Chapter Fourteen.
Southward Ho!
So important a matter as the localisation of the Pole having thus been satisfactorily disposed of, it was next resolved to effect a thorough exploration of the entire island, including its circumnavigation. This, with the aid of the Flying Fish, was pretty effectually accomplished in a fortnight, after which the ship returned to her original anchorage in the harbour, on the south side of the island, now named Lethbridge Cove.
Both the forests and the adjacent waters of this favoured hyperborean land were found to be literally swarming with game and other animals, some of which afforded in their flesh a welcome change from the preserved meats with which the ship’s larder was stocked, whilst the chief value of others lay in their “pelts” or skins; and, the hydrographic features of the island having been carefully ascertained and recorded, the party, with the exception of von Schalckenberg, now gave themselves up unreservedly to the pleasures of the chase. The professor’s tastes lay more in the direction of geology, mineralogy, and botany, though he was also an enthusiastic naturalist, and thus, whilst he sallied forth every morning armed with gun, hammer, specimen box for his botanical treasures, and bag for his minerals, the three others went their 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, in quest of ocean spoils.
Thus employed, the short remainder of the Arctic summer swiftly passed away; the sun daily sank nearer and nearer the horizon; the temperature fell; frost made its appearance, hardening the soil beneath the tread and coating the pools and puddles and morasses with an ever-thickening sheet of ice and the vegetation with a delicate tracery of silver; and at 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 the final disappearance of the sun beneath the southern horizon. Some anxiety had been experienced by the travellers for the last few days, as clouds had been gathering in the sky, with every indication of a speedy change of weather, and it was feared that the sight, which they had long been promising themselves, would, after all, be denied them; but at the last moment, or rather at the last hour, fortune proved favourable to them; the cloud-bank broke up along the south-western horizon, the vapours grouped themselves into a series of imposingly picturesque masses, all aflame with the most gorgeous tints of sunset, and from a little after eleven o’clock until shortly after noon the thin golden upper edge of the luminary’s disc was visible sweeping imperceptibly along the purple horizon, until finally, as it reached the point of disappearance, it glimmered feebly for a moment, and, whilst the travellers stood watching it bare-headed, sank out of sight. The Arctic day 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, and ever-deepening twilight; but by the eighth day after the sun’s final disappearance this also had vanished, and night reigned with undisputed sway.
And now, too, winter laid its icy hand with unrelenting grasp upon this beauteous polar island; not, however, to desolate it with storm and howling tempest and the deadly cold with which he visits less favoured climes, but only to add newer and more unaccustomed beauties to the scene. It is true that for the first fortnight after the disappearance of the sun the weather wore a more or less unsettled aspect. The sky became overcast with a canopy of cloud which, light and fleecy at first, steadily increased in density; and at length, on the travellers emerging from the pilot-house one morning after breakfast, they found the motionless air thick with falling snow, which, settling noiselessly down, had already covered the deck to a depth of some three inches. The darkness was of course intense, so much so, indeed, that it was impossible to see for a distance of half the length of the ship, and for all that they could see of the land it might as well have been a hundred miles distant.
This state of things lasted without intermission for the ensuing four days and kept the travellers close prisoners on board their ship. This, however, they in nowise regretted; indeed this short breathing space was positively welcome to them, for they had plenty of work to do; and, shut up 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 unique specimens of natural history and the various choice skins and furs they had already accumulated.
But on the morning of the fifth day they found that another change of weather had taken place, and, on going out on deck, a glorious spectacle greeted their delighted eyes. The snowfall had ceased, the sky was once more cloudless, and the deep sapphire blue was studded with countless myriads of scintillating stars that gleamed with the cold sharp lustre which is seen only in periods of very severe frost. But it was not the brilliant starlight, beautiful though that was, which drew ejaculations of wonder and delight from the lips of the entranced beholders; it was another and a rarer sight which excited their admiration. As they looked, the sky immediately overhead, and for a distance of some twenty degrees all round from the zenith, became tinged with the softest and most delicate rose-colour, bordering which there suddenly appeared a broad circle of flashing rays of light, blood-red at the inner rim of the circle, and merging from thence through the richest purple into brilliant blue, and from thence, through green of every conceivable tint, into a clear dazzling yellow at the points of the rays. These superbly-tinted rays were animated by a constant motion; now withdrawing themselves into the main body of the circle as into a sheath, and anon darting out again until they almost reached the horizon; and so delicately transparent were they that, notwithstanding their brilliant colour, the stars were distinctly perceptible through them. This magnificent spectacle continued for a full hour with ever-increasing brilliancy, suffusing sea and land with a quivering glow of prismatic light, and imparting an aspect of magic, unearthly, indescribable beauty to the scene. Then the colours gradually faded, the flashes became more feeble, and the darting rays ever shorter and shorter, until they finally faded completely away, to be succeeded shortly afterwards by the keen silvery radiance of the young crescent moon which slowly rolled upwards from the horizon, and, shedding her subdued light upon the snow-clad landscape, invested it with an air of bewitching mystery and unreality which was distinctly heightened by the profound impressive silence of the long Arctic night.
With nature thus presenting herself to the travellers in so novel and attractive a guise a month swiftly passed away, during which they tended their traps or prosecuted their hunting expeditions under the glorious light of the aurora, the cold steel-like radiance of the silver moon, or the dim mysterious starlight; alternating these open-air employments with assiduous devotion to their easels, in sufficiently clever but altogether unsuccessful efforts to adequately transfer to canvas the entrancing beauties of the Arctic scenery and phenomena which constantly charmed their delighted eyes.
Toward the end of October, however, the temperature had fallen so low that 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, the party had accumulated so much extra weight in the shape of valuable skins, natural history specimens, and other curiosities, as to seriously affect the buoyancy of the Flying Fish as an aerial ship; and they therefore at last—more than half-reluctantly—came to the determination to desert the enchanted region of the Pole and wend their way southward.
Accordingly, on the morning of the first day of November the anchor was hove up; the vapour was turned into the air and water chambers, producing an almost perfect vacuum; and, rising into the air to an altitude of about ten thousand feet, the Flying Fish turned her nose southward, and, illumined by the dazzling effulgence of the most glorious aurora the voyagers had ever seen, was sent ahead at the utmost limit of her speed.
It was determined to return to England forthwith, and without pause or stoppage of any kind, unless some unforeseen necessity should arise, the object being to dispose of their various acquisitions previous to a renewal of their wanderings. The elevation at starting was therefore maintained, and the ship pursued her headlong flight to the southward with only one man—Mildmay—in the pilot-house to take charge and enact the part of look-out; the remainder busying themselves in packing up their various treasures for transference to safe-keeping on shore. The pilot-house, like every other habitable portion of the ship, was maintained at a comfortable temperature by means of pipes communicating with the vapour-generating chamber in the engine-room below; and, reclining at his ease in a most luxurious lounging chair, the lieutenant had nothing to do but maintain a vigilant lookout through the circular windows, and solace himself with his pipe meanwhile. The ship’s speed through the air was about one hundred and twenty miles per hour; and by their calculations they expected to overtake the sun in about latitude 79 degrees 49 minutes north; if, therefore, the Flying Fish maintained her speed, the sun ought to appear once more above the horizon in four hours thirty-five and a half minutes from the time of starting—Lethbridge Cove being situated in exactly 89 degrees 0 minutes North latitude. It was exactly nine o’clock in the morning when they started; consequently, if their calculations were right, the sun ought to make his appearance at thirty-five and a half minutes past one; and it was this phenomenon for which Mildmay was chiefly watching, his companions being anxious to have the unique experience of seeing the luminary rise an hour and a half past mid-day. And it was for this reason, and in order that they might not on the one hand be taken by surprise by being hurried southward on the wings of a favouring gale, or on the other hand be delayed by a possible adverse one, that the elevation of ten thousand feet 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 the pilot-house as the musical gong of the clock suspended therein struck the hour of one; after which he rose to his feet and took a good look round on all sides. There was, however, nothing to be seen save a vast sea of cloud beneath his feet and on all sides, as far as the eye could reach, softly illumined by the light of the star-studded heavens above. But even as he looked a just perceptible paleness in the deep velvety blue of the sky to the southward attracted his attention. He looked more intently. Yes, there could be no mistake about it; that pallor of the southern sky was undoubtedly the first faint indication of the approaching dawn; and he at once struck two strokes—the appointed signal—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 to lose no scrap of that, to them, now novel sight, sunrise.
Rapidly yet imperceptibly the pale dawn stole upward into the sky; the lustrous stars waxed dim before it, and one by one twinkled out of sight; a faint roseate flush tinged the sky along the horizon, brightened first into a rich orange, then into purest amber, the colours being faintly reflected on the most distant edges of the vast cloud-bank floating below; and at length, just as the hands of the clock marked thirty-five minutes after one, an arrowy shaft of pure white light shot upward 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 disc rose slowly into view, soaring higher and higher until the whole of the glorious luminary was revealed, whilst the rolling sea of cloud above which the Flying Fish skimmed glowed softly beneath his beams with varying tints of the most exquisite opal.
This return to the realms of day had a curious effect upon the travellers. They had not been conscious of the least depression of spirits consequent upon their sojourn of more than a month in the region of uninterrupted night, but it must have affected them, however unconsciously, to no inconsiderable extent, for now, at the first glimpse of sunshine, their spirits rose to an extravagant height; they felt as though they had just effected their escape from some terrible doom, and they were irresistibly impelled to shake hands with each other, to exchange congratulations, and to talk all together, laughing uproariously at even the feeblest attempt at jocularity.
The thoughts of the quartette were, however, speedily diverted by the ever-imperturbable George, who now sounded the gong for luncheon, and the whole party at once trundled below, leaving the ship to take care of herself, as they very safely might, seeing that she was now travelling down the “first” meridian, or that of Greenwich, with no land ahead nearer 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 past adventures, and maturing their further plans, until sunset, when, their short day having come to an end, they once more retired below to complete their preparations for a flying visit to London previous to a resumption of their wanderings.
The question of the disposal of the Flying Fish during the short period of their absence from her had greatly exercised their minds for a time. They were anxious still to avoid for the present, if possible, anything approaching to notoriety or the attraction of public notice to their proceedings, and they felt that this could scarcely be done if they ventured to take so singularly modelled a ship into any British port, however insignificant; moreover, there are very few harbours or havens on the British coast capable of receiving a ship with such an excessive draught of water—namely, forty feet—as that of the Flying Fish. So they finally decided to sink her off the Isle of Wight (first of all, of course, taking the precaution to accurately ascertain the bearings of her berth), and to proceed to Portsmouth in the two boats, taking with them the spoils of their polar expedition, and trusting to their own ingenuity to evade such suspicions and speculations as might be engendered by the somewhat singular circumstances connected with their arrival, especially as the hour—about half-past four o’clock on the following morning—at which they would reach the Wight would be favourable 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 on descending to within about a thousand feet of the level of the sea at midnight, in order to discover, if possible, their whereabouts. But they could see nothing save the lights of a few ships and fishing craft dotted about here and there; the appearance of the latter indicating that they had already approached to within a short distance of the land; nor did they sight anything by which to fix their position until first the light on Flamborough Head and then that on Spurn Point flashed into view out of the murky darkness. Then indeed, having satisfactorily identified those lights, they knew exactly where they were; the course was altered and shaped anew directly for the spot of their intended descent, 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 they surmised to be that situated about the borders of the three counties of Surrey, Hants, and Sussex; and almost immediately afterwards the lights on the forts in progress of construction at Spithead came into view, together with the anchor-lights of two or three men-o’-war in the roadstead, and they knew that the first part of their journey was almost accomplished.
Precisely at half-past four o’clock the Flying Fish took the water about two miles to the eastward of the “Noman” fort, and her occupants at once began the search for a suitable berth for her—a berth, that is to say, in a position where she would not be likely to be discovered by the fishermen, and where the depth of water would be sufficient to permit of the largest man-o’-war passing over her submerged hull without striking upon it. To discover such a spot proved by no means an easy task; but it was accomplished at last, though at a distance considerably farther out to sea than they had bargained for, and at half-past five o’clock her anchor was let go in the selected berth. Cross bearings were then most carefully taken and entered in each of the travellers’ pocket-books, after which the next task was to get their varied spoils into the boats and the boats themselves into the water. This was soon done, and then all hands, including George and the chef, but excluding the professor, entered the boats and shoved off a few fathoms from the ship’s side, where they anchored.
The first faint signs of dawn were just appearing in the eastern sky when it became apparent to those in the boats that the huge bulk of the Flying Fish was disappearing. Steadily but imperceptibly she settled lower and lower in the water until her deck was awash and nothing but her pilot-house remained visible in the dim ghostly light of the early morning. A minute more and this too had disappeared, and, as the waves washed over its top, the baronet carefully lowered over the side of his boat a rope-ladder, well weighted at the bottom and with an unlit electric lamp attached to it in such a position as to hang suspended at a height of about six feet above the bed of
the sea. This lamp was of course attached to a battery in the boat, and as soon as Sir Reginald felt the weights at the foot of the ladder touch bottom he sent the current through the insulated wire, a patch of vivid white light, like a patch of moonlight, immediately shining out beneath the waves and showing that the lantern was properly performing its duty. Then they waited.
Not for very long, however. An interval of perhaps five minutes elapsed, and then a quivering jerky motion became communicated to the rope-ladder, followed a minute later by the appearance of von Schalckenberg in his suit of diving armour. He stepped quietly into the boat, and whilst he busied himself in doffing his glittering panoply, the lamp was extinguished, the ladder hauled inboard, the anchors tripped, 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 Sir Reginald 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 man with whom he had had several previous transactions, and who was consequently pretty well acquainted with him. This facilitated matters greatly, and by half-past eight the duty (a very considerable sum) had been paid and the goods passed, so that nothing further remained but to land everything and have it conveyed to the railway-station for transmission to town. This done the two boats were taken into “The Camber” and put under the care of a trustworthy man, after which the party breakfasted at the “George,” proceeding to town directly afterwards by the twelve-o’clock express.