THE GODDESS OF ATVATABAR.
CHAPTER I.
A POLAR CATASTROPHE.
I had been asleep when a terrific noise awoke me. I rose up on mycouch in the cabin and gazed wildly around, dazed with the feelingthat something extraordinary had happened. By degrees becomingconscious of my surroundings, I saw Captain Wallace, Dr. Merryferry,Astronomer Starbottle, and Master-at-Arms Flathootly beside me.
"Commander White," said the captain, "did you hear that roar?"
"What roar?" I replied. "Where are we?"
"Why, you must have been asleep," said he, "and yet the roar wasenough to raise the dead. It seemed as if both earth and heaven weresplit open."
"What is that hissing sound I hear?" I inquired.
"That, sir," said the doctor, "is the sound of millions of flyingsea-fowl frightened by the awful noise. The midnight sun is darkenedwith the flight of so many birds. Surely, sir, you must have heardthat dreadful shriek. It froze the blood in our veins with horror."
I began to understand that the _Polar King_ was safe, and that we wereall still alive and well. But what could my officers mean by theterrible noise they talked about?
I jumped out of bed saying, "Gentlemen, I must investigate this wholebusiness. You say the _Polar King_ is safe?"
"Shure, sorr," said Flathootly, the master-at-arms, "the ship liesstill anchored to the ice-fut where we put her this afthernoon. She'sall right."
I at once went on deck. Sure enough the ship was as safe as if inharbor. Birds flew about in myriads, at times obscuring the sun, andnow and then we heard growling reverberations from distant icebergs,answering back the fearful roar that had roused them from their polarsleep.
The sea, that is to say the enormous ice-pack in which we lay, heavedand fell like an earthquake. It was evident that a catastrophe of nocommon character had happened.
What was the cause that startled the polar midnight with such unwontedcommotion?
Sailors are very superstitious; with them every unknown sound is a cryof disaster. It was necessary to discover what had happened, lest thecourage of my men should give way and involve the whole expedition inruin.
The captain, although alarmed, was as brave as a lion, and as forFlathootly, he would follow me through fire and water like the braveIrishman that he was. The scientific staff were gentlemen ofeducation, and could be relied upon to show an example of bravery thatwould keep the crew in good spirits.
"Do you remember the creek in the ice-foot we passed this morning,"said the captain, "the place where we shot the polar bear?"
"Quite well," I said.
"Well, the roar that frightened us came from that locality. Youremember all day we heard strange squealing sounds issuing from theice, as though it was being rent or split open by some subterraneanforce."
The entire events of the day came to my mind in all their clearness. Idid remember the strange sounds the captain referred to. I thoughtthen that perhaps they had been caused by Professor Rackiron's shellof terrorite which he had fired at the southern face of the vast rangeof ice mountains that formed an impenetrable barrier to the pole. Themen were in need of a change of diet, and we thought the surest way ofgetting the sea-fowl was to explode a shell among them. The face ofthe ice cliffs was the home of innumerable birds peculiar to theArctic zone. There myriads of gulls, kittiwakes, murres, guillemots,and such like creatures, made the ice alive with feathered forms.
The terrorite gun was fired with ordinary powder, and although wecould approach no nearer the cliffs than five miles, on account of thesolid ice-foot, yet our chief gun was good for that distance.
The shell was fired and exploded high up on the face of the crags. Theeffect was startling. The explosion brought down tons of the frostymarble. The debris fell like blocks of iron that rang with a piercingcry on the ice-bound breast of the ocean. Millions of sea-fowl ofevery conceivable variety darkened the air. Their rushing wingssounded like the hissing of a tornado. Thousands were killed by theshock. A detachment of sailors under First Officer Renwick brought inheavy loads of dead fowl for a change of diet. The food, however,proved indigestible, and made the men ill.
We resolved, as soon as the sun had mounted the heavens from hismidnight declension, to retrace our course somewhat and discover thecause of the terrible outcry of the night. We had been sailing forweeks along the southern ice-foot that belonged to the interminableice hills which formed an effectual barrier to the pole. Day after daythe _Polar King_ had forced its way through a gigantic floe ofpiled-up ice blocks, floating cakes of ice, and along ridges of frozenenormity, cracked, broken, and piled together in endless confusion. Wewere in quest of a northward passage out of the terrible ice prisonthat surrounded us, but failed to discover the slightest opening. Ithad become a question of abandoning our enterprise of discovering theNorth Pole and returning home again or abandoning the ship, and,taking our dogs and sledges, brave the nameless terrors of the icyhills. Of course in such case the ship would be our base of suppliesand of action in whatever expedition might be set on foot for polardiscovery.
About six o'clock in the morning of the 20th of July we began to workthe ship around, to partially retrace our voyage. All hands were onthe lookout for any sign of such a catastrophe as might have causedthe midnight commotion. After travelling about ten miles we reachedthe creek where the bear had been killed the day before. The man onthe lookout on the top-mast sung out:
"Creek bigger than yesterday!"
Before we had time to examine the creek with our glasses he sung out:
"Mountains split in two!"
Sure enough, a dark blue gash ran up the hills to their very summit,and as soon as the ship came abreast of the creek we saw that therange of frozen precipices had been riven apart, and a streak of darkblue water lay between, on which the ship might possibly reach thepolar sea beyond.
Dare we venture into that inviting gulf?
The officers crowded around me. "Well, gentlemen," said I, "what doyou say, shall we try the passage?"
"We only measure fifty feet on the beam, while the fissure is at leastone hundred feet wide; so we have plenty of room to work the ship,"said the captain.
"But, captain," said I, "if we find the width only fifty feet a fewmiles from here, what then?"
"Then we must come back," said he, "that's all."
"Suppose we cannot come back--suppose the walls of ice should begin toclose up again?" I said.
"I don't believe they will," said Professor Goldrock, who was ournaturalist and was well informed in geology.
"Why not?" I inquired.
"Well," said he, "to our certain knowledge this range of ice hillsextends five hundred miles east and west of us. The sea is here overone hundred and fifty fathoms deep. This barrier is simply acongregation of icebergs, frozen into a continuous solid mass. It isquite certain that the mass is anchored to the bottom, so that it isnot free to come asunder and then simply close up again. My theory isthis: Right underneath us there is a range of submarine rocks or hillsrunning north and south. Last night an earthquake lifted thissubmarine range, say, fifty feet above its former level. The enormousupward pressure split open the range of ice resting thereon, and,unless the mountains beneath us subside to their former level, theserent walls of ice will never come together again. The passage willbecome filled up with fresh ice in a few hours, so that in any casethere is no danger of the precipices crushing the ship."
"Your opinion looks feasible," I replied.
"Look," said he; "you will see that the top of the crevasse is widerthan it is at the level of the water, one proof at least that mytheory is correct."
The professor was right; there was a perceptible increase in the widthof the opening at the top.
I SIGNALLED THE ENGINEER FULL SPEED AHEAD, AND IN ASHORT TIME WE CROSSED THE ICE-FOOT AND ENTERED THE CHASM.]
To make ourselves still more sure we took soundings for a mile eastand west of the chasm, and found the professor's theory of a submarinerange of hills correc
t. The water was shallowest right under the gap,and was very much deeper only a short distance on either side. Isaid to the officers and sailors: "My men, are you willing to enterthis gap with a view of getting beyond the barrier for the sake ofscience and fortune and the glory of the United States?"
They gave a shout of assent that robbed the gulf of its terrors. Isignalled the engineer full speed ahead, and in a short time wecrossed the ice-foot and entered the chasm.
It could be nothing else but an upheaval of nature that caused therent, as the distance was uniform between the walls however irregularthe windings made. And such walls! For a distance of twenty miles wesailed between smooth glistening precipices of palaeocrystic ice risingtwo hundred feet above the water. The opening remained perceptiblywider at the top than below.
After a distance of twenty miles the height gradually decreased untilwithin a distance of another fifty miles the ice sank to the level ofthe water.
The sailors gave a shout of triumph which was echoed from the rampartsof ice. To our astonishment we found we had reached a mighty field ofloose pack ice, while on the distant horizon were glimpses of bluesea!