Beyond the Great South Wall: The Secret of the Antarctic

by Frank Savile

She glanced up at me again with a queer little smile that tried to cover the catch of her voice.

“I don’t know that I was thinking of—all,” she said, and turned away to join the others as they began to wander back towards the ship, and I strode beside her, fighting my passionate impulses in silence. For no doubt she had meant it for a reminder. Denvarre was the thought of her heart now that possible disaster hung over us, and I, in my blundering way, wanted to shove myself into an equality with him. I chewed the cud of this reflection as we all strolled down the slope, and the bitter hope that the end might come as she had pictured it almost crept into my heart, so far outside the bounds of common sense does the fever of jealousy carry one. But I’m thankful to say that my English birthright of self-possession came back to me within a score of strides, leaving me rational again.

I explained—and the others found it remarkably easy to understand—that it would be folly to think of sleeping aboard again that night. We must take up our residence on the cliff where we had prepared our shelter. So up the ledges of the rock pyramid we scrambled, and lodged ourselves in the tarpaulined crevices at the top. We mostly slept, I believe, but I was restless. For I had realized only too well that the great smoke pall that overhung us and made long the night was Death’s Shadow indeed.

As the dawn began to filter in under the fog of dust, I woke and strode out to see how fared the world of fire and ice. A great hush had fallen with the livid morning light. The thunderous boom of the crater had ceased, and from above came only the distant purr and simmer of undying fires. The boil and roar of active eruption had died down. The great smoke curtain stretched away in a long wreath inland, carried before the cool sea breeze. The heavy sulphur mist had lightened with the same fresh draught, and the gulls had returned and were clamoring overhead in their hundreds. The sea lay in purple splendor, save where it was broken by the soot-begrimed floe. The swish of ripples on the cliff-foot was peaceful as the drip of a well-bucket.

I glanced down to where our ship lay. She seemed to have slipped over yet further in the night. A soft mist clung about her, and I puzzled myself to think how vapor could rise from barren and solid stone. It was dissolving upward as I watched, but ever forming anew. Then I understood that it was coming out of the fissure—the steam, no doubt, of some underground geyser. The carcass of the great whale that had been stranded by the volcanic wave had slidden down the incline of smooth rock almost into the centre of the basin. I reflected with dissatisfaction that the stench of this offal so close to our headquarters would be by no means pleasant.

My eyes wandered to the cliff-top where we had stood the night before, dwelling upon it with half-painful, half-pleasurable reminiscence. How sweet Gwen had looked, and how unattainable. I began the everlasting fight with my inner self that was new and old every morning, thrusting forward to my soul’s attention every possible argument why I should think of her no more, and doing so naturally with the same pain and the same enjoyment as much as ever.

Into the midst of my musings came a sudden jar of unfamiliarity as I stared at the edge of the crags. I blinked unbelievingly. A black breadth of shadow intersected the rocks as if a knife had carved them rigidly to the line. I rubbed my eyes. There was no doubt about it. A clean-cut cleft was in the rocks, some twenty feet broad. How deep I could not tell.

I clambered down the ledges softly from hold to hold, avoiding noise that the others might have their fill of healthful sleep. I crossed the bare flat between me and the new-made fissure, and stood upon the edge. I peered in.

The gash was driven deep into the bosom of the cliff, reaching to within twenty feet of the tide-line. A lump or two of granite had fallen from the parting edges and lay in the nip of the angle below. As I looked, one of them slipped in the vice-like hold, and settled nearer the bottom. A few seconds later another did the same. Then I understood that the gap was widening before me as clay cracks in the June sunshine.

I hung over the pit, gazing into it with hopeful eyes. Would the cliff be riven to its base, and the sea be let in upon us? Then, by Jove, we’d have the old Racoon afloat again. We should escape from this land of desolation like rats from an opened trap. Into a slow opening like this the sea would pour gently. It would not overwhelm the ship with a sudden cascade. Such luck would be too stupendous—I assured myself of it most determinedly. Yet—yet—what a joyous awakening it would be for my companions if so outrageous a thing could come about. How melodramatically we should sweep out into the free spread of waters beyond!