In less than a week after the engagement of Roland Clewe and Margaret Raleigh work on the great machine which was to generate the Artesian ray had so far progressed that it was possible to make some preliminary experiments with it. Although Clewe was sorry to think of the very undesirable companion which Samuel Block had carried with him into the polar regions, he could not but feel a certain satisfaction when he reflected that there was now no danger of Rovinski gaining any knowledge of the momentous operations which he had in hand in Sardis. He had had frequent telegrams from Sammy, but no trouble of any kind had yet arisen. It was true that the time for trouble, if there were to be any, had probably not yet arrived, but Clewe could not afford to disturb his mind with anticipations of disagreeable things which might happen.
The masses of lenses, batteries, tubes, and coils which constituted the new instrument had been set up in the lens-house, and it was with this invention that Clewe had succeeded in producing that new form of light which would not only penetrate any material substance, but illuminate and render transparent everything through which it passed, and which would, it was hoped, extend itself into the earth to a depth only limited by the electric power used to generate it.
Margaret was very anxious to be present at the first experiment, but Clewe was not willing that this should be.
“It is almost certain,” he said, “that there will be failures at first, not caused perhaps by any radical defects in the apparatus, but by some minor fault in some part of it. This almost always happens in a new machine, and then there are uninteresting work and depressing waiting. As soon as I see that my invention will act as I want it to act, I shall have you in the lens-house with me. We may not be able to do very much at first, but when I really begin to do anything I want both of us to see it done.”
There was no flooring in that part of the lens-house where the machine was set up, for Clewe wished his new light to operate directly upon the earth. At about eight feet above the ground was the opening through which the Artesian ray would pass perpendicularly downward whenever the lever should be moved which would connect the main electric current.
When all was ready, Clewe sent every one, even Bryce, the master-workman, from the room. If his invention should totally fail, he wanted no one but himself to witness that failure; but if it should succeed, or even give promise of doing so, he would be glad to have the eyes of his trusted associates witness that success. When the doors were shut and locked, Clewe moved a lever, and a disk of light three feet in diameter immediately appeared upon the ground. It was a colorless light, but it seemed to give a more vivid hue to everything it shone upon—such as the little stones, a piece of wood half embedded in the earth, grains of sand, and pieces of mortar. In a few seconds, however, these things all disappeared, and there revealed itself to the eyes of Clewe a perfectly smooth surface of brown earth. This continued for some little time, now and then a rounded or a flattened stone appearing in it, and then gradually fading away.
As Clewe stared intently down upon the illuminated space, the brown earth seemed to melt and disappear, and he gazed upon a surface of fine sand, dark or yellowish, thickly interspersed with gravel-stones. This appearance changed, and a large rounded stone was seen almost in the centre of the glowing disk. The worn and smooth surface of the stone faded away, and he beheld what looked like a split section of a cobble-stone. Then it disappeared altogether, and there was another flat surface of gravel and sand.
Between himself and the illuminated space on which he gazed—his breath quick and his eyes widely distended—there seemed to be nothing at all. To all appearances he was looking into a cylindrical hole a few feet deep. Everything between the bottom of this hole and himself was invisible; the light had made intervening substances transparent, and had deprived them of color and outlines. It was as though he looked through air.
Then his eyes fell upon the sides of this cylindrical opening, and these, illuminated, but not otherwise acted upon by the volume of Artesian rays, showed, in all their true colors and forms, everything which went to make up the sides of the bright cavity into which he looked. He saw the various strata of clay, sand, gravel, exactly as he would have seen them in a circular hole cut accurately and smoothly into the earth. No stone or lump protruded from the side of this apparent excavation, the inner surface of which was as smooth as if it had been cut down with a sharp instrument.
Clewe was frightened. Was it possible that this could be an imaginary cavity into which he was looking? He drew back; he was about to put out one foot to feel if it were really solid ground upon which this light was pouring, but he refrained. He got a long stick, and with it touched the centre of the light. What he felt was hard and solid; the end of the stick seemed to melt, and this startled him. He pulled back the stick—he could go on no further by himself. He must have somebody in here with him; he must have the testimony of some other eyes; he needed the company of a man with a cool and steady brain.
He ran to the door and called Bryce. When the master-workman had entered and the door had been locked behind him, he exclaimed, “How pale you are! Does it work?”
“I think so,” said Clewe; “but perhaps I am crazy and only imagine it. You see that circular patch of light upon the ground there? I want you to go close to it and look down upon it, and tell me what you see.”
Bryce stepped quickly to the illuminated space. He looked down at it; then he approached nearer; then he carefully placed his feet by its edge and leaned over further, gazing intently downward, and he exclaimed, “Good heavens! How did you make the hole?”
At that moment he heard a groan, and, looking across the illuminated space, he saw Clewe tottering. In the next moment he was stretched upon the ground in a dead faint.
When Bryce had hurried to the side of his employer and had thrown a pitcher of water over him, it was not long before Clewe revived. In answer to Bryce's inquiries he simply replied that he supposed he had been too much excited by the success of his work.
“You see,” said he, “that was not a hole at all that you were looking into; it was the solid earth made transparent by the Artesian ray. The thing works perfectly. Please step to that lever and turn it off. I can stand no more at present.”
Bryce moved the lever, and the light upon the ground disappeared. He approached the place where it had been; it was nothing but common earth. He put his foot upon it; he stamped; it was as solid as any other part of the State.
“And yet I have looked down into it,” he ejaculated, “at least half a dozen feet!”
When Bryce turned and went back to Clewe, he too was pale.
“I do not wonder you fainted,” said he. “I do not believe it was what you saw that upset you; it was what you expected to see—wasn't that it?”
Clewe nodded in an indefinite way. “We won't talk about it now,” said he. “I don't want any more experiments to-day. We will cover up the instrument and go.”
When Roland Clewe reached his room, he sat down in the arm-chair to think. He had made a grand and wonderful success, but it was not upon that that his mind was now fixed. It was upon the casual and accidental effect of the work of his invention, of which he had never dreamed. Bryce had made a great mistake in thinking that it was not what Roland Clewe had seen, but what he had expected to see, which had caused him to drop insensible. It was what he had seen.
When the master-workman had approached the lighted space upon the ground, Clewe stood opposite to him, a little distance from the apparatus. As Bryce looked down, he leaned forward more and more, until the greater part of his body was directly over the lighted space. Looking at him, Clewe was startled, amazed, and horrified to find all that portion of his person which projected itself into the limits of the light had entirely disappeared, and that he was gazing upon a section of a man's trunk, brightly illuminated, and displayed in all its internal colors and outlines. Such a sight was enough to take away the senses of any man, and he did not wonder that he had fainted.
“Now,” said he to himself, “all the time that I was looking into that apparent hole, never thinking that in order to see down into it I was obliged to project a portion of myself into the line of the Artesian ray, that portion of me was transparent, invisible. If Bryce had come in! and then”—as the thought came into his mind his heart stopped beating—“if Margaret had been there!”
For an hour he sat in his chair, racking his brain.
“She must see the working of the ray,” he said. “I must tell her of my success. She must see it as soon as possible. It is cruel to keep her waiting. But how shall I manage it? How shall I shield her from the slightest possibility of what happened to me? Heavens!” he exclaimed, “if she had been there!”
After a time he determined that before any further experiments should take place he would build a circular screen, a little room, which should entirely surround the space on which the Artesian ray was operated. Only one person at a time should be allowed to enter this screened apartment, which should then be closed. It would make no difference if one should become invisible, provided there was no one else to know it.
It was on the evening of the next day that Margaret beheld the action of the Artesian ray. She greatly objected at first to going inside of the screened space by herself, and urged Roland to accompany her; but this he stoutly refused to do, assuring her that it was essential for but one person at a time to view the action of the ray. She demurred a good deal, but at last consented to allow herself to be shut up within the screen.
What Margaret saw was different from the gradual excavation which had revealed itself before the eyes of Roland. She looked immediately into a hole nearly ten feet deep. The action of the apparatus was such that the power of penetration gained by the ray during its operation at any time was retained, so that when the current was shut off the photic boring ceased, and recommenced when the batteries were again put into action at the point where it had left off. The moment Margaret looked down she gave a little cry, and started back against the screen. She was afraid she would fall in.
“Roland,” she exclaimed, “you don't mean to say that this is not really an opening into the earth?”
He was near her on the other side of the screen, and he explained to her the action of the light. Over and over she asked him to come inside and tell her what it was she saw, but he always refused.
“The bottom is beautifully smooth and gray,” she exclaimed; “what is that?”
“Sand,” said Roland.
“And now it is white, like a piece of pottery,” she exclaimed.
“That is white clay,” said he.
“Don't you want to take my place,” said she, “if you will not come with me?”
“No,” said Roland. “Look down as long as you wish; I know pretty well what you will see for some time to come. Has there been any change?”
“The bottom is still white,” she replied, “but it is glittering.”
“That is white sand,” said he. “The Artesian well which supplies the works revealed to me long ago the character of the soil at this spot, so that for a hundred feet or more I know what we may expect to see.”
She came out hurriedly. “When you begin to speak of wells,” she said, “I am frightened. If I should see water, I should lose my head.” She sat down and put her hand before her eyes. “My brain is dazzled,” she said. “I don't feel strong enough to believe what I have seen.”
Roland shut off the current and opened the screen. “Come here, Margaret,” he said; “this is the spot upon which the light was shining. I think it will do you good to look at it. Tread upon it; it will help to reassure you that the things about us are real.”
Margaret was silent for a few moments, and then, approaching Roland, she took him by both hands. “You have succeeded,” said she; “you are the greatest discoverer of this age!”
“My dear Margaret,” he interrupted, quickly, “do not let us talk in that way; we have only just begun to work. Above all things, do not let us get excited. If everything works properly, it will not be long before I can send the Artesian ray down into depths with which I am not acquainted—how far I do not know—but we must wait and see what is the utmost we can do. When we have reached that point, it will be in order to hoist our flags and blow our trumpets. I hope it will not be long before the light descends so deep that we shall be obliged to use a telescope.”
“And will it not be possible, Roland,” Margaret said, earnestly, “that we shall ever look down into the earth together? When the light gets beyond the depth to which people have dug and bored, I shall never want to stand there alone behind the screen and see what next shall show itself.”
“That screen is an awkward affair,” said Roland. “Perhaps I may think of a method by which it can be done away with, and by which we can stand side by side and look down as far into the depths of the earth as our Artesian ray can be induced to bore.”
Steadily the Dipsey worked her way northward, and as she moved on her course her progress became somewhat slower than it had been at first. This decrease in speed was due partially to extreme caution on the part of Mr. Gibbs, the Master Electrician.
The attenuated cable, which continually stretched itself out behind the little vessel, was of the most recent and improved pattern for deep-sea cables. The conducting wires in the centre of it were scarcely thicker than hairs, while the wires forming the surrounding envelope, although they were so small as to make the whole cable not more than an eighth of an inch in diameter, were far stronger than the thick submarine cables which were used in the early days of ocean telegraphy. These outer wires were made of the Swedish toughened steel fibre, and in 1939, with one of them a little over a sixteenth of an inch in diameter, a freight-ship of eleven thousand tons had been towed through the Great New Jersey Canal, which had then just been opened, and which connected Philadelphia with the ocean.
But notwithstanding his faith in the strength of the cable, Mr. Gibbs felt more and more, the farther he progressed from the habitable world, the importance of preserving it from accident. He had gone so far that it would be a grievous thing to be obliged to turn back.
The Dipsey sailed at a much lower depth than when she had first started upon her submarine way. After they had become accustomed to the feeling of being surrounded by water, her inmates seemed to feel a greater sense of security when they were well down below all possible disturbing influence. When they looked forward in the line of the search-light, or through any of the windows in various parts of the vessel, they never saw anything but water—no fish, nothing floating. They were too far below the ice above them to see it, and too far from what might be on either side of them to catch a glimpse of it. The bottom was deep below them, and it was as though they were moving through an aqueous atmosphere.
They were comfortable, and beginning to be accustomed to their surrounding circumstances. The air came in regularly and steadily through the electric gills, and when deteriorated air had collected in the expiration-chamber in the upper part of the vessel, it was forced out by a great piston, which sent it by a hundred little valves into the surrounding water. Thus the pure air came in and the refuse air went out just as if the little Dipsey had been healthfully breathing as it pushed its way through the depths.
Mrs. Block was gaining flesh. The narrow accommodations, the everlasting electric light, the sameness of food, and a total absence of incident had become quite natural to her, and she had ceased to depend upon the companionship of the dust-brush and the almanac to carry her mind back to what she considered the real things of life.
Sarah had something better now to take her mind back to Sardis and the people and things on dry land. The engagement and probably early marriage of Mr. Clewe and Mrs. Raleigh had made a great impression upon her, and there were days when she never thought of the pole, so busy was she in making plans based upon the future connection of the life of herself and Sammy and that of Mr. and Mrs. Clewe.
Sammy and his wife had very good quarters within the boundaries of the works, but Sarah had never been quite satisfied with them, and when the new household of Clewe should be set up, and all the new domestic arrangements should be made, she hoped for better things. Mr. Clewe's little cottage would then be vacant, for of course he and his wife would not live in such a place as that, and she thought that she and Sammy should have it. Hour by hour and day by day she planned the furnishing, the fitting, and the management of this cottage.
She was determined to have a servant, a woman thoroughly capable of doing general house-work; and then there were times when she believed that if Sammy should succeed in finding the pole his salary would be increased, and they might be able to afford two servants. Over and over again did she consider the question whether, in this latter case, these women should both be general house-work servants, or one of them a cook and the other a chamber-maid and laundress. There was much to be considered on each side. In the latter case more efficient work could be obtained; but in the former, in case one of them should suddenly leave, or go away for a day out, the other could do all the work. It was very pleasant to Mrs. Block to sit in a comfortable arm-chair and gaze thus into the future. Sometimes she looked up into the water above, and sometimes out into the water ahead, but she could see nothing. But in the alluring expanse of her fancied future she could see anything which she chose to put there.
Sammy, however, did not increase in flesh; in fact, he grew thinner. Nothing important in regard to the Pole, Rovinski, had occurred, but of course something would occur; otherwise why did the Pole come on board the Dipsey? Endless conjectures as to what Rovinski would do when he did anything, and when he would begin to do it, kept the good Samuel awake during many hours when he should have been soundly sleeping. He had said nothing yet to Mr. Gibbs in regard to the matter. Every day he made a report to Roland Clewe about Rovinski, but Clewe's instructions were that so long as the Pole behaved himself properly there was no reason to trouble the minds of the party on board with fears of rascality on his part. They had enough to occupy their minds without any disturbing influence of that sort.
Clewe's own opinion on the subject was that Rovinski could do nothing but act as a spy, and afterwards make dishonest use of the knowledge he should acquire; but the man had put himself into Clewe's power, and he could not possibly get away from him until he should return to Cape Tariff, and even there it would be difficult. The proper and only thing to do was to keep him in custody as long as possible. When he should be brought back to a region of law and justice, it might be that the Pole could be prevented, for a time, at least, from using the results of his knavish observations.
There was another person on board whose mind was disturbed by Rovinski. This was Mr. Marcy, the Assistant Engineer, an active, energetic fellow, filled with ambition and love of adventure, and one of the most hopeful and cheerful persons on board. He had never heard of Rovinski, and did not know that there was anybody in the world who was trying to benefit himself by fraudulent knowledge of Mr. Clewe's discoveries and inventions, but he hated the Pole on his own account.
The man's countenance was so villainous that it was enough of itself to arouse the dislike of a healthy-minded young fellow such as Marcy; but, moreover, the Pole had habits of sneaking about the vessel, and afterwards retiring to quiet corners, where he would scribble in a pocket notebook. Such conduct as this in a man whose position corresponded with that of a common seaman on an ordinary vessel, seemed contrary to discipline and good conduct, and he mentioned the matter to Mr. Gibbs.
“I suppose the man is writing a letter to his wife,” said the latter. “You would not want to hinder him from doing that, would you?”
And to this no good answer could be made.
The Pole never took notes when Sammy was anywhere where he could see him, and if Mr. Marcy had reported this conduct to the old man, it is likely that Rovinski would speedily have been deprived of pencils and paper, and his real character made known to the officers.
One day it was observed by those who looked out of the window in the upper deck that the water above them was clearer than they usually saw it, and when the electric lights in the room immediately under the window were turned out it was almost possible to discern objects in the room. Instantly there was a great stir on board the Dipsey, and observations soon disclosed the fact that there was nothing above the vessel but water and air.
At first, like an electric flash, the thought ran through the vessel that they had reached the open sea which is supposed to surround the pole, but reflection soon showed those who were cool enough to reflect that if this were the case that sea must be much larger than they had supposed, for they were still a long way from the pole. Upon one thing, however, everybody was agreed: they must ascend without loss of time to the surface of the water above them.
Up went the Dipsey, and it was not long before the great glass in the upper deck admitted pure light from the outer world. Then the vessel rose boldly and floated upon the surface of the open sea.
The hatchways were thrown open, and in a few moments nearly everybody on board stood upon the upper deck, breathing the outer air and gazing about them in the pure sunlight. The deck was almost flat, and surrounded by a rail. The flooring was wet, and somewhat slippery, but nobody thought of that; they thought of nothing but the wonderful place in which they found themselves.
They were in a small lake surrounded by lofty and precipitous icebergs. On every side these glittering crags rose high into the air; nowhere was there a break or an opening. They seemed to be in a great icy prison. It might be supposed that it would be exhilarating to a party who had long been submerged beneath the sea to stand once more in the open air and in the light of day; but this was not the case. The air they breathed was sharp and cold, and cut into throats and lungs now accustomed to the softer air within their vessel. Scarcely any of them, hurrying out of the warm cabins, had thought of the necessity of heavy wraps, and the bitter cold of the outer air perceptibly chilled their blood. Involuntarily, even while they were staring about them, they hurried up and down the deck to keep themselves warm.
The officers puzzled their brains over the peculiar formation of this ice-encompassed lake. It seemed as if a great ice mountain had sunk down from the midst of its companions, and had left this awful hole. This, however, was impossible. No law of nature would account for such a disappearance of an ice mountain. Mr. Gibbs thought, under some peculiar circumstances, a mass of ice might have broken away and floated from its surroundings, and that afterwards, increased in size, it had floated back again, and, too large to re-enter the opening it had made, had closed up the frozen walls of this lonely lake, accessible only to those who should rise up into it from the sea. Suddenly Mrs. Block stopped.
“What is that?” she cried, pointing to a spot in the icy wall which was nearest to the vessel. Instantly every eye was turned that way. They saw a very distinct, irregular blotch, surrounded by almost transparent ice.
Several glasses were now levelled upon this spot, and it was discovered to be the body of a polar bear, lying naturally upon its side, as if asleep, and entirely incased in ice.
“It must have lain down to die, on the surface of the ice,” said Mr. Gibbs, “and gradually the ice has formed above it, until it now rests in that vast funeral casket.”
“How long since he laid down there to die, Mr. Gibbs?” asked Sarah, as she took the glass from her eye. “He looks as natural as if he was asleep.”
“I cannot say,” he answered. “It may have been hundreds, even thousands, of years ago.”
“Oh, horrible!” said Sarah. “All that makes me shiver, and I am sure I don't need anything to make me do that. I wish we would go down, Sammy; I would like to get out of this awful place, with those dreadful glitterin' walls that nobody could get up or over, and things lyin' frozen for a thousand years; and, besides, it's so cold!”
It seemed as if Sarah's words had struck the key-note to the feelings of the whole company. In the heart of every one arose a strong desire to sink out of this cold, bleak, terrifying open air into the comfortable motherly arms of the encircling waters. For a few minutes Captain Jim Hubbell had experienced a sense of satisfaction at finding himself once more upon the deck of a vessel floating upon the open sea. He felt that he was in his element, and that the time had come for him to assume his proper position as a sailor; but this feeling soon passed, and he declared that his spine was like a long icicle.
“Don't you think we had better go down again?” said Sammy. “I think we have all seen enough of this, and it isn't anything that any use can be made of.”
“You are right,” said Mr. Gibbs; “let everybody go below.”
But it was not easy for everybody to obey this command. The wet decks were now covered with a thin surface of ice, and those who had been standing still for a few moments found it difficult to release their shoes from the flooring of the deck, while several of the men slipped down as they made their way to the forward hatch. As for Sarah Block, she found it impossible to move at all. Her shoes were of a peculiar kind, the soles being formed of thick felt, and these, having been soaked with water, had frozen firmly to the deck. She tried to make a step and almost fell over.
“Heavens and earth!” she screamed; “don't let this boat go down and leave me standing outside!”
Her husband and two men tried to release her, but they could not disengage her shoes from the deck; so Sammy was obliged to loosen her shoe-strings, and then he and another man lifted her out of her shoes and carried her to the hatchway, whence she very speedily hurried below.
Everybody was now inside the vessel, the hatches were tightly closed, and the Dipsey began to sink. When she had descended to the comparatively temperate depths of the sea, and her people found themselves in her warm and well-lighted compartments, there was a general disposition to go about and shake hands with each other. Some of them even sang little snatches of songs, so relieved were they to get down out of that horrible upper air.
“Of course I shall never see my shoes again,” said Mrs. Block; “and they were mighty comfortable ones, too. I suppose, when they have been down here awhile in this water, which must be almost lukewarmish compared to what it is on top, they will melt loose and float up; and then, Sammy, suppose they lodge on some of that ice and get frozen for a thousand years! Good gracious! It sets me all of a creep to think of that happenin' to my shoes, that I have been wearin' every day! Don't you want a cup of tea?”
“It's a great pity,” thought Sammy to himself, “that it wasn't that Pole that had his feet frozen to the deck. The rest of us might have been lucky enough not to have noticed him as the boat went down.”
“We ought to get a name for that body of water up there,” said Mr. Gibbs, as he was writing out his report of the day's adventures. “Shall we call it 'Lake Clewe'?”
“Oh, don't do that!” exclaimed Sammy Block. “Mr. Clewe's too good a man to have his name tacked on to that hole. If you want to name it, why don't you call it 'Lake Shiver'?”
“That is a good name,” answered Mr. Gibbs; and so it was called.
With no intention of ascending again into any accidental holes in the ice above them, the voyagers on the Dipsey kept on their uneventful way, until, upon the third day after their discovery of the lake, the electric bell attached to the heavy lead which always hung suspended below the vessel, rang violently, indicating that it had touched the bottom. This sound startled everybody on board. In all their submarine experiences they had not yet sunk down low enough to be anywhere near the bottom of the sea.
Of course orders were given to ascend immediately, and at the same time a minor search-light was directed upward through the deck skylight. To the horror of the observers, ice could plainly be seen stretching above them like an irregular, gray sky.
Here was a condition of things which had not been anticipated. The bottom below and the ice above were approaching each other. Of course it might have been some promontory of the rocks under the sea against which their telltale lead had struck; but there was an instrument on board for taking soundings by means of a lead suspended outside and a wire running through a water-proof hole in the bottom of the vessel, and when the Dipsey had risen a few fathoms, and was progressing very slowly, this instrument was used at frequent intervals, and it was found that the electric lead had not touched a rock projecting upward, and that the bottom was almost level.
Mr. Gibbs's instrument gave him an approximate idea of the vessel's depth in the water, and the dial connected with the sounding apparatus told him hour by hour that the distance from the bottom, as the vessel kept forward on the same plane, was becoming less and less. Consequently he determined, so long as he was able to proceed, to keep the Dipsey as near as possible at a median distance between the ice and the bottom.
This was an anxious time. So long as they had felt that they had plenty of sea-room the little party of adventurers had not yet recognized any danger which they thought sufficient to deter them from farther progress; but if the ice and the bottom were coming together, what could they do? It was possible, by means of explosives they carried, to shatter the ice above them; but action of this kind had not been contemplated unless they should find themselves at the pole and still shut in by ice. They did not wish to get out into the open air at the point where they found themselves; and, moreover, it would not have been safe to explode their great bombs in such shallow water. A consultation was held, and it was agreed that the best thing to do was to diverge from the course they had steadily maintained, and try to find a deeper channel leading to the north. Accordingly they steered eastward.
It was not long before they found that they had judged wisely; the bottom descended far out of the reach of their electric lead, and they were enabled to keep a safe distance below the overhanging ice.
“I feel sure,” said Mr. Gibbs, “that we came near running against some outreaching portion of the main Western Continent, and now we have got to look out for the foundations of Greenland's icy mountains.” He spoke cheerily, for he wished to encourage his companions, but there was a very anxious look upon his face when he was not speaking to any one.
The next day every one was anxious, whether he spoke or was silent. The bottom was rising again, and the Dipsey was obliged to sail nearer and nearer to the ice above. Between two dangers, constricted and trammelled as they were, none of them could help feeling the terrors of their position, and if it had not been for the encouraging messages which continually came to them from Sardis, they might not have been able to keep up brave hearts.
After two days of most cautious progress, during which the water became steadily shallower and shallower, it was discovered that the ice above, which they were now obliged to approach much more closely than they had ever done before, was comparatively thin, and broken in many places. Great cracks could be seen in it here and there, and movements could be discerned indicating that it was a floe, or floating mass of ice. If that were the case, it was not impossible that they were now nearing the edge of the ice under which they had so long been sailing, and that beyond them was the open water. If they could reach that, and find it the unobstructed sea which was supposed to exist at this end of the earth's axis, their expedition was a success. At that moment they were less than one hundred miles from the pole.
Whether the voyagers on the Dipsey were more excited when the probable condition of their situation became known to them, or whether Roland Clewe and Margaret Raleigh in the office of the Works at Sardis were the more greatly moved when they received that day's report from the arctic regions, it would be hard to say. If there should be room enough for the little submarine vessel to safely navigate beneath the ice which there was such good reason to believe was floating on the edge of the body of water they had come in search of, and on whose surface they might freely sail, what then was likely to hinder them from reaching the pole? The presence of ice in the vicinity of that extreme northern point was feared by no one concerned in the expedition, for it was believed that the rotary motion of the earth would have a tendency to drive it away from the pole by centrifugal force.
The little thermometer-boat which during the submarine voyage of the Dipsey had constantly preceded her to give warning of the sunken base of some great iceberg, was now drawn in close to the bow; there was so much ice so near that its warnings were constant, and therefore unneeded.
The electric lead-line was shortened to the length of a few fathoms, and even then it sometimes suddenly rang out its alarm. After a time the bottom of the sea became visible through the stout glass of a protected window near the bow, and a man was placed there to report what he could see below them.
It had now become so light that in some parts of the vessel the electric lamps were turned out. Fissures of considerable size appeared in the ice above, and then, to the great excitement of every one, the vessel slowly moved under a wide space of open water; but the ice could be seen ahead, and she did not rise. The bottom came no nearer, and the Dipsey moved cautiously on. Nobody thought of eating; they did not talk much, but at every one of the outlooks there were eager faces.
At last they saw nothing above them but floating fragments of ice. Still they kept on, until they were plainly moving below the surface of open water. Then Mr. Gibbs looked at Sammy.
“I think it is time to rise,” said he; and Sammy passed the word that the Dipsey was going up into the upper air.
When the little craft, so long submerged in the quiet depths of the Arctic Sea, had risen until she rested on the surface of the water, there was no general desire, as there had been when she emerged into Lake Shiver, to rush upon the upper deck. Instead of that, the occupants gathered together and looked at each other in a hesitating way, as if they were afraid to go out and see whether they were really in an open sea, or lying in some small ice-locked body of water.
Mr. Gibbs was very pale.
“My friends,” said he, “we are going on deck to find out whether or not we have reached the open polar sea, but we must not be excited, and we must not jump to hurried conclusions; we may have found what we are in search of, and we may not have found it yet. But we will go up and look out upon the polar world as far as we can see it, and we shall not decide upon this thing or that until we have thoroughly studied the whole situation. The engines are stopped, and every one may go up, but I advise you all to put on your warmest clothes. We should remember our experience at Lake Shiver.”
“It wouldn't be a bad idea,” said Sammy Block, “to throw out a lot of tarpaulins to stand on, so that none of us will get frozen to the wet deck, as happened before.”
When the hatch was opened a man with a black beard pushed himself forward towards the companionway.
“Keep back here, sir,” said Mr. Marcy, clapping his hand upon the man's shoulder.
“I want to be ready to spread the tarpaulins, sir,” said he, with a wriggling motion, as if he would free himself.
“You want to be the first to see the polar sea, that is my opinion,” said Mr. Marcy; “but you keep back there where you belong.” And with that he gave the eager Rovinski a staggering push to the rear.
Five minutes afterwards Margaret Raleigh and Roland Clewe, sitting close together by the telegraph instrument in the Works at Sardis, received the following message:
“We have risen to the surface of what we believe to be the open polar sea. Everybody is on deck but me. It is very cold, and a wind is blowing. Off to our left there are high mountains, stretching westward as far as we can see. They are all snow and ice, but they look blue and green and beautiful. From these mountains there comes this way a long cape, with a little mountain at the end of it. Mr. Gibbs says this mountain, which is about twenty miles away, must be just about between us and the pole, but it does not cut us off. Far out to the right, as far as we can see, there is open water shining in the sun, so that we can sail around the cape. On the right and behind us, southward, are everlasting plains of snow and ice, which we have just come from under. They are so white that it dazzles our eyes to look at them. In some places they are smooth, and in some places they are tumbled up. On the very edge of the sky, in that direction, there are more mountains. There are no animals or people anywhere. It is very cold, even inside the vessel. My fingers are stiff. Now that we are out on the water, in regular shipshape, Captain Jim Hubbell has taken command. We are going to cruise northward as soon as we can get things regulated for outside sailing.
“SAMUEL BLOCK.”
It was a high-spirited and joyous party that the Dipsey now carried; not one of them doubted that they had emerged from under the ice into the polar sea. To the northeast they could see its waves shining and glistening all the way to the horizon, and they believed that beyond the cape in front of them these waters shone and glistened to the very north. They breathed the polar air, which, as they became used to it, was exhilarating and enlivening, and they basked in the sunshine, which, although it did not warm their bodies very much, cheered and brightened their souls. But what made them happier than anything else was the thought that they would soon start direct for the pole, on top of the water, and with nothing in the way.
When Captain Jim Hubbell took command of the Dipsey the state of affairs on that vessel underwent a great change. He was sharp, exact, and severe; he appreciated the dignity of his position, and he wished to let everybody see that he did so. The men on board who had previously been workmen now became sailors—at least in the eyes of Captain Hubbell. He did not know much about the work that they had been in the habit of doing, but he intended to teach them the duties of sailors just as soon as he could find any such duties for them to perform. He walked about the deck with an important air, and looked for something about which he might give orders. There were no masts or spars or shrouds or sheets, but there were tarpaulins on the deck, and these were soon arranged in seamanlike fashion. A compass was rigged up on deck, and Captain Hubbell put himself into communication with the electric steersman.
It was morning when the Dipsey emerged from the sea, although day and night were equally bright at that season, and at twelve o'clock Captain Hubbell took an observation, assisted by Sammy. The result was as follows: longitude, 69 30'; latitude, 88 42'.
“It strikes me,” said Captain James Hubbell, “that that latitude goes over anything ever set down by any skipper, ancient or modern.”
“I should say so,” answered Sammy. “But that record won't be anything compared to what we are goin' to set down.”
Work went on very rapidly, in order to get the Dipsey into regular nautical condition, and although it was out of his line, Captain Hubbell made it a point to direct as much of it as he could. The electric gills were packed as close to the side of the vessel as possible, and the various contrivances for heating and ventilation when sailing in the open air were put into working order. At four o'clock in the afternoon our party started to round the icy promontory ahead of them, encouraged by a most hearty and soul-inspiring message from the hills of New Jersey.
“It's all very fine,” said Sarah Block to her husband, “for everybody on board to be talkin' about what a splendid thing it is to be sailin' on the surface of the sea, in the bright and beautiful air, but I must say that I like a ship to keep quiet when I am on board of her. I had a pretty bad time when I was comin' up on the Go Lightly, but she was big and didn't wabble like this little thing. We went along beautifully when we were under the water, with the floor just as level as if we were at home, in a house, and now I am not feelin' anything like as well as I have been. For my part, I think it would be a great deal better to sink down again and go the rest of the way under the water. I am sure we found it very comfortable, and a great deal warmer.”
Sammy laughed.
“Oh, that would not do at all,” he said. “You can't expect the people on board this vessel to be willin' to scoop along under the water when they have got a chance of sailin' like Christians in the open air. It's the sudden change that troubles you, Sarah; you'll soon get over it.”
But Sarah was not satisfied. The Dipsey rolled a good deal, and the good woman was frequently obliged to stop and steady herself when crossing the little cabin.
“I feel,” said she, “as if I had had a Christmas dinner yesterday and somebody else had made the pies.”
The dissatisfied condition of Mrs. Block had a cheering influence upon Captain Hubbell when he heard of it.
“By George!” said he, “this seems like good old times. When I was young and there was women on board, they all got a little sea-sick; but nowadays, with these ball-and-socket ships, you never hear of that sort of thing. A sea-sick woman is the most natural thing I have struck yet on this cruise.”
Mrs. Block's uneasiness, however, did not last very long. A few electric capsules of half an alterative volt each soon relieved her; but her mind was still out of order; she was not satisfied. She had accustomed herself to submerged conditions, and ordinary voyaging was very different.
“It wouldn't surprise me,” she said, “if we should find that there wasn't any pole; that's about the way these things generally turn out.”
In a few hours the Dipsey had rounded the cape, keeping well off shore. In front was a clear sweep of unobstructed water. With their telescopes they could see nothing on the horizon which indicated the presence of land. If the sea should stretch out before them, as they hoped and expected, a sail of about seventy miles ought to bring them to the pole. The Dipsey did not go at full speed; there was no hurry, and as he was in absolutely unknown waters, Captain Hubbell wished to take no risks of sunken reefs or barely submerged islands. Soundings were frequent, and they found that the polar sea—at least that part over which they were sailing was a comparatively shallow body of water.
Before they left Sardis, preparations had been made for an appropriate and permanent designation of the exact position of the northern end of the earth's axis. If this should be discovered to be on solid land, there was a great iron standard, or column, on board, in detached parts, with all appliances for setting it up firmly in the rocks or earth or ice; but if the end of the said axis should be found to be covered by water of not too great depth, a buoy had been provided which should be anchored upon the polar point.
This buoy was a large hollow, aluminium globe, from which a tall steel flag-post projected upward to a considerable height, bearing a light weather-vane, which, when the buoy should be in its intended position, would always point southward, no matter which way the wind might blow. This great buoy contained various appropriate articles, which had been hermetically sealed up in it before it left Sardis, where it was manufactured. All the documents, books, coins, and other articles which are usually placed in the corner-stones of important buildings were put in this, together with the names of the persons who had gone on this perilous expedition and those who had been its projectors and promoters. More than this, there was an appropriate inscription deeply cut into the metal on the upper part of the buoy, with a space left for the date of the discovery, should it ever take place.
But the mere ceremony of anchoring a buoy at the exact position of the pole was not enough to satisfy the conscientious ambition of Mr. Gibbs. He had come upon this perilous voyage with the earnest intention of doing his duty in all respects, while endeavoring to make the great discovery of the age; and if that discovery should be made, he believed that his country should share in the glory and in the material advantage, whatever that might be, of the achievement. Consequently it was his opinion that if the pole should be discovered, the discoverers should take possession of it in the name of their country. Every one on board—except Sarah Block, who had something to say about the old proverb concerning the counting of chickens before they are hatched—thought this a good idea, and when the plan was submitted to Mr. Clewe and Mrs. Raleigh, they heartily approved.
Preparations were now made to take possession of the pole if they should reach it on the water. On the after-part of the deck a ring about three feet in diameter was marked, and it was arranged that when they had ascertained, by the most accurate observations and calculations, the exact position of the pole, they would so guide their vessel that this ring should be as nearly as possible directly over it. Then one of the party should step inside of the ring and take possession of the pole. After this the buoy would be anchored, and their intended scientific observations and explorations would proceed.
It was supposed both on the Dipsey and at Sardis that Mr. Gibbs would assume the honor of this act of taking possession, but that gentleman declined to do so. He considered that he would no more discover the pole, if they should reach it, than would his companions; and he also believed that, from a broad point of view, Mr. Roland Clewe was the real discoverer. Consequently he considered that the direct representative of the interests of Mr. Clewe should take possession, and it was decided that Samuel Block should add the north pole to the territory of his native land.
When this had been settled, a very great change came over the mind of Sarah Block. That her husband should be the man to do this great thing filled her with pride and alert enthusiasm.
“Sammy,” she exclaimed, “when you are doin' that, you will be the greatest man in this world, and you will stand at the top of everything.”
“Suppose there should be a feller standin' on the south pole,” said Sammy, “wouldn't he have the same right to say that he was on top of everything?”
“No,” said Sarah, sharply. “The way I look at it, the north pole is above and the south pole is below; but there ain't any other feller down there, so we needn't talk about it. And now, Sammy, if you are goin' to take possession of the pole, you ought to put on your best clothes. For one thing, you should wear a pair of those new red flannel socks that you haven't had on yet; it will be a good way to christen 'em. Everything on you ought to be perfectly fresh and clean, and just as nice as you've got. This will be the first time that anybody ever took possession of a pole, and you ought to look your very best. I would ask you to shave, because you would look better that way, but I suppose if you took off your beard you would take cold in your jaws. And I want you to stand up straight, and talk as long about it as you can. You are too much given to cuttin' off ceremonies mighty short, as I remember was the case when you were statin' your 'pinions about our weddin'; but I had my way then, and I want to have it now. You are goin' to be a big man, Sammy, and your name will go all over the world, so you must screw yourself up to as much eminence as you think you can stand.”
Sammy laughed. “Well, I will do what I can,” said he; “that is, providin' our chickens are hatched.”
“Oh, they'll come out all right,” said Sarah. “I haven't the least doubt of it, now that you are to be the chief figure in the hatchin'.”
Shortly after the ordinary hour for rising, an order was issued by Captain Hubbell, and enforced by Samuel Block, that no one should be allowed to come on deck who had not eaten breakfast. There were those on board that vessel who would have stayed on deck during all the hours which should have been devoted to sleeping, had it not been so cold. There would probably be nothing to see when they reached the pole, but they wanted to be on hand, that they might see for themselves that there was nothing to see.