CHAPTER XXIX.ACROSS THE ICE-FIELDS.
The little band made their way towards the southeast. Simpson drovethe sledge. Duke aided him much, without being disturbed at theoccupation of his mates. Hatteras and the doctor followed behind onfoot, while Bell, who was charged with making a road, went on inadvance, testing the ice with the iron point of his stick.
"The little band made their way towards thesoutheast."]
The rise in the thermometer foretold a fall of snow, and soon it came,beginning in large flakes. This added to the hardships of theirjourney; they kept straying from a straight line; they could not goquickly; nevertheless, they averaged three miles an hour.
The ice-field, under the pressure of the frost, presented an unequalsurface; the sledge was often nearly turned over, but they succeededin saving it.
Hatteras and his companions wrapped themselves up in their fur clothescut in the Greenland fashion; they were not cut with extraordinaryneatness, but they suited the needs of the climate; their faces wereenclosed in a narrow hood which could not be penetrated by the snow orwind; their mouths, noses, and eyes were alone exposed to the air, andthey did not need to be protected against it; nothing is soinconvenient as scarfs and nose-protectors, which soon are stiff withice; at night they have to be cut away, which, even in the arcticseas, is a poor way of undressing. It was necessary to leave freepassage for the breath, which would freeze at once on anything it met.
The boundless plain stretched out with tiresome monotony; everywherethere appeared heaped-up ice-hills, hummocks, blocks, and icebergs,separated by winding valleys; they walked staff in hand, saying butlittle. In this cold atmosphere, to open the mouth was painful; sharpcrystals of ice suddenly formed between the lips, and the heat of thebreath could not melt them. Their progress was silent, and every onebeat the ice with his staff. Bell's footsteps were visible in thefresh snow; they followed them mechanically, and where he had passed,the others could go safely.
Numerous tracks of bears and foxes crossed one another everywhere; butduring this first day not one could be seen; to chase them would havebeen dangerous and useless: they would only have overloaded thealready heavy sledge.
Generally, in excursions of this sort, travellers take the precautionof leaving supplies along their path; they hide them from the animals,in the snow, thus lightening themselves for their trip, and on theirreturn they take the supplies which they did not have the trouble ofcarrying with them.
Hatteras could not employ this device on an ice-field which perhapswas moving; on firm land it would have been possible; and theuncertainty of their route made it doubtful whether they would returnby the same path.
At noon, Hatteras halted his little troop in the shelter of anice-wall; they dined off pemmican and hot tea; the strengtheningqualities of this beverage produced general comfort, and thetravellers drank a large quantity. After an hour's rest they startedon again; in the first day they walked about twenty miles; thatevening men and dogs were tired out.
Still, in spite of their fatigue, they had to build a snow-house inwhich to pass the night; the tent would not have been enough. Thistook them an hour and a half. Bell was very skilful; the blocks ofice, which were cut with a knife, were placed on top of one anotherwith astonishing rapidity, and they took the shape of a dome, and alast piece, the keystone of the arch, established the solidity of thebuilding; the soft snow served as mortar in the interstices; it soonhardened and made the whole building of a single piece.
Access was had into this improvised grotto by means of a narrowopening, through which it was necessary to crawl on one's hands andknees; the doctor found some difficulty in entering, and the othersfollowed. Supper was soon prepared on the alcohol cooking-stove. Thetemperature inside was very comfortable; the wind, which was ragingwithout, could not get in.
"Sit down!" soon shouted the doctor in his most genial manner.
And this meal, though the same as the dinner, was shared by all. Whenit was finished their only thought was sleep; the mackintoshes, spreadout upon the snow, protected them from the dampness. At the flame ofthe portable stove they dried their clothes; then three of them,wrapped up in their woollen coverings, fell asleep, while one was lefton watch; he had to keep a lookout on the safety of all, and toprevent the opening from being closed, otherwise they ran a risk ofbeing buried alive.
Duke shared their quarters; the other dogs remained without, and afterthey had eaten their supper they lay down and were soon hidden by thesnow.
Their fatigue soon brought sound sleep. The doctor took the watchuntil three of the morning. In the night the hurricane ragedfuriously. Strange was the situation of these lonely men lost in thesnow, enclosed in this vault with its walls rapidly thickening underthe snow-fall.
The next morning at six o'clock their monotonous march was resumed;there were ever before them the same valleys and icebergs, auniformity which made the choice of a path difficult. Still, a fall ofseveral degrees in the temperature made their way easier by hardeningthe snow. Often they came across little elevations, which looked likecairns or storing-places of the Esquimaux; the doctor had onedestroyed to satisfy his curiosity, but he found nothing except a cakeof ice.
"What do you expect to find, Clawbonny?" asked Hatteras; "are we notthe first men to penetrate into this part of the globe?"
"Probably," answered the doctor, "but who knows?"
"Don't let us waste our time in useless searching," resumed thecaptain; "I am in a hurry to rejoin the ship, even if this long-wantedfuel should not be found."
"I have great hopes of finding it," said the doctor.
"Doctor," Hatteras used to say frequently, "I did wrong to leave the_Forward_; it was a mistake! The captain's place is on board, andnowhere else."
"Johnson is there."
"Yes! but--let us hurry on!"
They advanced rapidly; Simpson's voice could be heard urging on thedogs; they ran along on a brilliant surface, all aglow with aphosphorescent light, and the runners of the sledge seemed to toss upa shower of sparks. The doctor ran on ahead to examine this snow, whensuddenly, as he was trying to jump upon a hummock, he disappeared fromsight. Bell, who was near him, ran at once towards the place.
"Well, Doctor," he cried anxiously, while Hatteras and Simpson joinedhim, "where are you?"
"Doctor!" shouted the captain.
"Down here, at the bottom of a hole," was the quiet answer. "Throw mea piece of rope, and I'll come up to the surface of the globe."
They threw a rope down to the doctor, who was at the bottom of a pitabout ten feet deep; he fastened it about his waist, and his threecompanions drew him up with some difficulty.
"Are you hurt?" asked Hatteras.
"No, there's no harm done," answered the doctor, wiping the snow fromhis smiling face.
"But how did it happen?"
"O, it was in consequence of the refraction," he answered, laughing;"I thought I had about a foot to step over, and I fell into this deephole! These optical illusions are the only ones left me, my friends,and it's hard to escape from them! Let that be a lesson to us allnever to take a step forward without first testing the ice with astaff, for our senses cannot be depended on. Here our ears hear wrong,and our eyes deceive us! It's a curious country!"
"Can you go on?" asked the captain.
"Go on, Hatteras, go on! This little fall has done me more good thanharm."
They resumed their march to the southeast, and at evening they halted,after walking about twenty-five miles; they were all tired, but stillthe doctor had energy enough to ascend an ice-mountain while thesnow-hut was building.
"The doctor had energy enough to ascend an ice-mountainwhile the snow-hut was building."]
The moon, which was nearly at its full, shone with extraordinarybrilliancy in a clear sky; the stars were wonderfully brilliant; fromthe top of the iceberg a boundless plain could be seen, which wascovered with strangely formed hillocks of ice; in the moonlight theylooked like fallen columns or overthrown tombstones; the scen
ereminded the doctor of a huge, silent graveyard barren of trees, inwhich twenty generations of human beings might be lying in their longsleep.
In spite of the cold and fatigue, Clawbonny remained for a long timein a revery, from which it was no easy task for his companions toarouse him; but they had to think of resting; the snow-hut wascompleted; the four travellers crawled in like moles, and soon wereall asleep.
The following days went on without any particular incident; at timesthey went on slowly, at times quickly, with varying ease, according tothe changes in the weather; they wore moccasins or snow-shoes, as thenature of the ice demanded.
In this way they went on till January 15th; the moon, now in its lastquarter, was hardly visible; the sun, although always beneath thehorizon, gave a sort of twilight for six hours every day, but notenough to light up the route, which had to be directed by the compass.Then Bell went on ahead; Hatteras followed next; Simpson and thedoctor sought also to keep in a straight line behind, with their eyeson Hatteras alone; and yet, in spite of all their efforts, they oftengot thirty or forty degrees from the right way, much to theirannoyance.
Sunday, January 15th, Hatteras judged that they had come about onehundred miles to the south; this morning was set aside to mendingtheir clothes and materials; the reading of divine service was notforgotten.
At noon they started again; the temperature was very low; thethermometer marked only -22 degrees; the air was very clear.
Suddenly, without warning, a frozen vapor arose into the air from theice, to a height of about ninety feet, and hung motionless; no onecould see a foot before him; this vapor formed in long, sharp crystalsupon their clothing.
The travellers, surprised by this phenomenon, which is calledfrost-rime, only thought of getting together; so immediately variousshouts were heard:--
"O Simpson!"
"Bell, this way!"
"Dr. Clawbonny!"
"Doctor!"
"Captain, where are you?"
They began to look for one another with outstretched arms, wanderingthrough the fog which their eyes could not pierce. But to theirdisappointment they could hear no answer; the vapor seemed incapableof carrying sound.
Each one then thought of firing his gun as a signal to the others. Butif their voices were too feeble, the reports of the fire-arms were tooloud; for the echoes, repeated in every direction, made but a confusedroar, in which no particular direction could be perceived.
Then they began to act, each one as he thought best. Hatteras stoodstill and folded his arms. Simpson contented himself with stopping thesledge. Bell retraced his steps, feeling them with his hand. Thedoctor, stumbling over the blocks of ice, wandered here and there,getting more and more bewildered.
At the end of five minutes he said to himself,--
"This can't last long! Singular climate! This is too much! There isnothing to help us, without speaking of these sharp crystals which cutmy face. Halloo, Captain!" he shouted again.
But he heard no answer; he fired his gun, but in spite of his thickgloves the iron burned his hands. Meanwhile he thought he saw aconfused mass moving near him.
"There's some one," he said. "Hatteras! Bell! Simpson! Is that you?Come, answer!"
A dull roar was alone heard.
"Ah!" thought the doctor, "what is that?"
The object approached; it lost its first size and appeared in moredefinite shape. A terrible thought flashed into the doctor's mind.
"A bear!" he said to himself.
In fact, it was a huge bear; lost in the fog, it came and went withgreat danger to the men, whose presence it certainly did not suspect.
"Matters are growing complicated!" thought the doctor, standing still.
Sometimes he felt the animal's breath, which was soon lost in thefrost-rime; again he would see the monster's huge paws beating the airso near him that his clothes were occasionally torn by its sharpclaws; he jumped back, and the animal disappeared like aphantasmagoric spectre.
But as he sprang back he found an elevation beneath his feet; heclimbed up first one block of ice, then another, feeling his way withhis staff.
"An iceberg!" he said to himself; "if I can get to the top I am safe."
With these words he climbed up an elevation of about ninety feet withsurprising agility; he arose above the frozen mist, the top of whichwas sharply defined.
"Good!" he said to himself; and looking about him he saw his threecompanions emerging from the vapor.
"Hatteras!"
"Dr. Clawbonny!"
"Bell!"
"Simpson!"
These names were shouted out almost at the same time; the sky, lit upby a magnificent halo, sent forth pale rays which colored thefrost-rime as if it were a cloud, and the top of the icebergs seemedto rise from a mass of molten silver. The travellers found themselveswithin a circle of less than a hundred feet in diameter. Thanks to thepurity of the air in this upper layer in this low temperature, theirwords could be easily heard, and they were able to talk on the top ofthis iceberg. After the first shots, each one, hearing no answer, hadonly thought of climbing above the mist.
"The sledge!" shouted the captain.
"It's eighty feet beneath us," answered Simpson.
"Is it all right?"
"All right."
"And the bear?" asked the doctor.
"What bear?" said Bell.
"A bear!" said Hatteras; "let's go down."
"No!" said the doctor; "we shall lose our way, and have to begin itall over again."
"And if he eats our dogs--" said Hatteras.
At that moment Duke was heard barking, the sound rising through themist.
"That's Duke!" shouted Hatteras; "there's something wrong. I'm goingdown."
All sorts of howling arose to their ears; Duke and the dogs werebarking furiously. The noise sounded like a dull murmur, like the roarof a crowded, noisy room. They knew that some invisible struggle wasgoing on below, and the mist was occasionally agitated like the seawhen marine monsters are fighting.
"Duke, Duke!" shouted the captain, as he made ready to enter againinto the frost-rime.
"Wait a moment, Hatteras,--wait a moment! It seems to me that the fogis lifting."
It was not lifting, but sinking, like water in a pool; it appeared tobe descending into the ground from which it had risen; the summits ofthe icebergs grew larger; others, which had been hidden, arose likenew islands; by an optical illusion, which may be easily imagined, thetravellers, clinging to these ice-cones, seemed to be rising in theair, while the top of the mist sank beneath them.
Soon the top of the sledge appeared, then the harnessed dogs, and thenabout thirty other animals, then great objects moving confusedly, andDuke leaping about with his head alternately rising and sinking in thefrozen mist.
"Foxes!" shouted Bell.
"Bears!" said the doctor; "one, two, three."
"Our dogs, our provisions!" cried Simpson.
A troop of foxes and bears, having come across the sledge, wereravaging the provisions. Their instinct of pillaging united them inperfect harmony; the dogs were barking furiously, but the animals paidno heed, but went on in their work of destruction.
"Fire!" shouted the captain, discharging his piece.
"'Fire!' shouted the captain, discharging his piece."]
His companions did the same. But at the combined report the bears,raising their heads and uttering a singular roar, gave the signal todepart; they fell into a little trot which a galloping horse could nothave kept up with, and, followed by the foxes, they soon disappearedamid the ice to the north.