The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras

  CHAPTER XXII.THE APPROACH TO THE POLE.

  The time flew by in this uncertainty. Nothing appeared on the sharplydefined circle of the sea; nothing was to be seen save sky andsea,--not one of those floating land-plants which rejoiced the heartof Christopher Columbus as he was about to discover America. Hatteraswas still gazing. At length, at about six o'clock in the evening, ashapeless vapor appeared at a little height above the level of thesea; it looked like a puff of smoke; the sky was perfectly cold, sothis vapor was no cloud; it would keep appearing and disappearing, asif it were in commotion. Hatteras was the first to detect thisphenomenon; he examined it with his glass for a whole hour.

  Suddenly, some sure sign apparently occurred to him, for he stretchedout his arms to the horizon and cried in a loud voice,--

  "Land, ho!"

  At these words each one sprang to his feet as if moved by electricity.A sort of smoke was clearly rising above the sea.

  "I see it," cried the doctor.

  "Yes! certainly!--yes!" said Johnson.

  "It's a cloud," said Altamont.

  "It's land!" answered Hatteras, as if perfectly convinced.

  But, as often happens with objects that are indistinct in thedistance, the point they had been looking at seemed to havedisappeared. At length they found it again, and the doctor evenfancied that he could see a swift light twenty or twenty-five miles tothe north.

  "It's a volcano!" he cried.

  "'It's a volcano!' he cried."]

  "A volcano?" said Altamont.

  "Without doubt."

  "At this high latitude?"

  "And why not?" continued the doctor; "isn't Iceland a volcanic land,so to speak, made of volcanoes?"

  "Yes, Iceland," said the American, "but so near the Pole!"

  "Well, didn't Commodore James Ross find in the Southern Continent twoactive volcanoes, Erebus and Terror by name, in longitude 170 degreesand latitude 78 degrees? Why then shouldn't there be volcanoes at theNorth Pole?"

  "It may be so, after all," answered Altamont.

  "Ah," cried the doctor, "I see it clearly! It is a volcano."

  "Well," said Hatteras, "let us sail straight towards it."

  "The wind is changing," said Johnson.

  "Haul on the fore-sheet, and bring her nearer the wind."

  But this manoeuvre only turned the launch away from the point they hadbeen gazing at, and even with their closest examination they could notfind it again. Still, they could not doubt that they were nearingland. They had seen, if they had not reached, the object of theirvoyage, and within twenty-four hours they would set foot on thisunknown shore. Providence, after letting them get so near, would notdrive them back at the last moment.

  Still, no one manifested the joy which might have been expected underthe circumstances; each one wondered in silence what this polar landmight be. The animals seemed to shun it; at evening the birds, insteadof seeking refuge there, flew with all speed to the south. Could not asingle gull or ptarmigan find a resting-place there? Even the fish,the large cetacea, avoided that coast. Whence came this repugnance,which was shared by all the animals they saw, unless from terror?

  The sailors experienced the same feeling; they gave way to thefeelings inspired by the situation, and gradually each one felt hiseyelids grow heavy. It was Hatteras's watch. He took the tiller; thedoctor, Altamont, Johnson, and Bell fell asleep, stretched on thebenches, and soon were dreaming soundly. Hatteras struggled againsthis sleepiness; he wished to lose not a moment; but the gentle motionof the launch rocked him, in spite of himself, into a gentle sleep.

  The boat made hardly any headway; the wind did not keep her sailsfull. Far off in the west a few icebergs were reflecting the sun'srays, and glowing brightly in the midst of the ocean.

  Hatteras began to dream. He recalled his whole life, with theincalculable speed of dreams; he went through the winter again, thescenes at Victoria Bay, Fort Providence, Doctor's House, the findingthe American beneath the snow. Here remoter incidents came up beforehim; he dreamed of the burning of the _Forward_, of his treacherouscompanions who had abandoned him. What had become of them? He thoughtof Shandon, Wall, and the brutal Pen. Where were they now? Had theysucceeded in reaching Baffin's Bay across the ice? Then he wentfurther back, to his departure from England, to his previous voyages,his failures and misfortunes. Then he forgot his present situation,his success so near at hand, his hopes half realized. His dreamscarried him from joy to agony. So it went on for two hours; then histhoughts changed; he began to think of the Pole, and he saw himself atlast setting foot on this English continent, and unfolding the flag ofthe United Kingdom. While he was dozing in this way a huge, dark cloudwas climbing across the sky, throwing a deep shadow over the sea.

  It is difficult to imagine the great speed with which hurricanes arisein the arctic seas. The vapors which rise under the equator arecondensed above the great glaciers of the North, and large masses ofair are needed to take their place. This can explain the severity ofarctic storms.

  At the first shock of the wind the captain and his friends awoke fromtheir sleep, ready to manage the launch. The waves were high andsteep. The launch tossed helplessly about, now plunged into deepabysses, now oscillated on the pointed crest of a wave, incliningoften at an angle of more than forty-five degrees. Hatteras took firmhold of the tiller, which was noisily sliding from one side to theother. Every now and then some strong wave would strike it and nearlythrow him over. Johnson and Bell were busily occupied in bailing outthe water which the launch would occasionally ship.

  "The launch tossed helplessly about."]

  "This is a storm we hardly expected," said Altamont, holding fast tohis bench.

  "We ought to expect anything here," answered the doctor.

  These remarks were made amid the roar of the tempest and the hissingof the waves, which the violence of the wind reduced to a fine spray.It was nearly impossible for one to hear his neighbor. It was hard tokeep the boat's head to the north; the clouds hid everything a fewfathoms from the boat, and they had no mark to sail by. This suddentempest, just as they were about attaining their object, seemed fullof warning; to their excited minds it came like an order to go nofarther. Did Nature forbid approach to the Pole? Was this point of theglobe surrounded by hurricanes and tempests which rendered accessimpossible? But any one who had caught sight of those men could haveseen that they did not flinch before wind or wave, and that they wouldpush on to the end. So they struggled on all day, braving death atevery instant, and making no progress northward, but also losing noground; they were wet through by the rain and waves; above the din ofthe storm they could hear the hoarse cries of the birds.

  But at six o'clock in the evening, while the waves were rising, therecame a sudden calm. The wind stopped as if by a miracle. The sea wassmooth, as if it had not felt a puff of wind for twelve hours. Thehurricane seemed to have respected this part of the Polar Ocean. Whatwas the reason? It was an extraordinary phenomenon, which CaptainSabine had witnessed in his voyages in Greenland seas. The fog,without lifting, was very bright. The launch drifted along in a zoneof electric light, an immense St. Elmo fire, brilliant but withoutheat. The mast, sail, and rigging stood out black against thephosphorescent air; the men seemed to have plunged into a bath oftransparent rays, and their faces were all lit up. The sudden calm ofthis portion of the ocean came, without doubt, from the ascendingmotion of the columns of air, while the tempest, which was a cyclone,turned rapidly about this peaceful centre. But this atmosphere on firesuggested a thought to Hatteras.

  "The fog, without lifting, was very bright."]

  "The volcano!" he cried.

  "Is it possible?" asked Bell.

  "No, no!" answered the doctor; "we should be smothered if the flameswere to reach us."

  "Perhaps it is its reflection in the fog," said Altamont.

  "No. We should have to admit that we were near land, and in that casewe should hear the eruption."

  "But then?" asked the captain.

  "
It is a phenomenon," said the doctor, "which has been seldom observedhitherto. If we go on we cannot help leaving this luminous sphere andre-entering storm and darkness."

  "Whatever it is, push on!" said Hatteras.

  "Forward!" cried his companions, who did not wish to delay even forbreathing-time in this quiet spot. The bright sail hung down theglistening mast; the oars dipped into the glowing waves, and appearedto drip with sparks. Hatteras, compass in hand, turned the boat's headto the north; gradually the mist lost its brightness and transparency;the wind could be heard roaring a short distance off; and soon thelaunch, lying over before a strong gust, re-entered the zone ofstorms. Fortunately, the hurricane had shifted a point towards thesouth, and the launch was able to run before the wind, straight forthe Pole, running the risk of foundering, but sailing very fast; arock, reef, or piece of ice might at any moment rise before them, andcrush them to atoms. Still, no one of these men raised a singleobjection, nor suggested prudence. They were seized with the madnessof danger. Thirst for the unknown took possession of them. They weregoing along, not blinded, but blindly, finding their speed only tooslow for their impatience. Hatteras held the tiller firm amid thewaves lashed into foam by the tempest. Still the proximity of landbecame evident. Strange signs filled the air. Suddenly the mist partedlike a curtain torn by the wind, and for a moment, brief as a flash oflightning, a great burst of flame could be seen rising towards thesky.

  "The volcano! the volcano!" was the cry which escaped from the lips ofall; but the strange vision disappeared at once; the wind shifted tothe southeast, took the launch on her quarter, and drove her from thisunapproachable land.

  "Malediction!" said Hatteras, shifting her sail; "we were not threemiles from land!"

  Hatteras could not resist the force of the tempest; but withoutyielding to it, he brought the boat about in the wind, which wasblowing with fearful violence. Every now and then the launch leaned toone side, so that almost her whole keel was exposed; still she obeyedher rudder, and rose like a stumbling horse which his rider brings upby spur and reins. Hatteras, with his hair flying and his hand on thetiller, seemed to be part of the boat, like horse and man at the timeof the centaurs. Suddenly a terrible sight presented itself to theireyes. Within less than ten fathoms a floe was balancing on the waves;it fell and rose like the launch, threatening in its fall to crush itto atoms. But to this danger of being plunged into the abyss was addedanother no less terrible; for this drifting floe was covered withwhite bears, crowded together and wild with terror.

  "This drifting floe was covered with white bears,crowded together."]

  "Bears! bears!" cried Bell, in terror.

  And each one gazed with terror. The floe pitched fearfully, sometimesat such an angle that the bears were all rolled together. Then theirroars were almost as loud as the tempest; a formidable din arose fromthe floating menagerie.

  If the floe had upset, the bears would have swum to the boat andclambered aboard.

  For a quarter of an hour, which was as long as a century, the launchand floe drifted along in consort, twenty fathoms from one another atone moment and nearly running together the next, and at times theywere so near to one another, the bears need only have dropped to havegot on board. The Greenland dogs trembled from terror; Duke remainedmotionless. Hatteras and his companions were silent; it did not occurto them to put the helm down and sail away, and they went straight on.A vague feeling, of astonishment rather than terror, took possessionof them; they admired this spectacle which completed the struggle ofthe elements. Finally the floe drifted away, borne by the wind, whichthe launch was able to withstand, as she lay with her head to thewind, and it disappeared in the mist, its presence being known merelyby the distant roaring of the bears.

  At that moment the fury of the tempest redoubled; there was an endlessunchaining of atmospheric waves; the boat, borne by the waves, wastossed about giddily; her sail flew away like a huge white bird; awhirlpool, a new Maelstrom, formed among the waves; the boat wascarried so fast that it seemed to the men as if the rapidly revolvingwater were motionless. They were gradually sinking down. There was anirresistible power dragging them down and ingulfing them alive. Allfive arose. They looked at one another with terror. They grew dizzy.They felt an undefinable dread of the abyss! But suddenly the launcharose perpendicularly. Her prow was higher than the whirling waves;the speed with which she was moving hurled her beyond the centre ofattraction, and escaping by the tangent of this circumference whichwas making more than a thousand turns a second, she was hurled awaywith the rapidity of a cannon-ball.

  "Her sail flew away like a huge white bird; awhirlpool, a new Maelstrom, formed among the waves."]

  Altamont, the doctor, Johnson, and Bell were thrown down among theseats. When they rose, Hatteras had disappeared. It was two o'clock inthe morning.