But judge of their disappointment when they entered the first cave and found that all was pitch dark.

CHAPTER III

THE BEAUTY AND MARVELS OF AN ICE-CAVE

“Be cautious how you move, lads, else one of you may go through into the sea, and never be seen again.”

“But the ice feels very strong.”

“Yes; it is perhaps a foot thick, and that is strong enough for anything. But there are ‘pussy-holes’ here and there, up through which seals crawl to sleep, and on these the ice is very thin.”

Just as he spoke, there was a sudden and angry roar heard ahead of them, where something black and big reared itself, and two fierce eyes glared at the intruders.

The boys clutched each other in superstitious fear, and stepped quickly back.

It was only a large seal, however, but so quickly did it retreat that Ingomar had not the slightest idea what species it was.

I may say for the seals here in the Antarctic, which number four or five species, that though in the breeding season they have certain habitats, after that happy time is over they are free to wander where they please, and often turn up in strange places. It is the same with Arctic seals.

An eared seal, whose fur has been much sought after, is now, I think, almost extinct, owing to the murderous greed of the sealer. I think it would be well if there were a close season for all species. But this is a digression. Let us return to the cave.

The somewhat mysterious bag carried into the cave was now opened, and Ingomar, bending down, extracted some of what he termed theatrical properties therefrom.

Next moment, on the touch of a button, the whole of this cave was filled with dazzling light.

What a sight!

“Oh—h—h!”

That was all our boys could say for a moment or two.

No stalactite cave probably ever rivalled the beauty of this.

And here were stalactites, too, in the form of depending icicles, dozens, scores, hundreds of them, and, seen by the electric light, they emitted all the colours of the rainbow.

They walked cautiously on and on a long way into the bowels of this mighty cavern, watching the floor for pussy-holes.

No one could even guess where the seal had gone.

“Well,” said Charlie, as they came at last to the end of the ocean-hollowed cave, “I should really have expected to find mermaids here.”

“Now,” said Ingomar, “one more transformation scene, or perhaps two, and then the pantomime is over.”

As he spoke he touched a spring, and, wonderful to say, the cave was illuminated with brightest crimson, then with orange and red again. So on to the pure white light, and in this they found their way to the mouth of the cave, and made their exit and presently their way to the boats.

“We’ve seen a sight,” said Ingomar, “that is surely worth coming to the Antarctic to look upon.”

“Yes,” said Charlie, thoughtfully.

“Oh,” cried Walt, “will you do it again some time?”

Ingomar laughed.

“It all depends,” he said.

A beautiful night now. They must have been a full hour in that cave and didn’t mark time.

The moon had arisen, stars were bright and sparkled in the sea.

It was a night for thought more than talking, and no one did talk.

Nothing indeed was heard, save the chunk-chunk, chunkitty-chunk of oars in rowlocks, until the boat grated against the ship’s side.

“Wherever have you been, boys?” said Mayne Brace. “I was just going to sound the syren to say supper was ready.”

“Ah, Captain Brace, we’ve had a wonderful time of it, all among the mermaids, though at first we saw a terrible apparition.

“But really, sir, the shriek of your hooter would have dispelled all the romance and mystery. Only I’m hungry now. Aren’t you, lads?”

“Rather,” said Charlie; and Walter nodded and smiled.

Come to think of it, there is no country in the world like the Antarctic for making people hungry. If we could send off our dyspeptic millions there, they would all come back with appetites which would speedily put up the price of meat.

* * * * *

I think it really was very good of Ingomar to put himself about in pleasing the boys, which he did in every way he could and at every opportunity.

Older people than he would say that he was not much past his own boyhood, being only about three and twenty. But listen, lads, I myself and many others are believers in young blood. Youth has spirit, dash, and go.

At the University, in which I was reared and nurtured, no student considered himself a boy at seventeen. If you had called me a boy in those days, you would have had to strip, and then you would have had to depend a good deal on your muscle and science to get yourself out of the scrape. I’m not going to preach. That isn’t my form, but if a lad of seventeen doesn’t begin to look ahead and find out that he wasn’t put into this world just for the fun of the thing, then, bother me, if I think he’ll ever be a real man. So at twenty-three, the ages of both Ingomar and Lieutenant Curtis, the mind should be fairly moulded.

As for Curtis, I never met a sailor of greater promise, from a really scientific point of view. Naturalist, meteorologist, hydrographist (photographist, too, if there be science in that), and any number of other “ists” thrown in to make up the weight.

Bold and determined was he, too. He liked to get to the bottom of things, just as with his newest dredging machines and sounding gear he liked to get in touch with the bottom of the sea, whether it were but a few fathoms deep, or miles.

Ingomar was a splendid setting off to him. Curtis, with his spare body, his extreme vitality, his noble mind and grasp of soul. Ingomar, with his splendid physique and king-like form. But Ingomar knew the rudiments of most sciences, and he had the rare gift of picking up just the main points of a subject. Hide a few small nuggets of gold in a gravel heap, and Ingomar would soon have found them for you, and wouldn’t have bothered much about the gravel. That’s the sort of man Ingomar was. With all this there was a deal of romance in his character, and he had one set purpose in this expedition, which, if he could but fulfil, he felt would make his austere father proud of him.

Curtis and he were nearly always together during the thorough exploration—from a scientist’s and surveyor’s point of view—of that great tract of water far inside the Antarctic circle called Ross’s Sea. The mariners of old did not take much time to study science. It was the surface of the sea they dealt with, and the land around it.

After passing Ringgolds Knoll, vide map, you will steer east and south, and after Cape Adare is passed, south into this sea, and its simplest exploration would take months.

It has Victoria Land on the right, a land of wondrous interest, a land of fire in the frozen ocean, land of volcanoes, extinct and extant, of awful icebergs, of more terrible, yet beautiful ice-barriers, and in summer a land of birds in millions.

To explore and survey this sea was one of the chief objects of the voyage.

And now that they had reached Cape Adare, they set about the work in good earnest.

I think you know that Charlie was a boy of many fads—that is the low name for his studies, perhaps—for Charlie’s fads were a step or two above keeping rabbits and guinea-pigs. We have seen how when at sea he used to delight to swing away aloft in the crow’s-nest, and all the marvels he saw from that eyrie of his would, if described in print, fill a biggish book. There was poetry and romance, too, in his life in the nest, and I’m not sure that his thoughts did not take a nobler turn, and that up there at night, swinging among the stars and planets, as one might say, he did not believe himself to be nearer to God—the God of infinity, mind you, not of this insignificant earth alone.

Anyhow, when he used to come down of a night, after a spell up yonder, his eyes had a happier look, and his face seemed to shine, while his thoughts seemed far away.

He was a harder student than Walter, though had you asked Captain Mayne Brace, he would have told you straight that the latter might possibly make the better sailor, as sailors go nowadays.

“But, bless you, sir,” Brace would have added, “your smutty, rattling steamships, all bustle and filth, have almost frightened good old Neptune off his own blue throne.”

Well, anyhow, now that work had begun in earnest, Charlie was never tired of studying every new instrument used on board the ship and on shore. That was his new fad. The more he studied geology and meteorology, for instance, the more he wanted to. Had he possessed fifty minds, fifty storehouses for information, Charlie would have set about filling them.

“Look at that,” Charlie said, exultantly, to Walter one day.

“Well, what is it? A bit of black greyish stone with some spangles in it.”

“That’s granite.”

“I didn’t say it wasn’t.”

Walter was in a teasing mood that day.

“And this?”

“Some exceedingly black and dirty clay.”

“No; but books both, or rather pages from the great Book of Nature.

“All scientists in the present age,” added Charlie, “are busy in their own particular branch, and in writing or building chapters of that Book, and when they have finished their works, these chapters will be pieced together, and then we’ll have the story of the world.”

“Charlie,” cried Walt, “come down off there. I hate your giving yourself side. I hate science as much as I hate lawyers’ musty old parchments. Climb down off your high horse. The sunlit surface of the sea is good enough for me; the earth’s crust is strong enough to walk on, and I don’t want to go down in under, nor back to the realms of millions of years ago. Are you aware we are going to have young seal’s liver and bacon for luncheon?”

Nick and Nora came bounding up at this moment. Collie wasn’t far behind, with his bright eyes and bonnie wise face, and next moment the whole five were united in a daft and delightful game of romps.

And the liver and bacon were excellent.

CHAPTER IV

THE CAMP—SLEDGING ON THE TABLELAND

A whole month was to be spent in this camp making preparations for the grand dash into the interior.

This was imperative; both Curtis and Dr. Wright insisted on it.

These officers had to consider what men and animals were to be included in the land expeditionary force. Oh, it wasn’t to be all fun, I do assure you.

There was an excellent landing here, for they had found a fiord, a deep arm of the sea, that the scientists believed would be more open as summer advanced, and form an excellent harbour where the Walrus could lie in open water as the base of the undertaking, and if ice-bound in autumn, it would be but pancake—so they thought—through which they could saw their way to clear water.

As for the Sea Elephant, she would remain at sea and continue to explore.

Ingomar was not certain in his own mind whether he had not been guilty of an act of cruelty in bringing the Shetland ponies into Polar waters. They had been on shore many times, it is true, and had never been a day ailing; but, on the whole, they had not had very much exercise.

Well, the camp here was commenced. It was to be only a trial one, for those whom Ingomar and his brave companions should leave behind there when they made their dash, would live on board ship.

Everything to be taken into the interior was to be light, but strong; and during their many months of camping out here, they would doubtless gain experience of what would be wanted.

There were sledges of “burden and baggage,” that were to be drawn by the bears, under the care of Slap-dash; the Shetland ponies, with a good man, would greatly assist the heavy work. The dog-sledges would be driven by some of Slap-dash’s men. These sleighs would carry light baggage and camp-gear. They were called the “dash-aways.”

The whole was put under the charge of Dr. Wright. He was a hardy, bold fellow, and determined to make all the rest like him.

“I’ll make you all athletes before you start,” he said; “every man Jack of you. And you won’t need any dumb-bells or chest-developers either.”

“They shall all do as you tell them,” said Lieutenant Curtis. “They shall, indeed, doctor.”

“By Gordon!” cried Wright, flinging his brawny right arm straight out from the shoulder, as only a good pugilist can. “And don’t you say ‘they’ again, old man, Curtis. Say ‘we will do all that you tell us, doctor.’ ’Cause I’m your medical manager. Just you look after your meteorological apparatus—your lenses, your magnetic machinery, your anemometers, your thingummyometers, and all the rest of your paraphernalia, and leave all other matters to me—Dr. Wright of Edinboro toon.”

“Bravo, my friend!” cried Ingomar, coming up at the time. “Just you keep Curtis under and well in hand, Wright. Curtis would kick over the traces if Curtis could, you bet.”

So Dr. Wright proclaimed martial law; and soon the portable bungalow and the tents were up and ready.

There is a lot to be done in camps even by the seashore in old England, and in regularity alone, combined with method, lies their comfort.

Taffy was the good doctor’s loblolly boy. In her care were the medicine wallet and surgical instruments. But the doctor had also taught her the bugle-calls, for Wright himself was a musician and a volunteer officer at home. She was also cook’s assistant, Sheelah being cook supreme.

Taffy and Sheelah slept together in one bag. These were excellent bags, too. Wright and Slap-dash had spent a good deal of time over their making. You popped in or wriggled in, and when your head was easy, simply drew the lid over your head. No fear of smothering in your own carbonic acid in ordinary weather. Taffy sounded the first bugle at 6 a.m., or, in easier language, four bells; and if some one wasn’t astir five minutes after, that “some one” heard of it. You had just five minutes, or, say six, to rub your eyes and say your prayers, then you began to kick yourself clear of the bag and commence ablutions forthwith.

The doctor insisted upon these being conducted secundum artem and in a perfect way.

There was no hot water, and there was no cold, but there were snow and an easily dissolvable soap, and towels galore. Your very face would shine after this, and your spirits rise.

Then exercise for half an hour. Walking, running, leaping, or dancing, or boxing, or fencing.

The doctor had an eagle eye, and no one must shirk this.

The breakfast bugle went at seven, “Too—too—tootitty—tootitty—too.” Taffy had splendid lungs.

Every one was hungry, and the food was satisfying, if not over-refined.

After a rest, the day’s work was begun. At first the packing and surveying of the sledge contents and baggage generally were almost exercise enough till dinner-time. They were kept hard at this every forenoon till every one knew the duty perfectly, and could have told where everything was packed and how to get at it without the slightest confusion.

This was the drill for three or four days, and once a week after this.

The dogs and bears were very tractable, and evinced no inclination at present to go far from camp. But Gruff and his ursine companions soon came to think penguin food the best they ever tasted. They stalked the birds and they stalked seals just as they did in their own Northern home.

The boys and Ingomar did pretty much as they pleased all the afternoon, and Curtis was busy almost from morn till night with his studies.

The ponies did not at all object to go on a “cruise” with Charlie, Walt, and the pet Newfoundlands and Collie, away up through the rough ice in the glen or valley, up and up to a smooth, white, all-too-breezy tableland which stretched in a westerly and southerly direction as far as they could see.

Oh, the delightfulness of their first bareback ride across this snowy plain! Blue, blue the sky, and speckled with fleecelets and feathers; bright the sun at one moment, clouded the next; to the left, Ben-Murchison; far, far to the left, Ben-Sabine, sullenly smoking, his black, bare head silhouetted against the sky. Keen the air. Had to ride with gloves and masks. Cared nothing for that. Knapsacks crammed with biscuits for dogs and ponies, and pork sandwiches for themselves. I don’t think boys were ever more happy, and I’m sure they didn’t draw rein till they had cantered and galloped nine good miles.

“Make a note of this, Walt, old man. We’ve forgotten to bring our compasses.”

So they had.

It didn’t seem to trouble them much, however. They threw themselves down on their backs to enjoy a sun-bath before luncheon. The dogs, too, lay down to chew snow, and the ponies began to graze upon it, if that isn’t an Irish bull.

The ponies had already been taught to come to whistle, and to do many pretty tricks. A Shetland pony can be largely evoluted. I have had them beg like dogs. These did; and they also took bits of biscuits from the boys’ lips, and took their fur caps off. This last was a coaxy kind of trick. The ponies improved upon it to-day, though, by running off with them to present to Nick and Nora.

Nick and Nora, caps in mouth, with Wallace at their side, went racing round and round like circus horses, Charlie and Walt, bareheaded, in the centre. Cold work standing thus, but the lads’ faces were all aglow now, and they cared not.

Then that simple luncheon. Dry biscuits and pony “bix” galore, cold coffee, and more snow. The coffee was frozen in scales, so they had to put the flasks into their bosoms before they could shake it out, a few brown scales at a time, to eat off their palms.

A white spot on Walter’s face!

“Rub it out,” said Charlie, and put his finger on it, for Walt felt nothing.

Rubbed out with snow.

Remount, and a slower ride back to camp in time for tea.

And weren’t they hungry, too! This was only the first of many such scampers.

That great snowy tableland came now to be the regular exercising ground for all the animals.

A squad of men were first requisitioned from the ships to do some work in the glen.

Not navy work, but navvy work. They were set to form a better road up to the tableland by levering the big blocks out of the way, and sledgehammering the smaller. It was by no means a difficult task, and was completed in a day and a half, with the exception of one great fellow of a berg, which they didn’t know how to tackle; but MacDonald, captain of explosives, came to the rescue, and in less than an hour he had literally blown it to smithereens.

The roar of that explosion reverberated from the hills here and there for many seconds after.

The seals on the ice raised themselves to listen, and the penguins looked up in the air as ducks do in a thunderstorm.

The road was complete.

Ingomar and Slap-dash wondered if the bears had forgotten their cunning.

They came to whistle as the dogs did. The dogs were told go about their business and not hustle. Their time would come next.

Gruff and his wife seemed puzzled at first. But soon they remembered things, and when they were put to the very heaviest sledge of all and harnessed, Gruff yawned and gaped, and finally knocked Slap-dash down. But it was done merely as a matter of form; a blow, in Pickwickian sense, meant for a caress. Slap-dash only laughed, and put a handful of snow on Gruff’s nose.

Then he mounted. No whip, only his voice. The bears went away as easily with their load as you or I could with an empty barrow.

The boys rode behind, then came Ingomar and Curtis in furs, with poles in their hands, with their snow-shoes over their shoulders; and half a dozen Yak-Yaks brought up the rear.

Snow-shoes were put on by the infantry when the tableland was gained. After this it was all plain sailing.

When tired of talking, Ingomar and Curtis started a song—a song to suit the pace, but one with melody in it, and the boys joined in the chorus.

This was only breaking the ice (figuratively), for before the two hours’ drag was over, many such were sung.

Luncheon, as before, on the snow.

Bears had frozen seal and biscuits, the Yak-Yaks had the same, the white men a nice luncheon, and all had coffee or snow, as they chose.

The boys had snow to-day.

“Don’t spare it, lads,” cried Ingomar; “there’s plenty more in the larder.”

After the post-prandial pipes, Curtis got up and drew out his note-book. Everything was unpacked, seen to, and once more placed in order.

It was a most pleasant outing; all hands confessed that this was true enjoyment, and not roughing it. Gypsying, picnicking—call it what you please, but just add the words, “jolly good fun.”

The dogs had their trial next day, a whole pack of them; and the trial, twenty miles, was done in half the time, only they did not have the same great load.

Funnily enough, Wallace the collie took entire charge of this pack, for as soon as the Yak dogs were in-sledged, he took up his position to the right, and barked encouragingly all the way.

He was first on the tableland, barking down at them, and on the snow, when they seemed to flag a little, he swept round and round. Humpty Dumpty was driving, but he needed no whip, for Collie at once singled out the dog that was in fault, and gave him a sharp nip.

Grumpey and Meg submitted with a less easy grace, and required a good deal of reminding. When touched smartly on the nose with the whip, they shook their heads, and I’m afraid they made use of some terrible swear-words; but as they did so in the Russian or Ursine language, nobody was supposed to know what they said.

When they were well off and away on the tableland, Grumpey appeared to say to his wife—

“Meg,” said he, “I think we might cut some capers now.”

“If you say we might,” replied his wife, “then, of course, we might.”

“Stand on your hind legs, then.”

Grumpey threw himself on his haunches, and Meg followed suit.

Swish round their noses came the whip, and down they went again on all fours, talking much worse Russian.

“Mr. Slap-dash,” Collie appeared to say, “this is a somewhat peculiar case. Leniency is thrown away on Grumpey. I’ll ride him as postillion.”

He suited action to these identical words, at all events, and leapt nimbly on great Grumpey’s back.

Grumpey did not feel Collie’s weight, of course, but he heard him barking, and he felt his sharp teeth in his off ear whenever he attempted to misconduct himself.

Collie really made a splendid postillion.

* * * * *

The boys themselves broke the ponies in to harness. A task of no small difficulty, for they had never been used to this. Of all horses in the world for cussedness, as the Yankees call it, a Shetland pony is the worst, if not broken in early.

They are so lovable and beautiful, too, and Jack and Gill had developed coats on them like a Skye-terrier. They could hardly see out of their natural face-protectors, but so bonnie and wicked was the morsel of eye one could see, that, instead of talking cross to them, the lads would often laugh and kiss their noses.

Finally the ponies succumbed to kisses, caresses, and bits of biscuit and sugar.

For love can conquer even a Shetland pony.

CHAPTER V

THE START—FIRST NIGHT IN THE DESERT OF SNOW

There were days when, owing to fogs or mists, though it was getting on now for mid-summer, hardly anything could be seen. One could hear the cries and screaming, or grunting, of the birds afar off, the splash of seals taking the water, or the whale in search of food, blowing off steam, but be unable to distinguish one tent from the other, while the Eskimo dogs loomed through the semi-darkness like bears, and the Shetland ponies took on the form of elephants, bar the trunks, and even Humpty Dumpty, for the time being, might have been mistaken for a giant in furs.

No matter, men and beasts must be hardened, and things went on as before.

When sledges did get lost in the fog high up, and across the plain, they had to feel their way as best they could, with the help of the pocket-compass.

The sledge parties were kept two days instead of one on the interior ice, and slept, of course, in their bags. No matter how high the wind or wild the weather, into those bags they must go. They were usually two-men bags, and these are the most comfortable.

Charlie and Walt could have knocked down a Patagonian before that month was over.

Here is an incident worth relating. One bitterly cold night, shortly after a couple of two-men bags were put down—Ingomar, by the way, had a bag for himself, and Curtis always found room for Collie in his—the boys stood talking to Dr. Wright for a few minutes. When he and Walt went to retire, lo, here was Nick in one bag, and Nora in another.

“Pray don’t turn me out,” pleaded Nick.

“Nor me,” whimpered Nora.

So Charlie blew up his air-pillow, and crept in beside Nick, and Walt shared his bag with Nora. When Dr. Wright came out to look for his, he was one to the bad, and had to bend a fresh one.

But the dogs never stirred nor talked in their sleep, and so the boys heard nothing till Taffy’s bugle rang merrily out on the morning breeze.

The dogs ever after this persisted in being bagged. They looked upon it as their right.

When Dr. Wright was appealed to, he said, as the dogs were clean and comfortable, there could be no harm. He left it to themselves—to the boys he meant, not the dogs.

But during the dash into the interior, and all that followed, having the dogs bagged was found to be a good plan, because a Newfoundland or Collie dog gets massed with ice and snow, and, if lying out, he might perish. Anyhow, he would be frozen to the ground, and it would be found impossible to prise him up without great pain, danger, and loss of coat.

For bad weather these three pet dogs had well-made waterproofs, which covered even the heads, leaving room for the ears to come out.

Strange to say, a dog’s nose never gets frozen, and the hair between the well-soled pads prevents frost-bite.

In the snow this hair gets “balled” with hard snow, and cripples the poor fellow, so he comes wisely to his master to have the balls broken off, and is very grateful.

During the journey, Slap-dash came ingeniously to the dogs’ relief, and made them leggings.

A Newfoundland in seal-skin breeches would seem a curious sight to some. Well, laugh if you like, reader, but there they were.

Several men failed to pass the doctor’s examination after the month, and yet they were men fit for any condition of climate, perhaps, save that with which our heroes were now quite prepared to do battle.

A month is certainly not a long time in which to train in athletics, but it must be remembered that those whom Dr. Wright had chosen had been fit and well at the time they commenced to train.

So strong and willing were their hearts, that it was no unusual thing for some of them to lie down naked of a morning at the ablution hour before breakfast, and roll in the snow, or be covered over for half a minute by their comrades. This is really not such a terrible ordeal as you lads who hug the fire and live in stuffy rooms might imagine. The snow is often warmer than the air around it.

There was a dinner on board the Sea Elephant on the night before Curtis and his crew of sledgelings, as he called them, departed on their long and marvellous inland tour. But there was no boisterous merriment thereat, and no wine was permitted, no splicing of the main-brace.

Every one of the sledgelings wrote a letter, or letters, to the old country. These were to be taken by the Sea Elephant to New Zealand, and posted there.

It is needless to say that Curtis wrote to Marie, and so did Ingomar. Ingomar wrote also a most filial letter to his father and mother. No bombast about it, and no boasting about what they were going to do. They were simply going into the interior in the direction of the South Pole. They could not reach that, he said, but they wanted to winter just as near it as possible, and, if possible, break the world’s record, as every American and British subject had the right at least to try to do.

That was about all.

Ingomar’s heart was a brave one. There was sentiment, romance, and love too, in it, but no such thing as hysteria. Yet was there moisture in his eyes as he closed and sealed his letters and placed them in the bag.

Next morning farewells were said almost in silence, and these heroes of the wild Antarctic prepared to mount. Perhaps Dr. Wright was trying to encourage a little merriment, or a laugh at least, when he said—

“You haven’t forgotten the salt, have you, Curtis?”

“No, Wright,” returned Curtis. “Are you sure you have stowed away your gum-lancet?”

A minute after this, the land expedition had started. Cheer after cheer rent the morning sky, the guns of the Walrus and Sea Elephant fired one last salute, then all was still and silent.

Commander Curtis, as we may now call him, wanted to do as much as possible every fine day.

And this was one. For on that vast upland of snow they managed to put five and twenty statute miles between them and the ships, before the final halt was called for dinner, rest, and sleep.

This was almost a record day.

A day free from hitch or even adventure of any kind.

The sun never set now, but, just as it does in Greenland North or in Baffin’s Bay, went round and round, higher up at midday, a bright and burning silver shield, lower at midnight, and a trifle more dim or yellow.

Storms are frequent, even in summer, in this region; but there are a very large number of sunny days.

The scenery has a character entirely its own, and a charm which no one can adequately describe in words. You must have the scene before you in reality before you can realize the charm.

The order to-night was early to bed—or, rather, early to bags, for the first part of next day was to be spent in ascending a hill at the foot of which they were now pitched.

Curtis’s intention was not only to take the usual observations, but, as far as possible, his bearings for the journey of the day.

In such a country as this they could hardly expect to travel as crows fly. The easiest road would be the shortest.

They were in bags by nine, and asleep almost immediately. With the exception of the slight noise bears make in their sleep, there was nothing here to disturb them, and they were far enough away from the hill-foot to fear a falling avalanche. The stillness of such a region as this is appalling. On a windless night you almost fear to speak aloud.

At four o’clock next morning, Taffy awoke Curtis quietly, and he was soon ready. Sheelah, too, was up, and warming coffee essence, which, with fresh eggs beaten up, and condensed milk, and biscuit, made a good breakfast for so early an hour.

Ingomar shared, and Collie also.

These were the only three who were to ascend the hill, which, though only about 1500 feet high, would permit them to have a view, not only seawards, but on every side, to a great distance.

The difficulty of ascent was by no means great, yet both men, though armed with their poles, were considerably pumped before they stood on the peak, or rather lay down on it, and gazed around them.

The air was colder here, and there was a breeze of wind, cold enough for anything. Curtis’s observations were quickly taken, and his bearings too, and it was soon noticed that there was at least one other pleasant day’s work before them.

It was a mountainous land, and, far to east, to west, and to south even, “hills on hills successive piled.” They noticed, too, that many of these were evidently volcanic.

“You see, Ingomar,” said Curtis, almost solemnly, “the great war ’twixt fire and snow is still raging.”

“Which shall win?”

“Ah, my friend, we are young, but we know which will win. It is a sad thought that, in time to come, the snow of the south and the north, and the ice will extend and extend until they meet, blotting out all life in their marvellous circular tract, until the most minute forms thereof do vanish and perish.”

“And then?”

“Seas dry, globe cooled to its centre, the snow, the moisture, and ice itself extinct, the fires of even the interior gone for ever. Cracked and crevassed, we shall roll, a dead planet, round the sun, a moon to it, perhaps, until this world burst into pieces and fall upon other planets in cosmic dust.”

Ingomar was silent, and looked somewhat sad. He knew his friend was clever, and a student of nature in its widest sense, but he hardly expected to find in him a philosophic pessimist.

“And then?” said Ingomar, almost sadly. “And then, my friend?”

Curtis’s face sparkled with happiness and enthusiasm almost instantly.

“And then, Ingomar? Away with thoughts of gloom, millions and billions of years of sleep are but as our puny seven hours, and the same God, the Good, the Eternal, Who awoke us at first, can and will awake us again to the brightness of another day.

“Look around you,” he said, with outstretched arm. “Look at the beauty before and beneath us.”

There were tears in the young fellow’s eyes.

Ingomar had never seen him so strangely emotional before.

“Brother Ingomar,” he said, “I’m going to hope and to trust.”

“And so am I, brother Curtis.”

Then, hand in hand, on that brilliant peak they stood together in silence.

CHAPTER VI

“GOOD-BYE, BOYS. IT WON’T BE FOR LONG”

And there was sunshine over all; it glimmered in the sea in radiance sublime, it spangled the snow and seemed to turn it into diamonds, it filled earth and air, and best of all it filled the hearts of the lonely beholders, till they were fain to smile at their recent gloom.

“A glorious scene, Curtis!”

“A glorious scene, Ingomar! That is our last look at the sea for a time, but not for ever. Oh, no, not for ever!”

Then down they came from the mount, with faces a-shine in the gladsome air.

* * * * *

That day’s journey was scarcely so long. The sun was resplendent, and at the evening meal every one was happy and cheerful. Nay, but hopeful in the extreme.

“I drink your healths in coffee, gentlemen, and may the united British and American flags float in the future over every land and sea in all the world. We’re bound for the end of the world, the place where people jump off, you know, and I am not so very sure we shan’t eventually reach it. But we mean to return without jumping off.”

And every one only spoke the feelings that were within him.

Coffee generally makes people wakeful. It does not if taken in the Arctic or Antarctic. It makes one contented and happy, and even if drunk last thing at night in this pure life-giving air, you get sleepy as soon as you have wriggled into your bag, and doze off almost, though not quite, before you have said your prayers. Still you have no fear. Somehow there seems to be a protecting Power around you.