“In Krocker Land, Mr. Hopkins” this ceremonial gravity was met by a severe, deferential attention on Hopkins’ part that was perfect—“we may expect to meet a concentrated reflexion of the palearctic and the neoarctic faunas. Along the coast there will be whales, walrus, seal, bear, the shores will be tenanted by the eider duck; and snipe, geese, ducks, ptarmigans, plover, will be found inland, with the reindeer, the fox, hare, and the musk ox, and—” here the Professor paused with a deliberation intended to impress us—“and I should not be surprised to meet with the American bald headed eagle.”
We all shouted, and the Professor hid his face and his satisfaction in his sandwich. But Hopkins accepted the challenge unflinchingly:
“Good, Professor. If the American eagle is up there, it certainly is God’s country, and a white man can live in it!”
CHAPTER IV
Krocker Land Rim
On the fourth day came another change, for in these haunts of the snow gods and the ice gods the shadow of storm darkens quickly, and if these deities descend to earth they wrap themselves thickly in shades and mists and white trailing togas, or else they just blow upon the earth their coldest breath, killing all human life, lest they be seen of men. That strange Arctic hush, the misty light over everything, that grayish white light caused by the reflexion from the ice being cast high into the air against masses of vapor, that Nansen has described, encompassed us. A mist, a fog, rose later, or else descended, and Goritz said we were near land, in which I concurred. Our excitement was intense. Was the great revelation to be vouchsafed?
The fog of fogs grew, advancing upon us from the four points of the compass, rising around us from the water like spectres, descending from the skies in soft, insensible folds, buried in the thickening nebula, until, we could hardly see an arm’s length in front of the boat. Then a chill came with it, light breezes from the northwest (“From land,” said Goritz) and then as if some resistance from the east was roused into action, another tempest gathered there, rushing ravenously upon us with a blind rage, with wrack and cloud, with rain and snow, the last interference of the elements to destroy us, before the secret of the north was revealed—a senseless protest, for their madness only flung us swiftly forward to the forbidden coasts.
The “Pluto” plunged and rolled; her rounded, swollen bottom made her an easy prey to the balloting waves, and unless she could be kept in the wind her overturn seemed certain with ourselves spilled into the distracted waters. It was hard to do this, hard to stick to her deck at all, when every now and then some vicious poke sent her across, and we would cling like barnacles to rope or rail or stanchion. The tiller was jerked from Goritz’s hand and its arm dealt him a blow that almost disabled him. I was pitched headlong on the forward deck and narrowly escaped rolling overboard; some of the cargo aboveships slipped its fastenings and was lost, threatening the dislocation of everything. This danger was too serious, and Hopkins and I did our best to avert it, but do what we could or might, the load was crumbling away before our eyes, loosened from its fastenings by the fierce storm. Box after box disappeared in the gloom. The dogs were hustled into the cabin, whence their howls and terrified whines issued like the cries of lost souls. We were now pretty well alarmed, and our predicament strongly resembled the prelude to complete annihilation.
Suddenly the Professor shouted, “The ice—the ice again!” and the next instant we were pinned in a pack of formidable blocks that thundered around us, lodged on our deck, and beat into ruins, as the waves lurched or hurled them over us, the frail battlement of boxes which contained our supplies. My heart sank within me. EVERYTHING GONE! Not quite. There was something left in the cabin, but on that raging waste of waters—? The question stuck in my throat. In that instant I seemed separated, sundered from all the others, the concentrated agony of my terror—for terror black and paralyzing it was—robbed me almost of consciousness. Almost as in a trance I heard Hopkins cry, “Look! Look!”
Something happened. Actually it was a meteorological phenomenon brought about by the proximity of mountain masses perhaps; to my mind it seemed like the visible extension of the hand of God to pluck us from destruction. Above us appeared a bright spot that was widening rapidly; the motion within it was apparent, and the velocity of the atmospheric rotations within it must have been almost incalculable. It was becoming a monstrous orifice into which poured the abominable chaos that was overwhelming us; its enormous vortex swallowed up the storm, transferred in its outrageous coursing from earth to heaven. The deity of Krocker Land favored our approach. He had rebuked, repelled, dissipated the tempest.