by Pierre Mael
Two days went by amid these perplexities and anxieties. Every day the lieutenant returned to the border of the lake and looked down into its gloomy depths. His many observations only added to his anxiety. The insects, the butterflies, for instance, were not strong enough in their flight to have come from the distant icy lands that lie around the Pole. It followed that they must have come into existence on the island.
One morning Hubert noticed that the fauna was increased. There were one or two birds he had not seen before. These were large owls such as are found in the mines dug by the hand of man, as well as in the icy deserts of the north. As he watched the flight of one of them he saw the bird-plunge down into the abyss left by the retreat of the waters of the lake. He concluded that the gulf must consist of large cavities sometimes dry, sometimes submerged. He had already discovered that-the water of the lake was not salt.
From that to a plan of escaping from the Pole down through the lake was but a step.
A series of calculations showed him that the plan was not only reasonable but relatively easy of accomplishment.
He and Guerbraz set to work. They took the boat to pieces, and built it up again on the lake shore.
“What are you going to do?” asked Isabelle, curiously. Hubert smiled and explained his plan.
“My dear Isabelle,” said he, “you will see very quickly. The water of this lake is fresh water, which proves that it has no communication with the sea. It takes twelve hours to fill a cavity sixty fathoms deep and a mile across. That shows that an immense subterranean sheet of water must extend round here reaching to at least sixty kilometres away. At every revolution of the earth, this water returns to its point of departure. It sweeps round the compass and consequently it must cross the forty-first degree of west longtitude. We have, therefore, only to descend into the entrails of the earth for this water to take us to the extreme point where it is in communication with the land. We know that the girdle of rocks is about forty kilometres from here and that the surface of our island is a circle of some twenty-five square miles in area. If we let ourselves be borne along by a branch of this underground current we are sure of reaching one of the islands in the open sea. The presence of that sea and the existence of this prodigious amount of magnetic force assures us that the hypothesis is certainly correct.”
He spoke with such conviction that Isabelle was conquered at once.
“Bravo!” she said,” forward, then, by the subterranean corridor.”
It was the eighth day. D’Ermont’s calculations told him that to reach the outer boundary of the underground waters in the vicinity of the forty-first meridian, he must start at noon precisely.
The boat was accordingly launched and the embarkation took place.
As he had expected, the descent of this internal sea took place circularly.
In this way the boat passed round all sides of the gulf.
Down to thirty fathoms the lake was a cylindrical pit, the smooth clean walls of which seemed to have been built in masonry.
But at this depth the well suddenly opened out into a series of tunnels and boundless caves, like those the boat had been through on its voyage under the reef.
Hubert soon saw that his calculations as to the depth were not exact. When he reached the sixty fathoms where he expected to find the bottom, the boat was floating on an immense sheet of water under a rocky vault brilliantly illuminated by electric effluences, while the sounding line showed a depth of two hundred and forty fathoms more.
The truth flashed on the explorers,
The difference in the lake’s level was due to the difference in height between the extreme points of the Pole caused by the inclination of the earth’s axis.
The internal cave emptied and filled according as its position was above or below that axis. This was why the well became lake or precipice according to the time of day.
Being in this way satisfied as to the true state of affairs, Hubert had only to devote his attention to steering the boat into safety.
Up till then they had remained on the surface.
Now the height of the vault overhead and the vast dimensions of the cave permitted them to repeat the manoeuvre they had found answer so well in passing the reefs. All the hatches were shut down, every opening was closed, and the boat sank into the water. But this time it was fresh water through which they had to go.
Fortunately the internal illumination of this fairy grotto, the heat given off by the powerful electric centre, rendered the voyage less fatiguing and less dangerous than the first.
All their fears had ceased but one: that of entering into some passage without an outlet where they would be abandoned by the waves. But Hubert hastened to assure his companions against these chimerical hypotheses. The presence of breathable air at such depths, and even of a certain gentle breeze, showed that there was an atmospheric current in these wonderful tunnels. Besides, their enormous dimensions denoted that they also must be partly emptied at every revolution of the globe.
The three friends joined in a prayer to the Almighty, and, comforted by the Divine Power, boldly entered the subterranean caves.
But this time to their amazement was added a feeling of legitimate terror at meeting with something totally unexpected.
Up to now they had to contend only with the ocean, and the mysterious shadows and phantoms that peopled it. This battle with the inanimate had its dangers undoubtedly, but they had seen nothing of the extraordinary and supernatural with which so much of the life of the seamen is occupied.
Here, in the depths of these limpid waters, they were to meet with many strange apparitions, and with shapes worthy of the most awful nightmares described in teratological legend.
“Captain!” suddenly shouted Guerbraz, beckoning as he did so. “Come and look at this horror!” Hubert and Isabelle rushed to the windows. A monster had just risen out of the shadow of one of the pillars, and was swimming right at the boat. The body was twenty feet long, and provided with fins, or a neck almost as long, ending in a relatively small head, in shape like a lizard’s. Behind this strange specimen of a form that has disappeared for thousands of years were others still larger, half way between a whale and a crocodile, beasts with walrus heads, faceted eyes and saurian teeth.
D’Ermont could not restrain a cry of alarm as well as surprise.
“Mercy on us! The fossils have come to life!”
And mechanically he began to tell their names and enumerate their species.
“That one with the swan’s neck is the plesiosaurus, that other is an ichthyosaurus. Up there, on the ledge of the rock is a megalosaurus; overhead are whole families of giant dog-fishes, swordfishes, sharks, sawfishes, hammerheads.”
“What will happen to us?” murmured Isabelle.
Matters were indeed becoming alarming. The frail boat was running amid a perfect swarm of the monsters of all ages prior to the quaternary. These had survived the catastrophes of the globe. In these fresh, warm waters in the earth’s interior they had found shelter against the cold on the surface. And the presence of this intruder, this fish in plated armour, inferior in size to many among them, for the boat was not more than forty feet long, had at first astonished them, and had now enraged them.
Grouped around it, forming a sort of tacit line, they advanced in serried ranks to the assault; arid a combined would have shattered the vessel to pieces.
D’Ermont was equal to the occasion. He had recourse to radical measures on the spot.
Assembling in connection all the couples of the battery used in electrically lighting the boat, he put this new kind of voltaic pile in immediate contact with the boat’s outer skin, and for the moment transformed it into a coil of enormous power.
“Look out!” he cried, “and catch hold of the glass handles. We may feel a shock.”
He had not finished speaking when six of the terrible creatures dashed at the boat.
The shock was tremendous. Twenty-two cells coupled up had given the boat a charge powe
rful enough to knock over a herd of cattle. The monsters did not wait for another shock to pass through them into the whole troop that crowded around as this had done. In a twinkling the army was in flight in all directions.
“It was time,” said Hubert with a sigh of relief. “Heaven be praised! If this had not succeeded, I had only one more chance, and I have my doubts if it would have been of any good.”
“And what was that?” asked Isabelle, still agitated by her emotion.
“I would have put one of oar tubes of liquid hydrogen in contact with the water and opened it suddenly. There would have been a terrific lowering of the temperature, and we should have killed off a respectable number of these rascally things that have had the bad taste to live on to these days.”
While this conversation was in progress the boat was running at full speed away from these dangerous monsters. It had entered a spacious corridor, which it followed along its whole length. For four hours the voyage continued without any perilous incident.
At length, by the gradual diminution of the internal illumination, the explorers perceived that they were emerging from the magnetic zone to enter one less favoured. They had to bring into use again the lights of the boat, and the first rays disclosed that the bed of the water was less than twenty fathoms below them.
The boat emptied her reservoirs and rose to the surface.
It was as Hubert had expected. .
They were afloat on a surface of fresh water of marvellous limpidity in a cavern similar in nearly all respects to that at the Pole. A light, like a ray from a lens, could be seen to the south. Guerbraz steered towards it.
This was the opening into the cave; its communication with the outer air. The waters of the lake there formed in summer a cascade three hundred feet high; but at this time of the year the cold had solidified the upper falls into steps of crystal. Above stretched the wall of ice which formed the outer girdle of the Pole, and below that the open sea was beating against the rocks.
“We are saved!” exclaimed Isabelle.
Assuredly, they were not yet at the end of their dangers and fatigues, and cruel sufferings were still in store for them. But, at least, they had reached their object, and obtained the desired result. They had succeeded in penetrating to the Pole, and had returned, bringing precise information regarding it.
Henceforth it would be known not only in the world of science, but in the ordinary world, that the North Pole is an island where there reigns a spring climate due to the combined influence of solar rays and magnetic effluences; that this island is washed by an open sea separated into two zones by a wall of rocks surmounted by perennial ice, and that it is not impossible to discover in this wall the fissures, by which the two concentric circles of the palaeocrystic ocean communicate. Perhaps this passage might allow of a ship reaching the centre of the globe.
It was also known that a series of subterranean and submarine passages put in communication not only the two seas but the arctic lands and the Pole itself, and that travellers availing themselves of the same means could repeat the adventurous attempt which two men- and a woman had conducted so successfully.
These reflections poured sweet consolation into the hearts of the explorers. Said Hubert,—
“We have not yet finished our work. We have to carry our boat to the edge of the walls of rock, and that is not going to be easy.”
It was a very long affair. It took ten hours to take the boat to pieces, to carry her, and to put her together again.
The worst part of the task was the transport of the pieces over the ragged slippery icebergs. Nevertheless at the end of the ten hours the boat was peacefully afloat on the waves of the open sea, and the three companions, now sure of return, had moored her in the shelter of some high rocks while they went to sleep.
When this well-earned rest was over, Hubert accurately fixed the position of the subterranean tunnel.
It was in 41° 48" longitude west from Paris.
Twelve entire days had elapsed since their departure, when the bold explorers came alongside the field of ice on which their friends awaited them. Three of them only were there. The others had been prudently sent back, and among them De Keralio.
Lieutenant Pol, Doctor Servan and a sailor had remained behind at their dangerous post on the ice.
They had with them a sledge and the team of dogs required to draw it. The first living being to welcome the travellers was the brave Salvator. They could not keep him away. He threw himself into the sea and swam out to meet the boat, into which Guerbraz and Isabelle helped him.
The brave dog was enthusiastic in his demonstrations. His transports of joy were indescribable. It seemed that he would never be satisfied at the sight of Isabelle. While by his barking, his jumping and his caressing he manifested his joy at her return.
They were no longer in the mild atmosphere of the Pole; they
had again entered the kingdom of the cold.
The journey to Courbet Island was laborious beyond expression in a temperature of about 40 degrees below zero. But the happiness of returning to the station, the satisfaction of having surmounted all obstacles, sustained the strength and courage of the little troop. On the 20th of September, after having been met by a rescue party from the ship, they at length reached the Polar Star.
Alas! bad news awaited them. Not only did they learn of the treason and ill-omened projects of Schnecker; but they also heard that two sailors had died. They had also the sorrow of hearing bad news from Cape Washington, where death had removed two men from the ranks, and, what affected Isabelle more than anything else, Tina Le Floc’h was very ill on board the ship, and Doctor Le Sieur did not think she would survive many days.
The expedition’s second wintering, in spite of the success obtained, had begun under the most melancholy auspices.
CHAPTER XV
A SIEGE.
ASSUREDLY the actual position of the expedition was as good as it could be. The Polar Star was in excellent shelter at Long Creek, and safe from the outside storms and the shocks of the ice field. Solidly fixed in her cradle, and guarded by two high walls of syenite, she had but to wait for the end of the bad weather to resume the voyage to France, through the seas to the south of her.
There was no scarcity of provisions; independently of the reserve of liquefied hydrogen, they had enough coal for the daily heating. There would also be plenty of light, and if they did not possess the same abundance of fresh provisions, if they were wanting in the marvellous resources of the mould improvised the winter before, they had still preserved things enough to furnish all the requirements of the most voracious appetite.
Besides, the hunters had not lost hope of some fortunate shooting before the return of the formidable polar night. They had even received from Cape Washington the glad tidings of the presence of game as varied as numerous for the guns in the autumn campaign.
There was, therefore, no need to be anxious about the men who were in good health.
Unfortunately they were not all in good spirits. The thought of the deaths occurring so quickly one after the other had clouded their brows and relaxed their energies. They had learnt, on De Keralio’s return, what had been the lot of his two companions in bravery and misery. Besides, a few cases of scurvy had appeared, soon complicated by exhausting diarrhoea, which if it did nothing else, reduced the sufferers to a state of physical weakness and intellectual destitution.
Isabelle had at once begun to look after the sick, and she had enough to do. She was everywhere dispensing medicine and comfort and hope. But she herself wanted all her courage to reanimate that of her companions, in the presence of her own private sorrow concerning the illness of her nurse Tina Le Floc’h.
The poor Breton was lost, and she knew it. With admirable resignation she yielded to the decree which deprived her of the days she might have lived in sunny France. She had not a bitter word,, but her face showed the joy she felt at having near her the child she had nourished, and to whom she had been a second mo
ther.
Painfully she dragged out this doomed existence between the plank walls of this stationary house, in this atmosphere so little favourable for respiration, in the factitious light of electric lamps. The polar night seemed to weigh on her more heavily than on others, but she submitted without a murmur.
The winter was of extreme severity. The great cold of the preceding year was exceeded. On the 20th of November the mercury in the thermometer was frozen. On the 1st of December it was the turn of the acids and alcohols to thicken into a sort of syrup. From that date the temperature remained almost constantly at 40 degrees below zero. In the early days of January it descended to levels, in which the cold was tremendous: 50, 52, 54, 56 degrees below zero. The most careful medical precautions were ordered and taken; the men were forbidden to go out, and kept indoors for an entire week.
Then the coal fires were withdrawn and hydrogen was burnt in the stoves, in the forecastle and cabins; and in this way a constant temperature was maintained of four degrees.
Fortunately, if the winter was terrible it was also relatively short.
On the 15th of January the temperature suddenly mounted to the freezing point of mercury. At the same time an increase of barometric pressure announced the arrival of a storm from the south.
It lasted two days and was terrible. Notwithstanding her sheltered position, the Polar Star had a narrow escape.
An enormous piece of rock fell down from the cliff, and smashing the mizen top crashed to the deck. Among the cabins damaged by this accident were those of Isabelle and her nurse. This fall also cost the lives of two sailors. One was killed on the spot, and the other had his legs broken, and died after an amputation which was inevitable. These were causes of grief which the return of the sun was not likely to dissipate.