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Title: The new northland
Author: Gratacap, Louis Pope
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The new northland" ***
[Illustration:
THE POLICE FOLLOW RIDDLE’S CUE
]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE NEW
NORTHLAND
BY
L. P. GRATACAP
WITH 16 DESIGNS
BY
ALBERT OPERTI
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
THOMAS BENTON
1915
------------------------------------------------------------------------
COPYRIGHT 1915
BY
L. P. GRATACAP
PRINTED BY
THE EDDY PRESS CORPORATION, CUMBERLAND, MD.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
KROCKER LAND
A ROMANCE OF
DISCOVERY
BY
ALFRED ERICKSON
PROF. HLMATH BJORNSEN
ANTOINE GORITZ
SPRUCE HOPKINS
THE NARRATIVE BY
ALFRED ERICKSON
EDITED BY
AZAZIEL LINK
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS
_Page_
Preface (Editorial Note) 7
Chapter I The Fiord 39
Chapter II Point Barrow 63
Chapter III On the Ice Pack 89
Chapter IV Krocker Land Rim 116
Chapter V The Perpetual Nimbus 141
Chapter VI The Crocodilo-Python 162
Chapter VII The Deer Fels 184
Chapter VIII The Pine Tree Gredin 203
Chapter IX The Valley of Rasselas 228
Chapter X Radiumopolis 246
Chapter XI The Crater of 271
Everlasting Light
Chapter XII The Pool of Oblation 288
Chapter XIII Love and Liberty 308
Chapter XIV Goritz’s Death and the 332
Gold Makers
Chapter XV My Escape 348
Chapter XVI The Sequel 376
------------------------------------------------------------------------
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
_Page_
The Police Follow Riddles’ Cue 28
(Frontispiece)
The Fiord 39
The Professor and the Pribylof 69
Seals
On the Ice Pack 98
Krocker Land Rim 131
The Perpetual Nimbus 158
The Crocodilo-Python and the Wild 180
Pig
The Deer Fels 190
The Pine Tree Gredin 215
Meeting the Radiumopolites 226
The Valley of Rasselas 239
Ziliah and Her Father 292
The Pool of Oblation 300
Goritz’s Death 334
Erickson’s Escape 375
Erickson’s Rescue 382
------------------------------------------------------------------------
EDITORIAL NOTE
This remarkable narrative of Arctic exploration is itself a remarkable
confirmation of the wisdom of that tireless hunt for NEWS which has
become second nature to the newspaper man, and while distinctively a
mark of his calling, has attached to his profession the opprobrium of
“yellowness.” The appropriation of this color—so intimately associated
in nature with the golden illumination of the noon, the royal charm of
lilies, and the enduring lure of gold—to designate an irresponsible and
shameless sensationalism has never been adequately explained. The
“yellowness” of the live journalist, turning with an instinctive scent
to follow to its end every new trail of incident, sniffing in each
passing rumor the presence of hidden and serviceable scandal, and
ruthlessly breaking through the sham obstruction of modesty to snatch
the culprit or to free the victim, cannot certainly be referred to the
torpor marked by the _jaundice_ of the invalid, nor to the weakness of
the last stages of an emaciating fever. Perhaps if the reproach is to be
made, or can be made, intelligible, the yellow color finds its subtle
analogue in a mustard plaster.
That popular cataplasm has a dignified and ancient history, and is
gratefully recorded in literature for nearly two thousand years as a
_contrarient_ of value, allaying hidden aches through the excoriation of
the uninjured and painless surfaces. The process seems to involve an
injustice in principle, but it is, in spite of abstractions, a
beneficent practice. The “yellowness” of newspapers may amaze modesty,
startle discretion, and afflict innocence, but it cures interior
disorders, and the unpleasantness of an ulcerated or inflamed skin
should be condoned or forgotten for the benefit of a regulated stomach
or a renovated joint.
However, this all _en passant_, as only remotely, and yet diffidently,
related to the manner of my obtaining the circumstances and facts of the
following adventure. I have attributed my success to the pertinacity of
instinct and the olfactory sense of mischief. It is true. Without one or
the other—though the combination of both rendered failure impossible—I
might not now be in the enviable position of proclaiming a “beat” on my
professional rivals which no amount of editorial venom, aspersion,
contempt and innuendo will ever obliterate from the annals of
journalism, as unprecedented.
I am indeed afflicted at moments with a sort of discomfiture over my own
modesty in not having ransacked to better advantage the commercial
possibilities of my tenacity and acumen. Incredible and hypnotizing as
is this story of Mr. Alfred Erickson, as a foil to its romantic daring
and its transcendent interest, the brief relation of the episode—and its
development—that led to its publication, has a delightful thrill of
excitement, and an up-to-date volubility, so to speak, of incident, that
frames the story in the most exhilarating contrasts.
An office boy, a temporary expedient for a messenger and page, Jack
Riddles, mercurial, vagarious, and quick-witted, a sandy haired,
long-limbed, peaked-nosed and weazel-eyed creation, with flattened
cheeks, whose jackets were always short, and whose trousers despised any
intimacy with the tops of his shoes, got me the story.
Jack is destined for great things in our metropolitan annals. In the
mission of the Progressive party, with its millennial attachments, Jack
and his sort would be progressively eliminated. Crime exists for
detection, and detection is Life at its _n_th power for such as he. Jack
is endowed with a rare intuition of ways and means when the center of a
reportorial mystery is to be perforated, and the process of “getting
there” to _him_ is as inevitable as the first half of the alphabet.
Riddle’s only counterpart was Octavius Guy, alias Gooseberry, Lawyer
Bruff’s boy in Wilkie Collin’s story of the Moonstone.
He began his exploit on the top of a Fifth Avenue ’bus, and it was about
the middle of September, 1912. Jack has a Hogarthian sense for the
multitudinous, the psychological, the junction of circumstance and
expression in revealing a plot or betraying a criminal. To hang over the
railing of a Fifth Avenue ’bus and watch the crowds, the motor cars,
each vibratory shock, as the behemoth shivers and plunges, bringing your
interpretative eye unexpectedly into a new relation with the faces of
that ceremonious throng, was intoxication for Jack. It evoked
exuberantly the passion of espionage. There was indeed concealment here,
in the packed and methodical progression of people and people, and yet
more people. Yet with an average dumbness or dullness, or just the
homogeneous stare of business, or the vapid contentment of contiguity to
riches and fashion, Jack caught glimpses, direct, profound, of dismay or
discontent; of the pallid, revolting grimace of suffering, the snarl of
envy, or the deeper placidity of crime.
They were rare, but Jack watched for them; his precocity ran that way
and he was rewarded. It used up his dimes, it widened the solutions of
continuity in his nether garments and brought his feet more familiarly
in contact with the hard flagging. Some supersensual instinct urged him.
The succeeding story attests the splendor of the revelation he
uncovered. Jack may have been about eighteen years of age.
It was opposite the Public Library, just below Forty-second Street on
Fifth Avenue and on the west side of that thoroughfare that Jack’s eyes,
after a long stop which held up an endless phalanx of automobiles, fell
upon a man and woman who conveyed to his thought a hint of crime. The
woman was beautiful too, a Spanish siren, full in form, with developed
curves that yielded so slightly to the sway of her tight fitting mauve
dress as to start the conjecture that she did not belong to the more
rarified types of Venuses. A light feather boa, deliciously pearly gray
in tone, heightened the carnation of her cheeks. These in turn yielded
to the orbed splendor of her eyes, and that to the wealth of black hair
darkly globed underneath a maroon velvet turban-like cap, in whose folds
twinkled a firmament of greenish stars. Jack literally devoured her
radiance, so near was he to her as she descended with her companion the
last terrace to the sidewalk between the amorphous lions of the Public
Library.
The man with her was inordinately, insolently handsome, dark and tall,
dressed a little beyond the form of reticence, as was the woman. Herein
perhaps lurked the confession of their mutual depravity to Jack, an
untutored psychologist; to all besides it appealed as a momentary
sensation, to some as barely an infringement of good taste.
The man wore a light fedora hat that suited the bravado of his curled
and graceful moustache, the ovate outlines of his face, his liquid,
voluptuous eyes, the sensuous thickness of his lips. Observation stopped
short at his face where he intended it should. Its arrest was made
imperative by a blue and ormolu tie, relieved against a softly-tinted
yellow shirt, carrying a horseshoe of demantoid garnets in a wreath of
little diamonds. His feet were encased in tan gaiters, a permissible
distraction. For an instant only the spectator was rewarded with an
appreciation of their admirable _tournure_. Otherwise he was in black,
relieved by the white lining at the lapels of his coat, and he carried a
cane in his gloved hand.
It was a few instants after Jack’s ravished eyes had fastened on this
entrancing couple, that the cane was raised sharply in the air to
descend abruptly on the woman’s head. The attack involved the man’s
slight retreat—a backward gesture—and his turning aside, whereby his
profile cut keenly across the sunlit stone behind him, and Jack was
shocked into a delighted recognition of the same profile in a print in
the show window of Krauschaar’s gallery. He remembered the title; it was
“Mephistopheles, A Modern Guise of an Old Offender”; a smiling, swarthy
beau at the feet of a remonstrating and beautiful _ingenue_.
The explosion was evidently the climax of an altercation. Jack recalled
the previous animated demeanor of the couple. Explanatory reflections
were cut short by the velocity of the woman’s defense. She flung herself
on the man, caught his arms with her outstretched hands, and kicked him
viciously. Infuriated, he tore himself away, raised the cane and the
next moment would have inflicted a harsher insult on the defiant Amazon,
into whose face, so Jack thought, had sprung a tigerish fury, when, from
the stupified and expectant crowd before them, half shrinking and half
jubilant, shot a tall figure, whose interposition transfixed both
contestants.
This meteoric stranger was remarkable for his broad shoulders, and a
peculiar taper in his frame downward to his feet, that made him
figuratively a human top, the impression of any actual deformity arising
from his immense chest, on which, by a connection scarcely deserving
consideration as a neck, sat his squat, contracted head. Prodigious
whiskers covered his face, invading his high cheeks almost to the outer
limits of his sunken eyes.
This hirsute prodigality contrasted with his cropped cranium and his
closely shaven lips. The latter were long and thin-compressed, they
seemed to separate his chin from the rest of his face by a red seam. His
forehead was low and his head was covered with a steamer-tourist’s cap.
His clothes were of plaid.
As he rushed between the wranglers he caught each by the shoulder, and
he pushed them apart. He had turned toward the avenue, facing the
wondering throng, and Jack heard him speak quickly and sharply, but in a
guttural, obscured way that suggested something that was not English or,
if it was, it was hopelessly incoherent to Jack’s ears from its
imperfect articulation.
The man and woman seemed stunned into immobility, and then obeying his
gesture, followed him on the sidewalk, jostled and pressed by the crowd
which at first, inquisitive but timorous, had recoiled a little from the
enigmatical encounter and then, almost obstreperous and decidedly
interested engulfed the trio, who however pushed their way through,
energetically piloted by the stranger. How quickly a drama evolves!
All three had almost simultaneously stepped into the little _scenario_,
and yet by the illusion of an assumed sequence the last actor seemed a
novelty, related as unexpected, to the other two, as more familiar and
apparent. None of the three spoke, nor did they heed the interruption of
the spectators who tardily parted to let them pass. The moment
Forty-second Street was reached the leader turned toward Sixth Avenue.
Jack standing on the roof of the ’bus, which slowly swung off into the
restored movement northward as the obstruction somewhere ahead
disappeared, saw them enter an automobile opposite the northern entrance
to the library and dash westward.
Jack did not argue the matter with himself. He had no compunctions. He
jumped straight for the to him (as perhaps to anyone) tangible certainty
that he had struck a trail of iniquity. But how to follow it? His
ruminations were cut short by the loud honk of an automobile and there,
returning to Fifth Avenue at Fiftieth Street, he saw the yellow
limousine which contained the suspects wheeling into the procession and,
forced by the unrelieved pressure to relax its impatience, moving with
the limping concourse at the same pace.
Jack watched it eagerly. His eyes never left it. It swayed a little to
the right and to the left as the driver, probably under threats or
persuasion, endeavored to insert his vehicle into the chance spaces that
opened before him. This irregular and tentative progress brought the
automobile at length directly alongside of the ’bus which had on it the
Nemesis of its (the automobile’s) occupants. It was underneath Jack’s
very eyes; he could have dropped on its roof almost unnoticed. Jack’s
heart beat with trip-hammer throbs, and his mind rehearsed the
possibilities of murder, arson, burglary, brigandage, kidnapping, etc.,
gathering headway in that uncanny conference going on there below under
that burnished but impenetrable roof. But he was exulting too with the
steel-clad certainty of having a “case,” and that a little intensive use
of his wits would promote him from the office floor to a reserved seat
in the Reporters’ Sanctum.
A jolt, a lurching swing, the vituperative shriek of an ungreased axle,
and the ’bus followed a meandering lane that brought it into an
unimpeded headway. Jack sprang to his feet and watched behind him the
still imprisoned limousine—it too shot ahead; noiselessly as a speeding
bird it overtook the ’bus and then with a graceful curve, almost as if
in mockery of his impotence, it vanished into east Fifty-eighth Street.
Jack had a message for the Director of the Metropolitan Art Museum. It
was from myself in response to an inquiry as to what space we could
afford for a description of a new Morgan exhibit. Jack was a safe
messenger, unmistakably accurate, but we always discounted his celerity,
because of his preferences for a ride on a Fifth avenue ’bus and the
little delinquencies of delay his observational powers tempted him to
perpetrate. He was an hour later than the most generous allowance of
time would justify. Jack was to bring back “copy” for the next day’s
issue. I lectured him. He was sullenly respectful, indifferently
contrite, and showed a taciturn preoccupation that impressed my
reportorial instinct as significant.
As a matter of fact the missing hour was used in traversing Fifty-eighth
Street. The fruit of Jack’s search was diminutive but it was conclusive.
On the pavement in front of No. — east Fifty-eighth Street, Jack picked
up a microscopic green glass star. He knew where it belonged—the
spangled turban on top of the massed hair of that afternoon’s
_debutante_; _debutante_ to Jack’s official criticism.
This minute betrayal had dropped from her hat, from nowhere else, and
the belligerent cane of her escort had dislodged it. It had lain
somewhere in the folds and creases of the soft velvet, to fall just
there, unsuspectedly at the entrance of her retreat—a frail enamel bead
releasing to the world a marvelous secret. For Jack Riddles intended to
watch that house; he would enter it; if it concealed some half
consummated plot of SIN, if indeed the plot was over, its victims
disposed of, and the conspirators were there enjoying the harvest of
their guilt, he would know it, and—the eventuality of failure never
entered his head. He felt, in every fibre, a certainty of wrong-doing,
something shadowy, perhaps darkly cruel in these people. His prescience
was involuntary; he never explained it, he never himself understood it.
Jack lived in Brooklyn, with his wifeless father. That night as he left
the office he dropped a postal at a lamp post and took a car north. He
was following the trail. A little transposed I submit Jack’s story as he
gave it to me the next morning.
He came to the office a little late, and knocked at my door. On entering
I saw instantly that he was in an advanced stage of nervous excitement.
He was pale, and a fluttering involuntary movement of his hands, one
over the other, as he stood before me, with a glitter in his peculiarly
shaped and small eyes betrayed his mental agitation. He was quite wet,
had probably been drenched, and the first symptoms of a chill showed
that precautions were necessary to avert a possible collapse. I told him
to sit down, opened a cellarette, which had its professional and
commercial uses, and poured out a rather stiff jorum of the best whisky
I owned.
As he swallowed in a gulping manner the proffered contents of the glass,
he was rather a ludicrous and yet pitiful and heart-moving object. His
disordered hair, shabby clothes and a certain forlorn wistfulness in his
glance upward to me, combined with his lean and disjointed anatomy gave
him an expression that was at once tender and laughable. Only a
Cruikshank could have done it justice. His spirits revived, animal heat
reasserted itself, and back with it, as if it had stood somewhere aside
until invited to return, came boastingly his invincible pugnacity and
confidence.
“Mr. Link,” his speech was customarily hesitating with a deprecatory
manner as if forestalling interruption or correction, and impeded by a
slight stutter, but now, in the tide and torrent of his thoughts, under
the sway of the elation over his first bit of detective work, it was
rapid but coherent, and oddly picturesque. “Mr. Link, I’ve nipped a
pretty piece of mischief in the bud—seems so to me. Of course I’m just
on the trail, and fetching up to the big game that I think is in sight,
barring the trees—may take more work than I think. But the proposition
is as clear as glass that there’s a crooked game being pulled off at —
east Fifty-eighth Street, and I’m convinced that ‘the deceits of the
world, the flesh and the devil,’ as it goes in the prayer book, are
behind it. Now here’s the evidence—not much you may say, but I’ll hang
up my reputation on it—you know, Mr. Link, I have a little hereabouts at
finding out things, and I’m just convinced _it_—won’t drop.
“I was on the ’bus, stalled just below Forty-second Street, opposite the
Library. I saw a couple of people, a man and a woman, coming down the
steps to the street. The woman—Well, I couldn’t begin to tell you how
stunning she was. Beauty was just all over her, thick too, from her feet
to her head. I remember now the thought struck me as I looked at her
that she’d make a brass man turn round to see her when she’d passed. And
the goods on her were as sweet and gay as herself—a picture, Mr. Link, a
real picture, if ever a woman made one. The man was with her,
good-looking and cruel; neat, too, and Hell painted on him so plain it
would make an angel throw a fit—if an angel could, supposin’.
“Now Mr. Link I hadn’t looked that long,” Jack snapped his fingers,
“before I felt, sir, that they were _rotten_, not four flushers, but the
_real bad_, like those the Sunday School man told us of, who ‘build a
town with blood, and establish a city by iniquity.’” The pause Jack
interpolated here was as oracular as the quotation. I did him a great
injustice to seem indifferent and impatient. Really I felt the thrill of
an inevitable sensation approaching, and—I saw beyond it hypnotizing
_copy_. Jack desiderated encouragement, approval—I looked at the clock
over my desk and yawned. Surely it was deliberate malice.
“Like that, sir!” Jack clapped his hands loudly; the ruse broke through
my affectation, and startled me into attention that he was keen enough
to see was as intense as he wished it to be.
“Like that, sir, they hit out at each other, and there was a fight on!
Then a husky— Well, a—white-hope you might have called him—bounced in;
they knew him, he knew them, and the three chased off in an automobile.
I lost ’em, found ’em, and tracked ’em down east Fifty-eighth Street.
She had green stars in her hat—things you could hardly see—but they
_shone_! I found one on a doorstep—and last night _I watched the
house_!”
The typical story teller who at such a juncture lights a cigar, finishes
an unsmoked pipe, empties a glass of grog, or rises with unconcealed
surprise over his neglect to fulfill an engagement _elsewhere_, could
not have surpassed the self-control with which Jack, for the same
purpose, intimated his own retirement. He rose, crushing in his thin
fingers his poor bleached blue cap, his small sparkling eyes raised to
the clock, which a moment before I had invoked so heartlessly to aid the
hypocrisy of my assumed exemption from common weaknesses.
“I think, Mr. Link, it’s time for me to see Mr. Force.” Mr. Force was an
assistant in the press-room.
The rebellious spirit of honesty which I had shamelessly essayed to
crush, got decidedly the best of the situation now; behind it was the
pressure of my own exorbitant curiosity.
“I think Jack, you’ll sit down and finish your story.”
Jack sat down.
“There was a vacant or closed house opposite. I perched on the top step
of the porch and glued my eyes on No. —. I think, sir, that if any man
or woman inside had winked an eye at me from across the street, I’d have
seen it. But it wasn’t light enough for long to watch trifles, and I
just kept looking at the front door and the windows. It was right funny
how the lights changed. They broke out first on the second floor, then
they dropped to the basement, then they climbed to the third story, down
again to the first, but they ended in the attic windows and they stayed
there. Everything else was as black as the tomb.
“The wind hustled about a little, splashes of rain hurried along with
it, and it grew dark in the street. Once or twice the shades lifted and,
Mr. Link”—Jack was a picture of poignant eagerness—“I saw the big peach
and her man, the two of the Library steps, just the same as I see you.
They’d open the window too and look out together down into the street. I
knew why, sir. They expected that limousine—and it came.”
The constraint of any position more repressive than sitting to Jack, now
on the edge of his exposure could not be imagined. He stood up, moved
towards me, the color mounting in his pale cheeks, his body bent a
little forward, and his eyes lighting up with an interior brilliancy
that suddenly made me realize Jack might become a good-looking man.
“After that they’d go away from the window farther back; I think they
carried a lamp with them for the light would fade away, or else they
turned the gas off. At eleven o’clock—I could hear the clock bells from
the steeples—the wind was racing and it began to rain hard. I got some
shelter under the doorway; the light never left the attic across the
street. I felt it all over me, sir, that IT was coming. I’m not sure, I
may have fallen asleep, but I came to with a bounce. Lightning was
chasing through the sky and the thunder was booming and—the door of No.
— was open; the light from the hall flickered over the wet sidewalk, but
the shower had passed. The man and the woman both stood there for an
instant, then they went in and the door shut with a slam. I thought,
sir, I had lost the trail. I never felt worse. I hated them, Mr. Link.
Good reason, too.” His hands suddenly searched his vest, they were
unrewarded; his face grew blank and he dropped his hands helplessly,
while a piteous look of consternation and utter despondency shot from
his eyes to mine, by this time fully sympathetic and as lustrous as his
own.
His glance fell on his hat that lay at his feet on the floor, a flood of
revived remembrances followed; he snatched it up, fumbled in its lining
and pulled out a scrap of wrinkled paper. The returning sunshine of
confidence renewed again the handsome look I had noticed before. He
certainly was working up his effects with a remarkable melodramatic
insight that was captivating.
“I ran down the steps into the street, I had heard a distant croak of an
auto-horn, and on top of it came the toll of one o’clock from a tower. I
had been asleep over an hour. There was no light in No. — except
upstairs, as before, in the attic. Then the croak seemed to come from
towards the East River, and I saw two balls of light rushing at me. IT
WAS THE LIMOUSINE. I started back, and stumbled over a small cobble
stone. It looked like an intervention—a message, Mr. Link—who knows? I
picked it up, and I pulled out a jack knife I had in my pants. Why? I
didn’t know, but, sir, they both came in handy.
“The auto sneaked up quiet enough, wheeled round facing East River, and
crept in a little to one side of No. —. Mine wasn’t the only pair of
eyes watching for it. It had hardly grazed the curb when the front door
opened and there stood Mephistopheles, behind the beautiful woman, both
in the half dark. I knew them, alright. The man came down the steps
bareheaded, he carried a short something in his right hand. The sprinkle
started again, and a smash of thunder roared overhead, and a clot-like
gloom came out of it. Under that cover I dashed over the street like a
hare, and crept tight up to the back of the car. In it sat Husky—the
peg-top fellow that met ’em in Fifth Avenue—and another man, smaller,
and sort of muffled up. The chauffeur in front never stirred from first
to last.
“Meph. opened the door; Husky stepped out; he shook the little man. I
heard him mutter ‘Come out here. Be fly, but quiet, or by God, I’ll
stick yer through and no compunctions, mind yer.’ The bundle inside
stirred; I peeped in from behind, a little higher; he was in a black bag
or something like it, and as he stooped under the door and stumbled out,
the two caught him, lifted him and started up the steps, where the woman
leaned forward—it seemed to me she kept clapping her hands together
softly as if she couldn’t hold in for delight. Then, sir—”
Jack straightened himself, bent back, relaxed, pitched forward with one
outstretched arm, projected like a catapult, in front of him, “then,
sir, I let fly—not at them—I didn’t know who I might hit and anyhow, hit
or miss, they’d slipped off through that door quicker’n snakes. That was
no use. The cobble stone slammed through the glass side of the
limousine, it went through that and split the window opposite. I haven’t
pitched for the Bogotas for nothing, sir. Before they had time to think,
I jabbed my jack knife through the tire and off it went like a mortar.
Everything was quiet then up above and the crash and the explosion had
the center of the stage, as you people say. I guess it made their hearts
jump. They looked around, the woman screamed, and—I screamed—and that
chauffeur didn’t even turn about. For nerve or sheer fright he had the
record. Perhaps at such times, sir, you can’t distinguish. Eh?
“Well, they lost their grip on the bundle, for it was a pretty uneasy
load to carry now; the interruption perhaps gave the fellow inside some
hope. He rolled down the steps onto the pavement like a bag of beans,
moving slightly like a strangled dog. I heard Husky’s voice, ‘Inside,
inside with him! Don’t stop, swat him,’ and then the black scoundrel
raised his cudgel and beat the poor creature insensible. I heard him
groan where I stood. I was crazy with rage; I felt myself suffocating. I
had been shouting, ‘Help! Help!’ but my voice left me; I discovered that
I was very wet, and then a strange vertigo came over me, a pain crossed
my chest, and a fire seemed to rage in my throat. I was sick, sir. I
am—”
Jack tottered. I caught him, poor fellow; exposure and overstrained
emotions had prostrated him. And he was still damp; perhaps
breakfast-less. I had been thoughtless, but no time was to be lost.
There was an emergency room in the building, and there Jack was hurried.
Strengthened with nourishment, and warmed again into animation with
stimulants, revived by sleep—he hardly stirred for sixteen hours, so
deathlike was his slumber—he just escaped a serious illness.
Recuperation was instantaneous; his own mental energy worked wonders and
when two days later he returned to the theme of his story hardly a trace
of his weakness was betrayed. He was keen to engage in the solution of
the midnight mystery and he implored me not to share his discovery with
anyone else except the police to whom indeed I had already related
Jack’s experience. Jack realized that their co-operation was
indispensable. It was then he showed me the wrinkled scrap of paper
which he had secreted in the lining of his cap, and afterwards stuck in
his trousers’ pocket, and which I had forgotten.
There was printed on it in pencil, “I am a prisoner. My life is in
danger. A. E.”
The paper was of the thin and excellent quality used in engineers’
pocket tables and handbooks.
It appeared that Jack upon feeling the sudden desertion of his strength
had stolen again to the doorway of the empty house opposite No. — and
must have drowsed away there the rest of the night, urged apparently by
his ineradicable hope of further disclosures. His persistency was
rewarded by finding this puzzling and startling bit of evidence. He
found it, most remarkably, on the floor of the abandoned limousine.
The car had remained undisturbed all night in the street, and this
strange neglect on the part of its previous users could only be
explained by the supposition that they feared some unpleasant
complications, involving disagreeable explanations with its actual
owners, unless they were the owners of it themselves. Jack crawled over
to the car in the earliest hour of the morning before the dawn had yet
grown strong enough to make its outlines visible, while night
practically covered the street. No. — was dark from basement to attic,
not a light shone in it anywhere. He remembered that very distinctly.
He had had an indefinite premonition or fancy that something left behind
in the car might be found; clues like that figured in all the romances
of detection. He explored with his hands the corners, the cushions, and
the floor, when, passing his hand along the edge of the carpet mat
covering the floor, it encountered a bit of paper rolled up into a
pellet. After the discovery of the writing he went to an owl wagon
restaurant, and then hastened to the newspaper office.
But two hours later, when the daylight swept through the city, he
returned to Fifty-eighth Street, from a restless feeling of suspicion,
and agonized too with the thought of the abused and helpless prisoner.
_The auto was gone_, and the mysterious house revealed nothing, with its
shades drawn down and its immobile identity with the other sandstone
fronts hopelessly complete. If murder dwelt behind its expressionless
stories, or some dastardly drama of persecution, extortion, torture,
effrontery and crime had been enacted there, no telltale signal betrayed
it. And yet to Jack’s inflamed imagination it confessed its guilt;
somehow to his obsessed eye he saw the meanness of its degradation, as
if it shrank away from its orderly and decent neighbors; as if indeed
its neighbors frowned upon it. He returned to the office and told me his
story.
A newspaper man has the keenest sort of scent for sensation—especially
the _yellow_ newspaper man, and I fail to recoil from making the
confession of my personal _yellowness_ in that respect. He is seldom
bewildered by scruples, seldom daunted by danger; he doesn’t think of
them. He starts the engines of exposure and arrest, and records the
result. Half an hour after Jack’s story was told Captain B— of the —
precinct was closeted with me, and I repeated Jack’s adventure.
Jack’s description of the three principals in this suspicious criminal
alliance was insufficient or inadequate to enable Captain B. to
recognize them among the notables of both the under and the upper worlds
with whom he was acquainted. I had not then seen the paper Jack found.
“Mr. Link,” Captain B. finally said, after a short silence following my
communication, “you feel pretty sure of this young fellow, Jack Riddles?
The name suggests an equivocal character.”
“I feel a good deal surer of him, perhaps, than I do of myself—if you
can understand.”
“Oh I catch that. Well No. — will be watched night and day for a short
time. Your young friend’s rather violent exploit may have scared its
tenants off. The auto went. Perhaps they went with it. It won’t do to
break in at once. We must have some evidence of occupation and a line on
the occupants that runs straight with Riddles’ description.”
“But that wretched man? Suppose they kill him. A little less
carefulness, Captain, might save him and, under the circumstances, I
don’t think I’d be squeamish over precedents.”
“Oh, that team isn’t ready for murder yet—they’re not thinking of it.
They’ve kidnapped someone for one reason or another. Bagging him that
way showed they wanted something out of him. I’ll place them in twelve
hours or so, and if they cover the same size Riddles gave I’ll take the
risk and search the house.”
“Of course you’ll let us in, Captain, on the ground floor so to speak?”
“Sure! I’ll tip you on the first peep we hear. But get that boy on his
legs; we’ll need him.”
It was just a day and a half later that a policeman brought me a sealed
envelope. Of course I knew who had sent it. There was no answer the
policeman said, and left. I opened the missive expectantly. I was not
disappointed. Its contents were more rapturously thrilling to my
journalistic hunger for marvels and mysteries, and those labyrinthine
prodigies of subterranean deviltry that Cobb, or Ainsworth, or George
Sand revelled in, than any mess of crime I had tumbled on _or in_, since
Joe Horner, our chief city reporter, went through a hatchway in the
Bronx and dropped into a hogshead of claret (Zinfandel) with two dead
bodies in it!
Captain B.’s note ran: “Riddles corroborated. They’re there; three of
them and a squeegee. Up to mischief—perhaps forgery—something like it.
Pounce on them tomorrow. We’ve moved like mice, and the trap has been
set quietly. Nothing more simple. Guess you might like to be in at the
death. Bring Riddles. We break cover at 11 p.m. Meet at the police
station * * *”
Riddles was then on the mend, and when I told him how matters stood, the
boy smiled grimly, caught my hand and exclaimed: “Good medicine for me,
Mr. Link. I feel it to the end of my toes. That’s the tonic I need.
Trust me, I’ll be with you, strong and hearty.” He was.
Captain B. had arranged the affair tactfully. He had conveyed his
suspicions to the householder on the west side of No. — and had secured
his permission to admit three plain-clothes men through his backyard to
the backyard of No. —; also his own party of six, with Riddles and
myself as press agents, onto the roof, whence we expected to effect an
entrance through the roof door or skylight, while a few men on the
street would intercept flight in that direction. Riddles was radiant; it
was a beautiful tribute to his sagacity; all this had come about through
his quick insight, his instantaneous sense of obliquity, alias
crookedness, when he saw the quarreling pair on the Public Library
steps. As we cautiously climbed over the low parapet separating the two
roofs, with only the light of the stars to guide us, not altogether
appropriately I recalled Jonathan Wild’s chase of Thomas Dauell over the
housetops, and also the burglary at Dollis Hill in Jack Shepard. There
were more apposite occurrences in fiction to compare our maneuvers with,
but I thought of these.
I had shown to the Captain the pathetic call for rescue scrawled on the
paper scrap. It was palpably written by a foreigner, perhaps a German,
certainly someone of Teutonic origin, and the paper had been torn from a
book, some such technical guide for engineers as I had suggested. It did
not interest Captain B. greatly. He told me, before we started out, that
the “peg-top” man—a Hercules—the beautiful woman and “Mephistopheles”
had all been seen, and no one else, but that dark ruby glass, identical
he thought with that used by photographers, had been inserted in the
front attic windows, where he suspected the imprisoned man was kept at
work in some nefarious trade, from which the trio derived support or
profit. As to the criminal character of “the bunch” he had no doubts.
The two men almost invariably carried bundles into the house, but none
out.
We were at the doorway of a little triangular erection which covered the
stairway leading from the roof to the attic and our approach, in
rubbers, had been almost noiseless. The door was shut, but only locked;
the precautions against invasion had been forgotten or overlooked. It
was not even bolted. Evidently the conspirators or counterfeiters, or
whatever they were, apprehended nothing; we might catch them red handed.
A stout chisel enabled us to force the door inward, and a dark lantern
revealed a dilapidated stairway below, ending in a kind of storage room,
cluttered up with the refuse of successive occupancies, a dangerously
inflammable chaos of rubbish, in which a feebly sputtering match could
create a conflagration before it was suspected. It required some
discrimination to cross this _debris_ without starting some crumbling
avalanche of fragments in the boxes, baby carriages, stoves, chairs,
trunks, picture frames, racks and easels. As it was, with our best
efforts slides occurred, and the mastodon-like tread of the detectives
sank noisily through an occasional bandbox. We paused anxiously—I did,
at least—at such moments, but the crash, so it sounded to me, brought no
response. I reasoned the house must be vacant, and that our quarry had
escaped.
We found that a closed door opened upon a narrow hallway, and as we
softly drew it back loud voices most unexpectedly became audible,
certainly proceeding from the front rooms of that very floor; from that
front room wherein Jack had noticed the light, and where the detectives
reported the insertion of the ruby panes. A hoarse dominant swelled up
in the excited conversation. Jack leaned towards me and whispered
“That’s Husky”; Captain raised a warning finger, and we filed out, one
by one, gingerly tiptoeing toward the room which now unquestionably
contained the objects of our search. The familiar scare or thrill which
submerges all lesser emotions, as the danger point in an encounter is
approached, decidedly manifested itself somewhere in my anatomy, or
probably all over it.
Any mental analysis of my feelings was abruptly halted by the threats or
altercation now heard very clearly in the room before us.
We had reached the door, beneath which a streak of light gave a
penumbral illumination to the end of the little hallway. Below, in the
house itself, absolute silence reigned, and apparently as complete
darkness. Our approach was unnoticed. The excitement or rage that
overpowered the speaker, breaking out in threats that now became
intelligible and startled us into a fierce impatience to interfere, had
certainly stopped his ears. The suffocation of anger had made him deaf.
“Damn you—you’ll show us the trick, or else your starved and scorched
body will take the consequences. We know well enough you can do it.
You’ve led us on with blind promises, but now we’ve got you where we
want you. You can’t get out of this, remember, until we get what we
want. Can you understand?”
“And then you’ll kill, I suppose?” The voice was strained, thick,
foreign in accent, and low.
Riddles stretched himself up to my ear again and whispered “A. E.?” I
nodded assent.
“No! No! Oh, no; but—you must not stay here.” The voice was a woman’s.
“We’ll take care of you. Nicely too, Diaz, I guess. We’ll keep you where
you won’t tell tales.” A mean, cynical laugh followed, a muttered
corroboration from a third person, who had evidently crossed the room.
It was this last voice that continued the harangue of the prisoner in a
smooth, polished, plausible manner that thinly veiled its heartlessness;
its crafty insinuation betrayed a designing selfishness, but it seemed
welcome after the barking hoarseness and ferocity of its predecessor,
and the cruelty of that feminine sneer. Its climax came at the close
with a threat of fiendish wickedness that broke the tension of our
restraint.
“Alfred Erickson, perhaps you can understand your predicament a little
better, if you will stop to think it over. You are a stranger here, and
you are in our power. That, you probably realize pretty well by this
time. There is something else you may not so clearly comprehend, and
that is, we are not afraid of consequences, because in your case, so far
as we are concerned, there will be no consequences! You can extricate
yourself easily enough if you will be sensible. Obstinacy has its merits
under some circumstances; your perseverance in your Arctic experiences
was rewarded—and we know exactly how—but obstinacy is of no avail just
now, and no rescuing party from Norway, or even from the New York police
will save you from, perhaps, an unfortunate calamity.”
This allusion appealed facetiously to the others, and there arose a
musical outburst of laughter from the lady, with an accompaniment of
harsh bass grunts from the first speaker. The voice continued:
“You possess a secret that the whole world has been hunting for, and we
propose that the world will go on hunting for it before you will ever be
able to tell it. Share with us and, under reservations, you will be well
cared for. Refuse and, as we have gone so far, we will find—and you
too—the rest of the way very simple. You’re not at this moment likely to
be able to help yourself. That little incident outside,” Riddles nudged
me again, “meant nothing. You’re as much buried alive in this attic in
the first city of the world, as if you occupied a tomb of the Pharaohs.
We’re not as self-controlled as you seem to be. We may get restless.
Then, sir”—we heard him step forward; I imagined him leaning close to
his victim, for it was evident the man was in some way confined—“then,
sir, up you go—you and your secret—in smoke.”
His smothered rage broke out then, and we heard him strike the man and
curse him. There was the remonstrance of a cry—that was all. The next
instant we would have forced our way through a stone wall had we been
against it, but Captain B. raised his hand. His trained endurance amazed
me. The voice resumed:
“Now what do you propose to do?”
“Yes, what?” from the first ruffian.
We held our breaths and listened with all our ears.
“Let me get up. Let me talk this over with you. You are driving me
crazy! I can’t think. I will forget what you say I know. You—”
“Hell with your parleying. I’ll untie your tongue. I guess your memory
will work quick enough after this”; it was Husky threatening.
Then succeeded the jeering encouragement of the woman and, strange
paradox, the voice was rich, enticing, but mocking.
“Oh, yes; just a little stimulation will hurry up matters. Diaz we can’t
wait much longer and,” the menad fury broke loose, “if this miserable
creature holds out much longer we shall be ruined. Burn him—burn
him—scald it out of him, Huerta; the dolt, simpleton, idiot—”
There was a shuffling movement inside, the sudden bristling, rushing
sound of an airblast (Could it be a naphtha lamp?) and then a raving,
rending, terrifying cry, something that meant fear and rage and madness,
the awful, marrow-chilling shriek of insanity.
Quicker than thought a man behind me shoved us aside. He raised an iron
mallet; it struck the door with a splintering crash—another and
another—the door burst inwards, torn from its lock, torn from its
hinges, and we all rushed forward. I heard a shot, then another; the
group in front of me parted and an extraordinary scene was revealed, one
I can never forget. A huge broad-shouldered man was crumpled upon the
floor. There had fallen from his hand a thick, long soldering iron; it
had been red or white hot; fallen on the floor it was burning into the
boards, and little swinging flames encircled it. Near at hand was the
large form of a plumber’s furnace with the blue whistling flame still
shooting from it. Huddled in a corner, cowering behind a menacing
man—quickly subdued, however, by a pointed revolver—was the beautiful
woman, a half dishevelled creature in a deep yellow wrap, fastened a
little distance below her peerless throat by a big turquoise brooch. Her
abundant hair had become loosened, and it poured over her shoulders in a
raven tide.
The man in front of her was Riddles’ Mephistopheles. He was pale, and
the pallor hardly became him. Although strikingly handsome it gave a
peculiar expression to his face, of craven hate and sinister fear, if
that can be understood. In both his and the woman’s eyes shone a
horrible surprise. But the overpowering object in the room was the
half-naked figure of a man with extended arms and divergent legs,
strapped to a narrow table by iron bands. These latter passed over his
wrists and ankles, and were actually screwed to the table. His face was
not readily deciphered; whiskers covered his chin, a high forehead
beneath overhanging light hair and a large mouth formed together the
suggestion of a very dignified and intelligent face. His condition was
heart-rending; bruises covered his body, one eye seemed swollen and
shut, and scars—I shuddered at the thought of their having been caused
by the iron in the hands of the prostrate fiend—marked the white but
defaced skin of his shoulders and arms.
There was little furniture in the room—the tortured man had probably
been kept on the table at night—a few chairs, a second table, and
towards the front of the room a long table covered with a confusion of
physical apparatus. It was the work of a minute to search the criminals,
and to handcuff them; though the woman cried bitterly at the degradation
Captain B. was taking no chances, and then the liberation of the
pitiable victim of these inhuman miscreants was effected. The stiffness
of his limbs almost forbade movement, and he cried with pain—and for
that matter I am sure with joy too—as we tenderly raised him, lifted him
into a chair, and tried to relax the rigid muscles. His agony, crucified
so on his back, must have been incalculable; evidently his resolute
refusal had driven his tormentors furious, and made them incarnate
demons. But what was it—the SECRET? Reader, you are not to know, except
as you find it out yourself, by reading this almost incredible story.
With our prisoners—the Hercules was carried out; his femur had been
split by the Captain’s bullet and he was in desperate pain—we made our
way down through the house. There seemed to be only two rooms showing
any signs of habitation, two rooms on the second floor used as bedrooms,
and their furnishment was a droll mixture of bareness and luxury.
Shreddy and hanging wallpaper, a superb rug or so, a sumptuous easy
chair, and then wooden kitchen chairs, plain bedsteads, but a bureau or
toilet table covered with jewel boxes, and in a corner odds and ends of
silver utensils, heaped up into quite a noticeable hillock. Was it these
that the men had been seen carrying so constantly into the house? Our
prying about uncovered some decanters of wine incongruously stowed away
in a pantry below a washbasin. Their contents helped Erickson, and some
of the rest helped themselves.
Riddles had been gloating over the capture of his game; his eyes never
left the sullen, downcast face of Mephistopheles, distorted too at
moments with angry scowls, nor the disturbed shadowed splendor of the
woman’s countenance. At an unguarded instant Mephistopheles sprang out
of the hold of his captors, and brought his clenched, handcuffed wrists
down on the head of Jack, who promptly dropped.
“You dirty little fox, you did this. I know now. I’ve seen you hanging
about here. I’ll mark you! I’ll mark you! I’ll tear your liver and heart
out yet. Oh, I don’t forget. Diaz never forgets.”
He was jerked back into decorum and silence, and somewhat injuriously
rebuked as well, but a little scar, bare of hair, was to remain as a
memento of his regard for Jack Riddles for many a long year afterwards.
I bargained successfully with Captain B. for the possession of Erickson,
and I took him home in a taxi, greatly to my journalistic bliss. He was
pretty dangerously ill for days; the nervous breakdown was dreadful. He
raved and shouted and was almost maniacal in his outbreaks. It was the
natural reaction of a powerful mind and nature against the circumstances
of his degradation and insult. But he finally came round all right, the
glow of health covered his cheeks, and his earnest eyes welcomed me with
sanity and gratitude. Then he told me his story, in two parts. The first
part explained the predicament in which we found him here in New York,
the second— Well, the reader has it before him in this volume, exactly
as it appeared in the daily issue of the _New York Truth Getter_.
A few words more to explain Mr. Erickson’s equivocal, abject position in
New York, as we found him, and this Editorial Note will no longer
restrain the puzzled and vexed subscriber. These words will be very few
indeed, and may indeed prove very unsatisfactory. Yet they will
conveniently make a skeleton framework or outline for deductions, with
which the reader may fill its expressionless and yawning blanks, after
the gift of his imagination or the bias of his temperament, upon reading
the ensuing narrative.
Alfred Erickson reached San Francisco from the Arctic Exploration,
herein circumstantially described. In San Francisco he formed, rather
rapidly, the acquaintance of Angelica Sigurda Tabasco, and Diaz Ilario
Aguadiente. There were mutual prepossessions. Mr. Erickson also
fascinated his new friends by certain wonderful claims, which were
however partially supported by ocular demonstration. They all came to
New York. In New York Mr. Erickson came to grief. He had come too far
from the base of his operations, and he suffered from a complicated
treatment. We rescued him from its worst effects. I think that is all. I
will not trust myself to say more for fear of my own remorse over
misleading statements. Angelica and Diaz were never prosecuted. Erickson
was afraid to tell his story before he wrote his book (this book), and
we all agreed he acted wisely from a commercial standpoint, and the
police so impressed Angelica and Diaz with their—the police’s—contiguity
under any and all circumstances, in this country anywhere, anyhow, that
they left it. And Jack’s “Husky” turned out to be a hardened
photographed and historic criminal, who had played the heavy villain in
the little mystery under the same impelling motive that animated the
minds and tongues of Angelica and Diaz. He had also captivated this
captivating pair by blandishments less peculiar than beauty, and he had
wound up Alfred Erickson into the tightest kind of a knot of physical
embarrassments, from whose Gordian embrace Erickson had been delivered
through the intervention of the very humble instrument of Fate, Jack
Riddles.
“Husky’s” name eluded determination for a while, but was revived through
his own inadvertence in talking in his sleep, wherein the confession
transpired of his having “done up” Blue Brigsy at a time when he himself
carried the soubriquet of “Monitor Dick.” The clue was slight; it proved
sufficient, and landed him in Sing Sing for a quarter of a century.
Jack Riddles was “lifted.” He was taken out of the proletariat, the
pages, office boys and messengers, and placed among the police
reporters, where he was duly taken in hand under instruction to acquire
the current cursorial gait and speed of the slam-bang reportorial style.
He will get it. This relieves the situation created by Riddles’
opportune circumspection from the top of the Fifth Avenue ’bus.
The reader, albeit he may demur at the jejune skipping around the
explanation of the mystery at No. — east Fifty-eighth Street, has hereby
had the situation sufficiently cleared to feel himself ready to enjoy
Erickson’s story, and I assure him, he may look forward with expectancy
to find the residue, or the heart, of that mystery resolved at, let me
say, page 400 or thereabouts, assuming that by that time he cares any
more about it. So that, pleasantly impelled by the spur of curiosity, as
regards a secret yet undivulged, let him accept our editorial
invitation— Does he not see our obeisance, and the sweep of our hand
pointing to a door opening upon unimaginable wonders?—to peruse the
history of a voyage more marvelous than that of Marco Polo, of Father
Huc, of Mandeville, of Munchausen, of Sinbad, the Aethiopics of
Heliodorus, of Ariosto, of Gulliver, of Ulysses, of Peter Wilkins, of
Camoens, of Pomponius Mela.
_Sive per Syrtes iter aestuosas,
Sive facturus per inhospitalem
Caucasum, vel quae loca fabulosa
Lambit Hydaspes_
His unappeased wonder over a bit of unraveled criminality will vanish in
the excitement of discovery, of adventure, of revelation, but at the
other end, as the book drops from his hand, finished and admired, he
will approve our reticence at this end, for then he will know HOW
Erickson got into his difficulty, and WHY.
Erickson’s story was published in the _New York Truth Getter_—of course
the reader never saw it there—prepared from his verbal narrative, his
notes, and memoranda, and so expressed in English as to retain the glow,
enthusiasm, amazement, and graphic delineation of the original. It was
told to me in my library overlooking the sunlit tides around Throg’s
Neck; in the short winter afternoons at times, at times through the long
winter evenings, with Erickson hanging over the hearth where, as Max
Beerbohm puts it, “gradually the red-gold caverns are revealed,
gorgeous, mysterious, with inmost recesses of white heat.” Past all
dreams of wizardry, more remote from thought than any visions of magic,
stranger than the hallucinations of invention, was this picture of the
unreal and terraced world descending in titanic steps to the heated
regions of the earth’s mass, peopled with an impossible people, alive
with animal abundance and clothed in the vestal glory of innumerable
plants. In it were enacted those transmutations which Science predicts
as the last triumph of human knowledge, and in it a wealth transcending
the maddest hopes of Avarice had accumulated in an Acropolis of SOLID
GOLD!
There in the frozen north, walled in by ice, hidden in fogs, almost
impenetrably concealed or protected by storm, lay this incredible
continent of wonders, unsuspected by the world of one thousand million
people around it, the goal of whose ambition it had already reached, the
course of whose evolution it illustrates, and who had, in these latest
years, begun to grope blindly for its guessed at shores.
AZAZIEL LINK.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration:
THE FIORD
]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER I
THE FIORD
How well I remember it! The solemn, beautiful fiord, framed within the
pine tressed walls, flecked with patches of sunlight, where its waters
glistened with beryl hues. Shaded in the recesses of the cliffs where
the lustreless flood softly murmured with the faintest rhythmic cadence
against the rocky rims, immobile and caressed as they had been for
hundreds of thousands of years, and in a few places yielding slowly to
decay in shingled beaches. And the music of nature united with the
appeal to the eyes of color and form, to entrance the visitor.
A rushing brook singing like a girl hurrying to some holiday joy, broke
from the highlands, a silvery thread, then a braid of pearls, then a
sloping cataract of splintered and rainbowed waves, then in silence for
a while, catching its breath, as the girl might catch it, for a new
descent, and then the renewed song, through a tiny gorge, its jubilation
softened to a murmur, and then the flash and chorus of its outspread
ripples as it leaped into the fiord. And that was the light soprano of
the music around us, and under it rolled the bass notes, muted and
_sfuggendo_, of the distant waterfall—_foss_—at the inland head of the
fiord, and towards which were even then starting the pleasure boats,
launches and steam yachts of the tourists.
The sense of smell contributed its intoxication to the charmed surrender
of eye and ear, for there was flung down from the tree-crowned cliffs
the scent of wild flowers and the clean, resinous odors of the spruce.
The wind singing, too, like a chord accompaniment to the cheerful ballad
of the brook, and the heavy recitative of the waterfall, brought this
fragrance to us, even as it swept in capricious rushes outward over the
fiord to its gateway, through which the distant sea lay motionless like
a blazoned shield, beyond the _Skargaard_.
A shelf of land, dropping off in a slope to the waters of the fiord and
pierced by a roadway whose climbing curves led at last to the summit of
the cliffs, and which ended on the shore in a dock, then gay with the
summer glories of young girls and men, held the picturesque red houses
of a few farmers, and the wandering walls of the comfortable hotel. The
brilliant green of the cut lawn, like an enameled sheath, covered the
little tableland, and venturesome tongues and ribbons ran flame-wise up
crannies, ledges and narrow glades, to be lost in the shadows of the
firs and the sprayed and silken birches high above.
Round a table on the broad piazza of the hotel, in an angle where we
looked straight through the eyelet of the rocks to the sleeping ocean, a
gold-backed monster like a leviathan covering the earth, slumberously
heaving in the sun, I was sitting with three companions.
There was my best friend, Antoine Goritz, a man thickly bearded, with a
broad, unwrinkled brow sparingly topped by light wisps of straggling
hair, with a straight Teutonic nose, deep-set blue eyes under carven
ivory lids, beneath eyebrows deeper tinted than his hair, and with a
physical frame, strong, massive, large, effective, perhaps a trifle
overdrawn in its suggestion of muscular power.
It was a titan mould, but the face above it was humorously still and
observant. I often compared him to Sverdrup, Nansen’s captain, but he
was a bigger man. Like him he possessed the docility of a child, the
energy of a giant. Slow of speech ordinarily, as he was slow of
movement, but in stress and excitement convulsed with his rapid,
headlong utterance, and rising to a momentum of action that was
irresistible and swift. He sat upright in a thick brown plaid with a
blue sailor’s scarf around his broad neck and a straw hat like a coracle
on his head.
Next to him sat Professor Hlmath Bjornsen, a very tidy man of ordinary
build and stature, but oddly distinguishable by his abundant red hair,
the crab-like protuberance of his eyes (he wore no glasses), his
indented lips, which looked as if stitched up in sections, also
undisguised by any covering of hair, his patulous, projecting ears. His
homeliness was saved by the merit of cheerfulness at least, by a pug
nose, a rosy complexion and a demure, winning sort of smile that was
generally _a propos_ of nothing, but was retained habitually as nature’s
protective grace against the premature prejudices of first
acquaintances. Professor Bjornsen was a man learned in rocks, minerals,
mines, geology, the hard and motionless properties of the earth. He was
scrupulously neat, and his frequent inspection of himself, especially
his hands, was equally disconcerting and amusing.
Spruce Hopkins was the next man, alongside of myself, and probably he
would have been the first man whom an approaching stranger would have
looked at the longest, and concerned himself with knowing the most. He
was a Yankee, an American of Americans, but of that Grecian phase which
rejects _toto-coelo_, the newspaper type, the Brother Jonathan
caricature, the cheap idiosyncracies of the paragraph writer,
unassimilable even with the more credible picture,
of one who wisely schemed
And hostage from the future took,
In trained thought and lore of book.
Large-brained, clear-eyed—of such as he
Shall Freedom’s young apostles be.
Spruce Hopkins boasted no particular thrills. His thoughts followed
really a rather narrow gauge, and he could weigh with premature or
precocious carefulness the two sides of a practical question when his
decision would have halted perhaps at alternatives involving the
emotions.
He had a superb figure, graceful, plastic, and eloquent of strength. His
face leaned, so to speak, a little to the Brahmin type, but any
introspection it might have accompanied or suggested was lost in the
radiance of the eyes, the tempting sweetness of his smile, the
full-blown glory of his infectious laughter, the spiced offerings of his
genial tongue, the crisp charm of his wavy, glossy, chestnut-tinted
hair, and that slight but irreducible _soupcon_ of swagger which gave
him distinction.
And then there was myself; you see me, a hardy man (a blush rose to
Erickson’s cheeks; he could not overcome some apprehension of my
recalling his recent humiliation), a sailor man with a little land
schooling, loving yarns, telling yarns, and—believing ’em.
“Why, yes, Erickson,” I interrupted, “I suppose you have been quite
willing to believe some gilded tales that those friends, your late
companions here in New York, told you, but even a captivating
gullibility hardly explains how a young giant like you were found on
your back, strapped to a table, and about to be skewered like a spitted
pig.”
“Ah, sir, patience. You shall know all, but—at the end, at the end; even
if I could resist a plausible story, I could not always resist what goes
with a good story.”
“SCHNAPPS?” I interjected.
“Please, sir, patience. It is worth while. I have seen what no living
man— Perhaps I shall never see again my fellow travelers, the three who
sat with me on the hotel porch three years ago.” He bent his head, his
bruised, rough hand was passed over his face, and I thought a flare of
flame, shot from a cleaving coal, showed on it the glistening trail of
moisture. “—what no living man has ever seen, a country more wonderful
than dreams or legends or fairy stories have described or painted. Oh,
sir, in that new world in the north, something of the imagery of the
mythology of my forefathers seems repeated; very vaguely indeed. There I
have seen Nilfheim, I have seen Hwergelmer and Muspelheim, the world of
fire and light, but different, yes very different, and perhaps— Well,
no, not Valhalla, but something like Yggdrasill, and if it was not
Gladsheim, what was it?”
He resumed.
It was Professor Bjornsen speaking, with his big hands clutching his
head on either side, buried indeed in the luxuriant wealth of his ruddy
hair, with his staring eyes fixed on the table as if he saw through it,
looking at the land of his prophecies, while we all listened, with our
eyes measuring the cliffs up to the green fringes that ran, a dark zone
against the sky, on their sun-blazed peaks.
“Signs, signals, came to the explorers of Europe long before Columbus
set his face westward; long before, standing at the peak of his little
caravel, he dared the perils and the powers of the bewitched western
ocean, the woods and weeds of Cipango floated to the shores of Europe.
There are signs and signals now, gentlemen”; the Professor brought his
long fingers down with a smart, startling slap on the table that brought
our own hands nervously to the sides of the unsupported glasses, lest
they capsize in his assault of enthusiasm, while his disordered hair
flamed aureole-like over his bulging forehead, beneath which smiled
exultantly his piercing green eyes.
“Signs that an untouched continent is hidden in the uncharted wastes of
the western Arctic Sea. A vast area of waters, a blank space on the map
lies there, but that is simply the refuge, for cartographic lucidity, of
our ignorance. What really lies there is reciprocal on the west of
Greenland on the east, of the Franz Josef Archipelago and Spitzbergen
north of us. There is there another large fragment of that original
circumpolar continent that Science, in a moment of intuitional
certainty, points to as the source of the world’s animal and vegetable
life. And the signs? You ask me, your faces do, what they are. They are
negative indeed but they are convincing. Payer reached 82°5´ North
Latitude, on an island, Crown Prince Rudolf’s Land, and still further
north he thought he could see an extensive tract of land in 83°. He
called it Petermann’s Land. Driftwood on the east of Greenland comes
from Siberia, circuitously perhaps around the pole, not across it, since
the ‘Fram’ drifted from the north of Cape Chelyuskin in 1893 to north of
Spitzbergen in 1896. The wood is Siberian larch and alder and poplar.
Articles from the American ship ‘Jeannette,’ which foundered near
Bennett Island, had taken the same course, being picked up on the east
coast of Greenland. Professor Mohr held that they drifted over the pole.
Why did not the ‘Fram’ drift over the pole? The set of the waters that
way is obstructed, and that obstruction is a continental mass. Nothing
surer.
“Dr. Rink has reported a throwing stick, used by the Eskimos in hurling
their bird darts, not like those used by the Eskimos of Greenland, and
attributed by him to the natives of Alaska. The path traversed by this
erratic could not have been directly eastward from Alaska, threading an
impenetrable and devious outlet in the Canadian archipelago, neither was
it over the pole, as any pathway there would, constructively, have
reached northern and not eastern Greenland. Again that invisible
obstruction, as patent, as real, as the influence of the undiscovered
Neptune in the perturbations of Uranus, which led Leverrier and Adams to
make their prophetic directions for its detection.
“Sir Allen Young, appreciating the nucleal density of the land towards
the pole, and speaking of Nansen’s promised attempt to drift over it,
said, ‘I think the great danger to contend with will be the land in
nearly every direction near the pole. Most previous navigators seem to
have continued to see land, again and again farther and farther north.’
“Peary has seen Krocker Land. Over the western verge of the horizon its
peaks rose temptingly to invite him to new conquests. That was a
segment, a tiny fraction, a mere hint of the unknown vastnesses beyond.
But the most convincing symptoms—Ah, a feeble word to designate a
fact—of this continent are the observations of the United States’
meteorologists. Dr. R. A. Harris, a competent authority, has shown that
the tides, mute but eloquent witnesses, testify to its existence. The
diurnal tides along the Asiatic and North American coasts are not what
they would be if an uninterrupted sweep over the Arctic Sea prevailed.
Their progress is delayed and along narrow channels is accelerated or
heightened, as past the shores of Grant Land. Why? Again that
undiscovered country.”
“Harris, a clever fellow. Met him in Washington just two years ago this
autumn—a crackerjack at mathematical guessing. The way he can figure and
run off a reel of equations on anything from the rate sawdust makes in a
wood mill to a mensuration of the average dimensions of turnips is
surprising. If he says Krocker Land is there—why, then I guess IT IS,”
was Spruce Hopkins’ comment, while we all turned our eyes from the
cliffs to catch the Professor’s rejoinder, and Goritz leaned towards
him, fixing him with those luminous orbs of his that betrayed his
suppressed excitement.
“What does this man Harris say?” asked Goritz.
“He says,” answered Bjornsen, thrusting his hands in his pockets after
he had looked them over in his habitual manner of inspection, “he says
this. The diurnal tide occurs earlier at Point Barrow than at Flaxman
Island; the diurnal tide or wave does not have approximately its
theoretical value; at Bennett Island, north of Siberia, and at Teplitz
Bay, Franz Josef Land, the range of the diurnal wave has about one-half
of the magnitude which the tidal forces acting over an uninterrupted
Arctic basin would produce; the average rise and fall at Bennett Island
is 2.5 feet, but the rise and fall of the semi-daily tide is 0.4 at
Point Barrow, and 0.5 feet at Flaxman Island. And he makes this point.”
The Professor drew a red chalk from his vest pocket, stood up, and
pushing our glasses aside, drew a squarish outline, broader on one side,
with a tail standing out at its lower right-hand corner. He drew a
circle a little above its long side, and scribbled Pole within it, then
a jagged scrawl to either side, representing the coasts of Asia and
America, with an indentation like a funnel for Behring Straits.
“He points out that the ‘Jeannette’, an American ship sent out by the
proprietors of the _New York Herald_, stuck in the ice here”, he jabbed
his crayon, which crumbled into grains under his pressure, to one side
of a projecting point of the outline, “and that the ice drift carried
her eastward”; he made a flourish under the fascinating trapezoid that
we now understood embodied the suggested continent; “while the ‘Fram’
stuck here,” again a red splotch above the diagram, “and was carried
westward toward Greenland. Again why? Because at a critical point
between their two positions the ice current is divided by the influence
of a terminal promontory of Krocker Land. It splits, so to speak, the
trend over the pole of the ice drift, turning one arm of it eastward,
the other westward. His creative vision goes farther. A point of this
new land lies just north of Point Barrow in Alaska, that causes the
westward tide at the point; and he thinks it is distant from Point
Barrow five or six degrees of latitude, 350 to 420 miles. Harris claims
the ice in Beaufort Sea, north of Canada, here—” Another flaming signal
was scrawled on the white tablecloth below the right-hand corner of the
fascinating outline that now, assuming a magical premonition of some
great geographical reality, kept our eyes fastened on it almost as if it
might sprout before us with mimic mountains and ice fields.
“Harris says that the ice in Beaufort Sea does not drift freely
northward, and is remarkable for its thickness and its age. He says the
ice does not move eastward, for you see,” the Professor flung his hands
over the cryptogram on the tablecloth like an exorcising magician, “you
see Beaufort Sea is a sea, land-locked by Krocker Land, that here
approaches Banks Island. Are you convinced?”
We looked at each other a trifle slyly and disconcertedly, and Goritz
laughed, but it was Spruce Hopkins who suddenly turned to the Professor,
caught his arm and held him for a moment without speaking but with his
face yielding slowly to some growing impression of wonder within him
until he became quite grave.
“You see, Professor, I feel about this thing this way. I guess you’re
not far wrong about this new land; it’s exciting enough to think of it.
I calculated there was room up there for a little more glory after I
heard your lecture before the Philosophical Society at Christiania last
November; glory for some of us, such as Peary and Amundsen, Scott,
Shackleton, Nansen, Stefansson, have won, and I thought it over. I fell
in with Erickson and Goritz at Stockholm and we canvassed the matter,
sort o’ stuck our heads together and thought it out; then we sent for
you, and the demonstration seems straight enough. Some rigmarole! Don’t
get angry Professor, that’s my way and, anyhow, I’m not going back on
you, not so much as the thickness of a flea’s ear, and I think you’ll
allow that can’t count; but the more I looked at the matter the more I
wondered if there was anything about it the least bit more substantial
than glory.
“And that wasn’t all, either. I think I’d like to get back again.”
“Yes, Professor,” it was Goritz speaking, with his head tilted back, as
he followed the scurrying flight of sparrows amid the tasseled larches
of the opposite _gaard_, “dead bodies are rather indifferent to glory.
If we are great enough to get there, we must be great enough to get
back. It would be no consolation for us to have our relatives and
friends sing;
‘_Sa vandra vara stora man
Fran ljuset ned til skuggan._’”[1]
Footnote 1:
Thus our great men wander from the light down into the shades.
Hopkins smiled; he was neither hurt nor confused. He shook his head
assentingly, and his faint drawl prolonged itself somewhat in his
mocking rejoinder:
“That’s all right, Goritz. As a corpse you probably would attract a
little more notice than either Erickson or myself, but buried fathoms
deep in an Arctic sea, or just rolled over by a nameless glacier in this
nameless land, your own chances for a newspaper obituary might shrink to
very small proportions. You might not even have your dimensions
mentioned.”
Goritz looked approvingly at the American, and benignantly raised his
hat and bowed.
But the impatient Professor was in his chair, his hands spread out
before him; his smile had vanished, his encroaching eyes had retreated,
his serrated lips were puckered, his eyebrows frowned, and altogether he
assumed such a sudden portentousness of suppressed eagerness and
concealed thought that we rocked with delight and the momentary
restraint was forgotten. And with our laughter there stole back into the
Professor’s face its usual smile, but it had enigmatically deepened into
a sort of mute expostulation.
“Listen,” he said, and he waved his hands, inviting us to a closer
attention; his voice fell; I thought his peering eyes glanced to either
side to avert the proximity of eavesdroppers. “There is good reason to
believe that this new world of the north is neither inclement nor
barren. I believe it is a place of wonders; in it rest secrets,
REVELATIONS.” There was now a sorcery in the Professor’s voice that made
us lean toward him, drawing the circle a little closer, like
conspirators over an incantation. “What they are no once can tell. You
ask, Why? I believe this. I can hardly explain; my faith in this is a
growth, a coalescence of many strands of feeling and many lines of
study. My conviction is complete. I admit that extrinsically, as I may
say, it is unreasonable; intrinsically it is now as inexpugnable as a
theorem from Euclid, or the evidence of my own senses.
“That there is a new world south of the pole is maintained by Science;
it is the unalterable belief of the explorers, the hydrographers, the
geographers. But what may that world be like? What was it like? Long
millions and millions of years before our time the Arctic north was the
procreant cradle of ALL LIFE! From it streamed the currents of animal
and vegetable creation; it was warm; forests of palms flourished along
river and lake-side, and within them roamed the creatures of tropical or
semi-tropical climates. Paleontologists from Saporta to Wieland, from
Keerl to Heer have pointed this out, with an emphasis that has varied
with temperament or knowledge, from conviction to surmise. G. Hilton
Scribner, a clever American _litterateur_ says”—the Professor
ludicrously grasped for something in an inner coat pocket and revealed a
little book, exquisitely bound, of scraps and extracts, and read from a
page whose smoothness he had marred by folding a leaf—“he says, ‘thus
the Arctic zone, which was earliest in cooling down to the first and
highest heat degree in the great life-gamut was also the first to become
fertile, first to bear life, and first to send forth her progeny over
the earth.’
“And Wieland, a remarkable Yale scholar, an authority on fossil cycads
and Chelonia, the latest to speculate authoritatively along this line,
writes”—another creased page was turned to—“‘in a word, that the great
evolutionary _Schauplatz_ was boreal is possible from the astronomical
relations, probable from physical facts, and rendered an established
certainty by the unheralded synchronous appearance of the main groups of
animals and plants on both sides of the great oceans throughout
post-Paleozoic time.’”
“But Professor,” it was my remonstrance that now interrupted him, “that
was millions of years ago. It’s a dead world up there. Surely you don’t
think—”
The Professor broke in with a deprecatory gesture of regret at his own
impatience. “I know. True, true, for the most part, but perhaps not for
all—not for all. It’s a deep matter.”
Professor Bjornsen’s eyes were glistening with enthusiasm; his manner
became extravagantly mysterious, and his words boiled out feverishly
from his scarred lips. “The north, to whose enchantment the whole world
bows; a strange, magical region, lit by the supernal splendors of
heavenly lights, and wrapped in eternal snows, was the Eden of our race.
It was that _navel_ of the world related in all mythologies from India
to Greece, from Japan to Scandinavia; it was the Paradisaic earth
center, the fecund source of every manner of life, endowed by the
Creator with original unrestrained powers of exuberance. Here man
originated; here was his primal home, here his first estate, dressed as
he was in every faculty of mind, and enriched by all the gifts of
nature. As President Warren, another American, eloquently wrote
twenty-six years ago—”
Again the Professor dove into his pocket, produced his amazing little
scrapbook, while we all gazed at the excited gentleman with a new
fascination and astonishment. Here was the man of crystals and
mensuration, of ores, adits, drifts and strata, riding the high horse of
mystical and religious analogy, and somehow we felt ourselves drawn into
the vortex of his cerebral excitement! We were quite dazed in a way, and
yet felt an elation that kept us spellbound.
“Ah, here it is. He wrote, President Warren, ‘the pole symbolizes Cardo,
Atlas, Meru, Hara-berezaiti, Kharsak-Kurra, every fabulous mountain on
whose top the sky pivots itself, and around which all the heavenly
bodies ceaselessly revolve.’
“Assume this; assume that here the finger of God first impressed this
insensate whirling globe of unconscious matter with the touch and
promise of life and Mind. Is it likely that all vestiges, all signs, all
remainders of that consecrated first endowment should have quite
disappeared, succumbed ingloriously to the stiffening embrace of cold,
congealed in an eternal sleep beneath the glaciers and the snows? I
think not, my friends, _I think not_.”
“But,” it was the protesting voice of Goritz who now voiced our
incredulity, “haven’t the expeditionists, the geographers, the
explorers—hasn’t everything we have been told, everything we have read,
all we know about it, and that’s a good deal, from Franklin to Peary
made it clear that at the pole there is nothing but death, desolation,
and ice?”
“Antoine!” Here the Professor turned abruptly to the big Dane, thrusting
his umbrageous crown of red hair almost into the thin locks of his
friend, and whispered hoarsely, “Ah! Antoine, the secrets are hidden in
that uncharted land beyond the ice packs north of Point Barrow. The
reservations of life are there. You have all heard,” the rufous glory
now moved towards Hopkins and myself, “of Symmes Hole? Of course you
shrug your shoulders; it was preternatural simplicity you say, the mad
dream of a fool, uproariously derided. Yes! Symmes was not a fool; he
was a brave man, a soldier, chasing a reality through the distortions of
an hallucination. There is _no_ hole; the earth is not hollow, but—there
is a depression; there must be. The depression is at the North Pole
somewhere. It has not been found, and the Arctic seas have been
_parcourired_ by explorers, as you notice, Goritz. The depression is
Krocker Land. If profound its climate is temperate. Life, the remnants
of its first evolutionary phases, may be there—but mark me!” The
Professor positively dilated, everything in him enlarged as if his
bounding heart sent fuller currents of blood to all its outposts; his
eyes were refulgent; I thought they were an emerald green; his hair rose
in the thrill of his vaticination and his mouth opened into a vast
exclamatory _rictus_, in which flashed his big white incisors like
diminutive tusks. “Mark me, there too will be found the last
evolutionary phases of the human race!”
Here was a climax, and the mental stupefaction of the Professor’s
audience was exactly reflected in the prolonged silence that ensued. It
was entertaining, however, to watch Spruce Hopkins’ fixed,
expressionless perusal of the Professor’s face, and the immobile glory
in the Professor’s answering stare. Hopkins spoke first:
“Well! I like your certainty about that depression, Prof. Can’t see it
noway. You’re making things interesting enough, but surely that
depression isn’t the gospel truth. Is it?”
The Professor relaxed; he laughed, and his laugh was the most curious
blend of a chuckle and a whistle, utterly impossible to describe except
by reproduction. It always affected Hopkins hilariously; he said the two
elements in the Professor’s laugh were satisfaction and astonishment;
the chuckle meant the first, the whistle the second, and the state of
the Professor’s mind could be well gauged from the predominance of one
or the other. Just then the chuckle had the best of it.
“Mr. Hopkins,” he said, “you are a very intelligent man. Don’t you see
that a rotating and solidifying viscosity cannot become solid without
forming a pitted polar extremity?”
Hopkins withstood this assault with admirable stolidity; he even looked
injured.
“My dear Professor; really your statement is too simply put to appeal to
the complicated convolutions of my gray matter. Your manner is juvenile.
Such a subject should be treated in a becoming obscurity of terms.”
After our amusement had subsided, Bjornsen explained his view. It was
easily understood. The earth had cooled down from some initial gaseous
or lava-like stage, and, if the congelation had not progressed far or
fast enough at the poles, centrifugal force at the equator would have
withdrawn enough matter to effect a depletion at one pole or the other,
with the consequent result (I recall how particular the Professor was
over this point) of forming a graduated, evenly rounded and smoothish
concavity, if the polar areas were not too rigidly fixed; or a broken,
step-like succession of terraces if they were. Later we were
triumphantly reminded by the Professor of this prediction. Then too he
involved his theory with demonstrations of the vertical effect of
rotation, producing inverted cones or funnels in liquids, as is
familiarly seen in the discharging contents of a washbasin. We were not
convinced, and our evident apathy or dissidence chilled the Professor
into a taciturnity from which he was scarcely aroused when cries from
the water’s edge of the fiord announced the return of a fishing fleet, a
phalanx of _jaegts_, the single masted, square sailed, sturdy boats
familiar to tourists in sea journeys along the fair Norwegian shores. It
was welcomed with shouts and salutations, and the waving of flags and
handkerchiefs, in which we joined.
But the hidden springs of wonderment, the latent impulse in young,
strong men for adventure, discovery, perhaps some marvelous realization
of the unknown, had been stirred within us. The Professor would have
been gratified if he had known how restlessly Goritz and myself rolled
about in our beds that night, or how with sleepless eyes, flat on our
backs, we rehearsed his strange statements, or in dreams encountered
polar bears, threading our way through devious leads to the wintry
coasts of a NEW CONTINENT. The imagery of the north was familiar to us.
We had both visited Spitzbergen and the Franz Josef Archipelago. As
Hopkins had said, we had met him at Stockholm and discussed together the
sensation of the hour, Bjornsen’s lecture at Christiania. We were all
three of us idlers—I by compulsion—but firm in body, ambitious in
spirit, and half exasperated at our uselessness in the world’s affairs.
Goritz was a rich man, an only son, heir to the fortune of a successful
fish merchant in Stockholm; I had a bare competency, and Spruce Hopkins,
a vagabond American, seeing the world but yearning for sterner work, had
already gained in Europe an unenviable reputation for reckless
extravagance. It was at Hopkins’ suggestion that we had invited the
Professor to meet us at the fiord, and we were all wondering how far we
might go in this strange experiment of finding Krocker Land. Should we
go at all?
Whatever satisfaction the Professor might have felt over Goritz’s and my
own agitation, his most sanguine hopes of producing an impression would
have been inflamed to exultation had he known that the Yankee had not
slept a wink, had not taken off his clothes, but had just, as he
characterized it, “stalled on everything,” until he got his bearings on
this “new stunt.”
The Professor’s equanimity was restored when we met him in the
diningroom at breakfast the following morning, and he most
good-naturedly accepted professions of contrition at our mental
obduracy. But it was the American who confounded him by his sudden
determination and a precipitant proposition to “_get away on the first
tide_.”
“Prof.,” he exclaimed clapping the smaller man on the shoulder with a
cordial gaiety that shocked Goritz, “I’m willing to take the chance.
It’s a big stake to win, though,” his whimsical smile propitiated the
Professor completely. “I’m not buffaloed on all your talk about the
tropical climate we’re likely to meet. Of course, I’ve looked into the
matter a little, on my own hook, and just now the plan of action is
something like this. These two good friends,” he waved his hands
genially toward Goritz and myself, “know a good deal about zero
temperatures, polar bears, walrus, starvation and ice floes; you have
surveyed Spitzbergen, and as for myself—Well, honestly, I’m a tenderfoot
but young, hardy, sound as a steel rail, a good shot, a prize rower, and
once Prof., take it from me, I strangled a mad dog with these hands.”
Hopkins never looked handsomer than at that moment, his face burning
with an expectant eagerness, the color rising to his temples beneath the
waves of chestnut hair, his frame and figure like an Achilles.
The Professor nodded his approval and assent.
“We’ll make a strong quartette; quite enough for the jaunt. These big
outfits are a blunder. I’ve always thought that was the mistake the
English made. Plenty of dogs, rations and a few mouths go farther, with
less strain and less risk. And another thing, friends,” he wheeled round
from the Professor, and addressed us, “no big ship, no ‘Fram’, no
‘Roosevelt.’ We’ll get the stiffest and most flexible and biggest wooden
naphtha launch that can be made; stock her; carry her up on a hired
whaler from San Francisco, bunk at Point Barrow, pick our best chance
through the leads in the open weather, and then with dogs, sleds, and
kayaks, take to the main ice and scoot for the happy land of—Krocker!
Eh?”
Goritz and I heard the extraordinary daredevil plan with consternation.
It seemed the limit of foolishness, and absurdly ignorant. We waited for
the inevitable crushing denunciation of such folly from the informed
lips of the Professor. To our amazement the Professor grew radiant,
seized Hopkins’ hands, shaking them vigorously, his pop-eyes starting
out with the most amiable encouragement, while his beaming smile
endorsed Hopkins’ lunacy with mad enthusiasm.
“Right, Mr. Hopkins! Right—the very thing. No reserve, no retreat, no
store ship is necessary. I had convinced myself of the absolute
propriety of just such a course of action, but I expected to find it a
hopeless task to persuade anyone to believe me. Krocker Land will supply
us with everything, and the ice course will be far more simple and easy
than Nansen’s trip from 86° to Franz Josef Land, or Peary’s over North
Greenland; a straight-away run with a few water breaks. No great
hardships. At least,” and the Professor in a burst of audacious
nonchalance knocked over a few glasses and a water carafe in his
swinging ambulations, “none greater than the ordinary experiences of an
Arctic traveler. I congratulate you, Mr. Hopkins, on your
perspicacity—American shrewdness. Ah! American—what you call GAMENESS.
Eh? Let me assure you that had you been a hardened, experienced North
Pole explorer you would never have hit on this; NEVER. You’d have stuck
to the old plans. And the only reason you are right now is that Krocker
Land is an exceptional proposition, to be negotiated by exceptional
methods. I promise you exceptional results.”
For a few moments Goritz and I were dumb with astonishment, and I think
Goritz was almost choking with indignation. Somehow he suppressed his
threatening outbreak and only muttered, “I suppose we will never want to
come back—never need to?”
A ripple of comic commiseration crossed Hopkins’ face:
“Come now, Goritz. WHERE I COME BACK is just _here_,
‘_Sa vandra vara stora man
Fran ljuset ned til skuggan._’”
The situation was so funny, with that tantalizingly humorous face of the
Professor looking on in perplexity, that Goritz burst into laughter, in
which I joined, and his evanescent rage was swept away.
But the Professor answered his implied sarcasm quite literally.
“Antoine,” he said, both hands raised imploringly, “trust me; we shall
find food in Krocker Land, an abundance; the launch can return to Point
Barrow with a small crew, and when we want it on our return—why—”
His indecision or uncertainty or the blankness of his mind about it was
quickly relieved by Goritz.
“We’ll send a telegram ordering it over, and _wait_—for it?”
“Oh it’s no joke Goritz”—Goritz admitted _sotto voce_ that it certainly
was not. “We can get back without it, our kayaks will answer. And you
forget the People of Krocker Land.”
“Why Professor,” I protested, “we haven’t heard of them before.”
The Professor assumed a surprised air, became portentously solemn, and
then—I never felt quite certain whether he actually winked at Hopkins or
not—gravely answered.
“The people of Krocker Land, Erickson, are an assured certainty. An
unpeopled continent is as much a _lusus naturae_ as an unfilled vacuum.”
“Certainly, Erickson. Didn’t you know that? Somebody must be provided to
pocket the revenues from whale blubber and walrus ivory, not to mention
the conservation bureau for glaciers, the output of icebergs, and the
meteorological corps for the standardization of blizzards,” and Hopkins
hid his face in his hands to stifle his screaming mirth.
But the Professor was neither ruffled nor amused; he went on oracularly:
“Erickson, the expectation is a little discouraging. Well I’ll say from
your point of view it is almost impossible of belief that an unknown
people exists in an unknown land near the North Pole. Now Stefansson’s
discovery of the so-called Blond Eskimos has nothing to do with my
confidence in this matter. It rests upon a broad deduction, an _a
priori_ necessary assumption. If the original Eden, the primitive center
of dispersion, on the basis of the unity of the human race—if—”
Behind the Professor, whose labyrinthine locution, sounding higher and
higher, was attracting some general attention among the guests of the
hotel, stood Hopkins with two tumblers of water in his hands. He raised
them suddenly above his head and dropped them. The crash was startling,
and it was followed by an equally unexpected yell of pain from Hopkins,
who apparently slipped, fell, seized the tablecloth and dragged to the
floor a varied array of glassware and cutlery in a clatter that was
deafening.
Confusion, explanations, reparation and a tumult of amusement followed,
and in it disappeared the Professor’s voluminous harangue. It was never
resumed.
Hopkins recovered his seriousness, and we attacked the novel project he
had suggested, critically. All that next day we argued over it,
thrashing it out with the illuminative references Goritz, the Professor
and myself could make to our own experiences, Hopkins listening and
pertinaciously sticking to his original suggestions. His plan grew more
and more attractive; its reasonableness developed more and more under
examination. Of course all four of us were now thoroughly excited; the
lure of discovery almost maddened us, and the necromantic charm of the
Professor’s amazing predictions, which we actually were unwilling to
resist, instilled in us the wayward and fantastic hope that we were on
the verge of a world-convulsing disclosure. We have not been
disappointed.
The project finally took this shape: Hopkins and Goritz volunteered to
bear all the expenses connected with the expedition; Hopkins would go to
America, consult naval architects, and have a naphtha-propelled launch
devised, combining, as to its hull, features of the “Fram” and
“Roosevelt” in a diminutive way. Goritz would follow and buy the
supplies, clothing and equipment. Then would come the Professor with
instruments and books, and finally myself with three chosen men—Hopkins
demanded they should be selected in America—who would be the captain,
engineer and crew of the launch on its return to Point Barrow, and who
would look for us the next summer. How preposterously sure we were that
we would find land and game! But how ineffectually paltry after all were
our expectations compared to the reality.
When everything was ready—the end of a year’s time was fixed for the
date of our departure—we would have the launch set amidships on a
whaler, and sail for Point Barrow, our prospective headquarters on the
North American continent.
The last question Hopkins put to the Professor before we parted was
about the mineral wealth of the new land, which had now incorporated its
actuality with every sleeping and waking moment, seeming as certain as
any other unvisited realm of Earth which we had seen on maps, but never
visited.
Of course the Professor was quite equal to this demand upon his
imagination.
“Mineral wealth? Probably immense. The mother lodes of the gold of
Alaska have never been found. They lie north of Alaska; the geological
extension of the mineral deposits of Alaska is naturally in that
direction, and the enrichment of the primary crystallines with the
precious metals can be reasonably asserted to surpass the mythical
values of Golconda or California.”
“That suits _me_,” was Hopkins’ laconic comment.
At last the whole scheme was pretty thoroughly worked out, down to its
details. Correspondence would be maintained during the summer. The
Professor left for Christiania, Goritz and myself for Stockholm, and
Hopkins steamed away to Hull on the English ship “North Cape.” Our
conference had lasted just a week.
How wonderfully lovely was the day and scene when he left us that June
morning three years ago. If portents of our success could be discerned
in its delicious, enveloping glory of light and beauty, then surely we
might be hopeful. The great gulls were sweeping with deep undulations
through the upper sky, exulting in their splendid power, the summer wind
faintly stirred the dark spruces, whose gentle expostulation at its
intrusion reached us with a sound like the washing of waves on a faraway
shore. The granite rocks of peak and cliff flashed back the unchecked
sunlight; the road, like a white ribbon, spun its loops to and fro over
the hillside, through meads where the glistening red farm houses stood,
that seemed like rubies set in an emerald shield while the waters of the
fiord slumbered at our feet, a liquid mass of beryl.
It now seems to me as if a quarter of a century had passed since then.
And, if events are the measure of duration to the subjective sense, it
might seem even farther away. I recall Spruce Hopkins, radiant and
handsome, amid a throng of new acquaintances—he gathered friends about
him as frankly and quickly as roses attract bees—among whom not a few
young women offered him their mute but eloquent admiration; I remember
him leaning over the rail of the steamer’s deck and reciting in a
rollicking drawl:
“When the sea rolled its fathomless billows
Across the broad plains of Nebraska;
When around the North Pole grew bananas and willows,
And mastodons fought with the great armadillos,
For the pine-apples grown in Alaska.”
(Editorial Apology. The foregoing chapter in its diction and in certain
studied phases of construction will disturb the reader’s sense of
congruity, perhaps. He will be inclined to doubt its authenticity as the
exact narrative of Alfred Erickson. The suspicion is partly creditable
to his literary acumen. The editor admits substantial emendations useful
for the purpose of imparting a literary atmosphere.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER II
POINT BARROW
We were all aboard the steam whaler “Astrum” in the spring of the next
year, and with us a marvel of compact maritime construction, our naphtha
launch “_Pluto_”. Hopkins suggested the name on the satisfactory ground
that we were likely to have “a hell of a time.” We had worked ourselves
up to the most supreme height of confidence and enthusiasm. The
Professor was in a sort of demented state of expectation; Hopkins
furiously asserted the name of Christopher Columbus would now be
forgotten in the new fame to be allotted to us, “the Arctic Argonauts,”
and finally Goritz and myself succumbed to a peculiar feeling of
predestination.
Captain Coogan of the “Astrum” knew nothing of our proposed destination.
It was a stipulation made by Hopkins that nothing on that point was to
be discussed, until we reached Point Barrow—if we were to reach it—and
the services of Captain Coogan and his selected crew—not the usual
polyglot assemblage of ethnic odds and ends—were unconditionally ours up
to that moment. The temptations of whaling were to be absolutely
eschewed until we had vanished into the fogs and wilderness of the ice
pack, beyond whose trackless waste lay Krocker Land. Of course a sea dog
like Captain Coogan, a clever and hardy mate like Isaac Stanwix, a
pertinacious thinker like the engineer Bell Phillips, and such an
experienced and avaricious reader as the carpenter Jack Spent (he had
made ten trips to Point Barrow) could make pretty shrewd guesses as to
our intentions. The stores and supplies, the sledges and kayaks,
splendid vehicles of travel made under Goritz’s supervision, were
informing enough, had it not been for the disconcerting secrecy of the
actors in this strange new ice-drama. I think we were regarded as a
“parcel of wild devils or fools,” though I think too, with the exception
of perhaps the Professor, our physical constants were impressive.
Our departure did not escape public notice. We were besieged by
reporters, but we were impenetrable, and yet we were genially
communicative too. It was the Arctic or bowhead whale we were interested
in; we were naturalists, the Professor was hoping to introduce the
bowhead whale into European waters; just now a preliminary study of its
habits, habitat, food, breeding grounds, and commercial availability was
indispensable. That fiction sufficed. The remarkable launch prepared for
us was made into a skillful adjunct to our investigations. We were
honored by several columns of interviews in the dailies, and the splash
of our adventure spread its circle of disturbance even to Washington,
whence official offers of assistance and participation were received
which—were never answered. Among our visitors, for we did not escape the
invasion of sightseers, was that Goliah, Carlos Huerta, from whose
branding iron you saved me.
(Erickson spoke this measuredly and calmly to be sure, but his hands
covered his face, and I saw his body sway, convulsed by his emotion.)
“This man somehow appealed to me; perhaps it was his herculean
dimensions. He was familiar with launches and machinery, and was very
intelligent; forceful, too. His suavity disarmed suspicion, and his
robust, seemingly ingenuous interest pleased me. Almost his last words,
before we sailed, invited me to come to see him—he handed me his
card—and to tell him “all about it.” It was a curious, inexplicable
divination on his part that I should have much to tell. That man, Mr.
Link, was the most ruthless scoundrel I ever met; he was my first
scoundrel; because I had never met a scoundrel before I fell into his
net.
(Again a pause. It lasted so long that I feared some complication of
feeling had robbed him of his memory. I said “And Mr. Erickson, you left
San Francisco?” His consciousness returned, and he turned to me
smiling.)
Yes, we left San Francisco about the end of April, a dull day with fog
banks lifting and falling over the Golden Gate, while a rising storm
outside was turning the ocean into water alps, smiting the clouds. Our
course was almost a direct line to Behring Straits; we were to pass
through the channel between Unalaska and Uninak Islands, then coast the
Pribylof Islands for the benefit of the Professor, reach Indian Point,
on the Siberian side of the strait where some of the natives, Masinkers
(_Tchouktchis_), could be seen, then cross to Port Clarence on the
Alaskan shore for an inspection of the Nakooruks (_Innuits_); then two
stops for the benefit of Hopkins and Goritz. We also intended to secure
at the latter place dogs for our dash over the ice to the Krocker Land
shore from Point Barrow. Captain Coogan recommended a stop at Cape
Prince of Wales where further ethnological notes might be gathered, but
this was overruled as both the Professor and Hopkins expected to visit
the coal beds beyond Point Hope, and Cape Lisburne in the Arctic Ocean.
We came abreast of Pribylof about May sixth, stalled off St. Paul’s
Island in a still sea, light southwest winds and rising tide. The
Professor was pulled off to the island in the morning; his eagerness to
visit these famous fur-seal rookeries being irrepressible. He had talked
of little else, in the intervals when we were not discussing our
momentous enterprise, but the marvelous stories which old navigators,
Captain Scammon and Captain Bryant had told, and the fascinating studies
of Elliot. He told us that formerly, in the middle of the nineteenth
century and later, these pelagic mammals had swarmed in millions up to
these islands, rising from the ocean like a veritable mammal inundation.
He told us about the bull seals, how they fought, their tenacity, their
endurance, how a bull will fight fifty or sixty battles for the
possession of his ample harem of twelve or fifteen cows, and last out to
the end of the season, three months perhaps without food, living on his
own fat, covered with scars, eyes gouged out, striped with blood; and
how the jovial bachelors, not so disconsolate as might be imagined, the
“hollus-chickies,” congregate to one side. He said the noise from these
monstrous breeding grounds, where thousands of seals are roaring,
bleating, calling—mothers, fathers and pups—could be heard, with the
wind right, five or six miles to sea. He didn’t expect to see the
households developed then—it was too early—but he might have an
opportunity to find a few advance bulls on their stations. He found the
bulls, and he found an adventure, and _we found him_.
It was almost four or five hours after the Professor had left the ship
in a yawl rowed by two sailors, that Hopkins, Goritz, and myself
followed him in another boat. We saw the yawl on a short beach of sand,
with the men sunning themselves and asleep on the black rocks which
hemmed in the little cove. We ran our boat on the sands, the men came
strolling toward us, rubbing their eyes and recovering from the inertia
of what had been an uninterrupted snooze. When we asked for the
Professor they told us he had disappeared, and had ordered them to stay
where they were while he pursued his investigations. He certainly was
nowhere in sight and a little anxious over his long absence we moved up
to the broken rim of rocks which probably separated this retreat from
some similar beach on either side.
The elevated cones and ridges of the island could be seen towering up
toward the interior in gaunt gray surfaces, on which rested extensive
patches of snow. We surmounted the inconsiderable elevation and found it
was a broader barrier than we had anticipated, a platform of jagged
projecting crests with intervening rocky basins or tables, the whole an
extended spur from a black wall of rock, on whose summit were the
clustering huts of a native village. On the edges of the rocks hung a
few large cakes of ice, and the receding tide had left broken, hummocky
masses tilted at various angles over the inclined faces of stone. The
scene was chilly and desolate and to add to its lugubrious desolation a
fog had slowly drifted in from the sea and was now tortuously rolling
down from the highland on the opposite shore to the island. Our search
for the missing Professor would have to be hastened.
“The Professor must be found,” said Hopkins. “We shan’t know how to deal
with the native Krockerans when we meet ’em, without the Professor. At
present he is the only man alive who understands their peculiarities,
and as an interpreter he’s bound to prove useful.”
“Of course,” said Goritz, “you don’t think the seals can eat him?”
“They might,” answered Hopkins, “but they could never digest him. It
would certainly be a death potion to the venturesome bull who mistook
him for food. Likely as not he is now engaged in explaining to an
interesting family his plans for the preservation and increase of them
and their kindred.”
During this irrelevant badinage I had crossed the rocky flat and reached
another cove or gully, headed towards the land by a slope of broken
boulders, and floored with sand. We had as yet encountered no seals.
Looking beyond this bay I saw on a promontory bounding the distant edge
of the beach what seemed like a human figure, or indeed like a group of
figures. Watching the objects for a short time I could more clearly
distinguish them, and to my astonishment determined that one was a man
and the rest some erect animal forms, doubtless seals. The group was at
an extreme point on the rocks, and, if the solitary human was the
Professor, his only possible retreat from the beleaguering seals would
be the water.
I hallooed to my companions, pointing to the distant objects, and
hastened forward onto the rock-strewn beach. Goritz and Hopkins
struggled over the rough patch of rocks and overtook me.
“Yes, by the lives of all the saints!” cried Hopkins, who had stopped a
moment and with shaded eyes was studying the enigmatical figures
silhouetted against sea and sky. “It’s the Professor and three
_beachmasters_ apparently bent on his capture, or else drinking in
wisdom from his lips. It might just be they’re competing for his
services in teaching their prospective families.”
“I can see him waving his hands, it seems to me, and now he’s shooing
them with his hat,” exclaimed Goritz. “He’s in something of a fix.
Hurry.”
[Illustration:
THE PROFESSOR AND THE PRIBYLOF SEALS
]
We bounded forward, and over the beaten sand raced together, taking
quick glances ahead at the now certain embarrassment of our friend. It
was indeed the Professor, and his predicament was unmistakable.
Amusement however mingled with our anxiety, for as we drew near we could
plainly make out that he had taken his hat between his teeth and was
violently wagging his head, the absurd appendage of his cap flying up
and down producing a very ludicrous effect. It was a serviceable device,
however, for the amazed seals had stopped their approaches; their
barking or snarling, at first quite audible, had ceased, and they were
now attentively regarding the Professor with almost immobile heads.
“Guess,” called out Hopkins between breaths, “they think the Professor
is a little dippy, and are reconsidering his engagement as a domestic
instructor.”
We were now near enough to attract the Professor’s sight; he hailed us
with swinging arms but did not venture to desist from his mandarin-like
wig-wagging. The approach to his position was a little difficult, and we
suffered some falls. Our advent had attracted the notice of the bulls
and they swerved about to receive us, humping their backs, leaping
forward on their flippers, and renewing their truculent miauling or
barking. We attacked them with stones but their defiance was unchanged,
and they lunged and rushed, quite unappalled by our onset. They would
retreat almost immediately to their former positions, holding the poor
Professor in chancery with an apparent unanimity that kept Goritz
laughing, for with every retreat, the Professor would renew his violent
gesticulations.
At length Goritz and Hopkins armed with an armful of stones drove in on
the biggest of the bulls, and assailed him with such a shower of
missiles that his reserve was overcome, and he plunged forward,
following them for twenty feet or more. I ran to the Professor and
caught his arm, and we got out of the zone of danger, while the
momentarily allied _beachmasters_, frustrated from their imprisonment of
him, suddenly resented each other’s proximity and after a miscellaneous
“mix-up,” as Hopkins called it, shuffled and loped away to their former
stations, the chosen spots for their future _seraglios_.
With the liberated Professor we sat down on some stool-like fragments
inserted in the sand of the beach and heard his story. It was laughable
enough and added an unusual trait to the recorded conduct of the big
bull seals, usually indifferent to the approach of men. These three
indolent, unoccupied forerunners of the great herds that might soon be
expected, had actually chased the Professor and, having cornered him on
the promontory, had hopelessly besieged him. The Professor had been too
much interested or too imprudent. His amiability perhaps had brought him
into this unexpected dilemma, for he had gathered up seaweed from the
rocks at the edge of the water, and attempted to feed the bulls. They
followed him, and their disappointed expectations developed later into
the pugnacity that had made him a prisoner.
While he was talking a few more seals emerged from the ocean, lazily
hauling themselves on the rocks with that ill-assured clumsiness of
motion so strikingly replaced in the water by the greatest grace,
agility and speed.
“But Professor,” interrupted Goritz, “what were you doing with your
hat?”
The Professor, who had been much ruffled and excited over his encounter,
welcomed this inquiry with a restored equanimity.
“Ah! Goritz, that is a contribution to science. On our return I shall
call the attention of Lloyd Morgan and other animal psychologists to
this novel observation. Antoine, it has long been known that the
rhythmical oscillation of a flexible substance, a rag, hat, towel,
banner, exercises a peculiar influence on animals. It will allay the
ferocity of a mad dog or alarm him. Color has something to do with it,
as instance the red rag which irritates the bull. Now—” here the
Professor looked critically at his steamer cap, and may have mentally
noted that it was a green and brown Scotch plaid. “Now this influence
seems curiously reinforced if the substance or garment is taken in the
mouth and shaken.”
The incorrigible Hopkins had again buried his face in his cupped palms.
“No reason that is incontrovertible has been assigned for this, but I
assume that it is an appeal to a latent _demonism_ in animals, which in
its later evolution appears as _devil-worship_ in aboriginal people. I
most fortunately recalled this, and at a critical moment, when I was
threatened with the necessity of retreating into the sea—” The poorly
repressed vibrations in Hopkins’ body might have been referred to
sympathy or—something else. “A quite unnecessary ablution, let us say,”
and the Professor smiled benignantly at me, as perhaps the one most
gravely interested in his narrative. “I thought of this remarkable
device, which I believe has something of the nature of an incantation.
The effect was miraculous. This simple gesture held the seals at bay; I
think it is quite demonstrable also that there is a physiological basis
for their evident stupefaction—the optic nerve. These animals you know
have very poor sight—the optic nerve is disturbed and a cerebral vertigo
is induced which, like—”
“That settles it,” cried Hopkins, stumbling to his feet with a very red
face and hurrying across the sands. “Professor, there’s something worse
than seals on this island; there are the U. S. officials, and—I guess
they are charmproof.”
“Exactly,” assented the Professor in an absent-minded way, “exactly, but
had you gentlemen restrained yourselves a little, I believe I could have
advanced an interesting corroboration to a hitherto dimly—”
A gun shot was heard. It evidently came from our men in the adjoining
cove and we smothered the Professor’s scientific homily with a shout,
and accelerated our departure.
When we reached the boat we found some natives and two resident
officials surrounding our men, the former somewhat excited and
demonstrative. The officials questioned us and were informed of our
purely accidental visit, and with that explanation, as the fog had
increased and there were threatening symptoms of a blow, we manned our
boats and got away.
Captain Coogan resumed our course, making northwest for Indian Point,
amid heavy ice, whose leads were carefully followed until they liberated
us in open water, and the immediate danger of being nipped was past. The
next morning I was awakened—my room adjoined Hopkins’—by hearing the
American reciting in a voice loud enough to justify forcible
remonstrance:
“_I met my mates in the morning (and Oh, but I am old),
Where roaring on the ledges the summer groundswell rolled,
I heard them lift the chorus that dropped the breakers’ song,
The beaches of Lucannon—two million voices strong,
The song of pleasant stations beside the salt lagoons,_
_The song of blowing squadrons that shuffled down the dunes
The song of midnight dances that charmed the sea to flame
The beaches of Lucannon—before the sealers came!_”
We made Indian Point, or Chaplin, as the settlement is called, in five
days, held back by floes and fogs, narrowly escaping a collision with an
adventuresome and premature whaler making its way to the same
destination. These sailors often get caught in the ice, when they are
helpless, and if the pack tightens on them, they are likely to come to
grief with a cut stem or a stoved side. We assisted one poor fellow out
of such a plight. His vessel was shipping water fast, and we helped
shift his load, giving the boat a stern list that lifted its broken nose
and allowed him to make repairs.
Chaplin is a small settlement of natives on the Siberian coast, the
largest along the line to Behring Straits. There may be some forty huts
there, and the whale men find it a convenient place to do a stroke of
trade. Indeed, if it were not for their visits the unfortunate Masinkers
might resign the job of trying to live at all, as the whales are more
scarce than formerly, or more cautious, and walrus and seal scarcely
turn in closer than St. Lawrence Island. The village is on a projecting
tooth of land—a mere sandpit—and back from the village along the
foothills is the curious, disconsolate looking graveyard where the dead
are buried in rudely excavated holes and covered with stones and earth,
some with deer antlers stuck about as gravestones.
The natives were not slow in coming aboard, and as we had outrun the
whalers who are annually expected, their reception of us was, so to
speak, enthusiastically hearty. I thought it was a trifle overdone. The
entire population tried to get aboard, and assumed possession of
everything with such unsophisticated satisfaction that it strained the
limits of our hospitality and tired our patience somewhat. They were a
jocular, spontaneous and chattering crowd, of all ages, many hues, and
some diversity of dress. Each canoe had received from Captain Coogan a
bucket of bread, but their appetite for tobacco would have made a
tremendous contribution to the income of the United Cigar Company.
Everyone wanted it—men, women and children, and it stood first in the
commercial schedule of trade. We rejected their whalebone ivory and
foxskins, but boots, skin shirts and coats were acceptable.
Our very generous demeanor towards their needs elicited the stormiest
approval, but we regretfully learned that it prolonged their occupation
of the ship which, so far as fragrance was considered, had seriously
declined from its former estate of habitability. Articles of all sorts
come handy to these people, but as we were not prepared for their
omnivorous demands, tobacco formed the staple of our barter.
Now in our little library, whose usefulness the sustained succession of
long days of suspense or idleness had fully demonstrated, we had read in
a small light blue book by Herbert L. Aldrich, called “Arctic Alaska and
Siberia,” of the author’s visit to this very place. In the book a man,
Gohara by name, was designated as “_the Masinker of the Masinkers_,” a
man forty years of age, tall, commanding, and “by far the best specimen
mentally and physically of his people.”
We discovered him. He was yet vigorous, though approaching seventy and
his remarkable spouse—his third wife then—_Siwurka_, maintained a
supreme position in his household, which the advent, since Aldrich’s
visit, of two younger women had not disturbed. One of these later
accessions to Gohara’s domestic felicity was a person of becoming
rotundity, with a distracting tousle of hair that almost covered her
eyes. The inexpugnable scientific curiosity of the Professor led him
into his second predicament with this young person, which, for a moment,
promised to be more serious than his inquisitional visit to the fur
seals.
It was the last day of our stay at Indian Point which had been prolonged
by the viewless stretches of ice moving out of the Arctic into Behring
Sea, and we were all ashore. As usual the Professor deserted us,
following out some preconcerted scheme of observation or experiment in
which our participation was unnecessary or even resented. It was some
hours after we had missed him, and our inspection of the _tupicks_, the
dogs, the children, and the industrial products of the Masinkers was
completed, that a large boy, prodigiously magnified by his big boots,
rushed upon our trailing group crying:
“Doghter! Doghter! He out of head. Hoopla!”
The fellow was excited and out of breath with running, and his
excitement became reflected in the faces of the natives around us, who
were helplessly bewildered and looked so.
“It’s the Professor—another row. Hold back the crowd. I’ll go with this
screaming lunatic and extricate our distinguished friend. Some
scientific escapade, you can bet your hat on it,” whispered Hopkins.
To inquiries of his acquaintances the boy kept up an unintelligible
jabber and pointed to the farther side of the village. Apparently the
assemblage were on the point of bolting for the spot, in deference to
the boy’s ejaculations. Hopkins handed us a package which he had been
reserving for some sort of a valedictory to Chaplin and its unsavory
population. It was a liberal assortment of quids, smoking tobacco,
cigars and snuff, and its exhibition and immediate distribution quelled
the flight of the rabble around us, whose inclination to stay where they
were instantly hardened like adamant.
Hopkins seized the boy, turned him around, and the two vanished in the
direction the boy had indicated. In about half an hour, or less, they
returned with the Professor between them, much upset but calm, and
apparently indifferent to the objurgations and imprecations, delivered
in unvarnished and vigorous _Tchoukchi_, hurled at him by no less a man
than Gohara, followed by his five wives, whose voices querulously
mingled and reinforced their master’s denunciations. The situation was
unquestionably very amusing, very curious, and, except for the fortunate
intervention of Hopkins’ miscellaneous propitiations, might have become
very annoying. We hurried the Professor to the beach, got into our
boats, Hopkins making a stern-wise address to the multitude on the
shore, a most grotesque and tumultuous bunch of long, short, thin, fat,
smiling, frowning, dark and light figures in skins and fur, and reached
the “Astrum,” which that very evening left the offing, and, over a
clear, moon-lit sea was directed toward Port Clarence in Alaska. A hard
blow was on, and the ice packs had been scattered or driven eastward.
Hopkins’ story that night, after the Professor had retired, which he did
unusually early and with a complete resumption of his smile and his good
humor, entertained us until after midnight. I abbreviate its windings
and prolixity, interspersed with Hopkins’ incommunicable reflexions.
The boy, conveniently named Oolah, led Hopkins some way back of the
settlement to a _tupick_ of considerable size, and covered with canvas
(usually walrus hide or skins form these roofings) which was, it so
happened, Gohara’s storehouse, stocked with trading material. Hopkins
restrained his guide’s impatience, and finding a convenient aperture for
the inspection of the interior peered within. To his delighted
astonishment there was the Professor, with notebook and pencil, and near
him in placid wonderment, which occasionally broke in smiles or deepened
into terror, was the last and, with reservations for taste, most
attractive wife of the head trader of Indian Point, _Ting-wah_ by name.
The Professor’s performances were immoderately extravagant. Seen in
their incongruous environment, combined with their novelty, they
compelled Hopkins to retire at intervals and roll on the ground, in
order to control the violence of his merriment, another proceeding which
strengthened Oolah’s conviction in the immanence of the devil among
these strangers.
When Hopkins first descried the Professor, he was standing erect with
his arms raised high above his head, close together, the hands in
contact, flapping and clapping them in an indescribably funny way, while
at intervals he shrank and cowered over as if seized with the
insupportable pains of colic. To these antics the woman returned a
perplexed stare, as the Professor resumed his normal manner, took up his
pad and pencil, and waited apparently for her response, while she,
equally expectant, stood stock still and waited for more explicit
communications.
Then the Professor suddenly extended his arms in front of him, and
wheeled round on his heels, with such commendable agility, that as he
spun, his expansive ears seemed almost obliterated. It was then that
Hopkins resorted to the refuge of the ground to conceal his feelings.
Still the woman was mute, but her face showed a rising fear, and her
hands rose to her neck as if to seize something from the skin pouch made
in her upper garment.
The Professor left off his physical maneuvers and began a series of
grimaces which, as Hopkins expressed it, “would have dimmed the luster
of the best vaudeville star he had ever seen.” They expressed almost
everything, beginning with something that might be called suffering, to
a terrible excruciation of joy, when the Professor exerted his features
to a degree that Hopkins called “the limit of facial agony.” And yet the
girl was silent, but her eyes never left the Professor, and Hopkins, and
Oolah too, saw her quietly draw a knife from her “bread basket.” Hopkins
might not have observed this if Oolah had not grunted, “_Stick ’im_.”
He felt then it was time to intervene, but his interest and
curiosity—“better’n a show” he repeated over and over again—had up to
this point prevented him.
Suddenly the Professor desisted from his rapid play of expression, and
began to moan diabolically, rolling towards the woman with supplicating
arms. The knife flashed, it was upraised, and the girl crouched, her
face darkening with either rage or terror. The next moment she had
sprung at the now observant and terror-stricken Professor, who executed
a flank movement—“side-stepped” Hopkins put it—and was out of the door
and—into the protecting embrace of Hopkins’ arms, while Oolah with
precocious intelligence intercepted Ting-wah. The girl’s pent-up
emotions spent themselves in screams and fervent but barbarous
complaints that brought Gohara and his other spouses to her rescue.
Hopkins, utterly mystified by the Professor’s exhibition, resorted to
the very plausible explanation, suggested by Oolah in the first place,
that the Professor had gone crazy, which indeed he most apostolically
believed himself. This answered the purpose, though it did not repress
Gohara and his family from uttering a string of uncomplimentary epithets
which might have provoked a serious disturbance had it not been for
Hopkins’ tact and the celerity of our retreat. Gohara’s rage followed
our boat with stridulous recriminations.
The Professor was noticeably crestfallen and almost sullenly indifferent
to our questions as to what had happened. It was only a few days later,
when his spirits had become thoroughly restored, that he spoke about it,
with a sudden assumption of confidence that delighted us.
“My friends,” the Professor began one cold, radiant afternoon as we were
ranged round the naphtha launch admiring its adaptation, strength, the
happy conception of structural ice runners let into her keel, the easily
unshipped tiller and screw; “My friends, the theories of the origin of
language have been various; there are the views of Geiger as to its
inception in movement and action, those of Noire as to the importance of
sound, onomatopoetic or imitative, and the value of expression, as with
Darwin.”
“You see,” he continued with a fine indirection of reference, which we
appreciated, “I was before an untutored child of nature. I attempted,
along these various lines of non-verbal intercourse to secure an
illuminative response that might throw some light upon theory. Under the
circumstances, the subject, vitiated I think by contact with European
culture—Ah—”
“_Shied_” suggested Hopkins.
“Well,” the Professor smilingly concluded, “there was certainly
an _hiatus_. Her aboriginal powers of interpretation were
dulled—dulled—perhaps extinguished.”
“But Professor, you woke up a good deal of oratory. In fact, Professor,
you’re nervy and—if I may be permitted the vulgarity of quotation—
‘You would joke with hyenas, returning their stare
With an impudent wag of your head,
And you went to walk, paw-in-paw, with a bear,
“Just to keep up its spirits,” you said.
Without rest or pause—while those frumious jaws
Went savagely snapping around—
You skipped and you hopped and you floundered and flopped
Till fainting you fell to the ground.’”
The Professor passed his hand approvingly over the side of the launch,
ignoring the jibe. We dropped the subject, indeed forgot it, listening
to Goritz’s animated and assuring praise of the little craft that would
introduce us to a new continent, and the incident was never again heard
of.
Our next haven was Port Clarence in Alaska, and we had a lot of trouble
making it. The ice streaming out of Behring Straits was thick, and, as
the Yankee put it, “_numerous_.” The captain and mates were keen to
watch their chances, and we often found ourselves surrounded by blocks
that the wind threatened to pack together to our imminent peril. It was
very early, and whereas the whalers make Port Clarence about midsummer
we expected or hoped to get to Point Barrow about that time. A northwest
wind came up and scattered the ice and gave us an open sea, though we
were compelled to make some long detours around white meadows of
snow-covered ice, that slipped off into the recesses of low, cold fogs
and suggested illimitable barriers ahead of us.
The distant rattling or caking sound of grinding ice was sometimes
constantly heard for hours, and again vast fields, looking almost
motionless, loomed up with the sun shimmering their surfaces into an
endless complexity of mirrors. Along the indented or hummocky edges of
these little continents we would steam serenely and exult courageously
in the thought of crossing just such white ways to the hidden wonders of
a hidden world. We often fell into fits of dreaming, buoyed up by the
calm and glowing vaticinations of the Professor.
We finally brought up at the port and received a tumultuous reception,
having outrun the whaling fleet. The natives, _Nakooruks_, crowded
aboard, and were intently watched but quite passively shunned by the
Professor. Water and wood were taken on here, and about one hundred
selected dogs, whose points were minutely inspected or determined by
Goritz and myself. It was June, and already flowers spun their colored
webs over the inhospitable shores, compensating for their brief life
here in the north by a marvelous abundance. Yellow, white and blue, the
bewitching patches of moss-blue flowering hepatica, forget-me-not,
anemone, phlox and daisy charmed us, and for a moment brought back such
a flood of memories that a surge of homesickness swept over us, the last
tug of the pleasant world we had turned our backs on before the portals
of a stranger world opened and closed on us, perhaps forever.
We bought fish and furs from the natives who had traveled hither with
their pelts and offerings from Norton Sound, Cape Prince of Wales, and
King’s Island. There was confusion and bustle on shore, and on board the
barking of dogs, guttural controversies among the Eskimos, wailing of
babies, orders, the shriek of the donkey engine hauling on cargo,
produced a pleasant excitement which attained its climax on the arrival
of the United States revenue cutter. Visiting of the captains, exchange
of news followed, and we were told that the season was unprecedented;
the ice in the Arctic had broken up early, there was a clear passage in
the straits and an audacious whaler had attempted the passage and
“skinned” through to Point Hope. We were sanguine of reaching Point
Barrow early in July.
On the fourth of July we were under Cape Lisburne, encountering the rush
of the wind that seems harbored by that lofty cliff, and which like a
physical avalanche pushed us over until the water rippled over the lee
rail. Along the shores everywhere there was a broad avenue of open
water, stretching from the skirt of shore ice to the heavy packs,
sheeted with fogs and murmurously moaning, inimitably flooring that
mysterious ocean whose furthest waters beat on the shores of Krocker
Land.
From Cape Lisburne the shore line strikes at a right angle to the Corwin
coal fields, the low shores, except for a few occasional interruptions,
as with Cape Lisburne itself, marking the margins of the higher uplands
in the interior. Salt lagoons, crescent shaped beaches, sandpits, shoal
basins, furnish a monotonous succession of flattened, uninteresting
features, which practically reaches to Point Barrow. At the Corwin coal
beds slate, sandstone and conglomerate overlie each other, and the
Mesozoic age of the beds themselves is established. Here the Professor
emerged from the mental coma which had suspended his pedagogic
enthusiasms since we left Indian Point, and a few fern leaf fossils
unlocked again the storehouse of his learning and loosened his tongue
with eloquent predictions.
Standing up at our mess table with a beautifully preserved fern leaf,
sketched in black interlacings, reticulations and frondy leaflets on an
ashen-colored slate, the Professor spoke to us, and indeed we ourselves
felt the thrill of a reconstructed world in this bleak land, as we saw
this silent token of former warmth.
“My friends,” he held up the fossil leaf, “here is a vestige of the
past, a leaf of a fern. It tells us of hot, moist, heat-oppressed cycles
of years, when marshes densely thicketed with tree fern, swollen with
hot rains, drenched in a perspiration of mists, covered these now arid
snow-blanketed flats; when a reptilian life, the consonant faunal
response to these climatic conditions flourished here also, when,
dropping into the bayous and ponds, leaf upon leaf, branches, spores and
trunks of an expanded filicine flora built up the masses of vegetable
debris in later ages, to become consolidated and transformed into coal
and—” the Professor’s eyes started, his inherent smile became a
portentous stare, and the wide ears seemed almost to converge to catch
his own words of promise; “and—_we shall rediscover a warm or temperate
climate here at the North Pole. WHY?_”
His voice spoke this interrogation in something like a squeal, so that
the answer, in its unaffected profundity, produced a really dramatic
climax.
“_Because we shall be nearer the center of the earth._”
We took on coal at the Corwin mines and resumed our progress northward
in the still unimpeded lane of open water, with porridge ice forming
fast along the outer pack but the shore rim intact, and bucking against
a strong northeast current setting along shore. We passed Point Lay and
Icy Cape the second day, and reached Point Barrow on the tenth of July.
How well I recall our landing on the low beach of this tip-top point of
the continent, and wondering, in a dreary dream of coming hardships and
dangers, at its desolation, a low barren sandbank forty to one hundred
yards across. At Cape Smythe a small promontory raises a faint
remonstrance against the encroachments of the sea in a bluff of about
thirty feet elevation, and here we found the village of Uglaamie, a
cluster of twenty or more huts, inhabited by a boreal tribe, the
_Nuwukmeun_. Life however, in the plants and animals revived our
feelings, and the Professor’s exultation over the traces of old beach
lines inspirited us. Here on the land, in propitious spots, sprang up
buttercups, dandelions and a peculiar poppy; over our heads flew flocks
of eider ducks, a butterfly danced gayly in its wavering flight by our
side, and Captain Coogan reported a school of whale running to the
northeast, “_in a hurry_.”
We found some standing portions of the United States meteorological
station placed here in 1902, and Goritz stumbled upon a dismantled
graveyard where saint and sinner, rich and poor had promiscuously
suffered from the inroads of the Eskimo dog. It offered a mournful
commentary upon the transitoriness of human greatness.
But reflections were out of place; we had reached the point of
departure, and the Great Unknown sternly invited us to begin our quest.
Under such circumstances the long subdued instincts of the primal man
reassert themselves, and an augury of good fortune befell us that was
droll enough, unrelieved by the nervous solemnity of our feelings, but
which so connected itself with these as to give it an absurd stateliness
of meaning.
An angora goat was the queer and unexpected waif we found here, left by
an unlucky whaler the previous year; a long haired, pugnacious billy
goat, whose property or power as a mascot had failed to save the “Siren”
from being “nipped, pooped and swamped,” and lost in the remorseless
ice. The resident Eskimos in Uglaamie had imbibed respect for the goat
(which had been somewhat summarily abandoned by its former devotees) and
its influence with the unseen agencies that control destiny. But they
were logical enough to conclude that its intimacy was with
bad—_tuna_—rather than with good spirits. This omnivorous beast
furnished us with a favorable omen, all the more auspicious because he
embodied the very genius of destruction.
Now this expatriated goat rejected the prostrations and worship of the
Nuwukmeun, like a capricious deity, and perversely clung to us with
embarrassing insistence. The launch had been put in the water; it seemed
almost ideal in its qualities, it shot through the water, it turned at a
suggestion; its mobility, its steadiness, its comfortable size, its
ample deck room, the large capacity of its storage tanks, its strength
and sinewy stiffness delighted us. With this, and with propitious
chances, we could follow leads, narrow and crooked, mount the ice, and
make of it a giant sled, to resume at an instant’s notice its natural
home and so circumvent all treacheries of ice or water, with protean
ease sailing on each.
Lost in his admiration of his creation, as it rose and rocked in a low
swell at the side of the whaler, Goritz stood on the shore and forgot
his priceless chronometer which, wrapped in a red flannel rag, he had
for a moment placed on the sand. The rest of us were not far from him,
but might have failed to detect the imminent danger, when suddenly the
Professor clapping his hands together in vigorous whacks, shouted,
“Antoine! Antoine! The goat, the goat; the chronom—”
The sentence remained incomplete. Like a flash Goritz had wheeled about,
to see his hircine holiness, with insufferable assurance, pick up in his
tremulous lips the precious watch. If Goritz turned like lightning, his
attack on the offender was even a trifle quicker. He caught the beast by
the throat, determined to intercept the descent of the timekeeper into
the intricate passages of the god’s intestines. There was a struggle,
the goat falling over on its back and kicking with might and main, while
Goritz inexorably tightened his constricting grip on the animal’s
wind-pipe. There could be but one of two results—a dead goat or the
recovered chronometer, and, of course, it was the latter.
The choking mascot, with an expiring effort, gagged, and shot the
uninjured instrument, still swathed in its red envelope, from his mouth.
The fallen god’s subjects were at hand also, a little bewildered over
their deity’s predicament. When the reparation, on the part of the goat,
was made, Goritz released him, kicked him, and the humiliated tuna
turned tail and incontinently bolted for the nearest igloo, and—tell it
not in Gath—the affair was construed as a “_good sign_.”
It was the eve of the day appointed for our northward advance. Captain
Coogan invited the officers of another recently arrived whaler aboard,
and spread a generous banquet for us, which involved the last resources
of his larder and pantry, and really seemed sumptuous. I think we all
felt a little overawed, or indeed a good deal so, by the tremendous
exploit we were embarking on. That night the midnight sun shone
strangely along the horizon upon the waste of northern ice, illimitable,
roseate, inscrutable, the white cerement of a dead continent, and that
dead continent the one we hoped to reach alive! Would we?
There were speeches, toasts, stories, impromptu songs (Goritz played
well on a mandolin and sang some courage-inspiring ballads of
Scandinavia, and Hopkins could “warble” as he called it, quite
pleasingly) and we were wished “good luck” a thousand times. Still we
felt the restraint of an overhanging mysterious fate, and all that
Coogan or Isaac Stanwix, or Bell Phillips, or Jack Spent, or the newly
arrived friends from Alaska, could contrive to express of cheer and
encouragement—and the verbal part of the contrivance was rather limited
and monotonous—failed to dispel our solemnity or the inner sense of
serious misgiving. We laughed indeed when Hopkins told the story of the
goat, the chronometer and the goat’s abrupt contrition under Goritz’s
forcible persuasion. Hopkins concluded that it reminded him of an
incident “at home” narrated as follows in verse:
“There was a man named Joseph Cable
Who bought a goat just for his stable,
One day the goat, prone to dine,
Ate a red shirt right off the line.
“Then Cable to the goat did say:
‘Your time has come; you’ll die this day’
And took him to the railroad track,
And bound him there upon his back.
“The train then came; the whistle blew,
And the goat knew well his time was due;
But with a mighty shriek of pain
Coughed up the shirt and flagged the train.”
When all was over, and everyone had gone to bed or bunk, and dreams, I
stole out alone on the deck of the “Astrum” and “thought it over.” The
Arctic silence weighed upon me like an ominous portent; the dusky sun
rolling its flaming orb along the western horizon (it was two o’clock
past midnight) sent shafts of bronzy light over the rubbled ice fields
that returned a twilight glow, and along the horizon on either side of
the sun, low down, burned a spectral conflagration. It was clear, the
wind blew, and chafing sounds, that may have been roars from where they
emanated, but came to me as hoarse whispers, rose northward, as if
spirits spoke.
I remembered how Oolah, the Eskimo, explained Peary’s success in
reaching the pole; he said “_the devil is asleep or having trouble with
his wife, or we should never have come back so easily_.” I devoutly
prayed that domestic turmoil in the household of his satanic majesty
might again prove distracting.
But to penetrate that vast icy solidity with a naphtha launch! It seemed
like trying to break one’s way through a glacier with an ice pick. I
recalled the fable of the Pied Piper when at the “mighty top” of
Koppelberg Hill:
“A wondrous portal opened wide
As if a cavern were suddenly hollowed,”
and I remembered too, to a more practical purpose, that Amundsen
navigated the tiny “_Gjea_,” a sailing sloop with a gasoline engine,
from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER III
ON THE ICE PACK
Our task was before us and it was to be entered upon at once. Perhaps
you are thinking that we were hopelessly amateurish, inconsiderate,
improvident and foolish. BUT WE SUCCEEDED. Nor were we forgetful or
ignorant. Everything had been read. The elaborate preparations for polar
exploration in the great expeditions had been studied. Two of us had
been in the north before. The apparent simplicity of our outfit arose
from a peculiar circumstance, and that was an imbedded conviction,
perhaps only in me shaken by recurrent fits of alarm, that Krocker Land
was a reality, and that it was habitable. And that meant life and
living.
Then too we had fallen under a spell of imagination, we had become
hopelessly enthralled in the visions of a new order of things. It was as
if we had drunk draughts of some Medean drug that had stolen away our
common sense and immersed us in a flood of fantasies. I don’t think we
confessed anything concretely to one another; we talked together about
Krocker Land just as men might talk about some portion of the earth that
they had never seen, but which as a geographical certainty was on the
maps and was known to possess an unusual interest. Perhaps, after all,
the Professor was responsible for the orientation of thought that made
us clairvoyant and credulous.
Still our plans had been fixed with a dry precision, as those of other
explorers had been, and our supplies comprised just the things that
stock the most prosaic and methodically arranged scientific expeditions.
We had our tins of pemmican, of biscuit, of sugar, of coffee, condensed
milk, our oil and our oil stoves. We were each provided with a rifle, a
shotgun and ammunition. There were matches, hatchets, can openers, salt,
needles and thread, bandages, quinine, astringents, liniments, sledges
and kayaks, dogs and harness, tents, furs, alcohol, rugs, snowshoes,
pickaxes, saw-knives, _kamiks_, certainly more things than Nansen and
Johannsen had had when they left the “Fram” and scooted for the pole
over the paleocrystic sea; and we were not looking for the pole, we were
engaged in a trip to a continent, most certainly impingeable, because it
stretched over 90 or 100 degrees of longitude, and 20 or 30 degrees of
latitude.
And then—Ah, here our minds, _irised_, so to speak, like cracked
crystals, furnished us a journey into fairy land—once there, we were to
be entertained by wonders and comforts, then more wonders and comforts!
Had we ever said that to each other consciously in our waking moments,
we would have forlornly concluded that _piblokto_, the Eskimo hysteria,
had carried us into the seventh heaven of affectation and madness. No;
it was not fairy land indeed, but something more marvelous, a miracle of
realities that to recall even now makes my head spin with the vertigo of
a confessed self-delusion. LISTEN!
We had staked everything on the naphtha launch. As an invention it was
ideal. We expected to drive it over the ice floes, and to sail it across
the leads. It would hold all we needed, and our team of dogs, forty or
fifty in number, would be able to pull it over the ice. If it was too
heavy in the snows it could be lightened of its load on the sledges, or
on the sledge teams which we expected would accompany it. The project
appeared a little cumbersome but safe. We had noticed the striking
absence from the western polar sea of icebergs, and we concluded that
the sea north of Point Barrow, like the sea generally north of Cape
Columbia or Cape Sheridan was a frozen water, smooth or interrupted only
by the pressure ridges which scarred its surface with cyclopean walls of
massed ice. We had indeed gone further in our inferences, and assumed
that no mountainous elevations, with their chasms, intervening valleys
and gorges made up the coasts of Krocker Land, for if they had, as in
Greenland or Grant Land or as usually in the eastern archipelago, the
discharge of the ice streams that filled them would have produced
icebergs. Or was the annual snowfall inadequate?
Certainly the spectacular processions of the icebergs every spring and
summer in the east were absent in the west. The conditions presented
seemed to be a convincing assurance that our naphtha launch and ice
boat, in its composite adaptation to land or water, would successfully
traverse the flat ice sheet. Not indeed that it would actually be a
plane table, but the obstacles of hummocks, piled up ice floes, ridges,
mounds and walls could be circumvented, avoided, and the launch bodily
driven over the pack. Such maneuvers might add much to the distance, but
the resources were sufficient for a long journey, and, were we made to
feel that the launch offered insurmountable difficulties, we would
abandon it, increase the loads of our sledges with its distributed
freight, and go on.
The naphtha launch was a simple and interesting vessel. It was a long,
narrow, strong wooden raft with curving sides, and a broad, smooth
sloping bow, reinforced by steel binders, bolts and rivets, set on
runners, with a short tiller, easily unshipped, and a peculiar slanting
propeller which was simply one rotating blade of alternating plates of
wood and steel, allowing a shifting attachment to the engine, so that
its stem could be shortened or lengthened, or withdrawn altogether, and
the propeller disk sheathed in a pocket in the body of the vessel.
The upper works were a watertight box and nothing more, about six feet
in height, made up of two skins, between which was packed asbestos,
built strongly, with no doors or windows. A few covered eyelets allowed
a poor sort of ventilation which could be improved by opening the
manhole on top, through which entrance to the inside was to be made.
Through this manhole everything we carried was introduced; the sledges
and kayaks were placed on its roof. This box-cabin covered three-fourths
of the length of the boat. The bow admitted the socket and step for a
mast and a small sail. It had no beauty, no speed, but we believed it
was adaptable to the vicissitudes of travel before us, because of its
amphibious properties. If fairly caught in an ice jam it would be
crushed like a peanut shell, but it was intended to rise on the ice, and
we expected to save it from the contingency of any ice chancery by
keeping it on open fields of ice.
The conditions before us welcomed this treatment, or at least we thought
so. We could give it a load of two tons, which affords an equivalent of
one ton in traction force to haul, so that forty dogs, pulling fifty
pounds each, would draw it, and this was a very lenient exaction.
Circumstances vary, and the phases of Arctic mutability are almost
incalculable, but once on the ice we anticipated success. The weak
feature of our plan was the late start. If nothing could be negotiated,
in the slang parlance of exploration, we would return to Point Barrow
and wait until later.
The long days invited us and the calculable chance of escaping the awful
winter storms. What we probably could not cross were the large pressure
ridges which are perhaps twenty feet high, a fourth of a mile in width,
and which contain individual masses of ice as big as a small house, all
in a _gallimaufry_ of confusion. But we would flank them somehow; that
was our purpose. The summer might give us good leads, winding,
penetrating lanes of water drifting through labyrinthine courses to the
“promised land.” _It_ was there, and it grew in our thoughts every day
as more and more desirable. We did not care at what point we hit it.
Four hundred miles ahead of us somewhere lay _terra firma_, and the
conception grew in magnitude, not as another Greenland buried under
thousands of feet of snow, a monstrous, appalling desert of ice scoured
by hurricanes and chilled in death with a temperature half a hundred
below zero. No! By an incomprehensible infatuation (the Professor had
warped our judgments by his indefatigable promises) we were convinced
that Krocker Land contained the resources of life.
Had not Peary at Independence Bay, on the very northern edge of
Greenland, found flowers, grass and musk oxen? Had he not, when driving
for the pole, “repeatedly passed fresh tracks of bear and hare together
with numerous fox tracks”? And then those uncovered veins of gold
seaming the primal rocks, how they swam before our eyes in yellow
reticulations over square miles of quartz! We had become decidedly crazy
about it all, for, unexpressed, but cherished in our deepest hearts were
fantastic hopes of some indescribable faunal, floral, _human_ remnant,
like Conan Doyle’s “Lost World” or the Kosekin in De Mille’s “Strange
_MS_ in a Copper Cylinder” in the Antarctic, and that romantic and
sufficing Paradise that Paine depicted in “The Great White Way,” or even
the nightmare trances and inventions, the megalithic splendors and
horrific glories of Atvatabar, or the mythic creatures in Etidorhpa. And
yet our extravagancies of imagination were all finally obliterated, even
to memory, in the grandeur and miracle of Reality.
In one respect we altered our first plan. Hopkins had wished to have
three Americans selected to bring back our launch, and to pick us up
again the next summer. We changed that. We would never come back, or if
there were disappointments (“Inconceivable,” said the Professor) we
would get back our own way unaided, and—
(Erickson looked at me solemnly, and his voice struck a sepulchral tone
that would have done credit to Paris at the tomb of the Capulets.)
“And Mr. Link, I am the only one that _did_ come back. The Professor and
Hopkins are in Krocker Land today; Goritz is dead.”
(He resumed his narration.)
Captain Coogan steamed over to the ice pack which lay beyond the shore
channels of open water, towing our launch, which certainly now seemed to
dwindle into an inconsiderable implement of insertion in that trackless
ocean of ice. He pushed his way through the “slob” ice, and jammed the
nose of the “Astrum” upon the bulwarks of a great floe, whose uneven,
rumpled and snow encumbered surface receded into a measureless distance,
veiled, gray, dismal. We disembarked with the dogs, the launch came
alongside, Goritz started the engine and she bucked the ice hopelessly.
Then we windlassed her _onto_ the pack, harnessed the dogs to her in
five teams, one pack from the bow, two amidships and two at the stern,
and started. Goritz and I were good teamsters, and Hopkins made a fair
try at it, with promiscuous difficulties. The rudder and tiller were
unshipped. It looked as if she would “go.” We did not make fifty feet in
our trial, but the dogs certainly could pull her easily on her bone
runners. Then came the unloading of our supplies from the steamer.
The day was most favorable, clear, cold and still. The wind with its
usual aptitude for mischief in these northern asylums of meteorological
chaos, was waiting to catch us later. We packed the supplies, sledges,
two kayaks, guns, ammunition, stoves, oil, pemmican, and the assorted
constituents of the regular provisioning of an Arctic expedition, into
and on the launch, which made a very original and unique picture. The
Eskimos who came offshore with the steamer and the dogs themselves
seemed quite thoroughly perplexed, and doubtless entertained unspoken
and unfavorable opinions as to our final success, and the dogs were
perhaps dubious as to their own fate.
The closing hour of the day, scarcely separable now from the night, with
the sun always above the horizon, found us ready. The dogs were an
anxiety. We hoped to feed them on fresh meat in a large measure. Seals,
the flipper, the bearded, and the hooded, were common. Goritz and I were
good hunters, and a better shot than Hopkins never lived. Our formal
relations and duties were pretty quickly arranged. Goritz was commander,
with especial charge of the dogs, Hopkins was engineer, I was steward,
and the Professor combined, very happily, the services of cook and
scientific observer. We started with one hundred dogs, double perhaps
our actual needs, but the sometimes sudden and unaccountable mortality
among these animals justified our precaution.
Then came the leave taking and, for the first time, an explicit avowal
of our intentions, with Krocker Land pictured as our destination, and
also with the renewed stipulation, enforced by a signed agreement and
the additional security of prepayment, that Coogan should return the
following year and look for us. I have said we did not intend to return.
We did not, but then that reservation was a hidden, peculiarly communal
feeling, unspoken and realized between ourselves, as a psychological
dithyramb which we didn’t confess or particularize, but which coerced us
insensibly, as a mission does a prophet, an ambition a conqueror, or a
dream a poet. Externally our demeanor was of the ordinary rational type.
Coogan should come back for us—OF COURSE.
It was picturesque and unprecedented, that leave taking. The Arctic
scene, the outlandish and piled up “Pluto,” the waiting, serviceable
dogs, alert and incredulous, the swarthy, grimy, wrinkled, heterogeneous
natives, ourselves on one side of the pictorial composition, Coogan,
Stanwix, Phillips, Spent on the other, with the crew in an amazement of
disgust hanging over the steamer’s taffrail, perched in the rigging, or
sauntering near us, and that illimitable ice-packed sea, imperturbably
plotting our destruction. Hopkins delivered the valedictory.
“My friends,” he said with a profound sweep of his cap, and a big
obeisance that made the Eskimos shout with glee, “we’re off for parts
unknown. You probably entertain a rather hopeful feeling that we’ll
never come back. May be. You never can tell. At this end of the earth
the unusual usually happens. However, we’re not worrying. Not in the
least. To miss the resumption of your acquaintance would distress us,
and might hurt your feelings, but it’s a case of taking what comes, and
kicking don’t go _up here_. You’re all aware of that. No, you mustn’t
put us in a class by ourselves. We are just part of the bunch, that for
the last one hundred years or more has been leaving cards at the door of
Our Lady of Snows, with an occasional intimation on the part of her
ladyship that the visitors were welcome, but generally with a bolted and
barred entrance, and an upset of snow, ice, wind and zeros from the
upper stories of her palatial residence, that compelled an inglorious
departure, or left the gentlemen in question dead on the doorstep. Well,
we’re ready to join the previous company.
“Only I don’t think so. I’m not in the least nutty—I hope you catch
me—and there are scientific reasons—” Hopkins patted the back of the
Professor—“scientific reasons for banking on a safe return, with the
goods, for all of us. When that happens, my friends, you’ll be very glad
to see us. Nothing will be too good for us, nothing too handsome. The
ordinary brand of explorer won’t be in it with us, for if that kind gets
back with his clothes on, and the breath in his body, he gets in the
picture supplements, is put up for sale to the highest bidder for
receptions, cornerstone laying, and memorial exercises; he can put the
whole country to sleep listening to his talk at one hundred
per—minute!—and is never known to disappear from the public eye until he
crosses the Styx on another kind of expedition from which there
certainly is no ‘come back.’
“That won’t be our way. When next we reach New York, and the land of the
free and the home of the brave, our suit cases will be so full of boodle
that you won’t be able to shut them with a steam compressor, and we can
give you cross references to all the original sources of all the gold
that the world ever had or can have. The trusts won’t be in it, John
Rockefeller will dwindle into invisibility, and the bunko lords and
potentates on the other side of the big pond, always fishing for _big_
money will just scramble to get in first to sell their junk crowns to
us. JUST WAIT. If there’s an income tax on our return, we’ll undertake
single handed to run the government and, what’s more expensive, buy up
the politicians. Fact, Captain Coogan; fact, Mate Stanwix; fact,
Engineer Phillips; fact, Jack Spent; fact, all of you!” And Hopkins
executed another inclusive gyration, “And now, Good-bye.”
I don’t think his audience took him in, or else their previous
convictions were only somewhat strengthened by this nondescript
allocution. The Professor smiled benignly. Goritz grunted approval, I
felt queerly elated. Coogan came forward, hoped it would all turn out
right, promised to look for us next summer, told us to stack up all the
spare meat we could when the winter set in and shook hands. There was no
more speech making; the rest came forward and shook hands too, as did
all the Eskimos. Jack Spent, the carpenter, with his spectacles on his
nose, and his brushy whiskers stiffened out like a privet hedge, tried
to sing a song, which by reason of its quavering falsetto brought howls
from the Nuwukmeun. Its import ran:
“Good Luck to you my trusty mates,
Good Luck and Fortune brave,
May God and all the kindly Fates
Your souls and bodies save.”
The groups turned back, the grave Eskimos climbing in last, over the
“Astrum’s” rail. The steamer backed out of the “porridge,” and we,
impatient to be off, trimmed up the dogs, tightened the ropes over the
pyramidal freight, and cheering as we heard the parting whistles from
the “Astrum,” soon hazily obscured in a rising evening dusk, went
northward over the great ice field before us.
[Illustration:
ON THE ICE PACK
]
The dogs were alert, the yacht-sledge went along well, the ice was
sloppy but fairly smooth, and the floe had apparently escaped the
contusions, bumps and collisions, which heap up these Arctic rafts with
mounds, faults and pressure ridges, over which our unusual equipage
never could have made its way. As it was, we at times traveled slowly
enough, avoiding inequalities and dodging obstreperous humps. Towards
evening of that first day the thermometer fell, an easterly wind came
out of the sullen eastern sky, the snow flakes floated thickly in the
air, and the sun glared like a gigantic ruby in the west, across which
scurried veils from snow banks, eclipsing and revealing it at inconstant
intervals—an augury of a storm.
We camped; that is we unharnessed the dogs, who proceeded, accordingly
to the conventional style, immemorially recorded, to tie themselves up
into yelping snarls of fur and harness; we lit our stove, partook of tea
and pemmican, biscuit and marmalade (Yes, Mr. Link, _marmalade_) and
slipped into protected nooks, amid the boxes on our diminutive ark. As
the wind was rising we turned her lengthwise to the wind to prevent a
capsize, wedged her forward and, under warning to jump to the ice if
anything happened—a generalized warning for almost every sort of
disturbance—tried to sleep.
It was a long time before dreams came to me, and when they did come they
were unwelcome, for I seemed to be helplessly struggling up an inclined
plain of ice over which flowed a sheet of icy water. I woke with a
start. A roaring sound, almost stunning in its loudness, came through
the snowladen air. The snowfall had increased and might have deadened
the distant report had it not been for the hissing wind which brought
the sound sharply to our ears, mingling it menacingly with its own
sibilant fury. Another and another! We all tumbled out on the ice. The
floe shook. We distinctly felt its tremors under our feet, and, as it
were, subterranean cracking and splitting noises developed underneath
us, as if the floe might break. It was an anxious moment. But the floe
was some eight feet thick, a resistant mass that might easily, however,
succumb to cleavage surfaces. The booming sound ceased, but a prolonged
crushing and rattling followed. Goritz clapped his hands. It seemed an
unaccountable exhibition of spirits.
“Well,” exclaimed Hopkins, “what do you make of it?”
“The best thing for us. We’ve got another length laid out for us on the
straight track to Krocker Land. This floe probably ended off there
somewhere,” he pointed northeast, “and now another has struck it,
crumpling the edges. We’re not making such progress as we thought. The
whole sea is in motion, but pretty nearly due east, so that as long as
we go forward the easting does not hold us back on the northing, or very
little.”
“What do you say to breaking up camp now. Let’s see what’s happened,”
suggested Hopkins.
“Certainly,” chimed in the Professor, “Krocker Land has a long coast of
course. The nearer we get to it the greater likelihood of eddies,
conflicting currents, flood tides and even favoring winds driving us
ashore. I’m for the advance.”
“And I,” I concurred. We dug out the dogs, who were not very deeply
covered, fed them, had tea and biscuit and some potted beef stew, and
were off. Goritz calculated we had covered eight miles in northing,
though our speculative way around obstacles had made the actual stretch
spanned much longer.
Curiosity and suspense conflictingly urged us to make haste. The snow
died away with the wind, and the sun, running its cartwheel course along
the horizon, again watched us from the east in a clear sky. It was a
“gorgeous Arctic day.” The summer heat had not yet too strongly
prevailed, and the air almost sparkled over the dazzling splendor of the
ice, undulating where it was seen in spaces somewhat cleared of snow, or
spread with the deep ermine of the snow itself, which again, in rifts,
drifts or circular heaps, reflected the sun like a firmament of pinpoint
stars. The snow, melting, became compressed, and at length a duller
lustre relieved our eyes of the strain of the almost insupportable
brilliancy of the morning hours.
We had made sluggish headway, the wet snow clogging and detaining us;
indeed we lightened the load on the yacht-sledge, and used the sledges
and extra dogs to improve our progress. About noon we saw the results of
the night’s collision. A toppling but not very high pressure ridge had
soared upward between our floe and another, presumably larger, for it
had overtaken the one we were on. On that floe we must ourselves
continue our advance, for already to the north and west we saw the broad
leads of open water, indicated to Goritz’s experienced eyes by the dark
“water blink” seen, as he told us, the day before.
But how to surmount the barrier of ice blocks? Goritz and Hopkins went
forward to investigate, the Professor and myself watching the dogs whose
sudden alternations of obedience and mutiny kept us perpetually active.
Hopkins found a less prominent section of the ridge, where the slanting
and unevenly disposed blocks might be flattened to aid our progress, or
be shattered into fragments, with dynamite. We adopted Peary’s expedient
in shaking the “Roosevelt” free of ice at Lincoln Bay. Dynamite sticks
attached to poles were stuck among the blocks, and connected by wires to
our battery. Then we turned on the current. The explosion seemed to stop
our hearts and breath, but if it did we were conscious enough to wonder
at the fountain of splintered ice that rose like a geyser in the air,
shimmering too with ten thousand irises against the sun, as it subsided
with clatter and tinkling to the floe.
We had cleared our way and to our exultation the avenue opened showed us
a wonderfully level and unencumbered field of ice. This obstruction
might have been circumvented by taking to the water, but too late we
realized the danger of being crushed in the battling floes that swirled
together with the current or were driven by the winds. It was a prudent
measure to keep to the ice at present. Our launch was flat, rounded and
intended, like the “Fram,” to rise over the squeezing ice blocks. But
would it? It seemed a trifle top-heavy, with its varied load. An upset
would have been fatal; the dogs would be lost.
And now joy ruled, hope rose, the promise seemed granted. Oh, the
incurable madness of human dreams. A gleam of light betokens the full
day; it may be only a ray from a lantern, or the quiet before the storm
gives assurance of eternal peace; it may be but the presage of the
tempest.
We drove in triumph through the dismantled gateway, pierced by the
convulsion of those yellow sticks of doom. Out on the white field, on
which perhaps only the wind had left its imprint, which no eye but that
all-seeing orb of day had ever scanned, whose silence only the winds,
the waves, the storming ice had ever broken, and which now, the first
time since Eternity began its reign there, was rudely assailed—we
imagined it as an astonished deity—by yelping dogs and four hurrahing
mortals!
The snow was deep and melting, but our dogs (Goritz had harnessed all
the dogs and they were still in good condition) dragged the strange bulk
of our ice-yacht with its rocking cargo at a topping speed. Exhilaration
reigned, we were hilarious with confidence. It was not long before
Hopkins, in spite of the heavy trudging, indulged in some characteristic
musical levity, and his baritone notes finely contrasted with the
silence of that void, in which we alone seemed sentient and animated.
It was a college reminder, and I just recall that the refrain had a most
freakish incongruity:
“‘’Twas on the Arctic polar pack
I smoked my last cigar.’”
Well, the merriment did not last long. In about an hour we saw before us
a rising hillside, the snow sloping up to an elevation of twenty feet or
more and having drifted in thick mounds above and below it. We halted.
Goritz plunged forward and struggled to the top of the eminence. We
noticed him turning from side to side, leaning forward, looking backward
too over our heads, tramping up and down like a dog on a lost scent.
Then he waved his arms. We understood his summons. I watched the dogs,
and Hopkins and the Professor ran on, tumbling into the white heaps,
apparently hitting slippery surfaces below, which sent them sprawling in
a splutter of white dust. The three men at length stood together and
their gesticulations made black strokes against a white-gray sky. There
was rain coming. I knew we had struck a break; there was a bad hole
ahead with a poor chance of getting over it. Slowly the three returned,
and it was Hopkins who gave the first intimation of the difficulty.
“Mr. Erickson, we’ve been a little ‘previous’ in our expectations. I
think perhaps that psalm of joy was a mistaken indulgence on my part, or
else I unconsciously hit the nail on the head and—our last cigar _will_
be smoked here and a few other last things may happen along with it. Go
up and look at the scenery.”
He motioned to the snowhill. I did not need the invitation, I was
already on my way, noticing Goritz’s gravity and the absence of the
Professor’s static grin. And in the interval that may be allowed between
my first step and my surmounting the snow bank covering the topsy-turvy
_abattis_ of ice blocks, a paragraph of explanation may be wisely
inserted.
Anyone familiar with experiences of Arctic voyagers in this western
Arctic sea, as for instance the thrilling pages of DeLong’s diary in the
disastrous “Jeannette” expedition, will recall the fact of the broken
condition of the polar pack in the summer, and its hitherto almost
invariably pictured confusion of peaks, ridges and pits. Such a person
would question the truthfulness of the few previous pages and note
incredulously the absence of any remonstrance on the part of the
“Astrum’s” officers at our foolhardy undertaking. There was remonstrance
enough however. We were told we could not live in the broken, smashing,
surging ice; that there was no even ice floor; that everything was
uneasy, perilous, shifting, open; that we should wait until winter had
solidified the mass, and then “just hike it north.”
And we knew pretty well ourselves just what everyone else had seen and
recorded. But we took the chance, and by a perfect miracle of
opportunity found there was, outside of Point Barrow a marvelous field
of ice suited for our _progress_. (The real word turned out to be
_occupancy_.)
Well, I got to the top of the snow pile, and my heart beat a rapid
retreat to my boots at the sight before me. Ice, ice, ice, but
everywhere in blocks smiting each other, rolling, rocking, jamming, and
all together crying aloud in a jargon of groans, shivers, reports,
grumbles, growls, like packs of quarreling dogs or wolves. It was a
disconcerting, discouraging spectacle, and it stretched endlessly away
on every side. And in the middle distance, looming larger each instant,
rose a floeberg that came on, shoving to the right and left the ice
shards about it, resistlessly, as the steel prow of a cruiser or
battleship might sweep a flotilla of boats and barges from the path of
its imperious progress.
Its pinnacle blazed in the sun; its prow, a pointed ice foot, pierced
the obstacles before it with a rattling discharge of rending and
splitting; then came an ominous silence and the powerful ice ram rushed
down upon us through softer or smaller particles that brushed to each
side in parting waves. A few minutes more and its collision with our
floe would follow, and then—? I saw too quickly we could make no headway
in that hurly-burly of disorder, and then the thought flashed on me that
in the pathway of this rushing dreadnought of the north lay death and
destruction.
I leaped down the pressure ridge and regaining my feet at its base ran
on shouting to the others, who were arrested by my sudden return, “Back!
Back! Back!” waving to them to get away. Goritz understood, the rest
followed him. The dogs were wheeled round, the crack of the long whips
sounded in their ears, and the sting of the lash tingled on their backs.
The lumbering “Pluto” swept in a half circle, and was shot along the
trail we had just made towards the south. Perhaps we had gained a
hundred yards, when the jolt came. It threw us on our faces and upset
the dogs. It came with a queer, smothered roar that sharpened into a
long, rending shriek; the ice beneath shook with the blow, and
then—parted! A seam opened below the “Pluto,” and water spouting from
underneath covered the rearward dogs. The Professor and Hopkins were on
the separated section. They sprang forward, while Goritz jumped to his
feet in a flash, and played his whip like a demon on the dogs who
seemed, to my eyes, tied up in its rapid convolutions.
The yacht-sledge crossed the chasm, and I, a short distance behind, on
the “calf” made by the impact, pitched into the gap. I came up like a
cork and instantly felt Hopkins’ hand in the neck of my coat. He dragged
me out and for the moment we were safe.
But behind us ploughed on the _devastator_. A closer view revealed a
great hulk of ice blocks heaped up, up-ended pieces of the floeberg,
perhaps forty feet high. It would strike us again, the shock of its
first blow had allowed the strong current to turn its extension
northward, and it was slowly revolving on a water pivot, and another
face was about to deliver a second disrupting blow further along. There
were no councils held just then. We scampered out of danger at our best
speed, leaping to the sides of the “Pluto” and helping to pull with the
dogs, all together, with a simultaneous inspiration. It worked well. We
were slipping along fast, thanks to the level surface, when BANG, and
then _bang_ again, and then a fierce ripping sound.
“A wallop on the slats, and a jolt under the chin. _That rocks us_,”
exclaimed Hopkins spasmodically.
Goritz was keeping the air over the dogs blue with imprecations and hot
with the winnowing lashes of his whip. We were too late. Twenty or more
feet ahead a black jagged line suddenly ran over the ice, a million
unseen hands seemed to have seized the farther edge of the seam and
pushed it open with frightful speed. Deliberation was impossible, but
there must be a decision of some sort, “_right off the bat_,” as Hopkins
would say. It came.
Goritz called back, “Shoot it! Loosen the dogs! All aboard!”
We cast off the loops from the cleats, always intended for quick
release, and prepared for embarkation. The word “prepared” does not fit,
for it was preparation wound to the top-notch of precipitancy. Goritz
turned the forward teams of dogs and slowed the momentum of the
boat-sledge. She slid on, however, and almost dumped into the lead that
had been formed; a fortunate hump of ice blocked her and made her cargo
of boxes and tins rattle absurdly. It had a silly effect like the wail
of a baby in a storm. I long remembered it. Getting the dogs stowed was
troublesome. We had seventy (thirty had been discarded and sent back
with Coogan) but pemmican pitched on the boat hurried them aboard and
kept them there. Then we pushed the boat overboard, holding her back
with boathooks. In another instant we were on her, too, and the little
voyage towards the receding ice began—towards the larger mass, which we
believed to be still connected with the ice field we had first
traversed. That was a trifle, but it was another matter lifting her to
the surface of the pack. We sloped the edge with picks, anchored a
capstan on the ice, and by main strength hauled her on, putting in the
dogs at the final pull. We fed the dogs, fed ourselves, and took time to
think. As Goritz remarked, “there was some room for thought.”
Our dilemma was this: Should we try to regain the first floe cake,
through the gateway we had made in the pressure ridge, or stay where we
were? In any case the complete breakup of our platform involved sticking
to the boat, trusting that she would not be crushed and waiting for the
colder days when the cementation of the floes would begin, when we could
push northward somehow over the ice. A reconnaissance settled the
question. Our first floe had parted, the pressure ridge had disappeared;
south of us, as all around us, was the treacherous, shifting, pulverized
ice pack (the particles of the pulverization were often small rafts). We
drilled the ice and found it from four to six feet thick, and took our
position in the center. We were beleaguered; as with Marshal Bazaine it
was _J’y suis, j’y reste_, for each of us. A storm was brewing, the wind
rose and, as Mikkelsen has described it, the ice floes “ducked and
dipped and hacked at each other, crushing and being crushed.”
“As long as our island holds out we’re safe enough, and if some good
leads develop we might strike the water, and make off for another,” said
Goritz.
“There’s no place like home,” said Hopkins. “Stick here. We’re drifting
in the right direction. When we sight the metropolis of Krocker Land we
can hoist our colors and, if there are proper harbor facilities, come up
the bay under full steam. I guess the Professor understands the
formalities of these upper regions. He can introduce us to the mayor and
the aldermen and get us the freedom of the city, and perhaps we can
negotiate a commercial treaty that will give the United States of
America the monopoly of the ice crop. If we could get an attachment on
these rory-borealises for the movies, it would be a mint.”
The Professor ignored these pleasantries. He also believed our safest
plan was to stay on the floe and drift at present. Game would turn up
for the dogs—seal, walrus—and when we touched Krocker Land (persistent
iteration had banished all doubts now of its reality) we would find
bear.
“And really,” the Professor continued, “nothing could be more favorable
than our prospects at present. We are drifting northwest; wind and tide
are pushing us along on the right course. Krocker Land, my friends, is
not one hundred miles away. This coming storm will help amazingly, and I
see no reason why we shouldn’t raise sail.”
The suggestion was overruled by Goritz. The danger of collisions was too
great, and the headway might be faster than we could overcome if we were
threatened with one. The ice was getting softer; pools of water
glistened all around us, and a bad blow might break us up.
Watches were kept, and as the light lasted the full twenty-four hours,
we were not likely to be surprised by unsuspected invasions. The higher
floebergs were to be feared. Their bases, prolonged far below, furnished
push surfaces to the tide for perhaps hundreds of feet, and their mass
supplied momentum. They were dangerous neighbors. And now the storm rose
furiously around us. Except for our peril it was a spectacle we might
have enjoyed. The Professor alone was absolutely unconcerned, and his
nonchalance calmed our own apprehensions.
The clouds in strips and bulging banners were carried high above us.
Streamers they seemed, from the eastern sky where the high lying cirrus
flakes, slowly expanding into shapeless patches, had already delivered
their usual warning. These again were soon blotted out in the onrushing
scud all around us. A dull yellow light at first spread its sickly tint
over the ice field, and the sun, darkened and blurred, was soon utterly
cloaked from view. The wind rose quickly, brushing close to the surface
of the ice, ushering in interminable strife among the pitching blocks.
They ground together, and the swell, started below them, kept their
edges pounding, while a tumult of groans and creaking noises like the
smashing of heavy glass raised an unceasing din, a din indeed that
possessed some of the elements of a wild, fascinating rhythm. The rain
came in pelting downpours, whipped into horizontal sheets by the blast,
and then with a sudden drop of temperature changed to blinding snow
flurries, that buried everything in white dust, and sometimes smote us
with the sharpness of myriad-edged microscopic needles.
The water washed in long flows over the sides of the berg, and the berg
itself rocked and shook, threatening to start our ice-yacht into motion,
and to carry her and her precious cargo into the whirling, fighting ice
about us. Fortunately it continued to grow colder, and the snow, besides
offering us means of banking the yacht, stem, stern, and prow, and
ramming her bowl-shaped sides with a stiff embrace from which a jolt
would hardly free her, provided a bed for the poor dogs, who were
frantic with misery, howling and whining in disgust.
Our berg had shrunk considerably; it was only a remnant, an angle of the
big field we had entered with such rejoicing, and we knew it was getting
smaller. When the dogs had quieted, and we felt that the launch was
immovable, we crept into the box-cabin and gratefully partook of hot
tea, warmed pemmican, and biscuit, with cups of soup to “wash it down.”
It was a parnassian feast, and though we were anxious, the snug refuge
and the soul-stimulating grub brought us to the verge of exultation.
Even the hard knocks that the pack received attested to our progress,
and if it held together, and the blizzard lasted, we would win some
miles of our journey, almost without effort, and, as Goritz said, “it
was just the sort of a blow to clear the track.”
I certainly had fallen asleep. Pictures had risen like projections on a
screen, one after the other, in my mind, one melting deliciously into
its predecessors, and all linked together by the memories of home. My
mother, my sister and her two boys under the pine tree by the side of
the dreaming pond, holding in its reflexions the cloud-flecked bosom of
the blue sky, and the slanting cliff, the hillside graveyard, and the
reversed boats moored to the little dock, and then the dash of the
phaeton down the road, the group waving their kerchiefs at me, and my
own answering salute, the turn of the road, the dark passage through the
spruce forest, the cleared farmsides with the red houses, and the
clustering friends along the filled fences, cheering, and then—a
terrific bump—the phaeton had smashed against a stone, and—!
“Wake up, Erickson, all hands busy.”
It was Goritz’s voice bellowing in my ear, it was his hand, shaking me
like a giant by the shoulder. I leaped to my feet, dazed and, leaping to
conclusions as quickly, thought the ice had split our keel and we were
sinking. Everything was dark around me. I heard Hopkins swearing over
the oil lamps which had fallen to the floor and the Professor mumbling
further away. And then came a curiously stifled boom.
“Well, what’s up?” I stuttered.
“The ice cake is breaking up. There—it goes again,” groaned Goritz.
Another report, louder, keener, like a gun shot, was heard above the
babel of noises that the wind, the waters now and the straining boat,
not to speak of the cargo on the deck, rustled and scraped throughout
its many joints and the crevices between the boxes, promiscuously
raised. There was a pause, then came another report that made us all
jump to the door; it seemed almost as if the launch were cracking
beneath our feet. It was a detonation directly below us. Outside the
wailing, demoniacal storm was raging. Our cargo, thanks to its
unbreakable anchorage to the deck, seemed safe, but on all sides of us
was water, laden with ice blocks that beat trip-hammer blows against the
sides of the launch. OUR DOGS WERE LOST!
No, not all. Ten had struggled from their confinement in the snow and
had taken refuge on the boat. The rest, swallowed up in the sundering of
the raft, had perished in the foaming sea. The boat was tossing, and the
waves would have swamped us had not the watertight door of the cabin
house been shut. She was drifting helplessly amid the ice-strewn
billows, whose retreating slopes were sheeted white with a lather of
foam. We were holding onto anything convenient, and were drenched, but
finally Goritz and Hopkins found their way somehow with the agility and
tenacity of cats to the stern, and shipped the rudder, and in a few
moments—they seemed hours—we were in line with the wind, and racing
before it, lifted and shot onward by the waves that, luckily for us,
were not dangerously crested, but were peaked hills of water, whose
ebullitions were somewhat suppressed by the masses of ice distributed
over them. We seemed like playthings, and like playthings the giant of
the deep tossed us on, thus humorously willing to aid us to our
destination if we could stand the treatment.
The storm would half subside and then, as if maddened at its clemency,
would renew its violence. As Hopkins put it, “She certainly can come
back good and hearty, gets her second wind and takes a right hook, just
as if nothing had happened. But after all it’s no raw deal. We’re
covering ground fine, and not turning a hair to pay for it, provided we
can hold together. The insides of the weather man are hard to fathom,
and he has never been credited with too big a supply of the milk of
human kindness, but if he isn’t putting it over us hard with a
goldbrick, it looks to me as if we might soon expect to run up against
the revenue cutter of the Krocker port. I suppose we can declare these
goods as essential to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and
beat the duty.”
It grew lighter on the third day, and the awful tumult lapsed suddenly
into a peacefulness amazing and ideal. The temperature rose and the
skies cleared, the sun was unclouded and intensely brilliant for these
latitudes, and, most glorious of all, the ocean was clear of ice, only
the green rolling waves sweeping over the limitless distances,
flattening out against that magic circle where sky and water meet, and
where we half expected to see the emergent peaks of mountains.
And the next days were wonder days. The air was even balmy; the sea,
cleared of its litter of ice, invited us with green gleaming undulations
to tempt its mercies still farther. Our engine was started, and the
“Pluto,” albeit a little slowly, forged on, and later, aided by a sail
that drew every wind that stirred, advanced over the ocean, with even a
flattering pretence to speed; her safeness had been assumed at the
start.
Except for the destruction of our dogs whom we had already begun to
admire and to cherish, nothing seemed wanting for our perfect peace of
mind except a little more confidence that this unknown world, now
rapidly approaching, would offer us a decent foothold; that it would not
be an ice-buried continent, the asylum of all the terrors of the north,
awful in its solitude, remorseless in its scorn, brutal in its revenge.
Well, the Professor undertook to calm our doubts, and while he exerted
his culinary skill in the infinite variety of combinations of soups,
canned fruits, preserves, bread, cake, biscuits, candy, pemmican, wine,
custards, pie and macaroni, he expended a more valuable art in
convincing us that we were indeed to discover a pleasant country, and
was not averse to beguiling us into raptures over his fabulous pictures
of its possibilities—“spinning yarns” and “pipe dreams,” Hopkins
contemptuously styled them.
“My friends,” said the Professor, sprinkling dried raisins into the
yellow dough which would later be transformed into a delectable cake,
“this Krocker Land has been the dream of ages. It is the ancient Eden,
and it is preserved to us in the records of prehistoric men who have
retained the childhood stories of still more ancient peoples. Relatively
it is a legend because no one has seen it. In reality it will establish
the unity of tradition, as it ought,” and so on and on, with some new
notions of the oblateness of the earth’s form, and the fact that at the
north we were some thirteen miles nearer the earth’s center, and then
some more about the unequal distribution of the interior fluid masses of
rock, and the great probability that such unsolidified magmas, radiating
great heat, might occur in the boreal regions of the earth’s crust to
produce local warmth. But of course his great point was the depression
idea. He harped incessantly on that.
“It looks to me,” said Hopkins as we sat round our little mess table in
the cabin, “that if the going stays good, and the food lasts, we surely
will get there. Holes are, however, dangerous things, and Americans
don’t relish getting into them too deep. The grub question is important.
We’ve stacks of it just now, but this invincible habit of eating is
getting the best of it, and starvation is a most inglorious death. Do
you think, Professor, that this Krocker Land has got any live stock on
it?”
The pained expression, of having been wounded in the house of a friend,
that came over the Professor’s face, as he wiped his mouth and
reluctantly paused in his consumption of a ham sandwich was very
delightful.
“In Krocker Land, Mr. Hopkins” this ceremonial gravity was met by a
severe, deferential attention on Hopkins’ part that was perfect—“we may
expect to meet a concentrated reflexion of the palearctic and the
neoarctic faunas. Along the coast there will be whales, walrus, seal,
bear, the shores will be tenanted by the eider duck; and snipe, geese,
ducks, ptarmigans, plover, will be found inland, with the reindeer, the
fox, hare, and the musk ox, and—” here the Professor paused with a
deliberation intended to impress us—“and I should not be surprised to
meet with the American bald headed eagle.”
We all shouted, and the Professor hid his face and his satisfaction in
his sandwich. But Hopkins accepted the challenge unflinchingly:
“Good, Professor. If the American eagle is up there, it certainly is
God’s country, and a white man can live in it!”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER IV
KROCKER LAND RIM
On the fourth day came another change, for in these haunts of the snow
gods and the ice gods the shadow of storm darkens quickly, and if these
deities descend to earth they wrap themselves thickly in shades and
mists and white trailing togas, or else they just blow upon the earth
their coldest breath, killing all human life, lest they be seen of men.
That strange Arctic hush, the misty light over everything, that grayish
white light caused by the reflexion from the ice being cast high into
the air against masses of vapor, that Nansen has described, encompassed
us. A mist, a fog, rose later, or else descended, and Goritz said we
were near land, in which I concurred. Our excitement was intense. Was
the great revelation to be vouchsafed?
The fog of fogs grew, advancing upon us from the four points of the
compass, rising around us from the water like spectres, descending from
the skies in soft, insensible folds, buried in the thickening nebula,
until, we could hardly see an arm’s length in front of the boat. Then a
chill came with it, light breezes from the northwest (“From land,” said
Goritz) and then as if some resistance from the east was roused into
action, another tempest gathered there, rushing ravenously upon us with
a blind rage, with wrack and cloud, with rain and snow, the last
interference of the elements to destroy us, before the secret of the
north was revealed—a senseless protest, for their madness only flung us
swiftly forward to the forbidden coasts.
The “Pluto” plunged and rolled; her rounded, swollen bottom made her an
easy prey to the balloting waves, and unless she could be kept in the
wind her overturn seemed certain with ourselves spilled into the
distracted waters. It was hard to do this, hard to stick to her deck at
all, when every now and then some vicious poke sent her across, and we
would cling like barnacles to rope or rail or stanchion. The tiller was
jerked from Goritz’s hand and its arm dealt him a blow that almost
disabled him. I was pitched headlong on the forward deck and narrowly
escaped rolling overboard; some of the cargo aboveships slipped its
fastenings and was lost, threatening the dislocation of everything. This
danger was too serious, and Hopkins and I did our best to avert it, but
do what we could or might, the load was crumbling away before our eyes,
loosened from its fastenings by the fierce storm. Box after box
disappeared in the gloom. The dogs were hustled into the cabin, whence
their howls and terrified whines issued like the cries of lost souls. We
were now pretty well alarmed, and our predicament strongly resembled the
prelude to complete annihilation.
Suddenly the Professor shouted, “The ice—the ice again!” and the next
instant we were pinned in a pack of formidable blocks that thundered
around us, lodged on our deck, and beat into ruins, as the waves lurched
or hurled them over us, the frail battlement of boxes which contained
our supplies. My heart sank within me. EVERYTHING GONE! Not quite. There
was something left in the cabin, but on that raging waste of waters—?
The question stuck in my throat. In that instant I seemed separated,
sundered from all the others, the concentrated agony of my terror—for
terror black and paralyzing it was—robbed me almost of consciousness.
Almost as in a trance I heard Hopkins cry, “Look! Look!”
Something happened. Actually it was a meteorological phenomenon brought
about by the proximity of mountain masses perhaps; to my mind it seemed
like the visible extension of the hand of God to pluck us from
destruction. Above us appeared a bright spot that was widening rapidly;
the motion within it was apparent, and the velocity of the atmospheric
rotations within it must have been almost incalculable. It was becoming
a monstrous orifice into which poured the abominable chaos that was
overwhelming us; its enormous vortex swallowed up the storm, transferred
in its outrageous coursing from earth to heaven. The deity of Krocker
Land favored our approach. He had rebuked, repelled, dissipated the
tempest.
The scenic shock was really tremendous. The dramatic intensity of the
change, the startling evolution from storm and darkness, blistering
winds, soaked with snow and rain, the earth-driven rolling clouds, black
and gray, tossed over us and engulfing us in blankets of cold wetness
that sent shivering thrills of dread through our bodies, as the waves
mounted and pounced on us like beasts of ravin! And then this
magnificent uplift! Oh, the calm, superhuman glory of it! The shattered
_debris_ of the broken tornado vanishing above us, and—as its myriad
shaped or distorted curtains rose—the sunlit dark mountain peaks, the
bare rocky crags, jeweled with snow, the ice-strewn beaches of Krocker
Land, evolving superbly before our eyes, as if created then, at that
very moment, by the transfiguring finger of the Almighty. Mr. Link, it
was the most sublime spectacle imaginable; for me it was the climax of
my life. I shall never forget its wonder, its power, its amazing
enforcement of the idea of creation.
I don’t think there was much difference between any of us in our
feelings at that moment; its immensity appalled us in a way, and then it
thrilled us. Temperamental details were submerged in the overpowering
sensation. At first perhaps we thought it an apparition, a mirage. It
was unreal. And then when the realization was acknowledged, to put it
bluntly, we gazed in stupid astonishment. We were about four miles away,
when the vision broke, standing on our deck, from which every vestige of
our supplies had been carried off by the ruthless wind and water. I
believe we stood that way for a quarter of an hour, before we quite came
to our senses, with the waves and wind still driving us headlong on that
apocryphal beach. Then we began to take notice and to take precautions.
The shore was partially encumbered with shore ice, and the lashing waves
were throwing upon it other small and large fragments. The coast was
low, sandy, shelving, cut up by a few projecting and sand buried ridges
of rock, which, like spurs, passed back into the interior, and may have
been the outspread roots of the looming ranges beyond and behind them.
Goritz managed to direct the launch upon a flat expanse of sand on which
we landed with a thud that made the timbers creak. I think the Professor
was the first to leap ashore, then Hopkins and myself, and at the last
Goritz, with the painter. The next wave drove the boat further up the
beach. Nothing now could budge her. Somehow we looked then to Goritz for
orders.
“Better get everything out, and take an account of stock. This is good
enough camping ground, until we get our bearings and perhaps a little
better hold on our wits. I hope the Professor’s faunas are expecting
us.”
This oblique hint to the loss of our provisions dampened any ardor we
might have succumbed to, in our enthusiasm over the discovery. We set to
work with a will, and almost without a word. There were some welcome
surprises. The dogs were safe, sound asleep in the cabin, exhausted by
their fright. They became a solicitude, however, because of the
additional mouths to fill, though, in a state of idleness, half rations
would keep them well. But would we need them? Our ammunition and guns
were safe, our oil and stove, alcohol, medical outfit, and six boxes of
canned vegetables, pemmican, biscuit, tea, coffee, chocolate, in all
perhaps three hundred pounds; and our spare clothing, for which we
offered fervent thanks. One sledge was saved from the wreck, and one
bruised and broken kayak. The portable tent was uninjured, and there
remained a serviceable equipment of cans and pots, though for that
matter one can for the preparation of our tea and coffee or chocolate,
and one pot for miscellaneous stews, soups, and what Hopkins called
“_hari-kari_,” were all we needed. The watertight cabin had saved much.
When the review was finished, and we felt cheered over the immediate
prospect, we drew up the “Pluto” on the beach, anchored her, as well as
we could, and converted her into our camp. We were clamorously hungry
and the dogs were raging. The Professor wasted no time, though just now
the allowances were rigorously measured. It might be better when we
caught sight of the Professor’s “concentrated reflexion of the
palearctic and neoarctic faunas.” At the moment a sublime solitude
surrounded us. Yet I had noticed high up on the shoulders of the rock
and in the slight subsidences that like saucers lay at their bases, the
growth of plants, and the quick eye of the Professor had noted it too.
Surely that meant game. I guess we both understood that, for the
Professor worked over his fires and vessels with a boyish profusion of
activity, and was inclined to be lavish in his ingredients (Goritz,
watchful and prudent, stopped him), while something like elation sprang
up within me and an utterly inappropriate yearning to sing and laugh and
dance.
I remembered Mikkelsen’s and Iversen’s joy when they descended from the
cold monotony and whiteness and treachery of the inland ice of Greenland
to the habitable earth with its flowers, and life, and warmth. With
Mikkelsen too vegetation had meant animal life. They seemed inseparable
correlates. In Greenland it had been pygmy willow trees, six inches
high, with trunks an inch thick, and blades of grass, and thick moss,
and beautiful heather, and then—musk ox!
What it was here would be disclosed as soon as the evening meal was
finished. We had all been curiously dumb since we had been thrown
ashore, that is, there had been no reference made to our wonderful
landfall. Perhaps we were speechless from sheer amazement, or some
haunting dread that our return was impossible, or that we were on the
margin, as it were, of bigger marvels. I think the latter feeling made
us almost mute. Our fancies before we left Point Barrow had been
high-strung and the visions wrought in our minds were almost mystical—I
have explained that—but these had very completely vanished during the
last days of turmoil and disaster, when the wonders we expected to
encounter were more likely to have been found in another world than in
this one. Yet you see they really had not vanished, they had shrunk
somewhat, retreating into invisibility in the crevices and holes of the
mind, and now when the stupendous reality confronted us they rushed out
from hiding, huger than ever, smothering us into silence with their
immensity! A new World, what might not be in it? It was Hopkins who
broke the trance that imprisoned us.
“That transformation took the gilt off any lightning-change stunt I ever
have seen and—Of course, Professor, there isn’t any guess coming that
we’ve ARRIVED, that this is Krocker Land?” he said suddenly.
“Not the slightest,” answered the Professor, filling our cups with
chocolate, and in a matter of fact way that was final.
“We have absolutely reached a New Continent. Everything confirms that:
Latitude, longitude, direction from Point Barrow, and the topography. It
isn’t Wrangel or Herschel or Harold or Bennett, or any part of the Franz
Josef Archipelago. That splendid fringe of peaks hides inner valleys
that decline into a central area of warmth, light and Life!”
I really think that we believed him. The glorious extravagance of the
prediction, its superb audacity, its anomalous improbability subjugated
us totally, because our startled expectations would be satisfied with
little else. That was the psychology of it. And Mr. Link, the Professor
was right. LISTEN!
Our position was on a flat, shelving coast, slowly rising to foothills,
beyond which gaunt bare precipices towered apparently to uplands, from
which soared the sharp serrations of a continuous cordillera. It made a
noble picture. Snow covered the higher elevations, it lay in drifts in
the lower chasms, it formed a light covering on the tableland but failed
to approach nearer to the shore, which was a series of sand or rubble
flats, embedding low backs, pointed mounds, and dikes of diabase. Only
at one point was a glacier visible. To the north, almost at the limit of
vision we could see the glittering ribbon high up in the mountains. The
days were shortening, and although the sun remained for most of the time
above the horizon, nightfall was marked by its declination, when a
peculiar tawny golden glow filled the air. The mountains were striped
with light and shade, half roseate, half black as ink; the highlands
were also in gloom, and between both the foothills made a beaded girdle
of whiteness like a necklace of gigantic pearls on the dusky neck of an
Ethiopian.
There was no question of turning back. An unappeasable hunger for
discovery filled us. What lay beyond those pearly pinnacles? WHAT? Our
plans were quickly laid. There was call for expedition, for the Arctic
night was coming, and while sincerely, with three of us, some
inexplicable provision seemed imminent for its replacement, Antoine
Goritz resisted our madness at that point, and told us that if this was
a dead world, nothing but the _dogs_ would save us from death; our
_retreat would have to be over the frozen polar sea_.
The first step was to find game: Seal, walrus, bear, ox, hare, anything.
We divided into two skirmishing parties, Hopkins and I going to the
right, Goritz and the Professor to the left. The dogs were tethered, and
fastened to the launch. The Professor and myself had already collected
some of the plants. How radiant and beautiful they seemed in that still
untrodden asylum, the little green-leaved willows, a saxifrage, the
yellow mountain poppy of Siberia (_Papaver nudicaule_), forget-me-nots,
cloud berry, and in the boggy hollows cottongrass, spreading its wavy
down carpet, while here and there tiny forests of bluebells swung their
campanulate corollas! The cold pure waters of the snows fed these alpine
gardens, and we even detected the hum of insects amid the variegated
patches of delicious bloom. Game? “Well I should smile,” shouted
Hopkins.
Hopkins and I, in splendid spirits, made our way to the upland, a
distance of some five miles, and then through the snow, watching the
slopes of the foothills that made ideal pasturages for the musk ox, if
these “artiodactyls,” as the Professor rather pompously spoke of them,
were here at all. We had not gone far when up a ravine, where narrow
meadows and boulder strewn intervals conducted, between two steep hills,
a cascading stream, breaking from the craggy cliffs beyond, Hopkins
espied a little herd of four cows, two calves, and a bull. Were they
musk oxen? The horns looked different.
Hopkins skipped in glee, and, with his usual recourse to verse
(preferably Lewis Carroll’s), he hoarsely whispered:
“‘What’s this? I pondered. Have I slept
Or can I have been drinking?
But soon a gentler feeling crept
Upon me, and I sat and wept
An hour or so like winking.’
“Erickson, my pop first. I’ll forego the tears. Stalk them up to
windward.”
The animals had not noticed our vicinity, although grazing and leisurely
approaching us. We finally squatted behind a rock, and just a half hour
later, as they reached the edge of the mimic field we fired. Hopkins
stretched out the bull; it sank majestically to its knees, its head
drooped, something like a groan escaped its throat, and it fell
sideways. I was not so fortunate, nor skillful. I wounded one of the
cows, but there was no attempt at escape. The herd pressed together,
stamping a little but almost motionless, as if paralyzed with terror, or
robbed of volition by curiosity. Hopkins let fly again and my wounded
cow glided to the ground. My second shot was fatal, and another helpless
brute succumbed. Then as if stricken with a sudden consciousness of
their danger, the rest of the herd trotted off, spared further
decimation. Our larder would be well replenished, and we both knew now,
with an unshaken conviction, that we were in a land of plenty.
“We should worry!” sniffed Hopkins sententiously. When we reached our
quarry I was amazed to note the peculiar narrowness and elevation of the
horns of the bull, and the dirty gray maculations on the black hair of
the pelage.
“A new species, Spruce,” I exclaimed.
“Well then,” he replied, “here’s where the Professor rings up the
curtain on the textbooks, and—Say Alfred!—as I had first blood, and
bagged the bull, why not hand it out as _Bos hopkinsi_?”
“By all means,” I assented. When we got back, and we did not return
empty handed we found Goritz and the Professor. They looked a little
dispirited but our report put such a pleasant aspect on things that they
quickly recovered. They had found nothing, but that was due to the
pertinacity of the Professor in carrying Goritz off on a tour of
investigation. They had crossed the tableland and had threaded their way
half across the foothills, until they met the frowning crags skirting
the mountain terrain. These were seamed with waterfalls pouring into
some encircling canon below them, which again formed a channel for the
escape of the gathered floods, but whither they went was undetermined.
It was evident that the water of the streams came from the melting
snowbanks lingering higher up on the mountains, and that the region was
one of very heavy precipitation.
Goritz insisted on bringing in the meat, and indeed our mouths watered
for a juicy steak. The dogs were fed, and these insatiable beasts
ravenously devoured the pieces we threw to them, until Goritz, fearing
their consequent lethargy, drove them off half frantic, harnessed them,
and accompanied by me took the sledge to our depot; returned with the
carcasses and skins and ushered in a memorable night, lit by the futile
rivalry of sun and moon.
There was first our supper when the Captain permitted a relaxation of
his restriction, and the Professor plunged into the resources of our
slender commissariat with a most reprehensible _abandon_. I believe we
washed down our steak with _Eulenthaler_, a few bottles of which had
still survived our perils. Then there was the Professor’s ecstasy over
the new species of _Bos_, for such it was, and his delighted acceptance
of Hopkins’ patronymic for its technical name. And then—our Council of
War; war on the Unknown, the Mysteries of this new land, the perils
before us, and those that might await us beyond those slumbering
virginal crests, from whose pinnacles even now the clustering genii of
the realm watched our intrusion with scorn and hatred!
Our debate was a little disputatious. Goritz was quite immovably for
returning that winter, executing as much of a littoral survey as we
could, to return another season with an equipped expedition, trusting to
get back to Barrow, with the dogs, sledge, kayak and launch, and with
meat stores from the _Bos hopkinsi_. The Professor vehemently and
feverishly protested. Here we were on the brink of world-convulsing
wonders. To decline the invitation so miraculously extended to us was
flying in the face of all recorded traditions of exploration. It was an
ignominious flight from insignificant dangers. He knew that beyond that
portentous circle of peaks lay an inverted cone holding within it warmth
and civilization.
I think Goritz felt the appeal, but he was sagacious, a prudent man, and
had no vainglorious desire to appropriate the forthcoming discoveries,
which the Professor gloated over, for himself. He shook his head
energetically. Then Spruce Hopkins, who with myself had only interjected
questions and inquiring comments, and who with me was fascinated by the
Professor’s predictions and promises, suggested a compromise.
“My friends, I’m sort o’ on the outside of this argument, though I guess
my skin will get as much punishment, either way, as any one of you.
Can’t you come to terms on this easy ground? Get up there,” and he waved
his hand towards the serene splendid domes in their terrible beauty far
above us, “and if the land goes _down_, as we might say _hole-wise_,
we’ll stick, but if it goes straight, level, or _up_, why we’ll beat it
home again. That’s sense Goritz, and I guess, Professor, it’s philosophy
too.”
This jocularity relieved the tension superbly, and whether Goritz and
the Professor were quite clear as to how the provision should be
interpreted, Goritz consented to make the attempt to reach “the rim,” as
the Professor called it.
The next days were days of anxious preparation. It was no child’s play
scaling that natural fortress, and within its labyrinth of parapets,
bastions, moats, and demi-lunes, ramparts and ditches what unforeseen
dangers lurked! Our chief concern was our stores; the inroads made upon
them by the storm was serious, and the inconvenience of starving on the
“rim,” in sight of the _promised land_ was disturbing. Our campaign
would consist of making _caches_ of meat on the uplands, taking our
condensed food, tea and coffee on our backs, making forced marches to
the summit, reconnoitering and plunging on ahead, _if unanimous in
that_, or else tumbling back, and setting our faces homeward.
_Homeward_—the word seemed a mockery in that strange and hidden corner
of the earth.
Another thing happened, though not quite unexpected. The wind had
shifted to the west, bringing loose drifting ice and some hulking
floebergs, and the squally twists, the livid streaks in the sky, and the
sun’s sepulchral pallor had indicated some rising uneasiness skyward.
The change came good and plenty later. The wind rose almost to a
tornado, though there was no snow or rain, just a bitter cold searching
wind. It smote the mountains. We could see the sky-rocketing volley of
snow on their sides, and noted too that towards their tops there was no
disturbance, indicating a semi-icy condition of the snow there, perhaps
better, perhaps worse for going. And now in the turning of a hand the
crowding ice packs were back. As far as we could see their humps and
fields spread everlastingly, and the chorus of groans, wheezes, and
queer _hushing_ sounds that they all sent up was astonishing.
Hopkins shot a bear, before the storm attained its top-notch of fury,
which brought much cheerfulness to the camp. I never shall forget it. It
was funny too; it might have been just as tragic. He and I were off to
the west, reconnoitering for a possible easier entrance to the “rim,”
when Hopkins caught my arm nervously, and pointed out over the groaning
packs, and said he saw something moving. I could not see it. We ventured
out a little way on some near shore ice and were behind a slight
pressure ridge, when a shockingly coarse growl issued from the other
side and a moment later a big polar bear surmounted the pile, and laying
both its front paws on the blocks, over which its face rose, most
whimsically recalled the emergence of a preacher in high pulpit. We were
pretty well taken aback, but Hopkins slipped off his usual doggerel,
_sotto voce_ however—while the bear watched us critically—
“My only son was big and fine
And I was proud that he was mine,
He looked through eyes that were divine—
Indeed he was a BEAR.”
And then he raised his rifle and—Bruin wasn’t there. We jumped up on the
ridge, clambered to the top and almost fell into his ursine majesty’s
arms. He had ducked down on seeing the rifle but hadn’t budged from his
position. It looked as if he had met hunters before. Hopkins blazed
away, and I followed. The splendid beast gurgled and fell backward dead.
We had reached the foothills, crossed the uplands, made our caches of
meat, stuffed the dogs and turned them loose—Goritz called it “burning
our ships behind us”—and were creeping along the edge of the narrow deep
chasm or canon which caught the waters from the cliffs, gathering them
in an awful, tempestuous, writhing torrent, that became almost maniacal
in its agony where hidden rocks stopped its course, or where it dropped
into black abysses. We must cross that chasm, climb the cliffs, before
we could begin the ascent of the mountains. The chasm was twenty or
thirty feet wide, the cliffs rose above it, from our level, about one
hundred feet, and below us they descended to the water trough, one
hundred feet more. The problem was to reach the bottom of the chasm,
bridge the raging brace, and then work up the cliffs. It looked like a
fly’s job. And what disclosures the roofs of the cliffs and the
mountains beyond had we could only guess. These difficulties had been
anticipated, in one way; we had strong wire rope, a flexible cable made
of copper wire and skin.
Crawling on hands and knees we were studying the sides of the chasm, and
not infrequently Goritz would suspend himself, held by the rest of us,
over the frightful gulf, to determine where we might safely enter this
_inferno_, with a prospect of spanning the seething, spouting,
vociferous river, and of scaling the black and jagged wall on the other
side. Our search was unavailing. We had explored the bank for more than
a mile. The delay was maddening. Suddenly the Professor, who had been
silent, and had been studying the black and red walls opposite, with
occasional long examinations eastward with the glass, exclaimed:
“We are making a mistake. Our course is up and to the back of the
glacier. These cliffs are sedimentary; they lie on the eruptive
crystallines of the mountains; the river runs west; the glacier has
dammed its course eastward, where it should flow, following the dip of
the slates and sandstones. It cuts the dip, and the glacier has crossed
its path and filled up this singular crevice, which is a fault rift.”
He looked triumphant; Goritz seized the suggestion.
“That’s right,” he shouted, “up the glacier and then—we can use the
dogs!”
We were soon back to the abandoned sledge; some of the dogs had followed
us, the rest were sleeping off their debauch of raw bear’s meat. We
loaded the sledge with meat, from one of our caches, leaving the other
intact, and with awakened hope started at a lively pace over the snow
covered uplands for the distant ice-river. The going was not good for
the snow had drifted somewhat, and was soft and mushy, but the dogs were
in excellent condition, and they really seemed to understand that they
had escaped desertion.
[Illustration:
KROCKER LAND RIM
]
In three hours the glacier was reached. It was a more significant
feature than we had supposed. Where it emerged from the mountain hollow
it was almost obliterated from view by an immense morainal accumulation
which had choked up the river, as the Professor guessed, forming a small
lake, fed also, we discovered, by the underground waters flowing from
the glacier itself. Over this moraine we made our way in a helter
skelter manner because of its unevenness, the scattered rocks bulging up
and intercepting our path with a perverse frequency that drove Hopkins
to improvisation:
“If I had a little dynamite
To put these pebbles out of sight,
I think I’d skip from pure delight
And say my prayers with all my might
As well I know is surely right.
But as it is they make me cuss
And put my temper in a fuss,
So if perdition is my share,
I owe it to this rocky lair.”
There was plenty of snow in places where the sun had as yet failed to
evict it, but everywhere melting and warmth were encountered. The summer
was reigning, and the verdurous garb of green and colored things was
drawn like a veil over the rugged grounds, soothing them into a
transient loveliness. We could see the rivulets from the snowbanks
coursing everywhere, and could hear from the glacier the gurgle, rush,
and tinkle too of hidden rivers, while towards the coast, in the
daytime, the sun revealed a shield of wide-spread waters where the
floods from the melting ice poured over the shore, and cut long, wide
lanes in the rapidly vanishing shore ice.
When we had struggled to the glacier wall we found it an almost
imperceptible rise to its surface, and once there, our faces turned
toward the ice-river to gauge its character. It was badly crevassed, and
although the snow sheeting it over had been heavy, much had disappeared.
Along the sides where the lateral moraine somewhat shielded it the snow
still remained, but the depressions traversing it, sometimes in
herringbone fashion, showed the position of the masked depths, in whose
icy jaws our whole party, sledge and dogs might readily be entombed.
Goritz went first with the dog leader, then came myself at the head of
the team, with Hopkins and the Professor on either side of the
forebraces of the sledge. We were roped together, and the sledge—the
only survivor of its kind from the storm—was heavily loaded. We each
carried about twenty pounds of condensed food, ingeniously harnessed on
our backs. It was an inconsiderable load and might prove serviceable if
the sledge vanished.
At first we advanced gingerly, bridging crevasse after crevasse, but our
confidence increased as the snow flooring, although yielding, repeatedly
proved itself adequate for our support. At one point the sledge smashed
the weakened crust and threatened to drag the dogs backward with it, as
it hung almost vertically into a wide slit, forty or fifty feet deep,
wherein the ice, to our eyes, was an aquamarine mass of jewels. Hopkins
lashed the dogs and they hauled the sledge back again on the snow.
We had reached a turn in the glacier’s track, and a patch of outrageous
confusion. The whole surface seemed shattered, and serac-like monuments,
poised all over, threatened us. We were constantly startled by crashes,
and we moved with alarmed caution, for not only were the holes deep but
they opened into sluiceways of hurrying water quite capable of sucking
any unwary intruder into subterranean tunnels of ice. The dull plangor
of the beating currents arose to us with an ominous warning. The dogs
here became nervous and unmanageable. Again and again we bridged the
chasms with the sledge, and crept one by one over the improvised
crossings, coaxing the dogs to follow. We now did not have the
protection of the friendly banks. Goritz had concluded to ascend the
mountainous ridge before us on the opposite side of the glacier, where
the glacier itself, like a small “_jokull_” terminated, or began, in a
neve loaded cirque.
To do this we were compelled to cross the glacier. After a good deal of
dangerous work, with one or two nearly fatal mishaps, we attained the
central dome of the ice and found here an ideally fashioned space for
resting and feeding. The dogs were restless or sullen from hunger, and
we needed the encouragement of food ourselves. The worst limb of our
trip remained.
But it was a beautiful picture on every side. The day was clear and
warm, and, as we gazed far below at the ice-flecked ocean over the
glacier’s marge, or upward into the rugged bowl, walled with bold
precipices, streaked ever and anon with spouting waterfalls, or higher
still to those mute, imperishable peaks, guarding the secrets of the
wonder-land towards which we were slowly, so slowly, moving, or lastly
at the nearer edges of land on either side, the constricted throat of
the glacier serpent, bountifully sprinkled with a vermeil of audacious
blossoms and tender grass, we felt the thrill of our strange adventure
keenly, and rejoiced in it. But a few minutes later our spirits were
harshly dashed, and despair almost broke our hearts.
It was about two in the afternoon; everything was repacked and we had
resumed our snail-like progress. The path, if it had been marked by a
line, would have been revealed as a maze of loops, necessitating
countermarches and criss-crossings, but its widest indirection, after
hours of work, showed that we were nearing our goal. The flowers on the
cliff beyond us were now almost individually visible. They seemed like a
lure to invite us to hasten to their side, when a jolt and tug, that
nearly knocked my legs from under me, and then a recoil that sent me
sprawling among the dogs.
The rope had parted; I saw its end fly upward, even as I saw the tall
form of Goritz with tossing arms sink from sight. My God! Goritz had
fallen into a crevasse and—how the thought lacerated me!—they were
deepest, widest, on this side! Hopkins and the Professor knew it almost
as quickly as myself. We recovered ourselves, and ran forward. Lying
flat, on the rim of what had been a snow bridged crevasse, and held in
position by the other two, I leaned out. Never shall I forget the horror
of my feelings at that moment. Below me caught on an ice arm, which held
him above the seething ice water, still deeper down on the floor of the
gash, was Goritz, those splendid eyes imploringly lifted to mine:
“Quick, Alfred—the rope!” I tore the rope from around me, noosed it,
shouting all the time in a sort of delirium I think, “Hold on Antoine,
you’re safe! Hold on! On! On!” And then, with a glance at Hopkins and
the Professor, whose faces were almost whiter than the snow at our feet,
was on my stomach again, the rope in my hand, and the noose lowered
carefully to my friend. He lay on his side on a shelf of ice; a movement
and he would slip into the tide below him. It was a critical moment, and
yet only with the utmost precautionary slowness and delicacy of
adjustment could the rescue be effected. Goritz knew that, though it
seemed incongruous to watch a man, prostrate, literally on the brink of
destruction, approach the measures of salvation with the deliberation
with which one might crack the shell of his breakfast egg. Slowly—the
seconds seemed ages—he drew the loop to himself, caught one arm in it,
thrust his head through it, and was endeavoring to extricate his other
arm from its chancery beneath him, to engage it too in the friendly
loop, when—I heard the snap—the shelf broke away! I slammed backward,
called to the others to pull, jabbed my spiked shoes into the ice, and
held on. Goritz’s voice came thickly from his imprisonment:
“Haul, Alfred!”
And haul it was; the weight seemed trebled. I knew—the water was hauling
too, but, before Goritz went, it might, for all I cared, drag me to the
same doom. I guess Hopkins and the Professor felt that way, too. It
seemed nip and tuck. Were we all to be pulled into the frigid maelstrom,
to be finally ejected into the Arctic sea in the rush of the sub-glacial
river? Somehow thinking this way put steel into our muscles and defiance
in my heart, and—we pulled Antoine Goritz back to life at least, and his
reception on the top of that glacier was as fervent, if a little less
boisterous and showy, as if he had been met by the king in an audience
room at Copenhagen. He was drenched and cold, had a wrenched shoulder
but I took his place ahead now, and he dried off with exercise, after
the fashion of Arctic navigators. And a bowl of tea that the Professor
bewitched with a little of our last bottle of whisky helped matters.
We had left the glacier; that icy track was far below us, and distance
contracting and closing all its wicked seams revealed it as a blazing
white ribbon, negligently thrown over the shoulders of the still, black
rocks. It looked well. The aneroid registered 6000 feet. The snow was
awful in spots, and we rolled into holes unsuspectedly saturated with
water. Our snowshoes were indispensable, but the dogs were almost
useless, floundering and helpless in the drifts. Our dog meat was
rapidly diminishing, and, if the cruel dilemma must come, rather than to
exhaust our supplies on them we would be compelled to kill them.
We were pushing along what bore the appearance of a _col_ or pass
between two majestic peaks, wrapped in ermine to their highest points,
ermine that in the day glittered magnificently, rayed and starred with
innumerable irises, and that in the lesser illumination of the night was
immobile and dead, a monstrous winding sheet over a dead world.
A terrifying snow storm held us up for two days. The air was so dense
with the falling crystals that we felt encased. It was a singular
sensation. The Professor, who had been incubating some ideas (we always
looked forward with expectancy to his first utterance after a spell of
prolonged silence), launched the amazing paradox, during this storm, and
while we, in the most detached manner awaited its conclusion in our snug
tent, that we were approaching a warmer, snowless, and rainy zone. It
was Hopkins who first recovered his powers of utterance after this
promulgation.
“Professor, as a sedative to the distracted mind, you’ve got everything
else winded. And for novelty, well, Barnum and Bailey’s best advertiser
couldn’t begin to get the collocation of superlatives necessary to give
a hint of your surprising guesses.”
“It is not difficult to understand,” resumed the Professor urbanely,
with that calm manner of shelving the unconventional Yankee which always
enraptured Hopkins; “the wind has been westerly, the excessive
precipitation shows it was a moist wind, a wind heavily laden with
suspended water, that moisture was dropped out as snow _here_, but west
of us it must have escaped expulsion. Why? Because it was not cold
enough to condense it as snow. I think, though, it fell _as rain_. We
shall see.”
“And,” he added a moment later, “on my theory of a polar depression that
would be so.”
We went to sleep on that, and the depth of our slumbers had some
complimentary significance for the Professor’s prediction.
After the storm, the sky failed to clear, and a wind sprang up from the
north that rapidly increased in violence, hurling the snow in torrents,
blinding, cutting us and foundering the wretched dogs, who lay down in
their tracks repeatedly, or snarled up together in vicious fights. But
Goritz was inexorable. He insisted on pushing ahead. His reason was
just. We were now near the turning point; we had surmounted KROCKER LAND
RIM. Should we go on or turn back? If it was to be back we had many
things to think of, and not much time to waste, with our larder growing
smaller each day and the prospect of half-rations ahead. Goritz had a
tender heart and I know he wanted to get the dogs back, too.
Luckily the snow furnished better going, the wind ceased, our hearts
leaped again, and the stern solemnity of that alpine land strangely
elated us. At night now, the sun almost sank below the horizon, but its
decline was the signal for the noiseless evocation of half lights and
shadows, spectral tints, pale ghosts of mist curling over the endless
desert of snow, a retinue of chiaroscuros that glided hither, thither,
never quiet, yet never restless. And far south we thought we saw the
crystal light of half eclipsed auroras. It all entranced me. I often
stole outside our tent to watch the voiceless drama of the night, and
often Goritz stood beside me. And now—poor fellow—”
(The speaker paused in his story, a sob choked his voice; then it was
over and he continued.)
The Professor was right; the snowdrifts thinned away to bare ground. It
was warmer, at first some ten degrees, then more, and the land
descended. Had not Goritz lost? Should we not, according to the protocol
of our agreement, search the new land? Goritz was unconvinced and
inclined to temporize. Yes, the land was lower, perhaps; it was warmer,
but how did we know it would keep so; a small decline here might change
into an ascent further away; we were on a tableland, but another axis of
elevation might arise from it, and remember in these solitudes there was
not much life, no game, and our stores would in ten days be exhausted,
not counting the dogs, some of whom must now be sacrificed for the
others.
This had the appearance of tergiversation. The Professor was vehement, I
and Hopkins leaned in his favor, but I think all of us would have
succumbed to Goritz’s wish and certainly to his command—the sweetest,
bravest, most generous soul I have ever known! At length, at Hopkins’
suggestion, we compromised again on a reconnaissance.
It was a pivotal point. We were in a sandy plain, with much bare rock,
and soily places now greenish with moss or lichen. The surprising
feature was the sudden onsets of rain with the east winds. It was rather
misty all the time, and the fogs made it abysmally cheerless. It was
easy to see that this excessive moisture formed the fathomless snows
among the mountains we had ploughed over.
On the day of the reconnaissance we all separated. Goritz went north,
the Professor, pertinacious in his convictions, went due west, with the
aneroid, Hopkins and myself southward. Our reports were to be made at
the conference at night. We reassembled, all except Goritz turning up at
the tent at almost the same time. Hopkins said that for stone breaking,
the country he had walked over was the most promising he had ever
encountered. He couldn’t imagine a better place for a penal
establishment. A reservation like it alongside of New York City would
raise the moral standard of that city almost as high as anyone would
like to go. He thought perhaps we’d better turn back.
The Professor disheartedly admitted that the land after sinking rose
abruptly, and that there might be another _axis of elevation_—the
Professor pronounced the technical observation with evident disgust. The
fogs grew so dense it was impossible to determine. He concluded
dolefully that, as much had been accomplished, it might be well for self
preservation to return.
I corroborated Hopkins, and also suggested a return. We had been talking
informally, sharing our observations, but their detailed presentation
awaited Goritz’s presence. And where was he? We had been back an hour,
and our hunger remonstrated bitterly against his tardiness. Still
another hour passed, and nature refused to tolerate a further deference
to custom or respect. We ate our evening rations—already they were being
shortened—concluding to go out on a search for Goritz, if he did not
soon come in. Another hour hurried by, and yet no Goritz. We began to be
alarmed, and yet that seemed absurd. What harm could come to a man in
that flat land? And to a man of Goritz’s strength and resources? Hardly
had we thus reassured ourselves when the tent flap was pushed aside, and
there stood Antoine Goritz, with one hand behind his back.
His melodious voice was raised, his eyes shone, his frame seemed
expanded with excitement, his face was flushed, and the disengaged hand
opened and shut convulsively.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “_we shall go on_. _Krocker Land is inhabited_,
and—it is a LAND OF GOLD!”
He paused, stepped forward, and laid on our soap-box table a broad belt
of gold plates, engraved, and united by a gold buckle, beautifully
embossed.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER V
THE PERPETUAL NIMBUS
You probably might recall, Mr. Link, that wonderful chapter in “Robinson
Crusoe,” where Defoe describes the feelings of his hero after he found
the footprints in the sand. I mention it here because I am amused at the
memory of how different were our emotions as Goritz showed us the gold
belt. I turned last night to the pages of Defoe’s masterpiece and jotted
down this appropriate quotation; it illustrates completely what I mean.
“I slept none that night: the farther I was from the occasion of
my fright, the greater my apprehensions were: which is something
contrary to the nature of such things, and especially to the
usual practice of all creatures in fear: but I was so
embarrassed with my own frightful ideas of the thing, that I
formed nothing but dismal imaginations to myself, even though I
was not a great way off from it. Sometimes I fancied it must be
the Devil, and reason joined in with me upon this supposition;
for how should any other thing in human shape come into the
place?”
That gold belt to us we knew meant human occupation of this New
Continent, and it was almost impossible for us to control our violent
joy over the discovery. We were not worrying as to whether it was the
Devil or savages, and we felt sure we were not the victims of illusion.
Perhaps a little trepidation crept in later, but for that moment we were
beside ourselves with happiness and wonder. And yet we were at first
silent, dumbfounded, bending over the strange find in dazed delight,
eager yet incredulous, lost in a bewilderment of anticipation.
The Professor had produced a small pocket glass and was nervously
inspecting the plates, very much to our annoyance, his ears and head
seeming constantly to be pushing our faces away. A look of profound
vindication appeared on his features, and I think we sympathized with
his feelings and applauded them. Goritz beamed benignantly, and I knew
Hopkins was on the verge of a metrical quotation. But the Professor had
the floor.
“Gentlemen,” he began, “this belt has no possible relation to any know
human culture. The fabricators of this _chef d’oeuvre_—it’s such in
every sense—have probably never existed outside of the eccentric
depression—the size of a small continent—into which we shall be
privileged to descend.” The Professor bowed to Goritz, who was radiant
from his approbation.
He continued: “The figures engraved on these plates, the relievos on
this buckle, are autochthonous”—Hopkins emitted a low whistle. “They
are, however, distinctly colubrine, reptilian, crotaline, lacertilian,
poly-catabolic-arbori-animalistic. They indicate a serpent worship and a
tree worship, and are reminiscent of the Fall; I may call it the
recapitulative survival of myth.”
Hopkins’ whistle had been attempting some shriller ejaculations of
surprise, but the verbal avalanche smothered it. It was a suffocating
moment for all of us, and when Hopkins said, “Professor, with a cocktail
on top of this I believe our cerebral intoxication would be complete,”
the interior danger of explosion increased almost beyond control. But
the Professor kept on, and a little “plain stuff,” as Hopkins called it
helped us out of our embarrassment.
“An animal like a crocodile or an alligator, in a peculiar stage of
evolution, approaching that of a serpent, is depicted here,” his finger
touched the buckle, “and everywhere else are variations of one theme,
the Serpent and the Tree. The people of this _Navel of the World_ retain
the traditions of our religion.”
After that we all became intensely interested in the belt or girdle, but
we withheld our comments. Our pretense was sincere enough. We were
interested, so interested that it would have been impossible for any of
us—the Professor alone was capable of such sublime detachment—to have
slept a wink if we had tried to, but then our interest, in which mingled
the elixir of a fabulous Hope, succeeding days and weeks of danger and
uncertainty, was satisfied at a lower stage of realization. With us it
was MEN and GOLD, and, scintillating back of these noble facts, was the
speechless marveling of the world of letters, of science, at our
recital, if ever we got back to those things.
I asked Goritz all about it when we were together outside of the tent.
It seems he had walked about three miles from the camp, and was watching
a flurry of wind tear up the water of a little pool, literally boring it
all out in spray, when, as the action was accomplished, he saw the glint
of the gold. Another look and the belt was in his hand. He sat down to
catch his breath, and to quiet the beating of his heart, and then when
he had recovered his composure, he had gone on, believing that other
trinkets might turn up, or that he might encounter its makers, or
anything in fact that might explain the treasure trove—but the search
had been unavailing.
“Well,” I said as he finished, “what do you think? The Professor has
some wild notions about it, but it looks to me as if the Professor has
all along sailed pretty close to the wind.”
“Yes, Alfred,” he answered, “there’s a kernel of truth in his talk. Of
course I always thought so or I wouldn’t have come at all—And Alfred,”
his splendid eyes searched my own in that great way he had, “I have had
curious premonitions just now, as I walked back to the camp. We are
coming upon incomprehensible things. We must go on, though we may cross
starvation before we reach food, and—the _marvels beyond_. The rations I
know are low, and I know too we’ve a bad way ahead—_Mais, esperons_.”
I would have said more but before us stood Hopkins. He was actually
smoking—“to keep from going bug-house,” he explained, and then he
muttered:
“Send me to the Arctic regions, or illimitable azure.
On a scientific goosechase, with my Coxwell or my Glaisher.”
Camp was broken up the next morning. We were wild to get away. Before we
started the dogs were fed the last of the bear meat, and we were all put
on half rations; the demands on our strength for the work immediately
before us would not be great.
I also got a chance to see the belt better. It was very short and made
up of plates hooked together with a larger buckle. There was absolutely
no metal but gold in it. The buckle was decorated with an impossible
serpentine monster with legs and a snout-bearing head, indeed a thing
very well described by the Professor as a cross or mixture of a huge
snake and an alligator, and the plates were engraved with hieratic
markings that looked like poles encircled by spiral lines.
“So,” I said to myself, “these are the reminiscent Tree and the
Serpent.”
“Look to me like bean poles,” remarked Hopkins, who was looking over my
shoulder.
On we went west. It seemed as if the abominable rocks and sand would
never come to an end, the former sharp and knife-like, cutting our
shoes, the latter whirling in blinding sheets against our faces, in
spite of the almost constant fog, and even the occasional rain. The
sledge was lightened and moved as carefully as possible, but the
obstacles could not be avoided in the mist, and before the day was half
over it was a wreck, so that its load had to be distributed among us.
There was made at once a concentration of everything indispensable, and
the rest was abandoned. Our heavy packs did not help our progress. The
wind kept westerly. It was strong. We were astonished at the absence of
snow and at the moderate temperature. The thermometer denoted 0° and 2°,
Centigrade. These conditions seemed to bear out the Professor’s claims,
and the altitude was decreasing too. Then came a desperately stony
hollow, and the land rose steadily until we were even higher than we had
been at the start. But there were no mountains about us, just a broad
back of sloping rock, “a gigantic, intrusive, basaltic dike,” said the
Professor, between gasps, as fog smote us with almost the solidity of
water.
We had made thirty miles, and nature and the day were united in protest
against a longer drive. A yelp ahead, a shout from Goritz to “fall
back,” showed some danger line in our vicinity. We had not stopped one
instant too soon. One of the dogs had plunged over a precipice, and we
were then standing on its crumbling edge. By one of those sudden changes
in nature which call to mind a _divertissement_ in a scenic theatrical
display, the fogbanks now drifted off and in the light of the low
western sun we looked out over a strange land.
The barren and roughened ridge at last ended in this inner line of the
Krocker Land Rim. It abruptly, like a palisade escarpment, fell off into
declivities or occasional slopes made up of the talus of its
decomposition or dilapidation. We gazed now on a singular barrenness of
steeply slanting land, ribbed with asperities like hogs’ backs, of
parallel hills. Over this land, in the channels that they had made for
themselves, some entrenched in precipitous valleys, rushed streams fed
by that continual precipitation which toward the sea became snow, and
inland away from a colder atmosphere fell in torrents of rain.
The scene was indescribable, not by reason of variety but of monotony of
detail, and because beyond it, far along a horizon that may have been
fifty or more miles distant the most perplexing vaporous effects
prevailed. What it might be it was impossible to determine. There were
constant motions there, motions explosive and gradual, for we could
almost be sure that the cloudy masses were processioning now measuredly
in huge volume and then disordered by internal rupture. We thought we
caught the flashes of electric storms.
The scene below us was most repellent. The vicissitudes of cold and
storm had ejected all semblance of charm from those black, denuded
rocks. Their asperities, which were pinnacles hundreds of feet high,
were united by valleys bare to the eye, from our point of view, of all
vegetation, the whole combination slanting inward, and composing a
broad, melanic sterility perhaps only paralleled on the lifeless and
crater-pitted plains of the moon. The violent tossing streams, many of
them hidden in defiles of erosion, alone imparted the sense of
animation, and even this animation seemed ruthless and destructive. It
was utterly sullen, and when it was not sullen, it was savage and
threatening. It was all so overwhelming that we simply stared at it,
voiceless and despairing.
Hopkins broke the spell of our dismay: “Well, Professor, this certainly
is not Paradise, but I’m willing to believe that it’s the shell, the
outside of it, and a pretty hard kind of a nut it makes. _Can we crack
it?_”
That indeed was the question we all silently asked. Where would this
wilderness of rocks and waters lead us? Could we expect to find game or
any sort of food in this tableland of sheer, stark, desolation? Our
supplies were daily shrinking, and we had been a little wasteful too,
deluded by the false hope of soon securing succor. It was a long way
back to the cache on the tableland, and a longer one to the anchored
launch on the sands of the coast, but how far was it ahead of us to
life? At least behind there were bears and musk oxen, and seal and duck;
did anything replace them before us? It made us pause; the risk of going
on was considerable.
Our council convened under rather straightened circumstances of
confidence and hope. The dogs would be of no use in the marches before
us, unless indeed we threw them into the larder, and their upkeep was an
equivocal handicap, which might more than offset their value as an aid
to the commissariat. Goritz said we had forty pounds of provisions,
about a pound a day for each man for ten days; and there were the guns
and ammunition to be carried too, the instruments and the stoves and
oil. The tent outfit could be left behind; at a pinch we might battle
through without it. Battle, though, to WHAT? Ah! That was the question.
Were we in a dead land? Was the gold belt a prehistoric relic, having no
relation to any living race, a token of past occupancy by a people who
had fled from the fast contracting opportunities of life in this Arctic
inferno? It was a good illustration of the caprice of human feelings,
our total rejection of the considerations that a few days before had
made us jubilant, boastful, careless; so quickly does the average man
reflect the color of his surroundings.
Our position was dismal indeed. The inexplicable fogs settled around us,
or, if the west wind blew—and only for that brief interval when we
caught sight of the bewildering landscape below us, had it ceased to
blow—drifted over us in endless cloud-like masses. A precipice was
before us, how many more were beyond that? And then the return. The
longer we thought over it, and turned the angles of possibility to
inspection the more hopeless the prospect grew. But again the Gold Belt?
A shining lure of the Demon of Death to tempt us to a horrible doom. As
Goritz ostentatiously showed it to us it became loathsome, sinister, a
delusive snare!
And this led to our great surprise. Goritz wished to go on. He said so.
This quiet, reserved, strong man handed back to the Professor his
predictions, subscribed to with his own enthusiastic acceptance, and the
Professor, pirouette-fashion, had wheeled around in a rather dogged
scepticism. I think Hopkins and myself, out of pure dread, favored the
return. Goritz had always resisted the quest. The gold bauble was
“getting in its fatal work,” whispered Hopkins.
Goritz put it this way: We couldn’t get back. The return trip would be
far harder than to progress in our present course. We had no sledge.
Everything pointed to success if we could keep on. The land beyond us
indicated a great depression, the fogs rolling over us showed an
approaching warmer area; the glimpse that had been permitted us was
conclusive; once beyond that cloud zone and the realities, the living
realities, would begin. This gold belt (he held up the glittering charm
that had turned his head) was no relic, its engraving was too fresh, its
outlines too sharp; it had been brought where he had found it, it must
have come from the west, and the way, practicable for its former
wearers, was practicable for us.
“How about a balloon, an aeroplane, anything that flies?” suggested
Hopkins. Antoine Goritz became scornful, his French blood often came to
the surface. He looked straight at Hopkins, and a frown clouded his
face; it did not become him.
“_Parbleu vous etes fou, mon frère, que Je crois,
Avec de tels discours vous moquez-vous de moi?_”
Hopkins didn’t wince; it wasn’t his fashion.
“Well, Goritz, I’m game for the deal. You can’t put it over me with your
_parlez-vous_. But listen, we’ll never agree on this stake. It’s up to
the little Goddess on the Wheel. What do you say?” He tossed something
in the air and shouted:
“Fair or Foul?”
“Fair,” called Goritz.
The shining object rattled among the stones; it had a silvery lustre,
and as the Yankee stooped and picked it up, there was something
strangely grave in his face.
“You win, Goritz,” he calmly said, as he pocketed the trinket, “and I’ll
follow you till the curtain drops.”
He rose and extended his hand; it was grasped cordially by the big Dane,
the two men facing each other at almost the same level, both beautiful
types of manhood.
“Mr. Link, the object that Spruce Hopkins flung upwards, and cast as the
die of our destiny that day is in my hand.” (He laid a flat silver medal
on the table between us. I picked it up; on one side was a masterly
execution of the face of a lovely woman; on the other was a sort of
Satan.)
“Mr. Link,” resumed Erickson, “that woman is Angelica Sigurda Tabasco,
and that man Diaz Ilario Aguadiente, the two interesting occupants of
No. — east Fifty-eighth Street, from whose unpleasant society you freed
me. Hopkins gave me that the last time I saw him alive. What he told me
then had something to do with the predicament you found me in.”
(Mr. Erickson again retired into his obviously gloomy thoughts, which I
did not attempt to disturb, and, on his emergence, continued his story.)
This impromptu solution won the day, and we prepared for the unknown
transit over that unknown territory of which we had had one fleeting
glimpse, and which lay somewhere before us, in a vast milkness of mist.
We concluded to take with us two dogs; the rest—now three, one had gone
mad (_piblocto_) and had been shot—were killed, and a cannibalistic
feast offered to the survivors. The oil and stoves were left behind;
there might be enough fibre or wood for fire, at least we hoped so. Our
packs were made as light as possible. We were in a race, like
Mikkelsen’s last lap, _a Race against Hunger_. The sleeping-bags were
discarded, the tent we carried a short distance only. No grimmer or
braver determination ever animated explorers; we were not running for
safety, we were running _away_ from it. The step taken, our spirits
rose, the former fancies swarmed upon us, and perhaps the gold belt
again floated before our vision, an omen and a guide. This imaginative
sway of anticipation was needed, or else we could never have plucked up
courage to make the fateful start.
The beginning was symptomatic enough of our coming dangers. To get over
and down the precipice on whose edge we stood was impossible without a
clearance of the besetting fogs, and fortunately, as if by invitation
for us to retain our resolution, the fog lifted on the morning we
started. We were on the brink of a high columnar black wall, rising from
200 feet or less to 600 feet or more, from the rocky floor of the
country beyond. We searched for some pathway for descent. Innumerable
shelves and footholds diversified the precipitous faces but they were
far apart, and often offered little more than space for a bird or a
goat. Once down the first vertical cliffs the gigantic heaps of talus
leaning against their bases would afford us a practicable though rough
way to the bottom. And now we saw with astonishment the obvious
inclination of the farther land. It seemed an almost unbroken hillside,
coursed by streams and stream beds, furrowed by dry, stony valleys, cut
by the low, serrated backs of steep hills, the whole landscape
terminating in that distant medley of rolling clouds, streaming vapor
banks barely discernible, except as, so it seemed, they were lit by
flashes of light. Were we on the outer flanks of a continental lava bed,
and was that cloud space beyond the lip of a vast volcanic confusion?
The question was not asked aloud, but its staggering terror made us
tremble. Never, Mr. Link, did men more heroically walk into the shadows
of the Valley of Death than did we.
The morning sun sent long shadows westward; the day was actually warm; a
sudden brightness encouraged us. If the food lasted! That was the terror
that haunted us. Could it? At last Goritz discovered far northward a
gorge or ravine reaching almost to the top of the palisade. Down this we
scrambled and found ourselves in the bed of a low stream, which a day
later became a swollen torrent, so quickly did precipitation feed the
rivers, and so enormous was its volume. This made our daily progress
more dangerous. We were soaked and miserable ourselves, but the
protection to our food was imperfect, and that gave rise to serious
doubts as to whether it would last us ten days, the calculated limit
before its exhaustion. The biscuit half turned to dough and the drenched
tea exuded in tawny drops from our packs. This led to a readjustment and
each man carried his rations of tea and biscuit and chocolate underneath
his coat. The pemmican, force meat, cabbage and beans are safe enough on
our backs.
It soon became necessary to desert the watery defile which we had first
entered; it became more and more confined, the banks were literally
stone heaps, and after one or two perilous slips which might have
accelerated our progress by dumping us into the chasing flood we
painfully climbed out over a high rocky ridge on the summit of which our
sight was cheered to find low, herbaceous growths. Here we managed to
extort a niggardly flame which was assisted by oil Goritz alone had had
the prudence to add to his load, and our evening meal was eaten in some
gratitude.
The rains, distressing as they were at intervals, when the downpour
became most vehement, were on the whole preferable to the fogs. They
cleared the air, and we could see our way, calculate interruptions and
avoid disaster. As we went on the vegetation increased in quantity, and
often smiling—they seemed smiling to our tired eyes although lit by no
sunlight—patches around us in sheltered corners afforded welcome though
damp camping grounds. Our clothes were torn by frequent falls, and our
shoes are turning into tangled shreds. The Professor had sprained his
wrist badly—he narrowly escaped rolling down an embankment which might
have put him out of the running altogether—and Goritz is in pain. I know
it by his limping gait, and the twitches of suffering that cross his
face. Something is the matter with me too, fatigue and the insufficient
or canned food is telling on me. My muscles are stiff and aching, the
joints of my limbs red and swollen, and dark blue spots were showing on
my skin. Is it scurvy?
It is the sixth day, and we believe we have made seventy miles. The
cloud zone is approaching; our prospect every day grows more
extraordinary, more terrifying; we encamp behind a shoulder of rock, on
a low upland which separated two roaring rivers. The rain had stopped
and a colder atmosphere reveals the scene. The temperature is just above
2° Centigrade, the aneroid shows we had fallen two thousand feet since
we had left the Krocker Land Rim. We are immobile, in a sort of stupor,
yet fascinated by the spectacle. Hopkins alone remains cheerful and
garrulous.
“Professor,” he chatters, “the Rocky Road to Dublin had nothing on this
boulevard. The gentleman who, by reason of a congenital failing, which
was assisted by circumstances outside of his control, complained of the
narrowness rather than the length of the street would be inclined to
make some severe reflections on this thoroughfare also. But we can be
pretty sure the transformation takes place the other side of the
proscenium-show yonder.”
Poor Spruce Hopkins, he kept up his joviality for our benefit, but we
didn’t care much and I don’t think he did. We were starving; it was half
a pound now a day. But Goritz never wavered a hair, he urged us on, he
promised food, rest, recreation even, if we would persevere through the
cloud curtain.
And now we were under it, cowering in dread before the awfulness and
magnitude of it. It rose in towering gushes of stream, belched forth
from a huge crack in the crust of the earth in which poured the full
rivers that had accompanied our march. Those rivers entered recesses of
the heated earth, and were returned in steam with detonations and
earthquakes, so that
_The frame and huge foundation of the earth
Shak’d like a coward._
Reviewing it now, as it was revealed to us later upon examination and
study, the physiography of the stupendous phenomenon we had reached was
this. Some strain had cracked the crust of the earth in a long arcuate
rift; it suggested the crevice and it was irregular in the same way,
which is seen in the Almannaja in Iceland, but it was profoundly deep,
and the area communicated with the igneous interior. The water that was
continually condensed from the steam that poured upward from the huge
fissure, as continually was returned, and, except for interruptions in
the reciprocal exchange produced by meteorological conditions, such as
cold, heat and varying winds, this curious equilibration was unbroken,
had been for ages. The emergence of the steam was irregular, though it
was always coming up at some points, and there was a synchrony between
points. We discovered later that at very distant places from our
position on the great circular break there was no steam. The rock
beneath had become thoroughly cooled and congealed, or the inner fires
were absent, and the water entering the chasm was lost within the crust,
or else, deviously percolating laterally may have subsequently
contributed its supply to the active steam geysers when it touched the
heated surfaces which formed the sources of the latter’s energy.
Therefore you may place this picture before your mind, of a steam wall
projected from a raggedly edged, very broad earth rift, absorbed by the
atmosphere, or condensed in clouds, and intermittently returned to the
earth in rain or if transferred by westerly winds, falling outside of
the Krocker Land Rim in snow.
The explosions that rent and shattered this steam veil, or shattered the
cloud masses above us, were at first difficult to explain. It was after
we had penetrated and crossed the abyss that the Professor suggested
that they were due to a partial decomposition of some part—a very, very
small part—of the steam into the gases hydrogen and carbonic oxide,
where coal or carbonaceous deposits existed at rare or higher heats, and
that these explosive mixtures, retained somehow in the steam,
undiffused, were fired by electric-lightning sparks. This theory never
seemed scientific to me. But the fact of such disturbances remained, and
it was owing to the momentary glimpse a terrific shock of this kind
permitted us across the void, that we picked up daring enough to make
the attempt to cross the horrid gap.
We were within perhaps five hundred feet of the spouting cauldron, where
rain was constantly falling, crawling over rocks wet and slippery,
astonished and half delighted at the luxuriant development of moss on
the lips of pools or saucers of water, and noting a great rise in
temperature, with that peculiar buried tumult of hissing, issuing from
the earth, when this happened. There was a flash, a roar, and, as if a
gigantic hand had parted the dense curtain before us, our eyes crossed
the gulf, and we saw a land of greenness and of light!
Stunned, half sick, hungry, with a gnawing wretchedness of desire, it
almost seemed that we had been duped by some illusion born of our
weakness and the deceptive play of the illuminated mist. Huddled
together in a niche of the rocks that were in places dissected by
cracks, that also discharged tenuous lines of steam, we talked in
whispers over the marvelous apparition. Yes, we had all seen it. There
could be no mistake, but Goritz had seen more. Across the black,
vomiting pit was a bridge of rock! It might have been some remaining
partition, holding its place against disintegration, spared in some way
for our salvation from the destructive agencies that had here ripped the
crust asunder, or indeed it might have been built up from some later
solidified eruption. _Had_ he seen it?
Goritz was madly certain about that. Well, and if he had, could we use
it? There are desperate stages in desperation that breed, Ajax-like,
defiance of danger. The sudden realization of a world of beauty, a world
of food, on the other side of the steaming pit, nerved our poor flagging
bodies, and summoned an audacity of will to our minds! It was our last
chance. Myths of the past in that delirious moment flocked back to my
mind, which pictured guarded paradises, defended gardens of delight,
treasures watched by dragons, elysiums hedged with terrors, and always,
always courage won the prize, and passed the dangers. And yet there must
be caution; the old refrain sounded in my ears, _Be not too bold!_
Goritz and Hopkins, the least impaired, reconnoitered the pass. They
moved down some stepped ledges and were lost to sight. In an hour or so
they returned. Their faces were lighted with hopefulness. They both
believed the path was negotiable, and they both agreed that there were
periodic cessations of the fiercer ebullitions from below. It was also
discovered that we could not make our way to the right or left for any
considerable distance. We had trailed our way to an isthmus of land,
enclosed by two impassable streams, shooting in rugged wild channels. To
think of crossing them was sheer madness. Goritz and Hopkins had
actually advanced a little way on the bridge, straining their eyes to
catch some further intimations of the delectable country we now believed
would be attained were we once over this inscrutable fissure. The
daylight, when the sun was highest and easterly, was now short, and in
the mist-encumbered land, in the cloud-swept skies, that light was
almost eclipsed. Everything contributed to our uncertainty and danger.
We made ready for the start. We consumed every scrap of food, divested
ourselves of unnecessary outer clothing, which had already become
insufferably warm—_kamiks_, _nanookis_, _kooletah_—packed our ammunition
on our breasts, reversed and strapped our guns on our backs (the
Professor added to his burden a pot and a fryingpan), tucked away our
matches, chewed the last tea leaves our canister afforded, and with a
few chocolate cakes in our pockets went down the steps,
“*** _with a heart for any fate._”
I was indeed sick; exertion pained me, and a nauseating weariness
threatened at moments to rob me of consciousness. The two poor dogs
which had escaped the extremity of our needs, less through mercy than
through revulsion, were turned loose. Yet as we went down the ledges to
the brink, I saw them chasing us. Goritz roped us together again, gave a
few orders as to signals, and ordered the descent.
We went _a tatons_, literally on all fours; Goritz first, then the
Professor, then myself, then Hopkins. As we drew near to the ominous
edge, and felt our way over the first steps of the stony crossing it
required all my strength of will to draw my legs after my groping hands.
At first it presented a tolerable pathway, flat, narrow, but sloping
dangerously to either side, slippery from the constant rain that fell
from the saturated air. We silently pushed on, Goritz by agreement
stopping every thirty counts (seconds), and resting five. Gradually the
path contracted and, in about thirty feet, became a sharp backbone over
whose sides our legs dangled in the constantly steaming vault. It was
warm and almost stifling at intervals and then came relief in the shape
of whirling gusts of wind, which however were disconcerting, and made
our precarious balance still more uncertain.
We had probably proceeded fifty feet in all, when a blackness shot
through with red darts came before my eyes; I reeled slightly and
dropped forward, instinctively clutching the wet rock and jerking the
rope that bound me to the Professor. The Professor in turn pulled on
Goritz, and our thin line halted. It was arduous work for the Professor,
whose wrist was still aching.
A detonation thundered far away below us. The spasm passed; I pulled the
rope, the Professor passed the signal, and we resumed our insect-like
progress. Singular that, as I moved again, the thought of Dante and
Virgil crossing the bridge over the tenth circle, as illustrated by
Dore, rose distinctly, clear, indubitable, in front of me. It even
seemed possible for me to define the pagination of the leaf I actually
saw. This strange resuscitated impression kept me conscious.
[Illustration:
THE PERPETUAL NIMBUS
]
On, on; the arete remained unchanged; our progress was encouraging; I
seemed cognizant of a deeper gloom; it was the opposite wall. We had
reached it. Alas! It rose above our heads and _must_ be scaled! Goritz
pulled the rope, the signal ran through the file and we halted again.
The path broadened now, as at its eastern end, and our legs were
relieved from the irksome straddle they had been subjected to. It was a
welcome pause to me. I knew that the last scrap of effort I was capable
of was needed now, if some vertical wet wall was to be surmounted in
that almost impenetrable blackness.
In about fifteen minutes the tug came again, and we knew Goritz had
solved some problem of the ascent confronting us. I heard him calling
back, and the Professor answering. Then I found myself in this
situation; on a fairly wide platform against a broken wall and up it I
heard the scratching exertion of the Professor as he seemed to be bodily
pulled up the ragged face. The constantly falling rain had ceased. But
as the Professor rose, I felt he was no longer attached to me. I drew in
the rope before me and came to its loose end. We were separated! Aghast,
I was unable to speak, but my outstretched arms encountered Hopkins.
“Hopkins, Hopkins,” I hoarsely whispered, “the rope has parted. We are
alone!”
“Don’t worry,” replied that extraordinary man, “we couldn’t be lonelier
than we have been. This solitude is the most unbroken bit of isolation I
ever walked into. Of course we’re separated. This interesting masonry
we’ve struck isn’t very well constructed. It isn’t plumb. It hangs out a
_leetle_ above. Goritz found it out, uncoiled himself, got to the top,
told the Professor to drop you and me, and is now engaged in hoisting
that scientific encyclopedia up to bliss and safety. We won’t stay
dropped long. We’re to go the same way, and really, admirably adapted
for concealment of an escaped felon as is this retreat, honest men could
afford to dispense with its protection.”
I sometimes thought that when Hopkins talked this way on the verge of
destruction he was a little demented from fear. Perhaps I wronged him.
“But say, Erickson, you’re not well, old fellow.”
I had fallen against him; another surge of giddiness and harsh pains
lacerating my joints had overcome me. Then I was struck by a rope end;
it had descended from above. Understanding it all now, and clutching at
the hope of deliverance from the terrors around us, I roused myself.
I heard the voice of Goritz shouting, “Tie up.” And then Hopkins
replying, “All right! Alfred is a little out of sorts. He can’t help you
much. When I _say_, pull together.”
Hopkins unloosed our connection, firmly fastened me to the rope and,
indicating my upward course, telling me to “brace up,” and that it was
the last lap, pushed me up a declivity bristling with sharp projections.
For the first time I saw a dim light filtering from above. I did not
attempt to look upward. The pull came, and I scrambled weakly forward.
Again the dark, red-riven cloud overwhelmed me, my limbs seemed
disjointed; a picture of home, I thought, filled my eyes; a blow on my
head, then a vast detachment as if I were falling through space
succeeded, and I lost consciousness.
And when I awoke! Ah! Mr. Link I have since often believed that our
first glimpse of heaven may be like the vision of loveliness that
surrounded me when slowly my eyes took on their functions, and my head
cleared, and rational observation again began. My pains, too, had for
the instant subsided. I felt almost disembodied, as if indeed in some
spiritual trance I had reached the other side of death.
I was lying in deep grass on a hillside, bathed in light; my friends
around me—No, Hopkins was not there. I noted that. Backward the steaming
wall of vapor was lit with a soft radiance, and resembled an
ever-changing cloud land. Above, the sky was clear and blue; the
distance was a revelation of beauty, ponds and lakes separated by low
hills, whose summits held coppices of trees and shrubs, sparkled and
shone in far flung chains and groups, and below, in a softly radiant
vale, the slim, long outline of a little lakelet, embosomed in tall,
waving reeds or grasses, like some titanic jewel, gleamed, crystalline
and keen.
Ducks were swimming on its surface, and skimming with beating wings its
tiny waves. Herons or cranes were wading in the sedges on its shores,
and a stirring and noisy aquatic bird life everywhere about it, made it
vocal and animated. Far away a strange, soft light burned in the heaven,
and for a moment it seemed as if another sun had replaced the diurnal
traveler of the skies.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER VI
THE CROCODILO-PYTHON
But nature reasserted its importunities, and hunger gnawed my vitals. In
a chapter of Admiral Peary’s book, “Over the Great Ice,” is a thrilling
episode which describes his own and Astrum’s, hunger before they slew
the musk ox near Independence Bay, Greenland, and the ferocity, almost,
with which they feasted on the raw meat. I once thought that the story
had been given a half theatrical exaggeration. Now I know it was
truthful enough. My companions were also weak and prostrated. I now saw
clearly their thin, pinched features, the natureless stare of their
eyes, the flaccid, hopeless flutter of their hands. I had not realized
how near we had been to dropping dead in our tracks.
There was a shot—another, then—another. “God be thanked,” muttered
Goritz, and the Professor mechanically rose to his unsteady feet, and
shaded his eyes, looking down the hillside.
“He’s coming, and his hands are full,” at length he said, and sank to
the ground.
It seemed an eternity before the tall figure of the Yankee brushed
through the grass, and flung the dead bodies of three wild geese among
us.
Few or none who have not known the extremity of hunger can understand
how, as Mikkelsen expresses it, “one’s whole consciousness becomes
concentrated into one importunate demand for food—food—food.” And do you
remember, if you read it, how Mikkelsen and Iversen set up the tins of
the cache at Schnauder’s Island in a row, to feast their eyes on them,
and then, after all, came that “feverish race with death—the grim death
of hunger”?
Our state was not as desperate, but perhaps we were not such hardened
and strong men. It was not long before a fire made of branches and twigs
and grass was burning merrily, and though there was nothing but water to
drink, and there were no condiments—no salt or pepper, no bread or
biscuits, we devoured the fried duck with a rapture no words can
properly do justice to. It was not enough. Hopkins must go again and
again. But the larder furnished us in these new, hospitable surroundings
was inexhaustible. We wondered whether the sound of a gunshot had ever
been heard here; the birds were simply curious, not frightened, and only
interrupted their play or avocation with a momentary and short flight.
We moved forward from our first resting place and encamped under the
leafy covering of a beautiful, narrow, silver-leaved tree, that the
Professor told us was a relative of that ornament of parks and pleasure
grounds in Europe and America, the _Anastatica syriachum_. We called our
camp _Restoration_. Hopkins suggested _Emptiness_ as a name, for several
reasons, because of our unappeasable appetites and because in it,
besides ourselves, our guns, a few cooking vessels (to be exact, just a
pot and a fryingpan) the rope we carried, and our few instruments, our
ammunition and our matches, there were none of the appurtenances that
are associated with the name of camp. But the name Restoration pleased
us better, for here were we filled with a wonderful animation of
expectancy, here our strength had been fully restored, here we had
become joyful beyond estimation, the Professor had resumed his alacrity
of mind, and once more we all embarked on the sea of fabulous imagining.
It was altogether wonderful. Where were we? What was the meaning of this
temperate charm of climate? Whence came this broad illumination when the
sun had set?
The first moments of our mere animal restoration passed, then a
delicious weariness overcame us as we surrendered to the mirthful spirit
of surprise and admiration, and to the curative properties of fried or
boiled duck. Around us stretched a magnificent country, which bore the
aspect of the sylvan loneliness of the lakeland of Minnesota and
Wisconsin and Canada, though more undulating or hilly. The wall of steam
and cloud behind us, occasionally glowing dully with the flame of its
intermittent explosions, extended north and south, or was lost in the
pearly exhalations of the distance.
It formed an inexhaustible source of rain, for, as the east winds
prevailed, the mists swept over this aquitanian land in showers, or, if
the west wind, it was rolled away in thunderous glory to deluge that
steep, barren zone we had descended, from Krocker Land Rim, and, beyond
the Rim, it fell again in snow. The Professor, boastful now, and Goritz
calmly exultant, arranged the fortunes we were about to meet in pleasing
colors. To listen to them as Hopkins and I lay on our backs in the
fragrant grass, starred with white and blue blossoms, was like the
recital of a fairy story, a legend of miracles and marvels.
The Professor took up the strain in this wise:
“Here is the most wonderful illustration of Perpetual Motion. The
precipitation of the Arctic Sea falls on this land in rain, outside of
it in snow. The rain flows down the rivers of the arid slope under
Krocker Land Rim, is emptied into the heated or inflamed bowels of the
earth, uncovered by the huge meridional crevice, and returned as steam
to be again thrown down, evaporated and reprecipitated in an endless
chain of supreme magnitude.
“And, gentlemen, we have entered the polar depression of which you were
so scornfully incredulous. We have already fallen two thousand feet
below the mean level of the earth. This is a temperate region, with
symptoms of subtropical or even perhaps tropical life I believe we shall
discover a series of successive gigantic steps, each a recession within
the crust of the earth, like continental amphitheatrical terraces, and
at the Center—”
“What?” gurgled Hopkins.
“Ah! Mr. Hopkins, what indeed.”
But before the Professor could frame his answer to the question, Goritz,
whose reticence had now succumbed to the wonders of our experience had
seized the thread of the lecture. He would outdo the Professor in
prophecies, with a merry fling or soaring of imagination that made that
cheerful scientist dubious or irritated. I think he rather resented this
unexpected, half satirical participation in the monopoly of his
professional vaticinations.
“I’ll tell you what, Hopkins,” would continue Goritz smilingly, with a
musical intonation that accorded with the serenity of our surroundings,
“it will be a City of Gold—houses of gold, golden chariots, golden
furniture. We can break off the legs and arms of the chairs and tables,
knock down the doors, rip up the flagging, and put up a stack of gold
bric-a-brac that will keep us forever. We’ll go back, bring in the
engineers, bridge that gulf, and railroad the metropolis to the shore,
ship the whole thing to America and then—(by this time Hopkins would be
pummeling me “_to sit up and take notice_”) we’ll come back, seize the
mines and fetch the Millenium back to the world; no more poor, no
begging, no charities, just universal peace and happiness!”
“May be,” Hopkins would grunt as he knocked me flat again, and fell
himself face forward to the ground, “may be, but Pujo and the Democratic
Congress will catch you, if you don’t watch out. Why my dear,
unsophisticated friend, if you gave it away, and let people know you had
a claim on the original, inexhaustible goldbrick of the Universe, the
crowd up here would tilt the earth over, and set it rolling the wrong
way. And then—WHAT?”
So we often joked and laughed together in the halcyon days that restored
our strength and health. But the fit of mere whimsical jubilation soon
came to an end. Our exploits were only begun, and already two serious
wonders attracted our attention and brought us in contact with an
amazing phenomenon. The first was the unbroken illumination, the
measureless day! The sun itself hardly raised its red disk above the
horizon now. We knew that the six months’ night was fast approaching,
outside of this enchanted bowl, and yet within its magic circle the
light remained, and there were no alternations of day and night. A
varying light indeed, as there were clear or cloudy skies, but still the
sensible, broad day. What did this mean? What anomaly of natural
philosophy, of physics, of astronomy, could be invoked to explain this
aberration?
And the second was the Sleep of Vegetation. The trees went to sleep, the
flowers too. The leaves of the trees turned upward, and clasped the
twigs and branches, exposing their dull brown under surfaces only, and
the sepals and petals of the flowers did the same. Shielded behind the
impervious dark film of the thickened integument, the green upper
surfaces remained as it were closed; a voluntary recuperation that was
novel enough. The Professor was enraptured, and he discovered that the
breathing pores (_stomata_), usually in plants on the under side of the
leaf, were here above, that too there was no prevalent custom, so to
speak, among the plants, in their “going to sleep.” One plant would be
thus sleeping alongside of a wide-awake neighbor. But he did note a kind
of periodicity, in opening and closing, as Pfeffer has done in plants
kept constantly in the dark. And it seemed to all of us that the colors
were both paler and deeper; deeper in the reds and purples, paler in the
greens and yellows.
But that artificial sun that towards the west illumined the zenith, an
endless fixed lamp set in the sky, immovable above the earth? What was
that? Towards it we hastened, now almost free of loads, and free of
cares, immersed in a reckless curiosity, feeling the wantonness of a
luxurious and marvel-bringing pastime.
It grew colder, showing that the outside changes affected the depressed
area, but the phantom light in the west was also a source of heat, and
if we were to drop down further within lower craters, the “static heat
of the earth,” the Professor averred, would “increasingly raise the
temperature.”
Our meals of bird became monotonous, but though we saw fish in the
lakes, we could not catch them. Our instruments, matches, ammunition,
guns, and the indispensable pot and fryingpan, a few odds and ends in
our pockets and some vestiges of other commodities in our packs made up
our possessions. A change of under clothing we had vouchsafed ourselves,
before we abandoned the sledge, and an under dress too of serge, so
that, though our skins and furs were thrown aside, “we might be able,”
as Hopkins said, “to meet the ladies of El Dorado without a blush.”
The scenes around us, as we pushed westward, repeated themselves with
inconspicuous changes, but we would often enter into pictorial
compositions that exhaled an artistic beauty quite incomparable. It was
after a ten hour tramp over the interminable savannahs, that the
Professor, noting a cliffside, a unique feature, towards the north, we
directed our steps thither. Then we encountered a picture that swayed us
by its loveliness, and we ran into a zoological revelation also, that
made our hair stand on end, so that the emotional antipodes thus
experienced supplied us with some exciting themes for conversation.
We first stood at the beginning of a valley sloping from us with wide,
graceful reaches. It lay between two series of hills, separated by minor
valleys, whose contributions of water, in tree or bush-lined brooks,
were added to the meandering river that subjugated all other impressions
in its stately movement towards a far distant lake. This latter formed a
great mirror of light on the horizon. The hills were much more deeply
wooded than any we had passed, indeed the country assumed a new phase,
and the languid inclines and faintly expostulating elevations here were
replaced by more boulders and a piedmont-like picturesqueness.
And yet there dwelt in the picture a gentleness, an inviting softness of
contour that was ingratiating, while the banked trees, the occasional
escarpments of glistening rock, and that luminous, distant haze over the
faraway lake tended to add strength and mystery. It was almost, by our
chronometers, mid-day when we entered this delightful vale. Dark
evergreens added a tonic charm to the coloring, and above us, scoring
the blue, were ranged radiating white ribs of compacted cumulus.
We had clambered up on the ledges of a rock exposure, encumbered at its
base by huge, confused fragments, and edged at its summit by the bushy
fortress of a white flowered low tree like a wild cherry. The
_Anastatica_(?), so abundant in the country we had passed over, had
disappeared, and with it, we surmised, that mirific population of
cranes, herons, geese, and ducks that made the enchained lakes vocal
with pipings, screams, haloos, and bugle calls.
“Looks good to me,” exclaimed Hopkins. “Yes,” I said, “if we could take
that picture with us back to New York on a canvas or a film, or a plate,
we’d have ’em guessing. It’s a marvel. Pretty hard to believe we’re at
north latitude 84°. That’s about it, Professor?”
“84°, 50’, 5”,” replied the Professor sententiously, as he applied his
lens and his eyes to a scrap of stone.
“New York?” snorted Goritz. “You surely don’t ask for anything better
than this. This is Eden.” It certainly seemed so, and while Hopkins
contented himself with the comment that he hadn’t noticed any snakes
about, we turned attentive ears to the Professor, who by this time had
completed his enthralled study of the glittering schist in his hand.
“Azoic rocks,” he cried, his becoming smile mantling his face, his red,
prominent ears and his flaring hair making a droll combination. “Very
early rocks; the Grenville Series beyond doubt, as named by the Canadian
geologists; the first solidifications of the earth’s crust, perhaps
schists, granites and limestones, though _here_ schists with pegmatite
veins. An ancient circular axis surrounding a circular depression that
has never been covered by the later oceans. Gentlemen, we are probably
now situated on the one point of the earth wherein the processes of
evolution have never played any role, because marine life has never
existed within it, and the processes of derivation which have supplied
the dry land with their mammalian fauna from the animals of the sea have
been totally excluded, unless—unless—,” the judicial introspection and
litigation which the Professor assumed at such critical points in his
scientific homilies were always diverting, “unless the barrier had been
broken at some point and the surrounding ocean admitted, just as Walcott
has surmised may have been the case with the western protaxes of North
America, when the pre-Cambrian seas introduced their life into the
interior basin of the continent. We shall see, however; the sedimentary
rocks of the inner circles (It was quite reassuring to observe the
Professor’s stalwart certainty about everything) will reveal that. Even
had no such invasion been permitted, life would have reached this
isolated nucleus through the flight and migration of birds who might
readily enough, as pointed out by Darwin, Wallace, Lancaster, Leidy and
others, have carried the embryos of fish, the shells of molluscs and the
larvae and bodies of insects hither, and the winds themselves may have
assisted in this involuntary transit. The injection of seeds might have
taken place in all sorts of ways. So far, you will observe that the
faunal features, as might be expected, are very scanty, and true mammals
are absent. The zoological peculiarities of this paleolithic bowl are
absolutely unique. As a contribution to biological science our results
promise to assume important proportions.”
Under the stimulus of this flattering encouragement we resumed our way,
following the banks of the beautiful river to that remote splendor, the
lake on the horizon, which seemed a fairy sea, where indeed might float
argosies of an indigenous people which had been imprisoned in this
inverted earth cone since human occupation of our earth began.
And it soon became apparent that we were again rapidly descending, a
transition indicated by increasing warmth and the changed gradient of
the river which was flowing rapidly, more rapidly, between thickset,
outstretched arms of alder-like trees. Our interest was intense. The
utter, incalculable strangeness of it all kept our nerves strung to an
extreme tension. Sometimes we were simultaneously arrested by an
overpowering mental revolt against it, as though we felt we had lost our
senses, or as though some _trauma_ had been inflicted on our brain, and
then we stood staring, in absolute stupefaction. For all this was not
simply new, it was superbly beautiful.
“Every way we’re to the good,” cried Hopkins. “We’re walking right into
a Safe Deposit that would make Rockefeller or Rothschild coil up in a
colic of undisguised despair. That, in the first place. Then, we’re
mighty comfortable, well fed, careless and improving. That counts in the
second place. And thirdly, if we get back to sanitary plumbing, carved
food, and flats, we’ll be able to put up a story that will keep the
people—I mean everybody—gasping, and there won’t be enough presses to
print it, enough woodpulp to print it on, and I assume it’s more than
likely that we’ll precipitate, as they say, the worst panic ever known,
because nobody will be able to work until they’ve finished the story,
and from appearances I think we could a tale unfold that might cover a
thousand or more pages. Our copyright will be worth a king’s ransom.”
“But they won’t read it because they won’t believe it,” I said. “We’ll
be classed with Munchausen and old Doc. Cook, Symmes and Sinbad.”
“Won’t believe it?” exploded Hopkins. “Won’t we show em? The Professor
will rattle off the new species, and how about our buying out the
government at Washington, and running the country just free of expense a
few days, say for a week, to prove it? That will be convincing, I
undertake to say. And then the pictures. The camera’s working yet, and
there are a dozen or so of film rolls. But don’t worry. We’ll be the
biggest thing on the foot-stool, and then—some. Christopher has had a
fair show, in fact he’s been rather spoilt, but he’ll have every reason
to be glad he’s out of sight when we get there. Why really it’s hard to
understand what won’t happen.”
At that we all laughed, and that relief made us serious again, and with
eyes open, pencils scribbling, and an occasional click of the camera
(Hopkins was our photographer) we hastened down the now somewhat
contracting valley. An elbow of land pushed out and diverted the stream
and on this point, where the river turned, swerving back into its first
course, and where an expanse of yellow sand and pebbles furnished an
open space from which the lake, the receding valley behind us, a gorge
before us, the open sky, and the encroaching flanks of higher hills were
all visible, we halted.
Hopkins seized the opportunity for a new flight of speculation.
“Do you know,” and the shadow of a real embarrassment on his face fixed
our attention, “I’ve been wondering who is to own this bailiwick. Of
course we’ll meet the native residents sooner or later—their shyness is
a little unaccountable as it is—but you don’t imagine for a moment that
the first class national hogs of Europe would let a promising domain
like this go unappropriated? Not much. Those disinterested potentates
would be up here before you could say Jack Robinson to prove how
necessary it was for the peace of the world to cut it up at once.
Gentlemen, this is an international question, and we’re the only men who
have a right to settle it. What do you say?”
“Oh, my portion goes to Denmark,” chuckled Goritz.
“Mine too,” I added.
“I owe allegiance to Norway,” reminded the Professor.
“Funny—how clannish you are,” continued Hopkins. “You’re all as good as
Americans, and you speak English. You’ve lived in the United States, and
you know, way down in your boots, that she’s the Hope of the whole
earth; the only thing just now visible in the shape of government that
cares two coppers for the under dog. Ain’t that so? Well I’ll tell yer,”
and Hopkins squinted, drawled, and put his long index on the side of his
very presentable nose, “I’ll tell yer. We’ll give the Edenites a square
deal, and let them decide. You see we can each take the stump for our
own country, and then give them the choice at a general Primary
Election.”
“Will you let the ladies vote?” I asked innocently.
“Why not? Certainly. Ladies first,” smiled back the gallant Yankee.
“Well then,” I triumphantly concluded, “as they can’t understand us,
they’ll of course, after the manner of their sex, be guided by LOOKS,
and—America wins.”
We shouted at Hopkins’ discomfiture. He certainly looked nonplussed and
aggrieved. He was shaping a retort, and his mouth had already formed the
words “See here, Erickson; don’t you fool yourself—” when there was a
movement on the opposite bank. Almost instantly Hopkins’ quick eye was
diverted, and his arm shot forward, indicating the intrusion, while he
whispered in the stage-struck style, “_Look, look!_”
We turned as one man. Opposite, thrusting their heads out of the foliage
of the bank, and revealing too the front quarters of their bodies were
four wild pigs, a hog, a sow and two youngsters. The adult animals were
of great size, with portentous mouths and snouts, flat cheek
protrusions, hairy, pointed ears, and the animals bore two upturned
involuted tooth horns or tusks on each side of their upper and lower
jaws. The animals were black, their bodies covered with coarse, spiny
short hair, bristling into a mane at the neck and their small, fiery
eyes snapped viciously. They were large brutes, stout, muscular,
possessed of a strange hollow grunt that rumbled ominously inside their
heads for a while, and then became suddenly audible as a terrifying,
snorting squeal. It was the oddest, most unaccountable animal noise any
of us had ever heard. But the Professor complacently informed us that
the creatures were undoubtedly related to the Forest Pig—_Hylochoerus
meinertz hageni_—of British East Africa, and that their study would add
a new chapter to natural history, while the skins of the monsters would
be eagerly competed for by the museums of the world.
Hopkins dismissed this with a wave of his hand, urging the antecedent
considerations of pork chops, fresh ham, and sausage. The subjects of
this colloquy remained, however, undisturbed. Had we shot them there was
no discoverable way in our position at the time to secure their bodies,
and from the gastronomic point of view the Professor questioned their
importance.
The pigs watched us nervously for a short time, then they grunted
reflectively; their whitish-green eyes were almost distended in
excitement and shone with a blue light. But with a raised arm, a thrown
pebble, and a shout from Goritz they flew off, crashing among the
undergrowth and easily traceable in their flight down the hillside by
the wake of violently agitated shrubbery and herbs.
“An interesting encounter,” remarked the Professor. “Its congener is
found today over the slopes of Mt. Kenia at a high altitude, where the
jungle and the forest meet, supposed by Akely to follow the trail of the
elephant, and addicted to an inexplicable habit of scraping together
leaves and grasses which it forms into diminutive mounds. We are coming
into a warmer region, the increasing prevalence of acacia and
eucalyptus-like trees, the occasional pitch pine, and something like an
evergreen oak indicate that, though this floral association may be
uncommon. I really believe that along the edges of that great lake ahead
of us are—_palms_!”
It was only a short way from this delightful spot, with its sweeping
view, that we heard the rush and roar of falling water, as we now fought
our way through a tangled maze of branches, emerging at intervals on
grassy glades which bore evidence of the past presence of the wild pigs.
An hour later we almost tumbled over the brink of a rocky gulf, into
which the gathered waters of the river obviously fell. We could not see
the falls, but the spouting spray, rising in spiral puffs, the moisture
showering through the trees, and the dull bass resonation from the
tormented pool that caught the plunging torrent, announced its nearness.
It was a matter of some difficulty, making our descent, and the ropes
again did good service in helping us down the vertical walls. It was
pretty clear that we were about to meet a picture of some grandeur, for
our climb continued, and when we finally broke through to the river
again, we had descended over three hundred feet. Fortunately we were not
required to increase our exertions to reach a favorable position for
enjoyment of the scenic wonder we had circumvented. It was before us.
Above us in a narrow sheet, in a setting of the wildest beauty, the
river poured its flood, tense, glossy, when it first slipped over the
rim, as with that _convulsive_ firmness of the young swimmer at the
first plunge over his head. Then it began unraveling its woven strands,
and became plicated in silken ridges that unwound still more, or flew
apart in diamond dust, so volatile that it rose upward in shimmers and
rainbows, while at our feet, discharged from the overburdened pool,
rushed a torrent of mobile beryl. It was transcendently lovely in the
frame of trees; and how amazing to have repeated here, at the pole of
the earth, the familiar charms of the woodlands and streams, the sylvan
solitudes of the world in temperate and tropical climes where the sun
rose and set each day throughout the year!
What was climate? “Climate,” retorted the Professor, “is an atmospheric
condition fundamentally dependent upon the heat received from the sun,
but if there is light, that heat can come from the interior level of the
earth itself quite as well.”
“Yes,” we exclaimed, “if there is light, but the light that, as with the
sun, insures the processes of growth in plants, should not be here, for
the sun has already run its course for the functions of vegetation at
the North. What is the meaning of this continuous light that bathes this
marvelous new world we have entered? Does it, like the sunlight, build
up leaves, decorate flowers, strengthen twig and trunk?”
“Ah! Does it?” soliloquized the Professor. “_Solvitur ambulando_; look
around us. What do you see?”
We did look around us, we were looking even then, and the scene was
indeed rich in color, in greenness, in luxuriance perhaps of floral
charm. This everlasting illumination, with the strange accommodation of
the plants to an enforced sleep, almost maddened us with wonder. To be
sure we found out later that the greenness changed, and, if we had
studied the matter more closely we would have been made aware of a
paleness in the grass (this condition had been evident for some days,
while a peculiar effect within ourselves seemed referable to this
inexplicable light). I will return to this when it has formed the topic
of a later conference, held during those divine hours passed on the
hills of the Deer Fels.
We now had satisfied our eyes with the picture show, and we hastened on,
for our supplies of duck were almost exhausted, and, although the
Professor had added to this a salutary and delicious spinach-like mess,
made from the boiled shoots and tender leaves of a plant like our poke
or pigeon berry, which grew abundantly in the valleys, yet we had become
impatient for some change of food. The pigs suggested a new and
appetizing novelty in our cuisine. This indication of game in the
country we were approaching whetted our desire to begin a more stirring
life, and to penetrate now rapidly towards the veritable center and
solution of all this mystery.
It was not long before we had threaded the precipitous ravine, which
from the foot of the falls extended into the park-like expanses about
the great lake. A great lake it was, dotted with distant islands and
embosomed in a subdued white land almost impossible to describe. The
borders of the lake were marshy and flat, the water was fresh, and the
vegetation in its neighborhood green. It was a physiographic anomaly to
find this freshness enclosed in a land on whose face were written most
legibly the characters of sterility and dryness. The soil of the low
hills was parched, and a cactus or euphorbia growth replaced the broad
leaved plants which had pertinaciously clung to our steps up to this
point, and had indeed pushed out into the plain, but with an evident
aversion, as they became smaller, sparser, and at some remove
disappeared altogether. The spiky stiffness of something like the
Spanish Bayonet gradually assumed predominance, and the ashen tokens of
sage bush (?) multiplied.
We concluded that in our hand-to-mouth method of subsistence it might be
unsafe to venture forward on this trackless waste, and, still expectant
of finally terminating our exploration with the finding of human beings,
agreed to follow the margin of the lake. This would keep us supplied
with food, would carry us on, apparently a little north of east, and as
its waters were fresh, would doubtless offer some outlet of escape
without compelling us to traverse the inhospitable barrens.
It was here that we shot some quail-like birds, which furnished a new
element to our larder, and some acid and fruity berries proved edible,
after our ludicrously careful experiments had tested their qualities.
Then Hopkins ran against a formidable wild hog and laid him low, and
while he did not prove exactly delectable, there was a noticeable
difference from previous entries on our menus which made that addition
welcome also. The Professor extracted some lard which helped as fuel and
served to quicken into a blaze our sluggish fires.
The palms noted by the Professor were fully realized, and they made the
most curious and extraordinary foregrounds, in conspicuous groups,
against the dull lengthiness and vapid immensity of the chlorinated
desert beyond them. It was at this time that we hit the zoological
phenomenon hinted at before, which completed our nervous prostration, if
mental suspense and amazement represent that state. We were encamped
about three days’ journey from the deep glade from which we emerged on
the plain, and were still following the marginal fertile tracts
bordering the lake. The lake furnished some surprises.
Strips of muddy banks forming islands covered with a profusion of
plants, among which might tower a palm, banks of marl wherein the
Professor picked out cretaceous fossils, occasional warm springs, the
condensed vapors of which floated lazily upward, and which, where they
spouted from the ground, had erected basins of calcareous sinter, or
their waters trickled to the lake between banks red and white like
painted boards.
Our camp—a fire, our knapsacks, our multi-serviceable pot and fryingpan,
and our outstretched figures, with the instruments, always including our
camera outfit, a few implements and guns—was at the foot of a thicket of
high ferns, under a group of palms, and we were at the base of an
inconsiderable hill or rise, whose top these ferns and palms concealed.
Hopkins had just returned from stalking some of the wild pigs, but he
was empty handed; Goritz was very busy devising a stretcher or hurdle
for our various belongings, to be carried between two of us, by turns,
and the Professor was ruminating, with head in his hands, his wing-like
ears protruding. I think I was asleep. Our supper had been made
memorable by _tea_; a hidden package in one of our packs contained this
precious leaf, and it was quite noteworthy how it revived and cheered
us.
Well, I felt a sharp jolt, and a cavernous abyss yawned under my feet,
and with a monstrous effort I snatched a providential branch and saved
myself from falling. _My eyes opened_; I had seized Hopkins’ leg, and it
was he whose energetic shaking had broken my slumbers with this
nightmare.
“Get a move on, Alfred. The scrap of the centuries is going on up
there.” He pointed to the grove and hilltop. “If we had a motion-picture
camera, we’d have everything in that line knocked into junk. Get up. The
White Hope is having it out with the sable champion.”
Utterly bewildered by these incomprehensible words I struggled to my
feet, and we both scrambled _pele-mele_ to the top, and there joined
Goritz and the Professor, who hardly noticed our approach, so absorbed
were they in watching the strangest spectacle that ever human eyes
beheld.
Out on the level on a thin carpet of herbs and grass was reared the
violent and horrible shape of a writhing, bending, gracefully
oscillating, whitish-green monster, and before him the infuriated figure
of a black pig. The pig’s bristling mane was erected, his small tail,
like a bit of black rope, beat upon his muscular buttocks, his eyes
gleamed viciously, his muzzle with its expanded nostrils was upturned,
and his challenge sounded like a cornet, and again like a rolling drum.
But the creature before it mastered all attention. The elongated head of
a saurian armed along its jaws with sword-like teeth, a long curved
neck, a thorax but slightly enlarged over the width of the rest of the
body, provided with a short pair of front legs, terminated by claws
perceptibly webbed, and opening and shutting with a nervous rapidity,
noticeable dull-colored scales striping its sides, a pair of much longer
hind legs on whose skin-enwrapped, stilt-like support it had raised
itself, and then a prodigious tail, heavy and fat at its protrusion, but
lengthening out into a thin python-like body whose involuntary movements
swayed it to and fro in serpentine motions through the flattened weeds.
[Illustration:
THE CROCODILO-PYTHON AND THE WILD PIG
]
The color of the beast was most loathsome; a sickly yellow white it
seemed at first; a closer study showed it to be a nauseating green, like
a frog scum, and yet through it all, as if summoned to the surface at
the will of the creature, coursed reddish blotches, whose inflamed
contrasts gave the whole skin the aspect of inflammation, of purulent
disease. This coloring prevailed over the neck, the faintly swelling
belly, the sides, and over the hind rump and thighs and anal region. The
monster awakened an awestruck repulsion. But at the moment its source,
home, meaning, were swallowed up in the thrilling, tremendous combat
between these strange litigants, a wild boar of today, a saurian—a
_tyrannosaurus_ or something like it—of the Cretaceous!
The huge lizard was skillful, wavering, crafty and sinuous. It swung
from side to side, and when it attempted to descend on its antagonist
its mouth opened, almost absurdly, as if waiting for the appetizing bite
its hunger or its ferocity anticipated. A wicked mouth, shining with
yellow teeth and slobbering with saliva! Any disposition to laugh at its
floundering indecision was soon, or at once, overcome by hatred of its
hideousness.
It was interesting to watch the hog. He was irresolute and then
aggressive; he lunged outward and then tumbled backward. As the giant
lizard reeled upward and then _poured_ forward, the bristling pig would
run in, and then “sidestep,” as Hopkins said. The ultimate object of
both combatants became increasingly clear; the saurian aimed at crashing
down on the pig, and the pig relying on its sharp incisors intended to
rip open the defenceless abdomen of its foe. Again and again with
shifting success they attempted their invariable _coups_, and again and
again recoiled, frustrated in their design.
The fight passed through one episode of some novelty. The saurian in
flinging itself forward lost its balance, and, as it were, stumbled to
the ground. We saw its eyes then, queer turgid, opal masses, lit
internally with fire. In a trice the pig leaped upon its back, stamping
and tearing, but, in another trice, the effort seemed incalculable, the
huge tail of the snake lizard swept around and bowled the discomfited
porker sideways with a swishing blow that knocked it down. Then for a
moment it seemed as if the coiling ribbon would enclose the pig, when,
held in its crushing vise, the lizard might dissect its victim at
leisure. But the pig squirmed out of the trap, and, nothing daunted,
resumed its defence with less obvious pugnacity. Except for its
monstrous spectacular features the conflict grew monotonous. And here
came the end.
Nature was exhausted; an unguarded moment of inattention and, like the
black pounce of the eagle, the ponderous head of the lizard fell on the
pig, the scimitar teeth cut into hide and bone. A snarling roar, an
infuriated lacerating drive by the boar, and, though he sank sideways in
a death agony, his tusks had torn open the belly of his conqueror. The
viscera emptied from their enclosure, an abominable odor assailed us,
and the great bulk of the amphibian lapsed to the ground, its inverted
head, caught in the chancery of its body, broke its neck, and with a
husky frightening exhalation, like a magnified hiss, it fell in
convulsions. The pig was already dead.
Just then none of us were inclined to pursue any investigations. We were
all absolutely silent, and all went back to our little camp in a state
of mental consternation. The Professor had no theories to propose, nor
had Hopkins any comments. As for Goritz, he mechanically brought out the
gold belt, and as I bent over him and noticed its _relievos_, I felt
convinced that its designer and artificer had seen the saurian.
But something more awful occurred about three hours afterwards, when, as
we observed, the smell from the battlefield became more and more
intolerable. The waters of the lake were furrowed with approaching
objects, exposed heads rose upon the shore, shuffling and waddling and
scrambling creatures proceeded up the bank, and the entangled bodies of
the great lizard and the pig were soon being torn to pieces, in the
clapping jaws of the former’s brethren, as they rustled and scraped
against each other in their envious greed in what, by our reckoning, was
their nocturnal banquet.
Soon, however, I fell asleep again; a feverish sleep it was and I
welcomed my awakening. It must have been hours later, the lake was calm
and beautiful to see in the mysterious light, and it was the cheerful,
heart-inspiring voice of Hopkins that half restored my normal gaiety. He
was helping the Professor at what in its serial position was our
breakfast, and he prattled to his benignant comrade:
“‘We were amphibians, scaled and tailed,
And drab as a dead man’s hand;
We coiled at ease ’neath the dripping trees
Or trailed through the mud and sand.
Croaking and blind, with our three clawed feet
Writing a language dumb,
With never a spark in the empty dark,
To hint at a life to come.’”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER VII
THE DEER FELS
I must hasten my story; so much remains to be told, more wondrous,
strange and unnatural, though that last word is not to be interpreted in
any of its senses as abhorrent. Far from it.
We hurried away from the scene of the peculiar combat and the
fratricidal feast. I do not think we feared these hideous saurians. We
looked for them, and the Professor exulted in their evident marks of an
evolutionary history (philogeny, he called it) quite isolated or diverse
from those established by Barnum Brown, Williston, Lowe and others for
the _sauropsida_ of the—Mr. Link I was actually going to say EARTH, in a
foreign sense, for somehow in this Krocker Land we felt detached from
all we had ever known or ever been. Had we been transferred to Mars or
the Moon or any other inconceivably contrasted sphere, we could not have
felt more inimitably separated from what we had called the Earth.
No more of the Crocodilo-Pythons, so Goritz called them, were seen. We
believed that their habitats were in the half submerged broad flatlands
that rose in archipelagos out in vast expanses of this inland sea.
Perhaps we traversed a distance of one hundred miles before the mingled
expression of sage desert and semi-tropical lake began to change. The
opposite boundary of the lake (Goritz as our geographer has named it the
_Saurian Sea_) became visible. We were approaching a constriction or
closing of its banks, and in a few days we perceived that it emptied
into a wild, deeply sunken ravine or canon, an enormous, terrifying
gorge of sandstones and limestones, where we could just dimly discern
the foaming cataracts, the eye-like preparatory pools, and then the
sweltering froth of raging rapids.
The water of the Saurian Sea enters this canon (the Canon of Promise
Goritz called it, for a reason yet a long way ahead in my narrative)
over an incline, and a series of waterfalls, which were invisible to us.
It was hopeless to follow the canon, nor could we continue northward for
we were powerless to cross the river. There remained the alternative of
turning to the left, penetrating the sage plain and attaining the slopes
of a hill country eastward, at whose feet doubtless the desert
terminated. It promised to be an easy day’s journey and it was. The
quail had supplied us with food. They now replaced the ducks. Indeed the
Saurian Sea became almost devoid of aquatic bird life as we advanced, an
eloquent testimony we thought to the fear of the omnivorous brutes who
lived there.
We crossed the desert and were delighted to observe its gradual
surrender to the encroaching features of a pleasanter land, a hill
country sloping away into painted domes; not a land of heavy rainfall
nor deeply forested. Its undulating skyline presented rounded and
densely shrubby ground which to our eyes seemed luminous with a pink
haze. The flanks of these hills were clothed in a coarse grass unevenly
distributed, and even absent from bare spaces of the limestone rock,
where a gray half succulent moss flourished. We noted too with some
astonishment that these aspects of the hills facing us seemed in shadow,
contrasting effectively with the singular pinkish aureole along their
high outlines.
Goritz discovered with our glass the presence of moving or browsing
groups of animals and a moment later exclaimed:
“They’re deer, small deer. No worry now about the commissariat.”
“You see,” murmured the Professor, “the sedimentary rocks here prove
that at some time this boreal basin has been invaded by the sea, a
former deeper cavity has been filled up by these strata of limestone,
slate, sandstone and marl. The molluscan remains, such as I have picked
up, whether in the Saurian Sea area, in the Canon of Promise, or on
these moors, are generically similar to those of the cretaceous,
tertiary, and paleozoic rocks of Europe or America. About that there can
be no doubt,” and he approvingly exhibited the small collection he
retained from his examination. “The outermost rocks of the Krocker Land
Rim are the earliest crystallines and eruptives. Their solidification
belongs to the very first primary conditions, and I think there can be
no doubt that we can say that this stupendous cavity, continental in
extent, either represents that physical polar pitting I alluded to when
we discussed this expedition in Norway, made when the Earth was assuming
its spheroidal shape and was a mass of swiftly revolving mobile magma,
or—” the Professor’s succeeding statement impressed him so solemnly,
that his administrative and reportorial manner became almost gloomy in
its earnestness. We watched him with dilated eyes—“or—that it represents
the wound, cicatrix, and HOLE from which was ejected the earth’s
satellite—the MOON.”
Comment was in order, but we had become rather plastic under the
Professor’s instructions, or, shall I say, gelatinized, and incapable of
a natural remonstrance against his dictations. But Goritz demurred.
Hopkins and I listened with admiration.
“Professor, the moon came out of the side of the earth, centrifugally
separated at the equator by fastest motion, surely not out of the pole.
Darwin has suggested, you know, that the Pacific Ocean—”
“True, Antoine. True, true. I know all of George Darwin’s speculations.
True, but suppose the axis of the earth’s rotation has changed; suppose
this very area here at 85° north latitude had formerly been equatorial
in position. That is a view of commendable authority. It has been urged
to explain the Ice Age, though I admit, Goritz, it has not, today, the
most respectable authorization.
“_Mais, passons._” This theoretical retreat and deflection of the
Professor before Goritz’s criticism sensibly flattered my friend. “You
see gentlemen, that these startling surfaces before us seem, as you have
noticed, to be in shadow. I think that throws some light on the
character of the singular continuous illumination of this region. Up to
this point we have generally been descending, since we left the vapor
shroud of the Perpetual Nimbus; we have been climbing down the walls of
a bowl whose central sun is of sufficient intensity to illuminate it
throughout its extent, but, having an inconsiderable volume or size as
compared with the size of the bowl itself, and also—mark me—a fixed
position, can only throw shadows when intervening objects occur, as a
lamp in the middle of a room illuminates the whole room, but throws
shadows toward the walls of the room, where there are obstructions. But
the higher the position of the lamp in the room, with reference to the
floor, the shorter the shadows. Here is an exact parallel, and I take it
that as the shadow of these hills, which may be three thousand feet
high, hardly extends into the plain, the fixed, subsidiary SUN we are
approaching may be towards the limits of our atmosphere, or say
twenty-five miles over the mean level of the earth.”
We grasped this quickly enough, and the image remained, as you will see
in the sequel, substantially correct, though greatly corrected as to
altitude.
The deer were easily trapped; they hardly noticed our approach, and,
though startled by the discharge of our guns, would only scamper off for
a short distance, herd in compact bunches, and watch us. They were small
animals, perhaps half the size of the Virginia deer, but their flesh was
delicious, and our first meal, graced with the coldest spring water and
by a small toothsome red berry like a strawberry, imparted to us the
liveliest spirits. We felt eager and excited, an almost irritable
curiosity had developed within us; forgetful of all we had left,
oblivious, through an inscrutable exaltation of wonder, of the things,
objects and endearments of home, we hungered for adventure. It was not
many hours later that a new sensation eclipsed everything we had so far
experienced, and threw us into an excitement that stirred the depths of
our beings.
[Illustration:
THE DEER FELS
]
Less than a day was consumed in making the ascent of the hills, which
resembled steeply inclined moors, and on their summits we entered on a
sunny (?) expanse, captivating in its loveliness of color, and
ingratiatingly varied in topography. The tantalizing pinkish haze was
explained. It was an endless billowy ocean of pale heather, with clumps
of yellowness like gorse. As we looked over the entrancing picture in a
golden light, in a freshening and tonic atmosphere, with a reverberant
sense of being travelers in fairy land, a poem taught me long ago by an
English friend came almost unbidden to my lips:
“‘What, you are stepping westward? Yea
’Twould be a wildish destiny
If we who thus together roam,
In a strange land and far from home,
Were in this place the guests of chance:
Yet who would stop, or fear to advance,
Though home or shelter he had none
With such a sky to lead him on?’”
_And westward we too went on._
Marshes, wet concealed bottoms, lakes and boggy tracts diversified these
uplands; and down gulches in the bold profiled bays streams poured in
cascades, all rushing westward. Coming over a lower neck between the
domes we came in view of a dark blue lake of water far down in a narrow
amphitheater; just above it on a higher shelf was a second smaller lake.
What appeared to be white gulls were sailing in circles over them. The
picture was a lovely one. We clambered up its eastern wall, and, in the
midst of low balsams that here interrupted the heather, and so thickly
crowded together that you could walk on top of them, we looked straight
into the pocket. We lay down on the short balsam trees, in a soft
perfumed bed of green needles, and gazed and gazed. A strong wind blew.
Far, far eastward rose that portentous bulwark of clouds and misty
confusion which the Professor had called the “_Perpetual Nimbus_,” and
which was the cosmic screen of this wonderland. Hopkins was on his back,
and it was he whose cry shot a new thrill of—How shall I name
it?—laughing consternation through us.
“My God,” he cried in a sort of stifled shout, “there’s a gang of the
fellows we’re looking for, straight above us, in a cluster, like so many
soap bubbles.”
Again his summons brought us to a concentrated attention, and sure
enough, dimly separable from the air in which it floated, was a minute
cloud of small balloons, and dependent from each group of three the
outline of a small human figure—and all gently drifting in an upper
current of air, certainly less strong than the brisk gale about us.
“Get under the trees,” whispered Goritz, “they’re coming down.”
We were quickly concealed, burrowing our way with the alertness of moles
below the thatched branches, and each eagerly hunting for a spying place
whence we might watch this strange argosy. Yes! They were rapidly
approaching; the dangling legs, the fluttering blue and yellow tunics,
_confined by golden belts_ (!!!) were visible, curious unproportionate
heads, hanging forward as if from heaviness, legs in loose trousers, and
sandaled feet. Then the wind blowing about us touched them and, like a
gyrating swarm of mosquitoes dispersed by a breeze, they were flung
away, dancing, bobbing, hither and thither, and from them issued squealy
shouts and squeaky laughter. They came together again, directed by means
undiscoverable to us, though the Professor detected some waving objects
in their hands, and then the crowd, perhaps twenty, as if suddenly
apprized of their desired position, dropped like so many unsupported
bodies straight into the deep pocket of the little lake we had just been
admiring.
The wind did not drift them, the balloons seemed collapsible, but, to
our amazement, they expanded again, checking the fall. In fact, unless
our eyes deceived us, and we all agreed as to the main point, the
balloons inflated and shrank, somehow at the will of these extraordinary
beings, producing an effect not dissimilar to the opening and shutting
of a bird’s wing, the alternations of which carry it up and down.
As they slid past us, perhaps not more than a good stone’s throw from
our place of concealment we were permitted to catch a glimpse of them,
and it was hard to restrain the impulse of leaping to our feet to obtain
a longer inspection. Another moment and they disappeared below the brow
of the hill. We emerged cautiously. Goritz spoke first, though he, like
the rest of us, seemed a little stunned by the weirdness, the wizardry
of it all.
“If they’ve gone down, they must come up. But what are they?”
“Well,” answered Hopkins, “search me! This is nearer to fairy land than
I ever thought a human could get, and—I don’t believe I like it. Rather
goblin-like I thought, though not Gilbert’s notion either;
‘The goblin-imp, a lithe young ape,
A fine low-comedy bogy?’”
“Certainly the genus _homo_,” said the Professor reflectively, and
looking more startled than pleased. “They offer a field of unusual
research. They might be,” he lifted his eyes upward, almost as if
imploring light on the subject, “they might be preadamites. They were
not simian, not in the least. Gentlemen,” sudden thought lit up his face
with the customary smile, while his lips retreated, displaying his
imperfect teeth, his eyes grew larger or they issued farther from their
orbits, and his red hair, now inordinately long, draped his face in a
rufous tapestry that made him look still more strangely excited.
“Gentlemen, I have it (“Thank God,” _sotto voce_ from Hopkins), I have
it. We have here an isolated group of mentalities that have been
subjected to a restrictive and intensive process of development. Of
course they had initially the prerogatives of reason. They have attained
a peculiar culture, it may be a very one-sided one, but at least their
methods of aeronautics leave little to be desired, and they understand
and practice metal working, textile arts; they have a language. Personal
beauty they do not boast (“That’s putting it mild; they looked like
blueprints,” again _sotto voce_ from Hopkins) and their physiques seem
dwarfed and impoverished. How did they strike you, Erickson? What did
you see? Your linguistic knowledge may help us, and—I think you had our
glass.”
Parenthetically I may tell you, Mr. Link, that I have been a poor sort
of a journalist, and a teacher of languages, and a traveler, a mixture
of vocations not conducive, you will say, to signal distinction in any
line.
“This is what I saw,” I began, with an assertiveness that brought me
wrapt attention. It was true that I had seen a good deal; my monopoly of
our field glass had been complete. I spoke with rather crisp acerbity
because I had already taken a strong prejudice against these jaundiced
objects, and neither as associates nor as subjects of study was I
willing to seek their acquaintance.
“They are diaphanous yellow anthropological _insects_, with big beetle
heads dropping forward, scrappy hair or none at all, are anemic, short
bodied, long legged, short armed, and absurdly pervaded by a
saffron-blueness—I can describe it in no other words. You saw their
dress; the tunic clothing them like a nightshirt or a butcher’s blouse,
is cinctured by a _gold belt_! They are scarcely more than three feet
high.”
“Alfred,” asked Goritz, “are you sure about the gold belt? I thought I
saw yellow links around their bodies too.”
“Oh, yes,” I replied indifferently, “the gold belts were plain enough,
but Antoine, I tell you you had better leave these microbes alone.”
The intensity of my repugnance amused them. I think it was shared by
Hopkins. He said, “They’ve rather got my goat, but the risk of seeing
the thing out is worth taking. They certainly have the goods and, as for
scrapping— Well, say, we could blow ’em away.”
“Could you,” I indignantly flared up. “Not so fast, Spruce. Did you see
those tubes in their white fingers?”
“Yes, I saw them?” Hopkins rejoined interrogatively. “Looked like lead
pipe.”
“Well, I’m sure there’s devilment enough in them. They raised them this
way and that, and guided their flight by them.”
“What’s the harm?” Hopkins continued. “Perhaps they’ve a thing or two
worth patenting in ballooning; very likely. They’re funny enough,
but—Pshaw!—we can run ’em in any time with these guns.”
“How many balloons were attached to each person?” asked the Professor.
“Three,” we all said together.
“I thought so,” he continued, “one from each armpit, and one from the
belt. They spoke distinguishable words. Could you make anything out of
them Erickson?”
“Why,” I muttered laconically, quite as a matter of course, “It sounded
like corrupted or archaic Hebrew.”
“By the Great Horn Spoon,” shouted Hopkins, “_pawnbrokers_. Levitation
would be worth while to some I’ve known.”
After this explosion we were silent for a few moments. Our thoughts were
running wild over the inscrutable occurrence which portended strange
developments ahead of us. Hopkins was elated at the prospect of
adventure, Goritz, I really believe, was consumed with a passionate
curiosity to see more of the _gold_, the Professor was burning up with
scientific wonder and excitement, and I alone was overcome by a
repulsion which I could not explain, and which, on the face of it, was
unreasonable.
Communing thus with our thoughts and quite indescribably stirred,
Hopkins cried out, “Beat it. Here they are again,” and there, rising
gently from the depth below our elevation came the little flotilla of
bobbing manikins, announced even before they were seen, by a shrill
chatter, and squealy laughter, which consorted naturally with their
queer, aged, wrinkled faces, the fluttering tunics entangling their
pipe-stem legs, and the odd diaphaneity of their bodies.
I am not a naturalist, Mr. Link, and there are some things in nature I
cannot reconcile myself to: snakes, caterpillars and BUGS.
We were under our coverts in a jiffy; the celerity of our movement was
something like the noiseless tail-up concealment in the ground of
prairie dogs. And our eyes became as active as our legs; not an optic
nerve but was strained to the full extent of its reportorial powers. One
feature of their machinery, I had not noticed before. Flexible tubes
tied the balloons to their bodies, and these again were connected under
the sleeves of their tunics with the lengths of pipe they carried in
their hands. The swelling and deflation of these balloons seemed most
delicately under their control, and at times they would, like a swarm of
flies, rise and fall, in a perfect mimicry of a fly’s uneven and dancing
undulations. It was most curious and utterly inexplicable, and then too
when they moved to and fro or advanced, the tubes were held behind them,
and some propulsion ensued which carried them on their flight, though it
was quite evident that any volition on their part was quite overcome by
the prevalent currents of air. The latter they avoided by rising above
or sinking below it, and at the moment, as we gazed, they surrendered
themselves to the wind blowing about us at our elevation, and were
tossed along it, in shrill enjoyment, and vanished westward. They were
absorbed in misty veils that were drawn between us.
Once more we came out of our hiding with a ludicrous astonishment
painted on our faces. Hopkins looked the least bit scared. Almost
instantly he expressed his feelings.
“They certainly have me guessing. Old guys, all of ’em. Perhaps they’re
terribly old, and perhaps that’s the way up here—everything very old
shrinks, wrinkles and wears glasses.”
“Glasses,” called out Goritz. “Yes! I saw that, and do you know for more
than a week my eyes have ached. It’s something to do with this strange
light.”
Then came the confession from all of us, that we had each been bothered
with our eyes. Shooting pains, blurry outlines, whizzing sensations in
our heads, and a sense of dryness of the eyelids, as though they had
been overheated by a mild exzema of the skin. It was surprising, the
moment we attended to the matter, how urgent our complaints became, and
how communicative we were about it.
“I feel sure,” said Goritz, “that we are bewitched by this light. These
odd creatures have become crinkled and gnarled by it. They’re a race of
dwarfs, prematurely aged and megalocephalic.”
This last daring incursion into the Professor’s domain of reserved
scientific language rather startled us. “’Peaching on the Professor’s
preserves,” whispered Hopkins. But the Professor did not resent it. It
was some minutes later, after an expectant silence, that he very
demurely suggested that we all put on our snow goggles. And we did. It
seemed to help.
Of course, considerably flustered over the unexpected appearance in this
utterly unexpected manner of the aboriginals of this enigmatical region,
we undertook to examine the narrow and deep little valley into which our
visitors had descended. It was a rough scramble, as the sides of the pit
proved not only very steep but unreasonably rocky, sharp and
precipitous. When we finally reached the bottom, and the Professor
exultantly told us the rock was a dolomite, that it contained coral
remains and brachiopodous shells that were Devonian, we found ourselves
in a peculiar place.
It was a kind of gigantic well, on the floor of which and to one side
were situated the two little lakes we had seen from above. Considerable
water flowed into them from crevices in the walls, and the place was
overshadowed at one point by a projecting ledge that formed a portico to
a cavernous recess. Leaden colored fish rose and sank in the water of
the lakes, and we thought the gulls, who must have penetrated to this
remote asylum from Beaufort Sea, had been attracted by them. It proved
to be a dreary, bare hole and instilled in us a feeling half despairing
and melancholy.
“This isn’t the gayest place in the world,” said Hopkins. “Our insect
friends certainly didn’t come here for recreation. Looks like a
smuggler’s retreat, or a den of crime. Perhaps we may find here some
enchanted troubadour, a chained damsel, a lurking dragon, or the
fountain of eternal youth, which those cadaverous anchorites we saw
upstairs visit occasionally to keep the life in their shivering shells.
Or—”
“What’s this?” exclaimed Goritz, his muffled voice proceeding from the
recess into which he had penetrated, entering its prolongation, which
became a sort of cave.
We rushed forward, all keyed now to an excited limit of curiosity, so
that, as Hopkins expressed it afterwards, “an invitation from the angel
Gabriel to step into Paradise, wouldn’t have phased us much, in fact
would have been an ordinary incident in our investigations.”
“What is it, Antoine?” I cried as I reached him and found him gazing in
bewilderment at a shining nodule of something ahead of him, in the
deeper gloom within. I asked no more questions, but stood still with
him, wondering. The others came up and we all gazed awhile, transfixed
by a common astonishment.
The glowing mass, perhaps about the size of a baby’s closed hand, shed a
mellow radiance about the cave; its light draped our own figures, and it
was reflected from innumerable bright points which spangled here and
there on the floor and walls like minute lamps.
“Diamonds,” murmured Goritz, awestruck.
The place was heated, and the light made us shade our eyes. The
Professor had moved alertly forward in an impulse of almost desperate
joy. He stood in wrapt contemplation of the luminiferous chunk, then he
struck one of the scintillating projections, a piece detached itself,
and showered some splinters through the air to the ground. The splinters
shimmered like microscopic mirrors.
“_Sphalerite_,” he cried. “Zinc sulphide! This is literally a chamber of
Sphalerite, a huge pocket enclosed in the limestone. It has been worked
somewhat; its extension in the rock is probably very deep; and,
gentlemen,” this apostrophe accompanied by upraised hands, palms
supplicatingly held towards us, always denoted some especially
disturbing or exhilarating announcement, “this light proceeds from some
natural _phosphori_. It may be,” he paused to allow our minds to adjust
themselves to a new attitude of marveling, “it may be RADIUM. We are in
a world of transmutations, the home of the Stone of the Philosopher. In
the world we have left—” the language was positive, convincing, for now
the feeling of translation from all the familiarities of the world of
Europe and America grew persistently, even though plants and animals
expressed a similar life—“in that world, the combined product of all its
mines, of all its laboratories, scarcely exceeds Two Grammes. Here is
perhaps four ounces, or the Quarter of a Pound, and—”
It was then that a black clot, shaping itself in irregular fingers with
blue and yellow fringes revolving raggedly around it closed my eyes. But
before vision departed, I saw the Professor clutch his breast, stagger
forward, and I heard him cry, “Out, out!” and then I felt my knees stung
by the pointed stones and, blindly groping, I crawled away.
It was later, I do not know how long, that I recovered my sight and
around me, languid and prostrate; though reviving as I was, were my
comrades.
“Transmutation?” said Hopkins, feebly smiling. “It was pretty nearly a
transference _over the river_, and no return trip-slip either.”
“Heaven! How my head aches,” groaned Goritz.
“Gentlemen,” the Professor gurgled, flat on his back and sicker than any
of us, but with his scientific apparatus under control and working
smoothly, “we are on the eve of great discoveries. The papers which I
can prepare for the Royal Academy of Sciences will throw a flood of
light on a subject hitherto only darkly approached. I am confident that
we were in the presence of a monstrous—monstrous comparatively, you
observe—mass of radium. Further, I feel sure that the Stationary Sun
that maintains a perpetual day in this remarkable land has something to
do with radium emanations from the Interior of the Earth!”
The poor gentleman stopped abruptly, some peculiar evidences of his own
interior activity just then making him roll over and refrain from
speech, because he was _otherwise engaged_.
“Do you suppose,” asked Hopkins, “that those aeronautical hairpins left
that gold brick inside there?”
“Certainly,” answered the dilapidated Goritz. “And they were up to
something curious perhaps. Why, somehow I can only think of Aladdin and
the lamp in the Arabian Nights. You remember it?”
“Of course, Antoine, but you see there are devilments here that are not
so very beguiling or so very profitable. At any rate let us get out of
here. The wind has risen; a storm is coming on. The darkness above looks
interesting; in this hole it will be just stupidly pitch black. I feel
half suffocated in this pit. There isn’t a very promising chance for our
survival if we go on into this radium land, with a sun made of radium,
when a handful turns us into puppets and pretty nearly into corpses. I
say leave it, leave it all. It’s madness to go farther.”
“You are mistaken—mistaken,” interrupted the Professor, who had
regained his composure. “The proximity—the reflections—our own
unadaptability—fatigue—the closeness of the confined space and
the—the—unmitigated monotony of our food made us ill. No—no—We must
see it all. It will be the miracle of the century.”
He gasped out his remonstrance and explanations in dissected sentences
that measurably restored my good humor, so funny were they. A little
later and we had set about getting back to the balsams on the cliff top,
and to the small shelter we had so far managed to construct, and whose
protection in a storm seemed very attractive. The storm itself in these
strange quarters promised new scenic effects, and its meteorological
features might exceed all possible anticipation. Three of us had become
ecstatically anxious to see everything, one of us (myself) shrank from
his own baleful premonition of the future.
But we had reached the height, and the freshness of the air restored our
equanimity, and made our strength whole again, and before us, with slow
divulgements of unusual grandeur, spread the black skirts of a storm.
But it was not over us, though patches of cloud were streaming from the
west in hurrying phalanxes, dun, disordered, driven, as if under orders.
And far off, beneath, it almost seemed, that strange stationary sun now
half eclipsed, the hurlyburly of an inordinate atmospheric disturbance
was visibly in operation.
The impression almost instantly made was that of a cyclonic movement—a
suction of the air into the maelstrom center of a revolution that was
gathering from the four quarters reinforcements of cloud and wind. A
dull yellow light shone through occasional gaps in the aerial concourse
of vapors, fish-gray chasms opened out at moments as if torn apart by
uprushing or irrepressible volumes of wind, and, lit up by sharper
flashes, they would suddenly evert, pouring out in boiling currents
torrential black clouds. Then a cap of darkness seemed to descend, and
yet in the remnants of light that stuck here and there to the flanks of
this mountainous obscuration, we could see the multitudinous scurryings,
windings and collisions of the smoking flails and banks and missiles of
cloud.
Below this indivisible commotion, between it and what seemed the earth,
stole or lay a stratum of light, and into this, slowly evolving like a
gigantic corkscrew from the storm above, grew downwards, streaked with
black, pillars of condensation, that were nothing else than
water-spouts, terrible tornadoes in traveling helices, erect, inclined,
and stalking towards and away from each other like watery titans.
We thought we even saw their conjunction and dispersal, but what was
visibly secure in the picture was the ascent heavenward of an
intolerably wild dust avalanche. The whiteness, for such it seemed,
smote and penetrated the clouds; it swerved and was beaten into straight
ribbons of livid light, or, mingling universally, adulterated the inky
burden with a spurious ghastly filminess. Flashes of lightning (a rare
phenomenon in the north) that must have been terrific in intensity and
portentous in size bit through the darkness, and rumblings reached us
from the remote conflict. Then agglomeration and colossal curdlings and
it all was swallowed up in night!
We talked long that night upon the excitements of the last ten hours,
and it was plain to each one of us that we were again approaching
descents to parts still farther below the levels already passed; that
the storm was over a distant depression; that in the last day or two the
actinic power of that strange radiance that lurked somewhere in the
skies over this depression was becoming stronger and more intolerable;
that we might expect to find the incredible influences of Radium in all
this; that perhaps in some way that Sun we saw, we felt, which was the
photal center, provocation and cause of the plant life around us, and
through which we had passed, was now limiting or suppressing it; the
unmistakable dust or sand tornado showed a desert region before us.
Then, too, we discussed the poverty of the faunal life, now growing
thinner, smaller, more depressed as we advanced, the sallowness of the
grass, the blueness of leafage, the anemic pinkiness of the heather, our
own tortured feelings of alternate hope and apathy, of well being and of
sickishness.
The bleaching, killing effect of this radium light (so we called It) was
partially overcome by the rainfall which operated favorably for the
plants. In hunting the small deer, and even they became more infrequent,
we noticed that they occupied the shadowed sides of the hills and, in
this stationary light, these shadowed sides remained almost unchanged. I
say _almost_, because it became more and more apparent that the
stationary Sun stirred. It rose or fell or approached or receded. There
was some fluctuation too in its light. It was not a lamp hung in the sky
but an _aura_ that floated inconstantly over or around some central
pivotal, causal spot, that varied also in its emanations.
Should we go on? I was silent. Overwhelming as might seem the
inducements to break through the veil of the mystery before us I
hesitated—No, I recoiled. But this was flagrant treachery to the spirit
and ambition of exploration. So I was silent. Goritz dreaming of his
Ophir and Golconda, was impatient to hurry on. Hopkins felt that there
was nothing else to do; his doggerel helped him out:
“‘What matters it how far we go?’ his scaly friend replied,
There is another shore, you know, upon the other side.”
But the Professor was resolute. Here were all his predictions
fulfilled—the vortical polar pit, the warmth, the aborigines, Eden
reminiscences (he referred to the Crocodilo-Python) and now, what, so he
modestly admitted, he had never dreamed of, the—
METROPOLIS OF RADIUM.
Go on? Of course.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER VIII
THE PINE TREE GREDIN
After we had jerked some of the deer meat, fearing that the diminishing
chances for game would leave us unsupplied, and as yet quite mystified
as to where or when we would engage the pygmy people, we took up our
loads and went on. The storm whose gyrating fury had absorbed our
attention had raged itself away, though it was some thirty-six hours
before it cleared, and, slowly liberated from the thickly wrapt curtains
of gloom, the now more and more obvious sun shone again. The upland we
were crossing caused us many perplexities. The numerous broad troughs
and depressions, the tracts of tangled dead bushes and the hedges,
resembling “pressure ridges” of ice, which had been somehow shaped by
prevalent winds into long fences of scraggly, prostrate trees, were
increasingly interspersed with sandy expanses, which we interpreted as
the melancholy presages of a desert area beyond.
The average elevation was level, with a tendency to fall as we advanced.
We expected daily to reach some abrupt drop which would announce our
descent into the “last hole of the Golf Links,” to quote Hopkins. The
scheme of Krocker Land grew daily more and more convincingly simple.
Whatever limital lines embraced it, it was a sort of amphitheater, with
the serial displacements up or down which we had already traversed
succeeding each other concentrically; it was temperate in climate; it
might become torrid because of its inclusion in the deeper parts of the
earth’s crust, or because, even more probably, it was situated over some
residual uncooled igneous magma. It was encircled, we assumed, by the
profound crevice we had bridged below the Rim, and its extraordinary sun
which gave light and heat was practically concealed from external
detection by the gigantic vaporous wall of the “Perpetual Nimbus,”
endlessly created by steaming and evaporation from the crevice itself,
reinforced, too, by the turbulence of the general atmosphere, which for
days and days had presented a turmoil, or else a dead waste, of
cloud-filled skies.
We thought of that outer world now slowly—nay, rapidly—succumbing to the
tightening grip of frost and snow and ice, now again dark or visible
only in that strange sepulchral glow of aurora and stars; of that vast
Arctic desolation, the shrouded corpse of a world, and of the gathering
legions of snowflakes endlessly dropping or whirling from the blue-black
empyrean; of the ice pack formed like a vise around the empty,
tenantless shores, and groaning under the lash of the winds or the
tyrannous push of the tides; of the distant eastern Arctic lands, pale
with ghost lights over glacier and mountain, inland ice, trackless
coasts, black rock-bound capes and the blue domed igloo of the Eskimo; a
land hallowed to thought by heroism; on whose barren plains the
monuments to the dead rise in the wastes feebly to tell of devotion,
courage past knowledge to measure, faithfulness; where the polar bear
and the walrus alone maintain nature’s plea against utter death.
How those thoughts contrasted with all this around us, an undulating
oasis in the polar desert, where now indeed the antipodes drew near in
some strange new development of sand and aridity. Somehow this latter
notion clung persistently. It was partly due, no doubt, to a natural
ascription of deadly power in the inexplicable Sun, whose strength each
mile was revealed in a more deadly manner; in part also to the
decrescence of life, now noticeable in many ways. There was a paling and
bleaching of the herbage, and for miles and miles the movements of
insects were almost absent, while the deer vanished, and only moles or
shrews were occasionally detected in the crookedly ridged ground.
It was after five days’ continuous struggle over the back of this lumpy
and semi-mountainous region, whose charm for us had long before
disappeared, and when the sharpest scrutiny no longer disclosed the
little deer whose succulent steaks and chops had kept us happy and well,
eked out with water, and the still persistent berry I have mentioned,
that we reached the edge of a new descent. Shielding ourselves in a low
coppice of bushes from the peculiar light, which was sensibly increasing
in strength and which seemed less softened by the interposition of veils
of mist and cloud, we could just see, like a black ribbon painted along
the horizon, a zone of tree tops.
“TREES,” we shouted joyously.
“Yes, they are trees,” after a while came the affirmative assurance. The
Professor was studying them with our field glass.
“They are trees, of some narrow leaved or coniferous genus. They are so
densely, darkly gathered together. A wood now would indeed be welcome,
but we are fated for a rather trying march over another desert. I can
see a sand plain stretching away ahead of us, terminating perhaps in
this new region beyond. I have a strong presentiment that this wood
forms the last screen to the grand revelation we are certain to be
vouchsafed. It surrounds the home of the RADIUMITES.”
“That’s a cheerful view of it, Professor, and not a bad name. And if we
are getting as warm as all that don’t you think we might conjure up some
plan of operation before we meet these—these—_electrons_? How’s that,
Erickson? You see I have a talking acquaintance with Science after all,
even if I haven’t got so far as to call her by her first name. Electrons
and Radiumites are rather related terms. Eh?”
“Well,” I said, “Hopkins’ suggestion is surely a wise one. These
remarkable creatures have obtained some curious insight into chemical
laws. They are our masters if we meet them. Before we can do a thing
they will transfix us with chemical ions, or something like them, and
decompose us into our original elements. I’ve been thinking about those
little lead pipes they carried. I saw them press them and wave them, and
whenever they did either, something happened; they went up and down, or
any way else, as they wished. The balloons were not so very small; they
appeared, I think, smaller than they really were, and they did look too
small to lift their loads, little and light as they seemed, even if they
contained our lightest gas-hydrogen. I tell you they’ve refined methods
in radio-chemistry perhaps, that enable them to generate an even lighter
gas, and its buoyancy is out of all proportion to the gas volumes
represented in these small balloons. These little men are formidable
savants, who may get rid of us, if they want to, like that,” and I
snapped my fingers.
This harangue stirred the Professor. I meant it should. His hair, which
now seemed almost redder than when we started, and had grown so that it
enveloped his head in a penumbral glory, like a sunset fire, rose, as it
were, to the occasion.
“Erickson,” he retorted, “put away your fears. The very fact of the
intellectual promotion of these people would make it certain that they
have abandoned savage ways, and that they would recognize in us, to say
the least,” it may be the Professor blushed slightly, though the
rufescent splendor of his hair disguised it, “representatives of a
culture that will excite their curiosity, their—Ahem—_envy_. Personally
I feel confident that—Ahem—once some sort of communication is
established between us, I can interest them. I should feel honored even
to present their contributions to science before the Royal Academy of
Sciences at Stockholm. In the hierarchy of scientific authors their
names would arrest the attention of the whole earth.”
After this flight there was a respectful pause, until Hopkins resumed:
“Say Professor, the particular culture that would impress them most now
would be a wash, a clean shirt, a shave and a haircut. Eh?”
The Professor contemptuously ignored the interruption, though a
furtively repressed approach of laughter on his face showed his
appreciation of its justice. We were indeed frights.
“And, Alfred, as to your suggestion of a gas lighter than hydrogen in
the balloons, perhaps you are aware that so far as the apparent
transmutation of the elements permits any conclusions in the matter,
hydrogen has hitherto yielded only helium, neon, carbon and sulphur, all
heavier bodies. I don’t say you are not right. It’s tremendously
interesting. However, you may have underestimated the size of the
balloons and over-estimated the weight of the little men. They had a
very _papery_ look to me, and of course,” the Professor always had this
pragmatic style of insisting _you knew_, when he was inwardly crowing
over his chance of illuminating your ignorance, “you know that the
levitation of hydrogen equals seventy pounds to one thousand cubic feet
of gas—at ordinary pressures. Those balloons were larger than they
seemed; some reflexion in the air diminished them, and really those aged
infants, I believe, scarcely exceeded thirty pounds in weight. Do you
know,” he became excitedly radiant, “perhaps their tenuity has some
relation to their intellectual development—they represent some final
stage of human evolution, when the body shrinks, and the mind enlarges,
and—”
“The teeth drop out,” suggested Hopkins.
“True, Mr. Hopkins. Professor Wurtz has pointed out the probable
absorption of the teeth or their disappearance under the debilitating
influence of mental growth. These people may live solely on saps,
juices, milks, liquids, extracts.”
This tickled Hopkins boundlessly, and he rattled away—I don’t know
whether it was quotation or improvisation:
“Really I hesitate to say,
What they promise now some day,
When learning and brain
Are fit for the strain,
Of telling the Truth to a hair.
“For the _Docs_ have puzzled it out,
And there isn’t a reason to doubt,
That we’ll lose all our grinders,
All our gold-plugged reminders,
Of the toothache that taught us to swear.
“It’s a case of gray matter and such,
Though for that we need not care much,
For—cocktails and chowder for lunch,
Soft drinks, sangaree, and rum punch
Will surely be living for fair.”
“Come,” growled Goritz, “this sort of nonsense isn’t getting us
anywhere. Strap up your packs and get out of this. The chances for grub
ahead are not the best in the world. The country is already as bare as a
cleared table, and what are we going to do for water?”
That was a disagreeable predicament. Hitherto the springs, little tarns
or water holes, though decreasing in number as we advanced, had fully
met our requirements, but if we were to cross any considerable dry tract
we might be seriously imperiled. To be sure, the limestone country if
prolonged would almost certainly feed us, but that desert land which our
closest inspection of the distance only made more unquestionable—How
about that?
The conclusion we came to was to husband all the resources we could
command. It sounded grandiloquent—_our resources_! What were they? Some
patches of jerked deer’s meat, our fryingpan and pot, the remnant of our
improvised tent and our knapsacks, almost empty except for the
instruments, a few necessary implements, the ammunition, still
sufficient, and our guns. Our clothing was desperately worn. Literally,
we were in rags, but a primitive kind of treatment in water, from time
to time, had freed this dejected apparel of at least a large
percentage—I really think a preponderant percentage—of its dirt. The
question of water remained urgent.
In about a day or so we came upon the outlines of the desert
plain—scrappy expanses of sand and pebbles—mostly angular, and we noted
the dust occasionally sweeping heavenward in yellow clouds but still we
thought we also saw the dark farther zone of trees. Our horizon was now
more limited; we had descended some fifteen hundred feet, and the
advantage of an elevated circumspection was denied us. The professor
determined the sand to be a pulverulent shattered and crumbling
limestone, and although absorbent and apparently deeply bedded he
believed we could, almost anywhere, upon digging find water. This was
encouraging, and the trip over this tawny and sometimes dazzling waste
seemed less formidable. The light became peculiarly tantalizing and
objectionable, and we were thankful enough for the goggles. After
deliberation we made up the canvas of our little tent, which we still
retained, into bags (we had pack thread and sailors’ needles) and
expected to use them as water carriers. Then we trapped a few moles,
though recourse to this unpalatable flesh would only be considered in an
extremity, and then, not without foreboding, we started over the pallid
desert.
We soon came upon traces of the great storm which we had watched from
the Deer Fels. These were unmistakable. Deep gouges had been made in the
sand by the volleying and cutting winds, but the most extraordinary
vestiges of its violence were the conical hills of sand, raised over the
surface in huge mammilary erections. These were distributed with a very
striking evenness, except at spots, where it would seem the moving hills
in their translation had closed upon one another, and, demolished in the
collisions, left formless congeries of tossed and sprawling heaps, which
might have a length of a mile or more, and were from half to three
quarters of a mile in width. They were disagreeable obstacles, and
ploughing through them was the hardest kind of work, for the surfaces
were composed of a deep deposit of minute grains and dust and our feet
sank into them as quickly as though we were engaged in a plunge through
a colossal flour bin or a wheat pit.
But our complaints and discouragements were providentially rebuked.
Fighting our way up and down these dry quagmires of dust, stumbling,
falling and not infrequently assisting to extricate one another from the
floury embrace, we had come to the crest of a ridge which crossed
diagonally one of these shapeless, tortuous mounds. This ridge, over the
mean level of the plain, was almost twenty feet high, a good measure of
the strength of the wind suction which had built it up. We were dusty,
almost exhausted, and the water we had carefully conserved, as best we
might (for the bags were not watertight) in our canvas receptacles, was
approaching a dangerous depletion. It was absolutely necessary, fight
against it as we might, to wash our mouths and throats, clogged and
asperate as they were with the grains and dust, quite often, or, it
seems to me, we would have been suffocated. What gratitude we felt you
may imagine, when, on surmounting the ridge, our eyes fell upon a small
pool of water entrapped upon some impervious bottom, in a natural bowl,
enclosed by the ridge on which we halted and a lower ridge beyond us.
The familiar thought of how it transcended in value any imaginable
wealth of gold and diamonds at that moment flashed, I guess, through all
of our minds. We camped there. The water was clear and cool, for, I
should have mentioned it, the weather had been colder, and, when our
“fixed Sun,” as Goritz called it was hidden, we suffered somewhat from
imperfect protection.
“Queer we don’t hit any more of those weird phantoms that own this
place, isn’t it?” said Hopkins.
“Oh,” I replied, “they may be watching us now, listening to us. You
can’t tell. I think they’re a sort of supernatural people that can do
almost anything. Perhaps they wear magic cloaks, hats, shoes, that make
them invisible. Speak easy when you meet ’em Spruce, and don’t abuse
them behind their backs, for—it may be—_to their faces_.”
“Look here, Alfred, I really believe you’ve loosened a nut in that tight
little head of yours. To hear you talk gets on my nerves. Don’t do it.
Hasn’t the Professor explained it all as Evolution, and how exceedingly
friendly these fine folk will be to us when they get a bead on our own
families. As for speaking easy, I shan’t speak at all. With me it’s the
case of Pat once again, and I couldn’t get even as far as he did with
the Frenchman with his “_Parlez-vous français, and—give me the loan of
your gridiron._”
“Alfred,” asked the Professor, “could you talk with them, if it turns
out that their language is Hebrew?”
“Certainly,” I answered, “I am a Jew, and my earliest training has never
been forgotten. I have been hugging the thought that I can understand
them or make them understand me. I grant, along traditional lines there
was something Hebraic in their looks.”
“Yes Alfred—this,” said Hopkins, touching his nose.
We laughed, but the Professor stared at me thoughtfully.
“Alfred,” at length he solemnly began, “the Vestiges of Creation—Who
knows but—”
The sentence was never finished and to this day I only dimly suspect the
lurking and indefinable thought that those world-dreams of the past,
with Eden placed at the North Pole, and a still more irreclaimable
theory of a residual population descending from some God-made primal
ancestor, confusedly rose in the Professor’s mind, and that he was
groping his way to express this cryptic and impossible illusion.
No! the Professor was probably utterly stunned into dumbness, as we were
made half wild with wonder by a cry from Goritz:
“SEE! Over there are the head and arm of a dead man sticking out through
the sand.”
We jumped to our feet, followed with our eyes his stiffened,
outstretched arm and rigid finger, and saw the chubby face of a corpse,
with closed eyes, streaming black hair, pushed out from a blanket of
sand, while an arm with a clenched hand was protruding from the same
covering. For a moment—perhaps for several—we remained motionless,
perusing the face which was so astonishingly contrasted with the
lineaments of the diminutive aeronautical philosophers, and noting too
the convexity of the earth covering the body, which indicated a man or
woman, of an average size or a little undersized. What struck each one
of us at once was the unmistakable Eskimo type, the narrow eyes, small
_joufflu_ nose, wide mouth, puffed cheeks, low forehead and coarse,
straggling and profuse hair.
A little later and we had dug out of his grave the astounding figure.
When it was uncovered it corroborated all our first impressions as to
its Eskimo relationship, but we then detected that its construction was
more slender and generally better proportioned, and the beardless face
was more refinedly cut. Its dress was a yellow gown or tunic over very
loose bluish trousers, and its feet were encased in roughly made loose
slippers, fastened by laces or strings over the instep. The material of
the dress was a woven wool. The tunic was clasped by a broad belt of the
same substance, fastened by a leaden buckle; the trousers were held in
at the bottom by a kind of anklet of bone and skin, and the sleeves of
the tunic were similarly confined.
But perhaps it was the buckle that excited our curiosity the most, for
there was engraved—not embossed—on it the same serpent and
crocodile-like figure that had been seen on the gold buckle Goritz
found, and over it too were the singular conventions of a branched tree
encircled by a snake. Goritz compared his belt and buckle with it and
was convinced of their identical interpretation. Nothing else was found.
We detected no pockets of any sort in the clothing—Yes, there was
something else, from under the body we dug up spectacle-like yellow
glasses.
It was clear that the creature had been overwhelmed in a sandstorm, but
it was not clear why he should have been alone and apparently wandering
a long way from his home and companions. The incident incited us to
greater haste, and when we had replenished our water skins, we resumed
the exhausting tramp. The tree line became increasingly plainer to view,
and it offered a goal and prize now that dissipated our fatigue and
roused our ambition. We had not discussed the Eskimo waif but I guess
through all of our minds slowly or quickly filtered the conviction that
he represented a lower slave or working group; that we were soon to
break into a world of industry and achievement, founded on social
distinctions; that indeed up here in Krocker Land flourished perhaps an
oldtime class regime with knowledge and power confined to a priestly or
imperial class, like Egypt, like Mexico, like Peru.
[Illustration:
THE PINE TREE GREDIN
]
Some of my first trepidation over the adventure had vanished, but much
remained. I felt no confidence in those uncanny air travelers. Goritz
became impatient and almost retaliatory; he was maddened by the vision
of wealth, for he dreamed we were coming close to some dazzling,
incalculable phenomenon of riches. Hopkins was good-naturedly suspicious
and apprehensive, but confessed to an overpowering desire to see the
thing out, and “_have it over_.” The Professor lived in the seventh
heaven of delectation over the prospect of preparing a batch of papers,
to be read before the Royal Academy of Sciences in Stockholm, that would
place his name high on the walls of the Temple of Knowledge. All of us
were thus anxious to get on, and we made rapid progress. Need there was,
for our provisions were again nearing exhaustion.
It was almost a hundred and twenty hours, or five days, since we had
left the Deer Fels before we dragged ourselves into the first grateful
shadows of the great _Pine Tree Gredin_. So Professor Bjornsen termed
it. Such it was. A vast, plunging hillside or scarp, covering miles and
miles, and appareled from top to bottom with this wonderful vesture of
tall pines. And it sang with the refreshing music of innumerable brooks.
The exhaustless reservoirs of water emptied upon the vast desert zone
which, almost without leaving a trace of greenness behind them, entered
that profoundly weathered and comminuted soil, engulfed completely, as
are the rivers of California or Colorado or Persia, and reissued
unsullied, purified and cold, over this pine tree steppe.
The exhausted pilgrim through Purgatory who sees the gates of Paradise
open to him, would, for Christians, furnish a description of our
feelings as, ragged, choked with dust, almost crazed with thirst and
speechless from fatigue, we threw ourselves at the foot of the first
towering grove, and sank our heads into its moss lined bowls of living
water. As a Jew I myself recalled the pretty fable of “_The Slave Who
Became a King_” and all that the shipwrecked wretch had felt when the
new people he had reached made him their king and fed and clothed him;
for indeed to us, as Nefesh was to Adam, this new stage was the Island
of Life. I had reason to remember the story more literally afterwards.
And the marvelous stateliness of this blue-green ocean of straight
trees, the entrancing vistas between the majestic columns, with a life
of pheasant and hare and squirrel, the bubbling cadences of springs, and
the rambling mirthfulness and riot of the brooks, the deep-browed
silence in places, and the needle-thatched ground, inviting us to sleep
and dreams, had a fabulous expression, as if the prelude to some
unearthly—See how the whole unreality of it haunts me—experience. But,
besides its picturesqueness, we rejoiced in the dusk-like protection
from the light; in the effect and feeling of a dark submarine immersion,
the light became so beryl-like, that we again, and now as it were _en
masse_, encountered fresh reminders of the still invisible people we
must soon see face to face.
There were clearings which had been made in the forest. They were dotted
with stumps and crossed by fallen trunks, and made outlooks from which
we saw the interminable distances of serried ranks of trees. Far to the
right, far to the left, far before us with as yet no determinable limit
in any direction, the gigantic flood of pines flowed ceaselessly down
the sides of a continental amphitheater.
These cleared rings were suggestive enough. There was no evidence that
less toilsome methods had been used than those adopted by prehistoric
man. The trees had been hacked and cut by stone axes, they had been
trimmed by stone axes, and we found traces of fire around them, which
had been made to hasten their fall. But it was not long before we came
upon well-made roads threading the forest, to which the clearings
themselves were tributary, and over which the great logs had been
transported.
Besides we found dishes and cups, vessels of various sizes, which were
well advanced in fictile skill, being watertight, with glazed bodies of
white and yellow or terracotta tints. And over them, as on the buckles,
were rudely painted and reburned that now familiar symbol of the tree
and serpent. These interested us greatly, but our sharpest hunt for some
gold relics was unrewarded.
“No lost property worth advertising for ’round here,” said Hopkins.
“Well it’s still westward,” said Goritz. “We must run them down soon.
But see how endless the prospect,” and he pointed to that unique
multitude of motionless trees, falling away and ever downwards into some
gigantic central subsidence.
It was remarkable that we encountered no temporary abodes, no camps, no
settlements and no laggard or outpost of the elusive people.
The Professor, invincible in theorizing and pertinacious in assertion,
animadverted on our discoveries in this way:
“Well, these Radiumites show a sort of frustrated culture. They have
some specialized knowledge, and then again they are in other respects
primitive. It’s a very interesting ethnological problem. It’s a well
known circumstance that civilizations decline or even degenerate. The
modern Indian of Mexico or Peru offers a sad contrast to his ancestors,
but in the useful arts, as Tylor remarks, a skill once acquired is
seldom or never abandoned or forgotten. If these people could smelt iron
they certainly would not resort to stone for felling trees. Races like
the New Zealanders have never learned to reduce iron from its ore,
though iron ore abounds in their country.”
The trails and roads proved to be labyrinthine, and led us over long and
useless journeys, frequently back to our starting point. It was Goritz
who solved their apparent confusion and proved that they were parts of
intersecting loops or circles, and that each series of circles connected
with a succeeding one by roads leading always from the westernmost (or
lowest) edge of each circle. These latter roads seemed radial and
continuous. The plan was like this (Erickson showed me a drawing) with
the circles a mile or half a mile in diameter.
But it was the Professor who detected a remarkable feature which plunged
us all into renewed speculations and wondering surmises. In following
one of these circular roads he observed that the area enclosed by it was
a depression, and this fact, together with a less crowded growth and
some previous clearing permitted him to note that an unusually large
tree towered among the others, apparently exceeding them greatly in
height and, rudely at least, it was at the center of the circular space.
As, at times yielding to a lotos-like influence, we now moved more
deliberately, and would remain at one camping spot (this was before
Goritz pointed out the more direct line of advance over the radiating
roads) twenty or more hours, the Professor would direct his steps to
this tree as a landmark. Some abstruse stirrings of suggestion urged
him. But it seemed almost a miracle of second sight, for it uncovered an
astounding system of combined surveying or charting, associated
intricately with religious motives. He diverted our attention indeed to
a search which enriched us with some valuable objects, though we were
likely to have lost them all later. But it thus led to the _denouement_
of an utterly unparalleled adventure by forcing us sharply upon the
mysterious people who lived here, and opening up a chapter of incidents
and episodes never otherwise related, except in tales of invention or in
the dreams of disturbed and romancing minds.
He found his tree in a small, open, carefully cleared space, and on it
were not only carvings of the ubiquitous serpent sign, but with this
evidently scripts, which he interpreted as prayers, or sacred utterances
and adjurations, and, more astonishingly, conventionalized GOLD images
(hardly exceeding three or four inches in height) laid at the bottom of
the tree. These images rudely symbolized a human figure enrolled in the
coils of a serpent.
When he brought one of these images into our camp—he timidly refrained
from disturbing the others—you may imagine our excitement. Goritz gazed
and gazed at it in a trance of amazement and gloating. He wanted to set
out on an excursion of discovery at once. But we overruled that. The
Professor had our attention completely. His exploit gave a real
authority to his entertaining disquisition. We were thoroughly
interested.
“Yes, here is a stupendous theme—Serpent and Tree worship—developed on
an unusual scale and in an unprecedented manner. You see this enormous
forest is arranged in a chart-like manner into a series—I might say a
_Halysites_, as it were—of encircling roadways, producing the effect of
a garland of wreathed snakes, while in each fold or embrace, some tree,
conspicuous for size or height, or some physical perfection, has been
selected, about or around which again the serpentine coils are
enwrapped, a splendid combination of tree and serpent worship
ideographically presented in a park plan. Again the votive objects
attached to the trees form a group of subordinated ornamental
commemorative or religious symbols, and the whole display is ancestral,
archaic, _turanian_, for Fergusson holds that no Aryan people succumbed
to this peculiar cult, dimly shadowed forth in myth, fable and history
at the first emergence of racial life.
“Think of the legendary lore connected with the strange prepossessions
of early peoples, the myth of Adam and Eve and the Serpent; the brazen
serpent lifted up in the wilderness by Moses, the Serpent of Epidaurus
in the temple of Aesculapius, the dragon of the Argonauts, the serpent
of the oracle at Delphi, in the grove of laurel trees; the serpent
inhabiting a cave at Lanuvium, and wrought into religious practices; the
ascription to serpents of healing powers and powers of divination; the
snake in Indian, Egyptian, Phoenician, Assyrian religions. Think, Goritz
and Erickson, of the tree worship of the Scandinavians, culminating in
the _Yggdrasill_, the ash, whose branches spread over the whole world,
and even reach up to heaven, the extended and dreadful homage paid to
great snakes in America, still existing among the desert Indians of
Arizona and New Mexico!
“But as a contribution to the ophitic lore I believe we have found in
this new polar continent the central arcana of the mystery referable,
for aught we know, to the Adam legend. Gentlemen, we are stepping on the
skirts of a great mystery.”
The solemnity of this conclusion which was becomingly indicated by the
Professor’s outstretched hands and by the smile of benignant invitation
for us to assume his own gravity, was somewhat abridged or spoiled by
Hopkins’ interjection.
“I’m afraid, Professor, that we’ll be stepping into trouble if we pinch
too many of these joints. I say leave the contraptions alone.” This was
meant as a rebuke to Goritz who was for rifling everything. I half
believe he would now have been willing to abandon our further march,
hunt for the wood temples, despoil them, and retreat, recover our yacht
and hike it over the ice for Point Barrow. The gold had strangely turned
his head.
“Yes,” I interrupted, for I was really anxious too, though I was willing
to join the laugh that followed Hopkins’ remonstrance, “we must be
careful. There’s mystery enough here and there may be power behind the
mystery, enough also to send us each about our business to Eternity.”
However, from this time we watched for the trees that accentuated the
great rings of woods, marked off by the circular and intersecting roads.
We detected numbers of them, though for days none would be found.
Cleared spaces surrounded them, but not always, nor indeed generally,
were there votive offerings of gold images, but bits of apparel,
pottery, glass beads (we wondered much over these last), leaden, rudely
shaped figures, stone implements and carved wooden masks. We wasted time
in this pursuit, urged to it by Goritz’s insatiable delight over the
gold finds (we resisted his intentions of taking everything away, though
he despoiled many of the trees), and I think the Professor was
responsible for much of our wandering, for in his note taking he was
indefatigable.
The ground continued to descend, and though the decline was interrupted
by hillocks, protuberant mounds and long, rising slopes, these
exceptions were accidental, and we realized that since entering the
forest we had descended nearly three thousand feet. We were actually
over five thousand feet below the mean level of the earth. From some of
the elevations our view still measured the endless stretch of sombre
green (really a blue-green), though we felt certain that a still lower
valley bounded its marge and that beyond the latter limit there were hot
springs or geysers, the gushing upward of steam clouds was so incessant.
And then more wondrously, we were made aware of a shaft of light, a
luminous prism shooting upward from the earth, which we began to suspect
was related to the stationary sun from which this puzzling and utterly
unrelated nook of the earth received light and heat, when outside of its
charmed and storm-beleaguered rim the polar seas and lands lay bound in
the iron grip of winter and were dark beneath a sunless sky.
Bewildering, maddening paradox! We were often thunderstruck and
speechless, dimly doubting whether we had not indeed “shuffled off the
coil” of life, and had become reincarnate in another sphere.
I guess that I alone had that feeling often, for Hopkins’ imperturbable
realism, Goritz’s avarice and the Professor’s splendid vaulting ambition
to convulse the scientific world kept them mortally conscious and human.
And now an amazing thing happened. It began the rush of events that for
three or four months tossed us along a course of excitement that made
our heads spin and terminated in episodes for all of us too fabulous to
be believed and yet—Mr. Link they are the sober, unvarnished truth. You
may doubt your ears, you may be tempted—you will be—to put me in a class
outside even of the biggest assassins of truth—and as a journalist you
have known a good many, but in the end perhaps I can re-establish my
reputation by an appeal to your eyes! That sort of evidence cannot be
gainsaid.
Well, it turned out that we had nearly crossed the interminable forest,
and were tramping silently along one of the radial roads, just after it
had cut (“bisected” the Professor insisted) the arc of one of the great
circles, when Goritz quickly raised his hand:
“Listen! Music—drums!”
We halted, breathless with wonder. Softly, in a low, monotonous hum came
the itinerant beating. Yes, we all heard it, and with it, as we waited,
was mingled the metallic clangor of cymbals or something like them.
“‘Regardless of grammar they all said “That’s them,’” whispered Hopkins,
quoting his Ingoldsby.
“_Up the tree._ They’re coming nearer,” said Goritz.
“Decidedly,” coincided the Professor. “As an exhibition of the
prehistoric musical art this will be unique.”
We were not long in clambering among the outspread boughs of a big pine,
leaving our instruments and packs at its foot (the species in growth and
cyclical arrangement of its limbs resembled the white pine), helping
each other until we were finally asylumed among the topmost needles,
peering out over the receding road for the approaching procession, if
procession it was.
We were not to wait long. The music, disentangled now from the
interference and dampening effect of the trees, rose assailingly from
the distance, and the thumping drums and the dulcet swish and clatter of
the cymbals seemed almost beneath us. We were straining our eyes, and,
in our impatience and curiosity, became careless of our position, all
half standing on the same bough, clasping the trunk and leaning outward.
There was a glittering, swarming effect in the vista, and we saw the
advancing ranks of the strangers. Instantly we recognized the Eskimo, or
his modified image, in the first companies. They were lurching
ponderously forward, their legs and shoulders advancing together to the
irresistible rhythm swelling behind them. They wore short yellow tunics
or sacks engirdled by cloth belts with leaden buckles; blue trousers
caught at the ankles by leaden anklets and sandals completed their
dress, except that on their heads they wore broad, white, hive-shaped
straw sombreros not unlike the head covering of the peons in Mexico.
Each man swung a short bludgeon comically suggestive of a New York City
policeman’s club.
“Cheese it—the Cop,” chuckled Hopkins.
The ranks came on in goodly number and they formed a stalwart, if clumsy
and shuffling phalanx. The band, as a proper misappropriation of the
word would describe it, succeeded. These, too, were all of the Eskimo
type, but men and women mingled together; the men plied the small,
stiff, vociferous wooden drums and the women rather gracefully, and with
inerrant precision, smashed the cymbals together.
“Gold—by God,” croaked Goritz, and he almost lost his balance in his
admiration.
Gold they were indeed, and the metal delivered a note less rasping and
shattering than the ordinary brass. The men and women of the band were
dressed in closer fitting garments, their legs were naked, but over each
of the women’s knees was strapped a glittering gold cap and their hair
was braided with sinuous gold serpents. They burnished the dark outline
of the marchers like gleams of light or fireflies in a summer gloaming.
It was really very pretty, and Hopkins nearly lost his self control by
starting our applause. The impulse was momentary, for in a trice our
eyes were ensnared in the sight of the astonishing crowd of little
people that followed them.
They were perhaps larger than the strange little men we had met on the
Deer Fels, and their heads did not fall forward with that irksome sense
of heaviness which afflicted those diminutive philosophers. But they
formed a diverting and animated picture. They were in all sorts of
order, and rather prevalently without any order at all. In threes and
fours, in strings and lines, in gravely marching little bands, and then
in dancing disorder, all wearing tunics and trousers of various colors
or plaids, but with the belt and the hieroglyphic buckle. Every now and
then as they surged along they sang, a midget song, quavering and odd,
musical in a way, but a rather poor way, and, like the shrilling cymbals
and the tom-tom drums, sing-songy and monotonous. We became spell-bound
at the weird spectacle. They also wore broad brimmed straw hats, but
pushed back on their heads, as if to offset that ludicrous tilt of their
funny big heads.
And then came a host of the Eskimo girls beating the cymbals again, but
there were no drums or men.
“Well, I must say,” softly spoke Hopkins, “the popular chorus girl
hasn’t anything on these peacherinas, has she?”
But what was this amazing company that followed—bizarre, fascinating,
crudely savage, and yet enigmatically enthralling? A chariot or a flat
platform car on low, solid wooden wheels, drawn by goats whose horns
were tipped with gold snails, bore a group of diminutive figures which
we all recognized as being the very little men whose aeronautics had so
astonished us. They and more like them sat back to back on this equipage
of gold, as in an Irish jaunting car, and one chariot succeeded another,
all loaded down with the _Areopagus_ of councilors and governors, for
such they certainly seemed to be. But they were sumptuously dressed in
violet cassocks, girt with gold; gold chains encircled their necks, and
pendent to these was the serpent symbol. On their heads they wore the
flat broad brimmed hat bedizened with gold trappings. These hats now lay
in their laps, their long-fingered, waxy hands folded over them, and
their eyes were protected by the absurd goggles.
They too were singing or praying, the chant rising to us with the
undulatory emphasis of a Hebrew cantor, and—so it seemed to me—the words
were indeed a Hebrew jargon. But around them, before them, behind them,
stalked an ordered regiment of the slimmer, taller Eskimos; all men, and
they each raised on their left shoulders, held stationary by the bent
left arm and the right arm extended across the breast, a pole of gold,
on which was entrained a living snake. The creatures were imprisoned,
for their necks were caught in locks at the apexes of the poles. These
snakes were black, a glossy black, and on the glossy, glittering poles
they formed a strange _caduceus_. It was in a way a horrible assemblage,
and then again, against the background of all of our incredible
experiences, it assumed a bewildering charm, as if it were a dream half
turned into a nightmare, or a nightmare checked in its course by a
remembered dream. On, on, they swayed and moved, and amid these ophidian
pages, groups of drummers kept up a ceaseless dull, stupid drubbing.
Then something stranger followed. An empty chair on a gold wagon, a
chair itself of gold, but shaped like the stump of a tree with two
branches sprouting from it, and between these as they were projected
above the stump, the spread figure—in heraldry _displayed_—of the
_Crocodilo-Python_, also in gold. The hideous animal enormity was all
there, its anaconda-like tail winding about the tree stump, its stilted
hind feet grasping the lower ends of the branches, its shorter webbed
forefeet dragging their curved ends towards its twisted neck, and the
saurian jaws in a horrid rictus, imminent above that empty throne whose
occupant perchance might be some aboriginal Apollo or a grinning and
revolting savage sibyl.
[Illustration:
MEETING THE RADIUMOPOLITES
]
Well, Mr. Link, the spectacle, with this climax, made us dizzy; some
reminiscent weakness from my swooning attacked me, but I would have been
safe enough. I stuck fast to the trunk of the tree, when Goritz turning
backward stepped on my support. It cracked, it broke. Hopkins seized
Goritz’s arm, the Professor Hopkins’ coat tail—what there was of it—and
ingloriously, with crash and whisking flight from branch to branch, we
four hopeless Argonauts slumped from the top of the lofty pine, with
arresting scramblings and maniacal clutchings, to the bottom, and were
spilled to the roadway; four voiceless, bedraggled, ragged,
bushy-haired, wild eyed, grimy men, more savage in our destitution than
the savages we had fallen amongst. As we banged to the ground, a jolt
stopped the empty throne, with its golden splendors of the distended
image of the saurian, directly opposite our jumbled, prostrate bodies.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER IX
THE VALLEY OF RASSELAS
It was an incongruous position, and a mind responsive only to the
ludicrous would have been delighted with mirth over it. But it was
really no joke, and if Hopkins, whose risibilities were the least easily
subdued, had ventured upon one of his whirlwinds of laughter, instead of
sedately rising (enjoining us to imitate him) and bowing profoundly, it
might have had a tragic termination.
As it was, Hopkins himself actually prescribed our solemn behavior. It
somehow appealed just then to his freakish sense of humor to appear
portentously grave and decorous, and as he kept up his salaaming we fell
in with the trick, and were bobbing away with the gravity of mandarins.
The crowd, as we slammed into the road, were pretty well upset. There
was a queer gurgling groan, and then a shout, and a few of the men
rushed forward with leveled poles, from which the black squirming
ribbons uncannily unrolled, as if to strike us. Our appealing gestures
for forbearance disarmed them, and then curiously some of them began to
smile. Hopkins’ later reflection that we would probably have “made a
meal sack split open with diversion,” was about correct, and it must
have been the preposterous absurdity of it all, conjoined with our
indefatigable rolling up and down, and some improvised gesture of the
Yankee, expressive of submission and subjection, that gradually
increased their merriment, until we had in front of us a friendly
audience, simmering with amusement.
The commotion and noise of the bending, breaking branches had been seen
and heard much further along the cortege, and it had caught the eye of
the dignitaries on the wheeled platform. In a few minutes a number of
these ambling, beetle-like worthies arrived and, withdrawing cautiously
into the protecting circle of the Eskimo youth, gazed at us with
unaffected astonishment. We now had the best opportunity to see them at
short range, and this was so desirable that we brought our antics to a
close, reciprocating their scrutiny with as keen an inspection on our
part. The impression made on me, on all of us, was favorable.
The faces of these short men were remarkable for an unmistakable
gravity; their eyes, from which they had removed the goggles, were
penetrating and bright, sunken beneath arched and conspicuous eyebrows,
and set alongside of prominent aquiline noses. The lower parts of their
faces were weak, narrowed, and clothed with a scanty pointed beard.
Their brows were broad, high and of alabaster whiteness. This
colorlessness pervaded their whole anatomy, related at it were, to the
thinness of their legs, their slim long arms and pendulous fingers,
their flat and insufficient feet. We noticed then that they carried in
their belts tubes of metal similar or identical to the wand-like ones
that had seemed to aid their flight with the balloons.
Their study of us was emphasized by considerable stroking of the beards,
shrugging of the shoulders, and an occasional despairing waving of the
hands. Everyone, everything, remained motionless while these wiseacres
made up their minds as to the meaning of our intrusion, or endeavored to
meet the broader problem of what do to with us. And so the whole mass
slowly gathered, the first ranks of the muscular Eskimo older men, the
drummers and the cymbalists, the fluttering, diversified groups of the
little people; they crushed into the woods, blocked the road, climbed up
into the trees; many pressed near to us, their hands resting on their
hips, regarding us with a tense and silent absorption that made me
nervous.
Hopkins nudged the Professor. “Prof., give ’em a lecture, anything, only
hand it over highly flavored—_paprika-like_. Slam a few dictionaries at
’em. What we need just now is a little intellectual standing, I take it.
These highbrows think we’re no better than we look.”
Oddly they had said nothing to us until they noticed Hopkins talking;
then one of them, a rather benignant and especially reflective looking
individual, who had been arguing vehemently the moment before with one
of his colleagues, advanced and said what sounded like “_do bau_” or,
had it been in such Hebrew as I myself understood, “_dobare_”; namely
“speak,” “talk.”
The Professor probably did not understand the word, but he understood
perfectly their wishes, and under Hopkins’ admonition stepped forward,
and started a harangue. Nothing that had preceded was so likely to ruin
our discretion as the scene made by this overture of the Professor’s.
Hopkins was compelled to grovel on the ground to suppress his merriment,
but this ruse was interpreted fortunately as an expression of reverence
for the words or voice of our leader, and his explosions reduced by this
means to a subterranean titter were further alleviatingly considered as
a phase of weeping.
The Professor was a sight. Not any part of his attire was whole, and his
boots were devoid of toes and rent along the soles. He was dirtier, I
think, than any one of us, as his ablutions had been less regular, so
far as regularity was the appropriation of an opportunity once a month,
and he had been torn and bruised and scratched, and had a most
despondent expression of hoodlumism. His hands alone were presentable; I
have referred to his sensitiveness over his hands. And his hair! It was
a bright red, and it had grown profusely, and, exulting in some untamed
inclination to revert to savagery, had grown outward in a stiff jungle
that now flamed around his ingratiating physiognomy like some angry
halo. Under the stress of his nervousness and—his periods, he flourished
his hands and shook his head, and this immensely increased the gap
between his grandiloquence and his humiliating appearance. It was side
splitting.
And then increasing the ludicrousness of it all almost insufferably, was
the close attention of the people, and the absurdly critical demeanor
and deliberation of the philosophers. Certainly nobody understood a word
of what the Professor said and yet they listened with bent heads,
devouring eyes, and a mute satisfaction impossible to describe. And the
Professor, flattered or deceived by the thrilling effect he was
producing, fired off his lingo at a greater speed, with a screaming
voice (he probably thought that if he yelled he would be better
understood), and more tumultuous gestures. The combination was more
unutterably funny than our predicament was possibly grave. Hopkins was
unable to raise his head. I heard him groaning, “Such a bizness. Choke
him off.” I was compelled to hide my head in my hands and allow my
convulsions to go for what they were worth as emotional signals of
despair. Goritz, a grave man, lately a fiercely obsessed man,
deliberately turned his back and stuck his fingers in his ears.
And this was some of the Professor’s sonorous patter:
“My friends you are amazed to see us, but we have come from the great
(hands pressed together) world beyond your continent to find YOU
(emphasized by two pointing index fingers). We knew you were here (an
ascending shout), and we knew you lived in a world of wonders
(miscellaneous flourishes of both hands over his head), and
enchantments, scientific miracles (a prolonged _crescendo_) of which we
wish to know more. Do not feel astonished at our appearance (an
inclusive sweep of the right arm); we have traveled over the polar sea,
over mountain ranges, through a desert; we have crossed the steaming
chasm that encircles your country (hands and arms in descriptive
attitudes, and constantly moving). We have essayed the impossible
(another shout), and we have accomplished it (sudden drop into a
growling bass); we have,” etc., etc., etc., for at least ten minutes,
with the people positively hypnotized, so it seemed, by his clamorous
chatter.
The absurdity of this address was to us evident enough, and yet it was
just the kind of demonstration on our part which impressed them. The
Professor’s style was valorous and friendly and noisy, and the effect of
his rattling appeal was propitious. There would have been real danger
for us, I believe now, had they discovered how we had rifled the tree
temples. That might have roused their worst hatred and made our position
perilous.
Suddenly the benignant looking leader clapped his hands together, and
then put one over his mouth, and the Professor wisely took the hint and
subsided. There was an animated colloquy begun among the other chiefs
and legislators, and we all listened intently, I especially, for it
became a stronger and stronger conviction that these dignitaries spoke a
strain of Hebrew, to me not at all understandable, and yet approaching
my own Hebrew vocabulary, but masked or distorted by their peculiar
nasality and squeakiness.
The discussion grew vehement, and the little doctors attained a degree
of excitement that threw them into violent gesticulations, their heads
dancing with their vigorous utterances, their beards wagging, and their
arms and hands flung around in elucidations that seemed never to
convince anyone. Well, the upshot of it all was that an order was given
to take us in custody, which we were made to comprehend by very
expressive signs, and the order was accompanied by a lot of gracious
grimace, deprecatory bowing and apologetic shrugs, whose burden of
significance we understood to be that an escort would take us to the
conveniences we needed—a bath, renewed clothing, food, rest, shelter,
etc.—while the procession would pursue its ceremonial transit, which we
very well saw was a state occasion connected with their religion and
involving perhaps a long journey consuming weeks for its completion. I
wondered whether they would discover our thievery, and felt convinced
that if they did our sojourn amongst them would be less pleasant.
After some confusion and distracting running to and fro, all of which
had quite a civilized aspect from the self-importance of the little
actors, and the typical uncertainty and contradiction of orders, we were
finally dispatched with an escort or guard of Eskimo men, led by a chief
or captain who had received from the council a budget of directions and
injunctions, and who, as Hopkins put it, “had rather _soured on the
job_” which would deprive him of the emotional reflexes of the religious
revival—surely a sort of vast national picnic.
By this time the spaces around us were jammed tight with people, the
little folk and the bulky Eskimos crowding together and picturesquely
intermingled; multitudes were leaping into the trees and climbing out on
the branches, so that we were literally in a defile of the strangers,
whose drums and cymbals were now silent, and who, passive and almost
motionless, gazed at us with a fixed wonder that robbed their faces of
all expression.
An incident reminded us forcefully of the strange power of the little
rulers over their bulky dependents or subjects, and revived our
astonishment at the contents of the metal tubes they carried. These
tubes were in the possession of only the “_faculty_,” the big headed,
diminutive and rather venerable looking persons who evidently ruled the
community and whose disproportionate power probably sprang from the
magical qualities of these same tubes.
A tall, morose looking Eskimo had approached us in a threatening manner
after having been ordered into the group who were to take charge of us
for the mission determined upon by the little chiefs. Something in the
half amused inspection Spruce Hopkins made of him, or his own
disappointment irritated him, and with a sudden angry cry he sprang out
of the ranks, his face distorted with savage fury, and raised the pole
or spear he carried to strike Hopkins, when the latter “side-stepped,”
and the big stick thumped harmlessly on the ground.
Before anyone had time to intervene or calculate the creature’s next
move, the amiable disputant who had taken so much interest in us nimbly
jumped before the man, snatched the tube from his belt, directed it at
Hopkins’ assailant, pressed its end and sent the fellow sprawling on his
back in apparent agony. There was no sign of any discharge, there
certainly was no sound, perhaps there was a momentary gleam of light; we
learned afterwards that there must have been. But the moaning ruffian
was effectually quailed, and the hush, followed by a low quaver of
satisfied subjection from everyone, indicated the supreme power of these
physically impotent magicians over their muscular companions.
“If we could hand over a few of those pepper guns to the New York police
the gang, thug, and crook fraternities would go out of business pretty
quick. Eh?” said Hopkins. “That’s slicker than chain lightning.”
“A powerful, suddenly produced and concentrated X-ray effect,” commented
the Professor.
“Goritz,” I asked, “where have you put the gold images and trophies? It
will probably be best for us to keep them pretty well out of sight.”
“Yes I know,” returned Goritz. “I’ve thought of that. They’re in my
pack, and that won’t get out of my hands. Don’t worry.”
The main mass moved forward. There was a scurrying to and fro, and a
downpour of acrobats from the trees. Long after all were out of sight we
heard the hum of the drums and dying whir of the cymbals, reaching us
through the forest. Then we collided with another detachment, the
commissariat, a promiscuous mixture of figures, and with them small
flocks of goats. First came platform cars drawn by strong big rams,
piled up with what looked like loaves of bread; these were succeeded by
the rambling goats and kids leashed in fours and fives, and driven by
goatherds of the little people, all wearing the universal tunic and
loose trousers; then more cars heaped high with baskets or hampers, and
more and more, till Hopkins exultingly declared:
“Well, we shan’t starve. I guess we’ve dropped into a highly developed
culture, as you say Prof., among a people who realize the foundation
principle of enlightened living, a full and diversified bread basket.”
Just at the moment I turned and looked up the slope behind us. I caught
through a straight vista, almost as if made for my view, the shifting
lines of the Eskimos with the gold poles and the black serpents. Somehow
the light struck them and they seemed to glitter menacingly.
“Yes! Mr. Hopkins, we have dropped down on a civilization that perhaps
is the most ancient on the earth. This segregation of Adamites has
developed in this strangely protected seclusion a peculiar knowledge, a
knowledge, I am beginning to suspect, only dimly anticipated by the
Curies, Ramsays, Rutherfords, Sollys.
“They have hit upon some of the properties of matter by which, Mr.
Hopkins, one kind of matter becomes another kind, through
radio-activity. The prevalence of gold amongst them may be attributable
to a mother lode of which I have spoken before, but these mysterious
tubes, the radium-like mass in the zinc-blende cave in the Deer Fels,
this utterly inexplicable light, hints at deeper secrets. And yet, sir,
with this last triumph of scientific power in their grasp they unite an
elemental savage worship of snakes and trees, a vestigial trace, sir, of
the very first ages. Then it is clear there is a peculiar industrial or
politico-economic phase of society conducted on a division principle of
fighters, workers and thinkers, a sort of analogue to the formicary and
the apiary—the ant and the bees. Yes sir!”
This last word was in recognition of Hopkins’ enthusiastic denotement
(with extended arms and a loud “_Hurray_” which gathered the Eskimo
guard around us in a hurry and in some perplexity; they were relieved
when some speaking signs indicated Hopkins’ appreciation of “_grape
juice_,” pure or fermented), of the last wagons closing the food supply
for the peripatetic religious carnival. These were also platform cars on
the rudely rounded solid wheels, burnt and charred, of pine tree
sections, but on them were huge earthenware casks like the immense
vessels found in Peru, and like them ornamented with colored designs; in
this case manifold variations, conventionalized and realistic of the
Serpent and the Tree. Their contents were unmistakable, for a mere water
supply was almost too abundantly found in the innumerable brooks,
springs, and deep pools of the Pine Tree forest.
“We’re certainly approaching civilization now. As an ultimate evidence
of man’s enlightenment, quantity and quality of _booze_ are complete.
The reign of reason and the Dominion of John Barleycorn are
simultaneous.
“‘John Barleycorn was a hero bold
Of noble enterprise;
For if you do but taste his blood,
’Twill make your courage rise.
’Twill make a man forget his woes
’Twill brighten all his joy
’Twill make the widow’s heart to sing
Tho the tear were in her eye.
Then let us toast John Barleycorn,
Each man a glass in hand;
And may his great posterity
Ne’er fail in Krocker Land.’”
To let the provision annex pass as it lumbered by, while tall drivers of
the Eskimo plied long whips whose lashes stung the air with rapid
reports, and the straining rams tugged and bolted, we had been compelled
to huddle to one side of the road. This outbreak of Hopkins and the
Professor’s soliloquy were amazing to our guard at first, but as soon as
they half comprehended Hopkins’ pleasure and his musical voice sang
Burns’ apostrophe they became mightily amused, and they beamed on the
American with unstinted confidence.
Goritz, who knew some Eskimo from his experience in Greenland, attempted
to talk to them, but their answers were unintelligible; neither, I think
did they understand him, and it is also certain that they did not
converse among themselves in the Semitic phrase peculiar to the little
men. There was very little talk of any kind amongst them or us, and
after the ebullition when we ran into the wine cart, we relapsed into a
resigned silence, enjoying most a study of our guard. Nothing had been
taken from us, no search made of our packs, and our guns still remained
apparently unnoticed in our hands. The “little doctors” as Hopkins
called them had indeed looked at them curiously, and I felt certain they
would on their return find out their uses as also the uses of our
instruments, the aneroid, thermometers, chronometers, clinometer,
artificial horizon, all of which we had regained from their hiding place
below the pine tree from whose crown we had so unexpectedly descended.
On, on, on, we tramped; the trees became smaller, more distant, and an
open ground appeared before us. In another instant it was succeeded by
an even denser growth of younger and greener pine trees; the road turned
sharply; it crossed the thick screen; another turn and, like a vision,
the central valley of Krocker Land unrolled before us, an endless park,
seamed by silver rivers, clothed in emerald meads, tenanted by
incalculable flocks, and marbled in its lighting, by an incessant drift
of clouds that threw over it a penumbral shade.
[Illustration:
THE VALLEY OF RASSELAS
]
That was a marvelous moment, Mr. Link. We were dumb with admiration, and
we stood still, rooted to the spot, immobile in a transport of
amazement. Nothing was said until the Professor half audibly murmured,
“The Valley of Rasselas,” and the captain of our guard pointing to the
glorious picture muttered to himself. Familiar as they were with the
scene these unemotional men appreciated our astonishment, and allowed us
to measure with our eyes the grand prospect. There was a wayside house
near at hand, an adobe structure of red and yellow; beyond it the road
dipped, suddenly passing through a hewn gateway in the cliffside which
we had reached and which, with varying heights and undulating limits,
enclosed like a mammoth parapet the scene of peace and loveliness before
us.
To this house we repaired. It was evidently located there as a
proscenium box for the contemplation of the ravishing picture. On its
porch, most fitly placed, we sat on low benches and attempted to record
the details of the view, by our eyes hardly recorded before, so lost had
they been in the enveloping, slumbering beauty. The cordiality of our
hosts was perfect; we munched spiced _tortillas_ and drank from absurd
spherical mugs a pleasant, ruby colored wine, a sort of _Tokay_. And
this, sir, is what we saw.
It was a flat land over which wandered three separate rivers, fed by the
spouting falls that rushed over the cliffside from many points, the
gathered waters of all that tracery of streams in the pine forest.
Between these rivers spread vast meadows or fields, thickly patched by
motionless—so they seemed—herds of sheep and goats. Braiding lines or
hedges of trees and shrubs parceled the green plains into checkers and,
as the eye passed outward, these hedges, massing themselves in
perspective, banked the horizon with a continuous wood. And there was a
floating colorfulness in the picture besides, a roseate-blueness, that
we later discovered came from an abundant wild flower like our iris
which nestled over acres of land in the wetter spots. And far, far away
with a spectral splendor rose into heaven shafts, or one monstrous
shaft, of light. It glowed and pulsated, changing from an opalescent
pearliness to the hardened glint of steel, anon streaked with bluish
ribbons like a spectrum. Nothing could be more wonderful.
Playing against it rose what seemed a volley from steaming cauldrons,
folded, unfolded, and drifting. Following this magnificent radiation
into the sky it was lost in a wide halo or pond or lake of strangely
scintillating light; an overspread roof of light it seemed, forming that
stationary sun, that from end to end, from side to side of this polar
bowl lit its manifold circumferential areas. Thither our fascinated eyes
rose, and then it became manifest that the overflowing permeating glory
of this scene resided in the play of this light, apparently forever
veiled by nets and skeins and shifting aureoles of clouds, that somehow
formed a floor beneath it, so that its emergent rays, as in our sunsets
or sun risings, shot outward, coronal-like, and as they encountered the
perpetual play of clouds and vapors as perpetually painted them in
colors. A superb and marvelous meteorology, for this Valley of Rasselas
thus remained, for long periods perhaps, bathed in the beauty of a royal
sunrise or a royal sunset.
This screening from the downpour of the light of the stationary sun was
certainly a beneficent provision, for while there might elapse periods
when its unchecked blaze smote the valley, the harsh ordeal of enduring
it was constantly intermitted. It was clear too that the rainfall was
excessive, both here and in the pine forest we had traversed; that this
navel of the world was a watery kingdom.
Even as we gazed the pageant of the sky mysteriously changed, and with
its changes the complexion of the picture earthward underwent delicate
transmutations too. From gay to sombre, from a wide refulgence to a
twilight grayness, from a flecked radiance to the transient darkness of
clotted clouds, from a burning splendor of illumination, by which things
lost their definition, and the dazzling excess of light blotted out
details, to half light, whereby a clearness of outlines developed,
allowing us to measure the distance, and to pick out house and tree,
bush, stream and rolling mead. We were enraptured by reason of this
protean aspect, and watched and, still lingering, gazed, unsatisfied.
The Eskimo men understood our delight and it brought on their rather
apathetic faces a smiling approval. They chattered and gesticulated and
surrendered themselves to a renewed appreciation of this age-old cradle,
in which they had grown and lived, strangely associated with the older
race, perhaps of some Semitic stock, strangely altered from their rude
forebears and separated more strangely still with their associates from
the thronging world of men outside of this entrancing cell of earth, and
yet bearing the impress of traditions which that outer world had
created. How could it be explained? Here was the new and crowning marvel
of the centuries—Krocker Land!
A floating tree trunk had indicated to Columbus the vast unknown of the
western continent and the scattered prognostications of geographers had
led his scientific thought steadily forward to its prediction and—it was
found. A mountain’s darkness brushing the horizon had crossed his vision
as Admiral Peary looked westward through his glass, and betokened yet
untrod tracts of earth; the vagaries of the tides submitted to
scientific computation had proven to Harris their positive existence,
and now to us, four froward, unknown men, it was vouchsafed to establish
in facts these symptomatic guesses.
But our discovery was enriched by unsuspected marvels; this immense
polar depression, like a dent in the crust of the earth, the peculiar
succession of dropping zones, their physiographic contrasts, the
stupendous circular—so we supposed—rift which framed them, its igneous
depths, that incessant up-pouring of steam devising a curtain of cloud
around this screened continent, the perpetual chain of changes in the
precipitation of the condensed vapors renewed again by evaporation, the
survival of saurian life, the meteorological perplexities introduced,
the bewildering fact of an ethnic evolution in these small people, their
peculiar association with a dependent Eskimo race, the suggestion of
Adamic traces, the apparent control over advanced chemical agencies,
this indigenous tree and serpent worship hinting at ancestral influences
lost in the shadows of the very beginning, and then, more incredible
than the wildest dreams of fiction, this impossible stationary sun,
sustaining this little segregated world, feeding it with light and heat,
an unimaginable oasis in the incalculable desert of Arctic snows and
ice. WHAT WAS IT? Upon what miracle of matter were we advancing?
I was lost in such reflexions when an exclamation from the
Eskimo—sounding like _ibbley_—and a hand clapped on my shoulder
straightened me into attention. The pool of clouds over the valley whose
inconstant movement alternately veiled and revealed the light beyond
them, had parted, as though a sudden wind had pierced it and driven its
parts in rapid and eccentric flight to all sides, as a stone dropped in
a pond sends the waves shoreward, and, past the rift, we saw through the
rising vapors, beyond the rigid, fan shaped prism yet involved in it, an
incandescent surface like a mammoth shield, a shield covering acres of
space, and over it again, and yet perhaps miles and miles further away,
the solemn grandeur of an ice capped lofty mountain.
It was a glimpse only; an instant later the refluent clouds had flung
themselves together again, in the ceaseless to and fro, and, as I
thought, rotary motion, that conveyed such a changeable expression to
that peaceful hidden vale.
That glimpse, Mr. Link, is the memory of a lifetime, it was a picture so
inwrought with the occasion and my own feelings as to remain with me a
deathless vision.
“I suppose this extraordinary _pseudo-sun_,” said the Professor after
some moments’ silence “is the most astounding thing we have seen. It is
certainly unaccountable. Its power to illuminate, warm and enliven this
little continent within the circle of the Perpetual Nimbus surpasses
comprehension. On what theory of physics—for of course it is not an
extra-terrestrial phenomenon—can it be accounted for?”
“How about this Radium. There’s light and heat in that isn’t there?”
asked Hopkins.
“Of course, as we know it in its bromide salt. But the radium couldn’t
be a fixed object in the sky, and, if on the earth, what fixes its rays
or converges them on one spot, and what is the radiant material of that
spot itself?”
“I have been thinking,” said Goritz, standing up, while our Eskimo
escort gathered around us, and listened with a gravity that half
persuaded me they understood us, “I have been thinking that there is a
vortex of dust up there in that nebulous mass, that heat and light reach
it from some terrestrial source and are again reflected earthward. Would
that meet the problem?”
“Perhaps,” assented the Professor, and even as he spoke the light
everywhere about us diminished, so that the valley became hidden in a
most dismal half light, and then that feeble illumination vanished, and
we were literally plunged in darkness. Waning of the light, amounting
sometimes almost to extinction, and lasting for some hours, had been
constantly observed by us on our journey from the coast, but nothing so
complete as this. We were pretty well astonished, and remained silent,
expecting some novel demonstration, for now we had become so convinced
of our immersion in a sea of Sinbad-like adventure, that we were not
only prepared but almost impatient for still newer and newer and
stranger happenings.
The Eskimos were as silent as ourselves, but when in perhaps half an
hour the light revealed itself again in the sky, as spluttering
radiations, somewhat like the splattering of sparks about a slowly
reconstructed arc light, and then became continuous, and then gradually
swelled to its original intensity, and the valley once more glowed under
our eyes, they began singing. It seemed to be some hymn or religious
chant and we connected it at once with superstitious feeling over the
removal and renewal of the light.
It was a wearisome iterative sing-song drone, rising and falling in
pitch, and sometimes deriving a rhythmical accent from the clapping of
their hands. The voices were not unmusical, and there was enough
vocality in the words to even elicit an approach to charm. When later we
heard this same song sung by thousands, its reinforced effectiveness
produced a positive spell.
It was time to proceed; our guard evidently thought so. The captain
shook us each by the arm, pointed down the road, and we tramped away,
watched eagerly by the few inmates of this roadside house—a man, his
wife, and three rabbit-eyed, almost naked kids. The road passed through
a gateway of stone, hewn in the cliffs, and with a moderate grade
conducted us some ten hundred feet in vertical descent, into the Valley
of Rasselas.
It was the last step on our long journey, the goal of dreams had been
reached, Krocker Land was discovered, and now the revelation was to be
crowned by a closing and incalculable drama.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER X
RADIUMOPOLIS
There had been noticeable for some time a change in temperature. It grew
colder and the recurrent periods of darkness were more frequent. It
almost seemed as if the stationary sun responded to the secular changes
produced by the apparent motion of the firmamental sun, and that, while
light remained, a reduced form of winter might still be expected in this
oddly conditioned corner of the earth.
Already in some way the rumor of our approach had spread far and wide.
The fields were at first crossed by solitary figures trooping to the
roadside to see the strangers. These were shepherds of the great flocks
of goats and sheep, whose slowly shifting masses drifted over the meadow
in irregular blotches of white and brown and black. At times, where we
crossed marshy exposures on either side of us, the gurgle of chattering
water fowl reached us, and then when we attained a higher ground hosts
of red and blue iris-like plants clothed the edges of the fields, from
whose corollas rose, like a visible incense, innumerable white and
yellow moths or butterflies. It all was transcendently novel and
interesting, and though occasionally we shivered when some chilliness
entered the air, from passing breezes flung into the valley from the
vast cold outside, we almost forgot our discomfort in our excitement and
enthrallment.
The spectators along the route became more numerous, a wide-eyed, open
mouthed throng, at first scarcely vocal, just an amused, staring
audience. They were made up of the larger serving, working class—those I
have designated as Eskimos—and they hung over each other’s shoulders in
mute astonishment, their black eyes sharply scrutinizing us, and very
often their fingers pushed out in expressive glee at the Professor,
whose superb shabbiness and challenging splendor of hair always evoked
the liveliest pleasure.
But as we advanced, mile upon mile, over a road of perfect
construction—evenly arched and well ditched on both sides—we observed a
changing character in our audience. The little people were thronging in.
They came from distant low villages and they imparted a contrasted
demeanor to the wayside. They were mildly clamorous and critical. They
broke into ejaculations, hallooed salutations, and extended comments
which kept them amused and vibrating with curiosity. A few sombre older
people remained silent or grunted a few monosyllables to each other, but
the younger element was quite irrepressible. At one place where the road
crossed a village community, the guards had to become rigorous in
maintaining an open path for us, and into large trees—a tree that here
resembled the top-heavy Pawlonia of Asia—urchins nimble as monkeys had
climbed in clusters, and dropped on us nuts and grain and leaves.
“Well the kids have the right spirit. I feel more at home now when the
_enfant terrible_ shows up. Where the youngsters have a sense of fun it
seems to me the fathers won’t have gotten so far beyond it, as to serve
us up in an imperial banquet, cut off our heads as intruders, or feed us
to the Crocodilo-Python,” said Hopkins to me who was just alongside of
him. “I’m half afraid they’ve taken a shine to us, and will have us up
in some municipal museum for the education of the public. I feel anxious
about the Professor. They surely think he’s a most attractive wild
beast.”
And now we were trudging through a farm land; agricultural acres
expanded before and around us; the bean, wheat, rye; the grape, apple,
cherry; clover fields and honey hives were in evidence, though the
harvesting—far later than in the south, a singular inversion again
proceeding from the influence of the stationary sun—had been completed.
The red and yellow houses of adobe tile or brick were gathered in small
clusters and when, over long distances they sprinkled the tawny or sear
landscape with patches of bright color, like bits of new cloth on a worn
gown, the effect was delightful.
Our spirits rose; although prisoners over whom no doubt some national
parley or pow-wow would be seriously held, and although distrustful of
the obsequious gestures (most decidedly so in my case) with which the
“little doctors” had invited us to return with the guard to the
_somewhere_ we must be now approaching, still the winning charm of the
land, the agreeable manners of the little people, and the stolid
unconcern of the larger race half convinced me that our fate wouldn’t be
a tragic one. Our most ominous thoughts were connected with those
dreadful metal tubes!
I took occasion to study the people. The larger serving or inferior
class were Mongolian in type; they resembled a taller, more slender and
less intelligent Eskimo norm, but the little people presented a
surprising range of individual variation. The tallest of these latter
were almost four feet in height, the smallest scarcely exceeded three.
Literally they were a boreal pygmy race. The dominating peculiarity
among them was a tendency to macrocephalism which in the “little
doctors” became exaggerated, and made them overbalanced and grotesque.
In many the heads did not too obviously exceed a normal size, and the
lower limbs were almost normally developed, giving them shapeliness. The
women were very strikingly less afflicted with “big-headedness,” and in
them too the nose, attaining among the men a preponderant magnitude was
much more moderate in size. Many of the young women were very pretty, a
few almost beautiful, and the becoming attire of the tunic, the loose
trousers bound, in many instances, with gold anklets, the abundant black
hair coiled up in coronal chignons, and sinuously decorated with the
gold serpent-shaped pins, administered a piquant loveliness. Generally
the men were not so attractive; an unpleasant lankiness of limb, and
(because of a deficient dental development) sunken cheeks, with narrow
chests, and their unusual heads, on which too in a great number of cases
an extreme scantiness of hair was observable, robbed them of physical
rhythm and proportion. But again among them were also striking
exceptions, and these gained immensely in comeliness from the average
homeliness of their associates. The older men universally affected
beards, which some compensatory whim in nature made abundant. All were
dark.
My greatest achievement in observation on this long march was the
certain identification of the language with a Semitic tongue, and the
detection among the taller people of an Eskimo dialect. This last
discovery was made by the help of Goritz, whose knowledge of the eastern
Eskimo dialects was extensive, although he at first questioned my
conclusions. The reasons are philological and I pass over them. I hope
to discuss the matter before the congress of Americanists, to be held in
Philadelphia next year. It is enough for the following chapters of my
narrative to say that I became proficient (reasonably so) through my
intimate acquaintance with Hebrew, with the speech of the “little
doctors,” and Goritz acquired a less facile mastery of the Eskimo
tongue. The recognition of corruption in sound of a few consonants and a
peculiar ellipsis of some vowels, in the first case, accomplished the
feat for myself. When I told Hopkins of my success he was overjoyed.
“Alfred, that is dandy. If we can tell what they’re talking about, and
get a line on their plans we’ll skin through all right. When the proper
moment comes let ’em know you’re wise to their gibberish, and they’ll
take water quick enough. Why, we might start a revolution, if they try
to put it over us. The big fellows could sweep them like chaff—and then
our GUNS.”
“Yes,” I curtly interjected. “And their tubes?” Spruce was silent.
We had now been five days on our march and our progress had been
alternately hastened and retarded by the curiosity of the people.
Hastened when messages from nearby villages along the road came to our
captain urging speed, that the citizens of these country communities
might inspect us a little longer; retarded by reason of this same
importunity to allow the gathering countryside the gratification of the
show. For literally we had become that, and had there been an
enterprising manager to exploit our novelty his receipts would have been
enviable. The crowds increased, the rumor of our approach spread on
every side, and to meet their unappeasable wonder over our appearance we
were stuck up on platforms in the squares or open places in the villages
and watched, studied and applauded by the insatiable throngs. It was
indeed a stupefying experience. Certainly it was abundantly ludicrous
and amusing as well. Hopkins of course enjoyed it. Goritz was patient
and obscurely piqued by it, the Professor regarded it as ethnologically
delightful, and I took advantage of the display to note the people and
their speech.
“I have served a good many purposes in my life,” said Hopkins, “but I
never supposed I’d make a drawing card in a traveling circus. Our united
effect is really gorgeous. I should think they might improve the show by
some fresh clothes. But say—the Professor is immense. And he TAKES. The
way they shout and rubberneck to get nearer to him will start something
doing. If the Professor only had a little political ambition and an
ounce of sense he’d organize a campaign that would land him in the
presidential chair. And then! Well then we’d all be prime ministers, and
hand out the dope to these babies in a manner so impressive that we’d
hold the job down tight, until we could get away with the loot. We’d
make Goritz treasurer and he’d come the Tammany act on ’em so strong
that maybe we could leave with all the goods worth having in the
country, in our jeans. Eh?
“Look at ’em, now, surveying the Professor. I feel an artistic jealousy
of that red hair of his. It certainly has ’em guessing. Perhaps they
think it’s a kind of halo, always on fire. He certainly must keep it on
his head. It’s our salvation. Let the local barbers touch that, and find
out it’s just plain scissorable wool, and we’re in the soup—and the
Professor? Well, they won’t do a thing to him.”
This fifth day turned out to be the last one of our march. A memorable
day it was. Larger and larger grew the crowds; they met us, streaming
along evidently from some near point of population, and, as now the
captain of our guard would allow no delay or halt, we assumed that our
destination was almost at hand. Attaining it formed a new thrill.
We had come to a marked irregularity in the topographic monotony of the
valley, a high, evenly sloped ridge curving away on either side, which
might be the arc of a continuous or completed circle, or just a natural
accident. The broad road ascended this hill. We had just stepped out on
the summit, when one of the intermittent light flashes or sunbursts
blazed on the strange scene before our eyes. We were looking into a
dish-like area, for such it seemed, as we could trace north and south
the circumvallation of the ridge, and it was filled with settlements
which became denser in the distance, and in that distance (later we
discovered it was about the center of the circular enclosure) rose the
dazzling pediments, stories and wings, of a GOLD HOUSE.
Nothing could be more astonishing. Instinctively we came to a full stop
and gazed. And our companions, familiar with the spectacle, were
arrested by the sudden apocalyptic flashing of light from the burnished
building, as “of summer lightning on a dark night suddenly exposing
unsuspected realms of fantastic and poetical suggestion.” (A line, Mr.
Link, I found last night in a book by George Saintsbury.) But the
suggestions here were overwhelmingly fantastic.
Imagine a swelling mound tapering to a narrow platform, itself created
by the leveling art of the engineers, surmounted by a curiously heaped
up succession of stories, which were buttressed below by extensions and
porticoes, and frescoed or incrusted throughout by rude and hieratic
ornamentation—an ornamentation that certainly had more lucidity than the
confused medley of symbol and ideograph at Copán, but which had not yet
freed itself from a mixture of extravagance and realism. Then finally
imagine this executed in what seemed to be pure gold, and all glittering
in a quick concentration of light. It was refulgent and it was
unearthly. Below it spread the dull tawniness of an outreaching
terracotta city.
“What have we come to?” faltered Goritz, who was transfixed by this new
wonder.
“It might be called,” said Hopkins, “the Desire of All Nations; at least
it would look that way to a thoroughbred anywhere inside of Christendom.
I wonder how long that pile would stand on the principal street of the
capitals of the world! The army, with fixed bayonets, shot guns, and
dynamite bombs, couldn’t keep the gentlemen of America or the
spend-thrifts of Europe from getting their hooks in somewhere. I think
it must be the Casino; nothing short of Policy or Poker could keep up an
establishment like that. Gold must be very cheap hereabouts, or else the
people need a little free schooling as to the particular and pleasant
uses it can be put to. Looks that way.”
“Ah,” spoke up the Professor. “Barter, primal conditions, prevail here,
where a medium of exchange is hardly needed. Gold to these people is a
color, an ornament. With it they have no more than without it, for every
desire is satisfied, and the pride of possession or the sentiment of
avarice is unknown. All are equally happy, and all are equally rich or
poor. Gold has an interest to them because it pleases the eye, and it is
here dedicated to personal or religious distinctions, but as _wealth_,
in our sense, it has no value. These flocks, these acres of grain and
fruits, mean subsistence, but GOLD is something to look at—simply. Its
name here has probably no meaning of commercial utility.”
“Pretty good for the eyes though, Professor,” was Hopkins’ rejoinder,
“and as for the name I don’t recall anything
Which acts so direct, and with so much effect
On the human sensorium, or makes one erect
One’s ears so, as soon as the sound we detect,
unless perhaps—it might be—BEER—in a drought.”
“Well,” in an undertone from Goritz, “if Gold has no practical uses in
this outlandish nook of the world, we can take enough of it away with us
to a place where it’s more useful than ornamental.”
“Have a care,” warned Hopkins. “Our heads had better be kept on our
shoulders, too. Remember, Goritz, you’ve considerable loot in your pack
now. If they give us the third degree, and start in on a customs house
search, we may get to another place where—where Gold wouldn’t be worth
the handling, because of the heat, or otherwise, or because our
immediate necessities were otherwise provided for.”
All this while we were again rapidly moving on, and with each step,
while the marvel before us grew larger, plainer, some of its first
surprising effectiveness changed. It began to be seen that it was little
more than a piled up structure of the communal dwellings which dotted
the plain beneath it, but on it a queer aboriginal fancy had stuck
plates of gold,—or what seemed to be gold—and that its corners were
decorated with upraised standards of gold delineating the patron god, or
demon, of the establishment, the Crocodilo-Python. Over it too in whirls
and corkscrew spirals spread innumerable folded scrolls and winding
figures whose lumpy extremities betokened the heads of snakes. It was
not long before we had gained the heart of the city. Everywhere it had
been a monotonous series of the tile huts, stuck in tiers, one series
over another, such as description and photographs have made so familiar
from the Arizona and New Mexico region. There was now a much smaller
admixture of the taller people, and the little men and women appeared to
be almost the only occupants of the city.
We had come almost underneath the pimple-like excrescence on which the
golden habitation sat, like a yellow corolla on the green bulb of a
thistle, and we found a space surrounding it of about a thousand feet in
width, filled with enclosures holding, to our amazement, large black
snakes, the congeners exactly of those held aloft, in the procession we
had met, on golden rods. The walls of these enclosures were of tile or
rudely baked bricks; some were screened with an open wicker work, which
in many instances had become dilapidated or were quite worthless as
fences to prevent the egress of the snakes. In the enclosure bushes and
weedy herbs flourished, and their occupants hung from the branches of
these or torpidly lay in the grass beneath, in repulsive bunches. I
admit my unreasonable aversion to snakes, and these extraordinary
protected nurseries overcame me with disgust. Hopkins was hardly less
disturbed. To the Professor and to Goritz they were manifestly
attractive.
“St. Patrick can’t be the patron saint here,” said Hopkins, “and
whatever language they speak it pretty certainly is not Irish. I think
no one could mistake their brogue for anything heard in Cork or Dublin.
As for the snakes, I guess what Bobbie Burns said to the louse will fit
them,
‘Ye ugly creepin, blastit wonners,
Detested, shunn’d by saunt and sinners.’”
“Every step we take,” solemnly rejoined the Professor, “discloses new
wonders. To me it is quite evident that the trail of the ethnic origins
of Tree and Serpent worship crosses the pole!”
“Yes,” shouted Hopkins, “and to me, it’s quite evident that the trail of
these reptiles crosses ours. Look out there!”
He pointed ahead and over the road stretched the wriggling bodies of
twenty or thirty faintly spotted black snakes, sleek and graceful, their
heads raised indifferently in a cool inspection of our approach, and
their tongues quivering in defiance.
As soon as they were perceived by our guard, the leader raised his hand,
and we waited for their ophidian majesties to satisfy their curiosity,
and pass on, which they did, swaying the cropped grass on the wayside
and vanishing into one of the neighboring pounds over its loosened
dejected blocks. It was quite clear that the city of Radiumopolis—so we
came to distinguish it later—might prove unpleasantly full of these
creatures, for whom the citizens maintained a most disagreeably pious
regard. It reminded the Professor of the great center of Serpent Worship
at Epidaurus, where stood the famous temple to Aesculapius and the grove
attached to it in which serpents were kept and fed, down to the time of
Pausanius.
Once over the peripheral plain we began the ascent of the mound at its
center. There was a simple stateliness about this terraced rise of
steps, formed of a red tile or brick, from its very gradual recession
and its extreme width. Here our eyes measured and studied the
astonishing house, or temple, or Capitol, which was to be for us
doubtless a “house of detention” also.
It was a square composite, with openings on three sides—those we could
see—and pierced by window embrasures, sensibly regular in their spacing.
Porches extended outward from the openings and on these a little rather
unsuccessful decorative construction had been expended. Over each porch
entrance was the literal reproduction in gold and in stucco of the local
deity, in addition to the upraised images—careening and expanded like
hippogriffs—at the four corners of the building. These latter were made
entirely of gold, and represented thousands and thousands of dollars. It
was indeed stupifying to estimate their probable value.
The gold surface of the Capitol proved to be a plastering of gold
plates, not so well or so carefully executed as to preclude the constant
exposure of the underlying adobe. But this prodigious prodigality of
gold was again most incredible.
We were conducted at once into the _Acropolis_ so the Professor styled
it—noting before we entered a serviceable courtyard around it, which
secured a little dignity from a wall of bricks interrupted by higher
pillars, and also rimmed with gold. Entering a broad hallway we were
overcome by the pervasive softly emitted radiance from lamps of mineral
on clumsy stands, and held on round gold saucers or servers.
“Radium,” said the Professor. “It is exactly as I have been suspecting.
These people have gained access to some vast deposit of this
miracle-working element. It not unreasonably may be supposed that it is
exposed in some chasm in the crust of the earth, entering to great
depths, and perhaps impinging on such central masses as have been
interpolated in some recent physical speculations, as giving rise to the
_static_ heat of the earth. Here we probably have an explanation of the
abundance of gold—_transmutation_! And here too some adequate
explanation of the stationary sun rays converted by reflection into
light and heat—Astounding! Astounding!! Astounding!!!”
To me the fascination, in a way, of all this mixture of wonders and
horrors (the snake and later discoveries and episodes) and primal
simplicity, was just that incalculable oddness or mystery of the
conjunction of some almost superhuman power with the weird religion and
the archaic habits. I cannot describe how perversely it affected me,
sometimes raising my interest to a fever heat, and again filling me with
a tormenting fury of desire to make my escape.
We passed through the hall, our guard, at some gesture from the captain,
closing around, and as we emerged at its further end, again upon the
outside court, I, looking back, saw attendants cover the radium masses
with opaque caps. We were now in a somewhat contrasted entourage. On
this side of the Capitol the city seemed excluded, and a rather thick
wood and an untamed undergrowth, through which however stretched a broad
highway, monopolized the ground westward. We had entered both the city
and the Capitol from the east. In an adjoining yard at the foot of
another symmetrically disposed terrace of steps was a closed tenement,
and into this we were led.
Imagine our delight to find it occupied by an immense basin or pool,
into which two conduits poured hot and cold water. The immense bath was
even then gently steaming; the outer air had grown increasingly colder.
Rough masonry couches, covered with rugs, had been built against the
walls, and on the edge of the huge tank were scattered white chunks
which, at first conceived to be soap, turned out to be an indifferent
substitute, in the shape of an unctuous and gritty clay.
This delightful prospect almost brought shouts to our lips, and Hopkins
raising his hands in mock homage and gratitude, exclaimed:
“But this day of water, cleanliness, and soap,
I shall carry to the Catacombs of Hope,
Photographically lined
On the tablets of my mind,
When a yesterday seems to me remote.”
And to crown all we were given the tunic and trousers of Radiumopolis
with the belt and enigmatically engraved buckle—of lead, to Goritz’s
ill-suppressed mortification. And then we were taken back into the
Capitol, and alloted four rooms facing the east, each provided with a
window, from which we would now surely be able to watch the pageant of
the returning worshippers, priests or celebrants. These rooms deserve a
passing consideration. They were low ceilinged, moderate spaced, their
floors carpeted with a rude figured matting (again the conventional
Crocodilo-Python) their walls hung with rugs far less artistic than the
Navajo blanket, low couches upholstered with matting and rugs or
carpets, and across the doorway a surprisingly artistic tapestry of gold
threads, figuring the Crocodilo-Python in a maze of interlacing and
sinuous outlines, something like the convoluted sea dragon on the jade
screens of China. One of these curtains hung at the entrance of almost
every room in the Capitol, and they were very numerous and capable of
accommodating a remarkable number of people.
There were on the ground floor—where our own rooms had auspiciously been
reserved—large assembly rooms, or audience and council chambers, and, as
the sequel shows, one of these was the Throne Room. There was no glass
covering to the windows; perhaps in a few instance screens of leather,
which were inserted in the openings of the rooms, helped to exclude the
cold, such as it was. Rain was kept out by board frames. We found out
that there was seldom a cold exceeding 0° Centigrade, and that radium
stoves or our clothing itself, mitigated any severity of weather the
denizens of these houses experienced. Everything reinforced our first
impressions, that the culture of the Radiumopolites was simple,
unostentatious, a little grotesque and savage, but that their proximity
to some source of radium had evolved a mysterious power among their wise
men, which had overlaid the _supellex_ of their culture with this
resplendent glory of GOLD. Was it, as the Professor more and more
confidently believed—was it _transmutation_?
In our rooms we were supplied with the radium lamps and were made to
understand that too long exposure to their influence was dangerous. Once
in possession of this marvel we surrendered almost all curiosity to the
inspection of the transcendent material. Facts connected with its
properties and its power are considered in another place; our immediate
history in our new surroundings claims precedence now. We were permitted
the liberty of the courtyard around the Capitol, but were not allowed to
descend the hill, nor to investigate the surrounding city. Of course we
saw the occupants of the Capitol, who evidently formed a restricted and
semi-imperial class, and the many messengers, tradespeople or
supplicants who every day came out of the city.
The small people were immensely the more interesting of the two types.
They varied much among themselves, and exhibited individualities of
temperament, behavior and feature, that were most absorbing. One defect
amongst them was the imperfect and incomplete teeth, especially in the
men, the apparently thin-shanked (_platynemic_) legs, and the somewhat
constricted chests, indications, taken in connection with their large
heads, that the Professor interpreted as evidence of great racial age.
The women were often sharply contrasted with the men, being larger, more
shapely, and often boasting really extraordinary beauty. This was most
marked in the residents in the Capitol, and one of these ladies of the
Capitol whom we later encountered promenading the courtyard quite
enthralled us. Her own appreciation of the Yankee was on her side
equally enthusiastic.
We had our meals served to us in a separate room, attended by servants
of the larger race. We sat at a table covered with a yellow cloth, with
designs woven upon it of the ubiquitous Crocodilo-Python, and we ate
from square dishes of pottery, also yellow and bordered by blue
traceries of interwoven serpents, which revolted both Hopkins and
myself. Our cuisine was not much varied, and the most pleasing element
was the delicious wine. The flat meal cakes, nuts, fruit and dishes of
goat and sheep meat, with some vegetables, were offered relentlessly day
after day, and it occurred to Hopkins that if he could have had an
assorted shipment from Park and Tilford’s, and been allowed to make a
few simple experiments in the kitchen he could easily have raised the
standard of living immensely.
But I was making remarkable progress in acquiring the tongue of the
upper classes. My excellent knowledge of Hebrew made this practicable,
and in a short time, before the return of the Councilors, Priests or
Governors from their peripatetic religious pilgrimage made it supremely
helpful, I could actually converse intelligibly, and from carefully
enunciated addresses understand my interlocutor. I was most lucky in
hitting on a very sympathetic teacher. It was no less a one than Ziliah,
the daughter of Javan, the president of the Council and Ruler of the
Capitol. He was the benignant and expostulating little gentleman we had
encountered when our mishap precipitated us from the pine tree top. She,
his daughter, was certainly the fairest of the children of Radiumopolis,
and her wandering and liquid eyes had never been more satisfied than
they were now with the sweet boyish beauty of Spruce Hopkins, the
Yankee.
Ziliah Lamech—if I may adopt the Gentile practices of nomenclature—was
one of the larger women, and exhibited a different and piquant skill in
dress. Her trousers were rather baggy, her skirts looped on the sides,
so that her pretty feet in embroidered goatskin sandals were
delightfully visible. The belt of gold plates and the wonderful buckle
of gold clasped her waist, constricting the blowsy upper tunic, which
was a delicate blue, and enriched by interwoven threads of gold. It was
loosened at her neck and the dark, smooth skin bared at her finely
shaped neck, was decorated by a series of delicate gold chains in a
composite flat necklace. Her abundant hair, as with the women we had met
in the pine forest, was made up in compact rolls, that were held in
place by the gold serpent pins, and from her small ears hung tiny bells
of gold.
Her face, as I carefully studied it, was distinctly Jewish. The features
were really perfect, and the mingled softness and intelligence of her
expression, the half denoted charm of extreme sensibility in her eyes,
the mobility and loveliness of her mouth, a swaying grace in her
motions, an indefinable distinction too in the carriage of her head, and
the enticing fullness of her bared arms—the sleeves of her upper garment
were caught up to her shoulders by broad loops of ornamented
gold—combined to make of her a captivating and most novel picture. She
it was, whose heart the errant little god Cupid had now sadly transfixed
with his stinging arrows, and her heart was beating wildly under the
loosened folds of her jacket with love for the blond American.
It was my opportunity. Love is a quick teacher, and makes quick
confidences, especially with naive and unsophisticated natures, as now,
in this little princess of the north. She met us frequently in the
courtyard surrounding the huge glittering Capitol where we were
constantly strolling, and I recall the extraordinary picture she made,
when one of the black lustrous snakes rose from the parapet on the edge
of the hill as she was passing. She bowed to us, seized the reptile,
wound it around her body, and lifted, above her own, its big
wedge-shaped head, with one hand, holding with the other its scaly loops
at her waist. The effort brought color to her cheeks, excitement to her
eyes, and though neither Hopkins nor myself admired the combination, her
beauty won from the fantastic, or repellent, contrast a most singular
thrall.
There was a maidenly coquetry with her, as became her degree, for she
retired after disengaging the creature, throwing it back down the
hillside, whence it sped to the immense preserve below reserved for
these unpleasing guests. The ophidian impress everywhere was to me
almost unbearable. These snakes traveled from their enclosures, more or
less frequently, in all directions; they were numerous in the city,
though, and, after their secretive habits, were discovered most
unalluringly in corners, eaves, holes, roofs, hanging from trees, or
nestled on clothes. In the Capitol or Palace they were not so common,
and probably were never found above the first floor.
Hopkins of course realized his conquest, but Hopkins decidedly abhorred
snakes. When the beautiful Ziliah vanished, he said with a most comical
grimace:
“A married life with a snake lady wouldn’t be much better than a
lifelong companionship with a gin mill,” an ungallant commentary which I
denounced.
Ziliah and I loitered long together until under her adroit tutelage I
became almost proficient in this unquestionably deteriorated Hebrew
tongue. And then, when we fairly understood each other—how the questions
flew! She exulted in telling me all she knew about her people, and the
exchange on my part, in telling her of our origin and home, with welcome
dilations on the talent and prowess of the adorable Spruce, only too
well repaid her efforts. I told all these things to my friends, and for
long hours we would discuss and rehearse them with increasing amazement.
In conjunction with all that I learned later, the picture to be
presented of Radiumopolis, the Radiumopolites, and their country—KROCKER
LAND—is mainly as follows:
The Valley of Rasselas lies to the southwest of the Krocker Land
terrain, and the city of Radiumopolis to the southwestern corner of the
valley itself. They are eccentrically related to the vast domain of
encircling mountains, and to the stupendous gorge of the Perpetual
Nimbus, which seems throughout its extent to penetrate to uncooled or
igneous wombs of the earth. But at one point westward there is a
superimposed gorge that actually cuts the first encircling monstrous
crack, and through this secondary gorge, cutting the first to immense
depths, pours the deluge of the waters of the river that empties the
Saurian Sea into the Canon of Promise. (See Chapter VI.) This great
river enters the Valley of Rasselas towards the northwest, and after a
short, peaceful transit, as a brimming flood through wide savannahs, it
turns abruptly westward in an entrenched conduit and resumes its
terrible course through the canon I named the Canon of Escape. Through
this awful defile and on the surging flood of that river I made my own
exit from Krocker Land, reached Beaufort Sea, Behring Straits, and
finally San Francisco. Goritz’s appellation for the gorge beyond the
Saurian Sea is, however, justified because of the river’s final, though
brief, passage across one extremity of the blissful Valley of Rasselas.
Immediately southward, west of Radiumopolis, are hot springs, a sort of
geyser basin, whence hot waters are constantly derived for the baths of
the city—and we found the latter to be numerous. Beyond these again, in
the same direction, the continental rift of the Perpetual Nimbus almost
closes, and the horrible crack becomes a crevice easily crossed. But
beyond it again, in a crustal split that defies computation to measure,
or science to explain, or experience to equal, lies, probably a radium
(?) mass fifty or more miles in linear extent, with a width of three or
four miles, and from which constantly pours an almost cosmic immensity
of heat and light—_emanation-niton_. Its environs are withered, blasted
deserts of rock. No one has ever approached it. Its emanation strikes a
bare mountain face beyond it—a part of the Krocker Land Rim—and the
incalculable volume of rays (Cathode Rays) reflected into the upper
atmosphere over Krocker Land and immediately superior to the Valley of
Rasselas, are somehow arrested in a nebulous ganglion which forms the
Stationary Sun of this utterly fabulous region. This sun is really not
stationary, nor is it in any sense equable, as hints in my narrative
have already indicated. It moves, drifts north and south, east and west,
undergoes perturbations, dies out, flares up, and would, to a properly
equipped meteorological corps, stationed at Radiumopolis, furnish, I
believe, an object of study absolutely unrivaled in terrestrial science.
But from time immemorial in the radium land fragments, nodules of a
grayish or brownish mineral, were picked up and their _nuclei_ were
later revealed to be pure radium (they called it _Luxto_), and from
these by an accident—still retained in the tradition of the people as a
heavenly bestowed revelation or miracle—the power of transmutation was
learned.
Mr. Link, we had already suspected this, as you know, but when I
actually learned it from the lips of Ziliah—the love-dazed Ziliah—I
verily doubted my existence for a moment. In connection with the whole
complex, so to speak, of wonders, it produced a half vertiginous feeling
hard to describe. Ziliah’s story was in this wise:
“A long, long, long, time ago, after a long darkness in the Stationary
Sun, a terrible storm broke over Radiumopolis. The thunder, the
lightning flashes, had never before been heard or seen, and there roared
through the air an awful, destructive wind. It upset houses, blew over
part of the Capitol, razed the trees; and then amid the thunder and the
lightning, in a downrush of air, came a stranger, a little man strangely
dressed in white with a black cap, and he had a dark face. He stayed
with the people and taught them many things, but only to the _rulers_,
the older men, the men of the council, would he teach the secret of
making gold. He took them away with him on a journey westward to the
radium country. They were absent many days and when they returned they
were in rags, and their faces were pale, and haggard, but their hands
and their pockets were filled with lumps of gold. The little stranger
left as he had come in another awful storm. He went upward in a
whirlwind and rode like a ghost through fearful gusts and disappeared in
a roar of thunder and blaze of light, and a circle of flame descended
from his feet and burnt a deep hole in the ground, as anyone can see to
this day, below the hill in the snake pasture. But that wasn’t all. He
carried away with him the beautiful daughter of the Head Man and she
never was seen again.”
“Why,” exclaimed Hopkins, when I repeated the legend, “it’s a clear case
again of Alice Hatton and the Devil, though in that case Old Nick left
nothing behind him but a bad smell:
“Now high, now low, now fast and now slow,
In terrible circumgyration they go—
The flame colored belle and her coffee faced beau!
Up they go once and up they go twice!
Round the hall! Round the hall! And now up they go thrice.
Now one grand pirouette the performance to crown,
Now again they go up, and they NEVER COME DOWN!”
Whatever the legend meant it intimated that someone had discovered this
peculiar power in the radium mineral, and the knowledge had been
carefully guarded, though, as Goritz said, “Of what use was the
knowledge when gold was needed by no one?”
But the power itself, its physical or chemical postulates, the method,
the material! Later we learned something, but not much, and I trust it
may be reserved for Science, _with the material at my command_ (which
exerts this miraculous power) to solve the problem of the ages.
Ziliah told me something of the origins of her people and this curious
civilization of theirs, but it was vague and inconclusive. The small
people were an intensive people, whose unresisted control of a
physically stronger and bolder race resembles some of the ethnic
phenomena of Asia and Africa. Their literature was practically little
else than long genealogies, the traditions transmitted by word of mouth
of former rulers, councils, the doings of a few notables, and a
cosmology which very singularly resembled the story recently deciphered
on a Sumerian relic by Professor Arno Poebel of the University of
Pennsylvania.
In fact these Radiumopolites had lived uneventful lives and the
incidents of history were controlled exclusively by the incidents of
weather, the atmospheric and terrestrial perturbations involved in their
unique environment. When had they reached this extraordinary polar
depression? Were they autochthonous? Was it not more likely that the
Eskimo people had assimilated with them, and had been absorbed rather
than, as in Ziliah’s account, the reverse? These were unanswered
questions. To propose them only covered Ziliah’s face with the shroud of
an unhappy perplexity.
Their social economic life was very simple. As far as Ziliah could tell
me they had always been governed by a patrician class, constituted of
two orders, one the Eminences of the Capitol, to which Javan, Ziliah’s
father, belonged, and who numbered some twenty-four, presided over by a
President, and all of whose families, retainers, etc., were for the most
part domiciled in the great Capitol building; and the Magistrates of the
city, who ruled over wards or bailiwicks, living in superior structures,
whose roofs were also distinguished by gold plates, and which throughout
the city blazed picturesquely among the lowlier red buildings.
The religion in primitive communities, always a controlling and
oftentimes the most distinctive feature of their culture, was in the
Krocker Land people a monotheistic faith which, however, secured the
satisfaction of visualization in a deeply rooted and superstitious Tree
and Serpent worship. Yet THERE WERE NO PRIESTS. And this anomalous
condition was explained partially by Ziliah, who told me that it had
years before been instituted as a Law of the People that only a King
could be their Priest. Whether they had ever had Kings she did not know
but there was some prophecy made by one of the wise old men of the
Council, a hundred or more years ago that a King would fall out of the
clouds to them, that he would look like a poor man, that he would not
know their language, that he would bring them a new wisdom. It was some
time before I could make out the meaning of this. It dawned on me at
last. Its full meaning received a startling explanation later. The
services of the religion were controlled by the Council (the Areopagus,
as the Professor styled it) of little Wise Men, and one prominent
feature was this periodic peregrination through the great Pine Forest
when the selected shrines were visited, the votive tablets nailed to the
sacred trees, and the black snakes left to protect them. When I told
Hopkins about all this he shook his head gloomily;
“Yes, and how about Goritz’s loot? I guess the God of Krocker Land won’t
stand for that. Erickson we’ll get it in the neck yet. The Professor is
our trump card.”
“Oh, yes,” I replied. “How about yourself? The fair Ziliah pulls well
with her father, I guess, and you _pull_ well with her!”
Hopkins gave me a derisive glance. “Oh of course. We’ll do the Captain
Reece stunt—you remember?
“The captain saw the dame that day
Addressed her in his playful way—
‘And did it want a wedding ring?
It was a tempting ickle sing!
“‘Well, well the chaplain I will seek,
We’ll all be married this day week,
At yonder church upon the hill;
It is my duty, and I will!’
“The sisters, cousins, aunts and shape
Of every black enlivening snake
Attended there as they were bid;
It was their duty and they did.”
Of course in exchange for all these confidences, if they could be called
that, Ziliah exacted some confidences in return, and I confess I had to
resort somewhat to invention, where I did not have Hopkins’ precise
directions in the matter, in meeting her exorbitant curiosity over
everything concerning America. This disquisitional curiosity was
singular in an unsophisticated maiden of a semi-civilized people who, it
might have been supposed, would have contented herself with the
indulgence of her affections and felt no interest in her hero’s history.
But so it was. Spruce Hopkins understood her admiration, but was
extremely puzzled, certainly at first, as to his own legitimate behavior
in the affair.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XI
THE CRATER OF EVERLASTING LIGHT
The return of the Ophidian Pilgrims, as the Professor termed them,
seemed unreasonably slow. The wardens, Ziliah, and the servants of the
Capitol were all equally mystified over this unusual slowness. Cold, dry
weather supervened, for indeed the stationary sun seemed sensibly to
respond to the secular influences of the seasons, as we know them. We
had all been too sufficingly engaged in studying our new surroundings,
to regret or miss the absent Government, for a larger liberty had been
vouchsafed us, though one thing was forbidden. We could not enter the
precincts of the forest to the west of the Capitol.
We walked through the city, we explored the Capitol, we increased our
acquaintance with the domestic habits of the populace, and the Professor
and myself had accumulated notes on all of these things, to be
incorporated in the work on Krocker Land which we fervently hoped to
write, and which now—Alas!—may never see the light, for—the Professor is
today a fixed official fact in that almost mythical land in the Arctic
Sea. But I hasten.
Goritz had restrained with difficulty his almost uncontrollable impulse
to perpetrate some outrage on the Capitol itself in his determination to
accumulate a fortune of gold. We had averted this danger by very
emphatic protests. We pointed out to him its danger and the folly of
jeopardizing our safety when the means of getting back—I had almost said
to the Earth, as if we had actually left it—were now almost null, or
were at least desperate. We told him that the plunder in his room, if
found—and I began to fear that the depredations on the tree shrines had
already been detected and were, in some way, a cause for the delayed
return of the pilgrims—would involve us all in grave difficulties. To
our entreaties or threats he became deaf or obstinate, and I had
followed him, in the sleeping hours, when he expected to achieve his
robberies without molestation, only to intercept him chiseling at the
gold plates that encrusted the Capitol.
In the meanwhile the Professor, whose popularity increased with
everyone, had become attracted to a young Eskimo whose first
astonishment over the Professor’s poll of red hair had been succeeded by
a sort of personal adoration. He followed the Professor with an
attachment and fascination that might have proved irksome. I made some
inquiries of my informant, the acquiescent Ziliah, about him, and
learned from her that he was a guide and the gatherer of radium. He
alone apparently was able to penetrate the strange and ghastly country
where the radium masses were collected, in that zone of the Unreal where
lay the CRATER OF EVERLASTING LIGHT. His peculiar ability arose from his
immunity to the influence of the radium itself, which invariably
prostrated those who touched it, while the region itself forbade
approach, by reason of those indeterminable emanations which destroyed
the adventurers who entered it. For some reason, or, in some way,
Oogalah Ikimya, the young Eskimo, enjoyed a unique invulnerability, and
on his efforts Radiumopolis depended for its supply of radium. This
distinction had given him a particular arrogance. He alone now dared the
inexplicable dangers, or even knew the devious route that threaded the
labyrinths leading to this unutterable place.
When I told my friends about this, we all felt a mad desire to see, even
at a distance, this intolerable land, a mineral Gehenna. I knew of the
man’s devotion to the Professor, and I felt certain we could gain his
consent for us to accompany him. No one of us felt a keener impatience
for the trip than Antoine Goritz. I told Ziliah of our wish. She grew
pale with horror at the suggestion; her beautiful eyes pleaded with me
to abandon the suicidal project; she pointed to Spruce Hopkins in
piteous despair, she indeed flung herself at his feet, and invoked his
commiseration of her should he be lost. Then she became tempestuous with
scorn and indignation.
We could not go. The guards would prevent us. She would summon the
magistrates of the city. Was she not Ziliah, daughter of the President,
head man of the Council? We should not stir. NOT HE.
And that feminine transport over, she again importuned us, with terrible
threats of our fate, not to consider it; so many had perished in the
same outrageous pursuit; dead bodies marked the way; it was forbidden;
the curse of the Crocodilo-Python followed those who went there; it
meant madness, hysteria, death.
Finally it was made clear to us that whatever Oogalah Ikimya might say
this influential and enamored young woman would prove hopelessly
obstinate. Physical force would be invoked to restrain us. Oogalah
himself rather welcomed this opportunity to show off his skill, his
exceptional prowess, but his volubility and transports availed nothing.
Hopkins executed what the French might call a _coup d’amour_ and
liberated us. His overture to the despairing or incensed Ziliah through
me was rather compromising and risky, but its effect was instantaneous
and certain. Opposition vanished when Hopkins explained that the lovely
woman _might get herself disliked_, and that any conceivable state of
future happiness for both of them depended on _his having his way_.
So it eventually ended, as the mountainous objections seemed to melt
away like dew before the sun, that we found ourselves on the road that
led westward from Radiumopolis, under the guidance of Oogalah Ikimya,
who strode before us with rapid swinging of legs and arms, his face
radiant with pride. We had cautiously promised to be careful, not to go
farther than was prudent, to satisfy ourselves with a distant view of
the blasted land, and to return as quickly as we went, for it was
insisted that we should hold ourselves ready for the disposition of the
Council, when the long delayed pilgrims returned, to settle our fate.
The noisy rumor of our departure for the Radium Country, and the
haggling and delays that preceded it, Ziliah’s outbursts and excitement,
the consultations over the permission to let us go at all, Oogalah’s
gossiping activity about it, led to the population’s—which besieged us
and surrounded us almost daily—outpouring on the day of our departure,
so that for miles we were accompanied by a crowd watching us with
increased wonder, and, among the older, with much ominous head shaking,
and, with the younger, many sneering comments, a little cheering and
some obstreperous farewells. The Professor evoked much enthusiasm—he
always did. I do not know the _rationale_ or the etiquette of love
matters in Krocker Land, but I remember that Hopkins took the profusely
smiling and opulently lovely, young and small Ziliah aside, and tried to
make her understand—without my help—that their public parting should be
very formal, no matter how ecstatic their private one might be. On top
of that, considerably to his disappointment or chagrin perhaps, Ziliah
hugged him pretty tightly when they stood on the terrace stairs as we
left the palace, and the very observing public gathered about were
neither amused nor interested.
It was rather funny I thought, but I admitted, I am sure, that as a
display of superb manners it would be unmatched anywhere else in the
world of so-called culture today. Atala came into my mind, though Spruce
Hopkins was a good deal of a contrast to the sentimental Rene, and there
was a certain _aplomb_, directness, vivacity and insistence in Ziliah
that hardly suggested the Natchez maiden. And there certainly was no
Outogamiz.
Well, at length we were on our journey. At first the highway, for,
though seldom used, this western road was in a state of fine
preservation, traversed a thick but low wood entangled with undergrowth.
We had never entered this wood before and had been especially prohibited
from entering it. Of course we tried to see all we could, but there was
absolutely nothing remarkable about it. The land to the left sloped off
into a marshy tract. The people were numerous also at this point, which
interfered with our inspection, and I know now that Oogalah, obedient to
instructions, hurried us along this section of the route—he first, the
Professor second, then Goritz, then myself, then Hopkins—until we
reached a spare, meagre country, beyond which rose the western ranges of
the Pine Tree Gredin.
The land rose steeply, but it was almost bare, the parched soil
supported a ragged growth, and in this appeared a few stunted pine
trees. Apparently, for many miles north and south, this condition
prevailed, an unhappy and strong contrast to the pine tree zone to the
east of the amphitheater, where the land bubbled with springs, was
murmurous with brooks, and where the lofty, splendid trees spread a
temple-like shade over the vast decline.
Beyond us already rose the faint shimmer of the _Perpetual Nimbus_, that
wall-like screen of vapor that enclosed Krocker Land within the
mountainous Rim that lies outside of this veil of cloud, though here, as
I have already noted, the Nimbus was wavering, inconstant, and in
patches of the distance absent. The Deer Fels country and the aquatic
and marshy plateaux were from here scarcely distinguishable. A level
tract of stony wastes was this, varied by occasional rugged hills,
depressions that glistened balefully, dead ravines barely supporting the
niggardly growth of sapless yellow plants that lurked here and there
below boulders, or sought the moisture of a few sullen pools whose
replenishment depended upon the infrequent but, we were told, furious
storms.
And the Nimbus—a paltry reproduction of the incalculable vaporous
discharges that encircle at every other point this hidden paradise. The
chasm here was indeed deep, but imperfectly continuous, and huge
horsebacks of stone piled within it formed practicable though most
broken and uneven bridges across it. The steam rising from the heated
rocks below was not visibly referable to any water supply, as on the
east, where the plunging rivers so abundantly furnished the means of
raising this colossal stage curtain, and there was absent from here that
tumultuous rolling ocean of clouds in the sky. Probably underground
courses supplied the water, for, after we had surmounted one of the
least precipitous and angular of the bridges and had gotten into the
rising territory beyond, we encountered a puzzling intricacy of profound
cracks or fissures, and we could not only hear but could see the patchy
lustres of running water in them.
From this point our guide turned abruptly northward, taking us through a
terrible desolation of rocks, with the high snow-clad peaks of the
Krocker Land Rim gloriously looming skyward on the left. I shall not
forget that strange transit. It was hard work. We carried our own
supplies, the water and a few instruments, and their weight was almost
insupportably increased by the discomforts of the harsh, inhospitable
land we traveled through, and, by some dizzying influence which began to
strain our heads with headaches, to parch our throats, and to produce a
most uncomfortable and absurd illusion of treading on air cushions. This
last hallucination made us unsteady, and after a while it pestered us so
much that we were compelled to stop at short intervals to rest.
Oogalah kept on well ahead, looking back at us every few minutes and
distrustfully shaking his head, with incessant gestures for increased
speed. We were not over anxious to hurry. The region was extraordinary
and its geologic features, as connected with this unparalleled deposit,
or vein, or lode, or whatever it was, of radium, were certainly worth
noting. And then our heads! Hopkins diverted us by his misery.
“I’d like to look inside of my cranium just now. I couldn’t begin to
tell how it feels; something, I should say, like what gunpowder men call
_deflagration_ is taking place there, popguns going off every few
minutes, with a hurdy-gurdy accompaniment in my ears and a bad taste in
my mouth.
“The Professor really ought to be very careful and avoid any extra
exertion. In a bean as full as his, there probably isn’t much room for
expansion, and I guess the right word for describing our condition is
expansion—almost unlimited. My head may seem no bigger than usual, but I
should say it had already grown large enough for distribution to a dozen
headless gentlemen, enough to give each of them a head piece of ordinary
dimensions. Whew—but this is fierce.”
The poor fellow had clapped both hands to his head as if to actually
hold it together. And with all of us the inscrutable sensations were
becoming insufferable. Goritz insisted on keeping on but we overruled
that. It was just possible that our resting a while might accustom us to
the strange influence of atmosphere, and enable us to proceed without
this torturing plague of heat and noise and dilation in our poor heads.
We sat down. Oogalah quickly discovered our reluctance, and was back
with us in a trice, gesticulating and vociferating as well, absolutely
unaffected, which brought to the suffering Yankee’s face the most
comical expression of disgust and surprise.
“I say, Erickson, this has me guessing. What do you suppose that
fellow’s made of? Rubber? Cork? Do you know I believe he’d put
electrocution on the fritz. You’d be compelled to pulverize him if you
ever expected to drive the life out of his body. One hundred yards more
of this and I’ll either join the choir invisible _ipse motu_, as they
say in the books, or just get one of you to pass me over with a wallop
on the cocoa, or a fine slit along the carotid. I believe I could go so
far as to commit _hari-kari_, and not know it. It can’t be possible that
you fellows don’t notice it.”
“Notice it!” I answered. “My head feels like a balloon. I almost wonder
I don’t float off with it. We can’t last this way. It would be a sorry
ending to this famous exploit, if we were all to burst like soap
bubbles.”
Oogalah by means of elaborate pantomime to the Professor, and a few
intelligible words to Goritz acquainted us with his assurance that a
hill about one hundred yards away would bring us relief. We struggled to
it, sick and staggering. To our amazement upon ascending it a little way
relief came, and our tormented heads sensibly shrank—so it felt—to
something like their usual volume. Then we noticed, guided by the
Professor’s acumen in such matters, that while the region was
unmistakably an igneous complex, the rocks we had passed over were
entirely granitic, and the elevation on which we now stood was a basic
olivine-peridotite, dense and black, and in some way exempt from the
radiumistic occlusions which perhaps saturated the granitic batholith
around it. I will not stop to discuss this, sir, but later we indeed
established the fact that the enormous outflow of granite lava had
brought to the surface innumerable radium bodies, distributed through it
in molecular aggregates of considerable size, and that the unseen but
voluminous discharge of the emanation so affected us, while the gabbro
dikes, containing none, afforded an impermeable flooring for our
passage.
Then, too, we were now approaching the splendid prism of light that shot
upward, yet obliquely, in a vast pulsating diffusion of a delicate
radiance that grew, as we advanced, more and more intolerable. Our
progress consisted now in crossing, as quickly as our stumbling
movements would allow, the granitic intervals that separated the ranges
of low basic hills. On these latter we regained our strength and
composure, and prepared for the succeeding dashes that carried us over
the perilous interludes. It was amazing to watch the _insouciance_ and
activity of our guide. He did not even protect his eyes. It seemed as if
some physiological peculiarity rendered him immune to the terrifying
disorders that signalized to us, instantly, the presence of these
puissant particles of radium, or else he had become so from his long
continued exposures, a theory quite incomprehensible to us.
But even to this dogged and halting march there was a limit. Oogalah
himself had enough rectitude of purpose to realize that, and perhaps too
he felt vainglorious of his superiority. He indicated almost sternly a
final towering hill, a continuation of the broken cordillera we had been
following, which should be the terminus of our exploration. We—at least
Hopkins and myself—would not have cared to overpass it. We were deadly
faint and exhausted when we reached it, and but for the magnanimous help
of the Eskimo, who carried our packs, I think we would have swooned and
fallen by the way. The Professor seemed the least susceptible to the
mysterious influence, and this amusingly vexed and confounded Hopkins.
Brute willpower and his insatiable fever of desire to obtain the
transmuting substance which raised before him the vision of boundless
wealth, kept Goritz on his feet. With the Professor it was the
energizing power of scientific curiosity. The paralyzing effect of
suffocation was really noticeable.
Well, after a few minutes’ rest, with Goritz impatient and the Professor
aflame with wonder, we started up a portentously narrow hill, and a high
one too. Oogalah pointed out its pinnacle as our destination, and then
turned westward into that dizzying and unearthly country wherein lay the
trough of radium. Around us fell the radiance of its wonderful emission,
but we found that the climbing path—it had been worn well into the rock
by previous pilgrims—clung to the eastward scarp of the hill, and was
therefore actually in shadow—a welcome relief. Perhaps five hours were
consumed in this toilsome ascent, but when we reached the last winding
trail, and had clambered to a small shelf immediately under the ragged
apex, we looked over a scene of unparalleled terribleness.
The pen of Dante or the pencil of Dore alone could have done justice to
its weird and frightful desolation, not entirely expressed in
lifelessness, but in the awful grimace in it of tortured and disfigured
matter. The blacks, purples and reds, smeared over it wrote in it a sort
of agony of disgrace and unseemliness and pain. I wonder if the
landscapes of the Moon resemble it.
For a long way in the foreground, where we saw with astonishment the
running figure of Oogalah, stretched a broken platform of white
quartzite, and through this sprang the strangest confusion of lines,
skeins, dashes and drippings of black, purple, brown, and traceable here
and there, as of the tracks of a bleeding animal or man, chained drops
of red. It was not beautiful certainly, it had no ornamental or
decorative features; it was, rather, scoriaceous and blasting.
Beyond this rugose platform rose two mounds, one ashen and white—the
Professor said it was a bleached, corroded and kaolinized granite—the
other a purplish, livid mass streaked with threads or blotches of yellow
(sulphur, the Professor thought), and these hills ran north and south,
becoming reduced to sprawling and unwholesome heaps of slaggy
consistency which ever and anon encroached on the quartzite zone and
even encumbered it, as if tossed upon it in drifts of scattered nodules.
Through the gateway, between the two first mounds, we saw even now the
form of Oogalah passing, but he was no longer erect. He was crawling on
hands and knees, and over his head hung a towel. Hopkins and myself
shuddered for him. His venturesome undertaking seemed to us _simply_
suicide. He intended to bring us each a mass of the mineral—a small
piece. When he gathered this miracle-working substance for Radiumopolis,
we were told, he first camped behind one of the peridotite hills, then
issued upon his dangerous mission, collected what he could, returned to
his camp, and for weeks kept at it until his supply was sufficient. The
store made, he removed it in the same laborious way, stage by stage,
until he came to the safer country, where he was met by numerous
assistants who transported the radium homeward.
But we could see from our elevation beyond these dead heaps, beyond,
into the vale of Acheron, as it were,
_Quam super haud ullae poterant impune volantes
Tendere iter pennis_;
a further dead valley declining into the deeper chasm from which sprang
the auroral light. This chasm was evidently indefinitely prolonged
northward; from it rose the coronation or rays which seemed converged
upon a marvelous blazing precipice on the further boundary of this
irregular, narrow, longitudinal canon. Into the canon itself it was
impossible to look. It was enclosed in the upper valley which we could
see, and which presented a spectacle of stony desolation. Its sides were
evidently precipitous on the east, and pretty generally hidden from us,
but on the west it presented to us a long, receding slope of rock palely
illuminated beneath the light streaming in a broad and thick flood over
it. These rock exposures were curiously discolored, and also curiously
spotted with glow-spots, from included radium perhaps.
Clefts or rents tore down their sides, and ragged, serpentine embrasures
interrupted the cliffs that bordered it. Black recesses contrasted with
the bright surfaces, and sharp crests (_arete_) bristled here and there
in jagged series, where the cliffs attained elevations of probably
thousands of feet. It was a vast abyss and was split more deeply by a
secondary and later fissure which had uncovered the central masses of
radium. Nowhere could we discern any evidences of aqueo-thermal
activity, no steam spirals anywhere. The vapor line was eastward along
the crack where the Perpetual Nimbus appeared. Beyond, far beyond, rose
the snowy tops, the glacier ridden summits of the Krocker Land Rim.
It was enthralling. Remember, Mr. Link, it was the night time of the
polar world, and here all was bathed in light or silhouetted in shadow,
while that Stationary Sun which filled the immense valley land with
light, imparted to it warmth; it shone in its peculiar zenith, deriving
in some way (by reflection from the crystalline walls to the west) its
replenishment of light and heat from this stupendous source of both. We
watched in a trance of amazement for hours. There were perceptible
pulsations in the emanation, and it was altogether remarkable to observe
that these were recorded in the variable sun, obviously susceptible to
these changes. Its reference (the sun’s) to the radium masses, here
uncovered, was now indisputable.
It had now in the advanced season become apparent that the earth’s
secular changes were not quite dissipated in the Krocker Land basin by
its unique feature of the Stationary Sun. For weeks it had been growing
colder, and now—to our astonishment a spectacle of dazzling beauty
relieved the singular weird terror of this lifeless scene. We saw a
gathering gloom from far away darken the peaks of the Krocker Land Rim;
it spread and became revealed as a snowstorm. A wind brushed over
us—another instant and the wide zone of delicate radiation was
transformed into an indescribably glorious firmament of stars, shifting,
dying out and renewed, and around us from the sky fell a shower of icy
particles, a flurry from the tempest that was sweeping over the distant
ranges.
Hardly had we recovered from the shock of this unexpected display when
we heard the voice and saw the form of Oogalah approaching our position,
from the opposite side of the hill. He had executed his errand and was
returning, and the expanded bag in his hands showed that he had
accomplished his purpose. We had seen him disappear in the defiles
beyond the crumbling hills. He showed the strain of his work and the
effect of the unnatural influence of that exposure, but in a short time,
after resting, his strength and composure returned, and he was ready for
the home journey. He afterwards told me he had never looked into the
chasm, or chasms, whence the radium emissions or radiations proceeded.
He had not cared to. Once on the field of his dangerous occupation,
groveling to the ground, he moved cautiously over the rocky flooring,
and extracted the mineral masses from the veins wherein they seemed to
be segregated, _hammering them out_. Formerly he had been able to pick
the nodules up loose from the granite ledges. That was no longer
possible. He had exhausted the supply of free lumps, and now he was
compelled to practice this superficial mining. He knew that the surface
finds were abundant further down the slopes of the defile, but he
dreaded the experiment of entering further into the disorganizing
influences of the lethal chamber. He had once been rash in that way and
had swooned, and only the brush of some cavorting wind current from
above, such as we had ourselves felt, had sufficiently revived him to
enable him to regain his feet and to escape.
On our return Goritz monopolized Oogalah. He plied him with questions,
and evinced the most excited interest in his work. Poor fellow—the
poison of the lust for gold, _sacri fames auri_, had entered his mind
and heart. A magnificent man, Mr. Link, sturdy, resourceful,
remorselessly self forgetful, and most simple in tastes, a lovable
brother, if ever there was one, but sir, never the same after that
unlucky find of the gold belt, when we crossed the first barrier of the
Krocker Land Rim.
He became secretive, avaricious, moody, impatient, a delirious dreamer,
and then most unaccountably suspicious. It was a revolution in character
that would have puzzled an expert in psychology or nerves to explain. To
me it was a pretty bad shock, and when at last the unhappy man—but let
that wait. It displays a measure of the pernicious power of the
temptation of money to corrupt (the word in Goritz’s case is
misapplied), to alter nature and temperament, and all because he
expected to enjoy its pleasures in the world we had left; for gold in
Krocker Land for any of ordinary uses, like ours, was literally not much
more desirable than so much earth. To the Radiumopolite it administered,
it is true, a mild esthetic pleasure. There was some recondite
recognition in his ingenuous nature of its beauty at least, and its
unchangeableness. To the rulers, the doctors, the chiefs, it may have
seemed more; at any rate they devoted it to the purposes of distinction
and religion.
Goritz on our way back was most impatient to examine the strange mineral
Oogalah had brought us, but the man refused to let him, intimating,
quite fiercely, that it should be distributed among us when we got back
to the Capitol, and not before. This refusal really arose from his
intention of giving the Professor the largest piece. As Hopkins averred,
the Professor had Oogalah “_buffaloed_” an epitomized substitute,
certainly not intelligible, for a lengthier explanation of the
Professor’s extraordinary influence over the man.
I remember we were all silent on our way back; we were dazed, and the
journey had been rapid and arduous. The Professor himself had indeed,
for weeks past, neglected to speculate on the wonders about us, and we
now seldom received from him those lectures with which he had first
instructed us. Perhaps he was overwhelmed by the incredible realization
of the prophecies he had made to us on the sylvan banks (how far away
and distant they seemed) of the beautiful fiord in Norway, under a
summer sky.
Once again within the charmed borders of the Valley of Rasselas we found
the highway deserted. It was a contrast to the eager multitudes that had
escorted us when we left. Past the mysterious swamps on the right from
which, at one moment, I thought I heard a queer sucking wail or bark, as
of some big animal, and on into the city, and yet no encounters! Past
the bathhouses, over the wide serpent pasture with its populous cribs,
up the wide western terrace of steps of the Golden Capitol, and not one
welcoming face—only the listless snakes sluggishly gliding or coiled in
varnished mats.
To these omnipresent, pervading inhabitants we had become, in a manner
of speaking, accustomed; we found them in the streets of the city, and
through the courtyard of the Palace, over the parapets, ensconced in
niches in the walls, rising hideously from the pavement of the inner
halls, or unexpectedly and unwholesomely slipping over the mats of our
rooms, or dripping like dark thongs from their cornices. Hopkins
detested them.
“I tell you, Erickson,” he would exclaim, “an externalized _delirium
tremens_ of this sort is worse than drink. Beats me how people ever came
to think well of these critters. They’re the most painfully unpleasant
denizens of this earth that I have ever encountered—_to me_. Tastes
differ of course, but I can’t help feeling that nobody really likes ’em,
and pretences to the contrary are just plain lies, or the deponents have
never enjoyed the advantages of a public school education, a hot bath,
towels, soap, the morning newspaper, pure food, clean shirts, and the
white things that generally go to make up white civilization—in other
words, Alfred, they’re just savages like these big and little demons all
around us.”
“How about Ziliah?” I might ask mischievously.
The handsome fellow would smile bewitchingly. “Say Erickson, if Ziliah
and I ever go to housekeeping we’ll cut out the snakes—_I will_—and I’ll
start up Anti-Snake missions, until we get the people converted into
regular Christians—the real Irish sort. Then I’ll come the St. Patrick
act on them, and exterminate the varmints, and coming generations,
hereabouts, will call me blessed.”
We were somewhat more astonished to enter the western doorway of the
Capitol and still find no one, but we could see darkly through its dingy
length—the radium lamps were covered—and noted a crowd outside of its
eastern entrance. At the same time something like beating cymbals and
tanging drums came to our ears, and then unmistakably the shouts of
people.
“They’ve come back,” shouted Oogalah in his lingo, and he rushed past
us, mad with expectation.
We followed him with almost equal precipitancy, and the bag of radium
mineral that had cost us all this effort was forgotten. Oogalah dropped
it, we neglected it in the sudden excitement, and—_it was never again
found_.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XII
THE POOL OF OBLATION
Oogalah was right. It was the return of the pilgrims, and the delighted
city, plunged for days in wondering doubt over their safety had rushed
bodily out to meet them. Our momentary importance was hopelessly
eclipsed. I dreaded lest it might undergo an inverted resurrection, and
that these potent little men, incensed over our discovered depredations,
might turn angrily upon us and destroy us. For the moment I forgot these
apprehensions in pure admiration at the novel exhibition.
When we emerged on the courtyard at the eastern entrance of the Capitol
we found the broad mound on which the gold house was erected crowded.
Immediately in front of it was a jostling mass of women, and prominent
among them, by reason of stature and position, was standing the pretty
Ziliah, arrayed in certainly her best and most becoming costume, at the
head of the broad stairway, a view down which led the eye straight
eastward over the wide thoroughfare, now fenced in by enthusiastic
multitudes. Literary reminders constantly recur to me, and just then I
was amused to find myself picturing Rome when Pompey entered it and
recalling Marullus’ proud words, in Julius Caesar:
“And when you saw his chariot but appear,
Have you not made a universal shout,
That Tiber trembled underneath her banks
To hear the replication of your sounds
Made in her concave shores?”
There was no Tiber, to be sure, but there were the people, and the
shout, albeit rather more shrill and piercing than thunderous. The air
seemed at moments and in places thick with the rising hats that were
tossed with splendid nerve, in acclamation of the advancing procession.
On it came, hardly visible at first, save as an oscillating shimmer and
movement, and accompanying the incessant rumpus of the shattering
cymbals and the thumping drums. The musicians evinced a pardonable pride
and extracted as much noise as vigor and appreciation could extort from
their very willing instruments. It was exciting enough. As the first
companies of the Eskimos approached and the cataract of sound poured
over us we sought some higher outlook. A narrow ledge like a water-table
separated the second from the first story of rooms in the communal
palace. We could, by boosting and climbing on each other, reach this,
and once there the _coup d’oeil_ would be complete. Goritz bent forward.
With the lightness of a deer Hopkins sprang up, straightened himself,
and touched the coping. He swung onto it, and—I half dreaded it would
give way—it held. Then we maneuvered the Professor up. I followed and
with a long pull we jerked Goritz off his feet and hauled him to us, and
thus rather absurdly and flagrantly placed, we awaited the event. Our
feet dangled over the crowd below and, as we were in full view of the
terrace of steps and the road, the first thing the returning “doctors”
would behold, would be our desecrating presence on the walls of the
palace. But we were oblivious to consequences just then.
Gazing down immediately underneath our perch we saw the ladies of the
Capitol bunched in a many colored knot at the head of the steps.
Crushing upon them were the servants, attendants, guards, and an
indiscriminate crowd of citizens, and down these steps, kept inviolately
clean, on either side, was a line of the taller Eskimos, a man to every
step, with a black snake coiled round his waist, but with its neck and
head held outward in an inclined position, so that a view from our seat
crossed a profile of extended snakes’ heads and necks, somewhat
symmetrically displayed in two series. It was a most peculiar bizarre
picture.
Already the first regiment of men in the procession had halted, fallen
irregularly backward along the side of the road, and then massed beyond
these was the tireless band, men and women in their tight bodices and
sacks, their naked legs, and the picturesque gold knee-caps. Almost
instantly appeared the bright gold poles, around which, when we met them
in the pine forest, had been coiled the imprisoned snakes. The snakes
were no longer on them. The companies holding these advanced, strode up
the steps, and stalwartly, with a martial erectness absent from everyone
else, lined themselves with the snake holders. The diversified and
variegated cohorts of the little people which we had noticed in the
forest, had evidently dispersed, lost here and there along the route,
for they doubtless were adventitious accretions, followers from custom
or for amusement, and with them too had vanished the very considerable
commissariat.
There remained only the jaunting cars, with their odd but impressive
little occupants, and that jolting, shivering, monstrous gold throne,
bearing the shocking effigy of the Crocodilo-Python. Yes, and here they
were! The tugging rams with snail tipped horns, and the council in
violet gowns bedizened with gold braid and chains, utterly insignificant
lilliputian creatures, with their beetle heads. True, but the deadly
power lurking in those metal tubes—What was that?—not to be gainsaid,
not to be denied. The thought of it gave me a shuddering sense of
impotence, before these caricatures of men.
Of course the wagons could not ascend the steps, and the governors
softly alighted—it was quite delightful to see their noiseless flitting
to and fro—purring into each other’s ears as they came together, and
then separating with mimic gestures of expostulation or disgust or
approval. They looked, so we thought, almost as they had when we first
met them, and I began to wonder whether they did not harbor in their
light, frameless and bobbing little anatomies, extraordinary powers of
resistance, abnormal energies perhaps.
There was a little decorous shifting to and fro, and ceremonious bowing
and scraping, which had the most incalculably ludicrous appearance, as
if, after all, they were nothing but vaudeville puppets. Hopkins of
course appreciated all that uproariously. Finally they started up the
stairs, led by the benignant little gentleman who had told the Professor
to “speak,” and afterwards most effectively had gone through the dumb
show of telling him to “shut up,” and who, by the way, was Ziliah’s
father. They rose towards us with a mincing dignity that was really
pleasing. We noticed again their whiteness, their thinness, their long
arms, their thin fingers, their senile-like agitation, their pointed
beards, and the singular splendor of their eyes. The latter were now
uncovered, the disfiguring goggles hung from their necks by the most
delicate filaments of gold.
There were quite a number of them, perhaps thirty in all, and as they
slowly drew near to us we realized that while they belonged to the
racial configuration of the little people, they were probably immensely
removed from them, too, by an intellectual gap that bore some reference
to training or descent. The Semitic character of these little people was
irrefragable.
Hardly had the President—it turned out that such an appellation might
describe him—reached the middle of the ascent than we were treated to a
charming show of filial affection. Ziliah, ravishingly fixed up in close
fitting attire, and distinguished by some gold trinkets that became her
extremely well, ran down the steps and—fell into her father’s arms?
No—not that—exactly. There were some insurmountable difficulties,
related to the comparative sizes of the principals, that made that
commonplace impossible. Ziliah took her father _up_, hugged him, kissed
and—_set him down again_.
I heard Hopkins groan, and the query came in an undertone: “Where’s my
mother-in-law?”
[Illustration:
ZILIAH AND HER FATHER
]
After that there was a great deal of confusion. Mothers and daughters,
wives and sons, the magistrates from the city and innumerable friends
poured over the steps to meet the dignitaries, and, for all the world,
it just then resembled, allowing for the difference in latitude and
other things, the homecoming of a western deputation to your congress;
their arrival at the town hall, and their admiring reception by the
neighbors. And the democratic expression of things increased. The snake
sharps on the steps, so Hopkins designated them, disappeared with their
charges, depositing them in the enclosures in the “snake pasture,” the
gold-polemen scrambled up the steps and entered the Capitol, the rams,
jaunting cars, and the grinning throne-horror left too, but where I
could not see. We encountered the latter again under pretty startling
circumstances. Then when all this had happened the crowds from the city
jammed everything, with a shrilling of voices ascending to us that
sounded like a magnification, a megaphoning, of countless crickets. The
bigger people, the Eskimos, were scarcely visible. We felt relieved—_I
did_. We had been quite forgotten, and that spoke volumes for our
safety. We discussed the situation.
Hopkins: “Suppose we get down and join the house warming. It’s just
possible that they have something better to eat than usual on occasions
like this. I’d welcome a change of diet.”
I: “As this was a huge snake picnic, it may be they wind it up by eating
snakes.”
Hopkins: “Bah!”
The Professor: “My friends, now that the Faculty has returned Erickson
must interview them, explain our mission, establish scientific relations
with them if possible, get the records, assure them of the astonishment
which will be felt over their existence when we report it before the
scientific bodies of the world, solicit from them some demonstration of
their knowledge of transmutation, aeronautics, the X-ray; those powerful
tubes they manipulate; and then really we should be thinking of _getting
home_.”
I: “Professor, I don’t think we’ll find the Faculty, as you call them,
very communicative (“Tight wads?” interjected Spruce.) I’ve learned some
things from Ziliah, and judging from her communications I believe these
people know very little about themselves and what’s more I believe they
exercise their occult powers without knowing the _rationale_ of them
either. At any rate while I can get along with their speech I know I
should be floored in any intricate matter. As to—getting home. I agree
with you, but—HOW?”
The Professor: “But Alfred, be reasonable. Learn what you can. Try them.
I do admit our return presents difficulties.”
Goritz: “There can’t be much of the naphtha launch left now.”
Hopkins: “But Antoine, you are not thinking of getting out! I believe
you intended to apply for naturalization papers.”
The Professor: “There are the—Balloons? Perhaps—”
Hopkins: “Dear Professor, cut it out. There is some difference in size
and weight between these midgets and us. Really, if you’re solicitous on
the subject of the posthumous notices you are destined to receive in the
learned journals of the world, try the balloons. None in mine. Rocking
the cradle and watching Ziliah cook snakes is preferable. And seriously
I could make a hunch at getting on here if somehow we could improve the
brand of the religion—but this snake business has me going. I guess,
too, a little eugenics might help the people. Interbreeding, I should
say, with the huskies would add something to the linear dimensions of
the inhabitants, for really the girls have some class.”
I: “It seems likely to me that one might reach Beaufort Sea by a short
overland route to the west. It’s pretty clear that Radiumopolis is far
towards the western border of the Valley of Rasselas, and the Rim, and
the sea beyond that, are not far off. Our trip to the radium country
showed that.”
The Professor: “The importance of this discovery outranks anything that
has happened in the world since the discovery of America. It’s too
astounding to be even indicated in a few words. The radium deposit alone
is the most tremendous fact in nature today. For one, I should deplore
the destruction of this most curious aboriginal culture with the ethnic
problems displayed in it, but it is our indefeasible right to proclaim
to the world the presence here of the radium. The whole aspect,
industry, economics, finance, _health_ of the world will be profoundly
modified by its exploitation.”
Goritz: “Well I should say nothing about it. Let it be. We can use what
we learn about its powers for ourselves. That seems right enough to me.
What can be the use of turning the whole world topsy-turvy, and of
course as a consequence exterminating these innocent people. Do you
suppose you could hold back for one hour the rampaging hordes that would
pour into this little valley and inundate it with hungry, riotous
savages? Put a mining town with its rum and its demons in the place of
this contented realm with its picturesque life, its peaceful ceremonies,
its long inherited customs that for centuries upon centuries have never
changed; erase or debauch a community that on the very edge of the
roaring world, since time began, has kept on its quiet hidden way in
this unassailable nook, and do you think you will ever forgive
yourselves for the ruin, the devastation? It would curse you to your
death.”
We all looked at Goritz with surprise. He did not often turn on the
oratory like this. It was a touch, I said to myself, of his old nature.
The plea was well made and it kept us silent for some time, and I think
the longer we measured its meaning the more it affected us. Suddenly
Hopkins broke the silence.
“Say, where’s everybody? There isn’t a soul in sight.” It was true; the
mound hill, the courtyards, the road, the steps, the doorway, the snake
pasture, the parapets, which it seemed but a few moments before had been
crammed with the chattering multitude, were deserted. In our absorption,
seated above the heads of the crowd on the comfortable ledge, we had
forgotten to note its disappearance. Always anxious over some possible
new development which would endanger our safety, and never confident of
the good intentions of the little wiseacres with their preternatural
powers, their minute crooked devices, and their probable deceit and
malevolence, I now felt some alarm at this silence and desertion. Was it
some new turn in affairs, a new stage in their ceremonial procedure that
portended any harm to us? I had wondered over the apparent forgetfulness
of our presence, and our absolute neglect. Was it part of some
preconcerted design, an ostentatious indifference, concealing some
mischievous plot for our undoing? For it was quite easy, indeed
unavoidable to conceive, that these little rulers, impregnable hitherto
in their power, would view suspiciously our advent among them. A
secluded bred-in civilization like this, is jealous of intrusion,
resents the foreigner, and spurns novelty. It has always been so and the
Faculty—the word the Professor complimented them with—would readily
descry in us the forerunners of a more dangerous invasion. It would be
well to watch them and—where they were?
I leaped to the ground and the rest at once followed. We ran around the
corner of the building, first to the north—in which direction the city
was far less expanded than southward and eastward—and the same emptiness
confronted us. But to the south and at the west the contrast was
startling. The areas were packed with streaming throngs; crowds from
streets were discharging into the broad highway leading westward, that
one on which we had just returned from the radium hunt, and, as we
hastened to the west side of the Capitol, we saw that the concourse was
passing out on the same boulevard towards the swamp land just outside
the ranges of the city. Our elevation enabled us to trace the variegated
ribbon of people, made up of the little folk for the most part, and
occasionally a towering figure, moving _silently_ outward in an enormous
evacuation of the city. What had preceded them or what they followed we
could not undertake to determine.
Fragments and sections of the formal parade, as it had returned from the
ceremonial circuit, were embedded in the stream, and we guessed the
Council led the procession. Glancing into the broad central hall of the
Capitol—where the radium lamps were—nothing was seen. The big communal
house of government was bare and abandoned. Goritz’s hand passed
enviously over the broad encrusting plates of gold which now any
ruthless pillager could have torn away, but he did not attempt to remove
one. We certainly would have interposed had he tried it. It required no
deliberation on our part to conclude to mingle in the crowds. It might
be that if their destination was the swamps we now might learn something
of the uses of that mystery-shrouded depression and reservoir.
Running down the western terrace of steps we were soon immersed in the
multitude, though by reason of our physical proportions we rose above
them like tall saplings among bushes. Some familiarization with us had
been gained by the Radiumopolites, and although we never stirred abroad
without awakening interest, they no longer regarded us with the first
unsubdued wonder and curiosity. And on this occasion we were less likely
to excite attention, as a more dreadful expectation filled their minds.
Slowly we made our way for a mile or so until the sombre thickets and
enshrouding vegetation of the swamps came into view. And then a rapid
dispersal began. Down innumerable paths and trails, all more or less
artificially finished, the people vanished. Files of them entered these
forest alleyways and the quickly thinning throngs left us comparatively
free. We passed a broad road leading to the left, down which in the
distance we discerned a line of vans pulled by Eskimos, and on them
prostrate and bandaged or chained figures, some moving, we thought! For
the moment we were rooted with horror. What could they be? What was
this? A public execution, a sacrifice, a holocaust? Good God—could it be
a cannibalistic feast? Great as were our suspicion and terror, the
constraining power of a savage curiosity drove us on. Down the very next
lane we met, we rushed _pele-mele_, with something like rage, something
like disgust, something like a sickening fear, a blend hard to analyze.
Perhaps we had run a half a mile, when we burst through the last
encircling hedge of bushes and found ourselves on the shore of a turbid,
muddy, malodorous pool, confined by a low wall of clay, paved with tile,
and then surrounded by the outstretched cordons of the adult
population—not a child was visible—of Radiumopolis! And immediately
above us, at the side, so that we could inspect the actions of its
occupants, was a low platform, also of clay, perhaps twenty feet high.
On this platform, ranged in a circle, were those detestable worthies (?)
and behind them stood the vans, and on the vans—motionless bodies in
small low heaps, like fagoted wood! Yes! They were dead—all dead—_quite
dead_. God be praised for that!
From somewhere back of the platform the cymbals began their clamorous
cries, but whether it was due to an augmented band or an exasperated
effort, the noise seemed redoubled, rising into a screeching tumult
quite indescribable. And then the people shouted. It sounded like
_Lam-bo-o, Lam-bo-oo_.
It was a curious vocality and perhaps as nearly as anything might be
likened to the querulous squeal of monkeys, with just a faint
amelioration of disapproval on the assumption that it was singing.
That—the combined discord of the cymbals and the singing—continued for
perhaps fifteen minutes, with intervals of a minute or so. It was
altogether unearthly. Now we began to see that the pond or pool or swamp
connected by a narrow neck of water with more remote basins, that may
have had interminable connections in all directions, forming a web of
waterways.
From these distant bayous and lagoons now issued three or four or five
sinuous monsters, rushing forward upon the waves of their own
disturbance, their saurian heads raised slightly, and the huge
convolutions of their tails discerned in the wash of their wakes, as
they hastened, as if with some anticipatory avidity for their meal,
towards us, towards the platform, from where the immolation awaited
them. They were the _Crocodilo-Pythons_. We recognized at once the
white-green beasts we had seen in the Saurian Sea. Yes, the same
obscene, unspeakable beasts.
They only revealed their terrifying bulk as they approached the platform
and finally came to rest before it. Then inserting their muscular
posteriors in the mud, beyond which lazily rolled the python-like tails
in portentous folds, their heads and fore-quarters slowly rose into the
air. This exposure made us quail and yet exult, with an excitement no
language can convey. The same repulsive coloring masked them, the
greenish-yellow skin, the agitated and red blotches. Higher and higher,
mounted the snapping jaws, and at moments the mucus covered eyes emerged
with a baleful glitter; the long neck swayed and the short front legs
beat the air, as if in expostulation at delay. The fascinating thrill of
horror which such a sight causes can be understood; only the painter can
justify it.
And, sir, they were fed—_fed_ with corpses, while the infernal cymbals
banged on, and the insignificant people wailed their “_Lam-bo-oo,
Lam-bo-oo!_”
The bodies were naked and they were the dead of both races; the gaping
jaws caught them as the sea lion catches with inerrant skill the tossed
fish, that no sooner reaches the expectant jaws than it vanishes with a
hollow-sounding gulp. So for the most part did these small bodies go,
the dilating necks of the animals marking their descent to the cavernous
abdomens. A few vicious twirls maybe, a shivering hammering together of
the jaws, accompanied at times with a dip beneath the water, sending
muddy waves to the banks, indicated the less easy negotiation of the
larger bodies.
Revolted and overcome by the pervading half-sickening stench—in part the
exhalations from the vile saurians—we turned away. As we went back I
caught a full view of the little dignitaries in their violet gowns,
their glittering chains and their beehive hats, and what an incongruous
contrast it made. In their frailness, their whiteness, their chirping
volubility, with their overmade heads, their tenuous shanks and their
globed eyes they took on, to me, the whimsical likeness to delicately
cut and animated _netsukes_ in ivory, dressed like toys; and I thought
too their enlarged heads might keep company with their compressed
hearts, though certainly we could not say yet, and religious habits
often accompany many horrors, much bad taste, and a lot of antiquated
humbug.
[Illustration:
THE POOL OF OBLATION
]
We got away, the Professor reluctantly. He said the “mandibular action”
merited longer observation, and Hopkins inquired, “I wonder how the
undertakers of Radiumopolis relish this sort of burial? It certainly
saves the mourner considerable in flowers and gravestones, but I don’t
believe I would cotton to finding my ancestors in the bones of an
alligator. It’s decidedly composite you know, like as in “The Yarn of
the Nancy Bell,” when the man who had eaten a good deal of everybody,
sang:
“‘Oh, I am the cook and a captain bold,
And the mate of the Nancy brig,
And a bo’s’n tight, and a midshipmite,
And the crew of the captain’s gig.’”
Long after we had regained the highway, and were on our solitary way to
the city we could hear the smashing cymbals, the thudding drums, and the
dolorous salutation of the—Well WHAT? Worshippers. Ugh! But we did meet
Oogalah and he was in dreadfully low spirits, with a face full of
misery, wringing his hands in distress. When he saw the Professor he ran
up to him and stood before him in a woe-begone way, quite incapable of
explaining his grief. Goritz could make him out fairly well and he asked
him “What is the matter? Sick?”
“No! No! Oogalah not sick, but the Big Men have thrown his dead mother
to the Serpent!”
Of course we were interested, and Goritz extorted from our friend an
astonishing story. Briefly, it was this. Every year at the winter
solstice (for later we found that these people possessed a calendar) a
ceremony of sacrifice was celebrated at the Pool of Oblation—so I named
it. Formerly, many, many decades before this, live men and women had
been thrown to the carnivorous saurians, but that had been altered (“by
the Progressives,” Hopkins suggested), and now the dead only, and not
more than a dozen or so, were thrown to them; a reduction in numbers
because the beasts sometimes refused some of them, and the bodies
corrupted the pool.
Every five years the great lustration of the Forest Temples took place.
That was the festival whose beginning and termination we had seen. At
these times the whole woodland where the chosen trees are cleared—the
Tree Temples—would be traversed, and at each Tree Temple chants would be
sung, a black snake left, and some gold offering attached to the tree
itself. Shorter pilgrimages occurred four times each year. The snake
pasture was kept up as a nursery for the supply of the wood temples, for
the snakes did not long survive in the pine forest. This year the Great
Lustration had been unaccountably delayed—Oogalah did not know why, but
he had heard that the “Big Men” (“A decided catachresis,” said the
Professor, “for they literally are pygmies”), were very angry about
something (my heart jumped with a sudden fear when Goritz told us this).
Oogalah’s mother died while we were away with him in the radium country,
and the Magistrates of the city, who saw to the gathering of the yearly
hecatomb, had _attached_ her. Deaths were not numerous, it appeared; the
supply of corpses—adequate, that is, for a satisfactory oblation—was not
always secured, and a few sheep or goats made up the deficiency, their
saurian majesties being at the same time importuned not to resent the
substitution. “A Radiumopolite,” commented Hopkins, “may be a sweet
morsel, but, under the circumstances, I surely would prefer mutton.”)
Oogalah could not tell us much about the “Serpent” (our
Crocodilo-Python), or his worship. He said it had always been so, and
that the “big ponds” toward the south were full of them. He had
traversed these once on a raft, and apparently had got the scare of his
life, for the beasts wobbled about him and, except for an inconvenient
satiety at the moment, might have picked him and his companions off like
crumbs from a plate. He said too that it was in the savannahs, morasses
and meadows of the “southland” that the food for the black snakes in the
“serpent pasture” was foraged. “A typical surviving remnant, doubtless,”
said the Professor, “of _Cretaceo-Juro-Triassic_ scenery.”)
Oogalah’s communications quite restored his peace of mind, and the gift
of a pocket knife from Goritz put him into such blissful acceptance of
his domestic bereavement, that the theft of two or three dead mothers
would have been thankfully condoned for a similar exchange in the case
of each.
We had again reached the city but in darkness. The clouds had thickened
in an impenetrable curtain over the Stationary Sun, and the deepest
gloom had settled over everything. Forebodings filled my mind.
Superstitiously watching every symptom of nature I dreaded the effect of
this eclipse on the people, and their cunning little governors, who
might at any moment change their deferential behavior into a ruthless
malignancy. After their rite of propitiation this darkening of the sun
might indicate to them a yet unappeased deity, for, as the Professor had
put it, the “Serpent and the Sun had a consentaneous meaning in many old
mythologies.” Why then was he unappeased? _The Strangers and their
profanation of the Shrines._ I always returned to this suspicion with
dread. A few moments later my worst fears were confirmed.
We had ascended the western terrace of steps and were immediately
beneath the western facade of the Capitol, still to all appearances
empty, when a flying figure met us, and in another instant the arms of
Ziliah were about Spruce Hopkins’ neck, and—my conclusion on the matter
can scarcely be questioned—his were probably about hers. It certainly
was a bad case of nerves. Ziliah was in a sort of hysteria, moaning and
gasping with (so Hopkins called it) a “_strangle hold_” on his
“wind-pipe,” that also quite robbed her lover of the power of utterance.
I intervened. The incident might have terminated in their mutual
suffocation—so it seemed to me.
The fair and stricken Ziliah told her story.
She had not gone to the Oblation. No; she did not like it. But then
there was something else. “Spooce” was in danger, her own “Spooce”—and
all of us, _all_. The governors did not like us; they were afraid of us,
afraid we might bring more—her father was as bad as the rest of them.
And they had found out something, she did not know what, something we
had done. We were enemies of the _Serpent_, and—Ziliah’s agitation at
this juncture quite robbed her narrative of coherency, but in a lucid
interval I understood her—we were to be sacrificed; we would be fed to
the Serpent!!!
“Zerubbabel and Heliopolis,” shouted Hopkins. “You don’t mean it? Does
she say so? Well so help me—if we don’t blow the pack into kingdom
come—and twice as far. How much powder have we got left?”
“_The tubes_,” I remonstrated.
Hopkins was silent; he remembered their power, and it was not so many
hours since something of the same inscrutable influence had nearly
brought us all to the verge of extinction.
Never, to the last day of my life, Mr. Link, will I comprehend what
happened then. Was it the hand of God—or was it telepathy. WHAT? Ziliah
repeated the words I had uttered—exactly. She loosened Hopkins’ embrace,
she moved stealthily towards me, I saw her deep, sweet eyes raised to
mine, her hands closed on my cheeks; the boreal dusk light that comes
from the firmament even when clouded, made her whole face visible. In it
shone a strange divination; she repeated the words, “_the tubes_,” and
then sighed; seized with a sudden inspiration, I forced my mind upon
hers; my brain contracted (it felt so), as with a fierce concentration
of will I projected the sense of my words and all they implied upon, in,
through, the spirit before me—the spirit that itself leaped to their
comprehension.
She crouched slightly, moved away, but her soft fingers closed around my
hand, and she drew me towards her.
We entered the broad hall of the Capitol, Ziliah holding me tightly and
leading me. We turned into a passage-way. At its dark end we stumbled on
a half raised arched tile. Ziliah raised it, and seemed sinking below
me, as I felt her pull me down. I stooped and felt the edges of an
opening. My wary foot detected a stairway. Together we descended and in
a dozen or more steps reached the floor of a chamber whose walls seemed
only a few feet off on every side of us. Ziliah led me to the corner of
this room, pushed upon a wooden door and we entered what proved to be a
much larger room. Then telling me to wait, my guide left me. Another
instant and a soft radiance filled the place. It came from a radium lamp
which Ziliah had uncovered. She pointed to a table in the center of this
apartment. On it lay a metal box—a leaden trunk. Ziliah raised its lid.
I leaped forward. I already knew what to expect.
In the bottom of the box lay, neatly aligned in rows, thirty leaden
tubes, one probably for each of the governors. Here at last in our
power, our possession, were the murderous little vials. But were they
charged with their life-arresting power? And how to use them? I stood
perplexed, and Ziliah remained motionless by me gazing at me with a mute
happiness, as she realized she had attained my wishes. But it was plain
that the dear creature knew nothing about them. No—the clever little
doctors were not such fools as to popularize their peculiar knowledge,
and the dark beauty, tears yet bepearling her long lashes, was just a
child before them, _as I was_. But why had they left them here at all?
They must have been deposited after the return, for the doctors
indubitably had worn them in their girdles when we so inauspiciously
dropped onto the road in the pine forest. Did they have a duplicate set?
The thought unnerved me.
Now not the least remarkable circumstance in this startling episode was
that I had not talked to Ziliah at all, though we understood each other.
Telepathy, or sympathy, or suggestion, had done its perfect work so far;
not a word had passed between us, but at this obstructive ignorance
staring me, so to speak, in the face I opened my mouth.
“Ziliah are these all?”
“ALL,” came the answer very quietly, but with a frankness and certainty
that assured me.
“Do you know anything about them Ziliah? How they work?”
Ziliah knew nothing. “The—,” I understood her to mean the doctors,
including her precious father, “will kill you all—Ah! Spooce, too. No!
No! Take them away,” pointing to the chest, “AWAY—AWAY.”
The girl’s nerves were reasserting themselves; time was running away
too, my friends were deserted, and detection was imminent at any moment.
Another glance at the desperate little instruments, and then—_nolens,
volens_—I picked them up and pushed them under my tunic, so that I felt
their cold surfaces chilling my skin.
Then I shook Ziliah and pointed to the door, closing the lid of the
chest. She understood. Our way back was as noiseless as our entrance had
been. Unless our footprints remained as silent betrayers of our robbery,
there was no reason for suspicion, no proof of our misdeeds. Misdeed
indeed; it was our SALVATION.
In five minutes I was back with my friends, and Ziliah, reaching the
limit of her endurance comfortably fled to her familiar refuge—Hopkins’
arms.
Now you may ask incredulously—Why did you not in the first place ask
Ziliah where were _the tubes_; why impair the credibility of your story
by injecting this transcendental nonsense about—_telepathy_.
I don’t know, sir; the facts are just as I have related them.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XIII
LOVE AND LIBERTY
We soon heard the swarming crowds returning, and before long saw the
flat wagons, with the straining goats drawing them, and softly luminous
from the radium bulbs held in wickerwork cages, and on them the
governors, much agitated and confused. It was really a rout. Panic had
seized the people, the guards were in disorder, and they failed to repel
the surging masses that rolled up against the rocking chariots. It was a
straggling, in some sections a struggling, cortege, and the dominant
purpose was to get under cover, for the blackness deepened, the very
last glimpses of light had vanished, and a night of storm and wind with
a cold rain had blotted out the smiling peacefulness of Radiumopolis.
Fortunately, the construction of the houses was excellent and, except as
the wind drove rain through or past the crevices of the board or
leathern insertions, their interiors were probably quite dry in storms.
The rooms at the Capitol were completely so.
And now the running groups, the populace, the guards, officials
hastening variously on their many ways could be heard tramping and
surging along, with only occasional ejaculations of impatience or alarm,
but all in an evident race and retreat.
I did not wait long with my friends. I knew Ziliah was with them—_with
one_. I clutched my intolerable load closer, I sprang to the eastern
terrace, now deserted, and rushed down, suddenly seized with the thought
of destroying the infernal machines I carried. It was a _great loss to
science_ no doubt, but at the moment I felt convinced that once these
preposterous weapons were lost to the little doctors, we were safe. I
cried in my heart, “Our guns against everything.”
So on I flew, and straight out into the serpent pasture, now and again
slipping on some coiled or gliding snake to where I knew that well hole
lay which marked the departing kick of the celestial visitor who had
taught Radiumopolis the trick of making _gold_. It was a deep hole and
it was full of water. I reached it. I opened my tunic and from it the
bundle of pestiferous little arsenals of magic tumbled, and splashed in
the water—and were gone. The pack that fell off Christian’s back and
rolled backward into the sepulchre could not have been gotten rid of
with more satisfaction to that tired pilgrim than I freed myself of
those hateful little tubes. Of course afterwards the Professor was
dreadfully upset about it. He deplored the “_loss to science_.”
“Perhaps,” retorted Hopkins, “but—we count too.”
I soon returned to the others and found them—minus Ziliah, who had been
persuaded to retire to her boudoir—nestling against the corner of the
Capitol where there was less wind and rain, enjoying the home gathering
of the Sanhedrin, its wives and children, relatives, attendants, and the
police.
“My!” gurgled Hopkins under his breath, “such a coop of hens! And the
cackling! What’s hard to understand is how such poultry govern this
land, and how they have the nerve to keep up this detestable religion
with its snakes and its crocodiles; and yet—blame—me—they certainly are
on the inside of a good many things, and they surely are on a _Gold
Basis_, and some of our best people wouldn’t mind swapping all they
know, for just that one particular bit of information which will turn a
leaden pot into a gold one.”
“We must know how, too,” grumbled Goritz.
“Well,” continued Hopkins, “say the word and we’ll revolutionize this
country, get into the government, and run the mint.”
I was getting impatient with this nonsense, and I said, “Now see here my
friends, we are four men against thousands—why talk such rubbish? We’re
all in danger because of our imprudence but I think we can steer away
safely though our difficulties, get the confidence of everyone—perhaps
more, and come out, as you might say Spruce, on the Top of the Heap.
Ziliah knows what she is talking about and she says we’re to be put out
of the way. But that perhaps won’t be so easy now. I’ve stolen the tubes
and buried them out of sight _forever_.”
The three men sprang around me and seized me with one exclamation: “No!”
“Yes I have—they’re gone. Come to our rooms and I’ll tell you
everything. We must use diplomacy, but if they push us to the wall there
are our _guns_. The people are accustomed to us and are indifferent.
Those little doctors never will let us get out alive if they can help
it. There’s more than our lives at stake; there’s the revelation we
shall give to the great world outside of this polar hole—about these
strange people, their achievements, their knowledge, above all about
that radium mass which may change all the civilization we are acquainted
with into something quite different. I do not agree with Goritz, though
I can sympathize with his appeal. Science _must know_ of this place, and
what is here. Science, I say, MUST KNOW.”
In a few words I explained what had happened, when we had gotten to our
rooms, which still remained undisturbed. I told them of the curious
suggestive influence on Ziliah (Hopkins said he “didn’t like it”), how
we penetrated the subterranean room, how I found and seized those
menacing little vials, and how I despatched every one of them into the
fathomless mud and water (the Professor compared it with “the crime of
the Caliph Omar who burned the Alexandrian Library”), and how now, with
Ziliah as an ally, and with our guns, we might turn the tables on the
discomfited doctors. “Guess you’ve taken the sting out of their
tails—the little wasps,” exclaimed Hopkins.
We did not have to wait long for developments. The storm passed, the
light returned and it was much colder. Warmer clothing was given us, and
our meals were even more liberal. This excessive hospitality made me
suspicious and I insisted that the bearers of the cakes and bread, the
wine and milk, the meat and vegetables should partake of a little of
each, before us, and this I ingeniously explained to them was the custom
of our native countries. They never hesitated, and the courtesy, as they
understood it, quite delighted and propitiated them. This too was a part
of my rule. I intended to conciliate them so thoroughly that I might be
able to make them spies on our enemies—“_pump ’em_,” said Hopkins.
Ziliah watched diligently; the beloved Spooce was an invaluable hostage.
Our liberty was not interfered with, it seemed extended, and the
Professor kept up his unremitting labors in making notes for the
voluminous papers he was contemplating, and which he idolatrously
regarded as his possible monument in the files of time. Goritz became a
confirmed pilferer, and his stock of gold objects, whittlings and
fragments grew dangerously. I remonstrated, but he kept at it. I could
not get the wizened little doctors to talk. I addressed them as I met
them in the palace in the Hebrew patois I had acquired, and which I was
convinced they understood. But no—not a word; a bow, those wrinkling
smiles, that deferential obeisance, and the palms of their hands rubbed
together meditatively, while the prodigious eyes watched me, I thought,
with an unmistakable malice, and—with FEAR.
We seldom saw the ladies of their households which, as Hopkins expressed
it, “considering our extreme manly beauty, as compared with the _ALL IN_
look of their own matrimonial boobs, is a reflection on their good
taste, a proof of their imperfect education. Everybody else likes us,”
he said. And that was true. We met with the most amiable reception, and
Goritz’s skill in talking with the Eskimos, and my astounding success
with the Hebrew lingo was giving us a vogue that it seemed unreasonable
the little rulers did not see was ruinous to their prestige. Could it be
possible that they were afraid of us—afraid of our popularity? I thought
that they would avail themselves of the discovered thefts of the tree
shrines and of the unpropitious storm, on the day of the Oblation, to
turn the populace against us as _personae non gratae_ to their deity.
But they had not, and the storm was forgotten. It was bewildering, for I
felt sure Ziliah was not deceiving me, and that our lives somehow were
at stake. Perhaps—perhaps—in that curious complicated psychology of
their dwarfed natures, cowardice, deceit, sharpness, superstition,
ferocity even, were so mixed up with an enervating feebleness of mind,
in spite of their astuteness, that it made them, as Lady Macbeth puts
it, “infirm of purpose.”
At any rate we would watch our guns, in all senses, and we literally did
watch those we owned, carrying them with us, always strapped to our
backs, our cartridge belts at our waists, and a part of our dress. I
think this alarmed our spies a little.
But now the _crux_ of the whole situation came to light. Two things had
happened and both of these were known to Ziliah. Ziliah was splendid—the
“best ever” said Spruce—“true down to her little toe bone; she turned
down her own dad and turned ag’in the Government rather than see us
licked. Tell you what, Alfred, I’ll take my chances with her, and—it’s
good-bye to the States.”
It was this way. And to begin with, Ziliah’s father’s first name was
Javan, and, because the coincidence is so extraordinary, the names of
those little governors, and there were thirty of them, are worth
repeating, because again—as the Professor was the first to observe—they
can all be found in the first Chapter of the Book of Chronicles, in our
Bible. This is the list: Riphath, Kittim, Put, Cush, Pathrusim, Lud,
Hul, Joktan, Peleg, Hadad, Naphish, Jeush, Jaalam, Shammah, Shobal,
Homan, Uz, Samlah, Bela, Zephi, Zyrah, Ebal, Manahath, Anah, Amram,
Mibsam, Gomer, Magog, Anamim, Ludim.
I took these down carefully from Ziliah, by word of mouth, and they
confirmed all we had inferred of Semitic relations but when later—much
later sir, on my return to America—I made the comparison, as the
Professor suggested, I was dumbfounded. But I will not stop now to
elaborate reflections. My story has already lengthened beyond my
expectations, and there is much to recount.
Two things had happened, I have said. Oh, by the way, Mr. Link, I might
insert this here—Javan, Ziliah’s father, encouraged his daughter’s
intimacy with Hopkins; he thought it would lead to something. It did. As
Hopkins put it, “it was the Guy who put the _eat_ in _Beat_ it.”
The two things were—the theft of the tubes had been discovered, and
there had been a Council held—a “_pow-wow_” according to Spruce, in
which Javan threw a bomb into the deliberations for our destruction
because he connected what he had to say at the “pow-wow” with the
disappearance of the little wizard wands. A wonderful denouement was at
hand. It all came about as follows:
The excursion through the pine tree shrines showed a considerable
damage, and the inspectors were sure the mischief had been perpetrated
by us. Our tracks were unmistakable; they found our camps, and they
noted that the pillaging had been done, as it were, yesterday. Their
indignation was great, but, as the detection of the outrage was actually
unnoticed by the multitude, and had only come to the knowledge of the
little doctors—the Sanhedrin as we had called them—and had not then been
seriously considered at first, except by a few leaders—apparently the
older and shrewder men, Put and Hul, Peleg, Hadad and Javan, himself,
the President—it was concluded to keep still about it, and that nothing
should be done until they had returned. But the outrage, as they
considered it, made them rather anxious as to the state of mind of the
insulted serpent and tree deities—the _numina_ of their unseen world.
Propitiation was in order, and they had taken pains to visit all the
shrines, repair the mischief, attach new offerings, sing and dance and
pray, and go through a snake ceremonial with the doctors as masters of
the ceremony, as indeed these odd creatures were really priests to the
nation.
They talked a great deal about it among themselves, but they were
dreadfully bothered by Javan’s scruples as to touching us, and all
because he recalled an ancient prophecy of a fall from the clouds of a
beggar-like man, who would not know their language, and who would bring
them a new wisdom, and who would be their King.
Now it seems this ancient prophecy was in their archives, as you might
say, and action in our case was to be delayed until its exact portents
or contents were ascertained. There were queer coincidences in the
matter. Our descent from the top of the pine tree, albeit awkward and a
little unseemly, was a good deal like a drop from the clouds. _It seemed
so to them._ Our beggarly condition was really shamefully clear. Then we
did not speak their language, and as to the new wisdom, the Professor’s
harangue rather filled the bill there, and, in spite of themselves, his
red hair had impressed them, _as it did everybody else_.
Certainly there were or might be discrepancies. There were four of us
for instance; we had been in the wood some time—desecrating it too, a
profanation inconceivable in a future King—a heaven-sent King! These
considerations cheered them greatly, for really the little fellows did
not wish to abdicate. So they mulled these things over and fixed their
plans very craftily. They’d get back, ignore us, seem to forget all
about us, hunt up the precious document, and, if they came to the
conclusion to “_do us_,” as Hopkins said, the affair would be kept very
secret, and—their white fingers clasped the ominous tubes as they raised
them significantly over their big heads—_they wouldn’t be long about it
either_.
At the return to Radiumopolis Javan heard from Ziliah’s own lips—very
soon, I suppose, after she lifted him up in her arms on the terrace
steps—what a dreadful state her heart was in over Spooce, and Javan
(“perfidious dad,” Hopkins called him) simpered, sniggered, and
encouraged her attachment. But Ziliah possessed some feminine
acuteness—“No piker, _she_,” declared Hopkins—and she was not many
minutes in finding out the true position of affairs; viz., the enmity of
the Directorate, the existing government, for us. She was in an agony of
fear, and, aflame with her love, she had met us and told me of our
danger. Then, sir, as you may incredulously recall, I did that
telepathic act, and cleared away the most formidable obstacle in our
way.
From that moment Ziliah was ours, every heart beat, every brain pulse
was for us. She certainly _played_ her father, but we had no intentions
against his life, and it was just simply immolation for us all in his
case, as the coterie would have sent us on the long road in a hurry, and
then all this strange tale would never have entranced your ears. Ziliah,
as the verdict of the world will pronounce, chose the better part. Her
devotion led us into the light of deliverance.
The old record of the prophecy was brought to light. It actually was
engraved on a gold tablet. That showed, sir, that the knowledge of
transmutation was over a hundred years old in Krocker Land, for, as you
will learn, there is no mining for gold in Krocker Land; that mother
lode which the Professor predicted, as far as we know is a dream only.
All the gold in Krocker Land comes from Radium Transmutation.
Ziliah saw the tablet, she heard it read; for that matter she read it
herself (“A twentieth century woman and no mistake,” was Hopkins’
tribute to her sagacity), and now what I tell you, sir, will hardly be
believed. It has such a fabulous fairy-like sound.
The prophecy read thus: The future King would fall from the sky, in the
shape of a man dressed in rags, with hair red like blood, with a strange
language on his tongue, and “he KILLS with THUNDER.”
That, sir, brought our guns and the Professor into the drama, and swept
the stakes into our hands. You shall see.
The prophecy did mightily disturb the council. They convened in their
state chamber, and argued it out circumstantially, and Ziliah,
conveniently disposed for the revelations to be expected, listened. The
upshot of their deliberations was that there was much difference of
opinion, with a preponderant feeling that the Professor was a dangerous
probability. Had we fallen from the sky, or just dropped out of the
branches of the tree, and, if that was our first appearance how about
the thefts? Yes—yes—the thefts, and the traces of our previous camps,
and then the _killing with thunder_? There was some ill-natured derisive
and weak giggling over this. Thunder indeed!
The upshot of it all was that Javan was deputed to keep an eye on us,
and probably the best thing to do, taking a strictly conservative view
of the matter was to— Ziliah didn’t catch this, but when I told her
Hopkins, he winked assertively and drew the forefinger of his ring hand
across his throat, and said nothing.
Anyhow the little elders came out from the conference, looking greatly
satisfied, very benignant, and were happily garrulous. But the second
event was the discovery of the disappearance of the tubes. It seemed
that some recuperative effect was sought for in thus storing them in the
metallic box in the subterranean chamber, but—WHAT? And whether other
agents were present in the box will never be known, as indeed the
mystery of those tubes is itself a closed chapter, unless forsooth the
Professor elicits the information as to their fabrication, by reason of
his present control of the scientific resources— But pardon me, I
anticipate.
The tubes had been placed in the chest almost instantly after the
re-entrance of the cortege into the Capitol. A literal translation of
Ziliah’s remark as to the need of this would be that they were “_dying
out_.”
You can imagine Javan’s despair, consternation, and amazement.
Apparently there were no more of these stupefying inventions handy, and
the Sanhedrin were really at their wits’ end. At this juncture Ziliah
became a perfect demon of suggestion. Hopkins’ enthusiastic submission
to her charms inflamed her with a sprightliness of mind that kept us
busy too, and won our case. Ziliah knew that the citizens of
Radiumopolis, which practically was Krocker Land, the outlying
agricultural sections being little else than a _diaspora_ of
Radiumopolis itself, were not so loyally disposed towards the exclusive
Areopagus on Capitol Hill, and that some shock of wonderment that might
establish our supernatural origin would solve the _impasse_, and give us
the upper hand, for literally there was now no way out of the dilemma
but for us to RULE.
Ziliah conceived the idea of our subverting the reigning government as
quickly as we had reached the same conclusion, and Hopkins was not slow
to sharpen her perceptions. But _she_ formed the plan of our _coup
d’etat_. We had thought (and the Professor was as deeply implicated as
any of us, he realized our plight and for once worldly aims gripped and
diverted his mind) to make a public appeal to the people or else
insidiously foment discontent, lead an attack on the now defenceless
governors, seize the throne, as it were, and establish the dynasty of
Hlmath Bjornsen the First.
At first blush the Professor seemed greatly puzzled and unwilling, and
his bulging eyes stared at us with blank misgivings. But when the rigor
of our situation was forced upon him, with the compelling _suadente
potestas_ of his red hair, and its felicitous conjunction with
aboriginal prophecy, he worked himself into a real glee over it that was
delightful. To Hopkins there was something so macaronic and
side-splitting about this role of the Professor’s, that he could
scarcely look at his half rueful, absorbed expression, his odd mouth,
the prodigious ears, and the coronal splendor of his hair, without being
overcome with a badly concealed merriment that might have turned our
plans awry with anyone less essentially good-natured than the Professor.
Of course we improved our popularity, and we put the Professor through
ambulatory excursions that must have tired his legs. From the first the
people had “cottoned” to him (_fide_ Hopkins), and we wanted them to
become intimate with their future KING. Certainly it seemed like a huge
joke.
Everything was coming our way. The governors had actually become afraid
of us. We were no longer confined to the Capitol. We fascinated our
guards by giving them all the trinkets we could find about us, and
Goritz and I talked constantly with the people. The Sanhedrin might have
turned the people against us by revealing our thefts, but somehow they
did not try it. They did not even enter our rooms for proof. I think we
began to despise them. They had a secretive, feeble way that too plainly
advertised their impotence. It was evident indeed that some fatal
collapse in their authority was imminent, and they did not have the
miraculous tubes to reinstate themselves. Nothing could have withstood
them then. Between the prophecy and the loss of the tubes they were
desperate. Our sedition prospered in the meanwhile.
Suddenly it occurred to me that their apathy and shrinking avoidance of
a collision meant mischief. It might be ominous. Were they—the thought
transfixed me with horror—were they secretly at work repairing their
loss, MAKING OTHER TUBES? Of course they were; in the light of this
suggestion their apparent timidity was explained. It was not timidity.
Nay, it was just a delicate, artful duplicity that was fooling us.
Ziliah must find out and then one way or another we must test the
situation. Of course the prophecy that Ziliah had recounted to us was
constantly the keynote of our plans. To lose our chance now would be
madness.
And Ziliah? She wheedled Javan and Put, and Cush, and Hul, and the rest
successfully. They thought she was keeping us quiet, and they thought
too their own inoffensiveness was blinding us. Ah ha! _It was_—while
they contrived their devilish weapons anew. They had made no outcry when
they found them gone. That might have liberated the people of their fear
for themselves. But was Ziliah possibly playing us false? There was or
certainly had been a countermine at work and she had failed to detect
it. These foxy patriarchs were fooling our own spy in their camp, or
again—_was Ziliah false_?
Well sir, Ziliah was “straight as a string and true as gold,” to quote
Hopkins. She knew nothing about the making of the new tubes, but she
would find out. Her terror over this new turn in the affair was greater
than our own, her surprise too. Ah, sir, she knew what those tubes
meant, what they could do!
She soon returned to me—it was easy enough, and it was easy to do it
unnoticed. Javan trusted her implicitly, and indeed she and I had been
somewhat hoodwinked by him. Ziliah confirmed my suspicions. The new
tubes were indeed under way. The _eukairia_, the “nick of time,” had
come. We must strike. Then it was that Ziliah told us HOW.
We were to take on the grand air, assert our provenance from Heaven,
repeat the prophecy from the tablet, call the Professor _Shamlah_, and
threaten destruction if the Sanhedrin did not receive us at once, see
that our thunder bolts were ready, and use them. The message, to be
taken by Ziliah, would admit that our manners had been humble and that
Shamlah had concealed his mission. But delay would be cut short. The
time for his royal assumption was at hand. We would come to them with
our thunder tubes and talk with them; and if our overture was rejected
we would go to the people and show our power.
That was our ultimatum; batteries on both sides were now unmasked and
the issue defined. What we needed just then were theatrical properties,
some chromatic detonating explosions, fireworks, skyrockets, roman
candles, flower-pots, fire-fizzes of any sort that would give us a
supernatural flavor. As Hopkins said, just one night’s Coney Island
Payne’s Fireworks outfit, and what wasn’t ours in the joint, wouldn’t be
worth having. But—_we had only our guns_. That however was a good deal.
Ziliah returned the answer of the Conventicle. They would not see us
just now, _later_, perhaps in fourteen _settas_, which meant, in our
time, about a week. Oh ho! That was the limit of our sufferance. In a
week they would meet us _on their own terms_. The crisis had come.
It was not half an hour later that Goritz, Hopkins, the Professor and
myself, as faultlessly attired as our wardrobe and toilet facilities
permitted, marched from our abode in the city, down the great highway.
Our guns were in our arms, clasped tightly to our chests, and all the
ammunition we possessed was loaded in our cartridge belts and pockets.
We were instantly noticed and numerously attended. We entered the
serpent pasture, at the eastern end, and walked to the eastern terrace
of steps, and up these to the courtyard above. We were seen. Men and
women, girls and boys, in a desultory manner at first, then in hastening
groups, emerged from the Capitol and, among them a few of the little
rulers. The rumor of attack spread.
From the houses of the city, its looms and barns, the workshops and
bakeries, its gardens, the cloth manufactories, the metal shops, the
curious small people gathered, and with them the larger race from near
and far, while the idle and loafing contingent, always large and
drifting instinctively towards every new incident, hastened in mirthful
or expectant groups, pouring along behind us. Each fresh accession
stimulated a wider circle of attention, until it almost seemed as if the
populace were following us _en masse_. They overflowed the road, they
dispersed over the meadow land appropriated to snakes, they clambered up
on the dilapidated cutches, where the snakes congregated and clustered,
in gaping crews, on the steps of the terrace. Their humor seemed
propitious. The peculiar gaiety that characterized them when we were
brought to Radiumopolis, dampened or made a little grave by wonder,
again affected them that day, but it was freer and more hospitable, and
I think they already appreciated the situation. Goritz and I had been
rather industrious disseminators of mischief—“_Semeurs d’emeute_”
Antoine said.
When we came to the last step of the terrace we separated. The Professor
took a central position, and the light luckily turned his splendid
coiffure into a garnet glory that must have transported the audience
around us. Goritz and Hopkins flanked him, I stood somewhat to one side.
We all held our guns—magazine rifles—but the Professor, it was agreed,
should remain statuesque and motionless, only succoring us at any
critical juncture. I have a splendid voice, I proposed to use it.
By this time the throng in the doorway of the Capitol almost blocked it.
The dignitaries were coming out quickly and the magistrates from the
wards of the city were arriving, but all somewhat _en deshabille_. Their
court robes were forgotten, or too hastily deserted, and their
appearance assumed an absurdly shrunken manner and tenuity. We very
certainly outclassed them. The Professor, _par excellence_, was
magnificent. The people measured the spectacular effect and, I guess,
shrewdly preferred our “make-up.”
I began my demand. I spoke for the SON of THUNDER, and I spoke of the
prophecy which described his coming to rule his people, and then, it was
a master stroke which almost unnerved my friends, knocked the Directory
plumb off its feet, and thunderstruck the people, _I showed the golden
tablet_ (Ziliah’s stroke), and read it. By this time I had acquired
fairly well the Hebrew dialect of these people, and they understood me.
I pointed to the Professor who, responding to some histrionic impulse,
which none of us had even suspected in him, raised his hands as if
invoking the heavens, and then bowed to me, to Goritz, to Hopkins, and
in unimpeachable—English, said in a loud domineering tone,
“REVEAL MY POWER—FIRE!”
Now this was absolutely an improvisation. We had not planned the
affair exactly in that way, but we were on the _qui vive_
(Johnnies-on-the-spot, averred Hopkins), and off went the whole
magazine of guns in a glorious unison. It was really immense, coming
as it did upon the heels of the prediction, that—_he kills with his
thunder_. Only we hadn’t killed anything. And then the Professor by
another sublime intuition filled the required bill. It was nearing
spring time and the reinforcement of the light and heat from the
diurnal sun was beginning to be felt. Some straggling Arctic gulls
crossed the sky. The Professor was a fair shot. The accentuation of a
supreme moment nerved his arm, brightened his eye, and put the force
of precision in his aim. He fired—a gull fluttered to the ground
almost at our feet—another shot, and a second bird flopped actually
upon the heads of the dismayed councillors, who were now in a fine
frenzy of agitation.
The mercurial disposition of semi-civilized people and that contagion of
admiration which, as Le Bon has shown, infects a mob, as with the sharp
upward rush of a fire fanned by high winds, had an invincible
illustration then and there. At first there was a silence; as if shocked
into dumbness by the inexplicable occurrence, or bewildered by a
confusion of responses they could not define, they for a moment awaited
direction. _It came._ Oogalah, in the very first rank of the attendant
crowds, shouted with hoarse exultation:
“_PEEUK—PEEUK—PEEUK._”
Then came the reaction of release from incertitude, and the assemblage
caught the sound— Nay, the word, and from side to side, to and fro,
hither, thither, the cry doubled and redoubled, until it almost seemed
as if the convulsed nation would start some riotous stampede in favor of
that darling, red-headed, heaven-sent, death-dealing sovereign. And the
Professor, animated by I know not what elan of conquest, seized his
rifle in both hands, and holding it horizontally before him, stepped
forward against the heterogeneous throng of courtiers, officials, and
Areopagites that crammed every inch of space in front of the Capitol, as
if he were the _Demiurge of Destruction_. In a fright they gave way, and
in the path thus made we followed. There was nothing else to do,
although this demonstration to me seemed unaccountable and dangerous, as
it might lead to some unexpected disaster and an anticlimax of ridicule
and repulsion. With the Professor it was just an involuntary spasm of
stage play, with no clear purpose outlined or even seen in it. Behind us
in the regurgitant host I could hear the stentorian roars of Oogalah.
This unexpected and vociferous ally after all had a grudge to gratify;
he had not altogether forgotten his inviscerated mother. His appeals
were quite in favor of the new allegiance. You see, sir, it was an
orgulous moment for the Professor, and I don’t think he knew exactly
what he was about.
But Luck, which after all favors a good many more people than fools,
intervened. We had gotten rather tightly entrapped in the brigades about
the Capitol, when we were met by a huddle of the patriarchs, themselves
somewhat violently jostled by the pushing citizens. Here were Javan, and
Put, and Hul, Peleg, Hadad, the head men, and they presented a very
sorry and despoiled appearance. Their nervous white hands ran over their
straggling beards in piteous perplexity, and, lacking the surplusage of
their state regalia, they appeared even more contemptible than
depressed.
Knowing me best and perhaps too dismayed by the flaming presence of the
_Pretender_ himself, Javan literally flew to my arms and urged clemency.
It was complete _capitulation_. I knew it. But the victory must be more
crushing. The last struggle of the victim must be squelched. It had
occurred to me before that an epic seriousness, if not majesty, might be
given to our high-handed pretensions by shooting down the
Crocodilo-Python effigies at the corners of the palace. The risk might
be considerable, and then again it might be very little, with tremendous
compensating benefits if the dice fell the right way. How would the
people take it? I did not know. This moment of irresolution permitted
something to happen which gave us the upper hand most beautifully,
eliminated violence, and struck the keynote of a perfect CONCILIATION.
Ziliah, ardent, arrayed superbly, with her copious dark hair bound up,
as was the fashion of the upper-class women, with the little gold
serpents, wearing the gold caps on her knees, her ankles encased in gold
filagree that rose half way up the naked leg, her feet in golden
sandals, and swathed somehow in a soft delicate blue tunic covering her
thighs and body, but falling away from the pillar-like neck and firmly
moulded breasts, a vision of picturesque loveliness, sprang amongst us.
Her face was flushed by excitement but radiant in smiles. And of course
she wore the golden belt with its serpent buckle.
She flung her arms around the Professor, kissed him on both cheeks,
salaamed, bending her knees to the ground with a wonderful, unstudied
grace. Then she took her astonished father’s hand and led that little
gentleman forward, and then Put, and Hul, Peleg and Hadad—the remaining
elders, arrived, but had shrunk from the presentation. Then Ziliah
spoke. Her voice was high keyed, but musical, and had a soaring quality
in it that carried far. Silence fell and the intensity of the
psychological moment made me wonder at the girl’s prescience.
“Father, make peace with these men. They bring us a New Wisdom. We shall
be happy with them. Let the Son of Thunder (my eyes at that instant fell
on Hopkins; he was visibly squirming in an agony of suppressed mirth at
the designation, but the Professor retained a most noble immobility) be
your guide, your companion. These men will all be brothers to us, and
this man (she knelt again at the feet of Hopkins, who seized her in his
arms, and lifted her to his face) will be my husband.” Javan’s
astonishment then was a study.
I was transported, and I rushed in to the _rapprochement_, as she ended,
with fresh promises of friendship.
Nothing would be disturbed, nothing changed. We came to them strangers
from the clouds, we would bless them with new powers. The Great Serpent
still should reign.
At all this there was a great shouting, a tempest of approving comment,
and the landslide of public endorsement overwhelmed the council. The
retreating or abashed or cowardly members of “the Syndicate of Old
Toddlers,” as Hopkins said, issued from their niches in the crowd, and
Javan, caught in an _enjambment_ from which he could not extricate his
party, surrendered. He came forward, and after him came Put, Hul, Peleg,
Hadad; and the Professor, with a fine urbanity that capped the climax
and swept away all traces of resentment or repugnance, fell on their
necks, so to speak, though the act had to be rather sedately done for he
would incontinently have knocked them down. It had a delightfully funny
and _picaresque_ effect and I again felt, as I had felt hundreds of
times before, that it all was a dream and unreal. The string as it
lengthened embraced the whole Areopagus, and this fraternal ceremony
evidently, as Hopkins noted, “tickled the little old fellow to death.”
They were all there: Riphath, Kittim, Cush, Pathrusim, Lud, Hul, Joktan,
Naphish, Jeush, Jaalam, Shammah, Shobal, Homan, Uz, Samlah, Bela, Zephi,
Zerah, Ebal, Manahath, Anah, Amram Mibsam, Gomer, Magog, Anamim, Ludim.
I am sure I did not know their identity; I counted them, thirty in all.
That consummated matters and set Professor Hlmath Bjornsen of
Christiania on the throne of Radiumopolis in KROCKER LAND.
Javan and the other doctors softened beautifully, and actually expanded
into a self-satisfied body of patronage and allegiance. The Professor
was “shown through” the Capitol, and he threaded its maze of
compartments, saw its Council Chamber, enriched with gold, hung with
gaudy rugs, and found there the as yet unoccupied clumsy and
incalculably valuable gold throne which we had seen shaking and rattling
in the procession, itself a relic of some old time, when this isolated
kingdom had had a king, but was young compared to that still more remote
time when “the stranger” taught that king’s progenitor the miracle of
making gold.
From it now, under the aegis of its hideous device, the rearing
Crocodilo-Python, our dear Professor was to dispense justice to the
Radiumopolites. Of a truth it was an almost inconceivable _denouement_.
What would, what could, the Professor’s colleagues at the University
say, and by what insupportable hypothesis could they explain this
transmutation?
And there was to be a Coronation! Oh yes. Javan and the rest of the
Fathers had conspired successfully there; indeed the fuss of its
preparation and the importance of their parts in its conduct had now
really made them inanely jubilant over the whole revolution in state
affairs.
Hopkins and I walking eastward along the broad highway over which we had
entered Radiumopolis, out into that fair Valley of Rasselas which was
again stirring with the field life of the advancing spring, talked
rather earnestly of our predicament, for, after all, predicament it was.
How were we to get home and tell our story? We were to be made a good
deal of here but—could we escape? Goritz had become eager to return with
his gold “souvenirs” (never inquired for), with his radium, with the
secret of making gold, if he could learn it. That was yet concealed and,
much more important, so were the tubes. Those balloons, the radium-lit
cave in the Deer Fels. And there was the great ethnic wonder of the
people themselves, the marvel of the Stationary Sun, the radium country!
It was impossible to reconcile ourselves to a lifelong immurement in
this monotony. Science must break through into this chrysalis of
wonders. It was our bounden duty to bring _her_ here. But literally we
were captives; the hocus-pocus of our descent from the sky would not let
us demean ourselves in ordinary ways (in spite of past precedents of the
vulgarity on the part of heaven-descended kings) and we began to see we
had prepared a dilemma for ourselves which might end more fatally than
the enmity of the little doctors had threatened.
Now all was changed, and like flies in honey were we hopelessly
entangled. Perhaps the most fortunate of us all was Spruce Hopkins
himself, who frankly loved Ziliah; but even he wanted to “vamoose” and
take his bride with him, for he thought she would “take the edge off the
jolliest swell ladies anywhere.” The Professor, now the joke was over
and our necks safe, was sick to death of his role, and only extracted a
comforting morsel of pleasure from it in its possibility of opening to
him the few but very peculiar secrets of physics and chemistry which the
Faculty of Radiumopolis monopolized—monopolized too, we learned, by a
rigid system of verbal transmission. And then our thunder! It wouldn’t
last for ever; and our celestial powers would fail conclusively in
creating cartridges on demand, owing to the unscrupulous fondness on the
part of the Radiumopolites, which was having easily foreseen and
disastrous consequences. Our supply was shrinking fast. We adopted the
expedient of delegating the role of _Thunderer_ to the Professor, which
saved shot, or at least extended the usefulness of our arsenal. The
peaceful nature of the Professor was, however, so far exasperated by the
improvident urgency of his subjects that he confessed to a murderous
inclination to shoot them at the same time. If any one of us got away he
would need his gun and ammunition and much more—a stock of provisions
too, and transportation. We both felt pretty blue.
Hopkins: “One of us must make a break soon.”
I: “Well you certainly can’t. Your family’s here now.”
Hopkins: “Ziliah’s a sport. She might just prove to be the guy to put
_light_ in flight. Besides I could tell her some things about the way we
live in New York that might increase her desire to travel.”
I: “But we came from Heaven!”
Hopkins: “Yes, I know—we’re the angelic sort. Say, if I wanted to desert
Ziliah—and I don’t—I could play up the Lohengrin gag. Get her to ask
questions, get mad about it—and _quit_.”
I: “Easier said than done.”
Hopkins: “There’s no chance to skip out up here in this everlasting
daylight.”
I: “Pshaw! That isn’t it. Think of the journey back; think of the ice
pack.”
Hopkins: “If we could only wireless back for a relief expedition.”
I: “_If._”
We turned back, gloomy and dispirited. When we reached Radiumopolis we
found King Hlmath Bjornsen thundering from the Capitol and Goritz—gone.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XIV
GORITZ’S DEATH AND THE GOLD MAKERS
I skip the coronation and enthronement of King Hlmath Bjornsen of
Krocker Land in Radiumopolis, because the King asked me to do so in my
last interview with him. He wishes to reserve its features for his great
book. He thinks that the ceremonies, taken in connection with many other
considerations prove that the Krocker Land culture ties together a
number of ancestral ethnic cults, and that there is good reason to
believe that the mixture of semi-savage practices, the archaic or
nepionic status of society, the advanced language, the peculiar
acquisitions of the patrician class, their specialized though limited
knowledge, the vitality of the serpent-monster worship taken in
connection with the biological fact of a partial, at any rate, survival
of Mesozoic conditions in limited topographic basins, as seen in the
Saurian Sea, in the chain of swamps beyond the Pool of Oblation, and
especially in the undeniable and formidable fact of the existence of the
Crocodilo-Python, an animal quite unlike any known saurian, indicate
what he terms the concatenated debris of a series of overlaid
civilizations and that its complete interpretation will carry us back to
the probable origin of _Homo sapiens_ and the Garden of Eden, restricted
of course to a purely naturalistic conception. (Erickson took a long
breath, and then—he was off again.)
The geological features of this polar pit, its stepped or terraced
conformation, the extraordinary igneous activity revealed beneath it and
the disclosure herein of immense endomorphic radium deposits, combined
with unparalleled meteorological phenomena are also reserved by the
Professor, the King, for personal and elaborate treatment. With the
especial opportunities now available the Prof—the King (It’s difficult
for me to be consistent in alluding to my old friend) will prosecute
inquiry, so far as his official duties permit, but through me, Mr. Link,
he most fervently implores scientific recognition of the facts so far
recorded in this narrative, and immediate scientific interposition in
his behalf and cooperation for his assistance. (Erickson again paused
and allowed the full meaning of his elongated statements to penetrate my
purely secular mind.)
However, this in passing, Mr. Link. I will recur to it. Let me resume my
story, omitting under the foregoing stipulations any description of the
Professor’s enthronement. I am indeed approaching the moment of my own
hazardous dash from Krocker Land for the outer world.
Goritz, I said, had disappeared. It seems he had not been seen for many
_settas_—setta is equivalent to about twelve hours. Hopkins and I had
been away scouring the countryside, and knew nothing of Goritz’s
whereabouts. I have already hinted at his restlessness, moodiness, and
his unceasing hunt for gold. Latterly this had become changed into an
intense eagerness to revisit the radium country with Oolagah to collect
radium.
We had not yet seen the process of transmutation, certain as we were as
to its accomplishment and knowledge of the same among the
Radiumopolites, a knowledge probably limited to the doctors. Goritz had
a theory as to the illimitable power of radium to effect this
conversion. He was mistaken. He was dissatisfied with the pieces we had
been given—oxidized lumps holding the unchanged metal in their
centers—and was always teasing Oogalah to take him again to the radium
valley or chasm. Oogalah refused. I think he did not relish Goritz’s
company. Now Hopkins and I believed Goritz harbored the intention to
gather his belongings at a favorable moment, mostly the gold objects and
the radium, and, trusting blindly in his great strength, experience, and
resources, to force his way back to the Krocker Land Rim, regain the
coast, hunt up the naphtha launch and possibly make some attempt to sail
back to Point Barrow. It was sheer madness. We had had few occasions to
argue it with him, as he rather avoided us, and his secretiveness and
stealthy activity strengthened our suspicions. Hopkins half feared the
unfortunate man was losing his mind.
[Illustration:
GORITZ’S DEATH
]
But when we learned of his absence—we were all rather marked men now in
Radiumopolis and our goings and comings were minutely noticed—I
suspected at once he had tried to get to the radium fields alone and had
been lost or destroyed there. Taking Oogalah, now acting under orders,
Hopkins and I started out. We reached the peridotite hills which
afforded us such welcome relief against the inordinate misery of our
heads, that arose from the powerful emanations of the region of the
granite ledges. No traces of our missing friend appeared. Oogalah left
us, passing through the gateway between the sulphur patches, and made
straight for the edge of the cliffside that broke down into the
unapproachable and impossible crevice. Beyond the farthest point he
dared to penetrate lay the prostrate body of Antoine Goritz, our former
leader, dead. Oogalah could see him plainly, but he hesitated to try to
reach him, and it would have been impossible for him alone to have
carried this youthful giant back. Goritz’s head was towards Oogalah
coming from the east. He had fallen headlong, a little crumpled up, as
if in convulsions when he fell, and in his hands, still clutched in an
irretractable deathgrip, were two lumps of radium.
Sorrowfully Hopkins and I turned back, followed by the mute but
wondering Eskimo. We could not possibly have recovered the body then,
but we hoped to later. We had already heard that the workers in radium,
the Gold Makers, were like Oogalah immunized or less sensitive to its
paralyzing influence, and with some of these men we hoped the recovery
could be made. We noticed on this sad errand that our own susceptibility
had changed, that it deterred us less, just as for months past the
irritation of the eyes from the peculiar light of the land had passed
away, which before, in the Deer Fels, even in the Pine Tree Gredin, had
afflicted us. So, reluctantly we returned, fully assured by Oogalah that
with assistance from some of the gold makers the body could be
withdrawn. And that, sir, partially led to our second visit to the
village of the Gold Makers.
That gold was made by some miraculous power, aided by some peculiar
skill in the Radiumopolites, we had convinced ourselves, before we
reached that city. Since then the spectacle of the Capitol, the apparent
extravagance of the use of gold in decoration and in apparel, and even
in the appurtenances of the rooms and homes of the officers of the city,
the shockingly hideous Crocodilo-Python effigies on the palace, and that
impossible, realistic creation of the Serpent-Throne in which the
Professor sat at the time of his triumphant coronation, and Ziliah’s
story and the equally credible narrations of Oogalah confirmed
specifically our suspicions. But we had never seen it made, nor even
found in the industries of the city any trace of its manufacture. That
the odd encounter of ours with the sphalerite in the limestone cave of
the Deer Fels, when the convocation of little men drifted down from the
sky, borne by those incommensurable balloons (and, by the way, we had
never since seen a balloon in use or idle) had something to do with gold
making, we were positive.
Since our arrival and establishment in the city we had heard of the Gold
Makers. It was for them that Oogalah explored the radium fields near the
Crater of Everlasting Light. Oogalah told us most of what we learned
about them. They were a different people again from either the Eskimo or
the Hebrew type in the city of Radiumopolis, and the Valley of Rasselas.
They lived in a secluded community many miles away from Radiumopolis,
and seldom visited the city, though they occasionally intermarried with
the comely Eskimo girls or the larger women of the small race. When we
inquired the cause of their isolation Oogalah said the _mines_ were
where they were to be found, and the burial grounds.
The last named excited our wonder, but Oogalah was vague on the subject
and seemingly uninterested. He did exhibit some enthusiasm over his
recollections of the wildness and beauty of the country where the Gold
Makers lived and worked, and mentioned a mighty river there. This was
the river that issued from the Canon of Promise, the effluent from the
Saurian Sea, which, as I have said, again turned westward and through
another savage defile entered the Kara Sea. That river I named
“_Homeward Bound_,” for by it I came out.
Well, the Professor, after his accession, expressed the strongest desire
to see the Gold Makers and their country, and said that we all must
accompany him. For the Professor had acquired a little knowledge of the
language, and with me as interpreter he got on famously, and told the
Council of wise men that he was writing a book about them, and after
they had mastered the idea, for among their other trivialities they had
no books, no writings of any sort, they took to it immensely. This
appeal to their vanity—megalomania literally and figuratively—was a
great stroke. Bjornsen will find out all their knowledge before he
abdicates.
So it very soon materialized that we should be shown the Gold Makers.
(This was some time before Goritz’s death.) It was a picturesque trip. I
shall never forget it, and for good reasons. It started me on my way
home.
The Professor, Goritz, Hopkins, myself, and the chief men of the Senate,
Javan, Put, Hul, Peleg and Hadad, made up the party with the guard,
drivers and a few attendants. We went in their odd wooden-wheeled
jaunting cars, pulled by the very lively and entertaining rams.
It would form an appealing and pleasant study for me to describe the
Junta of Radiumopolis—those thirty humorous little figures, with the
sedate, old, and variously featured faces, a galaxy of physiognomies
that embraced good nature, cunning, sullenness, querulous self
importance, feebleness, gravity, benevolence (more in the seeming than
in the reality, I take it) spitefulness, apathy, fussiness, dullness,
alertness, sympathy, cruelty, perhaps sternness, and above all a
mannerism of profundity unspeakably amusing. Their physique is hopeless,
for they have pin bodies and have pin heads, as Hopkins described them,
and their off-the-center look with their top-heavy heads and bowed
shoulders make a mannikin effect, ludicrous and grotesque. All are dark.
But while we are on our way to the Gold Makers, through the open
flowering meads and broad pastures and arable acres of the Rasselas
Valley, I will try very briefly—_in staccato_—to put before you Javan,
Put, Hul, Peleg and Hadad.
Javan, the father of Ziliah, was by far the best looking, and generally
the best formed. His face was really handsome, and his beard made no
false claim to being one. It was full and flowing. His eyes were large,
glowing and passionate. He smiled too much, and a “few crowns and
bridges made from home material would have benefited his mouth organ,”
said Hopkins. His cheeks were hollow and pale, but the positive beauty
of the broad white brow seemed to compensate for all other defects.
Put was a rather tall man, under the restricted sense of long and short
as applied to these gentlemen, and nearly bald. His nose was a more
modest creation that those of most of his colleagues, but his mouth, in
so small a face, was portentous. Nature by some ineptitude had almost
omitted his ears, and his eyes had a glassy and fixed stare (when not
concealed by the official goggles), but the forlorn remnant of some
forgotten smile had become fastened in his face, which actually helped
the artificial effect of his eyes to the point of making you almost
believe he was of wood or plaster, and not of flesh and blood. Hopkins
quoted the Bab Ballad verse, which runs,
“‘The imp with yell unearthly-wild,
Threw off his dark enclosure:
His dauntless victim looked and smiled
With singular composure.
For hours he tried to daunt the youth,
For days indeed, but vainly—
The stripling smiled! to tell the truth
_The stripling smiled inanely_.’”
Hull was somewhat shorter but he was a distinct analogue to Put, with
most of Put’s eccentricities, softened, by no means to the point of
extinction, but so far as to make him a laughable simulacrum.
Peleg was the best example of this small Semitic people in the thirty
Areopagites. He was really muscular in a way, well developed, with a
hawk’s eye, and a severity that would require, I surmised, very little
provocation to turn it into ferocity. His head seemed less ponderous, he
carried it straighter, and a deeper glow of redness in his face imparted
to him a humanity denied by the parchment-like texture of his fellows.
His beard too, was full and his hair really rich and luxuriant. I think
he would have proven a firm friend.
Hadad was an anomaly. He was fat. Hopkins called him “the Alderman”; he
was the presumably happy possessor of a so-called corporation (as
Hopkins put it, “a Trust individualized as an abdomen”), and his voice
and laugh were musical. Generally I don’t insist on the association, but
I have found it noticeable. Hadad had pop-eyes and an incorrigible habit
of spitting. He seemed loquacious, and he usually could be found in the
midst of any discussion.
This conventionalized description might produce a wrong impression.
These little men did not dress in coat, vest and pants. Figure them in
yellow or blue tunics falling well below the knees, sometimes in a sort
of violet cassock, either bound with the rococo gold belt and its
conspicuous gold buckle, with leggings or buskins, with the beehive hat,
and all this apparel on state occasions loaded with gold chains. You can
conceive that they presented a most unusual appearance, even one of some
dignity, though it must be confessed their relatively large noses
undeniably depraved it with a vaudeville effect. Hopkins never could get
over this impression.
“Alfred, if I could ship ’em, as they stand, on the hoof so to speak, to
New York!—sign a contract as manager, and bill ’em for a tour of the
States, my financial horizon would be cloudless. Eh?”
The defects of these diminutive people seemed increased by contrast with
the taller race, who were well made, normal in every way, and whose
women were most pleasing. And as regards the ladies of the small type,
they were much bigger than the men—another fact to the disadvantage of
their undersized partners—and often, as with Ziliah, they were superb.
(The matrimonial question was already looming ominously prominent for
King Bjornsen, and his counsellors, I knew, were solicitous for his
royal appreciation of their daughters—“one, or several or all,” said
Hopkins.)
And _there_ was the great and glorious land of the Gold Makers. As we
approached, its diversity and contrasts became excitingly apparent. And,
as in myself dawned the scheme of making it the point of my departure,
or ESCAPE, to that great outer world from which like thrown pebbles
Chance—not in this case a blind goddess—had dropped us into this sealed
and secluded lesser world, it assumed a veritable splendor. Far off the
shimmering agitation of the broad stream that poured its accumulated
flood down a long grade from the Canon of Promise, in a vast crosscut
through the Pine Tree Gredin, sparkled in our view. Hills, low and
sparsely wooded, rose from the floor of the Valley of Rasselas—we had
already reached the latter’s northwestern limit—between them were flat
and grassed interspaces, and in the foreground a savannah-like expanse,
quite treeless, and then far to the right the clustering villages of the
Gold Makers. Obviously the river dominated the scene, with that far
distant background of indefinite elevations outlining the northern
concentric bulwarks of Krocker Land, beyond which a good glass might
detect the shroud of the Perpetual Nimbus, and yet farther, infinitely
removed, but seen in presence if not in form, the snowy or ruddy
pinnacles of Krocker Land Rim. The river before it reached the pastoral
foreground had recovered its calm, and only in its full tide did the
gliding patches of foam, and here and there a larger, more disquieted
wave, indicate the turmoil and torture of its descent. The road drew
near to its banks. Within our view it turned westward, and we could see
that it again passed outward between the walls of a rugged and imposing
defile. Could I trust myself to its impetuous current, and find over its
boiling waters an avenue of escape? So I mused, as we jolted along and
as, to me, the scenery brought back long forgotten pictures of the Vale
of Llangollen in Wales.
Scarcely were we in sight of the villages than some of their occupants
hurried to meet us. When they came closer, to our wonder, we found them,
as Oogalah had described, of a different racial type from the rest of
the Radiumopolites and very unmistakably Samoyedes, men from the vast
Siberian uplands, physically distinguishable by the broad faces and
pyramidal skulls of the Turanian family. These nomads of the treeless
fringes of Siberia, so far as indications showed or inquiry elicited,
had been in a small company, wrecked on the Arctic coast of Krocker Land
in some dateless past. They had made their way into the Valley of
Rasselas, had established themselves without molestation in this
restricted corner, and had then—how, remained an unanswered or insoluble
question—come under subjection of the Radiumopolites. When the peculiar
industry which now engaged them had developed was as indefinite in its
relations to what went before or followed after it as the advent of the
supernatural(?) stranger who had taught Radiumopolis the process of gold
manufacture itself.
It seemed however that at an early time these Samoyedes had been
appropriated as workers in this singular art, because of their
discovered immunity from the deleterious effects or influences of the
hypostatic element.
I saw men and women fishing in the broad river, and to my amazement
found their boats were literally rafts—wooden logs bound together by
ropes or thongs of leather and fibre. Hardly had I perceived this before
the thought and hope flashed through my mind that on some such vehicle
of transit I could trust myself to the stream, and that it was most
likely that these hardy highlanders could give me the information I now
needed as to the channel, direction, debouchment, and navigableness of
the noble water in its course to the coast.
One of the strange idiosyncracies of the Radiumopolites, in spite of
their attested skill in workmanship, their intelligence and emotional
liveliness, was their obtuseness in geographic matters, or better,
_numbness_. I don’t think they ever questioned the fact of their
absolute finality both in place and in existence. Outside of the distant
Krocker Land Rim was nothing but that blockade of ice, of which they had
heard—the gold belt found by Goritz was a token of an aeronautic (?)
reconnaissance—and outside of that, if speculation in their minds
suggested the query, was just nothing again. As the Professor said, “The
centripetal tendency of many primitive cultures was well understood, but
in this case it was pivotal on a new topographic conformation that
forbade migration.” I don’t suppose it ever occurred to a Radiumopolite
to even ask what might become of that river cutting across this corner
of his Eden-like valley. They had become _static_, and what they knew
and what they enjoyed never changed. In house building, in weaving, in a
rude artistry of design, in agriculture, in brick and tile and pot
making, in their religion, in their games, they had attained a
development that gave them happiness. And that ended it. It was
Inca-like, or Mayan, Toltecan, Aztecan, or any of the American cultures
which inhabit one spot, flourishing within it and never exceeding it,
like the phenomena of centralization in plants and animals. And yet what
questions this same culture suggested to a less individualized student,
that diminutive Semitic race, the tree and serpent survival, and this
unique oligarchy of little magnates!
Arrived within the precincts of the Samoyedian village, there was a
bustling reception from dogs and children. These were the first dogs we
had seen. Then a slow emergence of women and older men from the low
briquette abodes followed. Almost without noticing their salutations,
Javan, Put, Hul, Peleg, Hadad, leading the way, took us through the
scanty settlement to a series of barracks, also made of burned clay
briquettes, and entered the first one. On long rude tables were heaped,
in this armory, piles of _galena_ (lead sulphide), and the glistening
mineral was in nodules, free and clear, or enclosed in a pulverulent
limestone. It was the duty here of the workmen to extract the mineral
from its matrix, pound it into dust, and separate it in small wicker
baskets. It was then carried away in these receptacles, by men, to other
buildings. In another house or shed _Sphalerite_ (zinc sulphide) was
similarly treated. From these preparatory stages we passed to the radium
storehouse. This was practically a cave dug in the side of the hill,
where the material, gathered by Oogalah was kept, and which we were not
permitted to enter. The radium masses were thrown into this place
through an opening above, a sort of chimney, and removed below by an
opening which permitted their extrication by stone hoes. As they were
drawn out they were taken in baskets to the Mixing House. The critical
work was effected here.
In every respect it was like the other workshops, but in it the workmen
did not remain more than two hours at a time, the “shifts,” as we would
say, being then changed. At one end of this building the radium nodules
were cleared of their dull coatings of oxide. Instantly the metallic
nuclei, which was malleable to a slight degree, but which soon developed
brittleness, were pushed towards other workmen, who hammered them with
stone mallets or hammers until they were broken or splintered into
grains or small angular pieces. This triturated metal was pushed forward
again with slate knives to the last group of workers to whom the basket
of pulverized lead and zinc mineral had been brought.
These operators divided the broken radium into lots and poured over each
lot the contents of a single basket. The heap thus formed of the
commingled radium and sulphide was then drawn to the edge of the stone
and brick table and carefully scraped into a leathern or woven apron or
bag and tied up. From this house these bundles were carried away to a
distant upland which furnished a favorable soil for their burial; they
were deposited in holes, five to ten feet deep, the variation in depth
having some reference to the size of the bundles. These burials were
then not disturbed for a length of time which corresponded to about a
year of our time. At the expiration of that period they were exhumed and
examined. Fortunately we were enabled to see this stage of the process
also. The bundle being taken out of its sepulture is opened on a table
and its contents spread out in a thin layer. From the granular
commixture the gold particles are carefully picked out, and are then
collected for welding by pressure into larger pieces.
Certainly nothing could have been more amazing than the exhibition thus
offered of the transmuting power of this wizard element. The
transmutation is never complete, that is, the original mass of galena or
sphalerite is never wholly converted into gold. The residues are
reinterred with the almost unaltered radium, and after six months are
again examined. The second crop of gold grains invariably is less, and
after a third trial the mixture is carefully freed from the radium and
the unaffected sulphide thrown out. The radium thus used is kept apart
from the fresher supplies of radium whose potency is always stronger.
But the partially exhausted reagent is saved, and used over and over
again with fresh ores. For, just as the radium suffers a diminution of
efficacy, so does the sulphide lose its susceptibility to its influence.
This necessarily involves considerable sorting, parceling, labeling and
adjustment. Superintendents watch the operations of each workhouse, and
the new and old supplies of the radium and of the ores are successfully
recorded and mutually apportioned, as experience dictates. The lead
sulphide yields the larger percentage of transmuted gold.
In all instances the crop of gold is small, and its accumulation slow,
so that the rich displays at Radiumopolis must have represented the
result of many years of this peculiar labor. Javan told me that the
yield of gold was steadily diminishing because of the difficulty of
obtaining radium, and the almost exhausted condition of the lead and
zinc sulphide mines. Then he told me of a possible new replenishment of
the latter from deposits far beyond the pine tree forest to the east.
The Professor, Hopkins, and myself exchanged an astute smile of
understanding as did also Goritz, though less intelligibly. We recalled
the flying trip of the doctors, and the radium-lighted cave in the Deer
Fels. The mines of sulphide in the limestone hills of the Gold Makers’
country are of the types familiar to the miners of the same mineral in
Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa.
With what wonder stricken faces the Professor, Hopkins, Goritz and I
gazed upon the flattened piles of sulphide ore and radium, after the
long-buried mixture was taken out of the ground in whose seclusion the
miraculous effect had indisputably been produced. The lead-gray glint of
the ore made more conspicuous the scattered dust of gold amongst it,
with particles cohering to half converted lumps of galena. And our
wonder transcended words when we were led into an adjoining room where
the gold detritus was hammered into sizeable bits, and these again
compacted into sticks or nodules, while on the shelves surrounding this
apartment, the collected masses lay in bewildering confusion. Aladdin’s
Lamp seemed almost less insupportably incredible.
* * * * *
It was on the occasion of the enforced second—but much desired—visit,
when we besought the services of the Samoyedes to recover the body of
our lost friend, that I again studied, more closely, the chances of the
river liberating me from the increasingly unendurable imprisonment. A
few of the hardened Samoyedes were brought back with us, after this
errand of mercy, to Radiumopolis, and with Oogalah they recovered the
body of Goritz. I think the Council would have been pleased to have
instituted a special Crocodilo-Python festival, and delivered the poor
fellow’s body to the horrible denizens of the neighboring swamps, but
King Bjornsen forbade that sternly, and it caused some unpleasantness.
It was another indication to me of the inevitable “blow-up,” as Hopkins
called it, of our amicable relations with these Radiumopolites, and the
increasing urgency of my effecting my escape, to bring to my friends the
means of their possible extrication. Under the pretence of returning
Goritz to the sky, from which (with us) he had come, we secretly buried
him in the valley, and there he lies today.
It was something of a _contre-temp_ to have Goritz die at all. It gave a
rather second-hand and made-up look to our claims to have come from the
heavens, and to the inquiring minds of our enemies supplied undesirable
data for starting grave doubts as to our authenticity—still another
danger lurking in our path, or, as Hopkins gloomily put it, “another
nail in our coffins.”
Our friend was King indeed, but the enthusiasm that had carried him to
that eminence lacked permanence. It could not be rooted in racial
consanguinity, it was probably constantly decried by the little doctors,
and the Professor, to quote the epigrammatic Hopkins, was a “poor
mixer.” That last word unveiled a multitude of perils.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XV
MY ESCAPE
You must have observed, sir, that in my narrative I have from time to
time exhibited our variant and varying frames or states of mind toward
the strange conditions we were approaching, and the still stranger ones
we actually entered. You have been told that some of us dreaded to go
on—myself for instance—that later, diverted or enthralled by the
strangeness of it all, we wanted to go faster, that from shrinkingly
divining some disaster we were lulled into the anticipation of great
pleasure, and that when our actual danger was reached and surmounted it
might seem we should almost have resigned ourselves to stay; resigned
ourselves to that serenity of mind depicted by Doctor Johnson, from
whose work the Professor derived the name he had given to the central
vale of Krocker Land, where, “such was the appearance of security and
delight which their retirement afforded, that they to whom it was new
always desired that it might be perpetual.”
But it surely does not require much penetration of feeling, to say the
least, or sympathy of mind, to see that our position would very soon
become unendurable, from the same general repugnance in all of us and
from particular motives in each. To begin with, we soon felt stifled in
this recondite and obsolete and trivial civilization; the very circular
enclosure which shut it in became a prison, and after all, if we were of
the same zoological _stirps_, as these people, we had differentiated too
much for pleasurable association. At no time have I felt so keenly that
the breath of the modern man’s life must be the breath of the world
where it moves the fastest and its breath is quickest.
Then there was the wonderful discovery itself to be published, the
Professor’s notes, crowded upon the pages of a notebook he had most
carefully preserved, to be given to science. Goritz before his death
yearned for the gratification of indulgences to be purchased by his new
wealth, and, as he thought, his new knowledge. I revolted at the
surroundings, the snakes and the periodic sacrifices, and feared an
inevitable distrust and collision. Hopkins loved Ziliah, but he had
found in this _rara-avis_ a positive promise of supreme adaptation to
the best life he could give her in the world. At any rate he wished to
try it.
Our discontent increased, our impatience chafed our nerves, and in
hastily stolen conferences we determined upon a supreme effort to
escape. We were tormented by the espionage and ruffled manners of the
Council of Thirty, who interminably buzzed about us, and had probably
shrewdly detected our hidden restlessness. And the utter dullness of the
life! Never before have I so unspeakably realized that even if you
cannot live in the current of life, you must live near it, hear its
murmurs, watch its waves, and rejoice in knowing those who swim either
with or against it. We had all been dreadfully disappointed in the
Radiumopolites.
Again and again we planned to break away under some pretence of
revisiting our celestial home, hurrying off and disappearing completely,
though now we had made up our minds to return with big reinforcements of
assistance and to turn over this new continent to the examination and
gaze of science. It seems a cruel decision. But why not? Krocker Land
could not in any case remain much longer concealed, and we were entitled
to the fruits of our adventure, while we were reasonably confident we
could make its investiture by our civilization safe, humane,
undisturbing. I think differently now, but that was our conclusion.
“This Ascension business,” as Hopkins called it, was just humanly
possible by the use of balloons, and it was apposite that at the
Professor’s enthronement, the aeronautics of the Radiumopolites were
displayed at last. It very oddly turned out that only the smaller race
played with the balloons. The word is deliberately correct. These
balloons were a kind of household furniture or means of diversion, as a
bicycle is with us. They furnished inexhaustible amusement to the little
people, but even there their use was limited to the very daring or the
_very light_. Almost every family possessed one. And yet more curiously
it was in the balloon line that experiment and invention were actually
stirring these ludicrous people to improve and add to what they knew.
This activity sprang from the unsatisfactory discrimination their
present aeronautical knowledge made between light and heavy weights.
This ballooning in Krocker Land is in every way anomalous and
extraordinary, and like their knowledge of transmutation partakes of the
miraculous, certainly the previously unsuspected. Science here is again
in the presence of a New Departure. The balloons are filled with a gas
having a far greater buoyancy than pure hydrogen and it is derived from
gas wells, themselves of very moderate depth, but evidently supplied
from far more deeply seated sources. It is incontestable. A balloon not
three feet in diameter will levitate thirty pounds!
Except for the astonishing transmutation this physical fact invades the
realm of the unbelievable more deeply than anything else.
No evidence of this wide-spread predilection appeared before the
Professor’s enthronement. The suppression of the sport had something to
do with the ceremonial rites of visiting the tree shrines, I believe,
the winter solstitial feeding with human bodies of the saurians, and
awaiting the spring planting of grain. The opening of the season, so to
speak, is inaugurated by the ascent of the entire Areopagus, and after
that the amusement becomes general.
All of the Aeropagites are not equally expert, and many, after a
sufficient aerial excursion to meet the ceremonial requirements, which
are _de rigueur_, subside and retire. But the art of sailing the air is
traditionally a matter of pride, and the leaders do very well. It was an
adventuresome trip for them to have attempted reaching the outskirts of
Krocker Land when we met them softly settling down on the Deer Fels, and
it later proved almost indubitable that they were the customary
political bosses, Javan, Put, Hul, Peleg and Hadad, though a closer
inspection of these worthies corrected some of our first impressions,
expressed before in that chapter of this narrative.
The experimental efforts at improvement arose from the discontent and
envy of the heavier individuals over the glad pastimes and disportments
of the lighter ones. You see the method involved the use of at least
three balloons, one from each shoulder and one from the waist, and as
three feet diameter was the maximum size, safely manipulated, those
weighing over ninety pounds—and there were a great number of these,
almost all adults of the taller race, and many women of the smaller—were
simply excluded from this diversion. _Hinc illae lacrymae_, and hence
also the energy of invention to overcome this disparity.
When the sports began, nothing could have been more interesting and
spectacular. Groups would rise together, separate, and reunite. This
air-swimming was effected by fans attached to the wrists. But the
Aeropagites revealed a superior guidance, at least we imagined so, for
when their floating shapes had thrown shadows on the illumined summits
of the Deer Fels, they had been provided with those inexplicable tubes,
and up to the moment of my escape these miracles had not been repeated.
And the NEW tubes—where were they?
The proper state of the weather was indispensable and only in complete
calms would the amusing exhibition take place. As in all exercises,
bolder spirits attempted their excursions under perilous conditions in
high or moderate winds, but these had often resulted in loss of life,
the unhappy aeronaut falling or actually being driven headlong like a
fly or moth beyond the valley into the solitudes and dangers of its
encircling zones.
The harness—for it is nothing less—which the aeronaut assumes holds him
easily and steadily to the three bubbles above him, and, as he generally
can regulate his flight with his hands, his indeterminate control is
over his descent. Few accidents occur. The balloons are symmetrized in
position over him, the one at the waist being nearest his body and the
two outside bags higher but on a level with each other. His control is
entirely over the central balloon which he may quickly deplete by
opening a valve. Variations of adjustment and of apparatus, as might be
imagined, are numerous, and individual tastes or designs introduce great
diversity. There may be four or five or even six balloons employed, but
in this case they are made much smaller. The balloons may be of
different sizes. Along the direction of increasing the number of maximum
sized balloons lay the hopes of the bigger people, but there had been
some bad mishaps, and the balance or adjustment proved difficult. The
levitation became unmanageable, and the descents were often appallingly
rapid and shockingly tragic.
When these air revels began—as they did at the Professor’s
coronation—minus the crown—we momentarily seized upon the project of
adapting this locomotion for our flight. It required a very brief
inspection to utterly expose the hopelessness of this scheme and still
more strongly occurred to us the prohibition from attempting to leave
together. Such a wholesale evacuation, unless accomplished as one might
say _de coup de tonnerre_, would never be practicable, and as Hopkins
ruefully reminded us, “Ziliah may be an angel, but I’d rather sour on
her prospects of being a balloonist.”
Literally I was the only free man, now that Goritz was gone, and
literally upon me devolved the task of getting back, rousing the world,
and effecting my friends’ release. How should, how could I do it?
Always distressed by this inseparable anxiety, the trip to the Gold
Makers suddenly appealed to my searching mind with a strong likelihood
that the great river we had skirted might carry me safely, and, too,
with a swiftness beyond our hopes to liberty, though when more seriously
considered, it might prove, I saw, to be only the _Liberty of Death_.
Immediately, therefore, after our return I found a convenient occasion
to discuss this project with the Professor and Hopkins. It struck them
both favorably, though they rather shrank from recommending it, as it
was equally clear that if the river could be, as it were, employed at
all, it would probably prove to be an obstreperous and mischievous
servant. However, that _way lay my path_.
Under the pretence—hardly ever now were we free from some dogging spy at
our elbows—of wishing to report more faithfully the operations of the
Gold Makers in that book which he was writing on Radiumopolis, and which
somehow had now captivated the fancy of the Council, the Professor (King
Bjornsen), Hopkins and myself revisited the distant village. Although we
were not permitted to go unattended, it was easy enough for me to engage
the Samoyedes in conversation, and ask them about their knowledge of the
great river. They spoke quite freely about it, and proved not only
willing to tell me all they knew, but discouraged my plan to navigate
the river to its mouth, by a not altogether lucid account of the attempt
of one of their fishermen to venture on the river beyond the rocky
gateway frowning on them to the west, and of his receiving some sort of
violent treatment at its hands, he being thrown ashore and returning
along the banks of the stream, reaching home almost more dead than
alive. So ran their broken and obscure story.
Where was this man? “Dead.” Were any of his family, descendants,
acquaintances, intimates, living? “Oh—yes—he knew everybody.” After some
painstaking examination, accompanied by an immense amount of irrelevant
recollections of what he did after his return, how he died, and how he
was buried, his size, his strength, his obstinacy, and a recital of the
disposition of his slender estate, I uncovered a trail of associations
leading to an old blind man who was yet alive, and who, it was supposed,
knew a little more exactly than anyone else what this daring disciple of
Izaak Walton had seen or experienced.
This ancient was located, but it proved a mountainous task to extract
much intelligible information from him, partly because he was dreadfully
deaf, hopelessly stupid, and so incoherent that the interpreters chosen
to interview him appeared to be at their wits’ ends to make him out, and
more particularly because he was himself suspicious of his examiners.
I at last came away with the impression that the man had floated off
peacefully on the swelling breast of the flood as it emerged from the
broad lake-like embayment in the Gold Makers’ land, and had been carried
along for a great distance at a rapid rate but not with much or any
danger, until the descent brought him to a change in the bed or banks of
the river (what this change was could not be determined), and that he
had even survived this, but that later he jumped overboard from his raft
(for raft it was), and reached the shore and, satisfied with his
adventure, had made his way back by almost incredible exertions.
Singular as it may seem to you, sir, my deductions from this incomplete
story, bristling as it might seem with unimagined, untold dangers, were,
that the river maintained a full flow, was seldom interrupted by
obstructions, had some serious breaks in its grade, which, however, did
not involve actual falls, and, if violent at any point, was not
unnegotiable, as you say. The fisherman evidently passed the worst place
alive, but did not survive the shock. He lost his nerve and got
ashore—and besides, in his case, there were most valid reasons for
objecting to a lengthier transit.
This favorable interpretation, so far as it helped me to make up my
mind, was really itself helped by a kind of desperation. It was
impossible for me to remain in this solitude any longer. An almost
fierce monomania of repulsion was growing within me, and, of some
natural hardihood myself, this excitant for action bestowed on me an
almost unnatural indifference to danger.
Later I told my friends I had made up my mind. Whatever perils lay in my
way I would cope with them as I could—but GO I would, and as an avenue
of escape that seemed to promise the quickest release I preferred the
river. There were many solemn and affecting conferences—continued as we
had opportunity—and the preparations were, so far as the resources
allowed, carefully made. They were indeed so wisely made that I reached
the Siberian Sea safe and sound. The intervention of Luck or Providence
in assisting him, is consciously or unconsciously expected by every
Arctic explorer, probably by any explorer; and with the contribution of
his best judgment, unsparing effort, and personal fortitude, he is
inclined to put the blame of his failure—if he fails—on those two
omnipotent factors. If he succeeds, a brave man is probably not less
inclined to give them the credit.
We selected the best rifle of our little collection, stored all of our
ammunition, depending on the ingenuity of Hopkins and the King to
reconcile the Radiumopolites to this sequestration of their beloved
thunder, the Professor entrusted to me some pencil scribbled papers, and
then we turned our attention to my personal equipment. I believed that
in a week’s time at the most I would be enabled to reach the coast. We
all felt that, assuming a parallel conformation of the various zonal
strips we had traversed entering Rasselas, their proximity on the west
argued for a probable narrowing of their width. To have attempted the
eastward route over the path we had taken had no attractions for me, and
from the first we felt my absence would then be more quickly discovered,
and myself _willy-nilly_ overhauled.
But later we turned our first plans upside-down. Hopkins said my
departure should be a public event, that we would never be able to
accomplish anything satisfactorily in this hidden, secret fashion.
“Take the bull by the horns; fly a high kite and put it up to ’em this
way. Tell ’em the shade, spirit, spook, anything that’s handy of Antoine
Goritz, has appeared to you, and told you to take to the water; that big
things will be brought back that way; that the Serpent God wishes it—Oh,
anything. Hand it out strong and lively and scary. I guess that’ll
rehabilitate Goritz too, give him the _saecula saeculorum_ sort of
effect, and it won’t do us any harm either to keep up our show of being
on intimate terms with ghosts and such.”
“Will they believe it?” I asked.
“Sure. Why not? What else have they got to do? They’re made that way.
All of these rubbishy people who came into existence before gas and
electricity, the telephone, trolley car, pasteurized milk and
incubators, will believe anything you tell ’em about goblins and witches
and scarecrows and second sight and dreams and invisible voices. Try it,
Alfred. It’s a cinch.”
Well, we did try it and it was, to put it that way, an unalleviated
success. Still there was a fly in the ointment, in a way. Ziliah told
Hopkins the little doctors were overjoyed—they wanted _me_ out of the
road. I asked the Professor and Hopkins what they thought about that and
they both agreed they could take care of themselves. This upshot of the
matter was indeed a rather disturbing surprise, but—my departure was a
triumph!
The resources of Radiumopolis were at my disposal—food, clothing, and
although direction or information could not be furnished, the physical
requisitions for combating hunger and cold were generously provided.
This alacrity on the part of the little rulers was unmistakably
connected with their expectation that the adventure would be the last of
_me_. They were obedient to the injunctions of King Bjornsen, but their
subserviency was hypocritical in its protestations of devotion.
Unluckily there was the most helpless ignorance of boat making to
contend with, and the additional provocation to despair that there were
no tools to make them with. This historic fisherman had tried to do the
trick with a raft. I would take a raft too. What else? The Samoyedes
built them well and strongly, and under my uncontrolled supervision a
narrow raft made of two tiers of logs, crossed in position and bound
together with the strongest ropes, was prepared. On this a woven hamper
was firmly fastened, and in that were placed my provisions (tortillas,
and dried meat) and extra clothing, and rugs, and a sleeping bag of
sheepskin. A pack strapped to my back carried Goritz’s gold souvenirs,
some radium masses, a compass, chronometer, matches and a selection of
fishing hooks and lines. A gun was almost riveted to my side, so
immobile did it seem. But the _tour de force_ of foresight was involved
in the insertion of two short posts (five feet high) at the stern,
though distant from the raft’s edge by about three feet, and distant
from each other by three feet. To each of these posts, at the level of
my shoulders, was reamed a hole for two looped leathern thongs, so
adjusted that standing between the posts I could insert my arms in the
loops, clasp my hands across my breast, and secure a chancery that
nothing short of dislocation of the raft itself could break, or the
avulsion of my own arms from their sockets, while in an instant I could
free myself.
The Samoyedes rigged up a rude steering tiller which of course was
indispensable. It consisted of a girdle suspended from a cross piece,
binding the two abovementioned posts, through which a stick paddle was
swung. It was decidedly awkward, as it displaced me from my position of
safety between the posts, and therefore at critical moments might prove
quite worthless, if not a positive danger. Here I must count on my own
agility and strength. Besides this tiller half a dozen poles and as many
oars were tied to the posts projecting above them like short masts.
These might prove very serviceable. But there was also a last Atlantean
touch. Two of the three foot balloons were firmly tied to the crosspiece
of the upright posts. It was the Professor’s suggestion, and I am
positive that at a critical twist it saved matters.
That was about all, except that some further records were given me by
Bjornsen and they were consigned to the great woven hamper. Well, some
learned societies will be saved head splitting disputes, and no less
head dizzying theories, the former perhaps not altogether harmless.
_That hamper never came through._
By the beginning of July I was ready for the plunge. The day was
auspicious, clear but torrid, with the stationary sun wrapped in
luminous clouds, and its overwhelming rival coursing a higher altitude
in unchecked splendor. The great river assumed an enticing placidity;
its tranquil current had even lost the chained bubbles floating from the
shattering cascades that freed it from the Canon of Promise. And
Radiumopolis had bodily transferred itself to the scene; the banks, the
hills, the roofs of a few abandoned sheds were closely crowded, by a
wonderfully variegated multitude, intensely interested, subdued into a
faintly murmurous throng by the excitement of admiration. I was
something more than a hero that day. Obeying the summons of the spirit
of my former companion, I was to rejoin him along that trackless pathway
of the great river, whose banks touched heaven, in whose inaccessible
depths dwelt all the demons of death and terror.
There was a reservation of space, at the point where my raft swung
uneasily, for the King, the Council, Hopkins and Ziliah, and the
magistrates of the city, and only a Hogarth could have done justice to
that commixture of physiognomies, the odd and contrasted figures,
interspersed with the taller men and women, all wearing their regalia,
and the massed battalions beyond them in holiday array. Some daring
aeronauts circled in the air above me. Flowers did not figure in the
festivals nor in the predilections of the Radiumopolites, though blue
and yellow blossoms lit their landscapes with a smile of floral
prettiness that was very bewitching, and their own blue and yellow
tunics, or coats, indicated some sympathy with these colors. On this
occasion I was presented with some flat pincushion-like mats made up of
these flowers by some blushing girls, and from the laughter—gentle and
decorous—that this evoked, I believed they evinced a warmer sentiment
than regret. Of course my mission, as publicly declared, precluded my
probable return, or, at least, it meant my long absence. By the Council
doubtless, certainly by a few undisguised enemies in it, it was hoped
that it meant my wholesale and irremediable destruction.
As I shook hands with all I came at last to the Professor (King
Bjornsen) and Hopkins. Our hands closed tightly and we dared not look
each other in the face. I heard Hopkins whisper, “Heaven help you,” and
if prayer reaches the throne of Grace when it is consecrated by the
heart’s holiest hope, that prayer, I know, ascended to its place. As the
Professor embraced me, he loosened the belt of lead I had worn and
replaced it with a heavy gold girdle whose big buckle bore the carven
Serpent. That, Mr. Link, I have never shown to anyone. Diaz, Huerta nor
Angelica have ever seen it. It will amaze you. The Professor removed it
from his own waist. There was a half hushed remonstrance. But the King’s
gift was interpreted favorably, and as I received it a shout went up,
and even the Council, for prudent reasons possibly, indulged in a titter
of endorsement. My raft was pushed by willing hands into the stream. Its
prow or front yielded to the gentle urgency of the current, and turned.
I stood upon the hamper, and waved my hat—not the beehive contraption
but a sheepskin fez—and again the Radiumopolites, now strangely stirred
by this solemn gliding departure of a single man into the unknown, broke
spontaneously into one of their sing-song, not quite unmusical, and not
exactly musical, chants, which rising in pitch until it swelled to me
over the water, almost seemed, I drearily thought, like a dirge. Its
crooning wail still filled my ears when all details of the multitude
were lost, and the shadow of the great gateway of rock, into which the
river was relentlessly carrying me fell across the glassy wave that had
now become my path to liberty.
There was now nothing to be thought of but self-preservation amid
unknown and unsuspected dangers. I seized some bread—_tortilla_—a hunk
of the dried, not unpalatable meat, and drank some wine. This
interjected meal raised my spirits. A momentary _sang-froid_ replaced my
nervousness, and indeed, so great was my exultation at the thought of
regaining the vanished world, of liberation from an unendurable
stagnation and the bald, horrible misery of a silly paganism, that I
became almost cheerful. That mood did not last long. Already I had
passed the portal of the deep canon. The red sandstone walls rose in
sheer precipices above me, and were rising visibly higher beyond. A few
shrunken pine trees clung here and there to shelves of rock, while
through some upward openings, and leading into transverse valleys, I
caught glimpses of the dark green motionless tops of the serried trees
that here marked the amphitheater of the Pine Tree Gredin.
The grimness of the swiftly developing descent almost appalled me now. I
was on the back of a resistless flood not yet maddened into a fury of
impetuous violence by opposition, nor quickened into the onset of a
galloping torrent by sharper changes in its gradient, but doubtless
bringing me and my smoothly drifting raft into just such wild
vicissitudes. Could either one or the other survive them? The clumsy
boat beneath my feet was a willing servant. It responded to the strokes
of the tiller, and my dismal forebodings were momentarily forgotten in
the amusement it gave me to swing the raft from side to side of the
still broad waterway. As the light became dimmer, and a half crepuscular
dusk crept into the deepening fissure over whose topmost edges the sky
hung like an illuminated ribbon, I felt the grip of a solemn dread, the
precurrent rigor of that deadly _rigor animae_ which palsies the heart.
Still on and on, in a course that scarcely deviated from a straight
line, and thus safely conducted _us_ (to me my little barge shared, as a
sentient thing, our common danger, and it alleviated my solitude to
fancifully, as children do, personify it, talk to it, praise it) toward
that distant goal, the ice-packed shore of Krocker Land. The bed of the
stream lay in a rectilinear joint and the weathering on either side had
not greatly widened the aperture above. The picture changed only in
detail. The frowning sides, walls scarcely relieved by any vegetation
or, which, if there, was too far above me for my eyes to detect, offered
no distinction in color. Nature had not here spread her palette of
blending hues, those that over the silent expanses of the Grand Canon of
the Colorado transfer the colors of sunset to the immutable stone. It
was the utter sternness, the harsh, immense uniformity of the still
increasing precipices that crushed the soul. I seemed like an atom in
the void, a plaything of nature; for a moment, and for a moment only,
seen in this outraged solitude, to become then a part too of the
lifeless panorama.
The cliffs rose now a thousand feet or more, and sensibly receded, the
dislodged blocks from their summits building an awful fringe of titanic
boulders, angular monoliths, at the water’s edge. Beyond me stretched
the unvarying avenue, the shooting river seeming far away, motionless
and fixed like a congealed mass, though every particle of it was flying
onward with fresh acceleration. There could be no doubt of that. Points
observed on the shores were more and more rapidly passed. This hastening
pace became to me a portent of disaster. The angry river, placable at
first, luring its audacious victim onward, now in sullen mastery, with a
rising temper, as if impatient over its own leniency threatened to hurl
the petty intruder, the graceless little egotist, into eternity. It
would have done with him, washing his lifeless corse on its sullied
waters to the depthless ocean, a memento and a warning, if so paltry an
object could be either. Thus I seemed to divine the storm of its
gathering wrath.
So far the great volume of water had been accommodated in the channel,
and the surface of the river was almost smooth. But with the increasing
speed the channel narrowed, and the water became turbulent. Waves rushed
on and out from the shores and rolling backs of water chased each other
in the center of the stream. Fortunately, though the waves washed the
raft from end to end and sometimes drove me to the protection of the
upright posts, the river maintained its straight course, and we still
rode gallantly onward. There were sudden dips, down which we slid with
alarming velocity, that made me shudder, but nowhere a rock, a breaker,
no treacherous bend, no falls, not even yet the dashing turmoil of a
rapid. What invention of malice was this?
Suddenly my eye noticed a prominent bulge in the river, perhaps three or
four miles ahead. It lay about midstream. Here was some formidable
interruption? Was there a sluice-way on either side of it? If so I could
avoid it; the balloons helped my buoyancy. The raft trembled. Ah,
already it felt some premonitions of the tussle. Yes, a decided—no, not
a bulge after all; it was a drop, the river fell over a ledge, but
apparently a low one, so low that the deep volume filled it up, making
the transition from above to below it inconsiderable, and below—I could
just see—was retardation, and expansion; the river moved there over a
flat! Curious, such relenting!
“Have no fear, Old Boy,” I shouted, stamping the logs beneath me to
awaken their attention, “stick together, take a brace and over we go,
safe and sound.”
The spot seemed to rush towards us. For an instant I hesitated. Should I
scoot to the sides and avoid the plunge? Was it a trap? The tortuous
flow sideways might smash us against the rocks, and then—Ah! then,
_requiescat in pace_. Down the center, sink or swim, there was no help
for it—once over, thrice saved—a wetting perhaps, perhaps a mouthful of
water.
The boiling water lashed us, and something like a moan came to me from
the shores, almost as if the baffled river gnashed in its impotent
disgust. I steered for the rounded mound in front; a straining creak
from the grinding logs, a sharper bolt ahead—I clung to the posts, and
the neglected tiller dragged behind—another sprint and I saw the
shelving face of the water below the drop tossing furiously. Over, with
an upward jolt; that was the greatest danger of all. But the sturdy
frame held together, and then in a tussle of bristling waves, noisy,
each one striking over its neighbor’s shoulder at us, and I hard at the
tiller, we raced down the slope, inundated, wrenched, even pitched a
little, but quite safe, quite sound. I could not restrain my impulse to
shout, though a moment later, as the mocking echoes smote my ear, fear
stilled my voice, and stunned conscience whispered: “Pride goeth before
a fall.”
The raft swam later into the center of a lake-like space, in a welter of
bubbles and foam from the cascading water. The cliffs here declined, and
to the north a pass led upwards at whose termination on the waterside
two deer were actually drinking. Had they heard me shout? Their
undisturbed assurance denied it. But now they caught sight of me and
were retreating with backward glances as they halted on the grass-lined
trail. I was in the Deer Fels.
I steered my craft, which had now gained the prestige of an actual
companionship, toward the shore, drew out one of the poles, and poled it
carefully inshore at a sandy brink not far from the footprints of the
deer. I was very quiet now, so as not to frighten away the animals who
watched me from a high point. Their presence delighted me, and
reinforced my courage. Had they been at my side I could not have raised
a hand against them, so fraternal and human did they seem. But oh, for a
voice to answer my own! I talked to myself, but not loudly. I dreaded to
wake those jeering echoes.
The sunlight streamed through the pass, and I went up a short distance
very softly, for the deer were vigilant, but still remained where I
could see them. I lay down on a grassy knoll and dried myself. Then I
returned to the raft and picked out some food. Much of it was wet and
the contents of the hamper needed overhauling and drying. I made a fire,
finding some chance sticks and wood, and in the one kettle left to us,
and which Hopkins had given me, I actually made a stew which tasted
divine.
Then I climbed to the top of the ridge and looked about. I could see the
pine trees’ shadow eastward, the rolling hill land of the Fels about me,
and beyond, westward, the big plateau of the aquatic trough, and then I
thought I caught the pale, fluctuating, gushing pillars of the Nimbus
and, as had often happened from other points, glimpses of the pinnacled
and snow-capped Rim. I momentarily doubted my own resolve. Should I
abandon the raft and travel over the land to the coast? But that awful
crevice of the Nimbus rose threateningly to mind. I feared it. Before it
the untried terrors of that descent to the coast by the imprisoned
plunging stream actually looked inviting. Perhaps too the worst was
over. And then the quickness of it. Twenty-four hours more and I would
be released. Released? How? Thrown on a pitiless coast, beleaguered by
the endless ice! What madness was this. Safety, a kind of animal
happiness, at least, had been mine in the sleeping vale of Rasselas. But
now—? I shuddered, and the swarming rogues of despair and foreboding
rose in clouds like gnats from a shaken bush. It was an instant when a
man’s heart seems to weaken into water.
I had slowly retraced my way, and there I stood at the edge of the
waterway, one foot lifted to step upon the raft, to all appearances a
man calmly bent upon the fulfillment of his purpose. And yet all the
while I was beset with conflicting and warring thoughts. It was so as I
took the sleeping bag and a rug or so and tied them to the posts,
arguing almost unwittingly that, were the hamper swept away, I would
thus save _them_. And then blindly I crammed my pack—ready at any crisis
for my back—with food. It was even so as I took my place on the raft, as
I pushed it off from the shore, as I maneuvered it into the streamway,
even as I took the tiller and guided my boat on to the fastest current.
The automatic force of some ulterior prevention just kept me in the
chosen line of work, unconsciously and yet irreversibly. Strange!
Again the darkness of the canon walls fell around me, and then only the
subdued mind rose and reformed, as it were, visibly, my unalterable
determination. And indeed now there no longer was room for incertitude.
The rush forward keyed every sense into a vivid expectancy. The bed of
the river had become more gorge-like, the uneven and projecting cornice
edges of the rock on either side sent back the bounding water, and the
surface around me was filled with leaping waves. The course though, most
luckily, remained almost undeviatingly straight. To have engineered a
curve or any sharp deflection would have been almost impossible at the
rapid swing the raft was taking in the descent, which, however, hardly
varied from my previous experience. It was difficult enough to keep “my
keel” steady, with the constant tendency of the logs to throw themselves
across the stream. It was buffeted by the “rollers” sent inward from the
shores, and the rapid pull of the midstream was itself interrupted or
diverted by the development of short waves, that chased down the center
of the channel, and that indicated obstructions or inequalities in the
bed over which the water was impetuously pouring.
It was only by the stiffest exertions that I was enabled to keep the
raft headed true, and, as it was, over the rougher passages it was swept
with water. I was drenched, the spray and waves splashed and rose upon
me. I now realized the indispensable assistance given by the posts and
the unbreakable loops, one of which at least was constantly in use. The
management of the tiller, in this half imprisonment, was awkward, but in
spite of strains, shiftings, violent jolts and lunges the raft shot well
along the center, and did not seriously deviate from an axial position.
It was evident, too, as we swept onward, though my attention was too
eagerly fixed on the recurrent predicaments in the water to be able to
notice it carefully, that the canon above had enormously widened. I mean
that the upper walls had receded through progressive weathering; the
tunnel-like grimness had somewhat softened, and more light fell on me.
Fortunately there were changes in the gradient of the rocky floor, and
while some were on the wrong side of the account, others introduced
agreeable relief. These latter were more level stretches where the
turbulence disappeared, and the raft floated evenly, and was easily kept
obedient to her helm.
I had been running safely enough, though the margin of safety, it must
be said, was often a very narrow one, for some ten or twelve hours, and
the loss of sleep, constant anxiety, the wetting and the indifferent
sustenance had been slowly telling on me when my weary eyes detected a
new, perhaps a crowning danger.
Before me the walls of the canon seemed to close—they always did so in
the manner of a perspective coalescence—but this was now different.
There was a break in the continuity of the channel. The stream turned to
the left, and I saw a wall of rock before me. At such a point a
whirlpool effect was inevitable, and this, apart from the danger of a
wreck on the rocks in the rapids, I had most dreaded.
I noticed the elbow was rounded towards the south, forming a sort of
pool, and reminding me of the Niagara whirlpool, but it was not so
large, and, as the raft began to be seized by a stronger current, it was
also evident that the bed sloped again, and that the stream attained a
dangerous velocity. The waves spanked and broke over the raft, the
distance was white with foam; I was rocked as in a cradle, and I felt
that I must abandon the tiller, insert myself between the posts, and
hold on to the loops. If the raft escaped or survived engulfment I might
then be saved. The balloons were intact and their attachments unbroken.
They were doing some service, though a slight one, as they dragged
behind me, restraining my descent.
Another feature appeared ahead in the rapidly nearing vortex, about
which all doubt was now removed; I could see its powerful rotation. This
new feature was a periodic uplift of the water from the pool in a broad
spout or fountain, ejected obliquely and falling on the waves beyond the
whirlpool itself. At first this outburst alarmed me. Its discharge
seemed so unaccountable and so violent. A moment later I felt it might
mean my safety.
On like an arrow _we_ sped—the raft had become a companion—and fearing
the tiller might in some way become entangled or deflected and in the
turmoil of our certain submergence play some fatal trick that would
disable me, I cast it loose. I could see it swing past the raft, and
dance madly on the combing surges. Then it was lost but I strained my
eyes to detect, if possible, its emergence in the spout ahead. I thought
I saw it, but now in the clutches of the ravenous tide, I became blind
with unmistakable terror. The noise of the chaotic water around me
seemed like a low roar, mingled, too, with an interminable hiss, and in
the gloom of the desolate stony chasm the menace almost darkened my mind
and made me unconscious.
A boom struck my ear, low, definite, smothered; I attributed it to the
regurgitant geyser from the whirlpool. A leap forward, a choking rattle
from the logs beneath, and then a wrenching twist that threw my feet
from under me, and the water rose solidly over my head. I could reach
the air by pulling myself upward on the straps about my arms. I saw the
balloons tugging desperately and two reports like the bursting of a bomb
immediately followed. They were in tatters. Again I sank; this time it
seemed like doom. Yet I was still conscious, and then, as if an
omnipotent arm thrust from below raised us, I felt the raft pressed
upward against the welter and inrush, and then a titanic convulsion, and
the raft, and I dangling to the posts, were shot bodily out of the
maelstrom, though scarcely lifted above the surface; and, enveloped in
the hill of water that accompanied us, the raft swam out again upon the
descending stream, in a turbulence of waves that made me dizzy with its
confusion.
I hardly realized I was alive, but in a few minutes every sense attested
its reality. I _felt_ the pack on my back—I had very early secured it
there—I _heard_ that the creaking, groaning logs were still intact, I
_looked_ before me and saw the hamper had been swept away, I _tasted_
the cold water in my mouth. I was saturated, it almost seemed, and I was
faint, perhaps from shock, in a measure. The sturdy posts which had been
my refuge were unshaken, and now, straight before me in a shouting
turmoil, the waters put on to me a friendly guise, and seemed just
delirious over my escape. So quickly does the temperature and spirit of
the heart find its reflection in inanimate nature. For now, though I had
been despoiled I was safe, and my gun, my cartridges, some food at
least, my fishing tackle, the evidences of Krocker Land, many notes, the
compass, matches—in a watertight box—and, thanks to my forethought a rug
and a sleeping bag were all with me, as most helpful friends.
The recovery had been so unexpected that I felt gay as a child, and as
the French say, everything about me wore for a little while _couleur de
rose_. The stream itself, ample and full, sprawled out in a wider bed;
before me a break in the canon walls, on one side, indicated some
tributary valley and affluent and—I was rummaging my pack—here was a
bottle of undiluted, unwatered wine! I almost emptied it. A tortilla and
some strips of dried meat completed my banquet. I was myself again. The
poles and paddles lashed to the posts were still there, and one of the
former was soon in my hands, for the guidance of the boat. The best I
could do now would be to keep her off the shores, turn and wriggle as
she might in the middle stream.
My composure now returned, and permitted me to consider my predicament
more calmly. Where was I? A few minutes after I asked myself this
question, the lateral valley opened to view. It was a rough, rocky
streambed in which now a probably much shrunken tributary to the
river—Homeward Bound—on which I was, made its way from a bare, rugged
upland. But here I caught a glimpse of the sluggishly ascending vapors
and clouds from the Perpetual Nimbus. I could not be mistaken. The wall
of wavering whiteness seemed to stretch southward. The confirmation of
the Professor’s hypothesis was complete. The Valley of Rasselas was an
enclosed pit, on all sides of which the terraced zones we had traversed
on the east, would certainly be found. Here on the west less developed,
compressed and narrower, they still existed. Radiumopolis at least was
excentrically placed in the valley, but the valley itself was excentric
also. Then I would soon be crossing the Rim, and apprehensions of new
difficulties swarmed in my mind. The canon I was in cut across the great
circular fissure which surrounded Rasselas, and the position of the
whirlpool perhaps marked the crossing. Could it be possible? It was an
extraordinary geological situation I was sure, but its explanation could
wait. What terrors of rapids, falls, or cataracts, or more whirlpools
lay before me? I looked ahead. The light from the stationary sun had
gone, but the friendly luminary that now more than replaced it, was
burning in the sky, and it showed my future course.
To my delight, on either side the canon walls declined; indeed, it
seemed that far off they became simply high banks and nowhere were there
perceptible disturbances in the stream itself. The great volume poured
its almost unruffled torrent over a very ancient bed, and the whole
aspect of the river assumed a peculiar sedateness, as it were, compared
with the rushing, headlong haste it had shown above the whirlpool. And
there! On either side rose the snow crowned pinnacles of the Rim! The
encircling mountain fence of Krocker Land was opened here by a valley,
and in that valley, deeply entrenched, Homeward Bound was placed. And
now a new and beautiful feature developed. Brooks or streams, fed
perhaps by melting snows or ice, leaped into my river from the still
high cliffs. I could count a dozen or so, the splash of the falling
water breaking the surface of the river into waves, and the noise of
their motion and impact filling the canon with a half musical roar. It
was a fascinating picture.
The river turned, not abruptly, but swinging southward in a long arm or
curve, and then a vista developed that, for an instant, filled me with
fresh alarm. On the left side the cliffs fell away, and their place was
taken by the face, it looked so, of a small glacier. I was at sea level
perhaps. The wall rose somewhat on the right, and intermittent threads
of water still seamed their sides with lines of light and whiteness, but
to the left there appeared the wide mouth of a glacial _coulisse_, and
from the ice mass in it, little bergs floated in the now much retarded
and widened river. The bergs scared me. A white or yellowish turbidity
spread from the glacier, the contribution of rock-meal brought by the
river that issued from beneath it.
It was quite possible to guide my raft by the paddle I had, and, though
the Homeward Bound maintained considerable current still, it had but
little directional force. In half an hour I was opposite the glacier,
and amongst its bergs. I gazed eagerly seaward, trusting I might catch
some glimpse of the coast that must be near at hand. But the view closed
again, there seemed to be a contraction of the river, the walls rose on
both sides, and now the river’s flow was but little more than the
propulsion caused by its residual momentum.
The ice serpent wound upward into the snow recesses of the mountains.
Opposite to me its riven front glowed with beryl and sapphire veins; the
white calves lazily caught the motion of the stream, and almost, it
seemed to me, resented my intrusion, so suddenly did they gather about
me, either in derision or in menace. I did indeed feel powerless among
them. Ice cakes flecked the stream. I was in a treacherous company.
Anxiously I steered my craft through them, but in the mist that sprang
from their sides, I would sometimes fail to see them and an inauspicious
bump would send me sprawling. I felt that the moment of release was
approaching. Soon the pale, haunted, Arctic Ocean would hold me. I felt
its immensity already, and now that the excitement of the scramble for
liberty, this arrowy voyage down the strange and majestic chasm of a
great new river of the earth, was behind me, my heart quailed before the
UNKNOWN, that confronted me with what—Deliverance or Death?
The mountains sloped away on either hand, or were, in fact, already
behind me, for I was now floating with a diminished current that aided
my avoidance of the torpidly drifting bergs. I was in a canal, literally
cut through an ancient gigantic moraine, the vast scourings of an
ancient ice sheet. It was not long delayed—my emergence on the ice-bound
shore of western Krocker Land. The banks declined and slowly
disappeared, yielding now to the broad fringe of a coastal plain where
the river, encountering a varying resistance, had succumbed to the
vagaries of mere idleness, and swung in broad loops to the sea.
Yes—there it was—to quote the graphic words of Nansen—“that strange
Arctic hush, and misty light, over everything,—that grayish white light
caused by the reflection from the ice being cast high into the air
against masses of vapor, the dark land offering a wonderful contrast.”
[Illustration:
ERICKSON’S ESCAPE
]
And now the river widened, its banks receded and dwindled. To the north
the high Rim advanced upon the sea, and black promontories rose in
august severity in the glare of day, desolate and grim, their skirts
fringed with the white surf of inrolling waves. Beyond them open water
and then ice floes, endless prospect! To the south the Rim declined
abruptly into a wide detrital platform of sand and clay banks, and huge
boulders, and, here and there, like white ships, the icebergs that had
stranded. I was in the Kara Sea. Beyond that dread, compassionless
horizon lay Siberia—but could I reach it? The awful chill of a
realization of my abject helplessness for the first time overwhelmed me.
I was alone in the Arctic Ocean, a mere atom before the uncontrollable
forces that a whim of the weather might suddenly summon forth on their
wild errands of destruction; or else a waif cast on a desert shore to be
left with pitiless irony, in the calm scorn of merciless Nature, to
perish.
I’m not a praying man, Mr. Link, but somehow I asked GOD then to help
me.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XVI
THE SEQUEL
I worked my tried and still most workable and useful raft to the shore,
and stepped from it to the sand, between some ragged floes of ice—a kind
of ice foot. The loss of the hamper was a heavy blow, and to confront
the unknown future with a few morsels of meat and some soaked
_tortillas_ seemed only a desperate and suicidal bravado. I was for a
while stunned into a torpor of inaction. I had managed to force the raft
somewhat up on the shore, but I took the precaution of further loading
it with stones. Until I had more clearly made up my mind what would be
my next step, I would not part company with this friend, for somehow to
me _then_, the mute bundle of logs had become almost animate with a
human affection.
And now the reaction against fatigue and all the sleepless hours made me
faint and weak. I must first sleep. I untied the welcome sleeping bag
and the rug, and disengaging the heavy gold belt—what a mockery its
value seemed in this sterile solitude—and the small hatchet which it
held, I rolled myself up, and instantly fell into unconsciousness. I
must have slept almost twenty-four hours, for the sun which had been
declining to the horizon was in almost the same position when I awoke. I
was ravenously hungry, but my courage had returned, and at least I felt
equal to considering my plans.
But first it was food. I made a fire, warmed or toasted the flat
pancakes and roasted the meat chunks, and these with water contrived to
satisfy my hunger. The contents of the pack were now my sole resource.
They had been well soaked, but I had spread them on the white sands, and
in the heat of the sun they had dried, even the matches proving
serviceable again. My gun, which had been well greased (swagged) was
uninjured, and the wax-smeared cartridges retained their murderous
facility of exploding. If game was to be had the life in my body might
yet reasonably expect considerable prolongation. And why not game? I
recalled our first encounter when we were unceremoniously introduced to
Krocker Land—the musk oxen. But was I to become a prowling Robinson
Crusoe; were the days, the weeks, the months—there could not be
years—before me to be a savage struggle to just live and then
realize—_starvation_? At any rate there must be a plan. What should it
be? It was then that my mind working feverishly over a few projects—the
only ones I could conceive of, and all of them preposterous—was suddenly
arrested by recalling that this very summer, even during this month,
Coogan and Stanwix, Phillips and Spent would be pushing the “Astrum”
through that very sea—but farther east—to find us. On that peg of
suggestion I hung my hopes. I would work eastward if I could, or as far
as possible, keep a watchout, and hope for the best. What else?
At first I thought I could make use of the raft, as there was much open
water, but it required only a little circumspection to show me that the
plan was impracticable; worse, fatal. I must fight my way somehow along
the coast eastward, replenishing my larder with game, possibly with
fish, not going farther than the inevitable angle—there must be such a
turning point—where the land contours bent northward. That was a _plan_,
it had a significant value. Immediately my spirits rose, so quickly does
the mind recover its equipoise in an emergency when it is set about a
rational scheme of action. It was really difficult for me to desert the
raft. In that long drive through the canon of Homeward Bound, the
irrepressible instinct of companionship had nurtured a curious
hallucination of impersonation, and the bundle of dead logs had assumed
an indefinite but real vitality. Could not I shape or build from it a
serviceable sledge, and still, transformed, keep it in my service? Then
again, could I spare the time to effect this change? I had only my
hatchet for an implement, and the thongs and strands, rope and cords
that had so stoutly kept it intact for nails and iron bands.
I abandoned the project, but before I started on my desperate search, I
hacked enough timber from it to build a fire and cooked or roasted my
last meal over it. It partook to me of the fantastic feeling of a
valedictory.
The shore along which I now made my way was favorable for a rapid
advance. It was a low upland, mainly detrital in composition with a
beach apron of sand, gravel, and mud flats. It sloped upward to a
semi-piedmont zone of hills, beyond which towered the monarchs of the
Rim. The view landward was inspiritingly beautiful, and when the fogs
that rolled inward from the vast ice-flecked and iceberg-studded sea,
were absent the picture was entrancing. Rich verdure covered the upland,
inundating, like a green flood, the opening valleys, slopes and
sheltered ingles, and bearing on its bosom the Arctic yellow poppy and
even the golden stars of the dandelion. Surely in this land I might
expect to find game.
Nor was I to look long. I could just see, far off against a protruding
dazzling granite mound, a moving spot. It was the _Ovibos hopkinsi_. I
almost laughed. I recurred to our first encounter with this new mountain
sheep, when Hopkins and I first saw it, in an almost identical
environment, when we landed at Krocker Land. I watched it with the eye
of a voluptuary. Fresh meat would taste—Ah! my mouth watered—I could not
venture a simile.
I hastened up the beautiful Arctic glen, and the still unsuspecting
animals moved towards me. Now they saw me, and the bulls ranged
themselves in defence, behind them the still grazing cows, startled only
for a moment into attention. There was no inclination to escape. Only as
I fired and the foremost bull staggered sideways and then dropped
headlong at my second shot, did the herd shuffle to one side and then
scamper away. Before I had reached the fallen leader their shaggy heads
had disappeared over a fold of ground that shut in an adjoining valley.
I cut some steaks and loaded myself with the juicy red masses of flesh.
Although Greely and Peary had failed to smoke-dry meat, perhaps I might
succeed. I returned to the raft. It had become a base of operations.
Here I cooked my steak and with the tasteless _tortillas_ they made a
feast. But the momentary thought of jerking the meat was hopeless. It
would take too long and then it might prove futile. If Coogan was
looking for me, I must be looking for him. One more long sleep and then
I must “be going.” I felt sad, and the glorious dying day bathing the
horizon in carmine and gold, to be shifted a little further on, with
scarcely a change of color, into sunrise, from its very exorbitant
splendor oppressed me. I slept, but I tossed with forbidding dreams. I
WAS NOT WELL.
The next day I started down the coast, but I revisited the _ovibos_,
tore more meat from the carcass, and with my pack, a sleeping bag, the
rug, my gun, and a bundle of splinters of wood I began my journey. The
heaped up bundles on my back bent me, and I did not expect to make a
record in walking. I was carrying my household on my back. But the
favoring character of the shore cheered me, and it almost seemed that
the peaks, barricades and buttresses of the mountains receded. I was on
an extensive morainal or alluvial plain, furrowed by small valleys and
inconspicuous ridges, where it rose to the amphitheatrical wall of the
Krocker Land Rim. _If_ it would last!
The diary of my daily progress for the next few days need not be
rehearsed here. It was satisfactory on the whole, but the sure signs of
scurvy had begun to show themselves, and some rheumatic ailment began to
make every step I took painful. I seemed to see the end of it all, and,
anticipation fed disease. My march each day lessened; the meat had been
consumed in a few days, and was supplemented by ducks, a seal, and
another _ovibos_, so that for almost ten days I suffered no deprivation
of actual nourishment, but my swelling limbs, the pasty and aching jaws,
the occasional vanishing of all strength, and temporary collapses gave
insistent warnings that I could not continue. A dull sense of
helplessness supervened, my memory wavered, delusions visited my brain,
and ever and again the white ice-packed sea seemed a snow covered
tableland on which I might walk safely. Only some frantic remnant of
sanity prevented this suicidal impulse. I was delirious at times with
pain.
And the end of the propitious coast was in sight. I must have made, Mr.
Link, in those ten days, by superhuman exertions, some one hundred and
fifty miles, furiously driving on, almost unconscious of my motion. And
now a black rampart of bold hills, stretched out like an arresting arm,
crossed the horizon. Higher and higher rose the forbidding cliffs, and I
saw with despair that they entered the sea in escarpments, whose
vertical and gloomy walls were beaten by waves, or against which the
churned ice was flung in broken cakes. Beyond the stern barrier my
flagging strength could never take me. And yet, in my feebleness I
hastened to reach it as an ultimate goal over which, I almost thankfully
noted, so worn was I in spirit, I could not pass. Temperamental decay
was at work in me, and I became inert. _I did not care._
At last—oh how heavily dragged my feet, how wearingly surged the pains!
I had come to the dark shadow of the cliffs. It was a sheer precipice.
My wandering and scarcely seeing eyes dimly noted its immensity. It
crushed the last vestiges of effort. Its undeniable prohibition smote me
as a physical violence. I fell headlong. Nothing was with me but my gun.
Pack, rug, sleeping bag, all had been dropped, the first last, for to
its unequivocal testimony (in the gold and in the radium) of all I had
seen, all I had been through, I clung with an almost demented obstinacy.
And now that was left behind. Some recurrent spasm of vitality returned;
I struggled to my feet, shaking in an ague, and just able to support
myself against a detached splinter of rock, almost at the foot of the
overhanging bluff, that seemed to my seared sight to touch the sky.
What was it then that made me seize my gun, and, steadying myself by
some superhuman help—Yes, Mr. Link, by some help not of this earth—empty
the magazine of cartridges in a crashing volley against that
impenetrable rock? Was it madness, the last rage of defeated purpose, or
was it inspiration? I do not know, but as the sharp reports multiplied,
and to my racked nerves sounded in terrific _crescendos_ I fell forward.
The sense of hearing was the last to desert me, and though my eyes had
closed, even while the shattering reverberations from the cliff rang in
them, I HEARD AN ANSWERING SHOT. It was all I heard. I had swooned.
But, Mr. Link, the ebbing tide of life returned, slowly indeed at first,
so slowly that the friendly faces around me seemed only indefinite,
leering masks, before which I shuddered. Warmth reasserted its sway, the
warmth of life. I felt fresh, cleanly nourishment, the _elixir of
whisky_ slipping down my throat, and then a delicious thrill of comfort,
and I became conscious, to find myself eating and drinking and around me
the anxious, staring faces of Coogan, Isaac Stanwix, Bell Phillips, and
Jack Spent.
It was for an instant only, the violence of my return to consciousness
weakened me, and I sank back in their arms, but as I did, the
overmastering care that lay deepest in my heart struggled into
utterance, through all my clouded mind, and I gasped, pointing to the
path over which I had come, “The pack—the pack.”
It was not many hours later that I again awoke, in the luxurious cabin
of the “Astrum,” pillowed in an easy chair, and watching with grateful
eyes the ministering mercies of my friends. Very gradually my sapped
strength and health were renewed, but indeed it sometimes occurs to me
that I shall never be quite all I once was. The multiplied strains,
repeated, contrasted, with the unapparent but _real_ nervous shocks of
excitement suffered in the ordeals of entering Krocker Land, and those
less obviously but most certainly disordering experiences in
Radiumopolis, with the whole effect of the monstrous unreality of it
all, have unhinged my system. And then—the agony of my last humiliation
in this city.
[Illustration:
ERICKSON’S RESCUE
]
The story told by Coogan was a most simple one. It corroborated my
expectations and of course exactly justified my conduct. The “Astrum”
according to orders left Point Barrow, and steamed into the ice, which
proved to be unusually negotiable, looking for us. They failed to
discover any signs of us on the ice pack, but in an adventuresome trip
northward, invited to the undertaking by the open water, they made a
landfall, and found there the “_Pluto_,” our naphtha launch. It was on
almost exactly the place of our landing from the storm. They concluded
we had skirted the new land, reconnoitering it edgewise, as it were, or
at any rate their first and prudent course was to do so. They had
managed to creep on safely through broad leads between the shore ice and
the big floes, until they came to the _massif_, that, like an out-thrust
arm with clenched fist, cut the land in two. They had rather gingerly
picked their way through the ice around the frowning headlands when my
shots were heard. The rest is the usual story—the story I have hinted
at—and my pack was safe. _It lay at my feet._
Now to tell the truth I was rather reticent with Coogan and the others
as to my own adventure. I did not wish then to tell them everything or
even much. The whole marvel must be elsewhere and differently unfolded.
It must be given to the world through science, and the national
government of the United States must be empaneled for the rescue of my
companions. I desired the audience of a nation, and the ears of the
world. And now—deplorable reversion—I am telling it to you alone. I hid
much or all, admitted that the new continent was large, that we had
entered it, that the Professor and Hopkins were pursuing investigations
there, and that I must return in time with a larger expedition. They
seemed to understand my reticence—or was it commiseration?—and
good-naturedly left me alone. About two months later we arrived safely
in San Francisco.
(“Mr. Link”—the voice of the speaker perceptibly lowered, I might say
perceptibly trembled—“it has been a pleasure to rehearse this wonderful
experience, pleasant to recall my two friends still exiled in that
mysterious continent, pleasant to believe that through the
instrumentality of your publication, they may be extricated from their
bewildering embarrassments, but—it is not pleasant to finish my story.”
Mr. Erickson was silent for a few moments, as if he half expected me to
release him from the implied obligation of explaining more completely
the origins of the predicament in which we found him. But I was
relentlessly silent, and after a glance at my imperturbable and fixed
gaze, he turned his head aside and resumed the “last measure of his
tale.”)
I was not long in finding my former acquaintance to whom now
instinctively, in my dearth of companionship, I had recourse for advice,
and sensibly for succor—Carlos Huerta. Nothing could exceed the
boisterous ardor of his welcome. He was overjoyed and appeared almost
rapturous in his demonstrations of astonishment and delight at seeing
me. Of course I succumbed all too easily to the caresses of his
friendship—and then (the speaker paused again and a flood of carmine
filling his cheeks and glowing warmly even in his temples, revealed his
confusion), he introduced me to the most beautiful woman I have ever
seen in all my life, Angelica Sigurda Tabasco, whose intimate, Diaz
Ilario Aguadiente, was a gentleman of marvelous cordiality. I was
literally taken to their hearts. You see, sir, plainly my state of
defencelessness against these scheming reprobates—cunning parasites of
fortune—whose suave geniality disarmed suspicion, and whose enthusiastic
sympathy, not unintelligent either, warmed my weary heart and opened my
lips.
They wormed a good deal out of me, they saw the gold—_not the
buckle_—the radium, and they actually listened to the recital of our
visit to the Gold Makers. Then they laid their plans. I was to be coaxed
to New York—how many specious inducements could be given for me to go
there. The season was not too late for any relief expedition, and at New
York all the avenues of approach to capital could be reached. I was to
give a public lecture, the best social and scientific auspices would
protect it, and from New York the wave of interest would radiate to all
the capitals of the world. It seemed so simple, it was so inviting, and
then it was urged with such cordial plausibility and fervor, and all
accompanied by that personal suasion of admiration, and the artifices of
encouragement in surroundings that were sumptuous and enthralling. I was
completely taken in.
I came on to New York with Huerta, who lavished every kindness on me,
and whose incessant questioning as to the process of gold transmutation
which I had seen easily assumed the guise of a natural curiosity. The
merest accident prevented my bringing on to New York the precious pack
in which the gold souvenirs, the _gold buckle_, and the radium mineral
masses were preserved. The trio—themselves deceived by their gloating
cupidity—had urged the necessity of protecting this property by placing
it in a safety-deposit vault, and when the day arrived for Huerta and me
to leave San Francisco, at the last moment, and just as I expected to
call at the safe deposit company to claim and remove my property, I was
seized with a chill that rapidly increased into a convulsive fit,
followed by a temporary coma. I was alone in the room of my hotel and
the seizure was so sudden that I was unable to summon assistance. When
it had passed, much time had been lost, and actually fearing to reclaim
the pack in my then physical condition I concluded to leave it, and have
it forwarded later upon a written order.
This was quite feasible, and in some respects, so I thought at the
moment, safer and more preferable, as I had taken the unusual precaution
of enclosing the pack in a strong metal box.
When on the train I explained to Huerta my mishap he at first changed
his demeanor, frowned and fidgeted and nettled me by his half suppressed
acerbity. I think then I might have been saved, had his suspicious
temper prolonged itself. But it was gone almost instantly, and his
customary deceptive solicitude and optimistic confidence replaced it and
my doubts vanished. It was also supposed by me that Angelica and Diaz
would remain some time longer in San Francisco, and when I encountered
them in east Fifty-eighth Street I was stupefied, though of course, by
that time, I had no reason to feel any surprise over any development in
my relations with these monsters.
In New York Huerta conducted me to an eastside boarding house. It is
incredible how I permitted myself to follow him. Even while suspicion
and distrust began to assail me I accompanied him into a common sort of
house, apparently the resort of men only, and rather hard looking
characters at that, and yet with these pregnant signs of coming
mischief, I kept alongside of this inhuman brute, sat with him in a
duskily lighted room at a shabby table, served by some slatternly woman
waiters, under surroundings hopelessly sordid and dull. I was not
myself, Mr. Link; the stamina of resistance was extirpated in me, and I
was led like a child. The _denouement_ followed quickly.
That very night or evening I went to my room or what I supposed was my
room, only to discover it was a small bathroom, provided with a sleeping
cot. I had preceded Huerta, who pointed to the door. As I opened it my
surprise caused me to retreat, but Huerta pushed me in, and instantly he
was joined by two other men from a room near at hand, and the door was
locked. Of course, as by a flash of light, an unexpected danger was
revealed. I saw that I was trapped.
There happened to be one chair in the place. Huerta, whose whole
demeanor now altered, motioned toward it with a scowl and the other men
stepped forward. Each of them carried a short leaden pipe. Mr. Link, I
am not a timid man—what I have gone through shows that—but I was
intimidated then. I glanced around me; there was not a window in the
room; it was lighted by a smoking gas jet.
“Well,” I said, collecting my thoughts to meet the situation, “I guess
you have me. What is it? What do you want?”
Huerta’s agreeable style was resumed. “Why just this, Mr. Erickson. You
have got a sort of knowledge which is rather valuable, and we want to
make an agreement with you; you might call it a sort of combine. You
have got hold of some very interesting information. Let’s pool it and
work it for our common benefit.”
“What information,” I asked and leaped to my feet, infuriated at the
smiling, insulting visage that he wore as an answer to my question.
“Oh! Calm yourself. These gentlemen and myself are not icebergs, but
perhaps we can hit as hard. The thing is simple enough. Sign this
paper.”
He held out a folded sheet which I at once recognized as having been
torn from a writing pad in the Pullman in which we had come to New York.
It was an order on the safe deposit company in San Francisco to forward
to him, Carlos Huerta, my pack, the satchel of gold and radium. Then
followed his address, which was—east Fifty-eighth Street, the very house
in which you found me, Mr. Link.
I threw the paper in his face. It was _maladroit_. His temper—and he had
the passion of a fiend—broke loose and he struck me. I jumped at him,
and hurled the chair straight at his head, but it was intercepted, and,
in a trice, the three rushed at me and held me, kicking, squirming, and
shouting, on the narrow bed. No help came; I was bound and was knocked
almost senseless.
(It was some time before Erickson could continue; he was in a pitiful
agitation, walking over and across the room with a most distressful
expression on his face. At length he pulled himself together and resumed
his story.)
Well, they kept me in that room some five days. I was fed and attended
by my captors—I think now partially drugged by them. But my will
remained stubborn. I had faced death before, I could face it now, though
it seemed more terrifying in this wretched shape than meeting it
undisguised beneath the open skies. This obstinacy drove Huerta frantic.
I calculated that it would lead to an outbreak or issue soon. _It did._
The sixth night the room was entered by the three men to whom, now
weakened, dazed, nervous with disgust, I could offer no resistance. I
was really sick. They tied my arms and legs and gagged my mouth, and put
me in a sack. It was then, before they completed their task, that I
managed to secrete a few scribbled words on a slip of paper, which I had
kept by me, and later succeeded in forcing through an aperture in the
bag. This paper your boy Riddles found. I was whisked off in an
automobile, unloaded like a sack of potatoes at the door of—east
Fifty-eighth Street, and taken to the attic floor where you and the
police found me.
Before you came I was confronted with Angelica and Diaz, and the
proposition was very attractively made that nothing should be said in
any public way about Krocker Land, but that my gold specimen should be
sold as bullion, and that we four should form a transmutation plant with
the radium that I had brought back. Accede to this, they explained (they
were somehow convinced that I was withholding the secret technique I had
learned of the process of transmutation), and combine with them, and my
life and freedom would be assured.
I saw through the ruse, feeble as I had mentally become. My life, at
least its short continuance, depended upon my resisting their demands.
Once granted, the paper signed, what I knew of the transmutation
revealed—and I now sedulously encouraged their belief in a more or less
recondite process which demanded physical apparatus and silver
bullion—and my life would be but a flash in the pan—out—like that. (And
Erickson snapped his fingers.) If I could delay the upshot—inevitable in
any case unless relief came—until some lucky chance brought me
deliverance and I hoped the paper scribble would—I might yet survive.
Therefore I pleaded, I argued, I promised everything if they would
liberate me, and then upon their savage refusal, I grew dogged and
silent. It was then or a little afterwards that the conversation
occurred that you and the police overheard and then, when these
ruthless, bloodless imps of Hell were about to inflict their brutal
torture—the door was burst open, _and all was over_.
* * * * *
I recall distinctly the evening on which Mr. Erickson concluded his
stupendous narrative. It had been agreed that, apart from some brief
announcements before the various proper scientific bodies of the world,
no details should precede the publication in book form of Erickson’s
personal account and the serial report in the _Truth Getter_. All this
is now a part of history, and a part which fairly challenges comparison
with those thunderstruck days when Columbus and Cabot, Vespucius,
Hudson, and Verrazani rolled up the curtain that hid the western world.
I say I remember the evening. It was a sombre dying twilight in March.
The servant had just lit the lamp of the library, and a hoarse wind rose
petulantly outside, like the distant drone of a fog whistle. A vision
stood at the door. It was my daughter, Sibyl. She was resplendent. I
noticed Erickson’s awed rapture. She held an evening paper in her hand.
Her voice was as beautiful as her person. Its music conveyed this
message:
“Father, this paper has a telegram from St. John’s, Newfoundland, saying
that Donald McMillan has reached Krocker Land, and below it is one from
Point Barrow, saying Stefansson has reached Krocker Land. Isn’t that a
surprising coincidence?”
Erickson sprang toward her, and she handed him the paper; his face in
the red reflection from the hearth looked sallow. He read the lines.
“My God, it’s true—Then Hopkins and the Professor are saved.”
“But,” I interjected with proper journalistic trepidation, “where do we
come in, Mr. Erickson?”
He gazed at me as if petrified:
“RUSH THE COPY.”
It was rushed, and before McMillan or Stefansson were again heard from,
Erickson’s story was the property of the world.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
EDITORIAL NOTE
There are many things in the foregoing pages that perhaps awaken
incredulity. There are some inconsistencies of statement. There seems to
be discoverable a feeble effort at invention. The reader will almost
instantly, upon reading the last word of it—and surely he can afford to
skip none—feel that perhaps a little enlightened cross examination would
have confused a veracious chronicler. I am inclined to suppose that
almost mechanically he might murmur to himself, “Those balloons,
_dubious_—those tubes, _impossible_—the Crocodilo-Python,
_preposterous_—the little Hebrews, _madness_—the radium chasm, _a
nightmare_—transmutation, _poppy-cock_—the Perpetual Nimbus, _deliberate
lie_,” and so on, until affected by his own overheated thoughts and a
partially justifiable resentment at having been made the victim of a
fabrication, which has consumed some ten hours of his time, and would
have, assuming its reality, supplied him with the most perdurable
reasons for rejoicing that his lot was cast at the beginning of this
twentieth century, he indulges in some specific appeals, _more majorum_,
to the demon of darkness to make away with its editor.
_Gentle_—pardon the inappropriateness of the word, but to say _Irate_
might only increase my condemnation—Reader—_wait_. _We shall all see._
Vilhjalmar Stefansson and Donald McMillan are on the very verge of this
new continent.
THEY WILL TELL US.
“Not so fast, Mr. Editor”—It is the voice of the wife of the Gentle
Reader—“Not so fast! What connection had Spruce Hopkins with either
Angelica or Diaz? You remember the flat silver medal that Hopkins flung
into the air on Krocker Land Rim, and which was the last token Erickson
received from the Yankee?”
_Ah—Madame, that is another story._
------------------------------------------------------------------------
● Transcriber’s Notes:
○ Missing or obscured punctuation was silently corrected.
○ Typographical errors were silently corrected.
○ Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only
when a predominant form was found in this book.
○ Text that:
was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).
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