CHAPTER ELEVEN.
AN INTERESTING RELIC.
They issued from the ship through the trap-door in her bottom; and nosooner did they find themselves in the open air than an almostuncontrollable impulse seized them to go back again. The contrastbetween the warm comfortable temperature of the ship's interior and thebitter piercing cold without was so great that at first the latter feltquite unendurable. They, however, persevered; and, after perhaps tenminutes of intense suffering, the severe exercise of scrambling over therotten slippery hummocks somewhat restored their impeded circulation,and they began to feel that, perhaps, after all, they might be able todo something toward the execution of their self-imposed task. The mereact of breathing, however, continued to be exceedingly painful; and whenthey at length reached the spot of which they were in search, they wereable to fully realise, for the first time in their lives, the incredibledifficulties attendant upon the exploration of the regions within thepolar circles.
On a nearer inspection of the two poles they proved to be stout sparsabout the thickness of a man's leg; and, from the appearance in each ofa sort of sheave-hole, Lieutenant Mildmay declared his conviction thatthey were the masts of a small ship. They were very rotten, however,and, if Mildmay's surmise was indeed correct, the craft must have beenunder the ice for a very long time. The mere suggestion was enough tofully arouse their curiosity; and, forgetful for the moment of theintense cold, to which they were already in a measure growingaccustomed, they set to work with a will plying pick-axe and shovel uponthe ice with such small dexterity as they possessed.
The task to which they had devoted themselves was, after all, not a verydifficult one, the ice, especially that of ancient formation, yieldingreadily before the vigorous strokes of their picks; and it soon becameevident that they could work to greater advantage by dividing themselvesinto two gangs of two each; one gang breaking up the ice with the pick,and the other shovelling away the debris. The low temperature, however,made the work very exhausting; and by lunch time they had only succeededin excavating a hole some twenty-five feet long--or the distance betweenthe two masts--by six feet wide and four feet deep. They had widenedthis excavation by a couple of feet and sunk it some four feet deeper bysix o'clock that evening; and then they knocked off work for the day,returning to the _Flying Fish_ stiff, and exhausted with their unwontedexertions, but with more voracious appetites than they ever rememberedexperiencing before.
In this way they laboured day after day for ten days; being greatlyhindered in their operations by frequent showers of snow, which filledup their excavation almost as rapidly as they made it, until, beginningto lose patience at their slow progress, they resolved to run a littlerisk, and the professor was induced to employ a minute portion of hisexplosive compound in blowing away the sides of the pit to a sufficientextent to allow of the snow drifting out with the wind instead oflodging in the bottom. This engineering feat was successfullyaccomplished without apparent damage to the object they sought to bringto light; and, thus encouraged, they further cautiously employed thecompound in breaking up the ice, with the triumphant result that, on theevening of the thirteenth day before giving up work, they succeeded inuncovering the deck of a craft measuring eighty feet long over all bysixteen feet beam. They were now intensely excited and elated, as theyhad every reason to believe that--judging from certain peculiarities ofbuild which had already revealed themselves--they had discovered a mostinteresting relic.
The next morning was most fortunately as fine as they could reasonablyexpect it to be in that stormy and desolate region; and, commencing workat an early hour--having, moreover, by this time acquired quite arespectable dexterity in the use of their tools--they succeeded by lunchtime in laying completely bare the entire hull of what proved mostunmistakably to be a veritable ancient Viking ship.
This intensely interesting relic was, as already stated, eighty feetlong by sixteen feet beam; with a depth of hold in midships, as they nowfound, of eight feet; she must therefore have been at the time of herlaunch quite a noble specimen of naval architecture. She was of coursebuilt of wood, and was beautifully moulded fore and aft; her stem andstern-posts were carried to a height of five feet above her rail; andthe former was finished off with a rather roughly hewn but vigorouslymodelled horse's head, whilst the latter terminated in an elaboratelycarved piece of scroll-work. She was fully decked, with a sort ofmonkey-poop aft, about two and a half feet high and twenty feet long,beneath which was her principal cabin. Her bulwarks and rail were verysolidly constructed; the former being pierced with rowlock holes forsixteen oars or sweeps of a side, in addition to holes abaft, one oneach side of, and near the stern-post, for the short broad-bladedsteering paddles. Both of these paddles, together with twenty-threeoars and two square sails, shaped somewhat like lugs and still attachedto their yards, were found stowed fore and aft amidships on the vessel'sdeck. They were all in an excellent state of preservation, as were alsothe lower portions of the masts; indeed it was only that portion ofthese spars which had been long exposed to the air which showed signs ofrot, the upper extremities being most rotten, whilst the parts close tothe deck were perfectly sound.
Having fully satisfied their curiosity with regard to the exterior ofthis interesting craft, they next essayed to penetrate below by forcingopen the after hatch. On removing the cover a small and almostperpendicular ladder was revealed, down which Mildmay rapidly made hisway. On reaching the bottom he found himself in a small vestibule orante-room, the floor, sides, and ceiling of which were thickly casedwith smooth glassy ice, long icicles of varying thicknesses alsodepending from the beams and deck planking overhead. He could trace theexistence of a door in the middle of the bulkhead facing him; but it washermetically sealed with the thick coating of ice before mentioned, andthe removal of this occupied over half an hour. Whilst he was thusengaged the rest of the party at his suggestion returned to the _FlyingFish_ for the small electric lamps used in their diving operations; andwhen they returned he was just about ready to force open the door of theafter cabin. This was accomplished without much difficulty, and a faintsickly odour at once became apparent, issuing from the interior of thecabin.
Consumed by curiosity, the party pressed eagerly forward through thedoorway, and a most extraordinary sight at once revealed itself. Thecabin was a tolerably roomy apartment for the size of the vessel, havingfor furniture a solid handsomely carved oaken table in the centre,shaped to suit the narrowing dimensions of the vessel abaft, and sidebenches or lockers all round the sides. The walls or inner planking ofthe ship were thickly covered with seal, walrus, and white bear skins,evidently hung there to prevent, as far as possible, the penetration ofthe extreme cold through the ship's sides; and upon large nails, driventhrough these and into the planks, were hung various trophies ofweapons, such as long two-handed swords, small shields or targets, maceswith heavy iron-spiked heads, short-handled battle-axes, spears,unstrung bows, and quivers of arrows. But it was not these objects,interesting as they were, which first riveted the attention of theintruders; it was upon _the occupants of the cabin_ that their startledglances fixed themselves. Yes, strange as it may seem, the fournineteenth-century travellers found themselves face to face with some atleast of the hardy crew who had stood on the deck waving their lastgood-bye to wives, children, or sweethearts--who shall say how manyyears ago?--when that stout galley swept out of harbour with pennonsflying, oars flashing, and arms glancing, maybe, in the brilliantsunshine, as she started on the enterprise of wild adventure from whichshe was never to return. The inmates were four in number. Three ofthem were reclining on the lockers, their heads pillowed upon, and theirbodies thickly covered with skins, whilst the fourth, doubtless themaster spirit of the expedition, sat as in life at the narrow or afterend of the table, his body supported in a massive quaintly carved oakenchair.
The bodies, the floor, the table, and every article in the cabin werethickly coated with frost-rime, which glittered with a diamond-likelustre in the cold kee
n light of the electric lamps, and the first actof the visitors was to carefully remove and clear away this frostcoating. To their intense satisfaction this task was accomplished bygentle brushing without the slightest difficulty, and they were thenable to minutely inspect the bodies of these ancient sea kings. Theywere in a state of surprisingly perfect preservation, and indeed had theappearance of having only recently fallen asleep, the intense coldhaving seized upon them with such fierce rapidity that their bodies hadcompletely congealed before even the primary stages of decay had hadtime to manifest themselves. Indeed, judging from appearances, they hadsuccumbed, in the first instance, to starvation, and, overcome byweakness, had been frozen to death. They were all of lofty stature andmuscular build, with fair hair and tawny beards and moustaches, thelatter worn extremely long. They were fully clad, all in garments ofthe same general character, excepting that those of the seated figureappeared to be of somewhat finer material than those of his companions.These garments, the outer ones, that is to say, consisted of a thickleathern tunic confined at the waist by a broad belt, and leatherdrawers reaching from the waist to the ankles, thick leather socks orstockings, and sandals laced to the feet and legs by leather thongs.The tunic of the chief was elaborately embroidered on the breast insilk, a winged black horse being the central and most conspicuousdesign. The trophy hanging at the back of the sitter's chair consistedof a small circular shield, with a formidable axe, double-handed sword,and mace crossing each other, behind it, the whole being surmounted by ahandsome bronze headpiece, or helmet without a visor, having a largepair of finely modelled wings starting from the sides and near thecrown. The helmets of the other three occupants were of similar shape,but without ornament of any kind. Two drinking horns were upon thetable, one being plainly mounted in bronze, and the other elaboratelymounted in silver and supported upon three legs modelled after those ofthe horse, the fourth leg being lifted in the attitude of pawing theground.
But perhaps the most interesting object of all was a sheet of parchmentwhich lay stretched upon the table before the sitter, and which he hadevidently been studying when the drowsiness of death seized him, and,sinking back in his chair, he had closed his eyes for ever. Thisparchment was, of course, stiff with the frost of centuries; but byexercising the utmost care the finders succeeded in conveying it intactto the _Flying Fish_, and in thawing it out, when it was found to becovered with a rude but vigorously drawn sketch or chart, representingwith surprising accuracy of outline--but without much attention toscale--the whole of the channel between the west coast of Greenland andthe east coast of America, and showing, at the top or northern margin,an irregular line _evidently intended to represent land_. And in thetop left-hand corner of the chart was a square space marked off as aseparate and distinct chart, the centre of which was occupied by anisland, the southern coast-line of which corresponded in shape with theline drawn next the northern margin of the main or principal chart.Rudely drawn figures of the whale, narwhal, walrus, seal, and polar bearwere sketched here and there upon the chart, as though to indicate spotswhere these animals had been seen by the author of the document; and onthe island shown in the small subsidiary chart, great numbers of animalswere drawn, among those represented being hares, foxes, deer, seals, and_elephants_, besides others which the travellers failed to identify.There was also a sketch of a ship--very similar in appearance to thecraft from which the chart had been taken--represented as _sailing awayfrom the island_. This particular sketch was the source of muchspeculation on the part of the quartette; Sir Reginald and the colonelbeing disposed to regard it as an insertion for the purpose merely ofgiving a more effective appearance to the chart, whilst the professorand Mildmay were of opinion that it was intended to convey an intimationthat the mysterious island had actually been visited.
The above particulars, it need scarcely be said, were ascertained andthe surmises discussed after dinner that day; the party not leaving thegalley until they had effected a thorough and exhaustive examination ofher from stem to stern. They found little else of interest on boardher, however, except ten more bodies in the large fore-cabin orforecastle of the craft. The store-rooms occupied the central portionof the vessel, being accessible only from the after end, and the factthat they were clean swept of everything which could by any possibilityhave served for food, tended to confirm the impression that theexpedition had perished of starvation. One or two documents and amassive vellum-bound book were discovered, and these, together with someof the armour and weapons found on board, were taken possession of, butthe documents and book proved to be written in a tongue wholly unknownto either of the discoverers, and they were therefore destined to remainfor some time longer in ignorance of the history of the long-lostexpedition. One fact only was it possible to discover in connectionwith it, which was that the hardy and resolute crew had undoubtedly cuttheir way for a very considerable distance into the heart of that vastfield of everlasting ice. This was most conclusively ascertained by SirReginald and his friends, who, on board the _Flying Fish_, were able tofollow quite unmistakable traces of the channel cut by the unknownexplorers for a distance of fully forty miles to the southward of thegalley itself.
The examination of this strange and interesting craft being at lengthcompleted, the cabin doors were closed, the hatches replaced, and theship, with all that she contained, left to the mercy of the weather,there being no doubt that the excavation so laboriously accomplishedwould soon be again filled up by the almost ceaseless snow-fall, and theship again concealed in all probability for ever.
The first thing after breakfast on the following morning, the northwardjourney was resumed in the face of a perfect hurricane from thenorthward, accompanied by so tremendous and incessant a fall of snowthat it was utterly impossible to see anything at a distance of morethan twenty feet in any direction. It was, of course, quite out of thequestion for anyone to venture outside the door of the pilot-house insuch terrible weather; and the cold even inside on the steering platformwas so intense that the breath of the travellers was condensed on theirmoustaches, and, instantly congealing, rapidly formed into a mass of icewhich effectually prevented the opening of their mouths. An attempt wasmade to elude the storm by rising into the higher regions of theatmosphere; but the cold there proved to be so unbearable,notwithstanding the protection afforded by the stubbornly non-conductingmaterial of which the _Flying Fish_ was built, that they were compelledto descend once more, and their journey was continued at about a heightof one thousand feet above the ice, and at a speed of ninety miles perhour, at which rate of travel they considered that they were stemmingthe gale, and perhaps actually progressing to windward some ten miles orso every hour.
The dreary day lagged slowly on, with the occurrence of no event ofimportance, until about four o'clock in the afternoon, at which time thetravellers became conscious of a decided rise of temperature. By fiveo'clock the cold had so greatly diminished that they were compelled tothrow off their thick fur outer clothing; and half an hour later, thethick dreadnought jackets, which constituted their ordinary outercovering in bad weather, were also discarded; the snow meanwhile givingplace to sleet, and the sleet in its turn yielding to a deluge ofdriving rain. And, whilst they were still wondering what this singularphenomenon might portend, a hoarse low muffled roar, accompanied by anoccasional grinding crash, smote upon their ears through the heavy_swish_ of the rain; the dull white monotonous expanse of the ice-fieldwas abruptly broken into by a jagged irregular-shaped black blot ahead;and, almost before they had time to realise the extraordinary change,the _Flying Fish_ had swept beyond the northern boundary of the immenseexpanse of paleocrystic ice, and was careering northward, at anelevation of about a thousand feet, above the surface of a liquid seawhich raged and chafed and tossed its foamy arms to heaven under theinfluence of the fast-diminishing gale.
"Hurrah!" ejaculated the professor; "hurrah! Scoresby and Kane spokethe truth; and my pet theory turns out to be correct, after all.Gentlemen, look round and feast your ey
es upon the glorious spectacle of_an open Polar Sea_!"
Whether it actually _was_ an open sea, or only an unusually wide channelbetween two ice-fields, was now the question to be settled. Itcertainly looked like the former; it was completely free of floatingice, large or small, except the cakes which were broken away by thewaves from the edge of the enormous floe just left behind, and they werekept by the wind close to their parent mass; the sea ran so high and wasso regular as to convey the idea of a very considerable extent of"fetch;" and, lastly, there was neither ice nor ice-blink to be seenanywhere along the whole stretch of the northern horizon.
Impatient to solve this momentous and interesting question, the _FlyingFish_ was pushed to her utmost speed, causing her to make headway overthe ground, and against the fresh breeze still blowing, at a pace ofabout ninety miles per hour. A quarter of an hour later the rainceased, and the flying ship plunged into the midst of a dense fog, sothick that it was impossible to see even so far as the guard-rail oneither side of the deck. The temperature had by this time, however,risen to _thirty-three degrees above zero (Fahrenheit)_, and thetravellers therefore at once resolved to again brave the rigours of theupper atmosphere. An immediate ascent was accordingly made, with thesatisfactory result, that at an elevation of three thousand feet abovethe sea-level they found themselves once more clear of the fog, with noperceptible fall of the thermometer, and with a clear view ahead.Twenty minutes more of travelling, and the northern skirts of the fog-bank were past, the clouds broke away, and the westering sun cast hisruddy beams upon the surface of the heaving waters. The sea was stillwithout a vestige of ice, and the horizon was perfectly clear ahead.
Consumed with enthusiasm and impatience, the travellers now effected adescent to the surface of the sea, that having been proved to be thesituation in which the _Flying Fish_ made her greatest speed, and thejourney was promptly proceeded with. A further run of twenty milesfound them beneath a cloudless sky, with the wind, soft and balmy,fallen to the gentlest of zephyrs, and the temperature risen to theextraordinary height of forty-five degrees above zero. Their delight,especially that of the professor, was excessive at this wonderful changein their surroundings within so short a time; indeed von Schalckenbergbecame positively extravagant in his demonstrations, dancing about thedeck like a schoolboy, laughing, cheering, clapping his hands, anduttering the most extraordinary prophecies as to what awaited them atthe now not far distant pole. The moment was favourable for anastronomical observation; and the ship, notwithstanding their eagernessto press forward, was accordingly stopped for a few minutes to take thenecessary sights, after which "Northward ho!" again became theirwatchword. A few minutes sufficed Mildmay to complete his calculations,and then, amidst vociferous cheering on the part of his companions, heannounced to them the gratifying intelligence that they had approachedto within a distance of _only one hundred and sixty miles of the NorthPole_.
At the moment when this announcement was made it was exactly ten minutesafter six o'clock p.m. The speed gauge showed that the _Flying Fish_was then making her way through the water at the rate of one hundred andfifty miles per hour; in a trifle over one hour more, therefore, ifnothing prevented, they would reach the goal of their northward journey.Their enthusiasm became almost painful in its intensity; and as the_Flying Fish_ rushed at headlong speed through the rippling waters,tossing the wavelets aside in a great outward-curling fringe ofsparkling foam, and as the minutes lagged slowly away, the eyes of thequartette in the pilot-house were strained with ever-increasingintensity in their vain efforts to pierce the mysteries of the horizonahead.
At exactly twenty minutes to seven o'clock, Mildmay electrified hiscompanions, and put the finishing touch to their excitement, by raisingan exultant shout of:
"Land ho!"
"Where?" "Show it me!" "I can't see it. You must be mistaken!"exclaimed his companions in chorus, after a breathless moment of vainpeering into the pearly northern horizon.
"There it is, directly ahead, looking just like the edge of a flat greycloud showing above the water's edge," was the reply.
Sure enough it _was_ land; for when once their eyes had been directed tothe proper point there was little difficulty in discerning it.Moreover, as the ship sped on, it rose rapidly above the horizon, thegrey tint growing every moment darker and more distinct, and a fewminutes later other land, more sharply defined in outline and moredistinctive in colour, rose above the horizon immediately below it,showing that the table-land first made out lay at some distance from thesouthern shore.
And at this auspicious moment the sea began to exhibit signs of the lifewhich teemed within its depths. An accidental glance astern showed anenormous school of whales spouting on the southern horizon; porpoisesundulated sportively to windward; a troop of dolphins suddenly appearedfor a moment alongside the ship, evidently straining every nerve to keeppace with her; and an occasional sea-otter rose now and then to thesurface of the placid sea, to dive out of sight again the next instantin quite a ridiculous state of consternation at so unwonted a sight asthe rushing form of the _Flying Fish_. Flocks of sea-birds of various,and indeed some of hitherto unknown, kinds next made their appearance,industriously pursuing their avocation of fishermen, and--unlike thesea-otters--paying little or no attention to their strange visitors.And finally, as they drew nearer in with the land, seals of variouskinds were passed, sportively chasing each other, and pausing for amoment to raise their heads inquisitively and turn their mild glancesupon the flying ship.
When within some ten miles of the land, it was deemed advisable to riseout of the water and to complete the journey at a few feet above itssurface, thus taking the most effectual of precautions againstaccidental collision with a sunken rock. As the ship drew in stillcloser with the land, her speed was reduced; and, at a quarter afterseven o'clock on that calm July evening, she once more settled down,like a wearied sea-fowl, upon the surface of the water, and let go heranchor in a depth of twelve fathoms, at a distance of half a mile fromthe shore, in a fine roomy well-sheltered bay of crescent form, the twohorns or outer extremities of which rose sheer out of the water in theform of a pair of bold rocky spurs, backed up on the landward side by asweep of low grassy hills, crowned, at a short distance from the shore,with a forest of majestic pines.
"Well!" ejaculated the professor, as he finally turned away and wentbelow to dinner, after feasting his eyes on the splendid landscape,gloriously lighted up by the rays of the evening sun, "I was prepared tosee many unexpected sights in the event of our reaching the North Pole,but grass and trees!--well, I was _not_ prepared to find _them_."