CHAPTER XXXII.THE RETURN TO THE FORWARD.
Toward six o'clock in the morning the wind fell, and, shiftingsuddenly to the north, it cleared the clouds from the sky; thethermometer stood at -33 degrees. The first rays of the twilightappeared on the horizon above which it would soon peer.
Hatteras approached his two dejected companions and said to them,sadly and gently,--
"My friends, we are more than sixty miles from the point mentioned bySir Edward Belcher. We have only just enough food left to take us backto the ship. To go farther would only expose us to certain death,without our being of service to any one. We must return."
"That is a wise decision, Hatteras," answered the doctor; "I shouldhave followed you anywhere, but we are all growing weaker every day;we can hardly set one foot before the other; I approve of returning."
"Is that your opinion, Bell?" asked Hatteras.
"Yes, Captain," answered the carpenter.
"Well," continued Hatteras, "we will take two days for rest. That'snot too much. The sledge needs a great many repairs. I think, too, weought to build a snow-house in which we can repose."
This being decided, the three men set to work energetically. Bell tookthe necessary precautions to insure the solidity of the building, andsoon a satisfactory retreat arose at the bottom of the ravine wherethey had last halted.
It was doubtless after a hard struggle that Hatteras had decided todiscontinue his journey. So much effort and fatigue thrown away! Auseless trip, entailing the death of one of his men! To return withouta scrap of coal: what would the crew say? What might it not do underthe lead of Shandon? But Hatteras could not continue the struggle anylonger.
He gave all his attention to their preparations for returning; thesledge was repaired; its load, too, had become much lighter, and onlyweighed two hundred pounds. They mended their worn-out, torn clothes,all soaked through and through by the snow; new moccasins andsnow-shoes replaced those which were no longer serviceable. This keptthem busy the whole of the 29th and the morning of the 30th; then theyall sought what rest they could get, and prepared for what was beforethem.
During the thirty-six hours spent in or near the snow-house, thedoctor had been noticing Duke, whose singular behavior did not seem tohim to be natural; the dog kept going in circles which seemed to havea common centre; there was a sort of elevation in the soil, producedby accumulated layers of ice; Duke, as he ran around this place, keptbarking gently and wagging his tail impatiently, looking at his masteras if asking something.
The doctor, after reflecting a moment, ascribed this uneasiness to thepresence of Simpson's corpse, which his companions had not yet hadtime to bury. Hence he resolved to proceed to this sad ceremony onthat very day; the next morning they were to start. Bell and thedoctor, picks in hand, went to the bottom of the ravine; the elevationwhich Duke had noticed offered a suitable place for the grave, whichwould have to be dug deep to escape the bears.
The doctor and Bell began by removing the soft snow, then theyattacked the solid ice; at the third blow of his pick the doctorstruck against some hard body; he picked up the pieces and found themthe fragments of a glass bottle. Bell brought to light a stiffenedbag, in which were a few crumbs of fresh biscuit.
"What's this?" said the doctor.
"What can it be?" asked Bell, stopping his work.
The doctor called to Hatteras, who came at once.
Duke barked violently, and with his paws tried to tear up the ice.
"Have we by any possibility come across a supply of provisions?" saidthe doctor.
"It looks like it," answered Bell.
"Go on!" said Hatteras.
A few bits of food were found and a box quarter full of pemmican.
"If we have," said Hatteras, "the bears have visited it before we did.See, these provisions have been touched already."
"It is to be feared," answered the doctor, "for--"
He did not finish his sentence; a cry from Bell interrupted him; hehad turned over a tolerably large piece of ice and showed a stiff,frozen human leg in the ice.
"A corpse!" cried the doctor.
"It's a grave," said Hatteras.
It was the body of a sailor about thirty years old, in a perfect stateof preservation; he wore the usual dress of Arctic sailors; the doctorcould not say how long he had been dead.
After this, Bell found another corpse, that of a man of fifty,exhibiting traces of the sufferings that had killed him.
"They were never buried," cried the doctor; "these poor men weresurprised by death as we find them."
"You are right, Doctor," said Bell.
"Go on, go on!" said Hatteras.
Bell hardly dared. Who could say how many corpses lay hidden here?
"They were the victims of just such an accident as we nearly perishedby," said the doctor; "their snow-house fell in. Let us see if one maynot be breathing yet!"
The place was rapidly cleared away, and Bell brought up a third body,that of a man of forty; he looked less like a corpse than the others;the doctor bent over him and thought he saw some signs of life.
"He's alive!" he shouted.
Bell and he carried this body into the snow-house, while Hatterasstood in silence, gazing at the sunken dwelling.
The doctor stripped the body; it bore no signs of injury; with Bell'said he rubbed it vigorously with tow dipped in alcohol, and he sawlife gradually reviving within it; but the man was in a state ofcomplete prostration, and unable to speak; his tongue clove to hispalate as if it were frozen.
The doctor examined his patient's pockets; they were empty. No paper.He let Bell continue rubbing, and went out to Hatteras.
He found him in the ruined snow-house, clearing away the floor; soonhe came out, bearing a half-burned piece of an envelope. A few wordscould be deciphered:--
....tamont ...._orpoise_ ....w York.
"Altamont!" shouted the doctor, "of the _Porpoise_! of New York!"
"An American!" said Hatteras.
"I shall save him," said the doctor; "I'll answer for it, and we shallfind out the explanation of this puzzle."
He returned to Altamont, while Hatteras remained pensive. The doctorsucceeded in recalling the unfortunate man to life, but not toconsciousness; he neither saw, heard, nor spoke, but at any rate hewas alive!
The next morning Hatteras said to the doctor,--
"We must start."
"All right, Hatteras! The sledge is not loaded; we shall carry thispoor fellow back to the ship with us.
"Very well," said Hatteras. "But first let us bury these corpses."
The two unknown sailors were placed beneath the ruins of thesnow-house; Simpson's body took the place of Altamont's.
The three travellers uttered a short prayer over their companion, andat seven o'clock in the morning they set off again for the ship.
Two of the dogs were dead. Duke volunteered to drag the sledge, and heworked as resolutely as a Greenland dog.
For twenty days, from January 31st to February 19th, the return wasvery much like the first part of the journey. Save that it was in themonth of February, the coldest of the whole year, and the ice washarder; the travellers suffered terribly from the cold, but not fromthe wind or snow-storm.
The sun reappeared for the first time January 31st; every day it rosehigher above the horizon. Bell and the doctor were at the end of theirstrength, almost blind and quite lame; the carpenter could not walkwithout crutches. Altamont was alive, but continued insensible;sometimes his life was despaired of, but unremitting care kept himalive! And yet the doctor needed to take the greatest care of himself,for his health was beginning to suffer.
Hatteras thought of the _Forward_! In what condition was he going tofind it? What had happened on board? Had Johnson been able towithstand Shandon and his allies? The cold had been terrible! Had theyburned the ship? Had they spared her masts and keel?
While thinking of this, Hatteras walked on as if he had wished to getan early view of the _Forward_.
February 24th, in the morning, he stopped suddenly. Three hundredpaces before him appeared a reddish glow, above which rose an immensecolumn of black smoke, which was lost in the gray clouds of the sky.
"See that smoke!" he shouted.
His heart beat as if it would burst.
"See that smoke!" he said to his companions. "My ship is on fire!"
"But we are more than three miles from it," said Bell. "It can't bethe _Forward_!"
"Yes, but it is," answered the doctor; "the mirage makes it seemnearer."
"Let us run!" cried Hatteras.
They left the sledge in charge of Duke, and hastened after thecaptain. An hour later they came in sight of the ship. A terriblesight! The brig was burning in the midst of the ice, which was meltingabout her; the flames were lapping her hull, and the southerly breezebrought to Hatteras's ears unaccustomed sounds.
Five hundred feet from the ship stood a man raising his hands indespair; he stood there, powerless, facing the fire which wasdestroying the _Forward_.
The man was alone; it was Johnson.
Hatteras ran towards him.
"My ship! my ship!" he cried.
"You! Captain!" answered Johnson; "you! stop! not a step farther!"
"Well?" asked Hatteras with a terrible air.
"The wretches!" answered Johnson, "they've been gone forty-eighthours, after firing the ship!"
"Curse them!" groaned Hatteras.
Then a terrible explosion was heard; the earth trembled; the icebergsfell; a column of smoke rose to the clouds, and the _Forward_disappeared in an abyss of fire.
"Then a terrible explosion was heard."]
At that moment the doctor and Bell came up to Hatteras. He rousedhimself suddenly from his despair.
"My friends," he said energetically, "the cowards have taken flight!The brave will succeed! Johnson, Bell, you are bold; Doctor, you arewise; as for me, I have faith! There is the North Pole! Come, towork!"
Hatteras's companions felt their hearts glow at these brave words.
And yet the situation was terrible for these four men and the dyingman, abandoned without supplies, alone at the eighty-fourth degree oflatitude, in the very heart of the polar regions.
END OF PART I.
PART II.THE DESERT OF ICE.
THE DESERT OF ICE.