*XXIII.*
It took more than a week of rapid traveling to cross this lastcontinent, during which time we ate and slept alternately, one of usconstantly remaining on watch above. Many cities were passed of asplendor exceeding anything known upon our side of the globe, and duringthe transit we witnessed what we could not doubt were differentnationalities, if not different civilizations. These changes were,however, not easy to estimate, from the fact that all we saw was sostrangely, so utterly foreign that differentiations which would bemarked and strongly apparent to a denizen of the inner sphere, were onlyslightly in evidence to us. It was as if a native of darkest Africashould journey abroad through Europe; it is not likely that he wouldperceive much dissimilarity between German, French, English or Russiancitizens.
We halted only at long intervals, and generally in thinly settleddistricts, to overhaul our machinery, or stretch our legs upon theground. The amount of territory covered during that week was vast, theair ship being kept at her highest speed. We crossed rivers, greatlakes, or inland seas. We saw sights well worth recording, and marvelswhich we longed to investigate, and would indeed have done so were itnot for our utter inability to communicate with the people; and perhapssome day, even if we should not return, it will be worth to write afuller description of all the wonders we encountered in that strangeinner world; that world which, since the dawn of creation, has been soclose at hand, and yet whose existence we have never suspected.
Far to the south we crossed a body of water so closely studded withmountain islets, that many were connected by bridges, and nowhere couldthere have been a thousand yards between them, and this for a distanceof five hundred miles. And yet here were evidences of a pastcivilization, in the deserted old castles, and rock carvings whichabounded among them. We hovered close above some of the largest ofthese relics, without eliciting a response from a human being.Manifestly they had been deserted for untold ages. The golden trumpethad vanished from these desolate halls, neither was there any sign oflife within.
A change was coming over the air. There was a chill and the light wasfading from the sky.
"We must prepare for cold weather ahead!" said Torrence.
And then we went down into the cabin and made everything as taut andsnug as possible. The hatching to the upper deck was closed, and everycrevice carefully chinked. Our portholes were fastened and screweddown. Our ventilators arranged, so that the outer air could only reachus through coils of heated pipe; and if the air ship did not fail us, itseemed impossible that we should suffer in our rapid flight across thefrozen sea of the Antarctic regions.
Gradually our disk of heavenly light receded toward the north; and itwas clear that we were rapidly approaching the south polar opening. Atlast it sank entirely out of sight, leaving us in a chill, rapidlyclosing twilight.
By the time our preparations were completed, it became necessary tostart the heaters, put on warmer clothing, and confine ourselves to thecabin. We had bade a final adieu to the summer land, and the rigor ofthe south polar regions was ahead. Darkness was coming down upon us, aswell as the cold, and occasional masses of floating ice were seen fromtime to time.
At last the stars became visible, the first we had seen in more than amonth, and then there shot up into the sky a great pink light--the_aurora australis_--to remind us of the bright and happy land behind.At that minute I felt a yearning to return; for there was the world ofdreams, of poetry, rest, beauty and contentment.
"Torrence," I said, shuddering at the thought of what lay ahead, "howlong will it take us to cross this horrible sea of ice and darkness?"
"If we press her, we can do a thousand miles a day. You can figure foryourself. But this region of cold and starlight need not disturb you,for we can dash through it like a meteor. Indeed, were it not for thedanger of unlooked for eminences, we might sleep until reaching the landof the sun. But that, of course, cannot be, as a constant lookoutthrough the forward port will be necessary."
The vessel had been furnished with a powerful headlight, which cast adazzling illumination among the mirror-like surfaces beneath; and as wesat staring into the trembling path, constantly stretching away beforeus, we felt indeed, as Torrence had suggested, like the parasites of anearth-bound meteor, traversing these regions of ice and darkness in asingle night.
Our cabin lamp was lit, and we were stationed at the forward lookoutTorrence glanced at the speed indicator.
"Seventy miles an hour!"
I was startled. A mishap at such an awful rate of transit would smashus into a thousand atoms, and the news of our discovery be lost to theearth. But my brother was calm and unconcerned; he had no misgivingwhile one or the other of us remained on watch.
"It beats the Erebus and the Terror," I answered nervously, peering intothe marvelous vista ahead, and the rapidly extending pathway dancing andflickering in the wonderful headlight.
Fresh panoramas were constantly unrolled in the glimmering distance.There were scenes that were strange and alarming. Pinnacles and ridgesof ice--autochthonous--awful--would compel us to rise to sudden andterrible heights, to clear them. It was like a steeple chase on agigantic scale. We were leaping fences, and clearing ditches; only thefences were ice masses hundreds of feet in height, and the ditcheshorrible chasms whose depths could not be guessed. On and on we flew,through these regions of mystery, which the most daring explorer hadnever even approached, and without a flying machine it seemed likely hewould never penetrate. We did not suffer from the cold, wrapped up inour cozy cabin, although our spirit thermometer, which was placeddirectly outside one of the windows, where we could see it, marked atemperature as low as -eighty degrees. It was an atmosphere of death,and fortunately we were hermetically sealed against it.
"I propose," said Torrence, "that our next voyage into the interior ofour planet be made through the south polar opening at midsummer, aboutJanuary, to enable us to see what kind of country we are passingthrough!"
"That is easy enough to see now," I answered; "ice mountains, iceoceans, ice continents, icebergs, ice valleys of death; surely no livingcreature could exist in such icy solitudes, in such unutterable cold!"
"But you must remember this ice belt is probably not nearly so wideduring the summer months. There is doubtless a change."
"Remember the Palaeocrystic Sea!" I suggested.
"True," he answered, "but remember it was narrow, and that we have neverseen it in the winter."
"Of all our experiences," I observed reflectively, "the presentsituation strikes me as the most remarkable, skurrying through thesefrozen regions like a comet, and spying out the land by the light of acandle. It is surely not the method most in vogue among pioneers!"
"It has certainly not been done frequently before," he answered; "butnow that we know the way, a trip to the interior by either of the polesmay become a desirable pleasure excursion; in fact it may grow into afashionable fad, who can tell, and the future may develop----!"
He stopped suddenly, and we both became transfixed with horror at thesight that confronted us.
Directly below, but standing on the very pinnacle of one of the icehummocks, was a human being, revealed by our headlight. The man wasfacing us, and waving his arms furiously. Could anything be moreblood-curdling than such a sight in such a place? No ship or sled, norindication of life was visible, save this solitary, deserted creature.The region was impenetrable to human beings; we knew it; it seemedincredible, and yet there it was, a living man, and alone, in thisuntraversed, and untraversable wilderness of ice.
Such solitude, such isolation, such an impossible fact, was like asudden vision of the supernatural.
We had been moving at tremendous speed, but before we had quite passedthis weird object Torrence had slowed down the air ship and a minutelater had brought it to a halt.
We quickly wrapped ourselves in the heaviest eiderdown and fur garmentswe possessed, not daring to open a window for communication untilthoroughly protect
ed, as, of course, we intended taking the poorcreature aboard, and to save his life, were it possible to do so. Whenevery precaution had been taken, we backed the vessel, and loweredourselves to a level with the ice. When the headlight had been broughtto shine against the ice mass, a great white bear lowered himself downthe side and leisurely walked away. He had been alarmed, and hiscuriosity aroused at the sight of our light, hence the mistake! We hada roaring laugh over the absurdity of our error, and then proceeded uponour journey at the former rate of speed.
We passed three ranges of lofty mountains, which looked as if they mustforever bar the entrance to these regions of cold and darkness; for theywere flanked with terrible glaciers and precipices, thousands of feethigh, and sheathed in great ridges of glittering ice.
We rose to fearful altitudes in crossing the summits of these sublimeand awful crags, and wondered if there was no gap or opening at sealevel between them. Doubtless there must have been, but our shortestcourse lay directly over their highest elevations, not being inclined totake the time to explore their topography. By the light of day the viewfrom these heights must have been grand beyond description, but at thetime of year in which we crossed there was little to be seen. It isworthy of record that at an altitude of eleven thousand two hundred andeighty feet we encountered a temperature of ninety-one degrees belowzero Fahrenheit. I cannot conceive that there is a colder spot onearth.
Dawn at last gladdened our eyes, and then the glorious sun becamevisible, though not until we had passed far beyond these unknown regionsof Antarctic ice, but then our own world was about us, and we watchedthe growing day with intense interest. As we sped northward over thegreat Pacific, the air grew warmer, and life again became possible ondeck.
Opening the hatchway we went above, and aired ourselves in the purebreeze of heaven, which blew gently across our bow, and was warm andgrateful.
Then on we flew for days at a more moderate rate, following a directline north over the South Pacific. We intended to make port in SanFrancisco, and then cross the continent in easy stages to New York. Butman proposes and God disposes.
One afternoon, while smoking our cigars on deck, and enjoying the balmyair of the tropics, Torrence was surprised in looking over the rail todiscover that we were much nearer the water than he had supposed. Goingdown immediately to the lower controlling board, he examined theapparatus and readjusted his screws and buttons, and tested the lever,but the vessel did not respond as she ought to have done. We weregradually sinking toward the surface of the water, and nothing we coulddo would check the descent.
"I can't understand it," said Torrence in dismay, "unless the vibratorshave become deranged again, through exposure to the intense cold, andthe ensuing heat. Contraction and expansion must be the cause. It isimpossible to remedy it while in the air. We must seek some islandimmediately. Even then I am afraid, before we shall be able to proceed,that it will be necessary to duplicate some of her parts, which mayrequire the aid of a machine shop. But for the present we must look outfor our lives!"
We took an examination of the sun, and investigated our charts. We weresouth of the tropic of Capricorn, and far removed from those islandgroups that lay to the north and west of us. Indeed we were in a veryticklish place, for to the best of our knowledge there was no landanywhere in our vicinity. After so long and marvelous a voyage, afterhaving encountered such perils of air, water, fire, ice, and land, itdid seem doubly hard to perish in our own world, before even the news ofour discovery could be given to that world.
There were two things which it seemed important to do without delay; thefirst was to throw overboard the rest of our gold quartz, and everyweighty object; the second was to seal up this record as quickly aspossible in some water-tight vessel, in the hope that it might be pickedup, and the result of our remarkable journey become known. I rusheddown into the galley to find a suitable cask for the purpose, but beforeI had secured what I wanted, I heard Torrence calling me above. He haddiscovered a blue line on the horizon which he believed was land. Acareful examination convinced me that he was right, and our efforts wereimmediately directed to reaching it, and to saving our treasure as well.Having a direct goal in sight we now put on all speed, and flew over thewater at the rate of seventy miles an hour, a thing we should havehardly dared to do except under the circumstances, but our lives, ournews, and our cargo were at stake.
Lower and lower we sank toward the waves, but nearer and nearer came theisland. Would we reach it in time? It was a wild, frantic race betweendistance and elevation. The air ship was screwed down to her utmostcapacity in speed, but she was also falling at a rate which made theoutcome doubtful. Having come so far with our treasure we naturallyfelt averse to parting with it. Enough gold quartz to have had anymaterial effect upon the buoyancy of the vessel would probably have beenworth more than a million dollars, and with salvation so near ahead, wewere inclined to make every effort to save it all. Our jewels wereinestimable, and no serious burden, and would, of course, either besaved entirely, or go to the bottom with us.
On we flew, now skimming so close against the waves that we could hearthe spray as it dashed against the bottom, but we were rushing upon theisland with terrific speed. We could see now that it was well clothedwith foliage, and that a clean, flat beach lay before us, where we couldland without difficulty, if we could only reach it. On and on we swept,but each dash of the waves was more ominous. At last a great whiteswell raised us bodily; would we sink with it? No, we were still a fewfeet above the sea, but the water had retarded our progress, and thevessel trembled violently in recovering herself. On again; but nowevery wave was slamming against our bottom, and throwing us up and downwith a violence that seemed as if it must destroy us, if continued formore than a minute. Slam, bang, crash, as we bounded from wave to wave,and steadily settling between them, and yet how far away the islandlooked. We were clinging to the rail for dear life, not daring to gobelow for fear of being drowned, and holding on above lest we be knockedoverboard. Suddenly Torrence left me, and rushed down the ladder at therisk of his life.
"Let's pour a barrel of oil over the water!" he shouted.
I was with him in a minute, and together we emptied the remains of ouroil cask over the water. The effect was instantaneous. The wavessubsided at once, and we found ourselves floating a few feet above thesurface. It now seemed possible to reach the shore. Another minutedecided the question, as we checked speed suddenly, and then droppedgently upon the beach. We had conquered, but where had we landed atlast?
Examining our charts, with which we were amply provided, we discoveredthat the island to which we had escaped was not mentioned among them.It does not belong to any of the archipelagoes in this part of theworld, and is situated hundreds of miles from its nearest neighbor, in aregion clear out of the track of vessels, being in long. 113.40west--lat. 26.30 south. It is uninhabited, and surrounded by a reef ofrocks, and exceedingly dangerous to approach by vessels.
We made a thorough examination of the machinery, and our fears wereconfirmed. While the air ship is intact in every part save one, thatone is just beyond our power to repair. In a mechanical laboratory thisarticle could be replaced in a couple of hours, but here, alas, we havenot the necessary conditions.
"It is a trifle," said Torrence, "and I should have brought a duplicate,but it is a trifle which has quite undone us!"
His words were ominous; more so than I appreciated at first, but as timecontinues to pass without bringing relief, their real significance isforced upon me.
We have been here now for more than a year, having landed upon the 8thof August, 1894, while it is now the 20th of September, 1895.Fortunately our island is well supplied with fruits and fish, or weshould be in even sadder plight than we are. It seems incredible thatwe should have traversed so great a portion of the earth's surface, andskimmed her interior from pole to pole, to find ourselves at laststranded upon this lonely shore, where the sight of a sail has neverrelieved the monotony of our
solitude. It does indeed look as thoughProvidence guarded the knowledge of our wonderful secret from the worldat large, else why should we not have been permitted to carry it alittle further.
I have written this record of our adventures, and shall now seal it upcarefully in a cask and consign it to the waters when the wind blows offshore, in the hope that it will be carried out to the track of vessels,and picked up by some passing craft, and so be the means of bringing usaid, and of conveying the news of our wonderful discovery to the world.
All day the wind has been blowing hard off shore, and the time has cometo start the cask upon its doubtful voyage. Everything is ready; and inless than an hour earth's greatest secret will be cast upon the waters.May it bring us relief.
TORRENCE ATTLEBRIDGE,GURTHRIE ATTLEBRIDGE,
THE END.
* * * * * * * *
*SCIENCE FICTION*
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