CHAPTER EIGHT.
A SUPERB SPECTACLE.
Upon one pretext or another the professor purposely delayed the risingof the party from the table until nine o'clock; and when they at lengthreached the deck they found the somewhat rash promise made by vonSchalckenberg abundantly fulfilled. A scene of surpassing lovelinessmet their delighted gaze, and, to enjoy it more fully and completely, itwas promptly decided to descend to the ocean's surface. The sea on allsides was thickly covered with detached masses of floating ice, from thediminutive fragment of drift-ice, measuring not more than two or threesquare yards in area, to gigantic bergs, measuring, in one or twoinstances, from a half to three quarters of a mile long, and toweringfrom two to three hundred feet above the surface of the water. The sunwas nearing the horizon, and, with his golden beams falling full uponthem, these huge masses of ice glittered against the rosy grey of thehorizon like burnished metal or solid flame. Two of these bergs inparticular were the objects of the travellers' especial wonder andadmiration. One, at a distance of some six miles to the eastward,resembled an island of crystal capped with an assemblage of marbleruins. Its perpendicular sides were rent here and there with deepfissures, and in the centre there yawned an immense cavern, the interiorof which displayed every conceivable shade of the most lovely green,from the transparent tint of the emerald to the opaque colour of themalachite, a projecting bluff near at hand casting a strangely-contrasting shadow of the deepest, purest ultramarine. The ruinedpinnacles on the summit of the berg gleamed with every tint of therainbow, from palest yellow, through orange and crimson, to a bluevarying from the most delicate cobalt to a deep violet, almostundistinguishable from black. And, to complete the fairy-like beauty ofthe picture, the body of the berg, a pure marble-like white in thecentre, gradually assumed a translucent appearance toward the edges, inwhich the rays of the sun gleamed and sparkled so brilliantly that themass resembled nothing so much as a gigantic opal.
The other large berg, which in the first instance was only remarkablefor its enormous size, lay on the western horizon at a distance of someeleven miles, and, when the travellers first directed their gaze uponit, presented the appearance of a vast mass of a uniform very pale tintof opaque blue rising above the rosy waters. But as they looked upon itthe setting sun drew round toward its rear, and then the pale blueopaque tint gradually quickened into translucency and quivered here andthere with sudden golden and roseate gleams of indescribable beauty. Asthe sun neared the berg these gleams and flashes deepened in tint andbecame mingled in the most bewildering and delightful manner with raysof rich sea-green, warm violet, and delicate purple. Finally the sun,just skimming the edge of the horizon, passed behind the berg, when itat once flamed out into a dazzling blinding blaze, as though the berghad taken fire. For a space of perhaps half a minute this dazzlingspectacle continued with scarcely diminished brilliancy; then the blazedeepened from gold to crimson, momentarily subsiding in intensity andincreasing in depth of colour until it stood out against the horizon animmense mass of blood-red hue. The red deepened into purple, the purpleinto violet, and at last, probably when the sun had entirely sunkbeneath the horizon, the violet faded gradually to a pale cold lifelessgrey.
"Superb!"
"Magnificent!"
"Delightful!"
"Beautiful as a dream!"
Such were the exclamations which burst from the lips of the travellersas they turned away with a sigh at the transitory nature of the beautiesthey had just been witnessing, when lo! the scene to the eastward haddonned new glories. The sun had vanished below the horizon, and thelower portions of the bergs were therefore in cold blue shadow; but asthe glance travelled upwards the blue became merged by imperceptibledegrees into a delicate amethystine tint, which, growing graduallywarmer and more ruddy, passed by a thousand gradations through therichest rose and orange tints to the purest golden-yellow, out of whichthe projecting points and pinnacles of ice flashed and sparkled likeliving flame. This fairy-like spectacle lasted for a short time only,however; the golden flashes vanished one by one; the yellow becameorange, the orange deepened into crimson, and the crimson in its turnslowly merged into a cold cobalt blue as the light died out of thewestern sky; and finally the stars came out one by one until the entirefirmament was thickly studded with them. It was "nightfall on the sea."
Enthralled by the surpassing witchery of the scene, some time elapsedbefore either of the travellers cared to break the silence. At length,however, the baronet turned to the professor and said:
"I owe you a debt of never-dying gratitude, professor, for having beenthe means of introducing me to a scene of such indescribable beauty asthat which we have just witnessed; I have looked upon many a fair sceneduring the course of my wanderings, but never upon anything to equalthis. We must have been exceptionally fortunate to-night, have we not?for surely the Polar world can have no spectacle more enchanting thanthe one which we have just witnessed?"
"We _have_ been fortunate; there is no doubt about that," was the reply."But you have not yet seen the midnight sun nor the aurora borealis,both of which sights far exceed in beauty what we have looked upon to-night. But it grows chilly and an insidious fog is gathering round us;we must take measures for passing the night in safety, for, were we bychance to be caught between two icebergs of even ordinary size, not eventhe enormous strength of the _Flying Fish_ would save her fromdestruction."
"And what do you propose to do, then, professor, in order to ensure oursafety?"
"There are two courses open to us. One is to sink to the bottom of thesea, which is here deep enough to secure us from all danger of beingstruck by floating bergs. And the other is to ascend into the calmbelt, where the night can be passed in a state of absolute safety."
"Very well, then; let us ascend into the `calm belt,' by all means,"said the baronet. "And, by the way, I should feel extremely obliged ifyou would kindly explain to us what the `calm belt' is; I for one neverheard of it before."
"I will do so with pleasure," replied the professor. "You must know,then, in the first place, that there are certain atmospheric currents asregular and precise in their action as those of the ocean, both beingcreated by the same cause--namely, the tendency of a warm fluid to riseand of a colder one to flow into the vacated space. Thus the air on theequator, being heated by the vertical rays of the sun, rises, creating apartial vacuum which the cold air from the poles rushes equator-ward tofill, the warm air moving toward the poles to restore the balance. Thusat a few degrees north of the equator the upper stratum of air willalways be found to be travelling northward. And it continues so to dountil it reaches the vicinity of the thirtieth parallel of latitude,when, having lost most of its heat by constant exposure to open space,it becomes cold enough to descend, taking the place of the polarcurrent, which meanwhile has been warmed by passing over the temperatezone. The equatorial current, though it has descended to the surface ofthe earth, still makes its gradual way northward, as well as localcircumstances will permit, in order to replace the southward-flyingpolar current; and by the time that it reaches the Arctic circle, it hasagain, by contact with the earth, become the warmer of the two currents,when it once more rises into the upper regions of the atmosphere, todescend no more until it reaches the vicinity of the pole, when itsinks, and at the same time turns southward as the polar current. Andthe same thing happens in the southern hemisphere. Thus in eachhemisphere we have two great atmospheric currents--one flowing from thepole to the equator, and the other flowing from the equator to the pole.The lower current, or that which sweeps along the surface of the earth,meets with so many disturbing local influences that it is frequentlydeflected greatly from its proper course, sometimes so much so that itscourse becomes completely reversed for a time; but in the upper regionsof the atmosphere these disturbing influences are very little if at allfelt. Now, if I have succeeded in making this plain to you, you willreadily understand that where the top of the lower current and thebottom of the upper current touch eac
h other there will be so muchfriction that a neutral or `calm belt' will occur in which the air willbe motionless. And it is in this calm belt--which occurs between thealtitudes of three thousand and twelve thousand feet above the earth'ssurface--that I propose we should take refuge to-night."
The professor's small audience duly expressed their thanks for theextremely interesting lecture to which they had just been treated, andthen the party retreated to the pilot-house; the door was closed toexclude the cold air of the upper regions which they were about tovisit; and an ascent was made to an altitude of eight thousand feet,where the night was passed in an atmosphere so completely motionlessthat, on their descent next morning, Lieutenant Mildmay's observationsshowed them to be in the exact spot which they had occupied on theprevious evening.
It was decided over the breakfast-table that morning, that the journeynorthward should be prosecuted, as far as possible, upon the surface ofthe sea; and the _Flying Fish_ was accordingly put in motion on therequired course immediately upon her descent. Their rate of progresswas particularly slow, not exceeding, on the average, a speed of sixmiles per hour, as drift ice was remarkably abundant, mostly in smalldetached blocks, though they occasionally encountered a floe of severalacres in extent; and, far away to the northward, quite a largeassemblage of bergs were seen. This slow rate of progress would havebeen wearisome to a veteran Arctic navigator in possession of such meansfor the accomplishment of a quick passage as those enjoyed by theinmates of the _Flying Fish's_ pilot-house; but to them everything wasnovel and interesting, and, almost before they knew it, they foundthemselves in the immediate vicinity of the bergs. These varied greatlyin size, some of them being no larger than a dwelling-house of moderatedimensions, whilst others fully equalled, if, indeed, they did notexceed, the proportions of the monsters seen on the previous evening.They were grouped so closely together that a passage between them seemedto be not wholly unattended with danger; and the party were in the actof discussing the question which channel it would be most prudent totake, their eyes being meanwhile fixed on the huge towering cliffs ofice before them, when a gigantic overhanging mass was seen to detachitself from its parent berg and plunge, a distance of some two hundredand fifty feet, with a terrific splash into the water and disappear.The deep thunderous roar of its plunge smote the ears of the watchersnext moment, and they looked on with breathless interest to see whatwould follow. The mass, from its enormous size, would weigh, theyconsidered, fully five thousand tons; and they were not surprised to seethat the loss of so much weight had seriously disturbed the balance ofthe berg, which at once began to rock ponderously to and fro, creating aterrific commotion in the water when conjoined with that caused by theplunge into the sea and the reappearance a second or two later of thedetached mass. The sea was seen to heap itself up in a long well-defined ridge, similar--though, of course, on a tremendously magnifiedscale--to that caused by the plunge of a stone into the water. Thisridge spread out in a circular form all round the spot where the masshad fallen, and at once began to travel outward in the form of animmense breaker some six or seven feet in height. Onward it rolled, itssmooth glassy front capped with a foaming crest presenting a singularand somewhat alarming spectacle. The fears of the beholders, however,if they had any, were groundless, for, though the threatening wave sweptforward with a velocity of some twelve knots per hour, it sweptharmlessly enough over and along the cylindrical sides of the _FlyingFish_, hissing and roaring most ominously, but failing to throw so muchas a single drop of spray on her deck. This wave was quickly followedby several others, each of which, however, was less formidable than thepreceding one. Meanwhile, the drama, it appeared, had only begun. Theoscillation of the parent berg, though it was probably quite unaffectedby the portion of the circular wave which dashed furiously against itssides, became momentarily more and more violent, accompanied by arapidly increasing agitation of the sea in its neighbourhood, anagitation so great that the surface of the ocean soon assumed theappearance of a boiling cauldron, the foaming surges leaping wildlyhither and thither with a continuous roar like that of the surf beatingon a rocky shore, and soon assuming such dimensions that they even brokeover the deck of the _Flying Fish_, and dashed themselves into a cloudof spray against the strong walls of the pilot-house. Other fragmentsnow began to detach themselves with dull heavy roaring crashes from therocking berg; and, as though the action were contagious--or moreprobably, in consequence of the jarring vibration of the air from such astrong volume of sound--one after the other, the remaining bergs beganto go to pieces. Then, indeed, the sight and the accompanying soundsbecame truly awe-inspiring. The air resounded with the continuous roarof the dismembering bergs; the eye grew dizzy and bewildered as itwatched their swaying forms; and the surface of the ocean wasmomentarily stirred into a wilder frenzy as the surges swept madlyhither and thither, and, meeting in mid-career, shattered each otherinto a wild tempest of leaping foam, in the midst of which huge massesof ice were seen every now and then to be tossed high into the air asthough they had been fragments of cork. So mad was the commotion, andso furiously were even the larger masses of ice dashed to and fro, thatit was deemed prudent to remove the _Flying Fish_ out of harm's way; andshe was accordingly raised a few fathoms above the surface of the ragingcommotion which leaped and roared around her. Scarcely had this beenaccomplished--the whole of the drama occupying not one-tenth part of thetime which it takes to describe it--when the largest of the bergs wasseen to roll completely over, raising in the act so awful a surge thatit visibly affected even the immense masses of the other bergs, which,in their turn, rolled slowly over one after the other, to theaccompaniment of one long loud echoing roar of rending ice as theirdismemberment thus became accelerated. The resulting ocean disturbancewas, as may easily be imagined, appallingly grand and utterlyindescribable; and it no doubt contributed in no inconsiderable degreeto the total destruction of the bergs, which, once started, continued toroll over and over, every lurch causing a further dismemberment untilthe fragments became so small as to be incapable of further division.Then ensued comparative silence, the only sounds being those of thehoarse roar of the angry surges and the grinding crash of ice-blocksdashed violently together. Gradually these too subsided; and, in halfan hour from the commencement of the spectacle, the ice-strewn waterswere again rippling crisply under the influence of a moderate breeze,and no sign remained to tell a new arrival upon the scene--had therebeen one--what an awful tempest of destruction had raged there so shorta time before.
Pushing northward, the travellers sighted the coast of Greenland aboutnoon; the land made being a lofty snow-covered mountain, the conicalsummit of which gleamed like silver in the brilliant sunshine. As theyneared the coast the water became more open; and at length they emergedinto a broad channel completely free of ice, up which the _Flying Fish_was urged at a trifle less than half-speed, or at the rate of aboutsixty miles per hour. At eight o'clock that night they crossed,according to their "dead reckoning," the Arctic circle; and midnightfound them abreast of Disko Island, gazing with delighted eyes upon theglorious spectacle of the midnight sun, the lower edge of his ruddy discjust skimming the northern horizon.
At this point the channel between the Greenland coast and the pack-icenarrowed very considerably; and their rate of progress northward nextday was reduced to a speed of between two and three miles per hour; theengines needing to be just started, and then stopped again for a fewminutes in order to keep the speed down to this very low limit. Butthey were all as yet so new to Arctic scenery--everything was soentirely novel to them--that even this snail's pace failed to provewearisome, especially as the weather continued gloriously fine.
Strange to say, up to this time they had not set eyes on a single Arcticanimal; but now, as they were busily threading their way through anarrow channel in the ice, a white bear was seen about half a mile aheadrapidly making his way across the pack toward them, whilst, a quarter ofa mile nearer, an animal which they at once took for a seal was seenbasking in t
he sun on the ice close to the water. It speedily becameevident that the bear was after the seal, which, seemingly allunconscious of the proximity of its enemy, raised its head now and thenas though in keen enjoyment of the warm glow. The colonel hurried belowfor rifles, as eager as a schoolboy, to obtain a shot at one or both ofthe animals; and when he returned to the pilot-house with the weaponsboth the seal and the bear were within range. He raised one of therifles to his shoulder, and was covering the seal with it, when SirReginald, who was watching the animals through a telescope, said:
"Do not fire, Lethbridge; there is something very curious about this;_that seal is armed with a bow_."
The colonel stared incredulously at his companion, and then, droppingthe rifle, took and applied to his eye the telescope which Sir Reginaldhanded to him.
"By George, you are right!" he exclaimed. "What a very extraordinarything. Why," he continued, "it is not a seal at all, it is a man, anEsquimaux. Now, look out and you will see some sport; the fellow isfitting an arrow to his string, and how cautiously he is doing it, too.It is my belief that he has got himself up as a seal and has beensimulating the actions of the animal in order to entice that deludedbear within range. There! he has shot his arrow and hit the mark, butthe bear does not seem to be very much the worse. Aha! now you have torun for it, my good fellow. By Jove, the matter grows exciting!"
The Esquimaux had indeed been compelled to "run for it," the onlyapparent effect of the arrow being to irritate the bear. The man ranfairly well, although hampered with an immense amount of clothing, butthe bear proved the faster of the two. He rapidly gained upon the man,and seemed about to spring upon him when the party in the pilot-housepoured in a general fusillade from their rifles. There was just aperceptible click from the locks of the weapons, but neither fire norsmoke appeared, neither was there any report. At that moment the bearrose upon his hind-legs and, reaching forward with his fore-paws, aimeda terrific blow at the flying hunter. The man, who had been intentlywatching his enemy all the while, nimbly leaped aside, and, quick asthought, plunged a light lance fairly under the creature's armpit anddeep into his body. The bear uttered a single roar of pain and baffledrage, staggered a moment, and fell upon the ice, dead.
"Bravo! very cleverly done, indeed," exclaimed the colonel,apostrophising the distant Esquimaux; "that was a lucky stroke for you,my man. But, I say, professor, what in the world is the matter withthese wretched rifles? Every one of them missed fire, and, so far as weare concerned, that unfortunate Esquimaux might have been killed."
"He might--yes, that is quite true," answered the professor withprovoking composure; "but if he had been it would have been our fault,not that of the rifles; it was we who missed, not they. Every one ofthem duly discharged its bullet, and we simply missed our mark. But hadwe--or rather had _I_--preserved my presence of mind, I could still havesaved the man, for each of these weapons is a magazine rifle, firingtwenty shots--a fact which I had forgotten for the moment, and which itnow seems I have never yet explained to you. Fortunately, the poor manhas proved quite able to take care of himself; but the shameful way inwhich we all missed the bear, and our failure to fire again, is a lessonon the folly of using untried weapons in an emergency. We mustpractise, gentlemen; we must practise."
And, without troubling themselves further as to what became of theEsquimaux and his game, the deeply mortified party set themselvesforthwith first to listen to the professor's explanation of thepeculiarities of the weapons, and next, to practise diligently with themfor a full hour; at the expiration of which, as the rifles were really asplendid arm and simple enough to handle when their action had beenclearly explained, the quartette had fully regained their confidence inthemselves and each other, having done some most excellent shooting.
Meanwhile the channel hourly grew more narrow and intricate; and, to addstill further to the difficulties of the passage, the wind shifted roundand began to blow freshly from the northward, bringing with it a denseand bitterly cold fog. The travellers struggled gallantly against theseadverse circumstances as long as any progress northward was at allpossible, being desirous of realising, as fully as might be, forthemselves the difficulties experienced by explorers in these highlatitudes; but at length they found themselves so completely hemmed inby vast floes and drifting masses of pack-ice that to prolong thestruggle would only be endangering the ship, and they were reluctantlycompelled to own themselves beaten and to rise into the air.
They rose to a height of five hundred feet above the sea-level, and, atthis elevation, found themselves entirely free of the fog. So far thiswas well, but the dense masses of heavy grey snow-laden cloud whichobscured the heavens above them, and the threatening aspect of the skyto windward, told them that their holiday weather was, at all events forthe present, gone, and that they were about to experience the terrors ofa polar gale. The temperature fell with astounding rapidity; and theywere compelled to beat a rapid retreat to their state-rooms, there todon additional garments. This done, they sallied out on deck, to findthat during the short period of their retirement a heavy snow-storm hadset in, the air being so full of the great white blinding flakes that,standing abreast the pilot-house, it was impossible to see either end ofthe ship. Floating in the air as they were it was, of course,impossible for them to estimate the strength of the gale, the onlyapparent movement of the atmosphere being that due to their own passagethrough it. Though heading to the northward, with the engines making asufficient number of revolutions per minute to propel them through stillair at the rate of thirty miles per hour, it was quite on the cards thatthe adverse wind might be travelling at a higher speed than this, inwhich event they would actually be driving more or less rapidly astern,notwithstanding their apparent forward motion. It thus became necessaryto post a look-out at each end of the ship, in order to avoid allpossibility of collision with some towering iceberg, unless they choseto rise high enough in the air to be clear of all danger; and this theywere reluctant to do, as they wished to experience, for at least once intheir lives, all the terrors of a polar gale. The baronet accordinglyvolunteered to look out forward and the colonel to do the same aft, andthey hastened at once to their respective stations, Mildmay and theprofessor superintending meanwhile the engine levers and otherappliances controlling the motion of the ship. It was well for themthat these precautions were so promptly taken, for the colonel hadscarcely reached his post when, through the thick whirling snow whichscurried past him, he descried a huge white ghostly mass looming vaguelyup in the semi-darkness directly astern, and before he well had time tomake up his mind that he actually saw something, the top of a giganticberg revealed itself close at hand, and his prompt warning cry was onlyraised in barely sufficient time to prevent the _Flying Fish_ drivingstern foremost into it, when the loss of her propeller must inevitablyhave resulted. Mildmay, however, whose quick ear first caught thesound, promptly sent the engines at full speed ahead, and the danger wasaverted.
Meanwhile, though the snow whirled so thickly around them and the fogwas so dense beneath that they were unable to see anything, they werenot allowed to remain entirely in ignorance of what was happening intheir near proximity. The howling of the bitter blast over the frozenwaste beneath resounded in their ears like the diapason of some hugeorgan played by giant fingers, and mingled with these deeper tones thererose up to them a constant grinding crunching sound with occasionalrifle-like reports, telling of the tremendous destruction going on amongthe ice-floes beneath.
Suddenly the snow ceased, the fog was swept away upon the wings of thegale, and the entire scene in all its terrific grandeur burst at onceupon their gaze. They were hovering immediately over the spot where twoimmense floes had come into collision, and for miles to the right andleft of them the contiguous margins were being ground to pieces by theenormous pressure, and the splintered fragments heaped up one aboveanother in the wildest confusion, to a height of from fifty to eightyfeet above the surface of the floe. The ice, which was about fifteenfeet t
hick, crumbled away like fragile glass, and it was only byobserving the manner in which masses weighing hundreds of tons werewildly tossed hither and thither like corks that even an approximateidea of the tremendous power at work could be obtained.
A mile ahead another grand sight presented itself. The northern andlarger of the two floes, acted strongly upon by the gale, and opposed bythe smaller floe, was slowly but irresistibly swinging round, and in itssweep it had come into contact with a very large berg, which, influencedapparently by some undercurrent, was with equally irresistible forceactually making its way to windward in the teeth of the gale. Theresult was a scene of wild chaos and confusion and destruction comparedwith which that upon which they had just looked was as nothing. Theberg simply tore its way through the floe as a plough does through afurrow, splitting up the thick ice before it, and tossing the hugefragments hither and thither until its path through the field was markedby a black band of open water churned into fleecy froth by the breath ofthe tempest, and bordered on either side by an immense wall of ice-blocks, each of which constituted a small berg in itself.
The cold had by this time so increased in intensity that the colonel andthe baronet were only too glad to abandon their posts, now that therewas no further necessity for maintaining them, and retreat to thefriendly shelter of the pilot-house, where they lost no time in closingthemselves in.