We now headed straight for the North Cape, which we reached in about five days from London. We passed the Lofoten isles, the Vest fiord, Tromsoe, Hammerfest, and other points of beauty and interest along this marvelous coast, without stopping at any of them, and landed upon the northernmost point of Europe without accident. On this desolate headland we decided to make our first landing, to overhaul the machinery, stretch our legs, and have a general pow-wow on Mother Earth before proceeding further.
An elevated plain, lopped off at one end by a wall of granite, hundreds of feet high, and overlooking the sea, stood ready to receive us. No human habitation is visible, but thousands of pigeons living in the crannies of the cliff were frightened at our approach, and flew about wildly in all directions. Above this plain we halted, and then slowly began our descent.
At the water level on the east is a steamboat landing, where the Olaff Kyrre stops once or twice during the summer for the benefit of tourists who find their way to the top by a winding path cut in the face of the wall. Thence to the northern cliff is a level walk of over a mile across this plain, along which a wire is stretched to guide those who happen to be caught in a fog, which at times is very dense and sudden.
This plain afforded the isolation we sought, and with a slow and steady movement we descended upon it. We touched the ground so lightly that I was not aware of our landing until Torrence threw out the ladder and stepped over. I followed immediately, and then we sent up a shout of triumph for the success that had so far attended our journey. We walked around the air ship, admiring her from every point of view, and then went away to see how she looked at a distance. She was perfect! The grandest thing ever constructed; the most powerful engine for the advance of man's material welfare ever executed. Torrence made a careful examination of her working parts. Not a screw or bearing was out of place; and not withstanding the way we had speeded her on occasions, she was none the worse for it. She was carefully oiled, and where necessary lubricated with graphite, and we had the satisfaction of knowing that she was in quite as good condition as on leaving London.
"I am willing to trust my life in her across the frozen sea!" said Torrence, observing her with intense admiration.
"Now is the time to decide if you're not," I answered; "though for my part I believe she is safer than dry land!"
"That is exactly my idea," said he, "although, if you should feel inclined to change your mind, there is another chance at Spitzbergen, where we shall stop again before the final leap."
"I have not the slightest intention of doing so, old boy, in fact I am quite as anxious to get to the pole as you are; and strange as it may seem I feel safer in the air ship than standing here."
We were unanimous in our determination to go to the pole, and I will guarantee that no expedition ever started for there with so good a prospect of reaching it, or with greater comforts than we had.
We cooked our supper near the edge of the cliff overlooking the Arctic Ocean, and we both felt that it was a solemn occasion, for we should soon be placing an impassable gulf between ourselves and the land of human habitations, and entering the great solitudes of the unexplored North.