others."
I shuddered at his thought, and muttered, "God forbid!"
"Why?" he asked, hearing it. "It's not a very fearful thing to
contemplate. I would sooner lie in ice than in earth--and that ice is
not part of the glacier; it never moves. It is bound by the rock there
which cuts it off from the main mass."
"It's a horrible sight!" I exclaimed, shivering.
"Not at all," he said. "These men have been our friends. I like to see
them, and in a way one can talk to them. Who can be sure that they do
not hear?"
It was almost the thought of a religious man, and it amazed me. I was
even about to seek explanation, but a sudden excitement came upon him,
and he raved incoherent words, crying--
"Yes, they hear, every one of them. Dick, you blackguard, do you hear
me? Old Jack, wake up, you old gun! Thunder, you've killed many a one
in your day. Move your pins, old Thunder! There's work to do--work to
do--work to do!"
His voice rang out in the cavern, echoing from vault to vault. It was
an awful contrast to hear his raving, and yet to see the rigid dead
before him. My surmise that Doctor Osbart was a madman was undoubtedly
too true; and, horrified at the desecration, I dragged him from the
cavern into the light of the sun, and there I found myself trembling
like a leaf, and as weak as a child. The cold crisp breeze brought the
doctor to his senses; but he was absent and wandering, and he left me
at the door of my room.