Chapter Thirteen.
More about Freezing Powders—“Perseverando”—Dining in the Sky—The Descent of the Crater.
A black man in a barrel of treacle is said by some to be emblematical of happiness. So situated, a black man without doubt enjoys a deal of bliss, but I question very much if it equals the joy poor Freezing Powders felt when he found himself once more safe on board the Arrandoon, and cuddled down in a corner with his old cockatoo. (It may be as well to state here that neither the negro boy nor the cockatoo is a character drawn at random; both had their counterparts in real life.) What a long story he had to tell the bird, to be sure!—what a “terrible tale,” I might call it!
As usual, when greatly engrossed in listening, the bird was busily engaged helping himself to enormous mouthfuls of hemp-seed, spilling more than he swallowed, cocking his head, and gazing at his little black master, with many an interjectional and wondering “Oh!” and many a long-drawn “De-ah me!” just as if he understood every word the boy said, and fully appreciated the dangers he had come through.
“Well, duckie?” said the bird, fondly, when Freezing Powders had concluded.
“Oh! der ain’t no moh to tell, cockie,” said the boy; “but I ’ssure you, when I see dat big yellow bear wid his big red mouf, I tink I not hab much longer to lib in dis world, cockie—I ’ssure you I tink so.”
Freezing Powders was the hero for one evening at all events. McBain made him recite his story and sing his daft, wild songs more than once, and the very innocence of the poor boy heightened the general effect. He was a favourite all over the ship from that day forth. Everybody in a manner petted him, and yet it was impossible to spoil him, for he took the petting as a matter of course, but always kept his place. His duties were multifarious, though light—he cleaned the silver and shined the boots, and helped to lay the cloth and wait at table. He went by different names in different parts of the ship. Ralph called him his cup-bearer, because he brought that young gentleman’s matutinal coffee, without which our English hero would not have left his cabin for the world. Freezing Powders was message-boy betwixt steward and cook, and bore the viands triumphantly along the deck, so the steward called him “Mustard and Cress,” and the cook “Young Shallots,” while Ted Wilson dubbed him “Boss of the Soup Tureen;” but the boy was entirely indifferent as to what he was called.
“Make your games, gem’lams,” he would say; “don’t be afraid to ’ffend dis chile. He nebber get angry I ’ssure you.”
When Freezing Powders had nothing in his hand his method of progression forward was at times somewhat peculiar. He went cart-wheel fashion, rolling over and over so quickly that you could hardly see him, he seemed a mist of legs, or something like the figure you see on a Manx penny.
At other times “the doctor,” as the cook was invariably called by the crew, would pop up his head out of the fore-hatch and bawl out,—
“Pass young Shallots forward here.”
“Ay, ay, doctor,” the men would answer. “Shalots! Shalots! Shalots!”
Then Freezing Powder’s curly head would beam up out of the saloon companion.
“Stand by, men!” the sailor who captured him would cry; and the men would form themselves into a line along the deck about three yards apart, and Freezing Powders would be pitched from one to the other as if he had been a ball of spun-yarn, until he finally fell into the friendly arms of the cook.
About a week after the bear adventure De Vere, the aeronaut, was breakfasting in the saloon, as he always did when there was anything “grand in the wind,” as Rory styled the situation.
“Dat is von thing I admire very mooch,” said the Frenchman, pointing to a beautifully-framed design that hung in a conspicuous part of the saloon bulkhead.
“Ah,” said Allan, laughing, “that was an idea of dear foolish boy Rory. He brought it as a gift to me last Christmas. The coral comes from the Indian Ocean; Rory gathered it himself; the whole design is his.”
“It’s a vera judeecious arrangement,” said Sandy McFlail, admiringly.
The arrangement, as the doctor called it, was simple enough. Three pieces of coral, in the shape of a rose, a thistle, and shamrock, encased—nay, I may say enshrined—in a beautiful casket of crystal and gilded ebony. There was the milk-white rose of England and the blood-red thistle of Scotland side by side, and fondly twining around them the shamrock of old Ireland—all in black.
Here was the motto underneath them—
“Perseverando.”
“There is nothing like perseverance,” said Allan. “The little coral insect thereby builds islands, ay, and founds continents, destined to be stages on which will be worked out or fought out the histories of nations yet unborn. ‘Perseverando!’ it is a grand and bold motto, and I love it.”
The Frenchman had been standing before the casket; he now turned quickly round to Allan and held out his hand.
“You are a bold man,” he said; “you will come with me to-day in de balloon?”
“I will,” said Allan.
“We vill soar far above yonder mountain,” continued De Vere; “we vill descend into the crater. We vill do vat mortal man has neever done before. Perseverando! Do you fear?”
“Fear?” said Allan; “no! I fear nothing under the sun. Whate’er a man dares he can do.”
“Bravely spoken,” cried the Frenchman. “Perseverando! I have room for two more.”
“Perseverando!” says Rory. “Perseverando for ever! Hoorah! I’m one of you, boys.”
Ralph was lying on the sofa, reading a book. But he doubled down a leaf, got up, and stretched himself.
“Here,” he said, quietly, “you fellows mustn’t have all the fun; I’ll go toe, just to see fair play. But, I say,” he added, after a moment’s pause, “I don’t suppose there will be any refreshment-stalls down there—eh?”
“No, that there won’t,” cried Allan. “Hi! Peter, pack a basket for four.”
“Ay, ay, sir?” said Peter.
“And, I say, Peter—” This from Ralph.
“Yes, sir,” said the steward, pausing in the doorway.
“Enough for twenty,” said Ralph. “That’s all, Peter.”
“Thank’ee, sir,” said Peter, laughing; “I’ll see to that, sir.”
It was some time before De Vere succeeded in gaining Captain McBain’s consent to the embarkation of his boys on this wild and strange adventure, but he was talked over at last.
“It is all for the good of science, I suppose,” he said, half doubtfully, as he shook hands with our heroes before they took their places in the car. “God keep you, boys. I’m not at all sure I’ll ever see one of you again.”
The ropes were let go, and upwards into the clear air rose the mighty balloon.
“Here’s a lark,” said Allan.
“A skylark,” said Rory. “Let us sing, boys—let us sing as we soar, ‘Rule Britannia, Britannia rules the waves.’”
Standing on the quarter-deck, and gazing upwards, McBain heard the voices growing fainter and fainter, and saw the balloon lessening and lessening, till the song could no longer be heard, and the balloon itself was but a tiny speck in the heaven’s blue. Then he went down below, and busied himself all day with calculations. He didn’t want to think.
Meanwhile, how fared it with our boys? Here they were, all together, embarked upon as strange an expedition as it has ever probably been the lot of any youth or youths to try the chance of. Yet I do not think that anything approaching to fear found place in the hearts of one of them. The situation was novel in the extreme. With a slow and steady but imperceptible motion—for she was weightily ballasted—the “Perseverando,” as they had named the balloon, was mounting skywards. There was not the slightest air or wind, nor the tiniest of clouds to be seen anywhere, and down beneath and around them was spread out a panorama, which but to gaze upon held them spell-bound.
There was the island itself, with its rugged hills looking now so strangely flattened and so grotesquely contorted; to the west and to the north lay the white and boundless sea of ice, but far to the eastward and south was the ocean itself, looking dark as night in contrast with the solid ice.
But see, yonder, where the ice joins the water, and just a little way from its edge, lie stately ships—two, three, five in all can be counted, and their sails are all clewed; and those innumerable black ticks on the snow, what can they be but seals, and men sealing?
“Don’t you long to join them?” said Allan, addressing his companions.
“I don’t,” replied Rory; “in spite of the cold I feel a strange, dreamy kind of happiness all over heart and brain. Troth! I feel as if I had breakfasted on lotus-leaves.”
“And I,” said Ralph, “feel as I hadn’t breakfasted on anything in particular. Let us see what Peter has done up for us.”
And he stretched out his hand as he spoke towards a basket.
“Ah?” cried the Frenchman, “not dat basket; dat is my Bagdads—my pigeons, my letter-carriers! You see, gentlemen, I have come prepared to combat eevery deeficulty.”
“So I see,” said Ralph, coolly undoing the other basket; “what an appetite the fresh air gives a fellow, to be sure!”
“Indeed,” says Rory, archly, “it is never very far from home you’ve got to go for that same, big brother Ralph. But it’s hardly fair, after all, to try to eat the Bagdads.”
“Remember one thing, though,” replied Ralph; “if it should occur to me suddenly that you want your ears pulled you cannot run away to save yourself.”
“Indeed,” said Rory, “I don’t think that the frost has left any ears at all on me worth pulling, or worth speaking about either.”
“Ha?” cried Allan, “that reminds me; I’ve got those face mufflers. There! I’ll show you how to put one on. The fur side goes inside—thus; now I have a hole to breathe through, and a couple of holes for vision.”
“And a pretty guy you look!”
“Oh! bother the looks,” responded Ralph, “let us all be guys. Give us a mask, old man.”
They did feel more comfortable now that they had the masks on, and could gaze about them without the risk of being frozen.
The cold was intense; it was bitter.
“I’d beat my feet to keep them warm,” said Rory, “if I didn’t think I’d beat the bottom of the car out. Then we’d all go fluttering down like so many kittywakes, and it’s Captain McBain himself that would be astounded to see us back so soon.”
“Gentlemen,” said the Frenchman, “we are right over the mouth of the crater. I shall now make descent, with your permission. Then it vill not be so cold.”
“And is it inside the volcano,” cries Rory, “you’d be taking us to warm us? Down into the crater, to toast our toes at Vulcan’s own fireside? Sure, Captain De Vere, it is splicing the main-brace you’re after, for you want to give us all a drop of the craytur.”
“Oh!—oh!” this from Ralph. “Oh! Rory—oh! how can you make so vile a pun? In such a situation, too!”
The gentlest of breezes was carrying the balloon almost imperceptibly towards the north and west; meanwhile De Vere was permitting a gradual escape of gas, and the Perseverando sunk gradually towards the mountain-top, the mouth of which seemed to yawn to swallow them up. There was a terrible earnestness about this daring aeronaut’s face that awed even Rory into silence.
“Stand by,” he whispered; for in the dread silence even a whisper could be heard,—“stand by, Allan, to throw that bag of ballast over the moment I say the word.”
Viewing it from the sea of ice, no one could calculate how large is the extent of the crater on the top of that mighty mountain cone. It is perfectly circular, and five hundred yards at least in circumference, but it is deeper, far and away, than any volcanic crater into which it has ever been my fortune to peer. Even when the great balloon began to alight in its centre the gulf below seemed bottomless. The Perseverando appeared to be sinking down—down—down into the blackness of darkness. To the perceptions of our heroes, who peered fearfully over the car and gazed below, the gulf was rising towards them and swallowing them up.
I do not think I am detracting in the slightest from their character for bravery, when I say that the hearts of Ralph, Rory, and Allan, at all events, felt as if standing still, so terrible was the feeling of dread of some unknown danger that crept over them. As for De Vere, he was a fatalist of the newest French school, and a man that carried his life in his hand. He never attempted, it is true, any feat which he deemed all but impossible to perform; but, having embarked on an enterprise, he would go through with it, or he cared not to live.
Strange though it may appear, it is just men like this that fortune favours. Probably because the wish to continue to exist is not uppermost in their minds, the wish and the hope to achieve success is the paramount feeling.
Still slowly, very slowly, sunk the balloon, as if unwilling to leave her aerial home. And now a faint shade of light begins to mingle with the darkness beneath them; they are near the bottom of the crater at last.
“Stand by once again,” whispers De Vere, “to throw that anchor over as soon as I tell you.”
A moment of awful suspense.
“Now! now!” hisses De Vere.
Two anchors quit the car at the same time—one thrown by the aeronaut himself, one by Allan, and the ropes are speedily made fast. The balloon gives an upward plunge, the cables tighten, then all is still!
“Ha! ha! she is fast!” cried De Vere, now for the first time showing a little excitement. “Oh, she is a beauty! she has behave most lofely! Look up, gentlemen!—look up!—behold the mighty walls of blue ice that surround us!—behold the circle of blue sky dat over-canopies us!—look, the stars are shining!”
“Can it be night so soon?” exclaimed Allan, in alarm.
“Nay, nay, gentlemen,” said the enthusiastic Frenchman, “be easy of your minds. It is not night in the vorld outside, but here it is alvays night; up yonder the stars shine alvays, alvays, when de clouds are absent. And shine dey vill until de crack of doom. Now gaze around you. See, the darkness already begins to vanish, and you can see the vast and mighty cavern into which I have brought you. If my judgment serves me, it extends for miles around beneath de mountain. There!—you begin to perceive the gigantic stalactites that seem to support the roof!”
“Ralph,” cried Rory, seizing his friend by the hand, “do you remember, years and years ago, while we all sat round the fire in the tartan parlour of Arrandoon Castle, wishing we might be able to do something that no one, man or boy, had ever done before?”
“I do—I do,” answered Ralph.
“Descend with me here, then,” continued Rory, “and let us explore the cavern. Only a little, little way, captain,” he pleaded, seeing that De Vere shook his head in strong dissent.
“You know not vat you do ask,” said De Vere, solemnly. “Here are caves within caves, one cavern but hides a thousand more; besides, there are, maybe, and doubtless are, crevasses in de floor of dis awful crater, into which you may tumble, neever, neever to be seen again. Pray do not think of risking a danger so vast.”
The day wore slowly to a close; many and many an anxious look did McBain take skywards, in hopes of seeing the returning balloon. But the sun set, tipping the distant hills with brightest crimson, twilight died away in the west, and one by one shone out the stars, till night and darkness and silence reigned over all the sea of ice.
He went below at last. His feelings may be better imagined then described. He tried to make himself believe that nothing had occurred, and that the balloon had safely descended in some snow-clad valley, and that morning would bring good tidings. But for all this he could not for the life of him banish a dread, cold feeling that something terrible had occurred, the very novelty of which made it all the more appalling to think of. Presently the mate entered the saloon.
“What cheer, Stevenson! Any tidings?”
“A pigeon, sir,” replied the mate, handing the bird into the captain’s grasp.
McBain’s hands shook as he had never remembered them shake before, as he undid the tiny missive from the pigeon’s leg.
It ran briefly thus:—
“We are detained here in the crater all night. Do not be alarmed. To-morrow will, please Providence, see us safely home.”