CHAPTER XIV.THE POLAR SPRING.
The prisoners were set free; they expressed their joy by the warmth oftheir thanks to the doctor. Johnson regretted somewhat the skins,which were burned and useless; but his regret did not sour his temper.They spent the day in repairing the house, which was somewhat injuredby the explosion. They took away the blocks heaped up by the animals,and the walls were made secure. They worked briskly, encouraged by thecheery songs of the boatswain.
The next day the weather was much milder; the wind changed suddenly,and the thermometer rose to +15 degrees. So great a difference wassoon felt by both man and nature. The southerly wind brought with itthe first signs of the polar spring. This comparative warmth lastedfor many days; the thermometer, sheltered from the wind, even rose ashigh as +31 degrees, and there were signs of a thaw. The ice began tocrack; a few spirts of salt-water arose here and there, like jets inan English park; a few days later it rained hard.
A dense vapor arose from the snow; this was a good sign, and themelting of the immense masses appeared to be near at hand. The paledisk of the sun grew brighter and drew longer spirals above thehorizon; the night lasted scarcely three hours. Another similarsymptom was the reappearance of some ptarmigans, arctic geese, plover,and flocks of quail; the air was soon filled with the deafening crieswhich they remembered from the previous summer. A few hares, whichthey were able to shoot, appeared on the shores of the bay, as well asthe arctic mice, the burrows of which were like a honeycomb. Thedoctor called the attention of his friends to the fact that theseanimals began to lose their white winter plumage, or hair, to put ontheir summer dress; they were evidently getting ready for summer,while their sustenance appeared in the form of moss, poppy, saxifrage,and thin grass. A new life was peering through the melting snows. Butwith the harmless animals returned the famished foes; foxes and wolvesarrived in search of their prey; mournful howling sounded during thebrief darkness of the nights.
The wolf of these countries is near of kin to the dog; like him, itbarks, and often in such a way as to deceive the sharpest ears, thoseof the dogs themselves, for instance; it is even said that they employthis device to attract dogs, and then eat them. This has been observedon the shores of Hudson's Bay, and the doctor could confirm it at NewAmerica; Johnson took care not to let loose the dogs of the sledge,who might have been destroyed in that way. As for Duke, he had seentoo many of them, and he was too wise to be caught in any such way.
During a fortnight they hunted a great deal; fresh food was abundant;they shot partridges, ptarmigans, and snow-birds, which were deliciouseating. The hunters did not go far from Fort Providence. In fact,small game could almost be killed with a stick; and it gave muchanimation to the silent shores of Victoria Bay,--an unaccustomed sightwhich delighted their eyes.
The fortnight succeeding the great defeat of the bears was taken upwith different occupations. The thaw advanced steadily; thethermometer rose to 32 degrees, and torrents began to roar in theravines, and thousands of cataracts fell down the declivities. Thedoctor cleared an acre of ground and sowed in it cresses, sorrel, andcochlearia, which are excellent remedies for the scurvy; the littlegreenish leaves were peeping above the ground when, with incrediblerapidity, the cold again seized everything.
In a single night, with a violent north-wind, the thermometer fellforty degrees, to -8 degrees. Everything was frozen; birds,quadrupeds, and seals disappeared as if by magic; the holes for theseals were closed, the crevasses disappeared, the ice became as hardas granite, and the waterfalls hung like long crystal pendants.
It was a total change to the eye; it took place in the night of May11-12. And when Bell the next morning put his nose out of doors intothis sharp frost, he nearly left it there.
"O, this polar climate!" cried the doctor, a little disappointed;"that's the way it goes! Well, I shall have to begin sowing again."
Hatteras took things less philosophically, so eager was he to renewhis explorations. But he had to resign himself.
"Will this cold weather last long?" asked Johnson.
"No, my friend, no," answered Clawbonny; "it's the last touch ofwinter we shall have! You know it's at home here, and we can't driveit away against its will."
"It defends itself well," said Bell, rubbing his face.
"Yes, but I ought to have expected it," said the doctor; "and I shouldnot have thrown the seed away so stupidly, especially since I mighthave started them near the kitchen stove."
"What!" asked Altamont, "could you have foreseen this change ofweather?"
"Certainly, and without resorting to magic. I ought to have put theseed under the protection of Saints Mamert, Panera, and Servais, whosedays are the 11th, 12th, and 13th of this month."
"Well, Doctor," said Altamont, "will you tell me what influence thesethree saints have on the weather?"
"A very great influence, to believe gardeners, who call them the threesaints of ice."
"And why so, pray?"
"Because generally there is a periodic frost in the month of May, andthe greatest fall of temperature takes place from the 11th to the 13thof this month. It is a fact, that is all."
"It is curious, but what is the explanation?" asked the American.
"There are two: either by the interposition of a greater number ofasteroids between the earth and the sun at this season, or simply bythe melting of the snow, which thereby absorbs a great quantity ofheat. Both explanations are plausible; must they be received? I don'tknow; but if I'm uncertain of the truth of the explanation, I oughtnot to have been of the fact, and so lose my crop."
The doctor was right; for one reason or another the cold was veryintense during the rest of the month of May; their hunting wasinterrupted, not so much by the severity of the weather as by theabsence of game; fortunately, the supply of fresh meat was not yetquite exhausted. They found themselves accordingly condemned to newinactivity; for a fortnight, from the 11th to the 25th of May, onlyone incident broke the monotony of their lives; a serious illness,diphtheria, suddenly seized the carpenter; from the swollen tonsilsand the false membrane in the throat, the doctor could not be ignorantof the nature of the disease; but he was in his element, and he soondrove it away, for evidently it had not counted on meeting him; histreatment was very simple, and the medicines were not hard to get; thedoctor simply prescribed pieces of ice to be held in the mouth; in afew hours the swelling went down and the false membrane disappeared;twenty-four hours later Bell was up again.
When the others wondered at the doctor's prescriptions: "This is theland of these complaints," he answered; "the cure must be near thedisease."
"The cure, and especially the doctor," added Johnson, in whose mindthe doctor was assuming colossal proportions.
During this new leisure the latter resolved to have a serious talkwith the captain; he wanted to induce Hatteras to give up hisintention of going northward without carrying some sort of a boat; apiece of wood, something with which he could cross an arm of the sea,if they should meet one. The captain, who was fixed in his views, hadformally vowed not to use a boat made of the fragments of the Americanship. The doctor was uncertain how to broach the subject, and yet aspeedy decision was important, for the month of June would be the timefor distant excursions. At last, after long reflection, he tookHatteras aside one day, and with his usual air of kindness said tohim,--
"Hatteras, you know I am your friend?"
"Certainly," answered the captain, warmly, "my best friend; indeed, myonly one."
"If I give you a piece of advice," resumed the doctor, "advice whichyou don't ask for, would you consider it disinterested?"
"Yes, for I know that selfish interest has never been your guide; butwhat do you want to say?"
"One moment, Hatteras; I have something else to ask of you: Do youconsider me a true Englishman like yourself, and eager for the gloryof my country?"
Hatteras looked at the doctor with surprise.
"Yes," he answered, with his face expressing surprise at the question.
 
; "You want to reach the North Pole," resumed the doctor; "I understandyour ambition, I share it, but to reach this end we need the means."
"Well, haven't I so far sacrificed everything in order to succeed?"
"No, Hatteras, you have not sacrificed your personal prejudices, andat this moment I see that you are ready to refuse the indispensablemeans of reaching the Pole."
"Ah!" answered Hatteras, "you mean the launch; this man--"
"Come, Hatteras, let us argue coolly, without passion, and look at allsides of the question. The line of the coast on which we have winteredmay be broken; there is no proof that it runs six degrees to thenorth; if the information which has brought you so far is right, weought to find a vast extent of open sea during the summer months. Now,with the Arctic Ocean before us, free of ice and favorable fornavigation, what shall we do if we lack the means of crossing it?"
Hatteras made no answer.
"Do you want to be within a few miles of the Pole without being ableto reach it?"
Hatteras's head sank into his hands.
"And now," continued the doctor, "let us look at the question from amoral point of view. I can understand that an Englishman should giveup his life and his fortune for the honor of his country. But becausea boat made of a few planks torn from a wrecked American ship firsttouches the coast or crosses the unknown ocean, can that diminish thehonor of the discovery? If you found on this shore the hull of anabandoned ship, should you hesitate to make use of it? Doesn't theglory of success belong to the head of the expedition? And I ask youif this launch built by four Englishmen, manned by four Englishmen,would not be English from keel to gunwale?"
Hatteras was still silent.
"No," said Clawbonny, "let us talk frankly; it's not the boat youmind, it's the man."
"Yes, Doctor, yes," answered the captain, "that American; I hate himwith real English hate, that man thrown in my way by chance--"
"To save you!"
"To ruin me! He seems to defy me, to act as master, to imagine heholds my fate in his hands, and to have guessed my plans. Didn't heshow his character when we were giving names to the new lands? Has heever said what he was doing here? You can't free me of the idea whichis killing me, that this man is the head of an expedition sent out bythe government of the United States."
"And if he is, Hatteras, what is there to show that he is in search ofthe Pole? Can't America try to discover the Northwest Passage as wellas England? At any rate, Altamont is perfectly ignorant of your plans;for neither Johnson nor Bell nor you nor I has said a single wordabout them in his presence."
"Well, I hope he'll never know them!"
"He will know them finally, of course, for we can't leave him alonehere."
"Why not?" asked the captain, with some violence; "can't he remain atFort Providence?"
"He would never give his consent, Hatteras; and then to leave himhere, uncertain of finding him again, would be more than imprudent, itwould be inhuman. Altamont will come with us; he must come! But sincethere is no need of suggesting new ideas to him, let us say nothing,and build a launch apparently for reconnoitring these new shores."
Hatteras could not make up his mind to accede to the demands of hisfriend, who waited for an answer which did not come.
"And if he refused to let us tear his ship to pieces!" said thecaptain, finally.
"In that case, you would have the right on your side; you could buildthe boat in spite of him, and he could do nothing about it."
"I hope he will refuse," exclaimed Hatteras.
"Before he refuses," answered the doctor, "he must be asked. I willundertake to do it."
In fact, that evening, before supper, Clawbonny turned theconversation to certain proposed expeditions in the summer months forhydrographic observations.
"I suppose, Altamont," he said, "that you will join us?"
"Certainly," was the reply; "we must know how large New America is."
Hatteras gazed earnestly at his rival while he made his answer.
"And for that," continued Altamont, "we must make the best use we canof the fragments of the _Porpoise_; let us make a strong boat whichcan carry us far."
"You hear, Bell," said the doctor, quickly; "to-morrow we shall set towork."