As I shot beamingly out into the wholesome light of day a cheer rang out, waking the cold echoes delightfully. More than half the ship’s company was ringing the crevasse mouth, Mr. Rafferty and half-a-dozen sailors hauling at the rope with a vigor that bespoke their entire satisfaction in the job. It was with a mighty tug that they finally yanked me on to the glacier, and I unwound myself and crawled on to the flat ice most thankfully.
Gwen was there with Denvarre, and Vi was standing talking to Gerry, who leaned back luxuriously on a rug, enjoying the sunlight and the smiles of the ladies. Waller, his usual apathetic calm broken by an obvious air of relief, was the first to take my hand, and Lessaution, bandages and all, was ready to weep with a joy that I really believe was unaffected. He had already gleaned from Gerry a slight inkling of the wonders that lay beneath his feet, and was demanding to be immediately lowered into their presence. His gratitude at our marvellous escape had a strong rival for the possession of his soul in the jealousy he felt that this notable discovery should have fallen to any one but himself.
I think Gwen, happy as she may have been in her new-found love for Denvarre, could not altogether have forgotten that she and I, though we had never acknowledged it definitely, had once been more than friends. Her face—I could but note it as I sped up from the mouth of the pit—had been white and anxious, and as I rolled unharmed from the edge to her feet, had flushed rosy red with what I could but hope was joy. She smiled at me as I rose to my feet, and shyly put her hand in mine, her eyes humid and wistful as she felt my answering grasp. But her words were few. “Thank God” was all she whispered, as she drew back to let Lessaution fling himself upon me with a flood of gratulation and inquiry.
We reasoned fluently with the Professor as he escorted us back to the ship, disclaiming any desire to compete with him in the realms of research, and explaining to what simple and unsought chance our discovery was due. No argument, however, would move him from his set purpose. He demanded that he should be lowered without delay into the Mayan hamlet, vociferating his determination with a volubility that drowned all reason in mere noise. Finally we compromised. We put it before him that the launching of the boat was the supreme need of the whole party, and would take all the power and ropes at our disposal. No one could be spared to attend to his gropings in the glacier. If he agreed to postpone his desires till the launch was accomplished, we on our parts solemnly promised that he, first of any, should descend into the mystic solitudes below, solitudes, which we represented, were still practically unexplored. He gave a grudging assent, and thereafter quiet reigned.
Gwen walked between Denvarre and me, and somehow a sense of discomfort seemed to hang about my companions. Despite my thumped understanding I thought that I was bearing myself not ingloriously in the conversational mêlée, but the interest they manifested in my recital seemed to lag. Denvarre was distinctly gloomy, and Gwen was so desperately vivacious that I easily understood that she was not listening, but was occupied with other and unpleasant thoughts. I caught my breath as I wondered if by any possible chance they could have quarrelled, trying with all my might not to dwell on the possibilities that such a matter might have for myself.
They seemed all right again at dinner, both of them, and Baines served a special effort to signalize our great deliverance. A bottle or two of Heidsieck made every one of a cheerful countenance, whatever feelings their hearts may have held, and we speedily forgot the gray shadow of borderland that had hung so heavily over two of us.
After dinner we sat upon the deck in the starlight, and discussed coffee, cigarettes, and the chances of getting away. That these depended utterly on ourselves seemed entirely conclusive. A passing whaler was the tiniest of probabilities, nor would she be likely to sight any signal of ours on these desolate shores. True enough old Crum had a fair idea of our destination, but it would be many months before he would think it his duty to send to look for us. Nothing obviously remained but to attempt the launch of the boat, and decide who should go in it.
It was quite certain that the ladies could not face fifteen or twenty days in an open boat. If they could not go, Garlicke and Denvarre wouldn’t. Gerry was in no fit condition to face hardships after his knocking about, no more was I. The man to take charge then was Waller or Janson.
Waller we felt was the man for the job, but on the other hand we had also a strong feeling that bereft of his society and counsel we should be like children without their nurse. We decided to put the case before him, leaving the decision to his own good sense and knowledge.
I did not think the men would refuse a chance to go if it was offered them. I felt confident that a sufficiency of them would prefer a cruise on open water, even in an open boat, to sitting longshore and hauling at hawsers for the entirely unprofessional object (from a seaman’s point of view) of bracing up what had become a land domicile. This especially would be so if the former procedure brought about a hope of eventually coming to a land of civilization, hard food, and good liquor—we had put them on an allowance of both—and away from horrifying fears of unknown and uncouth dragons. For Mr. Parsons had not been idle in his conversational moments, and the details of our adventure in the cañon had been painted by him with an unsparing wealth of imaginative incident.
Waller picked his men, reporting to me that any one of the ship’s company would have jumped at the chance to go. This matter being settled, it remained to arrange the practicalities of the launch. Not only had we to drop our boat handsomely down a hundred feet of sheer cliff, but we had first to transport her bodily up the steep slopes of the basin before us. Looking at the job made it seem no more likeable; but the next morning we rose betimes and flung ourselves upon the business.
First of all we cut down the yacht’s topmasts and sawed them into rollers. We did this with a light heart, well knowing that we could never want to test our ship’s sailing qualities again. Then with levers we inserted them under the cutter’s keel. This done we began to roll her proudly across the smooth rock floor—a transit we performed with consummate ease—and pointed her bows up the steep slope cliffward.
Over the unavailing wretchedness of the next two days I must draw a veil. Shortly, we gave the business a very ample trial, and were thoroughly beaten at the start. Tug as we would the task was entirely beyond us—vanquished us hip and thigh. The angle, which at first was moderate enough, increased to about forty-five degrees. The weight was about ten tons. If you would like to try the experiment we did, and test our physical inferiority, take to yourself a dozen other fools and try to drag a wheelless railway truck up Arthur’s Seat, for instance, on rollers. Then let me have a written statement of your experiences. If it doesn’t give points to many of the foremost writers of the impressionist school I shall be strenuously surprised.
By the evening of the second day we had progressed about two hundred and fifty yards, and the worst was still to come. We had expended enough perspiration to float the boat, and had just paused to shove in the wedges behind the rollers while we rested. We did this carelessly. They slithered on the smooth stone, the rollers revolved smartly, and before we could arrest her progress with levers, the wretched cutter was half-way back to the bottom again, bumping and straining her timbers viciously.
Gerry sat down and voiced the sentiments of the whole company at this point. He explained that to him it was obvious that no less period of time than a century would suffice to see our labor approach completion. As the span of human life was now ordered, we were unlikely, any of us, to attain to this age. Why then waste time that might just as profitably be spent in twiddling our thumbs? He added comprehensive anathemas on any who should attempt to combat this opinion, and then relapsed into surly silence, while the panting crew waited apathetically for further developments.
Then Waller suggested that our present attempt being a failure, the plan for reducing the launch to sections should be tried. This we had resolved to leave as a last resource, from haunting fears that once dismembered, we might well fail to put her together again, the book of explanations supplied by her makers having been lost. I lifted my head wearily to meet his proposal, when my words were checked in the very utterance.
A dull boom, sullen and muffled at first, but swelling with grating intensity to a thunderous crash, rolled and re-echoed down and around the gray rock basin that surrounded us. The cutter swayed and danced, hammering and splintering the rollers under her. We ourselves fell in unstudied helplessness on the hard stone slabs. The earth quivered in our sight as the heat haze quivers in the June sunlight. A current of hot air swept over us, seeming to swamp us in murkiness. The little loose pebbles sang and clattered as they rolled down the slope, running together and leaping upon one another in little swirls and piles. A giant crag fell from the glacier foot. The roar of it slammed across the hollow ponderously, the splinters scattering on the hard flooring of the lake bed, shooting out and across the smooth granite in a thousand chips of glancing, flashing crystal. The sun glistened upon them gloriously in many-hued, rainbow rays. Behind us a great pinnacle of basalt was flung from the peak, falling on the glacier with the crash of an artillery salute. A moan trembled out from the vitals of the riven glacier, as if from a prisoned soul within. The impulse of the crushed ice billowed out a dark spate of water at its foot.
Awe-inspiring as were these manifestations, they did not affect us as did one slighter, but close at hand. A grate and crack from below made us turn swiftly. The fissure across which our ship was buttressed with walls of boulder gaped widely. Into this sudden cleft the Racoon slipped to the level of her bulwarks; the hawsers strained, tightened, thrummed tensely, and then snapped apart like the flick of returning thongs. The masts whipped to and fro quivering, and the stays shook uneasily. Then with a grinding of copper the ship sagged over and lay still, propped by the ragged edge of the rock.
As we raced back across the lake bed towards her, a round, middle-aged shriek broke the stillness of the after-quiet. Lady Delahay was vomited up from the saloon as Baines and the cook erupted from the galley. She stumbled across the deck, and, with the aid of the valet’s deferential hand, mounted upon the bulwarks. The rocks were now level with the stanchions, and she stepped upon them to sink down thereon in desolate helplessness, Baines hanging over her with well-bred but astonished sympathy.
Gwen and Vi had been upon the heights above us, trying to sketch the line of needle-like pinnacles that crowned the ridge. Gwen, it appeared, had been engaged upon the very one that had fallen upon the glacier, and had been utterly stupefied, as it bowed toward her and then precipitated itself into the depths below. Both of them were dismayed beyond measure by the upheaval and the partial disappearance of the ship, and came flying down the slope, frightened to death by the roar and thrilling of the solid earth, confidently expecting further shocks and total engulfment. We met around Lady Delahay’s prostrate form amid much excitement.
Nothing further occurred, but an oppressive silence seemed to have fallen over the land. The cries of the sea-birds melted out seaward, and not one of them showed far or near. The glacier stream had swept all its volume into that one great spout of a few minutes back, and not a single splash came from the empty opening in the ice. No sound was to be heard from the cliffs, though a minute or two before the fall and return of the surges had risen to us mellow and distinct.
We climbed the slope to look abroad upon the sea. It was oily and glass smooth as quicksilver, and far west the glow of the sunset was beginning to show upon its bosom, but not clear and gleaming. It was lurid and suffused as with vapor mist. The floe was clustered in strange herdings, and ringed beside the larger bergs were floating splinters from their summits. The dark lanes of water between the walls of ice were strangely regular—almost like the parallel lines of irrigation works. The usual motion of the unending swell had ceased utterly.
Suddenly Rafferty gave a shout.
“Saints in glory!” he exclaimed excitedly, “’tis the mountain that’s afire.”
We wheeled round to face the peak behind us. The torn scar left by the unseated pinnacle showed hard and raw in the evening light. From the dip between the snow caps a thin column of smoke was rising into the still windless air, commencing straight as a lance, but mushrooming out over our heads a few hundred feet up as if in weariness of its own weight.
It poured out of some new-hewn chimney in the rock relentlessly slow indeed, and lazily, but with a very business-like steadfastness. A few smuts were wafted to us, falling upon our clothes and faces.
From that moment a very large lump of despair began to settle upon my heart and stayed there. I began to fully realize the nature of the trap we were in. It must take days, work as we would, to get the boat up the slopes, put it together again on the top—even provided we didn’t break it in the process—and drop it in safety down the cliffs. Waller might with very great luck get to the Falklands in three weeks. There might possibly be a ship there which would come to our rescue; very probably there might not. Giving everything the very best possible chance of succeeding, we couldn’t get away from this horrible place under six or eight weeks. On the other hand, Waller might never reach the Falklands at all. Every hazard of sea and ice would be against him. If he got there he might never get back, for the berg might close. Our provisions might fail; the birds and the sea-lions would depart. The ship might sink further into the cleft and take our home and stores with her, for it was of course no more than likely that another earthquake shock would ensue. And above all this, there was the Horror of the cañon prowling around, ready to interrupt our proceedings at any moment. So beneath my breath I cursed the race of Maya, my besotted old ancestor, Crum, Gerry, Lessaution, and many other animate and inanimate influences that had brought about this disastrous expedition, and had landed us in this unspeakable plight. When I had thus softly vented my feelings upon the smut-filled air, forbearing open complaint as a bad ensample for the men, I turned to see what the others were thinking in the matter.
There was a grim look on Gerry’s face. He too, I gathered, was beginning to understand what was meant by that black cloud which now rolled between us and the sun like some monstrous umbrella. Denvarre was looking at Gwen, and she, I gathered from the sudden motion of her face as I turned toward her, had but lately been staring at me, trying, I suppose, to understand what I thought of it. Garlicke eyed the phenomenon through his eye-glass, viewing it as if it was some second-rate performance which had to be endured, but equally to be depreciated. Lessaution gaped up at it open-mouthed; he nodded like a mandarin, showing by his expression his complete satisfaction with these arrangements for further volcanic demonstrations. Vi looked on with placid astonishment, being by now used to vagaries in this strange land of topsy-turvydom, and not wishing to appear unnecessarily surprised. The members of the crew made unanimous use of the common adjective to opine that the smoke was sanguinarily droll, and at that they left it. Waller’s lips were compressed, though moving now and again in what I took to be sotto voce swearings. He shared no doubt with me a silent uneasiness that he preferred not to express.
An earthquake is no joke. One has absolute belief in the stability of the ground beneath one’s feet—a belief which it takes much to destroy. When therefore you see the land shake like an ill-made jelly, when it grins and grimaces at you like a third-rate comedian, the traditions of a lifetime are undermined. That upon which you have planked the whole of your confidence deceives you. Faith is no longer a rock. Belief of every kind is vain. Stability in leaving the earth leaves all else unstable, and your spirit dies within you. Nothing is impregnable or unassailable thereafter. You are, to put it tersely, most horribly afraid.
At any rate I was. For at least six weeks and possibly for a year we were to live under this shadow of death. The cave, that we had chosen as a refuge should the Beast crawl down upon us, had now become a possible death-trap more horrible than his maw itself. The mountain was obviously volcanic, and as obviously was the cleft the result of volcanic action. Suppose it to close when we were in it. Like worms beneath a cart-wheel we should be crushed. Suppose it to suddenly widen. Like worms again should we be dropped into the very bowels of earth to be hopelessly cast away.
So again I cursed my fate and those who had been its arbiters, and assumed a cheerful countenance.
“I think that’s all for the present,” I remarked courteously to the company at large, “so if you have seen all you require perhaps you’ll return to business.”
They turned from their starings at the mountain, and Gerry chucked down the lever he still held with a surly air.
“So we’re to start all over again?” said he.
“Have you anything else to suggest?”
He found no answer but a grunt, and I explained that Captain Waller’s proposition seemed the only feasible one. We must reduce the launch to sections, and carry them one by one to the cliff-top. I invited amendments, but none were forthcoming, and collecting spanners, we turned wearily to work again.
By good luck the lost plan of construction turned up. It was ingenious, but fiendishly intricate, and it was hours before we properly mastered it. Then with wrenches and screwdrivers we flung ourselves upon the boat, covering ourselves with dirt and wretchedness. This, however, only after stupendous wranglings over the writing and the interpretation thereof; in which wordy mêlée Gerry and Lessaution nearly came to blows, sneering over every mortice, and displaying directly opposite views concerning every nut and screw.
Yet within the course of the next day, by superhuman exertions, we managed to dismember the boat, and transport it in sections to the cliff-top. Here we found that the undoing of her was but child’s-play to the putting of her together again. During the next three days language, temper, and filthiness of person bore hideous rule, and discomfort enveloped us like a fog.
Across these things I draw a discreet veil. Suffice it to say that on the evening of the third day, somehow or other, we had got the boat patched together and ready for lowering. Then we transported one of the ship’s windlasses up the rocks, and fixed it firmly with stanchions at the edge of the crags. We made a sort of cradle of hawsers. With immense care, with ropes thickly parcelled to avoid the frayings of the ledges, and with fenders firmly fastened to her sides, we were enabled to lower the cutter by slow degrees to the water, and to see her sit thereon unharmed.
Rafferty slid down to her, and there were lowered to him tow, chisels, and a pot of pitch. With these he contrived to give her an inside calk where her seams leaked worst from her unhandy rebuilding. We left her floating for the night, with two men aboard to keep watch and watch lest the sea rising should dash her against the cliffs, or the floe bear down to nip her against the rocks. Upon the cliff-top two more camped to be within rope’s reach of the boatmen if need arose.
No misfortune happily occurred, and the next day found us toiling up the cliff with stores for her provisioning, and water to fill her breakers. All these we passed down the swinging rope to Rafferty, who bestowed them in her lockers with nautical precision and neatness. Finally by eventide Waller and his six chosen associates descended, and amid the cheers of the assembled company took their places at the oars.
Then with one last encouraging shout, and amid great wavings of handkerchiefs and caps, they pulled away steadily up the channels between the pack-ice.
We watched them as they gradually faded to a black speck among the lanes in the floe and berg, and then disappeared to come into view again on the open water. There we saw their sail rise against the rays of the setting sun, and slant away slowly toward the horizon. At last even this vague dot upon the emptiness of ocean was not, and we turned away to seek the ship in the growing darkness.
There was sadness and an irresistible presentiment of coming evil in my heart; undefined it was; but none the easier borne. It was a silent and joyless meal we took before turning in, and I think every man of us sent up a prayer that night for our comrades on the open main; whose lives bore double burden, in that, if evil befell them, we should all likewise perish.