It was here, above all, that the aid of the balloon was indispensable; only the balloon would permit the gondola-sloop to cross that frightful rampart of icebergs and arrive at the Open Sea.105
Farandoul, quite satisfied with the performance of the sloop, allowed himself and his men 12 hours sleep before commencing the rather tedious maneuvers necessary for the resumption of aerial navigation. The sloop was moored for the night, with its balloon still tethered astern, in a little bay formed in the ice-sheet by an accumulation of gigantic icebergs.
The next day, at dawn, they would take off into the sky.
The weather being calm and the cold so intense that no disintegration of the icebergs was to be feared, Farandoul, Mandibul and the entire crew slept in absolute tranquility. Even the men on watch, not seeing any danger, allowed themselves to go to sleep—a culpable weakness on the part of some, mistaken security on the part of the others.
At dawn, when the men on watch opened their eyes, they let out a terrible cry. The balloon, solidly attached the previous evening to the stern of the sloop, had disappeared! Farandoul and Mandibul, who had come running at the first sound, raced to the rear to ascertain the cause of this deplorable accident. Was it a weakness of the cables, or an omission of precautions?
One mere glance sufficed to disabuse them; there had been no accident. It had not happened as a result of some fortuitous rupture—a crime had been committed. The cables had been cut!
But no one had seen or heard anything! And they were in the middle of the ice, 200 leagues from any habitable terrain!
Who could they suspect? What wretch could they accuse of this abominable crime, which reduced all their savant schemes to nothing and would stop the expedition at the first hurdle? A placard nailed to the rail provided a revelation. In large letters, it bore the following lines:
SECOND WARNING
The order is given to everyone to renounce any expedition to the pole.
Any contravention will be severely punished.
(illegible signature)
Governor of the North Pole
Farandoul roared. “So it’s serious! Well, Monsieur Governor of the North Pole, it’s you and me. We can’t go by balloon, but we have our sloop, and we’ll cross the Open Sea in her once we’ve got her over the entire ice-sheet!”
No one, in the course of that fatal night, had heard or seen anything, save for Trabadec, on watch between midnight and 3 a.m., who claimed that, on emerging from a fit of somnolence, he had seen the shadow of a ship among the icebergs. He had taken the shadow for the well-known phantom ship and had contented himself with making a few signs of the cross before going back to sleep.
“There’s no doubt remaining,” Farandoul murmured in Mandibul’s ear. “Our expedition has an enemy, and a serious one. Who this Governor of the North Pole might be and what interest he might have in preventing us from arriving at our goal, I don’t know—but we’ll certainly find out!”
“We’re going on, then?” said Mandibul.
“Undoubtedly! Straight ahead, in spite of everything. Our gondola-sloop handles he sea admirably; we’ll get to the pole in her!”
“What about the ice-sheet?”
“We’ll find a pass! Many mariners have gone through these ice-fields to the environs of the Open Sea; we shall do likewise. Forwards!”
The gondola-sloop lost no time in seeking to discover what had become of the lost balloon. It set off on a detailed exploration of the cracks in the ice-sheet, searching among its countless ramifications for the desired passage. They were, moreover, sailing in a region crossed by the warm waters of the Gulf Stream in their immense journey from the Gulf of Mexico to the North Pole, and there was nowhere in the ice-fields where they might search for a breach with any greater chance of success.
What had become of the phantom ship glimpsed by Trabadec? Our Breton, on watch from the topsail, affirmed that he had seen it again, and that it was by heading in the direction it had taken that they would find the desired passage.
Farandoul had no more doubt; the expedition’s mysterious enemy was also forging ahead in the direction of the Pole.
III.
For three weeks the gondola-sloop sailed through the ice-field on the way to the Pole. Apart from the collapse of some monumental icebergs that almost sank them in a difficult passage—a collapse attributed to malevolence—no further incident occurred.
The cold was intense. Although ameliorated by the Gulf Stream, whose final branch they were still following, the temperature nevertheless reached 40 degrees Centigrade below zero. Before going any further, Farandoul permitted his crew to go hunting for polar bear furs with which to make garments—a luxury much appreciated in these regions.
These hunts did not even involve any prolonged delay. The white bears were literally swarming on the ice-floes, in the midst of numerous families of seals and walruses, which seemed to be there for no other reason than to provide the thick layers of fat with which the skins of the bears were padded. Unfortunately, bullets had very little effect on the gigantic bears; when they chanced to penetrate the skin they were lost in the fat, without seriously inconveniencing the individuals that had received them. The bears scratched themselves slightly, but that was all.
The mariners did not persist in making use of firearms; they equipped themselves with more terrible devices brought by Farandoul in anticipation of what might happen. We are talking about chloroform-filled bombs, of which our hero had already made such good use during the war of the Disunited States of Nicaragua, and which he had considerably improved since then.
Armed with these hand-grenades, the hunters left the gondola-sloop and leapt from one ice-floe to another in pursuit of polar bears. At the sight of these audacious enemies, unfamiliar to them, and furious at being disturbed, the ferocious bears advanced, growling, with their claws extended.
Mandibul was in the forefront of the hunt; threatened by a bear of the largest size, and on the point of being reached by the animal’s terrible paws, he contented himself with extending his arm towards it and, when it was beneath the bear’s muzzle, pressing a switch. The chloroform, suddenly released, did its work and the bear fell backwards with a frightful howl. Its comrades came to avenge it, but the mariners copied Mandibul’s stratagem and brought their chloroform Orsini bombs into play.106 Within five minutes, 17 unconscious bears were laid out on the ice; there was nothing more to do than harvest the pelts. The hatchets and knives were ready, but, as they were about to begin their work, the mariners hesitated.
“Sapristi!” murmured Mandibul. “There they are, put to sleep by our chloroform. We can’t kill them now—that would be murder!”
“What if we were only to steal their fur coats?” suggested Trabadec.
“And when they wake up in a few days, how are they supposed to get by at 40 degrees below zero?”
“Bah! They’ll get used to it—skin them anyway!”
“What about their fat?” cried Tournesol. “We need their fat too, for heating. We can’t steal their fur coats and their layers of fat and leave them absolutely naked—that would be cruel. We have to kill them.”
The sentence was pronounced; the bears perished painlessly in their sleep, and the mariners went back to the gondola-sloop with furs and a good provision of fat.
In three days, 60 bears succumbed, first chloroformed and then massacred. Each man had a fur overcoat, bedcovers and a change of clothes proof against arbitrary falls in temperature.
The seals, walruses and other animals had disappeared, alarmed by the carnage. Only white bears, stupid brutes, continued to show themselves among the floes. They had already become more ferocious and difficult to approach; now that seals and walruses, their usual nourishment, were in short supply, they wandered hungrily over the ice around the ship, with their noses in the air, as if fascinated by the culinary emanations coming from the launch, where the melting of the fat was proceeding apace.
When the well-provisioned gondola-sloop resu
med its journey, there was a momentary disturbance among the bears. The food-stuffs were leaving! With a single moment the gigantic animals precipitated themselves towards an enormous block of ice closer to the vessel. Beneath their weight, the iceberg cracked, split and sank beneath the waves. When the eddies of foam produced by this fall had dissipated, the mariners suddenly caught sight of an enormous ice-floe loaded with 30 menacing bears, advancing upon the ship only a short distance away.
“Damn!” cried Farandoul. “We’re being attacked in our turn! All hands on deck! Get the chloroform! The chloroform!”
The sailors came running, but in the tumult occasioned by that sudden attack a few of them put their chloroform Orsini bombs too close to their comrades’ face—clumsiness that knocked five men out for 48 hours. The crew of the sloop, thus reduced, found itself in an awkward situation; the 30 famished bears were beginning to climb off their ice-floe on to the deck, threatening to overwhelm the mariners, in spite of their valor, by sheer force of numbers—all the more so because, in these conditions, the bombs were becoming difficult to handle, each carrier risking chloroforming himself along with the target bear.
Tournesol, half-anaesthetized by a comrade’s chloroform, slumped down on the launch’s fire-extinguisher. Before closing his eyes completely, he still had enough presence of mind to point the pump out to Mandibul.
“That’s it!” cried Mandibul and Farandoul, simultaneously. “The pump! Quickly, man the pump!”
“Fight bears with that?” murmured a few mariners, uncomprehendingly. “Anyway, the water’s frozen!”
“The water in the engine isn’t frozen—quite the opposite! We’ll fight them with boiling water. Stand aside!”
They had understood. With a turn of the hand, the pump, connected up to the engine, received a flood of boiling water from its reservoirs. Farandoul rapidly pulled on two pairs of thick fur gloves and seized the nozzle with a firm hand. Standing on the rail, he let the bears draw closer to him.
“Pump!” he cried, when they were well within range.
The hopeful bears were already opening their terrible jaws and lifting their paws to grab the sides of the gondola-sloop. Suddenly, a jet of boiling water descended upon their bodies with a frightful sizzling noise and great gouts of vapor. The nearest ones fell backwards beneath that unexpected shower and their roaring changed into a lamentable whimpering.
“Pump!” ordered Farandoul. “Pump hard! It’s working!”
The pitiless jet of boiling water whistled down upon the mass of bears, toppling the ferocious attackers of the sloop on to one another. The ice-floe that bore them began to melt and threatened to shatter; finally, in the midst of the vapor cloud, the variously injured bears were seen to throw themselves into the water and dive in order to avoid the scalding blast of boiling water. A few remained on the battlefield, too well-cooked to have enough strength left to jump into the sea.
The launch was disengaged; Farandoul ceased fire. “Saved!” he cried. “We shan’t be eaten this time!” And the crew, all danger alleviated, were able to devote themselves entirely to steering the ship. The men put to sleep by the chloroform were laid in their hammocks to enjoy their three or four days of enforced rest; the others accepted the additional work incumbent upon them with resignation, content to have escaped so cheaply the annoyance of wintering inside a polar bear. The fire-extinguisher remained on the bridge, ready for use in case of unfortunate encounters.
“They’re not as numerous as the others,” murmured Farandoul, counting them. “Five, six, seven, and a few cubs. That’s nothing—but prepare the boiling water anyway.”
Within an eye-blink the pump was ready to function, and Farandoul waited for the bears. “Will they pass by without attacking?” he went on. “If they pass by, I won’t spray them.”
He was still speaking when the ice-floe touched the port side of the gondola. All the bears immediately stood up and raced forward to scale the side; a jet of boiling water fell upon them; they disappeared in a cloud of vapor…
Screams burst out on the ice-floe, accompanied by curses in English and German.
“Stop!” cried Farandoul, throwing away the nozzle of the pump. “They’re not bears—they’re talking!”
All the mariners had run forward at the same time, and two lifeboats had been lowered into the water in order to catch up with the ice-floe, which was drawing away with the scalded false bears.
There were, in fact, no bears on the floe; the eight unfortunates that had been taken for ferocious beasts were human shipwreck-victims! The thick furs in which they were covered from top to toe had assisted the error; at two paces, in the fog, an animal-tamer would have made the same mistake. The astonished mariners recognized the smaller ones, which Farandoul had mistaken for bear-cubs, as seals, securely linked to them by chains.
The scalded unfortunates being not wanting to be separated from their seals in order to climb into the lifeboats, they seized them in their arms and did not let go of them until they had set foot on the gondola’s deck.
Farandoul, full of remorse on account of his mistake, greeted them with apologies and told them how sorry he was to have deluged them with boiling water.
“On the contrary!” sighed one of the unfortunates, with a slight German accent. “Without your hot water we’d probably be dead; we were already three-quarters frozen in spite of our furs, and on seeing your vessel we scarcely had the strength to stand up on our ice-floe. Your delightful boiling water has reanimated us. Yes, I’m scalded, but reanimated, reanimated, reanimated! On my own account, thank you! I’d much rather be cooked than frozen—my friends too, I think…” Turning towards his companions in misfortune, the German continued: “Isn’t it so, gentlemen and dear colleagues, that I’m right to approve of the boiling water? Frozen or cooked—which is your preference?”
“Cooked!”
“Cooked!”
“Cooked! Cooked!”
“You see—it’s unanimous! Thank you, sir, a thousand thanks, in the name of German Academia, in the name of England, and in the name of science! Thank you also for my seals, which you have also saved!”
This astonishing adventure brought eight additional passengers into the gondola-boat, not to mention the four seals. Before asking these half-frozen and half-cooked individuals any for any details of their misfortunes, Farandoul let them restore their strength with a good meal, after which they were put to bed, well wrapped-up, in the bunks in the infirmary. The four seals also lay down in the infirmary, the shipwreck-victims having refused to be separated from them.
“Strange!” murmured Farandoul., as he left them. “Not a single mariner among the shipwreck victims—nothing but scientists! We’ll find out tomorrow what they were doing on the ice-sheet.”
The scientists slept for a long time. For 48 hours there was no movement in the infirmary. Farandoul and Mandibul anxiously established themselves by their bedsides, waiting impatiently for the unfortunates to wake up. Finally, one scientist opened an eye. As if it were a signal, within a minute, all eight scientists were stirring, groaning, rolling over and, finally, looking at one another with profound astonishment.
One of them slapped his forehead; he remembered. The others did likewise, and, like him, murmured: “The hot water! Frozen, then cooked, then saved….”
“What about the seals!” they suddenly cried, leaping out of their bunks.
“Calm down,” said Mandibul. “They’re here. Look—they’re still sleeping in their bunks.”
“Mein Gott!” cried one of the scientists. “What events! What events! You see before you, gentlemen, members of two scientific expeditions to the North Pole, one German and one English, abandoned in the ice by the ships that brought them, lost in the midst of bears and—but for you—inevitably frozen. Permit Hermann Knapp, president of the Commission of Polar Research and Exploration appointed by the Scientific Congress of Berlin to introduce his colleagues: Ulric von Koplipmann of the University of Bonn; Otto Rabus, chancell
or of the Academy of Jena. The two gentleman accompanying us are colleagues from an English expedition to the north pole, also gone astray and encountered by us in an igloo on an ice-berg.107
“And the seals?” asked Mandibul.
“Oh, that’s true; I forgot to introduce them. This is Brutus, this is Coriolanus, this is Cassius and this is Numa Pompilius!”
The four seals thus identified uttered inarticulate grunts beneath their bedclothes, but did not budge.
Farandoul and Mandibul looked at one another in astonishment.
“Ah, I see,” Hermann Knapp went on. Those names astonish you, you don’t understand. Know, then, that these animals are not simple and vulgar seals; they are Latin seals—the celebrated Latin seals discovered in the polar ice! Have you not heard mention of the expedition organized to hasten to the discovery of a Roman colony indubitably existing in the polar regions?”
“Indeed, I remember!” exclaimed Farandoul, suppressing a smile. “They’re the Latin-speaking seals reported to the Scientific Congress of Berlin.”
“Yes, two of them are: Brutus and Cassius; the other two were captured by us 50 leagues further north—and if any doubt had remained in our minds, that doubt would have been dispelled after a single instant of conversation with them!”
“What conversation?” Mandibul put in. “I once saw a seal that could almost say papa and mama, but that was all.”
“That was a vulgar seal. Ours say pater and mater.”
“Fichtre!”
“Yes, and what’s more, the other two—the ones we captured—pronounce even more Latin words quite distinctly. How can we doubt after that? They’re still a little unwell today, but as soon as they feel better, you can judge for yourselves. If it were not for the incomprehensible misfortunes that have overtaken our expedition, we would be heading for the pole—which is doubtless inhabited by the remnant of a Roman colony. And who can appreciate the immense consequences of such a discovery for science, for…?”
The Adventures of Saturnin Farandoul Page 56