It was the end of October before we were back in London again, and had begun our preparations for the expedition to which I had pledged myself. Crum gave me no financial excuse for departing from my promise. In his management things had looked up during my uncle’s tenure of the title, and I was a deal better off than I had believed possible. Farms were in good condition and well let. Bog and heather in Ireland had found tenants for shooting, if not for grazing. Investments of accumulations had prospered marvellously. And above all was the wonderful collection of coins which was to be sold as soon as it could be accurately catalogued. I was well to do, it seemed, when all I had expected was a bare escape from penury.
“Your lordship need have no fear of lack of funds,” said the old man, as he finished listening to the tale which I had to tell on our return from America. “The twentieth part of what the collection will fetch in the open market will be ample to meet every expense. And if your lordship will permit me, I should be glad to help you in your choice of a ship. This is no case for a mere yacht.”
“You, Mr. Crum!” I questioned amazedly, “pardon my surprise; but the practice of the law does not as usual induce experience in ship-rigging or building.”
“No,” said the old fellow meekly, “not as a rule. But in this particular instance it has been one old lawyer’s hobby. My pleasure all my life has been yachting, my lord, and I have many friends who go down to the sea in ships.”
This was a bolt from the blue and no mistake, and a blessing which I was not slow to avail myself of. I gave Crum a free hand with the greatest delight, and the result was in every way admirable. Not only did he bring to his task a wealth of finicky little details such as are dear to the yachtsman’s heart, but took to him retired master mariners and other sea-going veterans of his acquaintance, who possessed more than his amateur capacity for judging good lines and fittings. And thus did they bring their kindly toil to a conclusion.
The Racoon, formerly of the American whaling trade, barque built, and with stout timbers and bulkheads to resist ice, was for sale. With cautious advances Crum became her purchaser. She was of five hundred tons burden, had an auxiliary screw with one hundred and eighty indicated horse-power, and was reputed a first-class sea-boat. We had the greasy try-works swept from her decks, and a skylight fixed therein, which gave light to a spacious saloon partitioned out of the barrel deck below. Aft this we fashioned a cosy smoke-room, round which were four cabins for ourselves and the captain. Other cabins below the main-deck housed the mates and the engineer, while forward the crew and stokers had the best of quarters. We took aboard much provision, supplied us by a famous firm of caterers, together with liquid in due proportion. Coal we took a large stock of; not that we expected to steam more than we could help, but we wished to be independent of coaling stations. Mr. Waller of the R.N.R. and the merchant marine came with many certificates of various sorts to be our captain, and Mr. Janson of the same service to be his second in command. Mr. Rafferty, sometime of Cork City, was boatswain, and the engineer, stokers, and deck-hands were all British; the first whole-colored, single-tongued crew that Waller had ever commanded, as he feelingly remarked.
Under these favorable auspices we sailed from Southampton on November 22nd, and thus the adventure to the Great South Wall was fairly started.
I am not going to give you the wearisome repetitions which my log shows as indications of what monotonous things we did during the next six weeks. We had the usual toss as we threshed our way across the Bay, we took the usual pleasure in sighting the Canaries and Madeira, and we shipped the usual turtle at Ascension. After the fogs we had left in England, we found the eternal heat of the line bearable for about six hours, and then cursed it with the usual malevolence after experiencing it for six hours more. We got very much bored with each other’s company, and found conversation languish after the first week. We got huffy with one another more than once, and finally settled down to the voyage, shaking, each of us, into his allotted place automatically. And we grew fat and bilious.
Lessaution was by far the most energetic. His curiosity was abnormal, and he left no inquiry unmade that would tend to satisfy it. He was as sick as it is possible for a full-bodied Frenchman to be sick for the first three or four days, and after that seemed to renew his youth. Not that he was by any means daunted during the period named. He crawled about the deck in paroxysms of the most terrible description, interrupting the crew with queries on every and any conceivable subject; he attempted to mount the bridge, and was hurled back disconsolate as a green sea thundered aboard; he ventured into the cook’s department and endeavored to complete that worthy’s education during the height of a gale; finally he was rescued from imminent death on the bed-plates of the engine-room, where he was explaining the superiority of French boilers to the contemptuous chief, Eccles. When the winds and the sea had calmed down, he proceeded to bring out his gear which he had accumulated for the adventure, and overhaul it with pardonable pride.
He had certainly not forgotten anything that was likely to be of any possible use. Ice-axes there were in profusion. Climbing-irons, portable ladders, ropes, chisels. These to be used in the attack upon the precipice of rock or ice which he convinced himself would lie between us and our desire. He had also provided for further feats when the first difficulties had been surmounted. Toboggans or sleds he had two or three of; no less than six pairs of snow-shoes, and, wonder of wonders, a pair of skates!
He explained when taken to task on the subject that he belonged to that gathering of the elect the Cercle des Patineurs, though as yet he had not attained the style which he desired to affect, and was in consequence unable to cut the figure he would like in the beau monde. Now he thought an opportunity of instructing himself in this health-giving and aristocratic pursuit would be afforded him. He would be able to win the plaudits of all on his return, for, let us mark, he had brought with him a book of self-instruction on the subject, and would perfect himself in intricacies unbelievable. Yes, it would not do to spend the whole of the time on industry; we must not let our search deprive us of all thoughts of relaxation. At times he would unbend—he would sport. As an exercise this skating, let us remember, was without a peer.
Careless of our rude pleasantries, he proceeded to unveil further treasures. He had a perfect armory of offensive and defensive weapons. Bowie-knives were sown throughout his baggage like plums in a pudding. Revolvers decorated his cabin walls in pairs. A rifle flanked a shot-gun on each side of his cot. A tomahawk was precariously affixed to the deck above, whence it fell perilously every time we broached to between the great Atlantic surges. It was evident he was prepared for the worst that the future might have in store.
We rallied him gently on his warlike preparations, but he met us with logical arguments. It was understood, was it not, that we went to discover a new people. Let the memory of the old conquistadores be in our hearts. By the magic of their perfected weapons they had prevailed upon the ancestors of this very people we went to seek, and from them we might learn a lesson. It was not to be expected that we should be greeted peacefully at first. A display of force—only a display, let us certainly hope—would be necessary. He, Emil Saiger Lessaution, would give that display, and inaugurate a reconstruction of their mediæval empire. Met by a dispute of his data, in that we refused to acknowledge the possibility of any such race surviving in the desolation of the Antarctic, he turned our flank by remarking happily, that at any rate animals of a ferocious disposition would abound, and would need to be captured or quelled. He promised himself many trophies of fur and feather, which would make the eyes of members of the shooting club he patronized bulge out with envy.
Gerry had brought a pair of guns and a rifle, with some vague idea of sealing, and found encouragement therein from Mr. Rafferty, who had sailed in whalers. I gave it to be understood, however, that I did not purpose wasting time in the chase, and should not allow us to stay our course short of our destination. One circumstance, however, came to light, which turned the laugh strongly against the Frenchman. It was while he was examining with a depreciatory air Gerry’s guns, that it suddenly occurred to him that with all his store of weapons, he had no means of loading them. In the excitement of departure he had left all such practicalities as cartridges to the last, being filled with the loftiest ideas for using them. The consequence was that he was absolutely dependent on Gerry’s slender store, and Gerry, with all the good nature in the world, found that the barrels were of different bore, his being twelve and the Professor’s sixteen. After which discovery we had a morning’s unavailing gnashing of teeth, and then the little man forgot his troubles in a new excitement.
This was the first ice. We had sighted Bovet’s Island a few days before, when we saw it—a solemn, stately ice-hill, floating along island-like on a calm and unrippled sea. There’s something rather overpowering and awesome about a big berg. The deathly blue-whiteness of it, the silence that broods about it, the great grottoes that pierce its sides like tombs of the lost, the glassy radiance that does not cheer but repels one—these things have a very depressing effect on me. I realized for the first time the sort of business we were going in for, and confessed to myself that a very little of this sort of thing would go a very long way. But it acted on the Professor’s spirits in quite another manner.
We had rigged the crow’s-nest the day before, and he was up in it before you could wink an eye. He leaned out over the edge of this eyrie, waggling his hands ecstatically, and singing songs of victory, welcoming this indication that we were approaching our goal with a hubbub that resounded indecently among the echoes of the bergs.
That was the only one we saw that evening, but next morning there were rows and rows of them, great pyramids of sheeny white, coming along in stately columns and companies, overhanging the blue sea, crashing now and again against each other, and hustling and grinding the floe-ice that dotted the wide sea-lanes between.
We steamed cautiously down the aisles, dodging from one sheet of open water to another. Now and again some unsteady pinnacle, loosening from the side of its parent berg in the heat of the sun, would plunge thunderously down the smooth slopes, and roar into the sea, sending great waves of curling foam to right and left, the rainbow rays dancing in the flying spray. The cascades poured continually from basin to basin in the laps of the ice-hills, tinkling and plashing as they fell. Here and there, on the bare, smooth base of some mighty piece of glacier, rows of seals lay and basked in the sun, staring at us as we slid by them with stupid, curious, brown eyes. Every now and again a sea-lion rose with a snort from some pool beneath the shadow of the shining crags, and played and tossed happily among the ripples. The birds, tame as chickens, unaccustomed to the sight of men, flew and swung and whirled and circled above us in clouds, tern wailing to tern, and gull to gull in plaintive outcry. And over all the sun shone with the strength of the Antarctic summer, now just beginning in its full vigor and brightness.
It certainly was an uplifting day, and quite swept out of my head the despondent horrors of the evening before. I climbed to the crow’s-nest with Lessaution, and stayed beside him there hour after hour, drinking in all the glories of the scene, and listening lazily to his babble, taking pleasure in the mere joy of living.
We rolled slowly down the lessening passages all that day, and at sunset lay to with springs on our cables, for the floe-ice surged upon us ceaselessly, making it too dangerous to charge in among the pack without the help of daylight. In fact, we had to keep watch and watch about and fend off with poles, as the great splinters tangled round us, and ride out and back more than once as a berg moved upon us ponderously.
With the dawn we were under steam again, and wound our way in and out and about till, at mid-day, a shout from aloft proclaimed land in sight. And then we saw it. Far away, gray and shadowy through the haze it ran across the horizon, a long wall of rock or ice-faced cliff, reaching from east to west and dying into the dimness of the ice-strewn sea.
As we drew nearer, down the long corridors between the floes, it seemed to grow higher and more implacable at every mile. Sheer, ledgeless, and ice-smooth it was, never an approach or opening to its summit visible.
The shadows beneath hung duskly over the ripples, making the blue of the outer ocean seem to have an edge of mourning on its brightness. Here and there a berg clanged and butted against it restlessly, grinding away huge masses of its flanks in showers of twinkling splinters.
Along its sea-level the pack-ice heaved, eternally smoothing and planing its surface. About its face the sea-birds swirled, dipping and shrilling in their clouds. From many a little channel on its summit the rivulets from the melting glaciers fell in sparkling cascades, like the swishing tails of a stabled squadron. And far beyond it, smiting up haughtily into the empty blue, a giant range of mountains reared their heads, grim, white, and glancing in the sunlight.
We slowed when we were within a mile of it, and then began to wear a way slowly along parallel to the land, waiting till we should see some sign of a break or cranny in the relentless cliff. But never a sign of one was there. Early in the afternoon we raised islands to the northeast, and threw the lead, finding fifteen fathoms. We crept into the channel which ran between this archipelago and the mainland, and found a larger space of open water. Here, then, at Lessaution’s earnest request I anchored, and dropped a boat down for him; with a crew of six we put off, and rowed down the narrow, changing passages towards the crags.
The little Frenchman was sanguine that a nearer investigation would show a means of scaling the heights, but try as we would, and strain our eyes, as we did, to the uttermost, no vestige of a split or crevice in those endless walls of rock could we see. We rowed and rowed, but the result was ever the same. The sea-lanes between the floating lumps of floe stretched endlessly across the sea like the meshes of a spider’s web. We seemed to grope in an eternal maze, which had no appointed outlet. Only now and again could we approach the wall of ice and stone that overhung us. We had to be on guard continuously. The pack would spring and close like the jaws of a trap, and we had to back and row, and row and back, without cessation, to avoid its ever-waiting grip. One very sharp escape we had. We were lying on our oars, while the Professor examined some of the lichen which covered the cliff in patches, when we were suddenly aware, that what a moment before had been a sheet of water, clear for an acre around, was a fast thinning streak of sea. There was a yell from Rafferty, who steered, and then by backing furiously we managed to crawl into a pool between two sturdy bergs, and wind our way out into the less crowded channels. But as we saw the floe surge down upon the rock, and grate and grind upon it lingeringly, scoring away its own edges by the ton, we shuddered to think what an eggshell our boat would have been between that mighty hammer and that granite anvil.
That day was but the precursor of many. The yacht, with banked fires, perpetually corkscrewed her way along about a mile from shore, and day by day we took our boat and wandered continually in the shadow of the frowning wall. In Lessaution’s breast hope burnt eternally, but only to be quenched at night. His plans were numerous, and some of them ludicrously ingenious. He suggested that a kite should be flown with a knotted rope attached, which might perchance catch in some crevice on the top, and permit him to give us a gymnastic display. He wondered if the carpenter could not manufacture a hundred-foot ladder, and then anchoring the good ship Racoon below the precipice, enable us to place the highest rung against the top. He even proposed that Gerry should throw his cartridges into the common stock—this I am convinced was partly from jealousy at Gerry’s owning these useful articles, which he had forgotten—that they should be opened, and that the resulting powder should be used to blast a way from point to point, and thus a path be won over these disgraceful rocks at which he shook his fist perpetually.
These futile proposals meeting the contempt they deserved, he became gloomy and morose, hinting strongly that our hearts were not really in this quest, and affirming that he, with his unquenchable French valor, was perfectly prepared to be left upon an iceberg with such provision as we could spare, if we thought it advisable to give up the adventure through our want of spirit.
After about three weeks of this sort of thing I ventured to interpose. I explained to him carefully that I did not purpose giving up the expedition altogether, but that I must plead for an interval in it. I affirmed mendaciously that I had arranged with the worthy Crum to call at the Falkland Isles in case there should be matters of importance to be telegraphed or otherwise sent—I had not the least idea if there was a telegraph station, and had a notion the post went once a year—and I must beg to be allowed to proceed there for this purpose, to re-coal, and to get further store of provision.
The unfortunate little man lamented desperately. Once let us get away when we were thus on the spot, and it was inevitable that we should never return. Might we not have one more week—nay, a day? That very evening as we knocked off work he had viewed a break in the top-line of these unbending crags, of which he had the brightest hopes. How could we find the spot again? He must implore—he must entreat.
For once I was adamant. I explained that if we were to be detained here by any accident with our slender supply of fuel and provision, things might be very awkward. I showed how necessary it was for a man in my position to be in touch with his lawyer every few months. I reiterated my assurance that we should return, using every oath and affirmation that I thought convincing. But it was a sorrow-stricken face that the poor little man hung over the stern the next morning as we turned our prow northwards, and the cliffs drew down into the veil of the haze.
Gerry had at first shown unbounded astonishment at this sudden change of plan, but during my discussion with the Professor a light seemed to strike him. He retired to the saloon, and through the skylight I saw him consulting a manuscript note or two which I could have sworn were in a feminine hand. He came on deck with an unclouded brow.
“To-day’s the 29th, isn’t it?” he queried cheerily. Then turning to Waller he demanded, “How long shall we take to steam to Port Lewis, captain?”
“About a week, sir,” responded that functionary readily, and my young friend faced me with a grin splitting his ingenuous countenance.
“You old humbug,” he chuckled. “Coal indeed; provisions running short, are they? Go on,” and on we went.