Under the Sea to the North Pole (19 page)

“Hubert,” said she, quickly, “here is my father. He is still alive. His two companions are dead. You will find their bodies near the engine. They have been killed by the cold. They had no more fuel and their provisions were frozen.”

Dr. Servan bent over De Keralio. “Hubert,” said he, “it is urgent for one of us to go and bring help. We cannot leave Isabelle and her father here, and this temperature is absolutely insupportable.”

D’Ermont hesitated. He objected that his presence might be useful on the spot.

Again Guerbraz, by a flash of genius, solved the difficulty.

“There is the dog!” he said.

They all understood.

Taking out his note-book, Hubert wrote the following appeal to Lieutenant Pol:—

“Send three men with provisions and one of the tubes of hydrogen. Follow the dog. He will show you the way.”

He tore out the leaf and tied it to the dog’s collar.

All that had to be done was to send Salvator to the camp.

How were they to make the gallant creature understand what was required of him? Isabelle undertook the task. She trusted, and with . reason, to Salvator’s marvellous intelligence, which was far greater than that of most of his kind. Coming out from the boat, she mounted the seeming hummock, caressed the brave Newfoundlander, and showed him the south-west horizon under the white lines of snowflakes that still were falling.

“Go, good dog!” she said.,

Salvator barked joyously, gave his mistress a proud and gentle glance, and was off like an arrow.

CHAPTER XII

UNDER THE WAVES.

I
T was with great difficulty that De Keralio was recalled to life. But his robust constitution, Dr. Servan’s science, and Isabella’s assiduous care, were stronger than the malady. Nourishment was given him in definite doses, for nothing is more dangerous than indigestion after long inanition.

The funeral of the two poor sailors had already taken place. Nothing had been more mournful than this burial. The day was grey and dismal; the cold was terrible. Far from their country, far from their people, far from their friends, the two unfortunate Bretons— for they were from Brittany—found but one grave.

The last duty was performed in the only suitable way for the place and the circumstances. The herculean arm of Guerbraz dug a grave in the ice of the pack nearly four feet deep. As he dug it the brave sailor wept, and his tears froze in heavy pearls on his cheeks and beard; and some formed little crystals on the handle of the pickaxe he wielded.

These two men were the first of the expedition to die. There was deep mourning among the little troop, and a sort of discouragement pervaded them.

At length De Keralio was strong enough to speak, and could relate his sorrowful odyssey.

But before that he had heard from Isabelle the story of her flight, so happily inspired, and how, guided by filial love, she had been able to discover her father in the hummock.

Isabelle was brief in what she said.

As soon as she had read the letter contained in the bottle, and which had been so luckily found on the ice, she had run away to the north-east, prompted by her overflowing affection, and urged by a secret presentiment. She had outrun her companions, and resolutely attained that part of the ice-field where the hillocks and upheavals indicated that it had been most disturbed by the storm. There it was and nowhere else that instinct told her she would find the castaways.

She was not deceived. With an extraordinary power of observation, with a sureness of judgment, in which the sagacity of a woman was aided by all the resources of so long an experience, she had soon learnt to distinguish the hummocks from each other, and by the diversity of their appearance to recognize those in which the mass revealed the deepest cavities.

In this way she found herself in front of the hillock which covered the submarine boat. Already Salvator had rejoined her, and was following her in huge leaps.

Suddenly, when the dog reached the foot of the hummock, he gave a low growl, soon succeeded by a long clamour which made her shudder. Fatigued by her journey, and having taken no nourishment for twelve hours, she was nervous and impressionable to excess.

But to this feeling of superstitious terror there instantly succeeded a revival of energy. “Good dog!” she said, caressing Salvator. “Find them; find them!”

The dog leapt about, barking furiously against the walls of the hummock; he ran round it with increasing signs of irritation against the obstacle.

Finally he stopped at one of the angles and began to scratch furiously.

As impatient as the dog, and understanding that something unusual was taking place behind the icy rampart, and confirmed in her suspicions that a cavity existed inside the hummock, she had tried to climb up it, and succeeded in doing so.

Then occurred what might have been a catastrophe, but which turned out to be the salvation of DeKeralio.

The ice was thin and gave under Isabelle’s weight. She fell down a sort of tube of ice, the lower level of which . touched the hood of the companion which had been left open on the submarine boat.

There she found her father, unconscious, and, further away, the corpses of the two sailors.

Her despair was immense. But as she was a woman of energy she began every effort to keep her father alive.

It was thus that Hubert D’Ermont had discovered her, with Salvator excitedly struggling to scratch in a way to her through the ice. For while the girl at the-peril of her own life was devoting herself to her father, the pitiless cold was gradually shutting in the passage above her and burying her with the poor lost ones.

Meanwhile the temperature continued subject to Strangest variations. The snowstorm did not last very long, and by the 1st of September the weather was clear. .A consultation became necessary. The season was so advanced that any attempt to go further would apparently have to be given up. But with health, energy and resolution returned to De Keralio. He in his turn told the story of his adventure.

“Yes,” said he, “I have seen the Pole; and I only just missed reaching it. This wall of ice which rises before you is not of the same composition as the palaeocrystic blocks on which you now stand. It is not in contact with the sea.”

“Quite so,” said D’Ermont. “Lieutenant Pol and I clearly saw that to be the case. It rests on a ledge of thick hard rocks, the base of which is deep down in the ocean. But there is nothing to show that there are no fissures in this foundation, like tunnels, for instance, or submarine passages.”

“These passages exist, my dear boy, and I cannot do better than repeat what I wrote on the paper you took from my bottle. They exist. We passed through them. But when we got to the other side of this granite belt, we were driven back with irresistible force by a sort of prodigious eddy which threw us outside the periphery; and, had it not been for the necessity of our returning we would have tried to overcome this centrifugal force.”

“The necessity, did you say?” asked Isabelle.

“The absolute, implacable necessity. And that is the most regrettable thing in my report. I am obliged to suspect some one. I have to make an accusation all the more serious that it demands that some one should be punished for it. If my two sailors are dead, if I have been almost dead myself, it is because our fuel suddenly gave out.”

“The fuel?” asked Hubert. “Did you not take several tubes of the liquefied hydrogen? Did you not have enough of them?” .

“On the contrary, the quantity would have been more than enough, for we took ten tubes representing altogether about eight hundred thousand litres of gas. The boat required less than half that to work it. Judge then of my amazement and despair when I found that of the ten tubes five were empty!”

“Empty!” exclaimed all his hearers at once, in surprise and indignation.

“Empty,” continued De Keralio; “or, rather, emptied by foul play. The screw had been loosened, and for a long time the tubes had contained not an atom of gas. The crime—for it is a crime— must have been committed either on board or while we were in winter quarters at Cape Ritter. I dare not mention names; but there is one which comes spontaneously to my lips.” . “Hermann Schnecker!” said Hubert, boldly. “I have said it.”

“Do not accuse any one, my dear Hubert,” interrupted De Keralio. “Time will reveal this tissue of wickedness. We will inquire into it seriously.”

Then he recounted all the circumstances of this exciting campaign; the return after the repulse to the submarine boat from the centrifugal force; the shipwreck, then the journey over the pack; two long days of a storm of unexampled severity, which had broken the pack as you break an empty egg-shell; the desperate search for the frail vessel that contained all their hopes; then the recovery of the submarine boat under a heap of ice, the return into its icy interior of the three men, the two sailors to die the same day four hours afterwards. At last De Keralio, also struck down to infallibly perish if it had not been for the miraculous intervention of his daughter.

The recital made a deep impression on all who heard it. The emotion was at its height when Isabelle’s father, returning to his fixed idea, added,—

“But if the absence of hydrogen prevented me from realizing my project, that hindrance does not now exist. You are abundantly provided with that beneficent gas. Clear away the boat, get her out from her prison of ice, and I will resume the enterprise. It shall not be said that I failed in sight of port.”

Hubert thereupon intervened and spoke his whole thought.

“My uncle,” he said, “one of my plans has been to bring this expedition to its appropriate end. But you must understand that we cannot ask you to share in our fatigues and our labours, after the terrible experiences you have just been through. Besides, Dr. Servan will give you the best advice that his knowledge and friendship dictate. The boat can take five men. We only want three to crown the enterprise; Guerbraz, I, and a third we will choose.”

A voice was heard, ringing and sonorous, the voice of Isabelle.

“The third will be Isabelle. As my father’s health will not allow him to share in it, his daughter will take his place; and I undertake that you will not fi nd her useless.”

Vainly did they endeavour to dissuade Isabelle, De Keralio trying more than all. But they could not convince her or shake her enthusiasm.

Then as time was pressing, and they had to avail themselves of the last days of summer, it was decided to proceed at once. Everything was considered, and calculated and weighed with care. Eight days at the outside would suffice for the adventurous explorers to reach the axis of the world and return. De Keralio, however great was his desire, yielded to the wise advice of his doctor. It was agreed that he should remain in the tent awaiting the return of the boat, or, guided by a detachment of sailors, regain the shelter of the
Polar Star
in winter quarters at Courbet Island. The first of these alternatives was chosen not without many sighs of regret.

Everything being thus arranged, the boat was got out of its icy hill comparatively uninjured. It was inspected thoroughly from stem to stern, from keel to deck; its car-lines, its beams, its shaft, its screw, its engines. Every part of this marvellous work in sheet aluminum was gone over and made good down to every rivet.