CHAPTER SEVEN.
EN ROUTE FOR THE NORTH POLE.
The destruction of the wreck having been effected, the _Flying Fish_moved a few miles northward until she reached a small level sandy patchaffording a good berth for the night, and there she was once more placedupon the ground and anchored.
Nothing whatever occurred to disturb the repose of the travellers; and,after passing a tranquil night, they assembled at the breakfast tablepunctually at eight o'clock on the following morning. An hour later,having finished their meal, the quartette rose, and made their way tothe pilot-house, where preparations were at once commenced for an ascentto the surface. On this occasion the professor being anxious that theother members of the party should become conversant with the method ofhandling the ship, the baronet placed himself at the tiller--from whichpost the entire apparatus controlling the movements of the vessel couldbe reached--and, with von Schalckenberg at his elbow to correct him inthe event of a possible mistake, the ascent was begun. This, fromprudential motives, was slowly accomplished, and at a distance of fivefathoms from the surface a pause was made for the purpose of taking agood look round and thus avoiding all possibility of inflicting damageon passing ships in the act of breaking water. It was well that thisprecaution was observed; for their first glance revealed to them thebottom of a large steamer close at hand and coming rapidly straighttoward them; and had the _Flying Fish_ continued to rise she would havebroken water directly under the stranger's bows. As it was, by backingastern a few yards they gave the steamer good room to pass; and it wasboth interesting and novel to see the great mass go plunging heavilypast with the long sea-grass waving and trailing from her bottom, andthe great propeller spinning rapidly round, now completely immersed, andanon lifted almost entirely out of the water. Once clear of her, the_Flying Fish_ sank to a depth of ten fathoms, and after a ten-mile runat full speed, once more paused to reconnoitre. This time the sea wasclear for at least a mile in every direction--which was as far as theycould see in the then condition of the water--and they at once rose tothe surface.
The horizon proved to be clear in every direction save to the southward,in which quarter the upper spars of the steamer they had so latelyencountered were still visible. The wind was blowing a moderate breezefrom S.S.E.--almost a dead fair wind for the _Flying Fish_--the weatheralso was delightfully fine and clear; it was therefore promptly resolvedto take to the air once more and thus wing their way northward.
The valves of the air-chambers were accordingly thrown open to theirfull extent, when, with a screaming roar, the highly compressed air atonce rushed forth, and in less than half a minute the huge bulk of theship was lying poised as lightly as an air-bubble on the surface of theheaving water. The main vapour-valve was then cautiously opened, and apartial vacuum produced, when, as easily as a sea-bird, the _FlyingFish_ rose at once into the air. The engines were next turned ahead,the helm adjusted, and the northward journey was fairly begun.
The wind was blowing at the rate of about fifteen miles an hour, andnearly dead fair; the engines were therefore set so as just to turnround and no more; this gave the ship a speed of about twelve knotsthrough the air, which, added to the rate of the wind, gave a totalspeed of twenty-seven knots over the ground--or rather over, the water--and at this pace they calculated that, after making the necessaryallowance in their course for the set of the wind, they would reach theIrish coast, in the vicinity of Cape Clear, at about five o'clock thenext morning. Their reason for not travelling faster was that, as thebaronet said, they were on a pleasure cruise, and having been pent upinside the hull for fully thirty-six hours, they felt that a few hoursin the open air would be an acceptable change.
They pursued their flight throughout the day at an altitude of only athousand feet above the sea, except when they encountered a ship--whichhappened only once during the hours of daylight--and when this occurredthey rose, on the instant of sighting her, to the highest attainabledistance, in pursuance of their resolve to attract as little attentionas possible, descending again to their former level as soon as they hadpassed beyond her range of vision. At this latter elevation they wereable to enjoy to the full the health-giving properties of the pure sea-breeze, and to revel in a prospect--though it was only that of therestless sea--of nearly forty nautical miles on every side; the horizon,that is to say, forming a circle of little less than eighty milesdiameter round about them. And though it may be hastily thought that,with a sea bare of craft there was little or nothing to interest thetravellers, this was by no means the case; for at their height the waterwas clear and transparent for a long distance below the surface, and thegambols of the fish, of which there were great numbers visible,including several schools of porpoises and a solitary whale, could beseen distinctly, affording a most interesting sight; and when they grewtired of this they promenaded the spacious deck, or lounged about inchairs, smoking their cigars or pipes, and discussing with muchanimation their future prospects. And now, for the first time, a factin connection with the automatic balancing apparatus brought itselfunder their notice. It was this. They found that, let them walk aboutthe ship where and as much as they chose, the balance of the ship alwaysremained perfect; but the little jets of air which, at their everymovement, were admitted into the hull to maintain its equilibrium, soonhad a perceptible influence on the vessel's buoyancy, causing her toslowly but steadily descend toward the surface of the sea, thusnecessitating periodic visits to the pilot-house to renew the vacuum.This set the professor's brain to work, and by nightfall he succeeded--with the aid of a second barometer having a small piece of highlymagnetised steel floating on the top of the mercurial column, and acouple of magnetised steel bars--in constructing a somewhat rude butthoroughly efficient apparatus for automatically maintaining the ship atany desired height, unaffected by the movements, be they few or many, ofthose on board.
By the time that this apparatus had been fixed, and subjected to thetest of an hour's conscientious walking fore and aft the deck by theentire party, the dinner-hour had arrived, and they retired below withsuch appetites as only a day's exposure to the tonic effects of a sea-breeze--minus all uncomfortable motion--could produce. The fullestjustice was consequently done to the meal, after which they made theirway once more to the deck, and there, under a brilliant star-lit sky,gave themselves up to the soothing influence of _the weed_ and therenewed enjoyment of their novel position. Midnight found them quiteready for their state-rooms, and at that hour they accordingly retired;the professor first of all, as a matter of precaution, increasing theship's altitude to four thousand feet above the sea-level, and thenpaying a visit of inspection to the engine-room. Matters were found tobe all right there; the engines were working smoothly and noiselessly,the bearings were quite cool, and the automatic feed was doing its workto perfection. The ship, then, being at such a height as to be clear ofall danger, and steering herself in the required direction, with all themachinery in perfect working order, the weather also being fine andwearing a settled aspect, von Schalckenberg told himself that there wasnot the slightest necessity for the maintenance of a look-out, and hetherefore also retired. A quarter of an hour later the whole of thecrew were sunk in profound repose, and the _Flying Fish_, left toherself, was leisurely wending her way northward at a height of nearly amile above the earth's surface.
The first of the quartette to put in an appearance on deck next morningwas the professor, who was awakened just as day was breaking by thefaint sound of a steam whistle. Springing hastily from his verycomfortable couch, he rushed up the companion way and into the open air,without even pausing to don his nether garments. Springing to the guardrail he looked around and below him, and the half-formed fear thatsomething had gone amiss, and that the ship was in danger, was at oncedissipated. He saw that the _Flying Fish_ was moving rapidly along withthe land beneath her, the breeze having freshened during the night,whilst still blowing from the same quarter, causing them to reach theIrish coast sooner than had been anticipated. The
mercury stood at thesame height in the tube as it had done when they retired to rest on thepreceding night; the ship had consequently maintained her approximateheight above the sea-level, the only variation being that due to thegreater or lesser density of the atmosphere; which was eminentlysatisfactory, as it showed that the professor's hastily constructedapparatus for maintaining an uniform level had been faithfullyperforming its duty.
These facts ascertained, von Schalckenberg cast his glance over thescene spread out beneath him, in order to ascertain, if possible, hisposition. The morning was beautifully clear, the atmosphere beingentirely destitute of clouds, and the only obstacle to uninterruptedvision was a thick mist which overspread the earth outstretched belowhim like an immense map. This, to a certain extent, rendered promptidentification of the locality difficult; but a lake of very irregulartriangular shape was immediately underneath the ship, and from S. roundto about W.S.W., at a distance of about eight miles, extended a range ofhills which, from their height, the professor easily identified asMacgillicuddy's Reeks, the lake below being Killarney. Other hillstowered up out of the mist all round the ship, and, at a distance ofsome twenty miles straight ahead, appeared the Stack Mountains. Towns,villages, farm buildings, and solitary cabins were dotted about all overthe country, and beyond all, from S.S.E. round by S. and W. to N., couldbe seen the blue sea, dotted here and there with the brown sails of thefishing craft or the scarcely whiter canvas of the coasters.
Satisfied that all was right, the professor returned to the pilot-house,and, closing the doors to exclude the intense cold of the higheratmospheric region, perfected the vacuum in the air chambers, causingthe ship to immediately soar aloft to the enormous height of thirty-fivethousand feet; having done which he made his way below again and plungedinto his bath.
On meeting his companions at the breakfast-table, von Schalckenberginformed them of the position and elevation of the ship, and they atonce expressed an ardent desire to go out on deck immediately afterbreakfast to view the magnificent prospect spread out around and beneaththem.
"You will have to put on your diving suits then, gentlemen," remarkedthe scientist, "for you would find it quite impossible to breathe in theextremely rarefied atmosphere which now supports us; moreover, it is sointensely cold that, unless exceedingly well protected, you would soonfreeze to death. But I quite agree with you that the prospect,embracing as it does a circle of--let me see," and he made a hastycalculation on the back of an envelope--"yes, a circle of very nearlyfour hundred and sixty miles in diameter, must be well worth lookingat."
Accordingly, on the completion of the meal, the quartette descended tothe diving-room, and there donned their armour, taking the additionalprecaution of adding a flannel overall to their ordinary inner divingdress. Thus equipped, they made their way to the pilot-house, carefullyclosing all doors behind them on the way, and sallied out on deck.
The spectacle which then met their gaze was novel beyond all power ofdescription, and can only be feebly suggested. The sky overhead was ofan intense ultramarine hue, approaching in depth to indigo, graduallychanging, as the eye travelled downward from the zenith toward thehorizon, to a pallid colourless hue. The stars--excepting those nearthe horizon--were almost as distinctly visible as at midnight; whilstthe sun, shorn of his rays, hung in the sky like a great ball of moltencopper; the moon also, reduced to a thin silver thread-like crescent,had followed the sun into the sky, and hung a few degrees only above theeastern horizon.
So lost in wonder were the travellers at this most extraordinary sightthat it was several minutes before they could withdraw their gaze fromthe heavens and allow it to travel earthward. When at length they didso a scarcely less enchanting spectacle greeted them. They werehovering just over the inner extremity of an arm of the sea, which thecolonel--who was well acquainted with the south-west of Ireland--at onceidentified as Dingle Bay. Westward of them stretched the broadAtlantic, its foam-flecked waters tinted a lovely sea-green immediatelybelow them, which gradually changed to a delicate sapphire blue as itstretched away toward the invisible horizon (the atmosphere not provingsufficiently clear to allow of their seeing to the utmost possiblelimits of distance), the colour growing gradually fainter and more faintuntil it became lost in a soft silvery grey mist. Northward lay theDingle peninsula, and beyond it again could be seen Tralee Bay, themouth of the Shannon, and Loop Head; then Galway Bay and the Isles ofArran, and, further on, just discernible in the misty distance, theindented shore and hills of Connemara. From thence, all round to theeastern point of the compass, could be seen, with more or lessdistinctness, the whole of county Clare, with part of county Galway, theDoon Mountains, and a considerable portion of Tipperary; the Galtee andKnockmeledown Mountains, and, in the extreme distance, a faint mistyblue, which the colonel declared was the sea just about Dungarvanharbour. And from thence, round to the southward, the sea and thesouthern coast-line became more and more distinctly visible as the eyetravelled round the compass, Cork Harbour being just discernible, whilstCape Clear Island, Bantry Bay, and the Kenmare river seemed little morethan a stone's-throw distant. Altogether it was perhaps the mostmagnificent prospect upon which the human eye had ever rested; itcertainly exceeded anything which the travellers had ever witnessedbefore, and their expressions of admiration and delight were unbounded.
When at last they had become somewhat accustomed to even this uniqueexperience, and had found leisure to take note of themselves, as itwere, the baronet remarked to the professor:
"But how is this, professor? The engines are working, yet we do notappear to be making any headway. So far as I can judge we seem to besimply drifting bodily to the westward and more toward the open sea."
"It is so," answered the professor. "We have risen above the range ofthe variable winds, and are now feeling the influence of an adverse aircurrent, which, in this latitude, invariably blows _from_ the northward;and if we were to maintain our present altitude, for which, however,there is not the slightest necessity, we should have to struggle againstit for the next eight or nine hundred miles, in fact until we reach theneighbourhood of the Arctic circle. There, or thereabout, we shouldagain have a fair wind, of which we may possibly yet be glad to availourselves. In the meantime, however, we will increase our speed, if youplease--at all events, until we are clear of the land, when we can oncemore descend into a favourable current. And as, until then, our rate oftravelling will be such as to make it difficult, if not impossible, tomaintain our footing on the deck, I would suggest the advisability of aretreat to the pilot-house."
This suggestion having been promptly carried out, the speed of the shipwas increased to its utmost limit, whereby the rate of progression overthe ground was raised from nothing to about one hundred and eight milesper hour. This rate of travelling--the adverse wind fortunatelyremaining moderate--enabled them to reach Erris Head, the north-westerncorner of county Mayo, in an hour and a half, or about eleven o'clockA.M., at which hour they found themselves just running clear of theland, with the bay and county of Donegal on their right hand, and thebroad expanse of the North Atlantic ahead.
At this point the professor turned to his companions and said:
"It now becomes necessary that we should come to a definite decision asto the course to be steered. All routes are of course equally open tous; but there are two which especially commend themselves to ourpreference. One is the direct northerly route to the Pole, which willtake us to the eastward of Iceland, straight to the island of Jan Mayen,and thence, between Greenland and Spitzbergen, into an icy sea which hasbeen but little explored. And the other is the usual route taken bynearly all the great Arctic explorers, namely, up Davis Strait, throughBaffin's Bay, and thence, by way of Smith Sound and Kennedy Channel,into the open Polar Sea, if such should actually exist. By the oneroute we shall have an opportunity of surveying the eastern coast ofGreenland, and thus accurately determining much that is at present merematter of conjecture; and by the other we shall have an opportunity ofbeholding
with our own eyes many spots of interest associated with theresearches of former explorers. Now, which is it to be?"
The colonel and Mildmay naturally glanced at Sir Reginald, as anintimation that he, in his character of founder of the expedition, wasentitled to the first expression of opinion; and, thus appealed to, thebaronet, after a short pause for reflection, replied:
"Well, so far as I am concerned, if I have a preference at all, I thinkI am inclined to favour the Baffin's Bay route. I confess I should liketo go over the ground traversed so painfully by former explorers, andsee for myself the nature of the obstacles with which they have had tograpple. And I should also like to look with my bodily eyes upon thespots where they sought refuge during the rigours of the Arctic winter,and those other spots where, the forces of nature finally proving toogreat for them, they were reluctantly compelled to abandon furthereffort, and, confessing themselves beaten, turn their faces once moresouthward. But if either of you happens to have a preference foranother route, I beg that you will say so, uninfluenced by my remarks."
The colonel and Mildmay now looked at each other interrogatively; and atlength the latter said:
"My predilections are naturally in favour of the route proposed by SirReginald, that being the one followed by so many of my distinguishedpredecessors in the service. But what says the professor? Which routedoes he, as a scientist, think would be the most interesting?"
"Exactly; that, it seems to me, is the point of view from which we oughtto regard the question," exclaimed the baronet and the colonel in abreath.
"From a purely scientific point of view they would probably proveequally interesting," answered the professor. "But, taking the othercircumstances into consideration, I am inclined to record my vote infavour of Sir Reginalds suggestion."
"Then let that decide it," remarked the colonel; "I am sure we shallhave no cause to regret the choice."
The Baffin's Bay route was accordingly agreed upon; and the ship's headwas forthwith laid in a west-north-westerly direction for Cape Farewell.
For the next hour the ship's altitude above the sea-level was maintainedunaltered; but at noon, the ocean proving clear of ships as far as theeye could reach, a descent was made to within one thousand feet of thesea, at which height a favourable breeze and a clear atmosphere wasagain met with. On returning to the pilothouse after luncheon, or abouthalf-past three o'clock in the afternoon, three icebergs werediscovered, two ahead and one astern; but they were very small, and itwas therefore deemed hardly worth while to pause and examine them. Atthe same time a large steamer was observed, steering east, on theextreme verge of the southern horizon; and by the aid of their verypowerful telescopes the travellers were able to identify her as one ofthe Atlantic liners. Half an hour later a sail was discovered on thestarboard bow; and, from the fact that she was heading to the northwardunder easy canvas, they rightly concluded that she was a whaler. Theypassed this vessel within a distance of a dozen miles, and at this pointwere able to so minutely examine her with their telescopes that theycould distinctly make out the figure of a man perched aloft in the"crow's nest" on the look-out, as well as the figures of her crew movingabout the deck; but, although within such comparatively close proximityto her, they were quite unable to detect any sign of their beingobserved, which the professor attributed to the almost total absence ofcolour about the hull; indeed, he gave it as his opinion that, unlessthe rays of the sun happened to be reflected from the polished surfaceof the aethereum directly toward an observer, the _Flying Fish_ mighteasily pass within half a dozen miles unnoticed.
Before this whaler had been left out of sight astern other icebergs hadrisen into view above the western horizon, and within half an hour theyfound themselves flying above a sea thickly dotted with ice in everydirection, showing that they were rapidly nearing the entrance to DavisStraits. At six o'clock the sound of the gong summoned them below todinner; and just as they were on the point of leaving the pilot-house,Mildmay, who, with the instinct of the seaman, had paused to take a lastlook round, sighted a faint blue cloud-like appearance on the horizon,about a point on the starboard bow, and raised a joyful shout of:
"Land, ho!"
The professor glanced at the clock, and, muttering to himself, "Yes, itis about the right time," took his telescope and carefully examined thedistant cloud-like appearance.
"You are right, Mildmay," he exclaimed, as he closed the instrument,"that is the land; it is Cape Farewell, the most southerly point of thatgreat _terra incognita_, Greenland. With your permission, Sir Reginald,I will reduce the speed of the ship to about twenty miles per hour, andslightly alter her course; and, from the look of the weather, I think Imay promise that, when we go on deck to smoke our cigars after dinner,you will see a sight well worth looking at."