* * * * *

Before ten days of travel had been accomplished the country had grown very wild indeed, the mountains high and rugged, some volcanic, while many of the valleys they felt they must negotiate were in places half choked with ice-boulders.

They seemed indeed to be glaciers that had been shaken and shattered by earthquake or volcanic force. But this was merely conjecture. At all events it made the progress extremely slow and hard.

The sledges had often to be unpacked and the parcels carried on the ponies’ backs and on those of the good Yak-Yaks quite over the obstructions. The animals of course had little difficulty in getting over the obstacles, but often it fell to the lot of the men to lift and carry the empty sledges.

In clear weather, and it was mostly clear, the plan of getting high up on to some hill was constantly adopted, in order to find out the most likely route.

This was not an agreeable duty, wild and weird although the scenery was. But it was one that usually fell to the lot of Slap-dash himself and one of his men.

Those Eskimos never tired.

Everything considered, they had kept their straight course with very few détours indeed, and, in ten days’ time, had made the very excellent record of a hundred and seventy miles.

Then came a wild blizzard from the south, with sheets of driving snow.

They found shelter behind a friendly precipice, creeping as closely together—men and beasts—as possible, for warmth and protection. The storm, which at times blew with hurricane force, delayed the advance for four and twenty hours.

Most of the time was spent in bag.

Honest MacDonald — Captain X—— —pooh-poohed the blast. He would not turn into his bag.

“It’s a bit kittle storm,” he admitted; “but, losh! lads, I’ve seen mony a waur in the Hielan’ hills, when tending my father’s bits of sheepies.”

MacDonald had Bobbie Burns’s poems to comfort him, and he drank coffee and spun yarns the whole day long. He was a rare hand at telling a story—especially a fish story—but they couldn’t have been all true. He generally ended every yarn with the words, “But that’s nothing. I’ll gi’e ye anither.”

And each fresh story had a broader base than the previous. Not that they were based on the solid truth.

That day he put a climax to his yarns by telling his listeners seriously that, one morning in the Arctic regions, while on shore in Yak Land, he found a stranded whale. He was looking at it when, “without a moment’s warning, the sky became overcast, and a blizzard, boys, ten times wilder than this, came on to blow.

“A blizzard,” he said, “that would have killed a regiment of Gordon Highlanders!”

“And how did you escape?”

“Crept into the whale’s mouth, of course, and quickly too. But the beggar wasna dead ava. The jaws closed, and I was a prisoner.

“I didn’t know what to dae, gintlemen; and I was getting short o’ breath, and expectin’ every minute the brute would wriggle off, as he was sure to do at high water.

“I was in despair, boys, I can tell ye.”

“I should think so,” said Charlie.

“Suddenly,” said MacDonald, without moving a muscle, “I mindit me that I had a packet o’ a terribly strong explosive in my pouch.

“To think was to act.

“I quickly stuck the long fuze, and raxed[E] my hand wi’ the parcel as far as I could down the awful beast’s gullet.

“Nane ower soon, I can assure you.

“The beast was tickled a bit when I lichtit the fuse, and made at once for the water.

“Whizz—bang! and the whole top of his head was blown off, and I walked on shore!”

“And you weren’t hurt, Mac?”

“Weel, no, mon, but I must alloo I was a wee bit shaken.”

* * * * *

Slap-dash was early to the hill next morning. The weather was as bright and fine as if blizzard had never been blowing.

When he came down his somewhat dirty face was sparkling with joy.

“As far as I can see, sah, top ob dis valley, she is one big big, long long, sea ob snow.”

This was indeed glorious news.

And this tableland, when they got up to it, was found to stretch on for probably twenty miles or more, and Slap-dash was not likely to make a mistake in a matter of this kind.

Merrily they marched on this morning; Ingomar and the rest of the white men—Eskimos are not black, however, when washed—beguiling the way with cheerful conversation and with many a song, in the choruses of which even Dumpty and the Yaks joined.

This was a little Republic, a Republic on the march; and although every respect was paid by the men to their officers and superiors, there was far more real communion than on ordinary occasions; so, on the road, or squatting around in a circle of an evening, the simple sailors were invited to sing and yarn, and they cheerfully responded.

MacDonald was not only the best yarn-spinner but the best singer in the pack. Scottish songs, of course; and what nation has sweeter or more heroic melodies than green Caledonia? But it was strange to hear the rough doric voice raised here in this wild land of snow and ice, whether in love lilts, such as “Annie Laurie,” or in those more than martial songs, which so often led the sons of the heather to death or victory in far-off foreign lands.

MacDonald’s was a voice that seemed to stir the heart-blood of even Gruff. Hear him to-day, for instance, while the great caravan of daring explorers was making its swift but almost silent passage over the tableland, and close to the hills—

And big, burly MacDonald swung his arm out towards the everlasting hills as he sang the next verse—

This was a record day, in every sense of the word—a record in its sunshine, its warmth, its joyfulness, and its mileage covered. Fancy, thirty miles with all those burdens!

* * * * *

Another fortnight and over has passed and gone, and the scene is changed somewhat. A fortnight of almost forced marches, of toils and struggles with nature, most bravely and pluckily borne by all hands. Indeed, there had been an utter absence of selfishness. Every one in sunshine, storm, or tempest, seemed to think of others all the time, and not of himself.

But it had been hard work; oh, ever so hard and toilsome.

And now a camp must be formed, and a hut built—a huge, square igloo, built of blocks of snow or ice in a corner of a glen they had found well sheltered from the chilly southern blasts, on somewhat raised ground, too, so that even a snow blizzard would be little likely to bury them alive. But the construction of the igloo, and the storage of the food for men and beasts, was now to be left to the charge of our heroes, Charlie, Walter, Wright, and MacDonald; for Ingomar, with Curtis and Slap-dash, were to push on now in the lightest and fastest dog-sledges as near to the actual South Pole as it was prudent to get.

The summer is all too brief at the best, and there was not a single day to lose.

They had a good man in Dr. Wright. His Arctic experiences had taught him many a lesson, and he was little likely to make a mistake in anything that concerned the health or feeding of the men and animals under him.

A word about the food supplies. The feeding of the bears and ponies had, before starting, been Wright’s greatest concern, and many an experiment he had made.

All food was to be in the condensed and preserved form, and the biscuits, which had been prepared especially before leaving Britain, contained the best essence of beef. These for dogs, bears, and men. Those for the ponies were simple.

Being so far from their base, the ships near the sea of Ross, they could expect no succour or assistance of any kind; but with the immense dragging power at his command, Dr. Wright had carefully computed that a six months’ supply could be taken at least. In addition to this, they had frozen seal beef for the bears, when doing the heaviest work, and on this, with a biscuit or two a day, they had been hitherto fed. We very naturally believe that bears, being so very large, require a large amount to eat. This is a great mistake. There is no animal I know of who, in proportion to his size, eats less, unless it be the Eskimo dog. Both dogs and bears, in winter, can subsist on hardly anything, provided they have a large amount of sleep.

And now that they had safely reached this far south, and the really heavy work was over, Dr. Wright had a comparatively easy mind. Yet he himself would always superintend the serving-out of the stores, and the feeding of his camp, in the most economical way, and on a scientific basis.

It is this very food difficulty, I believe, and this alone, which prevents the brave hearts of Britain and America from hoisting their flags at the North Pole.

That is going to be reached, and don’t forget what I say, reader. And I think—I will not say I fear—that the Stars and Stripes will float there in the Northless Land before the British.

I call the Arctic Pole the Northless Land, boys, because there the meridians or parallels of longitude all meet at point, and parallels of latitude all begin. There is no longer any east, west, nor north, to the man at the Pole, whose name, I am told, is Cameron. I suppose Cameron’s house is like John o’ Groat’s—a round one. Figuratively speaking, everything is beneath him, and from whichever window he looks he is looking due south. If Cameron has a bit of a garden encircling his house, which, being a Scotsman, he is bound to have, to grow a few potatoes and a bit of kail in, then every time he walks round this garden he walks round the earth, and it would be the same at the South Pole, only vice versâ, as a glance at the map will show you. All meridians point due north, as I said before.

It was in the first week of January that Ingomar and Curtis started to make their last record.

Its success would depend in a great measure on how provisions held out. But they had good hopes, good spirits and health; and the dogs, even honest Wallace, had never been in better form, nor fitter.

The instruments which Curtis loaded up were few enough, however, to make observations. But the most important one was the camera, for by turning this twice or thrice daily back upon the scenery they had passed through, they would be enabled to have a pictorial guide back again. The light is not very good in these regions, but it would serve anyhow to give them the outlines, and these would be enough.

“Good-bye, boys. Good-bye. It won’t be for long.”

That was all.

They went away seemingly with light hearts. Yet Charlie and Walter gazed sadly after them, as long as they could be seen.

Then slowly, and in silence, with Nick and Nora by their sides, they returned to camp.

CHAPTER VII

MARVELS OF THE ANTARCTIC

While the weather was still open, therefore, and the sea and shores free, in a measure, from ice, Captain Mayne Brace came out of his creek, or harbour, and commenced a scientific voyage once more along the shores of Victoria Land; while Captain Bell, with Milton, the old mate of the Walrus, was first to explore Ross’s sea to the south and east, and afterwards make the best of his way to New Zealand, taking with him the few invalids there were, and the letters. He was to return with extra provisions, extra stores, and more coals.

Of coals there could not be too much. Coals mean heat and power, and therefore life itself.

His reappearance in Bell’s Sound, as the well-sheltered little creek, which the Walrus had chosen as her Antarctic home, had been named, would be awaited with a very great deal of anxiety indeed.

THE MARVELS OF THE ANTARCTIC.

Boys of an inquiring turn of mind will read the following brief notes with interest, I feel certain. And I rejoice to say that, among my hundreds of thousands of young British readers, there is a very large number who prefer the solid and lasting to the romantic and ephemeral. We all love heroes, and delight in their deeds of derring-do, but we all want to know a little about the world we live in.

I must refer you to books for the history and adventures of the chief heroes of the Antarctic. Sir James Clark Ross, who sailed about in these regions as far back as 1840 and forward, was certainly a hero in every sense of the word, and considering that he had neither proper instruments for scientific observation, nor steam-power, his brave deeds and discoveries are truly marvellous. The great Ross sea to the East of Victoria Land is named after him, is a monument indeed, which while the world lasts can never be destroyed, to British pluck and endurance. His was, however, a voyage of research with the view of finding out the Magnetic Pole, which, no schoolboy need be reminded, is different from the true axis of the earth—the centre line from south to north round which the world revolves, as does a wheel upon its axle.

Do I make this sufficiently clear to you? The axis or axle poles are the rotation poles, but the magnetic poles do not, as I said, coincide. This world itself, therefore, is just a gigantic spherical magnet. At these poles the dipping-needle stands vertical. The discovery of these poles, of course, enables us to correct our navigation charts, but as the magnetic forces are not constant, the more closely they are studied the better.

Enough of that, which is a long and, I fear, a dry subject.

Mount Erebus and Mount Terror lie at the southernmost and westernmost end of Ross’s great sea. They are still active volcanoes, standing over twelve and ten thousand feet respectively above the sea’s level.

Along the base of Ross’s sea runs a gigantic barrier of ice, hundreds of feet high, which seems to tell the pigmy man that thus far may he come, but no further. Within the next hundred years, however, that pigmy means to wrench most of its secrets from Nature.

We all owe much to the cruise of the gallant Belgica, in 1898-1900; she reached a southern latitude of about 78° or over.

It is far more easy to reach to high latitudes in the north owing to the comparative mildness of the climate.

The southern summer is shorter and colder than that at the North Pole.

Well, we know a little about the whereabouts of the Magnetic Pole, but the vast interior is still a sealed book.

The climatology of the Antarctic is marvellous, and very puzzling. During the summer, for example, in which we now find our Walrus friends sailing about, the days were often very mild, down along the coast, with its bare brown, black, and yellow earth peeping through the snow, its occasional avalanches of snow, and its sudden transitions from sunshine and warmth to snow-fogs, snow-squalls, and a temperature running down to zero, or below it.

The winds are, to a great extent, accountable for this.

But from the very start of the sledge expedition, or as soon as they got high up on the great tableland of snow, there was little really mild weather, and, despite the sunshine, the surface seldom, if ever, got soft.

The currents are another marvellous study; that is, if they can be studied, which they never can be until stations of observation are established all round the so-called Antarctic continent.

The volcanoes are numerous. As I said before, in these regions the great war between the ice above and the fire beneath the earth’s crust is still going on, and will doubtless go on for millions of years, unless this globe of ours comes into collision with some invisible wandering world—then the heat evolved will melt the two, and creation, as far as these are concerned, will have to commence all over again.

But other marvels have yet to be revealed to us. We want to know something of the buried earth’s crust in these Antarctic regions. We want to find out if possible what species of plants and flowers grew here when the equatorial belt was an uncrossable band of flaming heat; we would like to know something of its buried forests, and even of the extinct animals that roamed therein, in the shape perhaps of dragons fifty to a hundred feet long which inhabited its lakes and its caves on mountain slopes.

There were such creatures, doubtless, at a time long long agone, when this world was almost entirely peopled by monsters which are now relegated, too thoughtlessly, to the realms of the mythological.

Have I given you some food for thought, lads?

If I have, I am exceedingly glad, and so I close this short chapter at once.

CHAPTER VIII

THE DASH FOR THE POLE—A WONDROUS SCENE

The “road” was devious enough and toilsome in the extreme for the first week, after which they gradually got into higher regions with fewer mountains, though mostly volcanic, some emitting clouds of rolling smoke, which would have been pillars of fire by night had the sun gone down.

It would be impossible to describe the character and appearance of the scenery without illustrations. I only wish you to understand that if you place on your table a lot of limpet shells, and call them mountains and the spaces between glens or valleys, you have no more idea of this territory than you have of the surface of the moon. Such mountains as they beheld, I believe, are not to be seen in any other country in the world. There were cone-shaped hills, it is true, and rolling brae lands; but there were those, too, of every shape you could imagine. It was evident to Ingomar even, that the gigantic forces of nature had been at war here for ages and ages, terrible earthquakes, awful explosions, volcanic eruptions, such as not even the people of Iceland ever experienced in the awful days and weeks of darkness long ago.

See yonder half mountain. It stands there in its somewhat solitary grandeur in a plain of snow, as evenly cut down the centre as you see a cheese. Where is the other half? What force divided it? None can answer that. Here, again, is a kind of chaotic heap of hills. That nearest to the plane is a gigantic cliff fully one thousand feet in height, and over the ridge of this a stream must have at one time dashed. Here it is still, a motionless cataract of ice!

And many miles farther on, and nearer to this Pole, is a marvellous monument. You could not call it a hill, it is an almost square slab, like an old-fashioned tombstone, about fifty yards from back to front, a thousand yards wide, and about two thousand feet in height.

It looks as if a piece of ground as big as an ordinary English field had been thrown up and left standing on end. Explain it who can. I cannot.

And here is an almost circular lake of great extent, in configuration not unlike Loch Ness in Scotland, with mountains rising up from its banks in the same wild way, all ice, all snow, a frozen river leading in and out of it and more than one frozen cataract.

Even Curtis, with all his science, felt puzzled, and could only reply to Ingomar’s queries by taking photographic snap-shots everywhere around him.

Perhaps our heroes were favoured during this dash towards the Pole with exceptionally fine weather, but the storms they did encounter were certainly most trying and severe. It was well for the dogs during those blizzards that snow fell and was blown or heaped over them—the Eskimo dog can live under snow as long as a Highland wether can—else their poor coats would have been frozen to the ground.

From this elevated region the land began to sink gradually, the track became easier, the mountains less high.

Then, one morning, shortly after starting, they came suddenly to cliffs or braes that led sheer down many hundred feet to a sea!

Curtis looked at Ingomar, who could only reply by smiling.

Do not mistake me, this was a frozen ocean, and a rough one too.

Descending by what they called a footpath, for want of a better name, the sledges remaining behind, accompanied only by the collie Wallace, they walked a good mile into or across this strange ocean.

The ice was examined, here and there wherever possible, and except on the top of the rugged bergs, which was melted and re-frozen snow, it was everywhere found to be green and salt.

Not far inland was a high hill. This was limpet shaped, and coned at the top—an extinct volcano, in fact, but with its crater still unfilled, showing that it still retained heat.

This our heroes climbed with great perseverance and difficulty.

Then, aided by their telescopes, they turned their attention to the south.

Before starting to climb this hill, Curtis quietly surveyed it, and made its height out to be about 1800 feet.

While he was taking his angles, Ingomar just as quietly brought out a strange-looking flag from under the sledge baggage, and with it a pole.

From the great height at which they now stood the visible horizon would be about forty-eight miles, and looking southwards, eastwards, or westwards nothing was visible except this cold rough sea of ice.

The finger of time had touched it, and lo! for uncounted ages all had been solid and still.

It was the burial-place of the Past. And yet this marvellous ocean had once glimmered blue and beautiful in the sunshine, life had been in its waters, and life in the dead and frozen hill, from which our heroes now were looking down.

Some such thoughts as these must have been passing through their minds at this supreme moment.

Their faces, however, were grave almost to sadness, and neither said a word for at least a minute.

Then Curtis turned to Ingomar, and hand met hand once more in loving clasp.

“Brother,” he said simply, “we have made our record, we must now go ‘home.’”

“We have made our record,” replied Ingomar; “we are standing further south, and nearer to yonder Pole, than man ever stood before, and I think our record proves, or seems to me to prove, that this is the end of the ‘Antarctic continent,’ that a sea of ice alone sweeps round the Pole, for not in the furthest distance can we see a single mountain-peak.

“Brother Curtis,” he added, “how do you feel about it?”

Curtis smiled.

“To tell you the truth, my friend, I feel no positive inclination to toss my cap in the air. Do you?”

“No, I feel no over-brimming of enthusiasm in my heart or eyes.”

“Well, Ingomar, though you and I are both but young, with the world still before us——”

“Stay!” cried Ingomar, laughing a little now. “You say the world is still before us. Don’t you think that the world is really all behind us—that we are now at the other end of it?”

“We are young, my friend; but, nevertheless, it must seem, even to us, at this our moment of victory, that exaltation of spirits does not, as a rule, crown real success.”

“You are right. All is change in this world, and happiness lies only in onwardness.

“Happiness lies in onwardness, in forwardness, in action, in the doing of a work and not in its completion.”

“Just for all the world, Ingomar, like the boy who sets out to scamper half a mile over field and moor to find the cup of gold at the point of the rainbow. The glory of the coloured arch makes him so happy all the while till it vanishes, but he returns disappointed because he has not found the cup of gold at the spot where he made certain it lay.”

“But now, away with all thoughts of sadness. I think we’ve made a noble record, so let us sing your national hymn, then plant our flag.”

“We’ll sing both,” said Curtis, lifting his cap; “but you first, lad, you first.”

The American National Anthem was sung in fine form, and after they had raised the united standard—Stars and Stripes and Union Jack—and given three cheers thereto, still with bared heads in that zero air they sang God save the Queen, for our dear old Empress was then alive—

As if by mutual consent, they paused for a few minutes to gaze once more, and for the last time, on their new country—on the cold and silent land and sea.

Their own country! Well, they seemed to have conquered it, but it was God’s country—the country of the Power which is working out the destiny of this world, and every planet and sun-star we see around us in the solemnity of a winter’s night—He has placed the finger of death upon this Great White Land, and it lies sealed in eternal snows. Ah! no, though, not eternal!

There will come a time when all will be changed, for matter cannot die.

How silent! It is a silence that eternals the very heart, and takes possession of the soul.

Not a sound to be heard! Yes, for up the mountain-side comes now the joyous bark of honest Collie.

And so, the flag being planted, Ingomar and Curtis came slowly down the hill.

They had made their record.

CHAPTER IX

TERRIBLE SUFFERINGS—VICTORY

But father was dead, and mother and sister too, and although the land was now his, somehow he did not care to go back and live there. It would be so sad and lonesome. It was grief that had caused him to work so hard, and to take to the study of the sciences, even when but a small cadet on board the old Britannia.

“For study, my friend, will kill care, or lessen it. Is it not so, Ingomar?”

“And grief is the parent of Fame, often enough, Curtis.”

“I got away on long leave to travel on a semi-scientific expedition with some geologists, and you know it was there I met your beautiful sister. I wonder, brother, if we three shall ever meet again—Marie, you, and I.”

“I’ll tell you,” said Ingomar,

And now to bag, my boy, for the hurly-burly must begin in earnest to-morrow.”

* * * * *

It was snowing fast next day when they turned their backs on the great Antarctic sea of ice, and began to retrace their steps back to the camp, where they had left their companions.

No snow nor tempest must bar their progress now, if they would return before their food stores were finished.

Somehow going back is a less exciting experience than going forward with an object in view. The object is gained, and one must think of something else to keep one’s spirits up.

* * * * *

Even in the absence of their friends, Ingomar and Lieutenant Curtis, during the month of January and the first two weeks of February, the lads, Charlie and Walter, found something to do. It is good old Watts, I believe, who tells us that—

But, like brave British boys, they did not mean to wait for the devil to suggest anything. They had brought some books with them, it is true, but their muscles needed exercise, their joints needed lubricants to keep them in health.

So on every available day, every day, indeed, on which a bird could have flown, had there been any birds here, they were off, after breakfast, either on a sleighing trip or a scamper on snow-shoes, accompanied by Nora and Nick.

Gruff and Growley sometimes took it into their wise heads to make two of the party, and Grumpey with Meg would come shuffling up behind, accompanied by their own particular pets, the three Yak dogs that had slept in their den at sea.

They used to return hungry as hunters to the modest midday dinner.

The ponies were never forgotten, we may be sure. It was felt to be a sacred duty to take them out twice a day.

But this was not all, for something, I know not what, had induced the boys to bring with them in the sledge-baggage not only a supply of hockey sticks and balls, but two footballs as well. And so a game of footer was carried on right merrily when weather permitted, halfway down the glen, where the snow was level and hard.

The sailors enjoyed this immensely, so, too, did the Eskimos. So, for the matter of that, did Nick and Nora, although they introduced some new features into the game, which never before had been dreamt of.

Never mind, it was the best of fun. So, too, was hockey. Here, although the dogs took good care not to mingle in a close tussle, they hung round on the outskirts, and pinched the ball and retrieved it.

Anxiety and melancholy began to take possession of the hearts of the expedition, after the time had long gone past wherein Curtis and Ingomar ought to have returned.

The weather was getting very inclement, too. Short, wild storms were becoming more and more frequent, and wind blowing at the rate of ninety miles an hour, breaking the falling snow into suffocating ice-dust.

On such days, hardly even the dogs dared to show face outside. To go beyond the threshold of the igloo gave one a touch of asthma. For the summer was waning, and, as usual, winding up with short snaps of storm and tempest.

The sun was getting very near to the horizon now, at midnight, and soon would set.

Why came they not? Would they never return?

Hoping against hope, Captain X. proposed giving the men some solid work to do.

Tools of excavation or digging had been brought out, for Curtis meant to try to make an opening in some hillside for the purpose of studying geology.

“Why not make use of these now, while we all await in such suspense? Men,” he added, “it’ll keep the fingers of us from gettin’ frozen, and better a blister than a frost-bite.”

Dr. Wright readily gave his consent.

Now, right across the glen, not more than three-quarters of a mile distant, rose a rounded, but somewhat cliffy hill. There was a tantalizing piece of glacier, part ice, part snow, hanging over one cliff, in the shape of a waterfall, though it did not reach quite to the bottom.

Mac was itching to blast it, and lay open a portion at least of the hillside.

And so one day he set to work, and busy picks and shovels soon excavated a hole big enough to admit and bury the explosive.

It was to be fired by electricity from a safe distance, and all hands were there to look on.

It was great fun for the boys. They both liked Mac, and when, with a kindly twinkle in his blue eyes, he turned round and said, “Now, which of you boys will touch the button and fire the mine?” both said “Oh!” and their faces beamed.

“I won’t,” said Charlie, “because Walt is six weeks younger.”

“Brave boy. Well, Walt, you.”

And Walt took the thing in hand at once. The explosion that followed was a terrible one; the sky was filled with smoke, and dust, and débris, and the dull roar seemed to shake the hills on every side.

When the hillside was thus exposed, every one was puzzled to observe something dark at the foot of it, which resembled the entrance to a cave.

A strong accumulator for electric light had been brought by Curtis, in case it might be needed, and next day, when the cave had had time to ventilate itself from the outside, Mac, Dr. Wright, and the two boys ventured half-fearfully inside.

Here was a cavern, indeed, and one of immense size. It had never been made by human hands, that was certain. The light was turned on the walls and floor in every direction. All were black and bare, but dry.

The mystery lay in the fact, that on touching the floor it was found to be warm. And yet the rocks around were certainly not igneous.

And there was another mystery; on bending down and applying the ear to the floor, a distinct murmuring sound could be heard.

“If it’s no fire,” said Mac, “it must be steam, and that is the short and the long of it.

“And,” he added, “if we have to stay here for many months mair, what a comfortable bield[F] for baith man and beast this cave will mak.”

But there was still a third mystery, for far away at the other end lay a dark pile, and, on advancing and turning the light on this, Mac, sturdy though he was, staggered back in fear and dread.

“God save us a’!” he cried; “that’s the banes (bones) o’ some awfu’ defunct dragons that must hae roamed the woods and forest here millions and millions of years ago!”

“I think,” said Dr. Wright, “we had better not touch them till Mr. Curtis arrives.”

“Lord love you!” cried honest Mac. “I wadna’ touch them wi’ the tae o’ ma beet (toe of my boot).”

Another week passed away, and so wearily, for there were no signs of the return of the wanderers.

The weather began now to get most inclement, and so it was resolved to remove everything into the cave they had so providentially discovered. This took some time.

But though there was ample room for even the bears, neither they nor the Yak dogs would enter. They preferred the old camp and the snow.

“I dinna wonder,” said Mac, “at their no likin’ to come in here, for, gweed save us, doctor, it looks an awfu’ uncanny place.”

Another week of weary suspense, then, one morning, in rushed Slap-dash himself. He could only say hurriedly that the sledge team was within five miles, but dogs and men were too exhausted to come further.

* * * * *

Curtis and Ingomar were brought in that forenoon. The meeting was a very joyful one, although Dr. Wright at once forbade all talking for the time being.

He then put them all on the sick list, and in three days’ time they were able to talk, though but feebly, and tell of their sufferings and dangers. How, when they could not have been more than two days’ journey from the camp, they were overwhelmed by a sudden and fearful storm in which one dog was killed. How nearly all the meagre remainder of biscuits was destroyed, how they struggled on and on, too weak, almost, to wish to live, the poor dogs lying down almost at every mile, for their feet were swollen and bleeding, and even when they did move, it was with listless, hanging heads, for they seemed to have abandoned all hope. How they (Curtis and Ingomar) took to their snow-shoes, although their limbs were hot and swollen, and their faces blistered. How they lost the road, for the photographs were now of no use, and at last lay down among the dogs to die.

Oh, it was a pitiful story, but a record of sufferings borne manfully and uncomplainingly, for they had done their best, and were leaving the rest to God.

“No,” said Ingomar; “we felt no pain of any kind, not even cold, when we fell, rather than lay down. Drowsy, though; yes, very drowsy, and I knew the drowsiness was that of death. The last thing I remember was poor Wallace licking my cheek. But for that dog and Slap-dash we should have been buried in the snow. But cheerily does it, Curtis, old man. We have more harm yet to do, if we can only get back home to do it.”

The dogs were soon themselves again, and fit for anything; but another fortnight elapsed before Curtis and Ingomar were strong enough to take much interest in anything.

One day Dr. Wright proclaimed them quite out of danger. They had only to eat, and so an extra allowance of good things was given them, and they grew well after this, as if by magic.

There could be no thought of returning, however, to the seashore now, until winter was past. If they could but live through it. An ugly little “if” that.

“It won’t be half so bad as we think,” said Macdonald, cheerily. “We’ve plenty to eat, though we might dae wi’ a drap mair whisky.

“I dinna believe half what I read about the rigours o’ the Antarctic winter, only you sair-footit Englishmen are brocht up to be frichtened at a pickle snaw. Noo, if I had you in the Hielans——”

“Hush, hush! Mac,” cried Curtis, laughing. “Don’t give us any more Hielans just at present”—it was at breakfast. “Listen, old man, our provisions will last us through the remains of the autumn, and through the darkness of the long winter, till the sun comes out again; but we must work now while it is called to-day, and I am going to examine these wonderful bones of yours this very forenoon.”

“My bones! What’s the matter wi’ my bones? I’ve Hielan’ bones and Hielan’ blood, and if——”

“I know, Mac, I know. But I mean that heap!”

“I’ll tak’ naething to do wi’t. It’s hardly canny to bide (stay) in the same room wi’ such an awful cairn. But to touch them—Ugh!”

But the men were not so superstitious, and heavy though they were, soon had most of them carried out to the light, and, under Curtis’s direction, they were arranged to form complete skeletons.

Even this young scientist himself was a little puzzled until he had examined the strata of the cave, for what had been bones originally were now petrified, or turned into stone by the drip of water containing silicates, etc., from above.

The monsters had belonged to ages long past, when the now snow-capped Antarctic continent was a world of life and wild beauty. The biggest skeleton was sixty-four feet long, and with terrible jaws and teeth. They were evidently saurians of a prehistoric period, with the bodies of gigantic snakes, and the flippers of seals to enable them to seek their prey in the water as well as on the dry land.

A mystery of the past! They were carefully restored, but some day will doubtless be seen in one of the great museums of Paris or London.

But autumn was now far advanced, and it was not without some degree of uncertainty that Curtis himself looked forward to the long dark night of winter.

CHAPTER X

A CHAPTER OF JOY AND SADNESS

The younger Taffy waxed even sentimental over the thoughts of the winter.

“The col’ plenty much I lub,” she said, “and de night, oh, I lubs plenty much mo’.”

And these two strange little women went about all day long, humming little songs to themselves, but working as hard as honey-bees.

As the days grew shorter and shorter, the scenery in fine weather grew more mysterious, the hills and the snow assumed tints, ay, and strong colours, that were often magically beautiful.

Cold as it now was, it was a positive delight for our heroes to get away some distance from the cave-camp, and behold a sunset or a sunrise. Oh, you didn’t require to get up at all early now, reader, to see a sunrise.

Will the day ever come, I wonder, when the artist will be able, in colours, to interpret the descriptions which the author and student of nature try to depict?

Till then, much, so very much, must be left to the imagination.

* * * * *

No one in this country, probably, has ever seen a vermilion sun. But this is what greeted the eyes of our heroes on one of the last, short days of autumn.

A sun that you could gaze at unflinchingly, for it was rayless, gaze at and wonder.

In all their difficulties the boys appealed to Curtis, for whom, young though he was, they had the very highest respect. On this occasion, however, he owned up, as young folks say, that he was a little puzzled, for there was neither fog nor haze upon the earth, whatever there might be very high up. But yonder was the sun all day long, figuratively speaking, turned to blood.

Mac averred that it wasna canny, and that something was sure to follow.

Well, night followed, anyhow, and a long and dreary one it was, with ne’er a star, although the sky, to all appearance, was cloudless.

About this time it was noticed that the bears got altogether more friendly together. Gruff no longer kept Growley in his corner, and he ceased to show his affection to his “sonsy” wife; I mean he whacked her no more.

For a whole week they were ravenously hungry, and one night they stole more of the frozen seal-flesh, and devoured it, than would have served to feed the dogs for a fortnight.

They were missing that night.

Poor Gruff, and Growley, and Grumpey, and Meg. I am indeed sorry to let them pass out of my story, but they never came again.

Whither they had wandered is, of course, mere surmise, but, owing to the disappearance of the seal-meat, I think there is little doubt that they had found a cave and hidden themselves there to hibernate till spring.

Perhaps (quien sabe?) they will live in the Antarctic regions, and, in future, bears may become a by no means uncommon feature of the scenery.

The sun set for the very last time in a splendour of cloudscape that seemed almost supernatural and divine.

There was twilight after this, but soon even that was lost to view.

Then came frequent storms of such violence that, but for the shelter of that mysterious cave—“the Cave of Dead Bones,” as Mac called it—it is doubtful whether the whole expedition would not have perished.

While these storms raged the winds were cold, cruel, merciless. No one could withstand their vehemence. They were more bearable when they brought snow—snow or the thin snowflakes turned into ice-dust, powdered by wrathful and venomous wind. This snow was swept wildly past the cave’s front, which was well barricaded; but wherever it was given leave to rest it lay in “wreaths,” like storm-waves of ocean or Atlantic breakers on a beach, if you could imagine these suddenly solidified by the finger of death, and motionless, “wreaths” big enough to have covered a cathedral.

Battling with such winds is out of the question. You get angry, excited with the unequal contest; your brain is filled with blood, and tears of vexation roll over the cheeks. Then it is nothing unusual for men so exposed to drop suddenly dead.

I must confess to you that my young heroes, Charlie and Walter, lost heart and courage whenever those awful storms began to howl and yell without; and but for the cheerful voices of Sheelah and Taffy, whom in the cave they could not see, they would have succumbed entirely.

Luckily the gales and snow-blizzards did not last very long. Seldom more than a day, and when the wind went down, and moon and stars, or the Aurora and stars, shed their wonder-light over the scenery, the boys were once more happy and gay.

On the days—strange to say days when all was night—when the temperature fell to 20° and 30° below zero, cold was not complained of, but zero itself, with the wind-fiend raging, was misery that cannot be described.

Dr. Wright did everything a brave doctor could do to keep his people in health and fit. Curtis was no longer commander save in name. He had to cave in to the doctor, and do all he was bidden.

MacDonald told his queerest stories after dinner, and sang his love lilts as heartsomely as do the blackbirds in early spring.

Everybody had come to look upon Mac as a brick, and his cheerful Doric voice even in the dark was delightful to listen to. He used to “bag the boys” at night, as he termed it, Charlie with Nick, and Walter with Nora. “Bag them” snugly, too. He was like a mother to them. Of course all hands turned in very early, and as Curtis’s bag (and Collie’s) and also Dr. Wright’s were close to Mac’s and the boys’, the Yak-dogs filling up the intervals or lying round the sides, Mac could lie and yarn, or even sing, to all hands for two hours at a stretch. The British sailors were not far away in their bags, and they could listen too.

There is no seaman in the world like our handy man the British, and through all that long and trying Antarctic night these good fellows, though I have said little about them, behaved like heroes.

All kinds of games could still be carried on in the light, but sleighing was discontinued.

In these regions it is just after turning in that one feels most cold, but any such course as warm drinks or nightcaps (drinkable, I mean) would make matters worse.

Slap-dash and his people used often to worship the moon, just as they had the sun. The sun may be the god of these poor souls, but the moon is his high priest, and the Aurora are his angels.

Well, a religion of any sort is better than none.

Once when the moon was about three days old she took on a strange but most lovely appearance. The stars, except the highest, which were exceedingly brilliant, burned somewhat less brightly at the time. But it was towards the moon all eyes turned.

It was, if I may so describe it, a kind of rainbow moon. The outer arc was of the deepest orange colour, the next and largest arc was pale yellow, but brilliant, then an arc of radiant sea-green, while inside all was an arc of pale but indescribably beautiful mauve.

Hitherto the boys and Ingomar himself had believed, or been taught to believe, that the Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights, with their fringe-like bands of opal, pink, or green, were far more lovely than the Southern magnetic lights, the Aurora Australis.

During their sojourn in the Antarctic they had time to alter their opinion.

I feel it is presumption on my part to attempt to describe a display of this Aurora, because I shall hardly succeed in making myself understood.

Just imagine, if you can, a wide and wondrous arch, stretching from east to west, and nearly halfway up the sky, more rounded than a rainbow, its ends apparently within a few feet of the snow-field.

At first the arch resembled a vast chain, every link of which was a ring of brightest gold, each link overlapping its neighbour to about one-half its extent, but all turbulent, all a-quiver! But lo! as one gazed on it, strangely fascinated, the rings, though still linked together, turned half-edge-on towards the right. Then from each ring, as a spherical base, was suddenly thrown out a triangle of glittering, darting, quivering, golden light.

But speedily is the apex of each triangle extended zenithwards, and broadened out, till it resembles a brush. The rings get smaller and smaller beneath, until they are but bright points of light like heads of comets; in very truth, there is now a broad archway of comets, heads downward towards the snow.

But listen. While the heads of these comets retain the brightness of stars of gold, the extended brushes, or tails, are now bunches of rainbow-coloured, flickering, dancing, darting light.

It is a bewildering sight, and it is hard to believe it real.

Gradually the tails get shorter, become once more the apexes of spherical triangles, and dance, and disappear, the chain of golden rings becoming once more visible as before.

All beneath this archway is a dark-blue sky, in which stars shine, and the rest of the firmament is quite unaffected, though the mountains and snow-clad valley borrow the colour and add to the bewildering grandeur of the most marvellous transformation scene the world can ever witness.

I fear I have failed to give my youthful readers an adequate conception of the Aurora. I feared I should fail before I commenced. But Britons—and I am one—should never funk, and I have done my best.

* * * * *

It is strange, and sadly strange, that, although Dr. Wright and his men had borne bravely up, throughout the livelong night of the dreary Antarctic continent, as soon as day returned, revealing blue and ghastly faces, sickness came.

This is no place in which to inquire into the cause of this sickness; suffice it to say that it came, and the men, hitherto brave and hearty, began to droop and shiver.

An optimist at most times, and ever ready to look upon the bright side of circumstances, the doctor himself began now to fear the worst.

Long before my own experiences of Arctic life, there used to be in Polar regions a disease called the black death.

Whether or not the illness that now attacked this little camp of heroes was a species of that ailment, I am not prepared to say.

I hate to have too much gloom in my stories, or I could describe the symptoms so graphically that you would shudder.

Suffice it to know that, though there were no unsightly swellings, and though the faces of the sufferers retained even their complacency when fits of shivering and cramp abated, they were melancholy and sad sights until they either recovered or died.

Let me say at once that though both Charlie and Walter were ill a few days, owing to the resiliency of youth they were not stricken down, and speedily recovered so far as to be able to assist the truly sick.

It need not be said that Dr. Wright did all that any medical man could have done. Just one or two of the Eskimos collapsed utterly, and died on the third day. They were buried not far off in the snow. Two days after a sailor followed them to the snow-field. He did not say much, even at the worst, and finally he simply fell asleep. Only one out of the four other men attacked recovered, and this was far more from good management and the kindly nursing of Sheelah and Taffy than from medicine. In fact, though wine did good when the patient was at the lowest ebb, and helped him to fight his way round the corner to restoration, medicine was for the most part useless.

Curtis was early down, and, strangely enough, considering how truly brave he was, his spirits drooped to zero, and he gave up hope of himself from the first.

Ingomar nursed his dear friend indefatigably, and when, overcome with fatigue, he dropped off to sleep, either Sheelah or Taffy was always sitting by his brother when he awoke.

I cannot really testify in strong enough language to the marvellous qualities of those gentle little Yak women as sick nurses.

We may laugh at such people, ah! curious though their customs be, and droll their manners, they are our sisters before God.

Slap-dash remained his old self.

Let me cut this all short by saying that of all the crew of brave men, only twelve remained to take the road back to the seashore.

Perhaps as sad a case as any was that of poor MacDonald, who had been so long the life and soul of all the camp.

When Dr. Wright told the boys that he could only last a few hours, and that they must go and see him now, they summoned courage enough to have the interview.

They behaved splendidly in his presence, but as soon as they went into the open air again they both utterly broke down and wept, until their hearts appeared almost bursting.

“It does seem hard, does it not, Walter?” Charlie managed to say.

“Always so kind and good,” said Walter.

“Ay, ay, and I never knew I loved him half so much till now.”

* * * * *

Mac, once the hardy, resolute Scot, passed away that same day.

In the semi-darkness of the cave Ingomar was kneeling by his side and holding his hand.

He had lived a Scot; he died a Scot.

Ingomar thought he had fallen into a slumber, so quiet did he lie. But he spoke at last, though with feeble, faltering voice.

“It’s you, isn’t it, Ingomar?”

“I’m here, dear Mac.”

“Well, I—I know I’m dying. I wouldn’t care—but mother——”

“What can I do to ease your mind?”

“She kens I love her—I’ve been single for her sake. Promise to get all I’ve saved, Ingomar. Her dear auld-farrent[G] letters and my bank-book are a’ in my box. Ingomar—you—promise?”

“Most sacredly.”

“God love you! She’ll no be lang ahint (behind) her laddie.”

He lay still a little while, and he spoke but once again—repeating a verse of the 23rd Psalm.