But the weather had changed. What is called here the warm wind had blown all day, and at night a hurricane came on. As the adventurers sat smoking after supper, the ice beneath their feet trembled, shook, and then fearful reports bursting on their ears, told them that the sea was cracking in every direction. They had camped on an elevated iceberg of vast dimensions, and were for the moment safe. But around them they heard the rush of waters. The vast Frozen Sea was in one of its moments of fury. In the deeper seas to the north it never freezes firmly—in fact there is always an open sea, with floating bergs. When a hurricane blows, these clear spaces become terribly agitated. Their tossing waves and mountains of ice act on the solid plains, and break them up at times. This was evidently the case now. About midnight our travelers, whose anguish of mind was terrible, felt the great iceberg afloat. Its oscillations were fearful. Sakalar alone preserved his coolness. The men of Nijnei Kolimsk raved and tore their hair, crying that they had been brought willfully to destruction; Kolina kneeled, crossed herself, and prayed; while Ivan deeply reproached himself as the cause of so many human beings encountering such awful peril. The rockings of their icy raft were terrible. It was impelled hither and thither by even huger masses. Now it remained on its first level, then its surface presented an angle of nearly forty-five degrees, and it seemed about to turn bottom up. All recommended themselves to God, and awaited their fate. Suddenly they were rocked more violently than ever, and were all thrown down by the shock. Then all was still.
The hurricane lulled, the wind shifted. snow began to fall, and the prodigious plain of loose ice again lay quiescent. The bitter frost soon cemented its parts once more, and the danger was over. The men of Nijnei Kolimsk now insisted on an instant return; but Sakalar was firm, and, though their halt had given them little rest, started as the sun was seen above the horizon. The road was fearfully bad. All was rough, disjointed, and almost impassable. But the sledges had good whalebone keels, and were made with great care to resist such difficulties. The dogs were kept moving all day, but when night came they had made but little progress. But they rested in peace. Nature was calm, and morning found them still asleep. But Sakalar was indefatigable, and as soon as he had boiled a potful of snow, made tea, and awoke his people.
They were now about to enter a labyrinth of toroses or icebergs. There was no plain ground within sight; but no impediment could be attended to. Bears made these their habitual resorts, while the wolf skulked every night round the camp, waiting their scanty leavings. Every eye was stretched in search of game. But the road itself required intense care, to prevent the sledges overturning. Toward the afternoon they entered a narrow valley of ice full of drifted snow, into which the dogs sank, and could scarcely move. At this instant two enormous white bears presented themselves. The dogs sprang forward; but the ground was too heavy for them. The hunters, however, were ready. The bears marched boldly on as if savage from long fasting. No time was to be lost. Sakalar and Ivan singled out each his animal. Their heavy ounce balls struck both. The opponent of Sakalar turned and fled, but that of Ivan advanced furiously toward him. Ivan stood his ground, axe in hand, and struck the animal a terrible blow on the muzzle. But as he did so, he stumbled, and the bear was upon him. Kolina shrieked; Sakalar was away after his prize; but the Kolimsk men rushed in. Two fired: the third struck the animal with a spear. The bear abandoned Ivan, and faced his new antagonists. The contest was now unequal, and before half an hour was over, the stock of provisions was again augmented, as well as the means of warmth. They had very little wood, and what they had was used sparingly. Once or twice a tree, fixed in the ice, gave them additional fuel; but they were obliged chiefly to count on oil. A small fire was made at night to cook by; but it was allowed to go out, the tent was carefully closed, and the caloric of six people, with a huge lamp with three wicks, served for the rest of the night.
About the sixth day they struck land. It was a small island, in a bay of which they found plenty of drift wood. Sakalar was delighted. He was on the right track. A joyous halt took place, a splendid fire was made, and the whole party indulged themselves in a glass of rum—a liquor very rarely touched, from its known tendency to increase rather than diminish cold. A hole was next broken in the ice, and an attempt made to catch some seals. Only one, however, rewarded their efforts; but this, with a supply of wood, filled the empty space made in the sledges by the daily consumption of the dogs. But the island was soon found to be infested with bears: no fewer than five, with eleven foxes, were killed, and then huge fires had to be kept up at night to drive their survivors away.
Their provender thus notably increased, the party started in high spirits; but though they were advancing toward the pole, they were also advancing toward the Deep Sea, and the ice presented innumerable dangers. Deep fissures, lakes, chasms, mountains, all lay in their way; and no game presented itself to their anxious search. Day after day they pushed on—here making long circuits, there driven back, and losing sometimes in one day all they had made in the previous twelve hours. Some fissures were crossed on bridges of ice, which took hours to make, while every hour the cold seemed more intense. The sun was now visible for hours, and, as usual in these parts, the cold was more severe since his arrival.
At last, after more than twenty days of terrible fatigue, there was seen looming in the distance what was no doubt the promised land. The sledges were hurried forward—for they were drawing toward the end of their provisions—and the whole party was at length collected on the summit of a lofty mountain of ice. Before them were the hills of New Siberia; to their right a prodigious open sea: and at their feet, as far as the eye could reach, a narrow channel of rapid water, through which huge lumps of ice rushed so furiously, as to have no time to cement into a solid mass.
The adventurers stood aghast. But Sakalar led the way to the very brink of the channel, and moved quietly along its course until he found what he was in search of. This a sheet or floe of ice, large enough to bear the whole party, and yet almost detached from the general field. The sledges were put upon it, and then, by breaking with their axes the narrow tongue which held it, it swayed away into the tempestuous sea. It almost turned round as it started. The sledges and dogs were placed in the middle, while the five men stood at the very edge to guide it as far as possible with their hunting spears.
In a few minutes it was impelled along by the rapid current, but received every now and then a check when it came in contact with heavier and deeper masses. The Kolimsk men stood transfixed with terror as they saw themselves borne out toward that vast deep sea which eternally tosses and rages round the Arctic Pole: but Sakalar, in a peremptory tone, bade them use their spears. They pushed away heartily; and their strange raft, though not always keeping its equilibrium, was edged away both across and down the stream. At last it began to move more slowly, and Sakalar found himself under the shelter of a huge iceberg, and then impelled up stream by a backwater current. In a few minutes the much wished-for shore was reached.
The route was rude and rugged as they approached the land; but all saw before them the end of their labors for the winter, and every one proceeded vigorously. The dogs seemed to smell the land, or at all events some tracks of game, for they hurried on with spirit. About an hour before the usual time of camping they were under a vast precipice, turning which, they found themselves in a deep and sheltered valley, with a river at the bottom, frozen between its lofty banks, and covered by deep snow.
"The ivory mine!" said Sakalar in a low tone to Ivan, who thanked him by an expressive look.