Awe-inspiring as were these manifestations, they did not affect us as did one slighter, but close at hand. A grate and crack from below made us turn swiftly. The fissure across which our ship was buttressed with walls of boulder gaped widely. Into this sudden cleft the Racoon slipped to the level of her bulwarks; the hawsers strained, tightened, thrummed tensely, and then snapped apart like the flick of returning thongs. The masts whipped to and fro quivering, and the stays shook uneasily. Then with a grinding of copper the ship sagged over and lay still, propped by the ragged edge of the rock.
As we raced back across the lake bed towards her, a round, middle-aged shriek broke the stillness of the after-quiet. Lady Delahay was vomited up from the saloon as Baines and the cook erupted from the galley. She stumbled across the deck, and, with the aid of the valet’s deferential hand, mounted upon the bulwarks. The rocks were now level with the stanchions, and she stepped upon them to sink down thereon in desolate helplessness, Baines hanging over her with well-bred but astonished sympathy.
Gwen and Vi had been upon the heights above us, trying to sketch the line of needle-like pinnacles that crowned the ridge. Gwen, it appeared, had been engaged upon the very one that had fallen upon the glacier, and had been utterly stupefied, as it bowed toward her and then precipitated itself into the depths below. Both of them were dismayed beyond measure by the upheaval and the partial disappearance of the ship, and came flying down the slope, frightened to death by the roar and thrilling of the solid earth, confidently expecting further shocks and total engulfment. We met around Lady Delahay’s prostrate form amid much excitement.
Nothing further occurred, but an oppressive silence seemed to have fallen over the land. The cries of the sea-birds melted out seaward, and not one of them showed far or near. The glacier stream had swept all its volume into that one great spout of a few minutes back, and not a single splash came from the empty opening in the ice. No sound was to be heard from the cliffs, though a minute or two before the fall and return of the surges had risen to us mellow and distinct.
We climbed the slope to look abroad upon the sea. It was oily and glass smooth as quicksilver, and far west the glow of the sunset was beginning to show upon its bosom, but not clear and gleaming. It was lurid and suffused as with vapor mist. The floe was clustered in strange herdings, and ringed beside the larger bergs were floating splinters from their summits. The dark lanes of water between the walls of ice were strangely regular—almost like the parallel lines of irrigation works. The usual motion of the unending swell had ceased utterly.
Suddenly Rafferty gave a shout.
“Saints in glory!” he exclaimed excitedly, “’tis the mountain that’s afire.”
We wheeled round to face the peak behind us. The torn scar left by the unseated pinnacle showed hard and raw in the evening light. From the dip between the snow caps a thin column of smoke was rising into the still windless air, commencing straight as a lance, but mushrooming out over our heads a few hundred feet up as if in weariness of its own weight.
It poured out of some new-hewn chimney in the rock relentlessly slow indeed, and lazily, but with a very business-like steadfastness. A few smuts were wafted to us, falling upon our clothes and faces.
From that moment a very large lump of despair began to settle upon my heart and stayed there. I began to fully realize the nature of the trap we were in. It must take days, work as we would, to get the boat up the slopes, put it together again on the top—even provided we didn’t break it in the process—and drop it in safety down the cliffs. Waller might with very great luck get to the Falklands in three weeks. There might possibly be a ship there which would come to our rescue; very probably there might not. Giving everything the very best possible chance of succeeding, we couldn’t get away from this horrible place under six or eight weeks. On the other hand, Waller might never reach the Falklands at all. Every hazard of sea and ice would be against him. If he got there he might never get back, for the berg might close. Our provisions might fail; the birds and the sea-lions would depart. The ship might sink further into the cleft and take our home and stores with her, for it was of course no more than likely that another earthquake shock would ensue. And above all this, there was the Horror of the cañon prowling around, ready to interrupt our proceedings at any moment. So beneath my breath I cursed the race of Maya, my besotted old ancestor, Crum, Gerry, Lessaution, and many other animate and inanimate influences that had brought about this disastrous expedition, and had landed us in this unspeakable plight. When I had thus softly vented my feelings upon the smut-filled air, forbearing open complaint as a bad ensample for the men, I turned to see what the others were thinking in the matter.