Our position was dismal indeed. The inexplicable fogs settled around us, or, if the west wind blew—and only for that brief interval when we caught sight of the bewildering landscape below us, had it ceased to blow—drifted over us in endless cloud-like masses. A precipice was before us, how many more were beyond that? And then the return. The longer we thought over it, and turned the angles of possibility to inspection the more hopeless the prospect grew. But again the Gold Belt? A shining lure of the Demon of Death to tempt us to a horrible doom. As Goritz ostentatiously showed it to us it became loathsome, sinister, a delusive snare!
And this led to our great surprise. Goritz wished to go on. He said so. This quiet, reserved, strong man handed back to the Professor his predictions, subscribed to with his own enthusiastic acceptance, and the Professor, pirouette-fashion, had wheeled around in a rather dogged scepticism. I think Hopkins and myself, out of pure dread, favored the return. Goritz had always resisted the quest. The gold bauble was “getting in its fatal work,” whispered Hopkins.
Goritz put it this way: We couldn’t get back. The return trip would be far harder than to progress in our present course. We had no sledge. Everything pointed to success if we could keep on. The land beyond us indicated a great depression, the fogs rolling over us showed an approaching warmer area; the glimpse that had been permitted us was conclusive; once beyond that cloud zone and the realities, the living realities, would begin. This gold belt (he held up the glittering charm that had turned his head) was no relic, its engraving was too fresh, its outlines too sharp; it had been brought where he had found it, it must have come from the west, and the way, practicable for its former wearers, was practicable for us.
“How about a balloon, an aeroplane, anything that flies?” suggested Hopkins. Antoine Goritz became scornful, his French blood often came to the surface. He looked straight at Hopkins, and a frown clouded his face; it did not become him.
“Parbleu vous etes fou, mon frère, que Je crois,
Avec de tels discours vous moquez-vous de moi?”
Hopkins didn’t wince; it wasn’t his fashion.
“Well, Goritz, I’m game for the deal. You can’t put it over me with your parlez-vous. But listen, we’ll never agree on this stake. It’s up to the little Goddess on the Wheel. What do you say?” He tossed something in the air and shouted:
“Fair or Foul?”
“Fair,” called Goritz.