Under the Sea to the North Pole (9 page)

The only change in affairs that could be noted was that the bowsprit had become frozen in among huge blocks of ice, so that the ship might be pushed backward against the frame. On the return of the party, a consultation was held, and it was decided to clear the bowsprit as soon as possible by means of a jet of steam. The steamer’s boilers were all ready, and in two hours the desired result was obtained, and the bow of the
Polar Star
disengaged from the embrace which was putting her in peril.

With the spring the time returned for excursions and hunting expeditions. But springtime at the Pole, which begins there on the 21st of March, is one of those problematic entities the name and reign of which last but a few days. All the more need, therefore, was there to make the most of it in pressing to the northward either in the
Polar Star
or on the sledges.

Nevertheless, the fatigue that sledging causes after a long confinement within doors weighed heavily on the inhabitants of Fort Esperance. A few signs of scurvy, such as spongy, bleeding gums, swellings at the joints, toothache and neuralgia, and rheumatic troubles, determined the doctors to prescribe certain physical exercises as indispensable for the men. And consequently as soon as the February dawns were sufficiently prolonged to permit of a run of an hour or two, the inhabitants of the fort ventured abroad, notwithstanding the terrible temperature.

Thanks, however, to the fur clothing, to the warm baths and rubbings, the limbs were kept in a state of sufficient suppleness to support the fatigues and dangers on ground irregular of itself and rendered still more irregular by the ice. Besides being better fitted out than their predecessors, the winterers of Cape Ritter had no fear, like the sailors of the
Alert
or the soldiers of Fort Conger, of finding their beds frozen as hard as planks by the rigour of the climate; the extraordinary means of warming which they possessed had rendered easy the arrangement of a drying stove and a laundry, which, under ^he immediate direction of Tina Le Floc’h, rendered the Fort Esperance people the immense service of keeping-them constantly supplied with clean linen and bed clothes.

We must not omit the recreations. What is superfluous in temperate zones becomes .indispensable at the Pole, and that is the necessity of keeping everybody in good humour.

The initiative in these things was left to Isabelle. Concerts were organized of vocal and instrumental music and so much interest was taken in these matters that the programme was always criticized with interest the night before. On each occasion the entertainment was preceded by a banquet, and the bill of fare would have done honour to a cook of the temperate zones. Thanks to the numerous provisions brought by the expedition, and the reserve provided by the hunters of the party, fresh meat and preserved meat could be served, so as to give an agreeable change.

When it would become possible to add a few vegetables, the Sunday’s dinner would become quite a festival. Besides, the ingenious mind of the sailor Le Clerc, aided by the experience of Tina, succeeded in treating pemmican and biscuits in many a novel way. Fellow-workers at the stove, the two Bretons promptly raised their culinary art to heights quite unsuspected by the vulgar.

This was not all. Other secondary occupations interested the men.

Three of the Eskimo sledge train had augmented the canine population by twelve new arrivals. These pups were to be educated in shelter from the extreme cold. In spite of all that could be done three of them died, but the other nine attained robust youth.

And one of the most affecting sights of this cloistered life was to see Isabelle twice a day distributing the food to these little dogs, which daily grew bigger, and which she allowed to sleep in a well sheltered corner of the hothouse, where the three mothers came to look after them.

CHAPTER VI

AN ACCIDENT.

T
HERE were daily expeditions from the 1st of March onwards. The last days of winter were at hand, and the moment was approaching when the sun would remain for months above the horizon. Such conditions were most suitable for walks abroad, and afforded wonderfully fairy-like views over the desolate landscape.

The district round Cape Ritter was bordered by gently sloping hills. From their tops a view over the whole country could be obtained, and when the atmosphere was clear the sight was one of the most beautiful it was possible to meet with.

And consequently Isabelle took the greatest pleasure in these

excursions. When she returned on one occasion, she remarked,— “In truth, I shall end by finding the Pole a terrestrial paradise.” But unfortunately, there remained the keen, boisterous north

wind to contradict these laudatory observations. De Keralio was untiring in his cautions to his daughter as to the need of extreme care.

“We are now in a most dangerous period of the year, and not a day passes without innumerable fissures in the ice being noticed. The differences of temperature would be sufficient to explain their appearance if we did not know that the eastern coast of Greenland is washed by a branch of the Gulf Stream, and subject to elevations of temperature unknown on the western side, in Robeson Channel and Smith Sound. We must keep a constant watch on the state of the ground, for fear of being dragged away by some fall of icebergs or movement of glaciers.”

This sensible advice was generally received with a shake of the head.

Cautious as she was in other things, Isabelle allowed herself to be carried away by the seductions of the landscape. Her nature was rather adventurous and enthusiastic, and she paid little heed to the warnings of her father and his companions.

A terrible affair soon showed the truth of this.

It was not only from the state of the ice that danger was to be feared; there were other dangers almost as serious to be guarded against.

In the early part of March Riez, Carré, MacWright and Lieutenant Hardy, who were the recognized hunters of the expedition, discovered, not without surprise, that there were tracks of wolves and foxes at a short distance from the camp. One morning these tracks were found to be mingled with the deeper footsteps of heavier animals, and there were recognized, not without satisfaction, the forked marks of several large ruminants.

The news was welcomed at the fort.

It showed that there was game again in the neighbourhood, and that there would be a good deal of fresh venison. It also showed that the summer would be unusually early.

In fact, on the 10th of March, during a temperature of fifteen degrees below zero, which was the mean of the month, the hunters had the extraordinary good fortune to fall in with a herd of five musk oxen. Four of these were killed, and their flesh was at once transferred to the larder.

But on the twelfth Lieutenant Pol, going out about two o’clock in the morning, without weapons, found himself unexpectedly in front of a white bear of gigantic dimensions. The animal, like the rest of his kind, immediately turned and fled, and this enabled the officer to beat a judicious retreat.

He had not gone a kilometre towards the fort, when he saw the bear returning towards him at a trot, which would have soon brought him to close quarters if luckily some of the sailors had not noticed the animal and recognized the lieutenant’s danger.

To run up with loud shouts and open fire on the bear was the work of a moment. The brute, finding he was foiled, again turned on his heels and disappeared, not without leaving a trail of blood behind him showing he had been hit. To their great disappointment the hunters could not come up with him.

The flesh of the bear enjoys a well-merited reputation for flavour among the people of the North, and polar explorers esteem it above all others.

In the evening there was .a good deal of talk about the adventure, and next day nothing else was spoken of between the acts of the stage play that was being performed. And so great was the excitement that the sailors improvised on the spot, and performed amid general applause, a spirited pantomime, reproducing with considerable fidelity the morning episode of the day before.

It was hoped that the plantigrade would reappear during the following days. He did not show himself. It was supposed, too readily apparently, that he had changed his haunt, having found the neighbourhood of Cape Ritter somewhat unpleasant.

The minds of all had to be made up to the loss. There were to be no bear paws and no bear steaks, such being the most esteemed parts of the animal. The two Eskimos, Hans and Petricksen, attached to the party, made up for these by plenty of fishing, in which seals and walruses figured for two-thirds, and the rest consisted of fish of the conger and salmon families.

By the twentieth of the month the incident had been forgotten, and Isabelle, who had been careful enough during these few days, lost all her fear and resumed her adventurous explorations on the shoal ice and glaciers of the fiord.

Faithful as a dog, and always accompanied by the brave Salvator, Guerbraz was in attendance during these excursions, On this particular morning, which is famous in Paris for the flowering of the celebrated chestnut tree of the Hundred Days, Isabelle had ventured out on the glacier which looked down on the bed of the
Polar Star.
The steamer was gradually becoming liberated, and already rested on the surface of the year’s ice, which her keel was beginning to furrow. The walls, or to speak more accurately, the icy plating which had served her as impenetrable armour, was melting off her under the action of the abnormal temperature of the spring. Through the rifts in what had fallen, the steep grey rock appeared, which formed the rampart under which the ship lay in shelter from the storms that blew in from the sea. It was in this direction that Isabelle went. She had been thinking for some days of scaling the enormous blocks which surrounded the steamer. The steamer had listed over considerably, and her yard-arm sloping to starboard formed a convenient ladder up which Isabelle was helped by the herculean strength of Guerbraz. The blocks were piled up in a kind of giant staircase, up which Isabelle went with the suppleness and activity of a deer. But instead of getting to the top as soon as possible, she stopped to jump from shelf to shelf, heedless of the advice of Guerbraz, who was literally terrified at this reckless audacity. Suddenly, as she turned to go straight up, she stopped and gave a scream of terror. She was a hundred yards at least from her faithful companion. At her scream he hastened towards her, knowing that she must be in imminent danger. As he reached the highest of the blocks of this titanic staircase, he found the explanation. Less than ten yards away on the other side of a fissure less than a yard across, was a gigantic bear, doubtless the one which had chased the lieutenant and escaped. It was balancing itself in a regular movement, swinging its large body on one side as it swung its little head on the other. It was evidently hungry; it shook its paws one after the other, and opened and shut its mouth from which it now and then hung its red tongue, like a dog wanting water.

“Come back, mademoiselle, come back!” shouted Guerbraz in despair.

Isabelle heard him and turned. She tried to retreat. The bear, seeing, doubtless, that his prey was escaping him, made a step forward, and venturing all his body across the fissure, placed his paws on the opposite side with a smack of the jaws and a low growl.

Guerbraz had snatched his revolver from his belt, and at the same time the good axe he was never without. Anticipating the bear’s attack, he was already about to leap on the block of ice which supported Isabelle and her terrible enemy, when there occurred a phenomenon unexpected, but which might have been foreseen.

At the pressure of the plantigrade’s enormous paws, the fissure opened deep down. Probably it had existed for some time, as it opened so easily. Borne down by its own weight, the bear fell into the crevasse, while the heap of blocks shook as they broke away from the rest. Under the pressure, the icefloe around broke off, and a column of water rose in a wave and dashed up obliquely to the iceberg which, breaking away from everything, began to drift off, probably in a warm current, which swept along the ledge of the fiord.

It was now the turn of Guerbraz to be afraid. He also raised a shout.

What had happened was not without precedent, not only in the records of the past, but in the journal of this very expedition. Floebergs and entire fields of ice had been observed to break off from the glaciers of the coast and drift out to the warmer depths of the ocean, where they melted with extraordinary rapidity.

Isabelle was thus in a critical position, all alone on her moving island; although at this time of the year the block could not drift very far, the way not being open through the pack.

It did not drift more than a hundred yards. It had left the bare rock behind it, and in the place it had occupied was a gap of water which soon became covered with ice.

Guerbraz was in despair.

As the huge floe grounded on the ice-field and made if groan beneath its weight, he saw Isabelle standing on a sort of shelf which overhung the level of the field by about a hundred feet. Matters were becoming more and more critical. To rescue her, Guerbraz slipped as quickly as he could down the slope he had climbed. He had to get round the ship and then the creek before he could reach her. He did not hesitate an instant, and notwithstanding the crevasses, he leapt from ridge to ridge over hummocks and mounds and finally reached the frozen surface of the fiord. But there a new sight petrified him with horror. The wind blew, although feebly, in shore. The bear, notwithstanding its bad fall, which had been considerably broken by the water, had got on the ice again, and was hurrying towards the peak or ledge on which was Isabelle. Guerbraz shouted loudly to distract its attention. The plantigrade hesitated a moment. Then with the same swinging of the body, it continued its advance towards the iceberg.

The sailor, mad with grief, shouted to Isabelle,— “Try and get away down and come to me.” Placed as she was, she could not see the animal approaching her. But she knew that the Breton’s shout meant imminent danger.