Wild Adventures round the Pole

“Bravo!” said Sandy. “I look upon that now as – ”

Sandy paused and reddened a little.

“As a vera judeecious arrangement,” said Rory, laughing. “Out with it, Sandy, man.”

Rory edged off towards the door of the saloon as he spoke; the doctor kicked over his chair and made a dart after him, but Rory had fled. Hardly, however, was the surgeon re-seated ere his tormentor keeked in again.

“Eh! mon, Sandy McFlail,” he cried; “you’ll want to take a lot more salt in your porridge, mon, before ye can catch Rory Elphinston.”

On the hillside, fifty feet above the sea level, they commenced operations, and in a fortnight’s time the cave was almost completed; and not only that, but a beautiful staircase leading up to it. The soil was not hard after the outer crust was tapped, although some veins of quartz were alighted upon which required to be blasted. Several times they came across the trunks of huge trees that seemed to have been scorched by fire, the remains, doubtless, of the primeval forest that had once clad these hills with a sea of living green. Nor were bones wanting; some of immense size were turned up and carefully preserved.

Rory made a careful study of the remains of the animal and vegetable life which were found, and the result of this was his painting two pictures representing the Past and Present of the strange land where their vessel now lay. The one represented the Arrandoon lying under bare poles and yards in the ice-locked bay, with the wild mountainous land beyond, peak rising o’er peak, and crag o’er crag, all clad in the garments of eternal winter, and asleep in the uncertain light of the countless stars and the radiant Aurora. But the other picture! Who but Rory – who but an artist-poet could have painted that? There are the same formations of hill and dale, the same towering peaks and bold bluffs, but neither ice nor snow is there; the glens and valleys are clad in waving forests; flowers and ferns are there; lichens, crimson and white, creep and hang over the brown rocks; happy birds are in the sky; bright-winged butterflies seem flitting in the noonday sunshine, and strange animals of monstrous size are basking on the sea-shore.

Rory’s pictures were admired by all hands, but the artist had his private view to begin with, and, among others like privileged, aft came weird old Magnus. First he was shown the picture of the Past.

He gazed at it long and earnestly, muttering to himself, “Strange, strange, strange.”

But no sooner was the companion picture placed before him, than he started from the chair on which he had been sitting.

“I was right! I was right?” he cried. “Oh! bless you, boy Rory; bless you, Captain McBain. This – this is the Isle of Alba. Yonder are the dear hills. I thought I could not be mistaken, and not far off are the mammoth caves. I can guide you, gentlemen, to the place where lies wealth untold. This is the happiest day of old Magnus’s life.”

“Sit down, Magnus,” said McBain, kindly; “sit down, my old sea-dad. Gentlemen, gather round us; Magnus has something to tell us I know. Magnus,” he continued, taking the old man’s thin and withered hand in his, “I have often thought you knew more about this Isle of Alba than you cared to tell. What is the mystery? You have spoken so often about these mammoth caves. How know you there is wealth of ivory lying there?”

“I have no story to relate,” said Magnus, talking apparently to himself; “only a sad reminiscence of a voyage I took years and years ago to these same dreary latitudes. I had a son with me, a son I loved for his dead mother’s sake and his own. I commanded a sloop – ’twas but a sloop – and we sailed away from Norwegian shores in search of the ivory mines. We reached this very island. The year was an open one, just like this; myself and my brave fellows found ivory in abundance; in such abundance that our sloop would not carry a thousandth part of it, for, gentlemen, in ages long gone by, this island and those around it were the homes of the mammoth and the mastodon. We collected all the ivory and placed it in one cave. How I used to gloat over my treasure! It was all for my boy. He would be the richest man in Northern Europe. My boy, my dear boy, with his mother’s eyes! I had only to go back to Norway with my sloop and charter a large vessel, and return to the Isle of Alba for my buried treasure.”

Here poor old Magnus threw his body forward and covered his face with his skinny hands, and the tears welled through his fingers, while his whole form was convulsed with sobs.

“My boy – died!” was all he could utter. “He sleeps yonder – yonder at the cave’s mouth. Yonder – yonder. To-morrow I will guide you to the cave, and we will see my boy.”

The old man seemed wandering a little.

“I would sleep now,” he added. “To-morrow – to-morrow.”

There was a strange light in Magnus’s eye next day when he joined the search party on deck, and a strange flush on his cheek that seemed to bode no good.

“I’ll see my boy,” he kept repeating to himself, as he led the way on shore. “I’ll see my boy.”

He walked so fast that his younger companions could hardly keep pace with him.

Along the shore and upwards through a glen, round hills and rocks, by many a devious path, he led them on and on, till they stood at last at the foot of a tall perpendicular cliff, with, close beside it, a spar or flagstaff.

They knew now that Magnus had not been raving, that they were no old man’s dream, these mammoth caves, but a glorious reality.

“Quick, quick,” cried Magnus, pointing to a spot at the foot of the spar. “Clear away the snow.”

Our heroes were hardly prepared for the sight that met their eyes, as soon as Magnus had been obeyed, for there, encased in a block of crystal ice, lay the form of a youth of probably sixteen summers, dressed in the blue uniform of a Norwegian sailor, with long fair hair floating over his shoulders. Time had wrought no change on the face; this lad, though buried for twenty years, seemed even now only in a gentle slumber, from which a word or touch might awake him.

“My boy! my boy!” was the cry of the old man, as he knelt beside the grave, kissed the cold ice, and bedewed it with his tears. “Look up, look up; ’tis your father that is bending over you. But no, no, no; he’ll never speak nor smile again. Oh! my boy, my boy!”

Rory was in tears, and not he alone, for the roughest sailor that stood beside the grave could not witness the grief of that old man unmoved.

McBain stepped forward and placed his hand kindly on his shoulder.

Magnus turned his streaming eyes just once upwards to his captain’s face, then he gave vent to one long, sobbing sigh, threw out his arms, and dropped.

Magnus was no more.

They made his grave close to that of his boy’s, and there, side by side, these twain will sleep till the sea gives up its dead.

Chapter Thirty Two.

The Terrible Snowstorm – Something Like an Aquarium – The Mammoth Caves and their Startling Treasures – The Journey Polewards – Collapse of the Balloon – “God Save The Queen.”

Four long months have passed away since poor old Magnus dropped dead on the grave of his son. The sun has once more appeared above the horizon, bringing joy to the hearts of the officers and crew of the Arrandoon. Despite every effort to keep their spirits up, the past winter has been a weary one. Had the stars always shone, had the glorious Aurora always flickered above them, it might have been different; but shortly after the cave was finished and furnished, divided into compartments, and made comfortable with chairs and sofas, and carpets and skins, a terrible storm came on them from the north-west. Never had our young heroes, never had McBain himself, known such cold, or such fierce winds and depth of snow. For three whole weeks did this Arctic storm rage, and during this time it would have been certain death for any one to have ventured ten yards from the mouth of the cavern.

But the wind fell at last, the clouds dispersed, and once more the goodly stars shone forth, and the bright Aurora. Then they ventured to creep out from their friendly shelter. The Arctic night seemed now as bright as day; they could hardly believe that the sun was not hidden behind some of those quartz-like clouds, that were still banked up on the south-eastern horizon. But where was the ship? where was their lordly Arrandoon? For a moment it seemed as if the ice had opened and swallowed her up. They rubbed their wondering eyes and looked again. Three silver streaks glimmering against the dark blue of the sky represented her topmasts; all the rest of her was buried beneath the snow.

And as far as they could see seaward it was all a waste of smooth dazzling white, with here and there only the points and peaks of the icebergs appearing above it.

As soon as the snow had sunk, which it soon did many feet, McBain had got his crew ready to start for the mammoth mines. The weather had continued fine, only there were whole weeks during which the wind blew so cuttingly fierce that no work or walking either could be attempted.

The troglodytes – an expression of Rory’s – were, therefore, a good deal confined to their cave, and it was well for them then that they had books to read and the wherewithal to amuse themselves in many other ways. The following is a remark that Rory had made to Ralph and Allan one day, after nearly three months of the winter had passed away.

“Which of you troglodytes is going with me to-morrow to see the sun rise?”

“Not I, thanks,” said Ralph. “Pass the ham, old man; that bit of bear-steak was a treat.”

“I’ll go,” said Allan.

“Hurrah!” cried Rory. “It is you that’s the brave boy after all. We’ll have friend Seth, too, and the dogs. It’s the first time they’ve been out; it will do us all good.”

This sledging-party had been a merry one, but they were obliged to leave the dogs at the foot of the mountain, and climb, as best they could, to the top, where, sure enough, they were soon rewarded by a glimpse, just one thrilling glimpse, of the king of day. They could not refrain from shouting aloud with joy. They shouted and cheered, and though, well-nigh three miles from the cave, the troglodytes there heard it, so intense was the silence, and gave them back shout for shout and cheer for cheer.

They had seen something, though, from the hill-top that had very much astonished them. In the centre of this curious island, and entirely surrounded by mountains, was a lake of open water, as black as ink it looked in contrast with the snow-clad braeland around it, and right in the centre thereof played an enormous geyser, or natural fountain. It was evidently of volcanic origin.

The days got longer and longer, and in five months from the time they had entered the cave day and night were about equal.

But I must not omit telling you of the strange experiment that had suggested itself to McBain while gazing upwards at the birds – lured from afar – circling round the electric light. It was nothing more nor less than that of paying a visit, by means of a diving-bell and the electric light, to the denizens of the deep – the creatures that lived in the ocean under the ice.

Everything was got ready under the supervision of the aeronaut, ably assisted by the carpenter and crew and little Ap. The bell itself was an immense one, and most carefully constructed to float or sink at will. Inside it was quite as comfortable as the room in the lift of some of our large hotels.

Ralph seldom went far out of his way in search of adventure, but this new and wonderful experiment seemed to possess an irresistible charm even for him.

As for Rory, he was, as Sandy McFlail said, “half daft” over the idea.

McBain was most careful in seeing that everything was in working order; and the bell was sunk and re-sunk empty a dozen times in the water before he would allow any one to venture down in it. The snow had been previously cleared away all from and around the ship, and an immense ice-hole made for the purpose of conducting the experiment.

When all seemed safe, and it was found that the bell, sunk to a depth of forty feet, was acted on by no current, but rose straight to the surface of the ice-hole when wanted, then the captain himself and De Vere ventured down. They remained beneath for fully twenty minutes – and anxious minutes they were to those on the surface; then the signal to hoist was given, and presently up bobbed the bell, and was raised to the level by the derrick, when out stepped De Vere and McBain.