CHAPTER FOURTEEN.
SOUTHWARD HO!
So important a matter as the localisation of the Pole having thus beensatisfactorily disposed of, it was next resolved to effect a thoroughexploration of the entire island, including its circumnavigation. This,with the aid of the _Flying Fish_, was pretty effectually accomplishedin a fortnight, after which the ship returned to her original anchoragein the harbour, on the south side of the island, now named LethbridgeCove.
Both the forests and the adjacent waters of this favoured hyperboreanland were found to be literally swarming with game and other animals,some of which afforded in their flesh a welcome change from thepreserved meats with which the ship's larder was stocked, whilst thechief value of others lay in their "pelts" or skins; and, thehydrographic features of the island having been carefully ascertainedand recorded, the party, with the exception of von Schalckenberg, nowgave themselves up unreservedly to the pleasures of the chase. Theprofessor's tastes lay more in the direction of geology, mineralogy, andbotany, though he was also an enthusiastic naturalist, and thus, whilsthe sallied forth every morning armed with gun, hammer, specimen box forhis botanical treasures, and bag for his minerals, the three others wenttheir several ways, either armed with traps and guns in search of game,or in one of the boats, duly provided with dredger, net, and line, inquest of ocean spoils.
Thus employed, the short remainder of the Arctic summer swiftly passedaway; the sun daily sank nearer and nearer the horizon; the temperaturefell; frost made its appearance, hardening the soil beneath the treadand coating the pools and puddles and morasses with an ever-thickeningsheet of ice and the vegetation with a delicate tracery of silver; andat length the day came when the anchor was lifted and the _Flying Fish_moved some few miles out to sea to enable her occupants to witness thefinal disappearance of the sun beneath the southern horizon. Someanxiety had been experienced by the travellers for the last few days, asclouds had been gathering in the sky, with every indication of a speedychange of weather, and it was feared that the sight, which they had longbeen promising themselves, would, after all, be denied them; but at thelast moment, or rather at the last hour, fortune proved favourable tothem; the cloud-bank broke up along the south-western horizon, thevapours grouped themselves into a series of imposingly picturesquemasses, all aflame with the most gorgeous tints of sunset, and from alittle after eleven o'clock until shortly after noon the thin goldenupper edge of the luminary's disc was visible sweeping imperceptiblyalong the purple horizon, until finally, as it reached the point ofdisappearance, it glimmered feebly for a moment, and, whilst thetravellers stood watching it bare-headed, sank out of sight. The Arcticday was over, and the six months of night and winter had set in. Not,it must be understood, that darkness set in immediately--far from it;for several succeeding days there ensued a weird, delicious, magic, andever-deepening twilight; but by the eighth day after the sun's finaldisappearance this also had vanished, and night reigned with undisputedsway.
And now, too, winter laid its icy hand with unrelenting grasp upon thisbeauteous polar island; not, however, to desolate it with storm andhowling tempest and the deadly cold with which he visits less favouredclimes, but only to add newer and more unaccustomed beauties to thescene. It is true that for the first fortnight after the disappearanceof the sun the weather wore a more or less unsettled aspect. The skybecame overcast with a canopy of cloud which, light and fleecy at first,steadily increased in density; and at length, on the travellers emergingfrom the pilot-house one morning after breakfast, they found themotionless air thick with falling snow, which, settling noiselesslydown, had already covered the deck to a depth of some three inches. Thedarkness was of course intense, so much so, indeed, that it wasimpossible to see for a distance of half the length of the ship, and forall that they could see of the land it might as well have been a hundredmiles distant.
This state of things lasted without intermission for the ensuing fourdays and kept the travellers close prisoners on board their ship. This,however, they in nowise regretted; indeed this short breathing space waspositively welcome to them, for they had plenty of work to do; and, shutup warm and snug on board the _Flying Fish_, with all her saloons,cabins, and corridors brilliantly illuminated by the electric light,they busied themselves in carefully preparing and curing the many uniquespecimens of natural history and the various choice skins and furs theyhad already accumulated.
But on the morning of the fifth day they found that another change ofweather had taken place, and, on going out on deck, a glorious spectaclegreeted their delighted eyes. The snowfall had ceased, the sky was oncemore cloudless, and the deep sapphire blue was studded with countlessmyriads of scintillating stars that gleamed with the cold sharp lustrewhich is seen only in periods of very severe frost. But it was not thebrilliant starlight, beautiful though that was, which drew ejaculationsof wonder and delight from the lips of the entranced beholders; it wasanother and a rarer sight which excited their admiration. As theylooked, the sky immediately overhead, and for a distance of some twentydegrees all round from the zenith, became tinged with the softest andmost delicate rose-colour, bordering which there suddenly appeared abroad circle of flashing rays of light, blood-red at the inner rim ofthe circle, and merging from thence through the richest purple intobrilliant blue, and from thence, through green of every conceivabletint, into a clear dazzling yellow at the points of the rays. Thesesuperbly-tinted rays were animated by a constant motion; now withdrawingthemselves into the main body of the circle as into a sheath, and anondarting out again until they almost reached the horizon; and sodelicately transparent were they that, notwithstanding their brilliantcolour, the stars were distinctly perceptible through them. Thismagnificent spectacle continued for a full hour with ever-increasingbrilliancy, suffusing sea and land with a quivering glow of prismaticlight, and imparting an aspect of magic, unearthly, indescribable beautyto the scene. Then the colours gradually faded, the flashes became morefeeble, and the darting rays ever shorter and shorter, until theyfinally faded completely away, to be succeeded shortly afterwards by thekeen silvery radiance of the young crescent moon which slowly rolledupwards from the horizon, and, shedding her subdued light upon the snow-clad landscape, invested it with an air of bewitching mystery andunreality which was distinctly heightened by the profound impressivesilence of the long Arctic night.
With nature thus presenting herself to the travellers in so novel andattractive a guise a month swiftly passed away, during which they tendedtheir traps or prosecuted their hunting expeditions under the gloriouslight of the aurora, the cold steel-like radiance of the silver moon, orthe dim mysterious starlight; alternating these open-air employmentswith assiduous devotion to their easels, in sufficiently clever butaltogether unsuccessful efforts to adequately transfer to canvas theentrancing beauties of the Arctic scenery and phenomena which constantlycharmed their delighted eyes.
Toward the end of October, however, the temperature had fallen so lowthat ice had begun to form all along the coast-line of Elphinstone Land,and the weather had taken a decided change for the worse. Moreover, theparty had accumulated so much extra weight in the shape of valuableskins, natural history specimens, and other curiosities, as to seriouslyaffect the buoyancy of the _Flying Fish_ as an aerial ship; and theytherefore at last--more than half-reluctantly--came to the determinationto desert the enchanted region of the Pole and wend their way southward.
Accordingly, on the morning of the first day of November the anchor washove up; the vapour was turned into the air and water chambers,producing an almost perfect vacuum; and, rising into the air to analtitude of about ten thousand feet, the _Flying Fish_ turned her nosesouthward, and, illumined by the dazzling effulgence of the mostglorious aurora the voyagers had ever seen, was sent ahead at the utmostlimit of her speed.
It was determined to return to England forthwith, and without pause orstoppage of any kind, unless some unforeseen necessity should arise, theobject being to dispose of their various acquisitions p
revious to arenewal of their wanderings. The elevation at starting was thereforemaintained, and the ship pursued her headlong flight to the southwardwith only one man--Mildmay--in the pilot-house to take charge and enactthe part of look-out; the remainder busying themselves in packing uptheir various treasures for transference to safe-keeping on shore. Thepilot-house, like every other habitable portion of the ship, wasmaintained at a comfortable temperature by means of pipes communicatingwith the vapour-generating chamber in the engine-room below; and,reclining at his ease in a most luxurious lounging chair, the lieutenanthad nothing to do but maintain a vigilant lookout through the circularwindows, and solace himself with his pipe meanwhile. The ship's speedthrough the air was about one hundred and twenty miles per hour; and bytheir calculations they expected to overtake the sun in about latitude79 degrees 49 minutes north; if, therefore, the _Flying Fish_ maintainedher speed, the sun ought to appear once more above the horizon in fourhours thirty-five and a half minutes from the time of starting--Lethbridge Cove being situated in exactly 89 degrees 0 minutes Northlatitude. It was exactly nine o'clock in the morning when they started;consequently, if their calculations were right, the sun ought to makehis appearance at thirty-five and a half minutes past one; and it wasthis phenomenon for which Mildmay was chiefly watching, his companionsbeing anxious to have the unique experience of seeing the luminary risean hour and a half past mid-day. And it was for this reason, and inorder that they might not on the one hand be taken by surprise by beinghurried southward on the wings of a favouring gale, or on the other handbe delayed by a possible adverse one, that the elevation of ten thousandfeet had been selected, this being well within the limits of the_neutral belt_, or zone of motionless air.
Not to be caught napping, Mildmay extinguished the electric light in thepilot-house as the musical gong of the clock suspended therein struckthe hour of one; after which he rose to his feet and took a good lookround on all sides. There was, however, nothing to be seen save a vastsea of cloud beneath his feet and on all sides, as far as the eye couldreach, softly illumined by the light of the star-studded heavens above.But even as he looked a just perceptible paleness in the deep velvetyblue of the sky to the southward attracted his attention. He lookedmore intently. Yes, there could be no mistake about it; that pallor ofthe southern sky was undoubtedly the first faint indication of theapproaching dawn; and he at once struck two strokes--the appointedsignal--upon the great mellow-toned bell which hung in the pilot-house.
The call was promptly answered by the appearance of his three fellow-voyagers, who, abandoning whatever they had in hand, rushed helter-skelter up the saloon staircase and into the pilot-house, anxious tolose no scrap of that, to them, now novel sight, sunrise.
Rapidly yet imperceptibly the pale dawn stole upward into the sky; thelustrous stars waxed dim before it, and one by one twinkled out ofsight; a faint roseate flush tinged the sky along the horizon,brightened first into a rich orange, then into purest amber, the coloursbeing faintly reflected on the most distant edges of the vast cloud-bankfloating below; and at length, just as the hands of the clock markedthirty-five minutes after one, an arrowy shaft of pure white light shotupward into the sky, swiftly followed by another and another; and then,with a dazzling flash of golden light, the upper edge of the sun's discrose slowly into view, soaring higher and higher until the whole of theglorious luminary was revealed, whilst the rolling sea of cloud abovewhich the _Flying Fish_ skimmed glowed softly beneath his beams withvarying tints of the most exquisite opal.
This return to the realms of day had a curious effect upon thetravellers. They had not been conscious of the least depression ofspirits consequent upon their sojourn of more than a month in the regionof uninterrupted night, but it must have affected them, howeverunconsciously, to no inconsiderable extent, for now, at the firstglimpse of sunshine, their spirits rose to an extravagant height; theyfelt as though they had just effected their escape from some terribledoom, and they were irresistibly impelled to shake hands with eachother, to exchange congratulations, and to talk all together, laughinguproariously at even the feeblest attempt at jocularity.
The thoughts of the quartette were, however, speedily diverted by theever-imperturbable George, who now sounded the gong for luncheon, andthe whole party at once trundled below, leaving the ship to take care ofherself, as they very safely might, seeing that she was now travellingdown the "first" meridian, or that of Greenwich, with no land aheadnearer than the Shetland Islands, more than a thousand miles distant.
After luncheon, however, the whole party returned to the pilot-house,where they spent the time smoking and chatting, talking over their pastadventures, and maturing their further plans, until sunset, when, theirshort day having come to an end, they once more retired below tocomplete their preparations for a flying visit to London previous to aresumption of their wanderings.
The question of the disposal of the _Flying Fish_ during the shortperiod of their absence from her had greatly exercised their minds for atime. They were anxious still to avoid for the present, if possible,anything approaching to notoriety or the attraction of public notice totheir proceedings, and they felt that this could scarcely be done ifthey ventured to take so singularly modelled a ship into any Britishport, however insignificant; moreover, there are very few harbours orhavens on the British coast capable of receiving a ship with such anexcessive draught of water--namely, forty feet--as that of the _FlyingFish_. So they finally decided to sink her off the Isle of Wight (firstof all, of course, taking the precaution to accurately ascertain thebearings of her berth), and to proceed to Portsmouth in the two boats,taking with them the spoils of their polar expedition, and trusting totheir own ingenuity to evade such suspicions and speculations as mightbe engendered by the somewhat singular circumstances connected withtheir arrival, especially as the hour--about half-past four o'clock onthe following morning--at which they would reach the Wight would befavourable to the execution of their plan.
The night was intensely dark, with a fresh north-easterly gale blowing,accompanied by frequent rain-squalls, as the voyagers found ondescending to within about a thousand feet of the level of the sea atmidnight, in order to discover, if possible, their whereabouts. Butthey could see nothing save the lights of a few ships and fishing craftdotted about here and there; the appearance of the latter indicatingthat they had already approached to within a short distance of the land;nor did they sight anything by which to fix their position until firstthe light on Flamborough Head and then that on Spurn Point flashed intoview out of the murky darkness. Then indeed, having satisfactorilyidentified those lights, they knew exactly where they were; the coursewas altered and shaped anew directly for the spot of their intendeddescent, and the ship once more soared to her former elevation.
At twenty minutes after four o'clock a.m. a second descent was made,when it was found that they were passing over hilly country which theysurmised to be that situated about the borders of the three counties ofSurrey, Hants, and Sussex; and almost immediately afterwards the lightson the forts in progress of construction at Spithead came into view,together with the anchor-lights of two or three men-o'-war in theroadstead, and they knew that the first part of their journey was almostaccomplished.
Precisely at half-past four o'clock the _Flying Fish_ took the waterabout two miles to the eastward of the "Noman" fort, and her occupantsat once began the search for a suitable berth for her--a berth, that isto say, in a position where she would not be likely to be discovered bythe fishermen, and where the depth of water would be sufficient topermit of the largest man-o'-war passing over her submerged hull withoutstriking upon it. To discover such a spot proved by no means an easytask; but it was accomplished at last, though at a distance considerablyfarther out to sea than they had bargained for, and at half-past fiveo'clock her anchor was let go in the selected berth. Cross bearingswere then most carefully taken and entered in each of the travellers'pocket-books, after which the next task was to get their varied spoilsinto the boats
and the boats themselves into the water. This was soondone, and then all hands, including George and the _chef_, but excludingthe professor, entered the boats and shoved off a few fathoms from theship's side, where they anchored.
The first faint signs of dawn were just appearing in the eastern skywhen it became apparent to those in the boats that the huge bulk of the_Flying Fish_ was disappearing. Steadily but imperceptibly she settledlower and lower in the water until her deck was awash and nothing buther pilot-house remained visible in the dim ghostly light of the earlymorning. A minute more and this too had disappeared, and, as the waveswashed over its top, the baronet carefully lowered over the side of hisboat a rope-ladder, well weighted at the bottom and with an unlitelectric lamp attached to it in such a position as to hang suspended ata height of about six feet above the bed of the sea. This lamp was ofcourse attached to a battery in the boat, and as soon as Sir Reginaldfelt the weights at the foot of the ladder touch bottom he sent thecurrent through the insulated wire, a patch of vivid white light, like apatch of moonlight, immediately shining out beneath the waves andshowing that the lantern was properly performing its duty. Then theywaited.
Not for very long, however. An interval of perhaps five minuteselapsed, and then a quivering jerky motion became communicated to therope-ladder, followed a minute later by the appearance of vonSchalckenberg in his suit of diving armour. He stepped quietly into theboat, and whilst he busied himself in doffing his glittering panoply,the lamp was extinguished, the ladder hauled inboard, the anchorstripped, and the two boats made their way slowly to the westward,heading in for Nettlestone Point and the Solent.
They arrived at Portsmouth about half-past seven o'clock, and SirReginald at once made his way to the Custom House to get the boats'cargoes cleared. He was fortunate enough to find in the collector a manwith whom he had had several previous transactions, and who wasconsequently pretty well acquainted with him. This facilitated mattersgreatly, and by half-past eight the duty (a very considerable sum) hadbeen paid and the goods passed, so that nothing further remained but toland everything and have it conveyed to the railway-station fortransmission to town. This done the two boats were taken into "TheCamber" and put under the care of a trustworthy man, after which theparty breakfasted at the "George," proceeding to town directlyafterwards by the twelve-o'clock express.
The Log of the Flying Fish: A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure Page 14
