An Antarctic Mystery (14 page)

"Well, Holt," said I to him one day when he was talking with the
boatswain, "what terms are you on with that queer fellow Hunt now?
Since the salvage affair, is he a little more communicative?"

"No, Mr. Jeorling, and I think he even tries to avoid me."

"To avoid you?"

"Well, he did so before, for that matter."

"Yes, indeed, that is true," added Hurliguerly; "I have made
the same remark more than once."

"Then he keeps aloof from you, Holt, as from the others?"

"From me more than from the others."

"What is the meaning of that?"

"I don't know, Mr. Jeorling."

I was surprised at what the two men had said, but a little
observation convinced me that Hunt actually did avoid every occasion
of coming in contact with Martin Holt. Did he not think that he had
a right to Holt's gratitude although the latter owed his life to
him? This man's conduct was certainly very strange.

In the early morning of the 9th the wind showed a tendency to change
in the direction of the east, which would mean more manageable
weather for us. And, in fact, although the sea still remained rough,
at about two in the morning it became feasible to put on more sail
without risk, and thus the
Halbrane
regained the course from which
she had been driven by the prolonged tempest.

In that portion of the Antarctic sea the ice-packs were more
numerous, and there was reason to believe that the tempest, by
hastening the smash-up, had broken the barrier of the iceberg wall
towards the east.

Although the seas beyond the Polar Circle were wildly tumultuous, it
is but just to acknowledge that our navigation had been accomplished
so far under exceptional conditions. And what good luck it would be
if the
Halbrane
, in this first fortnight of December, were to find
the Weddell route open!

There! I am talking of the Weddell route as though it were a
macadamized road, well kept, with mile-stones and "This way to the
South Pole" on a signpost!

The numerous wandering masses of ice gave our men no trouble; they
were easily avoided. It seemed likely that no real difficulties
would arise until the schooner should have to try to make a passage
for herself through the icebergs.

Besides, there was no surprise to be feared. The presence of ice was
indicated by a yellowish tint in the atmosphere, which the whalers
called "blink." This is a phenomenon peculiar to the glacial
zones which never deceives the observer.

For five successive days the
Halbrane
sailed without sustaining any
damage, without having, even for a moment, had to fear a collision.
It is true that in proportion as she advanced towards the south the
number of icepacks increased and the channels became narrower. On
the 14th an observation gave us 72° 37' for latitude, our
longitude remaining the same, between the forty-second and the
forty-third meridian. This was already a point beyond the Antarctic
Circle that few navigators had been able to reach. We were at only
two degrees lower than Weddell.

The navigation of the schooner naturally became a more delicate
matter in the midst of those dim, wan masses soiled with the excreta
of birds. Many of them had a leprous look: compared with their
already considerable volume, how small our little ship, over whose
mast some of the icebergs already towered, must have appeared!

Captain Len Guy admirably combined boldness and prudence in his
command of his ship. He never passed to leeward of an iceberg, if
the distance did not guarantee the success of any manoeuvre
whatsoever that might suddenly become necessary. He was familiar
with all the contingencies of ice-navigation, and was not afraid to
venture into the midst of these flotillas of drifts and packs. That
day he said to me,—

"Mr. Jeorling; this is not the first time that I have tried to
penetrate into the Polar Sea, and without success. Well, if I made
the attempt to do this when I had nothing but presumption as to the
fate of the
Jane
to go upon, what shall I not do now that
presumption is changed into certainty?"

"I understand that, captain, and of course your experience of
navigation in these waters must increase our chances of success."

"Undoubtedly. Nevertheless, all that lies beyond the fixed
icebergs is still the unknown for me, as it is for other
navigators."

"The Unknown! No, not absolutely, captain, since we possess the
important reports of Weddell, and, I must add, of Arthur Pym also."

"Yes, I know; they have spoken of the open sea."

"Do you not believe that such a sea exists?"

"Yes, I do believe that it exists, and for valid reasons. In fact,
it is perfectly manifest that these masses, called icebergs and
icefields, could not be formed in the ocean itself. It is the
tremendous and irresistible action of the surge which detaches them
from the continents or islands of the high latitudes. Then the
currents carry them into less cold waters, where their edges are
worn by the waves, while the temperature disintegrates their bases
and their sides, which are subjected to thermometric influences."

"That seems very plain," I replied. "Then these masses have
come from the icebergs.
[3]
They clash with them in drifting,
sometimes break into the main body, and clear their passage through.
Again, we must not judge the southern by the northern zone. The
conditions are not identical. Cook has recorded that he never met
the equivalent of the Antarctic ice mountains in the Greenland seas,
even at a higher latitude."

"What is the reason?" I asked.

"No doubt that the influence of the south winds is predominant in
the northern regions. Now, those winds do not reach the northern
regions until they have been heated in their passage over America,
Asia, and Europe, and they contribute to raise the temperature of
the atmosphere. The nearest land, ending in the points of the Cape
of Good Hope, Patagonia, and Tasmania, does not modify the
atmospheric currents."

"That is an important observation, captain, and it justifies your
opinion with regard to an open sea."

"Yes, open—at least, for ten degrees behind the icebergs. Let us
then only get through that obstacle, and our greatest difficulty
will have been conquered. You were right in saying that the
existence of that open sea has been formally recognized by
Weddell."

"And by Arthur Pym, captain."

"And by Arthur Pym."

From the 15th of December the difficulties of navigation increased
with the number of the drifting masses. The wind, however, continued
to be uniformly favourable, showing no tendency to veer to the
south. The breeze freshened now and then, and we had to take in
sail. When this occurred we saw the sea foaming along the sides of
the ice packs, covering them with spray like the rocks on the coast
of a floating island, but without hindering their onward march.

Our crew could not fail to be impressed by the sight of the
schooner making her way through these moving masses; the new men
among them, at least, for the old hands had seen such manoeuvres
before. But they soon became accustomed to it, and took it all for
granted.

It was necessary to organize the look-out ahead with the greatest
care. West had a cask fixed at the head of the foremast—what is
called a crow's-nest—and from thence an unremitting watch was
kept.

The 16th was a day of excessive fatigue to the men. The packs and
drifts were so close that only very narrow and winding passage-way
between them was to be found, so that the working of the ship was
more than commonly laborious.

Under these circumstances, none of the men grumbled, but Hunt
distinguished himself by his activity. Indeed, he was admitted by
Captain Len Guy and the crew to be an incomparable seaman. But there
was something mysterious about him that excited the curiosity of
them all.

At this date the
Halbrane
could not be very far from the icebergs.
If she held on in her course in that direction she would certainly
reach them before long, and would then have only to seek for a
passage. Hitherto, however, the look-out had not been able to make
out between the icebergs an unbroken crest of ice beyond the
ice-fields.

Constant and minute precautions were indispensable all day on the
16th, for the helm, which was loosened by merciless blows and bumps,
was in danger of being unshipped.

The sea mammals had not forsaken these seas. Whales were seen in
great numbers, and it was a fairy-like spectacle when several of
them spouted simultaneously. With fin-backs and hump-backs,
porpoises of colossal size appeared, and these Hearne harpooned
cleverly when they came within range. The flesh of these creatures
was much relished on board, after Endicott had cooked it in his best
manner.

As for the usual Antarctic birds, petrels, pigeons, and cormorants,
they passed in screaming flocks, and legions of penguins, ranged
along the edges of the icefields, watched the evolutions of the
schooner. These penguins are the real inhabitants of these dismal
solitudes, and nature could not have created a type more suited to
the desolation of the glacial zone.

On the morning of the 17th the man in the crow's-nest at last
signalled the icebergs.

Five or six miles to the south a long dentated crest upreared
itself, plainly standing out against the fairly clear sky, and all
along it drifted thousands of ice-packs. This motionless barrier
stretched before us from the north-west to the south-east, and by
merely sailing along it the schooner would still gain some degrees
southwards.

When the
Halbrane
was within three miles of the icebergs, she lay-to
in the middle of a wide basin which allowed her complete freedom of
movement.

A boat was lowered, and Captain Len Guy got into it, with the
boatswain, four sailors at the oars, and one at the helm. The boat
was pulled in the direction of the enormous rampart, vain search was
made for a channel through which the schooner could have slipped,
and after three hours of this fatiguing reconnoitring, the men
returned to the ship. Then came a squall of rain and snow which
caused the temperature to fall to thirty-six degrees (2'22 C.
above zero), and shut out the view of the ice-rampart from us.

During the next twenty-four hours the schooner lay within four miles
of the icebergs. To bring her nearer would have been to get among
winding channels from which it might not have been possible to
extricate her. Not that Captain Len Guy did not long to do this, in
his fear of passing some opening unperceived.

"If I had a consort," he said, "I would sail closer along the
icebergs, and it is a great advantage to be two, when one is on such
an enterprise as this! But the
Halbrane
is alone, and if she were to
fail us—"

Even though we approached no nearer to the icebergs than prudence
permitted, our ship was exposed to great risk, and West was
constantly obliged to change his trim in order to avoid the shock of
an icefield.

Fortunately, the wind blew from east to north-nor'-east without
variation, and it did not freshen. Had a tempest arisen I know not
what would have become of the schooner—yes, though, I do know too
well: she would have been lost and all on board of her. In such a
case the
Halbrane
could not have escaped; we must have been flung on
the base of the barrier.

After a long examination Captain Len Guy had to renounce the hope
of finding a passage through the terrible wall of ice. It remained
only to endeavour to reach the south-east point of it. At any rate,
by following that course we lost nothing in latitude; and, in fact,
on the 18th the observation taken made the seventy-third parallel
the position of the
Halbrane
.

I must repeat, however, that navigation in the Antarctic seas will
probably never be accomplished under more felicitous
circumstances—the precocity of the summer season, the permanence
of the north wind, the temperature forty-nine degrees at the lowest;
all this was the best of good-fortune. I need not add that we
enjoyed perpetual light, and the whole twenty-four hours round the
sun's rays reached us from every point of the horizon.

Two or three times the captain approached within two miles of the
icebergs. It was impossible but that the vast mass must have been
subjected to climateric influences; ruptures must surely have taken
place at some points.

But his search had no result, and we had to fall back into the
current from west to east.

I must observe at this point that during all our search we never
descried land or the appearance of land out at sea, as indicated on
the charts of preceding navigators. These maps are incomplete, no
doubt, but sufficiently exact in their main lines. I am aware that
ships have often passed over the indicated bearings of land. This,
however, was not admissible in the case of Tsalal. If the
Jane
had
been able to reach the islands, it was because that portion of the
Antarctic sea was free, and in so "early" a year, we need not
fear any obstacle in that direction.

At last, on the 19th, between two and three o'clock in the
afternoon, a shout from the crow's-nest was heard.

"What is it?" roared West.

"The iceberg wall is split on the south-east."

"What is beyond?" "Nothing in sight."

It took West very little time to reach the point of observation, and
we all waited below, how impatiently may be imagined. What if the
look-out were mistaken, if some optical delusion?—But West, at all
events, would make no mistake.

After ten interminable minutes his clear voice reached us on the
deck.

"Open sea!" he cried.