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A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder

by James De Mille · English · Gutenberg #6709 · 494,483 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder

Author: James De Mille


        
Release date: October 1, 2004 [eBook #6709]
                Most recently updated: December 29, 2020

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6709

Credits: Etext produced by Andrew Sly
        
        HTML file produced by David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A STRANGE MANUSCRIPT FOUND IN A COPPER CYLINDER ***




Produced by Andrew Sly









A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder

By James De Mille



CONTENTS

      I. The Finding of the Copper Cylinder
     II. Adrift in the Antarctic Ocean
    III. A World of Fire and Desolation
     IV. The Sight of Human Beings
      V. The Torrent Sweeping Under the Mountains
     VI. The New World
    VII. Scientific Theories and Scepticism
   VIII. The Cave-Dwellers
     IX. The Cavern of the Dead
      X. The Sacred Hunt
     XI. The Swamp Monster
    XII. The Baleful Sacrifice
   XIII. The Awful "Mista Kosek"
    XIV. I Learn My Doom
     XV. The Kohen is Inexorable
    XVI. The Kosekin
   XVII. Belief and Unbelief
  XVIII. A Voyage over the Pole
    XIX. The Wonders of the "Amir"
     XX. The Dark Maiden Layelah
    XXI. The Flying Monster
   XXII. Escape
  XXIII. The Island of Fire
   XXIV. Recapture
    XXV. Falling, like Icarus, into the Sea
   XXVI. Grimm's Law Again
  XXVII. Oxenden Preaches a Sermon
 XXVIII. In Prison
   XXIX. The Ceremony of Separation
    XXX. The Day of Sacrifice
   XXXI. Conclusion




CHAPTER I

THE FINDING OF THE COPPER CYLINDER


It occurred as far back as February 15, 1850. It happened on that
day that the yacht Falcon lay becalmed upon the ocean between the
Canaries and the Madeira Islands. This yacht Falcon was the property
of Lord Featherstone, who, being weary of life in England, had taken
a few congenial friends for a winter's cruise in these southern
latitudes. They had visited the Azores, the Canaries, and the Madeira
Islands, and were now on their way to the Mediterranean.

The wind had failed, a deep calm had succeeded, and everywhere, as far
as the eye could reach, the water was smooth and glassy. The yacht
rose and fell at the impulse of the long ocean undulations, and the
creaking of the spars sounded out a lazy accompaniment to the motion
of the vessel. All around was a watery horizon, except in the one
place only, toward the south, where far in the distance the Peak of
Teneriffe rose into the air.

The profound calm, the warm atmosphere, the slow pitching of the
yacht, and the dull creaking of the spars all combined to lull into a
state of indolent repose the people on board. Forward were the crew;
some asleep, others smoking, others playing cards. At the stern were
Oxenden, the intimate friend of Featherstone, and Dr. Congreve, who
had come in the double capacity of friend and medical attendant.
These two, like the crew, were in a state of dull and languid
repose. Suspended between the two masts, in an Indian hammock, lay
Featherstone, with a cigar in his mouth and a novel in his hand, which
he was pretending to read. The fourth member of the party, Melick, was
seated near the mainmast, folding some papers in a peculiar way. His
occupation at length attracted the roving eyes of Featherstone, who
poked forth his head from his hammock, and said in a sleepy voice:

"I say, Melick, you're the most energetic fellah I ever saw. By Jove!
you're the only one aboard that's busy. What are you doing?"

"Paper boats," said Melick, in a business-like tone.

"Paper boats! By Jove!" said Featherstone. "What for?"

"I'm going to have a regatta," said Melick. "Anything to kill time,
you know."

"By Jove!" exclaimed Featherstone again, raising himself higher in his
hammock, "that's not a bad idea. A wegatta! By Jove! glowious!
glowious! I say, Oxenden, did you hear that?"

"What do you mean by a regatta?" asked Oxenden, lazily.

"Oh, I mean a race with these paper boats. We can bet on them,
you know."

At this Featherstone sat upright, with his legs dangling out of
the hammock.

"By Jove!" he exclaimed again. "Betting! So we can. Do you know,
Melick, old chap, I think that's a wegular piece of inspiration.
A wegatta! and we can bet on the best boat."

"But there isn't any wind," said Oxenden.

"Well, you know, that's the fun of it," said Melick, who went solemnly
on as he spoke, folding his paper boats; "that's the fun of it. For
you see if there was a wind we should be going on ourselves, and the
regatta couldn't come off; but, as it is, the water is just right.
You pick out your boat, and lay your bet on her to race to some given
point."

"A given point? But how can we find any?"

"Oh, easily enough; something or anything--a bubble'll do, or we can
pitch out a bit of wood."

Upon this Featherstone descended from his perch, and came near to
examine the proceedings, while the other two, eager to take advantage
of the new excitement, soon joined him. By this time Melick had
finished his paper boats. There were four of them, and they were made
of different colors, namely, red, green, yellow, and white.

"I'll put these in the water," said Melick, "and then we can lay our
bets on them as we choose. But first let us see if there is anything
that can be taken as a point of arrival. If there isn't anything, I
can pitch out a bit of wood, in any direction which may seem best."

Saying this, he went to the side, followed by the others, and all
looked out carefully over the water.

"There's a black speck out there," said Oxenden.

"So there is," said Featherstone. "That'll do. I wonder what it is?"

"Oh, a bit of timber," said Melick. "Probably the spar of some ship."

"It don't look like a spar," said the doctor; "it's only a round spot,
like the float of some net."

"Oh, it's a spar," said Melick. "It's one end of it, the rest is under
water."

The spot thus chosen was a dark, circular object, about a hundred
yards away, and certainly did look very much like the extremity of
some spar, the rest of which was under water. Whatever it was,
however, it served well enough for their present purpose, and no one
took any further interest in it, except as the point toward which the
paper boats should run in their eventful race.

Melick now let himself down over the side, and placed the paper boats
on the water as carefully as possible. After this the four stood
watching the little fleet in silence. The water was perfectly still,
and there was no perceptible wind, but there were draughts of air
caused by the rise and fall of the yacht, and these affected the tiny
boats. Gradually they drew apart, the green one drifting astern, the
yellow one remaining under the vessel, while the red and the white
were carried out in the direction where they were expected to go, with
about a foot of space between them.

"Two to one on the red!" cried Featherstone, betting on the one which
had gained the lead.

"Done," said Melick, promptly taking his offer.

Oxenden made the same bet, which was taken by Melick and the doctor.

Other bets were now made as to the direction which they would take, as
to the distance by which the red would beat the white, as to the time
which would be occupied by the race, and as to fifty other things
which need not be mentioned. All took part in this; the excitement
rose high and the betting went on merrily. At length it was noticed
that the white was overhauling the red. The excitement grew intense;
the betting changed its form, but was still kept up, until at last
the two paper boats seemed blended together in one dim spot which
gradually faded out of sight.

It was now necessary to determine the state of the race, so
Featherstone ordered out the boat. The four were soon embarked, and
the men rowed out toward the point which had been chosen as the end of
the race. On coming near they found the paper boats stuck together,
saturated with water, and floating limp on the surface. An animated
discussion arose about this. Some of the bets were off, but others
remained an open question, and each side insisted upon a different
view of the case. In the midst of this, Featherstone's attention was
drawn to the dark spot already mentioned as the goal of the race.

"That's a queer-looking thing," said he, suddenly. "Pull up, lads, a
little; let's see what it is. It doesn't look to me like a spar."

The others, always on the lookout for some new object of interest,
were attracted by these words, and looked closely at the thing in
question. The men pulled. The boat drew nearer.

"It's some sort of floating vessel," said Oxenden.

"It's not a spar," said Melick, who was at the bow.

And as he said this he reached out and grasped at it. He failed to get
it, and did no more than touch it. It moved easily and sank, but soon
came up again. A second time he grasped at it, and with both hands.
This time he caught it, and then lifted it out of the water into the
boat. These proceedings had been watched with the deepest interest;
and now, as this curious floating thing made its appearance among
them, they all crowded around it in eager excitement.

"It looks like a can of preserved meat," said the doctor.

"It certainly is a can," said Melick, "for it's made of metal; but as
to preserved meat, I have my doubts."

The article in question was made of metal and was cylindrical in
shape. It was soldered tight and evidently contained something. It was
about eighteen inches long and eight wide. The nature of the metal was
not easily perceptible, for it was coated with slime, and covered over
about half its surface with barnacles and sea-weed. It was not heavy,
and would have floated higher out of the water had it not been for
these encumbrances.

"It's some kind of preserved meat," said the doctor. "Perhaps
something good--game, I dare say--yes, Yorkshire game-pie. They pot
all sorts of things now."

"If it's game," said Oxenden, "it'll be rather high by this time. Man
alive! look at those weeds and shells. It must have been floating for
ages."

"It's my belief," said Featherstone, "that it's part of the provisions
laid in by Noah for his long voyage in the ark. So come, let's open
it, and see what sort of diet the antediluvians had."

"It may be liquor," said Oxenden.

Melick shook his head.

"No," said he; "there's something inside, but whatever it is, it isn't
liquor. It's odd, too. The thing is of foreign make, evidently. I
never saw anything like it before. It may be Chinese."

"By Jove!" cried Featherstone, "this is getting exciting. Let's go
back to the yacht and open it."

The men rowed back to the yacht.

"It's meat of some sort," continued the doctor. "I'm certain of that.
It has come in good time. We can have it for dinner."

"You may have my share, then," said Oxenden. "I hereby give and
bequeath to you all my right, title, and interest in and to anything
in the shape of meat that may be inside."

"Meat cans," said Melick, "are never so large as that."

"Oh, I don't know about that," said the doctor, "they make up pretty
large packages of pemmican for the arctic expeditions."

"But they never pack up pemmican in copper cylinders," said Melick,
who had been using his knife to scrape off the crust from the vessel.

"Copper!" exclaimed Oxenden. "Is it copper?"

"Look for yourselves," said Melick, quietly.

They all looked, and could see, where the knife had cut into the
vessel, that it was as he said. It was copper.

"It's foreign work," said Melick. "In England we make tin cans for
everything. It may be something that's drifted out from Mogadore or
some port in Morocco."

"In that case," said Oxenden, "it may contain the mangled remains of
one of the wives of some Moorish pasha."

By this time they had reached the yacht and hurried aboard. All were
eager to satisfy their curiosity. Search was made for a cold-chisel,
but to no purpose. Then Featherstone produced a knife which was used
to open sardine boxes, but after a faithful trial this proved useless.
At length Melick, who had gone off in search of something more
effective, made his appearance armed with an axe. With this he
attacked the copper cylinder, and by means of a few dexterous blows
succeeded in cutting it open. Then he looked in.

"What do you see?" asked Featherstone.

"Something," said Melick, "but I can't quite make it out."

"If you can't make it out, then shake it out," said Oxenden.

Upon this Melick took the cylinder, turned it upside down, shook it
smartly, and then lifted it and pounded it against the deck. This
served to loosen the contents, which seemed tightly packed, but came
gradually down until at length they could be seen and drawn forth.
Melick drew them forth, and the contents of the mysterious copper
cylinder resolved themselves into two packages.

The sight of these packages only served to intensify their curiosity.
If it had been some species of food it would at once have revealed
itself, but these packages suggested something more important. What
could they be? Were there treasures inside--jewels, or golden
ornaments from some Moorish seraglio, or strange coin from far Cathay?

One of the packages was very much larger than the other. It was
enclosed in wrappers made of some coarse kind of felt, bound tight
with strong cords. The other was much smaller, and, was folded in the
same material without being bound. This Melick seized and began to
open.

"Wait a minute," said Featherstone. "Let's make a bet on it. Five
guineas that it's some sort of jewels!"

"Done," said Oxenden.

Melick opened the package, and it was seen that Featherstone had lost.
There were no jewels, but one or two sheets of something that looked
like paper. It was not paper, however, but some vegetable product
which was used for the same purpose. The surface was smooth, but the
color was dingy, and the lines of the vegetable fibres were plainly
discernible. These sheets were covered with writing.

"Halloa!" cried Melick. "Why, this is English!"

At this the others crowded around to look on, and Featherstone in his
excitement forgot that he had lost his bet. There were three sheets,
all covered with writing--one in English, another in French, and a
third in German. It was the same message, written in these three
different languages. But at that moment they scarcely noticed this.
All that they saw was the message itself, with its mysterious meaning.

It was as follows:


"To the finder of this:

"Sir,--I am an Englishman, and have been carried by a series of
incredible events to a land from which escape is as impossible as from
the grave. I have written this and committed it to the sea, in the
hope that the ocean currents may bear it within the reach of civilized
man. Oh, unknown friend! whoever you are. I entreat you to let this
message be made known in some way to my father, Henry More, Keswick,
Cumberland, England, so that he may learn the fate of his son. The MS.
accompanying this contains an account of my adventures, which I should
like to have forwarded to him. Do this for the sake of that mercy
which you may one day wish to have shown to yourself.

"ADAM MORE."


"By Jove!" cried Featherstone, as he read the above, "this is really
getting to be something tremendous."

"This other package must be the manuscript," said Oxenden, "and it'll
tell all about it."

"Such a manuscript'll be better than meat," said the doctor,
sententiously.

Melick said nothing, but, opening his knife, he cut the cords and
unfolded the wrapper. He saw a great collection of leaves, just like
those of the letter, of some vegetable substance, smooth as paper, and
covered with writing.

"It looks like Egyptian papyrus," said the doctor. "That was the
common paper of antiquity."

"Never mind the Egyptian papyrus," said Featherstone, in feverish
curiosity. "Let's have the contents of the manuscript. You, Melick,
read; you're the most energetic of the lot, and when you're tired the
rest of us will take turns."

"Read? Why, it'll take a month to read all this," said Melick.

"All the better," said Featherstone; "this calm will probably last a
month, and we shall have nothing to interest us."

Melick made no further objection. He was as excited as the rest, and
so he began the reading of the manuscript.



CHAPTER II

ADRIFT IN THE ANTARCTIC OCEAN


My name is Adam More. I am the son of Henry More, apothecary, Keswick,
Cumberland. I was mate of the ship Trevelyan (Bennet, master), which
was chartered by the British Government to convey convicts to Van
Dieman's Land. This was in 1843. We made our voyage without any
casualty, landed our convicts in Hobart Town, and then set forth on
our return home. It was the 17th of December when we left. From the
first adverse winds prevailed, and in order to make any progress we
were obliged to keep well to the south. At length, on the 6th of
January, we sighted Desolation Island. We found it, indeed, a desolate
spot. In its vicinity we saw a multitude of smaller islands, perhaps a
thousand in number, which made navigation difficult, and forced us to
hurry away as fast as possible. But the aspect of this dreary spot was
of itself enough to repel us. There were no trees, and the multitude
of islands seemed like moss-covered rocks; while the temperature,
though in the middle of the antarctic summer, was from 38 to 58
degrees Fahr.

In order to get rid of these dangerous islands we stood south and
west, and at length found ourselves in south latitude 65 degrees,
longitude 60 degrees east. We were fortunate enough not to find any
ice, although we were within fifteen hundred miles of the South Pole,
and far within that impenetrable icy barrier which, in 1773, had
arrested the progress of Captain Cook. Here the wind failed us, and we
lay becalmed and drifting. The sea was open all around us, except to
the southeast, where there was a low line along the horizon
terminating in a lofty promontory; but though it looked like land we
took it for ice. All around us whales and grampuses were gambolling
and spouting in vast numbers. The weather was remarkably fine and
clear.

 For two or three days the calm continued, and we drifted along
helplessly, until at length we found ourselves within a few miles of
the promontory above mentioned. It looked like land, and seemed to be
a rocky island rising from the depths of the sea. It was, however, all
covered with ice and snow, and from this there extended eastward as
far as the eye could reach an interminable line of ice, but toward the
southwest the sea seemed open to navigation. The promontory was very
singular in shape, rising up to a peak which was at least a thousand
feet in height, and forming a striking object, easily discovered and
readily identified by any future explorer. We named it, after our
ship, Trevelyan Peak, and then felt anxious to lose sight of it
forever. But the calm continued, and at length we drifted in close
enough to see immense flocks of seals dotting the ice at the foot of
the peak.

Upon this I proposed to Agnew, the second mate, that we should go
ashore, shoot some seals, and bring them back. This was partly for the
excitement of the hunt, and partly for the honor of landing in a place
never before trodden by the foot of man. Captain Bennet made some
objections, but he was old and cautious, and we were young and
venturesome, so we laughed away his scruples and set forth. We did not
take any of the crew, owing to the captain's objections. He said that
if we chose to throw away our own lives he could not help it, but that
he would positively refuse to allow a single man to go with us. We
thought this refusal an excess of caution amounting to positive
cowardice, but were unable to change his mind. The distance was not
great, the adventure was attractive, and so the captain's gig was
lowered, and in this Agnew and I rowed ashore. We took with us a
double-barrelled rifle apiece, and also a pistol. Agnew took a glass.

We rowed for about three miles, and reached the edge of the ice, which
extended far out from the promontory. Here we landed, and secured the
boat by means of a small grappling-iron, which we thrust into the ice.
We then walked toward the promontory for about a mile, and here we
found a multitude of seals. These animals were so fearless that they
made not the slightest movement as we came up, but stared at us in an
indifferent way. We killed two or three, and then debated whether to
go to the promontory or not. Agnew was eager to go, so as to touch the
actual rock; but I was satisfied with what we had done, and was now
desirous of returning. In the midst of this I felt a flake of snow on
my cheek. I started and looked up. To my great surprise I saw that the
sky had changed since I had last noticed it. When we left the ship it
was clear and blue, but now it was overspread with dark,
leaden-colored clouds, and the snow-flakes that had fallen were
ominous of evil. A snow-storm here, in the vicinity of the ice, was
too serious a thing to be disregarded. But one course now remained,
and that was an immediate return to the ship.

Each of us seized a seal and dragged it after us to the boat. We
reached it and flung them in. Just at that moment a gun sounded over
the water. It was from the ship--the signal of alarm--the summons from
the captain for our return. We saw now that she had been drifting
since we left her, and had moved southwest several miles. The row back
promised to be far harder than the pull ashore, and, what was worse,
the wind was coming up, the sea was rising, and the snow was
thickening. Neither of us said a word. We saw that our situation was
very serious, and that we had been very foolhardy; but the words were
useless now. The only thing to be done was to pull for the ship with
all our strength, and that was what we did.

So we pushed off, and rowed as we had never rowed before. Our progress
was difficult. The sea grew steadily rougher; the wind increased; the
snow thickened; and, worst of all, the day was drawing to a close. We
had miscalculated both as to distance and time. Even if it had
continued calm we should have had to row back in the dark; but now the
sun was setting, and with the darkness we had to encounter the
gathering storm and the blinding snow. We rowed in silence. At every
stroke our situation grew more serious. The wind was from the south,
and therefore favored us to some extent, and also made less of a sea
than would have been produced by a wind from any other quarter; but
then this south wind brought dangers of its own, which we were soon to
feel--new dangers and worse ones. For this south wind drove the ship
farther from us, and at the same time broke up the vast fields of ice
and impelled the fractured masses northward. But this was a danger
which we did not know just then. At that time we were rowing for the
ship, and amid the darkness and the blinding snow and the dashing
waves we heard from time to time the report of signal-guns fired from
the ship to guide us back. These were our only guide, for the darkness
and the snow had drawn the ship from our sight, and we had to be
guided by our hearing only.

We were rowing for our lives, and we knew it; but every moment our
situation grew more desperate. Each new report of the gun seemed to
sound farther away. We seemed always to be rowing in the wrong
direction. At each report we had to shift the boat's course somewhat,
and pull toward the last point from which the gun seemed to sound.
With all this the wind was increasing rapidly to a gale, the sea was
rising and breaking over the boat, the snow was blinding us with its
ever-thickening sleet. The darkness deepened and at length had grown
so intense that nothing whatever could be seen--neither sea nor sky,
not even the boat itself--yet we dared not stop; we had to row. Our
lives depended on our efforts. We had to row, guided by the sound of
the ship's gun, which the ever-varying wind incessantly changed, till
our minds grew all confused, and we rowed blindly and mechanically.

So we labored for hours at the oars, and the storm continually
increased, and the sea continually rose, while the snow fell thicker
and the darkness grew intenser. The reports of the gun now grew
fainter; what was worse, they were heard at longer intervals, and this
showed us that Captain Bennet was losing heart; that he was giving us
up; that he despaired of finding us, and was now firing only an
occasional gun out of a mournful sense of duty. This thought reduced
us to despair. It seemed as if all our efforts had only served to take
us farther away from the ship, and deprived us of all motive for
rowing any harder than was barely necessary to keep the boat steady.
After a time Agnew dropped his oar and began to bail out the boat--a
work which was needed; for, in spite of our care, she had shipped many
seas, and was one third full of water. He worked away at this while I
managed the boat, and then we took turns at bailing. In this way we
passed the dreary night.

Morning came at last. The wind was not so violent, but the snow was so
thick that we could only see for a little distance around us. The ship
was nowhere visible, nor were there any signs of her. The last gun had
been fired during the night. All that we could see was the outline of
a gaunt iceberg--an ominous spectacle. Not knowing what else to do we
rowed on as before, keeping in what seemed our best course, though
this was mere conjecture, and we knew all the time that we might be
going wrong. There was no compass in the boat, nor could we tell the
sun's position through the thick snow. We rowed with the wind,
thinking that it was blowing toward the north, and would carry us in
that direction. We still hoped to come within sound of the ship's gun,
and kept straining our ears incessantly to hear the wished-for report.
But no such sound ever came again, and we heard nothing except the
plash of the waves and the crash of breaking ice. Thus all that day we
rowed along, resting at intervals when exhausted, and then resuming
our labors, until at length night came; and again to the snow and ice
and waves was added the horror of great darkness. We passed that night
in deep misery. We had eaten nothing since we left the ship, but
though exhausted by long fasting and severe labor, the despair of our
hearts took away all desire for food. We were worn out with hard work,
yet the cold was too great to allow us to take rest, and we were
compelled to row so as to keep ourselves from perishing. But fatigue
and drowsiness overcame us, and we often sank into sleep even while
rowing; and then after a brief slumber we would awake with benumbed
limbs to wrestle again with the oars. In this way we passed that
night.

Another morning came, and we found to our great joy that the snow had
ceased. We looked eagerly around to see if there were any signs of the
ship. Nothing could be seen of her. Far away on one side rose a peak,
which looked like the place where we had landed. Judging from the
wind, which we still supposed to be southerly, the peak lay toward the
northeast; in which case we had been carried steadily, in spite of all
our efforts, toward the south. About a mile on one side of us the ice
began, and extended far away; while on the other side, at the distance
of some ten miles, there was another line of ice. We seemed to have
been carried in a southwesterly direction along a broad strait that
ran into the vast ice-fields. This discovery showed how utterly
useless our labors had been; for in spite of all, even with the wind
in our favor, we had been drawn steadily in an opposite direction. It
was evident that there was some current here, stronger than all our
strength, which had brought us to this place.

We now determined to land on the ice, and try to cook a portion of our
seals. On approaching it we noticed that there was a current which
tended to draw us past the ice in what I supposed to be a
southwesterly direction. This confirmed my worst fears. But now the
labor of landing and building a fire on the ice served to interest us
for a time and divert our thoughts. We brushed away the snow, and then
broke up a box which was in the boat, and also the stern seats. This
we used very sparingly, reserving the rest for another occasion. Then
we cut portions from one of the seals, and laid them in thin strips on
the flames. The cooking was but slight, for the meat was merely
singed; but we were ravenous, and the contact of the fire was enough
to give it an attractive flavor. With this food we were greatly
refreshed; and as for drink, we had all around us an endless extent of
ice and snow. Then, taking our precious fragments of cooked meat, we
returned to the boat and put off. We could scarcely tell what to do
next, and while debating on this point we fell asleep. We slept far
into the night, then awoke benumbed with cold; then took to the oars
till we were weary; then fell asleep again, to be again awakened by
the cold and again to pull at the oars. So the night passed, and
another day came.

The snow still held off, but the sky was overcast with dark,
leaden-colored clouds, and looked threatening. Ice was all around us
as before; and the open water had diminished now from ten miles to
five miles of width. The ice on one side was low, but on the opposite
side it arose to the height of one hundred feet. We saw here, as we
watched the shore, that the current which had already borne us thus
far was now stronger than ever, and was carrying us along at a rate
which made all efforts of ours against it utterly useless. And now a
debate arose between us as to the direction of this current. Agnew
suddenly declared his belief that it was running north, while I was
firm in the conviction that it ran south.

"There's no use rowing any more," said Agnew. "If it runs south we
can't resist it. It's too strong. But I always like to look on the
bright side, and so I believe it runs north. In that case there is no
use rowing, for it will carry us along fast enough."

Then I proposed that we should go ashore on the ice. To this Agnew
objected, but afterward consented, at my earnest request. So we tried
to get ashore, but this time found it impossible; for the ice
consisted of a vast sheet of floating lumps, which looked like the
ruin of bergs that had been broken up in some storm. After this I had
nothing to say, nor was there anything left for us but to drift
wherever the current might carry us.

So we drifted for some days, Agnew all the time maintaining that we
were going north, while I was sure that we were going south. The sky
remained as cloudy as ever, the wind varied incessantly, and there was
nothing by which we could conjecture the points of the compass. We
lived on our seal, and for drink we chewed ice and snow. One thing was
certain--the climate was no colder. Agnew laid great stress on this.

"You see," said he, "we must be going north. If we were going south we
should be frozen stiff by this time."

"Yes; but if we were going north," said I, "we ought to find it
growing warmer."

"No," said he, "not with all this ice around us. It's the ice that
keeps the temperature in this cold state."

Argument could do no good, and so we each remained true to our
belief--his leading him to hope, and mine dragging me down to despair.
At length we finished the last fragment of the seal that we had
cooked, and, finding ourselves near some firm ice, we went ashore and
cooked all that was left, using the remainder of our wood for fuel,
and all that we dared to remove from the boat. Re-embarking with this,
we drifted on as before.

Several more days passed. At last one night I was roused by Agnew. He
pointed far away to the distant horizon, where I saw a deep red glow
as of fire. We were both filled with wonder at the sight, and were
utterly unable to account for it. We knew that it could not be caused
by the sun or the moon, for it was midnight, and the cause lay on the
earth and not in the skies. It was a deep, lurid glow, extending along
the horizon, and seemed to be caused by some vast conflagration.



CHAPTER III

A WORLD OF FIRE AND DESOLATION


At the sight of that deep-red glow various feelings arose within us:
in me there was new dejection; in Agnew there was stronger hope. I
could not think but that it was our ship that was on fire, and was
burning before our eyes. Agnew thought that it was some burning
forest, and that it showed our approach to some habitable and
inhabited land. For hour after hour we watched, and all the time the
current drew us nearer, and the glow grew brighter and more intense.
At last we were too weak to watch any longer, and we fell asleep.

On waking our first thoughts were about the fire, and we looked
eagerly around. It was day, but the sky was as gloomy as ever, and the
fire was there before our eyes, bright and terrible. We could now see
it plainly, and discern the cause also. The fire came from two points,
at some distance apart--two peaks rising above the horizon, from which
there burst forth flames and smoke with incessant explosions. All was
now manifest. It was no burning ship, no blazing forest, no land
inhabited by man: those blazing peaks were two volcanoes in a state of
active eruption, and at that sight I knew the worst.

"I know where we are now," I said, despairingly.

"Where?" asked Agnew.

"That," said I, "is the antarctic continent."

"The antarctic fiddlestick," said he, contemptuously. "It is far more
likely to be some volcanic island in the South Sea. There's a
tremendous volcano in the Sandwich Islands, and these are something
like it."

"I believe," said I, "that these are the very volcanoes that Sir James
Ross discovered last year."

"Do you happen to know where he found them?" Agnew asked.

"I do not," I answered.

"Well, I do," said he, "and they're thousands of miles away from this.
They are south latitude 77 degrees, east longitude 167 degrees; while
we, as I guess, are about south latitude 40 degrees, east longitude
60 degrees."

"At any rate," said I, "we're drifting straight toward them."

"So I see," said Agnew, dryly. "At any rate, the current will take us
somewhere. We shall find ourselves carried past these volcanic
islands, or through them, and then west to the Cape of Good Hope.
Besides, even here we may find land with animals and vegetation; who
knows?"

"What! amid all this ice?" I cried. "Are you mad?"

"Mad?" said he; "I should certainly go mad if I hadn't hope."

"Hope!" I repeated; "I have long since given up hope."

"Oh, well," said he, "enjoy your despair, and don't try to deprive me
of my consolation. My hope sustains me, and helps me to cheer you up.
It would never do, old fellow, for both of us to knock under."

I said nothing more, nor did Agnew. We drifted on, and all our
thoughts were taken up with the two volcanoes, toward which we were
every moment drawing nearer. As we approached they grew larger and
larger, towering up to a tremendous height. I had seen Vesuvius and
Stromboli and AEtna and Cotopaxi; but these appeared far larger than
any of them, not excepting the last. They rose, like the Peak of
Teneriffe, abruptly from the sea, with no intervening hills to dwarf
or diminish their proportions. They were ten or twelve miles apart,
and the channel of water in which we were drifting flowed between
them.

Here the ice and snow ended. We thus came at last to land; but it was
a land that seemed more terrible than even the bleak expanse of ice
and snow that lay behind, for nothing could be seen except a vast and
drear accumulation of lava-blocks of every imaginable shape, without
a trace of vegetation--uninhabited, uninhabitable, and unpassable to
man. But just where the ice ended and the rocks began there was a
long, low reef, which projected for more than a quarter of a mile into
the water, affording the only possible landing-place within sight.
Here we decided to land, so as to rest and consider what was best to
be done.

Here we landed, and walked up to where rugged lava-blocks prevented
any further progress. But at this spot our attention was suddenly
arrested by a sight of horror. It was a human figure lying prostrate,
face downward.

At this sight there came over us a terrible sensation. Even Agnew's
buoyant soul shrank back, and we stared at each other with quivering
lips. It was some time before we could recover ourselves; then we went
to the figure, and stooped down to examine it.

The clothes were those of a European and a sailor; the frame was
emaciated and dried up, till it looked like a skeleton; the face was
blackened and all withered, and the bony hands were clinched tight. It
was evidently some sailor who had suffered shipwreck in these
frightful solitudes, and had drifted here to starve to death in this
appalling wilderness. It was a sight which seemed ominous of our own
fate, and Agnew's boasted hope, which had so long upheld him, now sank
down into a despair as deep as my own. What room was there now for
hope, or how could we expect any other fate than this?

At length I began to search the pockets of the deceased.

"What are you doing?" asked Agnew, in a hoarse voice.

"I'm trying to find out who he is," I said. "Perhaps there may be
papers."

As I said this I felt something in the breast-pocket of his jacket,
and drew it forth. It was a leather pocket-book, mouldy and rotten
like the clothing. On opening it, it fell to pieces. There was nothing
in it but a piece of paper, also mouldy and rotten. This I unfolded
with great care, and saw writing there, which, though faded, was still
legible. It was a letter, and there were still signs of long and
frequent perusals, and marks, too, which looked as though made by
tears--tears, perhaps of the writer, perhaps of the reader: who can
tell? I have preserved this letter ever since, and I now fasten it
here upon this sheet of my manuscript.


THE LETTER.

"Bristol April 20. 1820.

"my darling tom

"i writ you these few lines in hast i don like youar gon a walen an in
the south sea dont go darlin tom or mebbe ill never se you agin for
ave bad drems of you darlin tom an im afraid so don go my darlin tom
but come back an take anoth ship for America baby i as wel as ever but
mises is pa an as got a new tooth an i think yo otnt go a walen o
darlin tom * * * sea as the wages was i in New York an better go thar
an id like to go ther for good for they gives good wages in America. O
come back my Darlin tom and take me to America an the baby an weel all
live an love an di together

"Your loving wife Polley Reed."


I began to read this, but there came a lump in my throat, and I had to
stop. Agnew leaned on my shoulder, and we both read it in silence. He
rubbed the back of his hand over his eyes and drew a long breath. Then
he walked away for a little distance, and I put the letter carefully
away in my own pocket-book. After a little while Agnew came back.

"More," said he, "do you remember any of the burial-service?"

I understood his meaning at once.

"Yes," I said, "some of it--a good deal of it, I think."

"That's good," said he. "Let's put the poor fellow under ground."

"It would be hard to do that," I said; "we'll have to bury him in the
snow."

At this Agnew went off for a little distance and clambered over the
rocks. He was not gone long. When he returned he said, "I've found
some crumbled pumice-stone; we can scoop a grave for him there."

We then raised the body and carried it to the place which Agnew had
found. So emaciated was the poor dead sailor that his remains were no
heavier than a small boy. On reaching the spot, we found the crumbled
pumice-stone. We placed the body in a crevice among the lava rocks,
and then I said what I could remember of the burial-service. After
this we carried in our hands the crumbled pumice-stone until we had
covered the body, and thus gave the poor fellow a Christian burial.

We then returned to the shore.

"More, old fellow," said Agnew, "I feel the better for this; the
service has done me good."

"And me too," said I. "It has reminded me of what I had forgotten.
This world is only a part of life. We may lose it and yet live on.
There is another world; and if we can only keep that in our minds we
sha'n't be so ready to sink into despair--that is, I sha'n't. Despair
is my weakness; you are more hopeful."

"Yes," said Agnew, solemnly; "but my hope thus far has referred only
to the safety of my skin. After this I shall try to think of my soul,
and cultivate, not the hope of escape, but the hope full of
immortality. Yes, More, after all we shall live, if not in England,
then, let us hope, in heaven."

There was a long silence after this--that kind of silence which one
may preserve who is at the point of death.

"I wonder how he got here?" said Agnew, at last. "The letter mentions
a whaler. No doubt the ship has been driven too far south; it has
foundered; he has escaped in a boat, either alone or with others; he
has been carried along this channel, and has landed here, afraid to go
any farther."

"But his boat, what has become of that?"

"His boat! That must have gone long ago. The letter was written in
1820. At any rate, let's look around."

We did so. After some search we found fragments of a rotted rope
attached to a piece of rock.

"That," said Agnew, "must have been fastened to the boat; and as for
the boat herself, she has long ago been swept away from this."

"What shall we do now?" I said, after a long silence.

"There's only one thing," said Agnew. "We must go on."

"Go on?" I asked, in wonder.

"Certainly," said he, confidently. "Will you stay here? No. Will you
go back? You can't. We must, therefore, go on. That is our only hope."

"Hope!" I cried. "Do you still talk of hope?"

"Hope?" said Agnew; "of course. Why not? There are no limits to hope,
are there? One can hope anything anywhere. It is better to die while
struggling like a man, full of hope and energy than to perish in
inaction and despair. It is better to die in the storm and furious
waters than to waste away in this awful place. So come along. Let's
drift as before. Let's see where this channel will take us. It will
certainly take us somewhere. Such a stream as this must have some
outlet."

"This stream," said I, "will take us to death, and death only. The
current grows swifter every hour. I've heard some old yarn of a vast
opening at each of the poles, or one of them, into which the waters of
the ocean pour. They fall into one, and some say they go through and
come out at the other."

Agnew laughed.

"That," said he, "is a madman's dream. In the first place, I don't
believe that we are approaching the south, but the north. The warmth
of the climate here shows that. Yes, we are drawing north. We shall
soon emerge into warm waters and bright skies. So come along, and let
us lose no more time."

I made no further objection. There was nothing else to be done, and
at the very worst we could not be in greater danger while drifting on
than in remaining behind. Soon, therefore, we were again in the boat,
and the current swept us on as before.

The channel now was about four miles wide. On either side arose
the lofty volcanoes vomiting forth flames and smoke with furious
explosions; vast stones were hurled up into the air from the craters;
streams of molten lava rolled down, and at intervals there fell great
showers of ashes. The shores on either side were precipitous and
rugged beyond all description, looking like fiery lava streams which
had been arrested by the flood, and cooled into gloomy, overhanging
cliffs. The lava rock was of a deep, dull slate-color, which at a
distance looked black; and the blackness which thus succeeded to
the whiteness of the snow behind us seemed like the funeral pall of
nature. Through scenes like these we drifted on, and the volcanoes on
either side of the channel towered on high with their fiery floods of
lava, their incessant explosions, their fierce outbursts of flames,
and overhead there rolled a dense black canopy of smoke--altogether
forming a terrific approach to that unknown and awful pathway upon
which we were going. So we passed this dread portal, and then there
lay before us--what? Was it a land of life or a land of death? Who
could say?

It was evening when we passed through. Night came on, and the darkness
was illuminated by the fiery glow of the volcanic flames. Worn out
with fatigue, we fell asleep. So the night passed, and the current
bore us on until, at length, the morning came. We awoke, and now, for
the first time in many days, we saw the face of the sun. The clouds
had at last broken, the sky was clear, and behind us the sun was
shining. That sight told us all. It showed us where we were going.

I pointed to the sun.

"Look there," said I. "There is the sun in the northern sky--behind
us. We have been drifting steadily toward the south."

At this Agnew was silent, and sat looking back for a long time. There
we could still see the glow of the volcanic fires, though they were
now many miles away; while the sun, but lately risen, was lying on a
course closer to the horizon than we had ever seen it before.

"We are going south," said I--"to the South Pole. This swift current
can have but one ending--there may be an opening at the South Pole, or
a whirlpool like the Maelstrom."

Agnew looked around with a smile.

"All these notions," said he, "are dreams, or theories, or guesses.
There is no evidence to prove them. Why trouble yourself about a
guess? You and I can guess, and with better reason; for we have now,
it seems, come farther south than any human being who has ever lived.
Do not imagine that the surface of the earth is different at the poles
from what it is anywhere else. If we get to the South Pole we shall
see there what we have always seen--the open view of land or water,
and the boundary of the horizon. As for this current, it seems to me
like the Gulf Stream, and it evidently does an important work in the
movement of the ocean waters. It pours on through vast fields of ice
on its way to other oceans, where it will probably become united with
new currents. Theories about openings at the poles, or whirlpools,
must be given up. Since the Maelstrom has been found to be a fiction,
no one need believe in any other whirlpool. For my own part, I now
believe that this current will bear us on, due south, over the pole,
and then still onward, until at last we shall find ourselves in the
South Pacific Ocean. So cheer up--don't be downhearted; there's still
hope. We have left the ice and snow behind, and already the air is
warmer. Cheer up; we may find our luck turn at any moment."

To this I had no reply to make. Agnew's confidence seemed to me to be
assumed, and certainly did not alleviate my own deep gloom, nor was
the scene around calculated to rouse me in the slightest degree out of
my despair. The channel had now lessened to a width of not more than
two miles; the shores on either side were precipitous cliffs, broken
by occasional declivities, but all of solid rock, so dark as to be
almost black, and evidently of volcanic origin. At times there arose
rugged eminences, scarred and riven, indescribably dismal and
appalling. There was not only an utter absence of life here in these
abhorrent regions, but an actual impossibility of life which was
enough to make the stoutest heart quail. The rocks looked like iron.
It seemed a land of iron penetrated by this ocean stream which had
made for itself a channel, and now bore us onward to a destination
which was beyond all conjecture.

Through such scenes we drifted all that day. Night came, and in the
skies overhead there arose a brilliant display of the aurora
australis, while toward the north the volcanic fires glowed with
intense lustre. That night we slept. On awakening we noticed a change
in the scene. The shores, though still black and forbidding, were no
longer precipitous, but sloped down gradually to the water; the
climate was sensibly milder, and far away before us there arose a line
of giant mountains, whose summits were covered with ice and snow that
gleamed white and purple in the rays of the sun.

Suddenly Agnew gave a cry, and pointed to the opposite shore.

"Look!" he cried--"do you see? They are men!"

I looked, and there I saw plainly some moving figures that were,
beyond a doubt, human beings.



CHAPTER IV

THE SIGHT OF HUMAN BEINGS


The sight of human beings, thus unexpectedly found, filled us with
strange feelings--feelings which I cannot explain. The country was
still iron-bound and dark and forbidding, and the stream ran on in a
strong current, deep, black as ink, and resistless as fate; the sky
behind was lighted up by the volcanic glare which still shone from
afar; and in front the view was bounded by the icy heights of a
mountain chain. Here was, indeed, a strange country for a human
habitation; and strange, indeed, were the human beings whom we saw.

"Shall we land?" said Agnew.

"Oh no," said I. "Don't be hasty. The elements are sometimes kinder
than men, and I feel safer here, even in this river of death, than
ashore with such creatures as those."

Agnew made no reply. We watched the figures on the shore. We saw them
coming down, staring and gesticulating. We drew on nearer to them till
we were able to see them better. A nearer view did not improve them.
They were human beings, certainly, but of such an appalling aspect
that they could only be likened to animated mummies. They were small,
thin, shrivelled, black, with long matted hair and hideous faces. They
all had long spears, and wore about the waist short skirts that seemed
to be made of the skin of some sea-fowl.

We could not imagine how these creatures lived, or where. There were
no signs of vegetation of any kind--not a tree or a shrub. There were
no animals; but there were great flocks of birds, some of which seemed
different from anything that we had ever seen before. The long spears
which the natives carried might possibly be used for catching these,
or for fishing purposes. This thought made them seem less formidable,
since they would thus be instruments of food rather than weapons of
war. Meanwhile we drifted on as before, and the natives watched us,
running along the shore abreast of us, so as to keep up with the boat.
There seemed over a hundred of them. We could see no signs of any
habitations--no huts, however humble; but we concluded that their
abodes were farther inland. As for the natives themselves, the longer
we looked at them the more abhorrent they grew. Even the wretched
aborigines of Van Dieman's Land, who have been classed lowest in the
scale of humanity, were pleasing and congenial when compared with
these, and the land looked worse than Tierra del Fuego. It looked like
a land of iron, and its inhabitants like fiends.

Agnew again proposed to land, but I refused.

"No," I said; "I'd rather starve for a week, and live on hope. Let us
drift on. If we go on we may have hope if we choose, but if we land
here we shall lose even that. Can we hope for anything from such
things as these? Even if they prove friendly, can we live among them?
To stay here is worse than death; our only hope is to go on."

Agnew made no reply, and we drifted on for two hours, still followed
by the natives. They made no hostile demonstrations. They merely
watched us, apparently from motives of curiosity. All this time we
were drawing steadily nearer to the line of lofty mountains, which
with their icy crests rose before us like an inaccessible and
impassable barrier, apparently closing up all farther progress; nor
was there any indication of any pass or any opening, however narrow,
through which the great stream might run. Nothing was there but one
unbroken wall of iron cliffs and icy summits. At last we saw that the
sloping shores grew steeper, until, about a mile or two before us,
they changed to towering cliffs that rose up on each side for about a
thousand feet above the water; here the stream ran, and became lost to
view as completely as though swallowed up by the earth.

"We can go no farther," said Agnew. "See--this stream seems to make a
plunge there into the mountains. There must be some deep canyon there
with cataracts. To go on is certain death. We must stop here, if only
to deliberate. Say, shall we risk it among these natives? After all,
there is not, perhaps, any danger among them. They are little
creatures and seem harmless. They are certainly not very good-looking;
but then, you know, appearances often deceive, and the devil's not so
black as he's painted. What do you say?"

"I suppose we can do nothing else," said I.

In fact, I could see that we had reached a crisis in our fate. To go
on seemed certain death. To stop was our only alternative; and as we
were armed we should not be altogether at the mercy of these
creatures. Having made this decision we acted upon it at once, for in
such a current there was no time for delay; and so, seizing the oars,
we soon brought the boat ashore.

As we approached, the crowd of natives stood awaiting us, and looked
more repulsive than ever. We could see the emaciation of their bony
frames; their toes and fingers were like birds' claws; their eyes were
small and dull and weak, and sunken in cavernous hollows, from which
they looked at us like corpses--a horrible sight. They stood quietly,
however, and without any hostile demonstration, holding their spears
carelessly resting upon the ground.

"I don't like the looks of them," said I. "I think I had better fire a
gun."

"Why?" cried Agnew. "For Heaven's sake, man, don't hurt any of them!"

"Oh no," said I; "I only mean to inspire a little wholesome respect."

Saying this I fired in the air. The report rang out with long echoes,
and as the smoke swept away it showed us all the natives on the
ground. They had seated themselves with their hands crossed on their
laps, and there they sat looking at us as before, but with no
manifestation of fear or even surprise. I had expected to see them
run, but there was nothing of the kind. This puzzled us. Still, there
was no time now for any further hesitation. The current was sweeping
us toward the chasm between the cliffs, and we had to land without
delay. This we did, and as I had another barrel still loaded and a
pistol, I felt that with these arms and those of Agnew we should be
able to defend ourselves. It was in this state of mind that we landed,
and secured the boat by means of the grappling-iron.

The natives now all crowded around us, making many strange gestures,
which we did not understand. Some of them bowed low, others prostrated
themselves; on the whole these seemed like marks of respect, and it
occurred to me that they regarded us as superior beings of some sort.
It was evident that there was nothing like hostility in their minds.
At the same time, the closer survey which I now made of them filled me
with renewed horror; their meagre frames, small, watery, lack-lustre
eyes, hollow, cavernous sockets, sunken cheeks, protruding teeth,
claw-like fingers, and withered skins, all made them look more than
ever like animated mummies, and I shrank from them involuntarily, as
one shrinks from contact with a corpse.

Agnew, however, was very different, and it was evident that he felt no
repugnance whatever. He bowed and smiled at them, and shook hands with
half a dozen of them in succession. The hand-shaking was a new thing
to them, but they accepted it in a proper spirit, and renewed their
bows and prostrations. After this they all offered us their lances.
This certainly seemed like an act of peace and good-will. I shook my
head and declined to touch them; but Agnew accepted one of them, and
offered his rifle in return. The one to whom he offered it refused to
take it. He seemed immensely gratified because Agnew had taken his
lance, and the others seemed disappointed at his refusal to take
theirs. But I felt my heart quake as I saw him offer his rifle, and
still more when he offered it to one or two others, and only regained
my composure as I perceived that his offer was refused by all.

They now made motions to us to follow, and we all set forth together.

"My dear More," said Agnew, cheerily, "they're not a bad lot. They
mean well. They can't help their looks. You're too suspicious and
reserved. Let's make friends with them, and get them to help us. Do as
I do."

I tried to, but found it impossible, for my repugnance was immovable.
It was like the horror which one feels toward rats, cockroaches,
earwigs, or serpents. It was something that defied reason. These
creatures seemed like human vermin.

We marched inland for about half a mile, crossed a ridge, and came to
a valley, or rather a kind of hollow, at the other side of which we
found a cave with a smouldering fire in front. The fire was made of
coal, which must exist here somewhere. It was highly bituminous, and
burned with a great blaze.

The day was now drawing to a close; far away I could see the lurid
glow of the volcanoes, which grew brighter as the day declined: above,
the skies twinkled with innumerable stars, and the air was filled with
the moan of rushing waters.

We entered the cave. As we did so the natives heaped coal upon the
fire, and the flames arose, lighting up the interior. We found here a
number of women and children, who looked at us without either fear or
curiosity. The children looked like little dwarfs; the women were
hags, hideous beyond description. One old woman in particular, who
seemed to be in authority, was actually terrible in her awful and
repulsive ugliness. A nightmare dream never furnished forth a more
frightful object. This nightmare hag prostrated herself before each of
us with such an air of self-immolation that she looked as though she
wished us to kill her at once. The rough cave, the red light of the
fire, all made the scene more awful; and a wild thought came to me
that we had actually reached, while yet living, the infernal world,
and that this was the abode of devils. Yet their actions, it must be
confessed, were far from devilish. Everyone seemed eager to serve us.
Some spread out couches formed of the skins of birds for us to sit on;
others attended to the fire; others offered us gifts of large and
beautiful feathers, together with numerous trinkets of rare and
curious workmanship. This kind attention on their part was a great
puzzle to me, and I could not help suspecting that beneath all this
there must be some sinister design. Resolving to be prepared for the
worst, I quietly reloaded the empty barrel of my rifle and watched
with the utmost vigilance. As for Agnew, he took it all in the most
unsuspicious manner. He made signs to them, shook hands with them,
accepted their gifts, and even tried to do the agreeable to the
formidable hags and the child-fiends around him. He soon attracted the
chief attention, and while all looked admiringly upon him, I was left
to languish in comparative neglect.

At length a savory odor came through the cave, and a repast was spread
before us. It consisted of some large fowl that looked like a goose,
but was twice as large as the largest turkey that I had ever seen. The
taste was like that of a wild-goose, but rather fishy. Still to us it
seemed delicious, for our prolonged diet of raw seal had made us ready
to welcome any other food whatever; and this fowl, whatever it was,
would not have been unwelcome to any hungry man. It was evident that
these people lived on the flesh of birds of various sorts. All around
us we saw the skins of birds dried with the feathers on, and used for
clothing, for mats, and for ornaments.

The repast being finished, we both felt greatly strengthened and
refreshed. Agnew continued to cultivate his new acquaintances, and
seeing me holding back, he said,

"More, old fellow, these good people give me to understand that there
is another place better than this, and want me to go with them. Will
you go?"

At this a great fear seized me.

"Don't go!" I cried--"don't go! We are close by the boat here, and if
anything happens we can easily get to it."

Agnew laughed in my face.

"Why, you don't mean to tell me," said he, "that you are still
suspicious, and after that dinner? Why, man, if they wanted to harm
us, would they feast us in this style? Nonsense, man! Drop your
suspicions and come along."

I shook my head obstinately.

"Well," said he, "if I thought there was anything in your suspicions I
would stay by you; but I'm confident they mean nothing but kindness,
so I'm going off to see the place."

"You'll be back again?" said I.

"Oh yes," said he, "of course I'll come back, and sleep here."

With these words he left, and nearly all the people accompanied him. I
was left behind with the women and children and about a dozen men.
These men busied themselves with some work over bird-skins; the women
were occupied with some other work over feathers. No one took any
notice of me. There did not seem to be any restraint upon me, nor was
I watched in any way. Once the nightmare hag came and offered me a
small roasted fowl, about the size of a woodcock. I declined it, but
at the same time this delicate attention certainly surprised me.

I was now beginning to struggle with some success against my feelings
of abhorrence, when suddenly I caught sight of something which chased
away every other thought, and made my blood turn cold in my veins. It
was something outside. At the mouth of the cave--by the fire which was
still blazing bright, and lighting up the scene--I saw four men who
had just come to the cave: they were carrying something which I at
first supposed to be a sick or wounded companion. On reaching the fire
they put it down, and I saw, with a thrill of dismay, that their
burden was neither sick nor wounded, but dead, for the corpse lay
rigid as they had placed it. Then I saw the nightmare hag approach it
with a knife. An awful thought came to me--the crowning horror! The
thought soon proved to be but too well founded. The nightmare hag
began to cut, and in an instant had detached the arm of the corpse,
which she thrust among the coals in the very place where lately she
had cooked the fowl. Then she went back for more.

For a moment my brain reeled, and I gasped for breath. Then I rose and
staggered out, I know not how. No one tried to stop me, nor did anyone
follow me; and, for my part, I was ready to blow out the brains of the
first who dared to approach me. In this way I reached the open air,
and passed by the hag and the four men as they were busy at their
awful work. But at this point I was observed and followed. A number of
men and women came after me, jabbering their uncouth language and
gesticulating. I warned them off, angrily. They persisted, and though
none of them were armed, yet I saw that they were unwilling to have me
leave the cave, and I supposed that they would try to prevent me by
force.

The absence of Agnew made my position a difficult one. Had it not been
for this I would have burst through them and fled to the boat; but as
long as he was away I felt bound to wait; and though I longed to fly,
I could not for his sake. The boat seemed to be a haven of rest. I
longed to be in her once more, and drift away, even if it should be to
my death. Nature was here less terrible than man; and it seemed better
to drown in the waters, to perish amid rocks and whirlpools, than to
linger here amid such horrors as these. These people were not like
human beings. The vilest and lowest savages that I had ever seen were
not so odious as these. A herd of monkeys would be far more congenial,
a flock of wolves less abhorrent. They had the caricature of the human
form; they were the lowest of humanity; their speech was a mockery of
language; their faces devilish, their kindness a cunning pretence; and
most hideous of all was the nightmare hag that prepared the cannibal
repast.

I could not begin hostilities, for I had to wait for Agnew; so I stood
and looked, and then walked away for a little distance. They followed
me closely, with eager words and gesticulations, though as yet no one
touched me or threatened me. Their tone seemed rather one of
persuasion. After a few paces I stood still, with all of them around
me. The horrible repast showed plainly all that was in store for us.
They received us kindly and fed us well only to devote us to the most
abhorrent of deaths. Agnew, in his mad confidence, was only insuring
his own doom. He was putting himself completely in the power of
devils, who were incapable of pity and strangers to humanity. To make
friends with such fiends was impossible, and I felt sure that our only
plan was to rule by terror--to seize, to slay, to conquer. But still I
had to wait for him, and did not dare to resort to violence while he
was absent; so I waited, while the savages gathered round me,
contenting themselves with guarding me, and neither touching me nor
threatening me. And all this time the hag went on, intent on her
preparation of the horrible repast.

While standing there looking, listening, waiting for Agnew, I noticed
many things. Far away the volcanoes blazed, and the northern sky was
red with a lurid light. There, too, higher up, the moon was shining
overhead, the sky was gleaming with stars; and all over the heavens
there shone the lustre of the aurora australis, brighter than any I
had ever seen--surpassing the moon and illuminating all. It lighted up
the haggard faces of the devils around me, and it again seemed to me
as though I had died and gone to the land of woe--an iron land, a land
of despair, with lurid fires all aglow and faces of fear.

Suddenly, there burst upon my ears the report of a gun, which sounded
like a thunder-peal, and echoed in long reverberations. At once I
understood it. My fears had proved true. These savages had enticed
Agnew away to destroy him. In an instant I burst through the crowd
around me, and ran wildly in the direction of that sound, calling his
name, as I ran, at the top of my voice.

I heard a loud cry; then another report. I hurried on, shouting his
name in a kind of frenzy. The strange courage of these savages had
already impressed me deeply. They did not fear our guns. They were all
attacking him, and he was alone, fighting for his life.

Then there was another report; it was his pistol. I still ran on, and
still shouted to him.

At last I received an answer. He had perhaps heard me, and was
answering, or, at any rate, he was warning me.

"More," he cried, "fly, fly, fly to the boat! Save yourself!"

"Where are you?" I cried, as I still rushed on.

"Fly, More, fly! Save yourself! You can't save me. I'm lost. Fly for
your life!"

Judging from his cries, he did not seem far away. I hurried on. I
could see nothing of him. All the time the savages followed me. None
were armed; but it seemed to me that they were preparing to fling
themselves upon me and overpower me with their numbers. They would
capture me alive, I thought, bind me, and carry me back, reserving me
for a future time!

I turned and waved them back. They took no notice of my gesture. Then
I ran on once more. They followed. They could not run so fast as I
did, and so I gained on them rapidly, still shouting to Agnew. But
there was no response. I ran backward and forward, crossing and
recrossing, doubling and turning, pursued all the time by the savages.
At last, in rage and despair, I fired upon them, and one of them fell.
But, to my dismay, the others did not seem to care one whit; they did
not stop for one moment, but pursued as before.

My situation was now plain in all its truth. They had enticed Agnew
away; they had attacked him. He had fought, and had been overpowered.
He had tried to give me warning. His last words had been for me to
fly--to fly: yes, for he well knew that it was better far for me to go
to death through the raging torrent than to meet the fate which had
fallen upon himself. For him there was now no more hope. That he was
lost was plain. If he were still alive he would call to me; but his
voice had been silenced for some time. All was over, and that noble
heart that had withstood so bravely and cheerily the rigors of the
storm, and the horrors of our desperate voyage, had been stilled in
death by the vilest of miscreants.

I paused for a moment. Even though Agnew was dead, I could not bear to
leave him, but felt as though I ought to share his fate. The savages
came nearer. At their approach I hesitated no longer. That fate was
too terrible: I must fly.

But before I fled I turned in fury to wreak vengeance upon them for
their crimes. Full of rage and despair, I discharged my remaining
rifle-barrel into the midst of the crowd. Then I fled toward the boat.
On the way I had a frightful thought that she might have been sent
adrift; but, on approaching the place, I found her there just as I had
left her. The savages, with their usual fearlessness, still pursued.
For a moment I stood on the shore, with the grapple in my hand and the
boat close by, and as they came near I discharged my pistol into the
midst of them. Then I sprang into the boat; the swift current bore me
away, and in a few minutes the crowd of pursuing demons disappeared
from view.



CHAPTER V

THE TORRENT SWEEPING UNDER THE MOUNTAINS


The boat drifted on. The light given by the aurora and the low moon
seemed to grow fainter; and as I looked behind I saw that the distant
glow from the volcanic fires had become more brilliant in the
increasing darkness. The sides of the channel grew steeper, until at
last they became rocky precipices, rising to an unknown height. The
channel itself grew narrower, till from a width of two miles it had
contracted to a tenth of those dimensions; but with this lessening
width the waters seemed to rush far more swiftly. Here I drifted
helplessly, and saw the gloomy, rocky cliffs sweep past me as I was
hurled onward on the breast of the tremendous flood. I was in despair.
The fate of Agnew had prepared me for my own, and I was only thankful
that my fate, since it was inevitable, would be less appalling. Death
seemed certain, and my chief thought now was as to the moment when it
would come. I was prepared. I felt that I could meet it calmly,
sternly, even thankfully; far better was a death here amid the roar of
waters than at the hands of those abhorrent beings by whose treachery
my friend had fallen.

As I went on, the precipices rose higher and seemed to overhang, the
channel grew narrower, the light grew fainter, until at last all
around me grew dark. I was floating at the bottom of a vast chasm,
where the sides seemed to rise precipitously for thousands of feet,
where neither watery flood nor rocky wall was visible, and where, far
above, I could see the line of sky between the summits of the cliffs,
and watch the glowing stars. And as I watched them there came to me
the thought that this was my last sight on earth, and I could only
hope that the life which was so swiftly approaching its end might live
again somewhere among those glittering orbs. So I thought; and with
these thoughts I drifted on, I cannot tell how long, until at length
there appeared a vast black mass, where the open sky above me
terminated, and where the lustre of the stars and the light of the
heavens were all swallowed up in utter darkness.

This, then, I thought, is the end. Here, amid this darkness, I must
make the awful plunge and find my death I fell upon my knees in the
bottom of the boat and prayed. As I knelt there the boat drew nearer,
the black mass grew blacker. The current swept me on. There were no
breakers; there was no phosphorescent sparkle of seething waters, and
no whiteness of foam. I thought that I was on the brink of some
tremendous cataract a thousand times deeper than Niagara; some fall
where the waters plunged into the depths of the earth; and where,
gathering for the terrific descent, all other movements--all dashings
and writhings and twistings--were obliterated and lost in the one
overwhelming onward rush. Suddenly all grew dark--dark beyond all
expression; the sky above was in a moment snatched from view; I had
been flung into some tremendous cavern; and there, on my knees, with
terror in my heart, I waited for death.

The moments passed, and death delayed to come. The awful plunge was
still put off; and though I remained on my knees and waited long,
still the end came not. The waters seemed still, the boat motionless.
It was borne upon the surface of a vast stream as smooth as glass; but
who could tell how deep that stream was, or how wide? At length I rose
from my knees and sank down upon the seat of the boat, and tried to
peer through the gloom. In vain. Nothing was visible. It was the very
blackness of darkness. I listened, but heard nothing save a deep,
dull, droning sound, which seemed to fill all the air and make it
all tremulous with its vibrations. I tried to collect my thoughts. I
recalled that old theory which had been in my mind before this, and
which I had mentioned to Agnew. This was the notion that at each pole
there is a vast opening; that into one of them all the waters of the
ocean pour themselves, and, after passing through the earth, come out
at the other pole, to pass about its surface in innumerable streams.
It was a wild fancy, which I had laughed at under other circumstances,
but which now occurred to me once more, when I was overwhelmed
with despair, and my mind was weakened by the horrors which I had
experienced; and I had a vague fear that I had been drawn into the
very channel through which the ocean waters flowed in their course to
that terrific, that unparalleled abyss. Still, there was as yet no
sign whatever of anything like a descent, for the boat was on even
keel, and perfectly level as before, and it was impossible for me to
tell whether I was moving swiftly or slowly, or standing perfectly
still; for in that darkness there were no visible objects by which
I could find out the rate of my progress; and as those who go up in
balloons are utterly insensible of motion, so was I on those calm
but swift waters.

At length there came into view something which arrested my attention
and engrossed all my thoughts. It was faint glow that at first caught
my gaze; and, on turning to see it better, I saw a round red spot
glowing like fire. I had not seen this before. It looked like the moon
when it rises from behind clouds, and glows red and lurid from the
horizon; and so this glowed, but not with the steady light of the
moon, for the light was fitful, and sometimes flashed into a baleful
brightness, which soon subsided into a dimmer lustre. New alarm arose
within me, for this new sight suggested something more terrible than
anything that I had thus far thought of. This, then, I thought, was to
be the end of my voyage; this was my goal--a pit of fire, into which I
should be hurled! Would it be well, I thought, to wait for such a
fate, and experience such a death-agony? Would it not be better for me
to take my own life before I should know the worst? I took my pistol
and loaded it, so as to be prepared, but hesitated to use it until my
fate should be more apparent. So I sat, holding my pistol, prepared to
use it, watching the light, and awaiting the time when the glowing
fires should make all further hope impossible. But time passed, and
the light grew no brighter; on the contrary, it seemed to grow
fainter. There was also another change. Instead of shining before me,
it appeared more on my left. From this it went on changing its
position until at length it was astern. All the time it continued to
grow fainter, and it seemed certain that I was moving away from it
rather than toward it. In the midst of this there occurred a new
thought, which seemed to account for this light--this was, that it
arose from these same volcanoes which had illuminated the northern sky
when I was ashore, and followed me still with their glare. I had been
carried into this darkness, through some vast opening which now lay
behind me, disclosing the red volcano glow, and this it was that
caused that roundness and resemblance to the moon. I saw that I was
still moving on away from that light as before, and that its changing
position was due to the turning of the boat as the water drifted it
along, now stern foremost, now sidewise, and again bow foremost. From
this it seemed plainly evident that the waters had borne me into some
vast cavern of unknown extent, which went under the mountains--a
subterranean channel, whose issue I could not conjecture. Was this the
beginning of that course which should ultimately become a plunge deep
down into some unutterable abyss? or might I ever hope to emerge again
into the light of day--perhaps in some other ocean--some land of ice
and frost and eternal night? But the old theory of the flow of water
through the earth had taken hold of me and could not be shaken off. I
knew some scientific men held the opinion that the earth's interior is
a mass of molten rock and pent-up fire, and that the earth itself had
once been a burning orb, which had cooled down at the surface; yet,
after all, this was only a theory, and there were other theories which
were totally different. As a boy I had read wild works of fiction
about lands in the interior of the earth, with a sun at the centre,
which gave them the light of a perpetual day. These, I knew, were only
the creations of fiction; yet, after all, it seemed possible that the
earth might contain vast hollow spaces in its interior--realms of
eternal darkness, caverns in comparison with which the hugest caves on
the surface were but the tiniest cells. I was now being borne on to
these. In that case there might be no sudden plunge, after all. The
stream might run on for many thousand miles through this terrific
cavern gloom, in accordance with natural laws; and I might thus live,
and drift on in this darkness, until I should die a lingering death of
horror and despair.

There was no possible way of forming any estimate as to speed. All was
dark, and even the glow behind was fading away; nor could I make any
conjecture whatever as to the size of the channel. At the opening it
had been contracted and narrow; but here it might have expanded itself
to miles, and its vaulted top might reach almost to the summit of
the lofty mountains. While sight thus failed me, sound was equally
unavailing, for it was always the same--a sustained and unintermittent
roar, a low, droning sound, deep and terrible, with no variations
of dashing breakers or rushing rapids or falling cataracts. Vague
thoughts of final escape came and went; but in such a situation hope
could not be sustained. The thick darkness oppressed the soul; and
at length even the glow of the distant volcanoes, which had been
gradually diminishing, grew dimmer and fainter, and finally faded out
altogether. That seemed to me to be my last sight of earthly things.
After this nothing was left. There was no longer for me such a thing
as sight; there was nothing but darkness--perpetual and eternal night.
I was buried in a cavern of rushing waters, to which there would be no
end, where I should be borne onward helplessly by the resistless tide
to a mysterious and an appalling doom.

The darkness grew so intolerable that I longed for something to dispel
it, if only for a moment. I struck a match. The air was still, and the
flame flashed out, lighting up the boat and showing the black water
around me. This made me eager to see more. I loaded both barrels of
the rifle, keeping my pistol for another purpose, and then fired one
of them. There was a tremendous report, that rang in my ears like a
hundred thunder-volleys, and rolled and reverberated far along, and
died away in endless echoes. The flash lighted up the scene for an
instant, and for an instant only; like the sudden lightning, it
revealed all around. I saw a wide expanse of water, black as ink--a
Stygian pool; but no rocks were visible, and it seemed as though I
had been carried into a subterranean sea.

I loaded the empty barrel and waited. The flash of light had revealed
nothing, yet it had distracted my thoughts, and the work of reloading
was an additional distraction. Anything was better than inaction. I
did not wish to waste my ammunition, yet I thought that an occasional
shot might serve some good purpose, if it was only to afford me some
relief from despair.

And now, as I sat with the rifle in my hands, I was aware of a
sound--new, exciting, different altogether from the murmur of
innumerable waters that filled my ears, and in sharp contrast with
the droning echoes of the rushing flood. It was a sound that spoke of
life. I heard quick, heavy pantings, as of some great living thing;
and with this there came the noise of regular movements in the water,
and the foaming and gurgling of waves. It was as though some living,
breathing creature were here, not far away, moving through these
midnight waters; and with this discovery there came a new fear--the
fear of pursuit. I thought that some sea-monster had scented me in
my boat, and had started to attack me. This new fear aroused me to
action. It was a danger quite unlike any other which I had ever known;
yet the fear which it inspired was a feeling that roused me to action,
and prompted me, even though the coming danger might be as sure as
death, to rise against it and resist to the last. So I stood up with
my rifle and listened, with all my soul in my sense of hearing. The
sounds arose more plainly. They had come nearer. They were immediately
in front. I raised my rifle and took aim. Then in quick succession two
reports thundered out with tremendous uproar and interminable echoes,
but the long reverberations were unheeded in the blaze of sudden light
and the vision that was revealed. For there full before me I saw,
though but for an instant, a tremendous sight. It was a vast monster,
moving in the waters against the stream and toward the boat. Its head
was raised high, its eyes were inflamed with a baleful light, its
jaws, opened wide, bristled with sharp teeth, and it had a long neck
joined to a body of enormous bulk, with a tail that lashed all the
water into foam. It was but for an instant that I saw it, and then
with a sudden plunge the monster dived, while at the same moment all
was as dark as before.

Full of terror and excitement, I loaded my rifle again and waited,
listening for a renewal of the noise. I felt sure that the monster,
balked of his prey, would return with redoubled fury, and that I
should have to renew the conflict. I felt that the dangers of the
subterranean passage and of the rushing waters had passed away, and
that a new peril had arisen from the assault of this monster of the
deep. Nor was it this one alone that was to be dreaded. Where one was,
others were sure to be; and if this one should pass me by it would
only leave me to be assailed by monsters of the same kind, and these
would probably increase in number as I advanced farther into this
realm of darkness. And yet, in spite of these grisly thoughts, I
felt less of horror than before, for the fear which I had was now
associated with action; and as I stood waiting for the onset and
listening for the approach of the enemy, the excitement that ensued
was a positive relief from the dull despair into which I had sunk but
a moment before.

Yet, though I waited for a new attack, I waited in vain. The monster
did not come back. Either the flash and the noise had terrified him,
or the bullets had hit him, or else in his vastness he had been
indifferent to so feeble a creature as myself; but whatever may have
been the cause, he did not emerge again out of the darkness and
silence into which he had sunk. For a long time I stood waiting; then
I sat down, still watchful, still listening, but without any result,
until at length I began to think that there was no chance of any new
attack. Indeed, it seemed now as though there had been no attack at
all, but that the monster had been swimming at random without any
thought of me, in which case my rifle-flashes had terrified him more
than his fearful form had terrified me. On the whole this incident
had greatly benefited me. It had roused me from my despair. I grew
reckless, and felt a disposition to acquiesce in whatever fate might
have in store for me.

And now, worn out with fatigue and exhausted from long watchfulness
and anxiety, I sank down in the bottom of the boat and fell into a
deep sleep.



CHAPTER VI

THE NEW WORLD


How long I slept I do not know. My sleep was profound, yet disturbed
by troubled dreams, in which I lived over again all the eventful
scenes of the past; and these were all intermingled in the wildest
confusion. The cannibals beckoned to us from the peak, and we landed
between the two volcanoes. There the body of the dead sailor received
us, and afterward chased us to the boat. Then came snow and volcanic
eruptions, and we drifted amid icebergs and molten lava until we
entered an iron portal and plunged into darkness. Here there were vast
swimming monsters and burning orbs of fire and thunderous cataracts
falling from inconceivable heights, and the sweep of immeasurable
tides and the circling of infinite whirlpools; while in my ears there
rang the never-ending roar of remorseless waters that came after us,
with all their waves and billows rolling upon us. It was a dream in
which all the material terrors of the past were renewed; but these
were all as nothing when compared with a certain deep underlying
feeling that possessed my soul--a sense of loss irretrievable, an
expectation of impending doom, a drear and immitigable despair.

In the midst of this I awoke. It was with a sudden start, and I looked
all around in speechless bewilderment. The first thing of which I
was conscious was a great blaze of light--light so lately lost, and
supposed to be lost forever, but now filling all the universe--bright,
brilliant, glowing bringing hope and joy and gladness, with all the
splendor of deep blue skies and the multitudinous laughter of ocean
waves that danced and sparkled in the sun. I flung up my arms and
laughed aloud. Then I burst into tears, and falling on my knees,
I thanked the Almighty Ruler of the skies for this marvellous
deliverance.

Rising from my knees I looked around, and once more amazement
overwhelmed me. I saw a long line of mountains towering up to
immeasurable heights, their summits covered with eternal ice and
snow. There the sun blazed low in the sky, elevated but a few degrees
above the mountain crests, which gleamed in gold and purple under its
fiery rays. The sun seemed enlarged to unusual dimensions, and the
mountains ran away on every side like the segment of some infinite
circle. At the base of the mountains lay a land all green with
vegetation, where cultivated fields were visible, and vineyards and
orchards and groves, together with forests of palm and all manner
of trees of every variety of hue, which ran up the sides of the
mountains till they reached the limits of vegetation and the regions
of snow and ice.

Here in all directions there were unmistakable signs of human
life--the outlines of populous cities and busy towns and hamlets;
roads winding far away along the plain or up the mountain-sides, and
mighty works of industry in the shape of massive structures, terraced
slopes, long rows of arches, ponderous pyramids, and battlemented
walls.

From the land I turned to the sea. I saw before me an expanse of water
intensely blue--an extent so vast that never before in all my ocean
voyages had anything appeared at all comparable with it. Out at sea,
wherever I had been, the water had always limited the view; the
horizon had never seemed far away; ships soon sank below it, and the
visible surface of the earth was thus always contracted; but here, to
my bewilderment, the horizon appeared to be removed to an immeasurable
distance and raised high in the air, while the waters were prolonged
endlessly. Starting from where I was, they went away to inconceivable
distances, and the view before me seemed like a watery declivity
reaching for a thousand miles, till it approached the horizon far up
in the sky. Nor was it any delusion of the senses that caused this
unparalleled spectacle. I was familiar with the phenomena of the
mirage, and knew well that there was nothing of that kind here; for
the mirage always shows great surfaces of stillness, or a regular
vibration--glassy tides and indistinct distances; but here everything
was sharply defined in the clear atmosphere: the sky overhung a deep
blue vault; the waves danced and sparkled in the sun; the waters
rolled and foamed on every side; and the fresh breeze, as it blew over
the ocean, brought with it such exhilarating influences that it acted
upon me like some reviving cordial.

From the works of nature I turned to those of man. These were visible
everywhere: on the land, in cities and cultivated fields and mighty
constructions; on the sea, in floating craft, which appeared wherever
I turned my eyes--boats like those of fishermen, ships long and low,
some like galleys, propelled by a hundred oars, others provided with
one huge square-sail, which enabled them to run before the wind.
They were unlike any ships which I had ever seen; for neither in the
Mediterranean nor in Chinese waters were there any craft like these,
and they reminded me rather of those ancient galleys which I had seen
in pictures.

I was lost in wonder as to where I was, and what land this could be to
which I had been brought. I had not plunged into the interior of the
earth, but I had been carried under the mountains, and had emerged
again into the glad light of the sun. Could it be possible, I thought,
that Agnew's hope had been realized, and that I had been carried into
the warm regions of the South Pacific Ocean? Yet in the South Pacific
there could be no place like this--no immeasurable expanse of waters,
no horizon raised mountain high. It seemed like a vast basin-shaped
world, for all around me the surface appeared to rise, and I was in
what looked like a depression; yet I knew that the basin and the
depression were an illusion, and that this appearance was due to
the immense extent of level surface with the environment of lofty
mountains. I had crossed the antarctic circle; I had been borne onward
for an immense distance. Over all the known surface of the earth no
one had ever seen anything like this; there were but two places
where such an immeasurable plain was possible, and those were at
the flattened poles. Where I was I now knew well. I had reached the
antarctic pole. Here the earth was flat--an immense level with no
roundness to lessen the reach of the horizon but an almost even
surface that gave an unimpeded view for hundreds of miles.

The subterranean channel had rushed through the mountains and had
carried me here. Here came all the waters of the Northern ocean
pouring into this vast polar sea, perhaps to issue forth from it by
some similar passage. Here, then, was the South Pole--a world by
itself: and how different from that terrible, that iron land on the
other side of the mountains!--not a world of ice and frost, but one
of beauty and light, with a climate that was almost tropical in its
warmth, and lands that were covered with the rank luxuriance of a
teeming vegetable life. I had passed from that outer world to this
inner one, and the passage was from death unto life, from agony and
despair to sunlight and splendor and joy. Above all, in all around me
that which most impressed me now was the rich and superabundant life,
and a warmth of air which made me think of India. It was an amazing
and an unaccountable thing, and I could only attribute it to the
flattening of the poles, which brought the surface nearer to the
supposed central fires of the earth, and therefore created a heat
as great as that of the equatorial regions. Here I found a tropical
climate--a land warmed not by the sun, but from the earth itself. Or
another cause might be found in the warm ocean currents. Whatever the
true one might be, I was utterly unable to form a conjecture.

But I had no time for such speculations as these. After the first
emotions of wonder and admiration had somewhat subsided, I began to
experience other sensations. I began to remember that I had eaten
nothing for a length of time that I had no means of calculating, and
to look around to see if there was any way of satisfying my hunger.
The question arose now, What was to be done? After my recent terrible
experience I naturally shrank from again committing myself to the
tender mercies of strange tribes; yet further thought and examination
showed me that the people of this strange land must be very different
from those frightful savages on the other side of the mountains.
Everywhere I beheld the manifest signs of cultivation and
civilization. Still, I knew that even civilized people would not
necessarily be any kinder than savages, and that I might be seized
and flung into hopeless imprisonment or slavery.

So I hesitated, yet what could I do? My hunger was beginning to be
insupportable. I had reached a place where I had to choose between
starvation on the one hand, or a venture among these people on the
other. To go back was impossible. Who could breast those waters in the
tremendous subterranean channel, or force his way back through such
appalling dangers? Or, if that were possible, who could ever hope to
breast those mighty currents beyond, or work his way amid everlasting
ice and immeasurable seas? No; return was impossible. I had been
flung into this world of wonders, and here would be my home for the
remainder of my days; though I could not now imagine whether those
days would be passed in peace or in bitter slavery and sorrow. Yet the
decision must be made and the risk must be run. It must be so. I must
land here, venture among these people, and trust in that Providence
which had hitherto sustained me.

Having thus resolved at all hazards to try my fate, I rowed in toward
the shore. Thus far I had seen galleys passing and small boats, but
they had taken no notice of me, for the reason that they were too far
away to perceive anything about me that differed from any other boat;
but now, as I rowed, I noticed a galley coming down toward me. She
seemed to be going in toward the shore at the very point at which I
was aiming, and her course and mine must soon meet if I continued to
row. After some hesitation I concluded to make signals to her, so as
to attract attention; for, now that I had resolved to venture among
the people here, I was anxious to end my suspense as soon as possible.
So I continued rowing, and gradually drew nearer. The galley was
propelled by oars, of which there were fifty on either side. The stem
was raised, and covered in like a cabin. At length I ceased rowing,
and sat watching her. I soon saw that I was noticed, but this did
not occur till the galley was close by me--so close, indeed, that I
thought they would pass without perceiving me. I raised my hands,
waved them, and gave a cry. The galley at once stopped, a boat was
lowered, and some men descended and rowed toward me.

They were men of strange appearance--very small in stature and slender
in frame. Their hair was black and straight, their features were quite
regular, and their general expression was one of great gentleness. I
was surprised to notice that they kept their eyes almost closed, as
though they were weak and troubled by the glare of the sun. With their
half-closed eyes they blinked at me, and then one who appeared to be
their chief spoke to me. I understood not a word; and then I answered
him in English, which, of course, was equally unintelligible to him.
I then made signs, pointing to the mountains and endeavoring to make
known to him that I had come from beyond them--that I had suffered
shipwreck, that I had drifted here, and that I needed assistance. Of
all this it was quite evident that they understood nothing except the
fact that I needed help. The moment that they comprehended this they
took me in tow and rowed back to the galley.

I found the galley to be about one hundred and fifty feet in length.
For about two thirds of this length forward it was open and filled
with seats, where there were about a hundred rowers, who all looked
like those that I had first seen, all being of small stature,
slender frames, and, moreover, all being apparently distressed by
the sunlight. There was in all of them the same mild and gentle
expression. In complexion and general outline of features they were
not unlike Arabs, but they were entirely destitute of that hardness
and austerity which the latter have. They all had beards, which were
dressed in a peculiar way in plaits. Their costume varied. The rowers
wore a coarse tunic, with a girdle of rope. The officers wore tunics
of fine cloth and very elegant mantles, richly embroidered, and with
borders of down. They all wore broad-brimmed hats, and the one who
seemed to be chief had on his some golden ornaments.

Here once more I tried to explain to them who I was. They looked at
me, examining me all over, inspecting my gun, pistol, coat, trousers,
boots, and hat, and talking all the time among themselves. They did
not touch me, but merely showed the natural curiosity which is felt at
the sight of a foreigner who has appeared unexpectedly. There was a
scrupulous delicacy and a careful and even ceremonious politeness in
their attitude toward me which was at once amazing and delightful. All
fear and anxiety had now left me; in the gentle manners and amiable
faces of these people I saw enough to assure me of kind treatment;
and in my deep joy and gratitude for this even my hunger was for a
time forgotten.

At length the chief motioned to me to follow him. He led the way to
the cabin, where, opening the door, he entered, and I followed, after
which the others came in also and then the door was shut. At first I
could see nothing. There were no windows whatever, and only one or two
slight crevices through which the light came. After a time my eyes
grew more accustomed to the darkness, and I could see that the cabin
was a spacious compartment, adorned with rich hangings of some unknown
material. There was a large table and seats. Taking me by the hand,
the chief led me to this, where I seated myself, while the others
remained standing. Then some of them went away, and soon returned with
food and drink. The food was of different kinds--some tasting like
goose, others like turkey, others like partridge. It was all the flesh
of fowls, though, judging from the slices before me, they must have
been of great size. I wondered much at the behavior of the officers
of the ship, who all, and the chief himself more than all, stood and
waited upon me; but it was a new world, and I supposed that this must
be the fashion; so I made no objections, but accepted the situation
and ate with a thankful heart.

As the first keenness of my appetite was satisfied I had more leisure
to make observations. I noticed that the eyes of my new friends no
longer blinked; they were wide open; and, so far as I could make
them out, their faces were much improved. Weakness of eyes seemed
common among these people, and therefore the officers had their cabin
darkened, while the unfortunate rowers had to labor in the blazing
sun. Such was my conclusion, and the fact reminded me of the miserable
fellahin of Egypt, who have ophthalmia from the blazing sun and
burning sand.

After the repast they brought me water in a basin, and all stood
around me. One held the basin, another a towel, another a flask,
another took a sponge and proceeded to wash my face and hands.
This was all strange to me, yet there was nothing left for me but
submission. Then the chief, who had stood looking on with a smile on
his face took off his rich furred mantle and handed it to me. I was
half inclined to refuse it, but was afraid of giving offence, so I
accepted it, and he himself fastened it around my shoulders. The
others seemed actually to envy the chief, as though he had gained some
uncommon good-fortune. Then they offered me various drinks, of which
I tasted several kinds. Some were sweet waters of different flavors,
others tasted like mild wine, one was a fermented drink, light, sweet,
and very agreeable to the palate. I now wished to show my generous
entertainers that I was grateful; so I raised my cup, bowed to all
of them, particularly the chief, and drank their health. They all
watched this ceremony with very sober faces, and I could not quite
make out whether they took my meaning or not. They certainly did not
look pleased, and it seemed to me as though they felt hurt at any
expression of gratitude, so I concluded for the future to abstain
from all such demonstrations.

Yet with every moment the manners of these people grew more
bewildering. It was strange, indeed, for me to find myself so suddenly
the centre of interest and of generous intentions. For a moment the
thought occurred to me that they regarded me as some wonderful being
with superior powers, and were trying to propitiate me by these
services; yet I soon saw that these services were not at all acts
of propitiation; they looked rather like those loving and profuse
attentions which a family showers down upon some dear one long absent
and at last returned, and with this my wonder grew greater than ever.

The galley had long since resumed her progress. I heard the steady
beat of the oars as they all moved in time, and at length the motion
ceased. The chief then signed to me and went out. I followed, and the
rest came after. And now as I emerged from the gloom of the cabin, I
found myself once more in the glorious light of day, and saw that we
had reached the land. The galley was hauled up alongside a stone quay,
and on the shore there were buildings and walls and trees and people.
The chief went ashore at once and I accompanied him. We walked for
some distance along a road with stone walls on either side, from
behind which there arose trees that from a distance had looked like
palms. I now found them to be giant ferns, arching overhead with their
broad fanlike leaves and branches in dense masses, making the roadway
quite dark in the shadow. Astonished as I was at the sight of these
trees, I soon forgot them in a still more astonishing sight, for after
going onward about a hundred paces I stopped, and found myself in a
wide space where four cross-roads met. Here there were three birds of
gigantic stature. They had vast bodies, short legs, short necks, and
seemed as large as an ordinary-sized ox. Their wings were short, and
evidently could not be used for flight; their beaks were like that of
a sea-gull; each one had a man on his back, and was harnessed to a
car. The chief motioned to me to enter one of these cars. I did so. He
followed, and thereupon the driver started the bird, which set forth
with long, rapid strides, at a pace fast as that of a trotting horse.
So astonished was I that for some time I did not notice anything else;
but at length, when my first feeling had subsided, I began to regard
other objects. All the way the dense fern foliage arched overhead,
throwing down deep shadows. They grew on either side in dense rows,
but between their stalks I could see the country beyond, which lay
all bright in the sunlight.

Here were broad fields, all green with verdure; farther away arose
clumps of tree-ferns; at every step of the way new vistas opened; amid
the verdure and the foliage were the roofs of structures that looked
like pavilions, and more massive edifices with pyramidal roofs. Our
road constantly ascended, and at length we came to a crossing. This
was a wide terrace at the slope of the mountain; on the lower side was
a row of massive stone edifices with pyramidal roofs, while on the
upper there were portals which seemed to open into excavated caverns.
Here, too, on either side arose the giant ferns, overarching and
darkening the terrace with their deep shadow. From this point I looked
back, and through the trunks of the tree-ferns I could see fields
and pavilions and the pyramidal roofs of massive edifices, and
broad, verdant slopes, while in the distance there were peeps of the
boundless sea. We continued on our way without stopping, and passed
several successive terraces like the first, with the same caverns on
the upper side and massive edifices on the lower, until at last the
ascent ended at the fifth terrace, and here we turned to the left.
Now the view became more varied. The tree-ferns arose on either side,
arching overhead; on my right were the portals that opened into
caverns, on my left solid and massive houses, built of great blocks of
stone, with pyramidal roofs. As far as I could judge, I was in a city
built on the slope of a mountain, with its streets formed thus of
successive terraces and their connecting cross-ways, one half its
habitations consisting of caverns, while the other half were pavilions
and massive stone structures. Few people, however, were to be seen.
Occasionally I saw one or two groping along with their eyes half
shut, seeking the darkest shadows; and it seemed to me that this
extraordinary race of men had some natural and universal peculiarity
of eyesight which made them shun the sunlight, and seek the darkness
of caves and of dense, overshadowing foliage.

At length we came to a place where the terrace ran back till it formed
a semicircle against the mountain slope, when several vast portals
appeared. Here there was a large space, where the tree-ferns grew in
long lines crossing each other, and making a denser shade than usual.
On the lower side were several stone edifices of immense size; and
in the middle of the place there arose a singular structure, shaped
like a half pyramid, with three sides sloping, and the fourth
perpendicular, flat on the top, which was approached by a flight of
steps. We now went on until we reached the central portal of the range
of caverns, and here we stopped. The chief got out and beckoned to me.
I followed. He then led the way into the cavern, while I, full of
wonder, walked behind him.



CHAPTER VII

SCIENTIFIC THEORIES AND SCEPTICISM


Thus far Melick had been reading the manuscript, but at this point he
was interrupted by the announcement that dinner was ready. Upon this
he stopped abruptly; for on board the Falcon dinner was the great
event of the day, and in its presence even the manuscript had to be
laid aside. Before long they were all seated around the dining-table
in the sumptuous cabin, prepared to discuss the repast which had been
served up by the genius of the French chef whom Lord Featherstone
had brought with him.

Let us pause here for a moment to take a minuter survey of these four
friends. In the first place, there was Lord Featherstone himself,
young, handsome, languid, good-natured to a fault, with plenty of
muscle if he chose to exert it, and plenty of brain if he chose to
make use of it--a man who had become weary of the monotony of high
life, and, like many of his order, was fond of seeking relief from the
ennui of prosperity amid the excitements of the sea. Next to him was
Dr. Congreve, a middle-aged man, with iron-gray hair, short beard and
mustache, short nose, gray eyes, with spectacles, and stoutish body.
Next came Noel Oxenden, late of Trinity College, Cambridge, a college
friend of Featherstone's--a tall man, with a refined and intellectual
face and reserved manner. Finally, there was Otto Melick, a
litterateur from London, about thirty years of age, with a wiry and
muscular frame, and the restless manner of one who lives in a
perpetual fidget.

For some time nothing was said; they partook of the repast in silence;
but at length it became evident that they were thinking of the
mysterious manuscript. Featherstone was the first to speak.

"A deuced queer sort of thing this, too," said he, "this manuscript.
I can't quite make it out. Who ever dreamed of people living at the
South Pole--and in a warm climate, too? Then it seems deuced odd, too,
that we should pick up this copper cylinder with the manuscript. I
hardly know what to think about it."

Melick smiled. "Why, it isn't much to see through," said he.

"See through what?" said the doctor, hastily, pricking up his ears
at this, and peering keenly at Melick through his spectacles.

"Why, the manuscript, of course."

"Well," said the doctor, "what is it that you see? What do you make
out of it?"

"Why, anyone can see," said Melick, "that it's a transparent hoax,
that's all. You don't mean to say, I hope, that you really regard it
in any other light?"

"A transparent hoax!" repeated the doctor. "Will you please state why
you regard it in that light?"

"Certainly," said Melick. "Some fellow wanted to get up a sensation
novel and introduce it to the world with a great flourish of trumpets,
and so he has taken this way of going about it. You see, he has
counted on its being picked up, and perhaps published. After this he
would come forward and own the authorship."

"And what good would that do?" asked the doctor, mildly. "He couldn't
prove the authorship, and he couldn't get the copyright."

"Oh, of course not; but he would gain notoriety, and that would give
him a great sale for his next effort."

The doctor smiled. "See here, Melick," said he, "you've a very vivid
imagination, my dear fellow; but come, let us discuss this for a
little while in a common-sense way. Now how long should you suppose
that this manuscript has been afloat?"

"Oh, a few months or so," said Melick.

"A few months!" said the doctor. "A few years you mean. Why, man,
there are successive layers of barnacles on that copper cylinder which
show a submersion of at least three years, perhaps more."

"By Jove! yes," remarked Featherstone. "Your sensation novelist must
have been a lunatic if he chose that way of publishing a book."

"Then, again," continued the doctor, "how did it get here?"

"Oh, easily enough," answered Melick. "The ocean currents brought it."

"The ocean currents!" repeated the doctor. "That's a very vague
expression. What do you mean? Of course it has been brought here by
the ocean currents."

"Why, if it were thrown off the coast of England it would be carried
away, in the ordinary course of things, and might make the tour of the
world."

"The ocean currents," said the doctor, "have undoubtedly brought this
to us. Of that I shall have more to say presently--but just now, in
reference to your notion of a sensation novelist, and an English
origin, let me ask your opinion of the material on which it is
written. Did you ever see anything like it before? Is it paper?"

"No," said Melick; "it is evidently some vegetable substance. No doubt
the writer has had it prepared for this very purpose, so as to make it
look natural."

"Do you know what is is?" asked the doctor.

"No."

"Then I'll tell you; it's papyrus."

"Papyrus?"

"Yes, actual papyrus. You can find but little of that in existence at
the present day. It is only to be found here and there in museums.
I know it perfectly well, however, and saw what it was at the first
glance. Now, I hold that a sensation novelist would never have thought
of papyrus. If he didn't wish to use paper, he could have found a
dozen other things. I don't see how he could have found anyone able to
prepare such a substance as this for writing. It must have come from a
country where it is actually in use. Now, mark you, the papyrus-plant
may still be found growing wild on the banks of the upper Nile, and
also in Sicily, and it is made use of for ropes and other things of
that sort. But as to making writing material out of it, that is hardly
possible for the art is lost. The ancient process was very elaborate
and this manuscript is written on leaves which resembled in a
marvellous manner those of the Egyptian papyrus books. There are two
rolls at Marseilles which I have seen and examined, and they are
identical with this. Now these papyrus leaves indicate much mechanical
skill, and have a professional look. They seem like the work of an
experienced manufacturer."

"I don't see," said Melick, obstinately, "why one shouldn't get
papyrus now and have it made up into writing material."

"Oh, that's out of the question," said the doctor. "How could it
ever enter into anyone's head? How could your mere sensation-monger
procure the raw material? That of itself would be a work of immense
difficulty. How could he get it made up? That would be impossible.
But, apart from this, just consider the strong internal evidence that
there is as to the authenticity of the manuscript. Now, in the first
place, there is the description of Desolation Island, which is
perfectly accurate. But it is on his narrative beyond this that I lay
chief stress. I can prove that the statements here are corroborated
by those of Captain Ross in his account of that great voyage from
which he returned not very long ago."

The doctor, who had been talking with much enthusiasm, paused here to
take breath, and then went on:

"I happen to know all about that voyage, for I read a full report of
it just before we started, and you can see for yourselves whether this
manuscript is credible or not.

"Captain James Clarke Ross was sent forth on his expedition in 1839.
On January 1, 1841, he passed the antarctic circle in 178 degrees east
longitude. On the 11th he discovered land in 70 degrees 41' south
latitude, 172 degrees 36' east longitude. He found that the land was
a continuous coast, trending southward, and rising to peaks of ten
thousand feet in height, all covered with ice and snow. On the 12th
he landed and took possession in the name of the Queen. After this he
continued his course as far as 78 degrees 4' south latitude, tracing a
coast-line of six hundred miles. Observe, now how all this coincides
with More's narrative. Well, I now come to the crowning statement. In
77 degrees 32' south latitude, 167 degrees east longitude, he came in
sight of two enormous volcanoes over twelve thousand feet in height.
One of these was in an active state of eruption. To this he gave the
name of Mount Erebus. The other was quiet; it was of somewhat less
height, and he gave it the name of Mount Terror. Mark, now, how
wonderfully this resembles More's account. Well, just here his
progress was arrested by a barrier which presented a perpendicular
wall of over a hundred and fifty feet in height, along which he
coasted for some distance. On the following year he penetrated six
miles farther south, namely, 78 degrees 11' south latitude, 161
degrees 27' west longitude. At this point he was again stopped by the
impassable cliffs, which arose here like an eternal barrier, while
beyond them he saw a long line of lofty mountains covered with ice
and snow."

"Did you hear the result of the American expedition?" asked Melick.

"Yes," replied the doctor. "Wilkes pretends to have found a continent,
but his account of it makes it quite evident to my mind that he saw
nothing but ice. I believe that Wilkes's antarctic continent will some
day be penetrated by ships, which will sail for hundreds of miles
farther south. All that is wanted is a favorable season. But mark the
coincidence between Ross's report and More's manuscript. This must
have been written at least three years ago, and the writer could not
have known anything about Ross's discoveries. Above all, he could not
have thought of those two volcanoes unless he had seen them."

"But these volcanoes mentioned by More are not the Erebus and Terror,
are they?" said Lord Featherstone.

"Of course not; they are on the other side of the world."

"The whole story," said Melick, "may have been written by one of
Ross's men and thrown overboard. If I'd been on that expedition I
should probably have written it to beguile the time."

"Oh yes," said the doctor; "and you would also have manufactured the
papyrus and the copper cylinder on board to beguile the time."

"I dare say the writer picked up that papyrus and the copper cylinder
in China or Japan, and made use of it in this way."

"Where do you make out the position of More's volcanoes?" asked
Featherstone.

"It is difficult to make it out accurately," said the doctor. "More
gives no data. In fact he had none to give. He couldn't take any
observations."

"The fact is," said Melick, "it's not a sailor's yarn at all. No
sailor would ever express himself in that way. That's what struck me
from the first. It has the ring of a confounded sensation-monger all
through."

The doctor elevated his eyebrows, but took no notice of this.

"You see," he continued, addressing himself to the others, "Desolation
Island is in 50 degrees south latitude and 70 degrees east longitude.
As I make out, More's course led him over about ten degrees of
longitude in a southwest course. That course depended altogether upon
the ocean currents. Now there is a great antarctic drift-current,
which flows round the Cape of Good Hope and divides there, one half
flowing past the east coast of Africa and the other setting across
the Indian Ocean. Then it unites with a current which flows round the
south of Van Dieman's Land, which also divides, and the southernmost
current is supposed to cross the Pacific until it strikes Cape Horn,
around which it flows, dividing as before. Now my theory is, that
south of Desolation Island--I don't know how far--there is a great
current setting toward the South Pole, and running southwest through
degrees of longitude 60, 50, 40, 30, 20, 10, east of Greenwich; and
finally sweeping on, it would reach More's volcanoes at a point which
I should judge to be about 80 degrees south latitude and 10 degrees
west longitude. There it passes between the volcanoes and bursts
through the vast mountain barrier by a subterranean way, which has
been formed for it in past ages by some primeval convulsion of nature.
After this it probably sweeps around the great South Polar ocean, and
emerges at the opposite side, not far from the volcanoes Erebus and
Terror."

Here the doctor paused, and looked around with some self-complacency.

"Oh," said Melick, "if you take that tone, you have us all at your
mercy. I know no more about the geography of the antarctic circle than
I do of the moon. I simply criticize from a literary point of view,
and I don't like his underground cavern with the stream running
through it. It sounds like one of the voyages of Sinbad the Sailor.
Nor do I like his description; he evidently is writing for effect.
Besides, his style is vicious; it is too stilted. Finally, he has
recourse to the stale device of a sea-serpent."

"A sea-serpent!" repeated the doctor. "Well, for my part I feel by
no means inclined to sneer at a sea-serpent. Its existence cannot
be proved, yet it cannot be pooh-poohed. Every schoolboy knows that
the waters of the sea were once filled with monsters more tremendous
than the greatest sea-serpent that has ever been imagined. The
plesiosaurus, with its snakelike head, if it existed now, would be
called a sea-serpent. Some of these so-called fossil animals may have
their representatives still living in the remoter parts of the world.
Think of the recently discovered ornithorhynchus of Australia!"

"If you please, I'd really much rather not," said Melick with a
gesture of despair. "I haven't the honor of the gentleman's
acquaintance."

"Well, what do you think of his notice of the sun, and the long light,
and his low position on the horizon?"

"Oh, that's all right," said Melick. "Anyone who chose to get up this
thing would of course read up about the polar day, and all that.
Everyone knows that at the poles there is a six-months' day, followed
by a six-months' night."

"You are a determined sceptic," said the doctor.

"How is it about the polar day?" asked Featherstone.

"Well," said the doctor, "at the poles themselves there is one day
of six months, during which the sun never sets, and one night of six
months, during which he never rises. In the spaces between the polar
circles the quantities of the continuous day and continuous night vary
in accordance with the distance from the pole. At the north point of
Nova Zembla, 75 degrees north latitude, there is uninterrupted light
from May 1st to August 12th, and uninterrupted darkness from November
8th to February 9th. At the arctic circle at the summer solstice the
day is twenty-four hours long. At the antarctic circle at the same
time the night is twenty-four hours long."

Upon this Melick filled the doctor's wine-glass with a great deal of
ceremony.

"After all those statistics," he said, "you must feel rather dry. You
should take a drink before venturing any further."

The doctor made no reply, but raised the glass to his lips and
swallowed the wine in an abstracted way.

"The thing that struck me most," said Oxenden, "in all that has been
read thus far, is the flatness of the South Pole, and the peculiar
effect which this produces on the landscape."

"I must say," added Melick, "that the writer has got hold of a very
good idea there, and has taken care to put it forward in a very
prominent fashion."

"What is the difference," asked Oxenden, "between the two diameters of
the earth, the polar and the equatorial? Is it known?"

"By Jove!" said Featherstone, "that's the very question I was going to
ask. I've always heard that the earth is flattened at the poles, but
never knew how much. Is there any way by which people can find out?"

The doctor drew a long breath, and beamed upon the company with a
benevolent smile.

"Oh yes," said he; "I can answer that question, if you care to know
and won't feel bored."

"Answer it, then, my dear fellow, by all means," said Featherstone,
in his most languid tone.

"There are two ways," said the doctor, "by which the polar compression
of the earth has been found out. One is by the measurement of arcs
on the earth's surface; the other is by experiments with pendulums
or weights with regard to the earth's gravity at different places.
The former of these methods is, perhaps, the more satisfactory.
Measurements of arcs have been made on a very extensive scale in
different parts of the world--in England, France, Lapland, Peru, and
India. Mr. Ivory, who devoted himself for years to an exhaustive
examination of the subject, has deduced that the equatorial radius of
the earth is over 3962 miles, and the polar radius over 3949 miles.
This makes the depression at either pole upward of thirteen miles. A
depression of over thirteen miles, as you must plainly see, should
produce strange results in the scenery at the poles. Of course, if
there are mountains, no difference would be noticed between this and
any other part of the earth's surface; but if there is water, why,
we ought to expect some such state of things as More describes. The
gravitation test has also been tried, with very nearly the same
result. The surface of the earth at the equator, being farthest from
the centre of gravity, indicates the least weight in bodies; but at
the poles, where the surface is nearest the centre of gravity, there
must be the greatest weight. It is found, in fact, that the weight
of bodies increases in passing from the equator to the poles. By
experiments made in this way the polar compression is ascertained to
be the same as I have mentioned."

"What effect would this have on the climate at the poles?" asked
Oxenden.

"That's a complicated question," said the doctor. "In answer to that
we must leave ascertained facts and trust to theories, unless, indeed,
we accept as valid the statements of this remarkable manuscript.
For my own part, I see no reason why it should not be as More says.
Remember, this polar world is thirteen miles nearer to the centre of
the earth. Whether this should affect the climate or not, depends upon
the nature of the earth's interior. That interior, according to the
popular theory of the present day is a mass of fire. This theory
affirms that the earth was once a red-hot mass, which has cooled down;
but the cooling process has only taken place on the surface, leaving
the interior still a molten mass of matter in a state of intense heat
and combustion. At the poles the surface is thus thirteen miles nearer
to these tremendous fires. Of course it may be supposed that the
earth's crust is of about equal thickness on all parts; yet still,
even if this be so, thirteen miles ought to make some difference. Now
at the North Pole there seem to be causes at work to counterbalance
the effect of the internal heat, chiefly in the enormous accumulation
of polar ice which probably hems it in on every side; and though many
believe in an open polar sea of warm water at the North Pole, yet
still the effect of vast ice-masses and of cold submarine currents
must be to render the climate severe. But at the South Pole it is
different. The observations of Ross and of More show us that there is
a chain of mountains of immense height, which seem to encircle the
pole. If this be so, and I see no reason to disbelieve it, then the
ice of the outer seas must be kept away altogether from that strange
inner sea of which More speaks. Ross saw the volcanoes Erebus and
Terror; More saw two others. How many more there may be it is
impossible to say; but all this shows that the effect of the earth's
internal fires is very manifest in that region, and More has
penetrated to a secluded world, which lies apart by itself, free from
the influence of ice-masses, left to feel the effect of the internal
fires, and possessing what is virtually a tropical climate."

"Well," said Melick, "there is no theory however wild and fantastic,
which some man of science will not be ready to support and to fortify
by endless arguments, all of the most plausible kind. For my own part,
I still believe More and his south polar world to be no more authentic
than Sindbad the Sailor."

But the others evidently sympathized with the doctor's view, and
regarded Melick as carrying his scepticism to an absurd excess.

"How large do you suppose this south polar ocean to be?" asked
Featherstone.

"It is impossible to answer that question exactly," said the doctor.
"It may be, as More hints, a thousand miles in extent, or only five
hundred, or two hundred. For my own part, however, I feel like
taking More's statements at their utmost value; and the idea that
I have gathered from his narrative is that of a vast sea like the
Mediterranean, surrounded by impassable mountains, by great and
fertile countries, peopled with an immense variety of animals, with
a fauna and flora quite unlike those of the rest of the world;
and, above all, with great nations possessing a rare and unique
civilization, and belonging to a race altogether different from
any of the known races of men."

"Well," said Melick, "that at least is the idea which the writer of
the manuscript tries to convey."

By this time they had finished dinner.

"And now," said Featherstone, "let's have some more of the manuscript.
Melick is tired of it, I dare say. I would relieve him, but I'm an
infernally bad reader. Doctor, what do you say? Will you read the next
instalment!"

"With all my heart," said the doctor, briskly.

"Very well, then," said Featherstone; "we will all be your attentive
hearers."

And now the doctor took up the manuscript and began to read.



CHAPTER VIII

THE CAVE-DWELLERS


The cavern into which the chief led me was very spacious, but had
no light except that which entered through the portal. It was with
difficulty that I could see anything, but I found that there were many
people here moving about, all as intent upon their own pursuits as
those which one encounters in the streets of our cities. As we went
on farther the darkness increased, until at last I lost sight of the
chief altogether, and he had to come back and lead me. After going
a little farther we came to a long, broad passage-way like a
subterranean street, about twenty feet in width, and as many in
height. Here there were discernible a few twinkling lamps, which
served to make the darkness less intense and enabled me to see the
shadowy figures around. These were numerous, and all seemed busy,
though what their occupation might be I could not guess. I was amazed
at the extent of these caverns, and at the multitude of the people. I
saw also that from the nature of their eyes the sunlight distressed
them, and in this cavern gloom they found their most congenial
dwelling-place. From what I had thus far seen, this extraordinary
people shrank from the sunlight; and when they had to move abroad they
passed over roads which were darkened as much as possible by the deep
shadows of mighty ferns, while for the most part they remained in
dark caverns, in which they lived and moved and had their being. It
was a puzzle to me whether the weakness of their eyes had caused
this dislike of light, or the habit of cave-dwelling had caused this
weakness of eyes. Here, in this darkness, where there was but a faint
twinkle from the feeble lamps, their eyes seemed to serve them as well
as mine did in the outer light of day; and the chief, who outside had
moved with an uncertain step, and had blinked painfully at objects
with his eyes almost closed, now appeared to be in his proper element;
and while I hesitated like a blind man and groped along with a
faltering step, he guided me, and seemed to see everything with
perfect vision.

At length we stopped, and the chief raised up a thick, heavy mat which
hung like an unwieldly curtain in front of a doorway. This the chief
lifted. At once a blaze of light burst forth, gleaming into the dark,
and appearing to blind him. His eyes closed. He held up the veil for
me to pass through. I did so. He followed, and then groped his way
slowly along, while I accompanied and assisted him.

I now found myself in a large grotto with an arched roof, from which
was suspended an enormous lamp, either golden or gilded. All around
were numerous lamps. The walls were adorned with rich hangings;
couches were here, with soft cushions, and divans and ottomans; soft
mats were on the floor, and everything gave indications of luxury and
wealth. Other doors, covered with overhanging mats, seemed to lead out
of this grotto. To one of these the chief walked, and raising the mat
he led the way into another grotto like the last, with the same bright
lights and the same adornments, but of smaller size. Here I saw
someone who at once took up all my attention.

It was a young maiden. Her face and form, but especially her eyes,
showed her to be of quite a different race from these others. To me
she was of medium height, yet she was taller than any of the people
here that I had hitherto seen. Her complexion was much lighter; her
hair was dark, luxuriant, and wavy, and arranged in a coiffure secured
with a golden band. Her features were of a different cast from those
of the people here, for they were regular in outline and of exquisite
beauty; her nose was straight; she had a short upper lip, arched
eyebrows finely pencilled, thin lips, and well-rounded chin. But the
chief contrast was in her eyes. These were large, dark, liquid, with
long lashes, and with a splendid glow in their lustrous depths. She
stood looking at me with her face full of amazement; and as I caught
the gaze of her glorious eyes I rejoiced that I had at last found one
who lived in the light and loved it--one who did not blink like a bat,
but looked me full in the face, and allowed me to see all her soul
revealed. The chief, who still was pained by the glare of light, kept
his eyes covered, and said a few hasty words to the maiden. After this
he hurried away, leaving me there.

The maiden stood for a moment looking at me. As the chief spoke to
her a change came over her face. She looked at me in silence, with
an expression of sad and mournful interest, which seemed to increase
every moment. At length she approached and said something in the same
strange language which the chief had used. I shook my head and replied
in English, whereupon she shook her head with a look of perplexity.
Then, anxious to conciliate her, I held out my hand. She looked at
it in some surprise. Upon this I took her hand, and pressed it to my
lips, feeling, however, somewhat doubtful as to the way in which she
might receive such an advance. To my great delight she accepted it in
a friendly spirit, and seemed to consider it my foreign fashion of
showing friendship and respect. She smiled and nodded, and pointed to
my gun, which thus far I had carried in my hand. I smiled and laid
it down. Then she pointed to a seat. I sat down, and then she seated
herself close by me, and we looked at each other in mutual wonder and
mutual inquiry.

I was full of amazement at thus meeting with so exquisite a being,
and lost myself in conjectures as to her race, her office, and her
position here. Who was she, or what? She was unlike the others, and
reminded me of those Oriental beauties whose portraits I had seen in
annuals and illustrated books. Her costume was in keeping with such
a character. She wore a long tunic that reached from the neck to the
ground, secured at the waist with a golden girdle; the sleeves were
long and loose; over this she had a long mantle; on her feet were
light slippers, white and glistening. All about her, in her room and
in her costume, spoke of light and splendor and luxury. To these
others who shrank so from the light she could not be related in any
way. The respect with which she was treated by the chief, the peculiar
splendor of her apartments, seemed to indicate some high rank. Was
she, then, the queen of the land? Was she a princess? I could not
tell. At any rate, whatever she was, she seemed anxious to show me
the utmost attention. Her manner was full of dignity and sweet
graciousness, and she appeared particularly anxious to make herself
understood. At first she spoke in a language that sounded like that of
the chief, and was full of gutturals and broad vowels; afterward she
spoke in another that was far more euphonious. I, on the other hand
spoke in English and in French; but of course I was as unintelligible
to her as she was to me.

Language was, therefore, of no use. It was necessary to go back to
first principles and make use of signs, or try to gain the most
elementary words of her language; so first of all I pointed to her,
and tried to indicate that I wanted to know her name. She caught my
meaning at once, and, pointing to herself, she looked fixedly at me
and said, "Almah, Almah!"

I repeated these words after her, saying, "Almah, Almah!" She smiled
and nodded, and then pointed to me with a look of inquiry that plainly
asked for my name. I said "Adam More." She repeated this, and it
sounded like "A-tam-or." But as she spoke this slowly her smile died
away. She looked anxious and troubled, and once more that expression
of wondering sadness came over her face. She repeated my name over and
over in this way with a mournful intonation that thrilled through me,
and excited forebodings of evil. "Atamor, Atamor!" And always after
that she called me "Atamor."

But now she sat for some time, looking at me with a face full of pity
and distress. At this I was greatly astonished; for but a moment
before she had been full of smiles, and it was as though something in
my name had excited sorrowful thoughts. Yet how could that be, since
she could never by any possibility have heard my name before? The
beautiful Almah seemed to be not altogether happy, or why should she
be so quick to sadness? There was a mystery about all this which was
quite unaccountable.

It was a singular situation, and one which excited within me feelings
of unutterable delight. This light and splendor, this warmth and
peace--what a contrast it offered to the scenes through which I had
but lately passed! Those scenes of horror, of ice and snow, of storm
and tempest, of cold and hunger, of riven cliff and furious ocean
stream, and, above all, that crowning agony in the bleak iron-land of
the cannibals--from all these I had escaped. I had been drawn down
under the earth to experience the terrors of that unspeakable passage,
and had at last emerged to light and life, to joy and hope. In this
grotto I had found the culmination of all happiness. It was like a
fairy realm; and here was one whose very look was enough to inspire
the most despairing soul with hope and peace and happiness. The only
thing that was now left to trouble me was this mournful face of Almah.
Why did she look at me with such sad interest and such melancholy
meaning? Did she know of any evil fate in store for me? Yet how could
there be any evil fate to be feared from people who had received me
with such unparalleled generosity? No, it could not be; so I resolved
to try to bring back again the smile that had faded out of her face.

I pointed to her, and said, "Almah."

She said, "Atam-or."

And the smile did not come back, but the sadness remained in her face.

My eager desire now was to learn her language, and I resolved at once
to acquire as many words and phrases as possible. I began by asking
the names of things, such as "seat," "table," "mat," "coat," "hat,"
"shoe," "lamp," "floor," "wall," and all the common objects around.
She gave all the names, and soon became so deeply interested that her
sadness departed, and the smile came back once more. For my own part,
I was always rather quick at learning languages. I had a correct ear
and a retentive memory; in my wanderings round the world I had picked
up a smattering of many languages, such as French, Italian, Spanish,
Arabic, German, Hindoostanee, and a few others. The words which I
learned from Almah had a remote resemblance to Arabic; and, in fact,
my knowledge of Arabic was actually of some assistance, though how it
was that these people should have a language with that resemblance
was certainly a mystery, and I did not try to solve it. The beautiful
Almah soon grew immensely interested in my efforts to learn, and also
in the English words which I gave when I pointed to any object.

Thus I pointed to myself, and said "Man," then pointing to her, I
said, "Woman." She laughed, and pointing to me said "Iz," and pointing
to herself said, "Izza." Then I pointed to the row of lights, and
said "Light;" she did the same, and said, "Or." Then her face grew
mournful, and she pointed to me, saying "Atam-or." It struck me then
that there was some chance resemblance between "or," the word meaning
"light," and one of the syllables of my name as she pronounced it, and
that this might cause her sadness; but as I could make out nothing of
this, I dismissed the thought, and went on with my questions. This
took up the time, until at length someone appeared who looked like a
servant. He said something, whereupon Almah arose and beckoned to me
to follow. I did so, and we went to a neighboring apartment, where
there was spread a bounteous repast. Here we sat and ate, and Almah
told me the names of all the dishes. After dinner we returned to the
room.

It was a singular and a delightful position. I was left alone with the
beautiful Almah, who herself showed the utmost graciousness and the
kindest interest in me. I could not understand it, nor did I try to;
it was enough that I had such a happy lot. For hours we thus were
together, and I learned many words. To insure remembrance, I wrote
them down in my memorandum-book with a pencil and both of these were
regarded by Almah with greatest curiosity. She felt the paper,
inspected it, touched it with her tongue, and seemed to admire it
greatly; but the pencil excited still greater admiration. I signed to
her to write in the book. She did so, but the characters were quite
unlike anything that I had ever seen. They were not joined like our
writing and like Arabic letters, but were separate like our printed
type, and were formed in an irregular manner. She then showed me a
book made of a strange substance. It was filled with characters like
those which she had just written. The leaves were not at all like
paper, but seemed like some vegetable product, such as the leaves of
a plant or the bark of a tree. They were very thin, very smooth, all
cut into regular size, and fastened together by means of rings. This
manuscript is written upon the same material. I afterward found that
it was universally used here, and was made of a reed that grows in
marshes.

Here in these vast caverns there was no way by which I could tell the
progress of time, but Almah had her own way of finding out when the
hours of wakeful life were over. She arose and said, "Salonla." This I
afterward found out to be common salutation of the country. I said it
after her. She then left me. Shortly afterward a servant appeared,
who took me to a room, which I understood to be mine. Here I found
everything that I could wish, either for comfort or luxury; and as I
felt fatigue, I flung myself upon the soft bed of down, and soon was
sound asleep.

I slept for a long time. When I awoke I heard sounds in the distance,
and knew that people were moving. Here in these caverns there was no
difference between day and night, but, by modes of which I was
ignorant, a regular succession was observed of waking times and
sleeping times.



CHAPTER IX

THE CAVERN OF THE DEAD


On going forth into the outer grotto I saw the table spread with a
sumptuous repast, and the apartment in a blaze of light. Almah was not
here; and though some servants made signs for me to eat, yet I could
not until I should see whether she was coming or not. I had to wait
for a long time, however; and while I was waiting the chief entered,
shading his eyes with his hand from the painful light. He bowed
low with the most profound courtesy, saying, "Salonla," to which I
responded in the same way. He seemed much pleased at this, and made a
few remarks, which I did not understand; whereupon, anxious to lose no
time in learning the language, I repeated to him all the words I knew,
and asked after others. I pointed to him and asked his name. He said,
"Kohen." This, however, I afterward found was not a name, but a title.
The "Kohen" did not remain long, for the light was painful. After his
departure I was alone for some time, and at length Almah made her
appearance. I sprang to meet her, full of joy, and took her hand in
both of mine and pressed it warmly. She smiled, and appeared quite
free from the melancholy of the previous day.

We ate our breakfast together, after which we went out into the world
of light, groping our way along through the dark passages amid the
busy crowd. Almah could see better than I in the darkness; but she was
far from seeing well, and did not move with that easy step and perfect
certainty which all the others showed. Like me, she was a child of
light, and the darkness was distressing to her. As we went on we were
seen by all, but were apparently not considered prisoners. On the
contrary, all looked at us with the deepest respect, and bowed low
or moved aside, and occasionally made little offerings of fruit or
flowers to one or the other of us. It seemed to me that we were
treated with equal distinction; and if Almah was their queen, I, their
guest, was regarded with equal honor. Whatever her rank might be,
however, she was to all appearance the most absolute mistress of
her own actions, and moved about among all these people with the
independence and dignity of some person of exalted rank.

At length we emerged into the open air. Here the contrast to the
cavern gloom inside gave to the outer world unusual brightness and
splendor, so that even under the heavy overarching tree-ferns, which
had seemed so dark when I was here before, it now appeared light and
cheerful. Almah turned to the right, and we walked along the terrace.
But few people were visible. They shrank from the light, and kept
themselves in the caverns. Then after a few steps we came to the base
of a tall half-pyramid, the summit of which was above the tops of the
trees. I pointed to this, as though I wished to go up. Almah hesitated
for a moment, and seemed to shrink back, but at length, overcoming her
reluctance, began the ascent. A flight of stony steps led up. On
reaching the top, I found it about thirty feet long by fifteen wide,
with a high stone table in the middle. At that moment, however, I
scarce noticed the pyramid summit, and I only describe it now because
I was fated before long to see it with different feelings. What I then
noticed was the vast and wondrous display of all the glories of nature
that burst at once upon my view. There was that same boundless sea,
rising up high toward the horizon, as I had seen it before, and
suggesting infinite extent. There were the blue waters breaking into
foam, the ships traversing the deep, the far-encircling shores green
in vegetation, the high rampart of ice-bound mountains that shut in
the land, making it a world by itself. There was the sun, low on the
horizon, which it traversed on its long orbit, lighting up all these
scenes till the six-months day should end and the six-months night
begin.

For a long time I stood feasting my eyes upon all this splendor, and
at length turned to see whether Almah shared my feelings. One look was
enough. She stood absorbed in the scene, as though she were drinking
in deep draughts of all this matchless beauty. I felt amazed at this;
I saw how different she seemed from the others, and could not account
for it. But as yet I knew too little of the language to question her,
and could only hope for a future explanation when I had learned more.

We descended at length and walked about the terrace and up and down
the side streets. All were the same as I had noticed before--terraced
streets, with caverns on one side and massive stone structures on the
other. I saw deep channels, which were used as drains to carry down
mountain torrents. I did not see all at this first walk, but I
inspected the whole city in many subsequent walks until its outlines
were all familiar. I found it about a mile long and about half a
mile wide, constructed in a series of terraces, which rose one above
another in a hollow of the mountains round a harbor of the sea. On my
walks I met with but few people on the streets, and they all seemed
troubled with the light. I saw also occasionally some more of those
great birds, the name of which I learned from Almah; it was "opkuk."

For some time my life went on most delightfully. I found myself
surrounded with every comfort and luxury. Almah was my constant
associate, and all around regarded us with the profoundest respect.
The people were the mildest, most gentle, and most generous that I had
ever seen. The Kohen seemed to pass most of his time in making new
contrivances for my happiness. This strange people, in their dealings
with me and with one another, seemed animated by a universal desire to
do kindly acts; and the only possible objection against them was their
singular love of darkness.

My freedom was absolute. No one watched me. Almah and I could go where
we chose. So far as I could perceive, we were quite at liberty, if we
wished, to take a boat and escape over the sea. It seemed also quite
likely that if we had ordered out a galley and a gang of oarsmen, we
should have been supplied with all that we might want in the most
cheerful manner. Such a thought, however, was absurd. Flight! Why
should I think of flying?

I had long ago lost all idea of time; and here, where it was for the
present perpetual day, I was more at a loss than ever. I supposed that
it was somewhere in the month of March, but whether at the beginning
or the end I could not tell. The people had a regular system of
wake-time and sleep-time, by which they ordered their lives; but
whether these respective times were longer or shorter than the days
and nights at home I could not tell at that time, though I afterward
learned all about it. On the whole, I was perfectly content--nay,
more, perfectly happy; more so, indeed, than ever in my life, and
quite willing to forget home and friends and everything in the society
of Almah. While in her company there was always one purpose upon which
I was most intent, and that was to master the language. I made rapid
progress, and while she was absent I sought out others, especially the
Kohen, with whom to practice. The Kohen was always most eager to aid
me in every conceivable way or to any conceivable thing; and he had
such a gentle manner and showed such generous qualities that I soon
learned to regard him with positive affection.

Almah was always absent for several hours after I rose in the morning,
and when she made her appearance it was with the face and manner of
one who had returned from some unpleasant task. It always took some
time for her to regain that cheerfulness which she usually showed. I
soon felt a deep curiosity to learn the nature of her employment and
office here, and as my knowledge of the language increased I began
to question her. My first attempts were vain. She looked at me with
indescribable mournfulness and shook her head. This, however, only
confirmed me in my suspicions that her duties, whatever they might be,
were of a painful nature; so I urged her to tell me, and asked her as
well as I could if I might not share them or help her in some way. To
all this, however, she only returned sighs and mournful looks for an
answer. It seemed to me, from her manner and from the general behavior
of the people, that there was no express prohibition on my learning
anything, doing anything, or going anywhere; and so, after this, I
besought her to let me accompany her some time. But this too she
refused. My requests were often made, and as I learned more and more
of the language I was able to make them with more earnestness and
effect, until at length I succeeded in overcoming her objections.

"It is for your own sake," said she, "that I have refused, Atam-or. I
do not wish to lessen your happiness. But you must know all soon; and
so, if you wish to come with me and see what I have to do, why, you
may come the next jom."

This meant the next day, jom being the division of time corresponding
with our day. At this promise I was so full of gratitude that I forgot
all about the dark suggestiveness of her words. The next jom I arose
sooner than usual and went forth. I found Almah waiting for me. She
looked troubled, and greeted me with a mournful smile.

"You will find pain in this," said she; "but you wish it, and if you
still wish it, why, I will take you with me."

At this I only persisted the more, and so we set forth. We went
through the cavern passages. Few people were there; all seemed asleep.
Then we went out-of-doors and came into the full blaze of that day
which here knew no night, but prolonged itself into months. For a
while Almah stood looking forth between the trees to where the bright
sunlight sparkled on the sea, and then with a sigh she turned to
the left. I followed. On coming to the next portal she went in. I
followed, and found myself in a rough cavern, dark and forbidding.
Traversing this we came to an inner doorway, closed with a heavy mat.
This she raised, and passed through, while I went in after her.

I found myself in a vast cavern, full of dim, sparkling lights, which
served not to illuminate it, but merely to indicate its enormous
extent. Far above rose the vaulted roof, to a height of apparently a
hundred feet. Under this there was a lofty half-pyramid with stone
steps. All around, as far as I could see in the obscure light, there
were niches in the walls, each one containing a figure with a light
burning at its feet. I took them for statues. Almah pointed in silence
to one of these which was nearest, and I went up close so as to see
it.

The first glance that I took made me recoil with horror. It was no
statue that I saw in that niche, but a shrivelled human form--a
hideous sight. It was dark and dried; it was fixed in a sitting
posture, with its hands resting on its knees, and its hollow eyes
looking forward. On its head was the mockery of a wreath of flowers,
while from its heart there projected the handle and half of the blade
of a knife which had been thrust there. What was the meaning of this
knife? It seemed to tell of a violent death. Yet the flowers must
surely be a mark of honor. A violent death with honor, and the
embalmed remains--these things suggested nothing else than the horrid
thought of a human sacrifice. I looked away with eager and terrible
curiosity. I saw all the niches, hundreds upon hundreds, all filled
with these fearful occupants. I turned again with a sinking heart to
Almah. Her face was full of anguish.

"This is my duty," said she. "Every jom I must come here and crown
these victims with fresh flowers."

A feeling of sickening horror overwhelmed me. Almah had spoken these
words and stood looking at me with a face of woe. This, then, was that
daily task from which she was wont to return in such sadness--an
abhorrent task to her, and one to which familiarity had never
reconciled her. What was she doing here? What dark fate was it that
thus bound this child of light to these children of darkness? or why
was she thus compelled to perform a service from which all her nature
revolted? I read in her face at this moment a horror equal to my own;
and at the sight of her distress my own was lessened, and there arose
within me a profound sympathy and a strong desire to do something to
alleviate her misery.

"This is no place for you," continued Almah. "Go, and I will soon join
you."

"No," said I, using her language after my own broken fashion--"no, I
will not go--I will stay, I will help, if you will permit."

She looked at me earnestly, and seemed to see that my resolution was
firmly fixed, and that I was not to be dissuaded from it.

"Very well," said she; "if you do stay and help me, it will be a great
relief."

With these simple words she proceeded to carry out her work. At the
foot of the pyramid there was a heap of wreaths made out of fresh
flowers, and these were to be placed by her on the heads of the
embalmed corpses.

"This work," said she, "is considered here the highest and most
honorable that can be performed. It is given to me out of kindness,
and they cannot understand that I can have any other feelings in the
performance than those of joy and exultation--here among the dead and
in the dark."

I said nothing, but followed and watched her, carrying the wreaths and
supplying her. She went to each niche in succession, and after taking
the wreath off each corpse she placed a fresh one on, saying a brief
formula at each act. By keeping her supplied with wreaths I was able
to lighten her task, so much so that, whereas it usually occupied her
more than two hours, on the present occasion it was finished in less
than half an hour. She informed me that those which she crowned were
the corpses of men who had been sacrificed during the present
season--by season meaning the six months of light; and that though
many more were here, yet they wore crowns of gold. At the end of ten
years they were removed to public sepulchres. The number of those
which had to be crowned by her was about a hundred. Her work was only
to crown them, the labor of collecting the flowers and weaving the
wreaths and attending to the lamps being performed by others.

I left this place with Almah, sad and depressed. She had not told me
why these victims had been sacrificed, nor did I feel inclined to
ask. A dark suspicion had come to me that these people, underneath
all their amiable ways, concealed thoughts, habits, and motives of
a frightful kind; and that beyond all my present brightness and
happiness there might be a fate awaiting me too horrible for thought.
Yet I did not wish to borrow trouble. What I had seen and heard was
quite enough for one occasion. I was anxious, rather, to forget it
all. Nor did Almah's words or manner in any way reassure me. She was
silent and sad and preoccupied. It was as though she knew the worst,
and knowing it, dared not speak; as though there was something more
horrible which she dared not reveal. For my part, I feared it so that
I dared not ask. It was enough for me just then to know that my mild
and self-denying and generous entertainers were addicted to the
abhorrent custom of human sacrifices.



CHAPTER X

THE SACRED HUNT


On that very jom the Kohen informed me that they were about
to set forth on the "sacred hunt," an event which always occurred
toward the end of the season, and he kindly invited me to go. I,
eager to find any relief from the horrible thoughts that had taken
possession of me, and full of longing for active exertion, at once
accepted the invitation. I was delighted to hear Almah say that she
too was going; and I learned at the same time that in this strange
land the women were as fond of hunting as the men, and that on such
occasions their presence was expected.

The sacred hunt was certainly a strange one. I saw that it was to
take place on the water; for a great crowd, numbering over a hundred,
went down to the harbor and embarked on board a galley, on which
there were a hundred others, who served as rowers. The hunters were
all armed with long, light javelins and short swords. Some of these
were offered to me, for as yet no one supposed that my rifle and
pistol were instruments of destruction, or anything else than
ornaments. My refusal to accept their weapons created some surprise,
but with their usual civility they did not press their offers
further. It was evident that this hunting expedition was only made in
obedience to some hallowed custom; for the light of the sun pained
their eyes, and all their movements were made with uncertainty and
hesitation. With these a hunt by sunlight is the same as a hunt by
night would be with us. There was the same confusion and awkwardness.

The Kohen was in command. At his word the galley started, and the
rowers pulled out to sea with long, regular strokes. I was anxious to
know what the expedition was aimed at, and what were the animals that
we expected to get; but I could not make out Almah's explanations.
Her words suggested something of vague terror, vast proportions, and
indescribable ferocity; but my ignorance of the language prevented me
from learning anything more.

We went along the coast for a few miles, and then came to the mouth
of a great river, which seemed to flow from among the mountains. The
current was exceedingly swift, and as I looked back it seemed to me
that it must be the very stream which had borne me here into this
remote world. I afterward found out that this was so--that this
stream emerges from among the mountains, flowing from an unknown
source. It was over this that I had been borne in my sleep, after
I had emerged from the subterranean darkness, and it was by this
current that I had been carried into the open sea. As we crossed the
estuary of this river I saw that the shores on either side were low,
and covered with the rankest vegetation; giant trees of fern, vast
reeds and grasses, all arose here in a dense growth impassable to
man. Upon the shallow shores the surf was breaking; and here in
the tide I saw objects which I at first supposed to be rocks,
but afterward found out to be living things. They looked like
alligators, but were far larger than the largest alligators known
to us, besides being of far more terrific aspect. Toward these the
galley was directed, and I now saw with surprise that these were
the objects of the sacred hunt.

Suddenly, as the galley was moving along at half-speed, there
arose out of the water a thing that looked like the folds of a giant
hairy serpent, which, however, proved to be the long neck of an
incredible monster, whose immense body soon afterward appeared above
the water. With huge fins he propelled himself toward us; and his
head, twenty feet in the air, was poised as though about to attack.
The head was like that of an alligator, the open jaws showed a
fearful array of sharp teeth, the eyes were fiercely glowing, the
long neck was covered with a coarse, shaggy mane, while the top of
the body, which was out of the water, was incased in an impenetrable
cuirass of bone. Such a monster as this seemed unassailable,
especially by men who had no missile weapons, and whose eyes were so
dim and weak. I therefore expected that the galley would turn and
fly from the attack, for the monster itself seemed as large as our
vessel; but there was not the slightest thought of flight. On the
contrary, every man was on the alert; some sprang to the bow and
stood there, awaiting the first shock; others, amidship, stood
waiting for the orders of the Kohen. Meanwhile the monster
approached, and at length, with a sweep of his long neck, came down
upon the dense crowd at the bows. A dozen frail lances were broken
against his horny head, a half-dozen wretches were seized and
terribly torn by those remorseless jaws. Still none fled. All rushed
forward, and with lances, axes, knives, and ropes they sought to
destroy the enemy. Numbers of them strove to seize his long neck. In
the ardor of the fight the rowers dropped their oars and hurried to
the scene, to take part in the struggle. The slaughter was sickening,
but not a man quailed. Never had I dreamed of such blind and
desperate courage as was now displayed before my horror-stricken
eyes. Each sought to outdo the other. They had managed to throw ropes
around the monster's neck, by which he was held close to the galley.
His fierce movements seemed likely to drag us all down under the
water; and his long neck, free from restraint, writhed and twisted
among the struggling crowd of fighting men, in the midst of whom was
the Kohen, as desperate and as fearless as any.

All this had taken place in a very short space of time, and I had
scarce been able to comprehend the full meaning of it all. As for
Almah, she stood pale and trembling, with a face of horror. At last
it seemed to me that every man of them would be destroyed, and that
they were all throwing their lives away to no purpose whatever. Above
all, my heart was wrung for the Kohen, who was there in the midst of
his people, lifting his frail and puny arm against the monster. I
could endure inaction no longer. I had brought my arms with me, as
usual; and now, as the monster raised his head, I took aim at his
eye and fired. The report rang out in thunder. Almah gave a shriek,
and amid the smoke I saw the long, snake-like neck of the monster
sweeping about madly among the men. In the water his vast tail was
lashing the surface of the sea, and churning it into foam. Here I
once more took aim immediately under the fore-fin, where there was
no scaly covering. Once more I fired. This time it was with fatal
effect; and after one or two convulsive movements the monster, with
a low, deep bellow, let his head fall and gasped out his life.

I hurried forward. There lay the frightful head, with its long
neck and shaggy mane, while all around was a hideous spectacle.
The destruction of life had been awful. Nineteen were dead, and
twenty-eight were wounded, writhing in every gradation of agony, some
horribly mangled. The rest stood staring at me in astonishment, not
understanding those peals of thunder that had laid the monster low.
There was no terror or awe, however--nothing more than surprise;
and the Kohen, whose clothes were torn into shreds and covered with
blood, looked at me in bewilderment. I said to him, out of my small
stock of words, that the wounded ought at once to be cared for. At
this he turned away and made some remarks to his men.

I now stood ready to lend my own services, if needful. I expected
to take a part in the tender attentions which were the due of these
gallant souls, who had exhibited such matchless valor; these men who
thought nothing of life, but flung it away at the command of their
chief without dreaming of flight or of hesitation. Thus I stood
looking on in an expectant attitude, when there came a moment in
which I was simply petrified with horror; for the Kohen drew his
knife, stooped over the wounded man nearest him, and then stabbed him
to the heart with a mortal wound. The others all proceeded to do the
same, and they did it in the coolest and most business-like manner,
without any passion, without any feeling of any kind, and, indeed,
with a certain air of gratification, as though they were performing
some peculiarly high and sacred duty. The mildness and benevolence of
their faces seemed actually heightened, and the perpetration of this
unutterable atrocity seemed to affect these people in the same way in
which the performance of acts of humanity might affect us.

For my own part, I stood for a few moments actually motionless from
perplexity and horror; then, with a shriek, I rushed forward as if
to prevent it; but I was too late. The unutterable deed was done,
and the unfortunate wounded, without an exception, lay dead beside
their slain companions. As for myself, I was only regarded with fresh
wonder, and they all stood blinking at me with their half-closed
eyes. Suddenly the Kohen fell prostrate on his knees before me, and
bowing his head handed me his bloody knife.

"Atam-or," said he, "give me also the blessing of darkness and death!"

At these strange words, following such actions, I could say nothing.
I was more bewildered than ever, and horror and bewilderment made me
dumb. I turned away and went aft to Almah, who had seen it all. She
looked at me with an anxious gaze, as if to learn what the effect of
all this had been on me. I could not speak a word, but with a vague
sense of the necessity of self-preservation, I loaded my rifle, and
tried in vain to make out what might be the meaning of this union of
gentleness and kindness with atrocious cruelty. Meanwhile, the men
all went to work upon various tasks. Some secured lines about the
monster so as to tow it astern; others busied themselves with the
corpses, collecting them and arranging them in rows. At length we
returned, towing the monster astern.

I could not speak until I was back again in the lighted rooms and
alone with Almah; then I told her, as well as I could, the horror
that I felt.

"It was honor to those brave men," said she.

"Honor!" said I. "What! to kill them?"

"Yes," said she; "it is so with these people; with them death is the
highest blessing. They all love death and seek after it. To die for
another is immortal glory. To kill the wounded was to show that they
had died for others. The wounded wished it themselves. You saw how
they all sought after death. These people were too generous and
kind-hearted to refuse to kill them after they had received wounds."

At this my perplexity grew deeper than ever, for such an
explanation as this only served to make the mystery greater.

"Here," said she, "no one understands what it is to fear death.
They all love it and long for it; but everyone wishes above all to
die for others. This is their highest blessing. To die a natural
death in bed is avoided if possible."

All this was incomprehensible.

"Tell me, Almah," I said--"you hate darkness as I do--do you not
fear death?"

"I fear it above all things," said Almah. "To me it is the horror
of life; it is the chief of terrors."

"So it is with me," said I. "In my country we call death the King
of Terrors."

"Here," said Almah, "they call death the Lord of Joy."

Not long after, the Kohen came in, looking as quiet, as gentle,
and as amiable as ever. He showed some curiosity about my rifle,
which he called a sepet-ram, or "rod of thunder." Almah also
showed curiosity. I did not care to explain the process of loading
it to the Kohen, though Almah had seen me load it in the galley,
and I left him to suppose that it was used in some mysterious way.
I cautioned him not to handle it carelessly, but found that this
caution only made him the more eager to handle it, since the prospect
of an accident found an irresistible attraction. I would not let it
go out of my own hands, however; and the Kohen, whose self-denial
was always most wonderful to me, at once checked his curiosity.



CHAPTER XI

THE SWAMP MONSTER


A few joms after, I was informed by the Kohen that there was to be
another sacred hunt. At first I felt inclined to refuse, but on
learning that Almah was going, I resolved to go also; for Almah,
though generally mistress of her actions, had nevertheless certain
duties to perform, and among these was the necessity of accompanying
hunting-parties. I did not yet understand her position here, nor had I
heard from her yet how it was that she was so different from the rest
of them. That was all to be learned at a future time. For the present
I had to be satisfied with knowing that she belonged to a different
nation, who spoke a different language, and that all her thoughts and
feelings were totally different from those of the people among whom
she was living. She loved the light, she feared death, and she had
never been able in the slightest degree to reconcile herself to the
habits of these people. This I could readily understand, for to me it
seemed as though they lived in opposition to nature itself.

We went out into the daylight, and then I saw a sight which filled me
with amazement. I saw a flock of birds larger than even the opkuks.
They were called "opmahera." They seemed as tall as giraffes, and
their long legs indicated great powers of running. Their wings were
very short, and not adapted for flight. They were very tractable, and
were harnessed for riding in a peculiar way; lines like reins were
fastened to the wings, and the driver, who sat close by the neck,
guided the bird in this way. Each bird carried two men, but for Almah
and me there was a bird apiece. An iron prod was also taken by each
driver as a spur. I did not find out until afterward how to drive. At
that time the prospect of so novel a ride was such an exciting one
that I forgot everything else. The birds seemed quiet and docile. I
took it for granted that mine was well trained, and would go with the
others of his own accord. We all mounted by means of a stone platform
which stood by the pyramid, and soon were on our way.

The speed was amazing; the fastest race-horse at home is slow compared
with this. It was as swift as an ordinary railway train, if not more
so. For some minutes the novelty of my situation took away all other
thoughts, and I held the reins in my hands without knowing how to use
them. But this mattered not, for the well-trained bird kept on after
the others, while Almah on her bird was close behind me. The pace, as
I said, was tremendous, yet no easier motion can be imagined. The bird
bounded along with immense leaps, with wings outstretched, but its
feet touched the ground so lightly that the motion seemed almost equal
to flying. We did not confine ourselves to the roads, for the birds
were capable of going over any kind of country in a straight line. On
this occasion we passed over wide fields and rocky mountain ridges
and deep swamps and sand wastes at the same speed, until at length
we reached a vast forest of dense tree-ferns, where the whole band
stopped for a short time, after which we took up a new direction,
moving on more slowly. The forest grew up out of a swamp, which
extended as far as the eye could reach from the sea to the mountains.
Along the edge of this forest we went for some time, until at length
there came a rushing, crackling sound, as of something moving there
among the trees, crushing down everything in its progress. We halted,
and did not have to wait long; for soon, not far away, there emerged
from the thick forest a figure of incredible size and most hideous
aspect.

It looked like one of those fabled dragons such as may be seen in
pictures, but without wings. It was nearly a hundred feet in length,
with a stout body and a long tail, covered all over with impenetrable
scales. It hind-legs were rather longer than its fore-legs, and it
moved its huge body with ease and rapidity. Its feet were armed with
formidable claws. But its head was most terrific. It was a vast mass
of bone, with enormous eyes that glared like fire; its jaws opened to
the width of six or eight feet, and were furnished with rows of sharp
teeth, while at the extremity of its nose there was a tusk several
feet long, like the horn of a rhinoceros, curving backward. All this
I took in at the first glance, and the next instant the whole band
of hunters, with their usual recklessness, flung themselves upon the
monster.

For a short time all was the wildest confusion--an intermingling of
birds and men, with the writhing and roaring beast. With his huge
claws and his curved horn and his wide jaws he dealt death and
destruction all around; yet still the assailants kept at their work.
Many leaped down to the ground and rushed close up to the monster,
thrusting their lances into the softer and more unprotected parts
of his body; while others, guiding their birds with marvellous
dexterity, assailed him on all sides. The birds, too, were kept well
to their work; nor did they exhibit any fear. It was not until they
were wounded that they sought to fly. Still, the contest seemed too
unequal. The sacrifice of life was horrible. I saw men and birds
literally torn to pieces before my eyes. Nevertheless, the utter
fearlessness of the assailants confounded me. In spite of the
slaughter, fresh crowds rushed on. They clambered over his back, and
strove to drive their lances under his bony cuirass. In the midst of
them I saw the Kohen. By some means he had reached the animal's back,
and was crawling along, holding by the coarse shaggy mane. At length
he stopped, and with a sudden effort thrust his lance into the
monster's eye. The vast beast gave a low and terrible howl; his
immense tail went flying all about; in his pain he rolled over and
over, crushing underneath him in his awful struggles all who were
nearest. I could no longer be inactive. I raised my rifle, and as the
beast in his writhings exposed his belly I took aim at the soft flesh
just inside his left fore-leg, and fired both barrels.

At that instant my bird gave a wild, shrill scream and a vast bound
into the air, and then away it went like the wind--away, I know not
where. That first bound had nearly jerked me off; but I managed to
avoid this and now instinctively clung with all my might to the bird's
neck, still holding my rifle. The speed of the bird was twice as great
as it had been before--as the speed of a runaway horse surpasses
that of the same horse when trotting at his ordinary rate and under
control. I could scarcely make out where I was going. Rocks, hills,
swamps, fields, trees, sand, and sea all seemed to flash past in one
confused assemblage, and the only thought in my mind was that I was
being carried to some remote wilderness, to be flung there bruised and
maimed among the rocks, to perish helplessly. Every moment I expected
to be thrown, for the progress of the bird was not only inconceivably
swift, but it also gave immense leaps into the air; and it was only
its easy mode of lighting on the ground after each leap that saved me
from being hurled off. As it was, however, I clung instinctively to
the bird's neck, until at last it came to a stop so suddenly that my
hands slipped, and I fell to the ground.

I was senseless for I know not how long. When at last I revived I
found myself propped up against a bank, and Almah bathing my head with
cold water. Fortunately, I had received no hurt. In falling I had
struck on my head, but it was against the soft turf, and though I
was stunned, yet on regaining my senses no further inconvenience was
experienced. The presence of Almah was soon explained. The report of
the rifle had startled her bird also, which had bounded away in terror
like mine; but Almah understood how to guide him, and managed to keep
him after me, so as to be of assistance in case of need. She had been
close behind all the time, and had stopped when I fell, and come to
my assistance.

The place was a slope looking out upon an arm of the sea, and
apparently remote from human abode. The scenery was exquisitely
beautiful. A little distance off we saw the edge of the forest; the
open country was dotted with clumps of trees; on the other side of the
arm of the sea was an easy declivity covered with trees of luxuriant
foliage and vast dimensions; farther away on one side rose the icy
summits of impassable mountains; on the other side there extended
the blue expanse of the boundless sea. The spot where I lay was
over-shadowed by the dense foliage of a tree which was unlike anything
that I had ever seen, and seemed like some exaggerated grass; at our
feet a brook ran murmuring to the shore; in the air and all around
were innumerable birds.

The situation in which I found myself seemed inexpressibly sweet, and
all the more so from the gentle face of Almah. Would it not be well,
I thought, to remain here? Why should Almah go back to her repulsive
duties? Why should we return to those children of blood, who loved
death and darkness? Here we might pass our days together unmolested.
The genial climate would afford us warmth; we needed no shelter except
the trees, and as for food, there were the birds of the air in
innumerable flocks.

I proposed this to her; she smiled sadly. "You forget," said she,
"this season of light will not last much longer. In a few more joms
the dark season will begin, and then we should perish in a place like
this."

"Are there no caverns here?"

"Oh no. This country has no inhabitants. It is full of fierce wild
beasts. We should be destroyed before one jom."

"But must we go back?" said I. "You have a country. Where is it? See,
here are these birds. They are swift. They can carry us anywhere.
Come, let us fly, and you can return to your own country."

Almah shook her head. "These birds," said she, "cannot go over the
sea, or through these endless forests. My country can only be reached
by sea."

"Can we not hurry back, seize a boat, and go? I know how to sail over
the water without oars."

"We certainly might leave the country; but there is another
difficulty. The dark season is coming, and we should never be able
to find our way. Besides, the sea is full of monsters, and you and
I would perish."

"At any rate, let us try. I have my sepet-ram."

"We could never find our way."

"Only tell me," said I, "where it lies, and I will go by the stars."

"The trouble is," said she, "that even if we did succeed in reaching
my land, I should be sent back again; for I was sent here as a sacred
hostage, and I have been here four seasons."

But in the midst of this conversation a sound arrested our
attention--heavy, puffing, snorting sound, as of some living thing.
Hastily I started up, rifle in hand, and looked; and as I looked I
felt my nerves thrill with horror. There, close by the shore, I saw a
vast form--a living thing--full sixty feet in length. It had a body
like that of an elephant, the head of a crocodile, and enormous
glaring eyes. Its immense body was covered with impenetrable armor,
and was supported on legs long enough to allow it to run with great
speed. It differed in many respects from the monster of the swamp--the
legs being longer, the tail shorter and thinner, and its head and jaws
larger and longer. I shrank back, thinking of seizing Almah and
hiding. But I saw that she had already taken the alarm, and with more
presence of mind than I had she had hurried to the birds, who were
standing near, and had made them lie down. As I turned, she beckoned
to me without a word. I hurried to her. She told me to mount. I did so
at once; she did the same. Scarce had we mounted than the monster
perceived us, and with a terrible bellow came rushing toward us. Almah
drove her goad deep into her bird, which at once rose and went off
like the wind, and mine started to follow. The vast monster came on.
His roar sounded close behind, and I heard the clash of his tremendous
jaws; but the swift bird with a bound snatched me from his grasp, and
bore me far away out of his reach. Away I went like the wind. Almah
was ahead, looking back from time to time, and waving her hand
joyously. So we went on, returning on our course at a speed almost as
great as that with which we had come. By this time the novelty had in
part worn away, and the easy motion gave me confidence. I noticed that
we were travelling a wild, uninhabited, and rocky district by the
sea-side. Before me the country spread far away, interspersed with
groves, terminating in forests, and bounded in the far distance by
mountains. The country here was so rough that it seemed as if nothing
could pass over it except such creatures as these--the opmaheras.

At length we arrived at the spot which we had left--the scene of the
hunt. We could see it from afar, for the opmaheras stood quietly
around, and the men were busy elsewhere. As we drew nearer I saw the
vast body of the monster. They had succeeded in killing it, yet--oh
heavens, at what a cost! One half of all the party lay dead. The rest
were unharmed, and among these was the Kohen. He greeted me with a
melancholy smile. That melancholy smile, however, was not caused by
the sad fate of his brave companions, but, as I afterward learned,
simply and solely because he himself had not gained his death. When I
saw that there were no wounded, a dark suspicion came over me that the
wounded had again been put to death. I did not care to ask. The truth
was too terrible to hear, and I felt glad that accident had drawn me
away. It was all a dark and dreadful mystery. These people were the
most gentle, the most self-sacrificing, and the most generous in the
world; yet their strange and unnatural love of death made them capable
of endless atrocities. Life and light seemed to them as actual evils,
and death and darkness the only things worthy of regard.

Almah told me that they were going to bring the monster home, and had
sent for opkuks to drag it along. The dead were also to be fetched
back. There was no further necessity for us to remain, and so we
returned at once.

On the way, Almah said, "Do not use the sepet-ram again. You can do
no good with it. You must not make it common. Keep it. The time may
come when you will need it: you are not fond of death."

I shuddered.

"Never forget," she said, "that here death is considered the chief
blessing. It is useless for you to interfere in their ways. You cannot
change them."

Some more joms passed. The bodies were embalmed, and Almah had more
victims to crown with garlands in the horrible cheder nebilin.



CHAPTER XII

THE BALEFUL SACRIFICE


I resolved to go on no more sacred hunts. I was sickened at the
horrible cruelty, the needless slaughter, the mad self-sacrifice which
distinguished them. I was overwhelmed with horror at the merciless
destruction of brave comrades, whose wounds, so gallantly received,
should have been enough to inspire pity even in a heart of stone. The
gentleness, the incessant kindness, the matchless generosity of these
people seemed all a mockery. What availed it all when the same hand
that heaped favors upon me, the guest, could deal death without
compunction upon friends and relatives? It seemed quite possible for
the Kohen to kill his own child, or cut the throat of his wife, if the
humor seized him. And how long could I hope to be spared among a
people who had this insane thirst for blood?

Some more joms had passed, and the light season had almost ended.
The sun had been sinking lower and lower. The time had at last come
when only a portion of his disk would be visible for a little while
above the hills, and then he would be seen no more for six months of
our time. This was the dark season, and, as I had already learned, its
advent was always hailed with joy and celebrated with solemn services,
for the dark season freed them from their long confinement, permitted
them to go abroad, to travel by sea and land, to carry on their great
works, to indulge in all their most important labors and favorite
amusements. The Kohen asked me to be present at the great festival,
and I gladly consented. There seemed to be nothing in this that
could be repellent. As I was anxious to witness some of their purely
religious ceremonies, I wished to go. When I told Almah, she looked
sad, but said nothing. I wondered at this, and asked her if she was
going. She informed me that she would have to go, whereupon I assured
her that this was an additional reason why I should go.

I went with Almah. The Kohen attended us with his usual kind and
gracious consideration. It seemed almost as though he was our servant.
He took us to a place where we could be seated, although all the
others were standing. Almah wished to refuse, but I prevailed upon her
to sit down, and she did so.

The scene was upon the semicircular terrace in front of the cavern,
and we were seated upon a stone platform beside the chief portal. A
vast crowd was gathered in front. Before us arose the half-pyramid of
which I have already spoken. The light was faint. It came from the
disk of the sun, which was partly visible over the icy crest of the
distant mountains. Far away the sea was visible, rising high over the
tops of the trees, while overhead the brighter stars were plainly
discernible.

The Kohen ascended the pyramid, and others followed. At the base
there was a crowd of men, with emaciated forms and faces, and coarse,
squalid attire, who looked like the most abject paupers, and seemed
the lowest in the land. As the Kohen reached the summit there arose a
strange sound--a mournful, plaintive chant, which seemed to be sung
chiefly by the paupers at the base of the pyramid. The words of this
chant I could not make out, but the melancholy strain affected me
in spite of myself. There was no particular tune, and nothing like
harmony; but the effect of so many voices uniting in this strain was
very powerful and altogether indescribable. In the midst of this I saw
the crowd parting asunder so as to make way for something; and through
the passage thus formed I saw a number of youths in long robes, who
advanced to the pyramid, singing as they went. Then they ascended the
steps, two by two, still singing, and at length reached the summit,
where they arranged themselves in order. There were thirty of them and
they arranged themselves in three rows of ten each, and as they stood
they never ceased to sing, while the paupers below joined in the
strain.

And now the sun was almost hidden, and there was only the faintest
line from the upper edge of his disk perceptible over the icy
mountain-tops. The light was a softened twilight glow. It was to be
the last sight of the sun for six months, and this was the spectacle
upon which he threw his parting beam. So the sun passed away, and then
there came the beginning of the long dark season. At first, however,
there was rather twilight than darkness, and this twilight continued
long. All this only served to heighten the effect of this striking
scene; and as the light faded away, I looked with increasing curiosity
upon the group at the top of the pyramid. Almah was silent. I half
turned, and said something to her about the beauty of the view. She
said nothing, but looked at me with such an expression that I was
filled with amazement. I saw in her face something like a dreadful
anticipation--something that spoke of coming evil. The feeling was
communicated to me, and I turned my eyes back to the group on the
pyramid with vague fears in my soul.

Those fears were but too well founded, for now the dread ceremony
began. The Kohen drew his knife, and placed himself at the head of the
stone table. One of the youths came forward, stepped upon it, and lay
down on his back with his head toward the Kohen. The mournful chant
still went on. Then the Kohen raised his knife and plunged it into the
heart of the youth. I sat for a moment rooted to the spot; then a
groan burst from me in spite of myself. Almah caught my hands in hers,
which were as cold as ice.

"Be firm," she said, "or we are both lost. Be firm, Atam-or!"

"I must go," said I, and I tried to rise.

"Don't move," she said, "for your life! We are lost if you move. Keep
still--restrain yourself--shut your eyes."

I tried to do so, but could not. There was a horrible fascination
about the scene which forced me to look and see all. The Kohen took
the victim, and drawing it from the altar, threw it over the precipice
to the ground beneath. Then a loud shout burst forth from the great
crowd. "Sibgu Sibgin! Ranenu! Hodu lecosck!" which means, "Sacrifice
the victims! Rejoice! Give thanks to darkness!"

Then another of the youths went forward amid the singing, and laid
himself down to meet the same fate; and again the corpse was flung
from the top of the pyramid, and again the shout arose. All the others
came forward in the same manner. Oh, horrible, horrible, thrice
horrible spectacle! I do not remember how I endured it. I sat there
with Almah, trying to restrain myself as she had entreated me, more
for her sake than for my own, a prey to every feeling of horror,
anguish, and despair. How it all ended I do not know, nor do I know
how I got away from the place; for I only remember coming back to my
senses in the lighted grotto, with Almah bending anxiously over me.

After this there remained a dark mystery and an ever-present horror. I
found myself among a people who were at once the gentlest of the human
race and the most blood-thirsty--the kindest and the most cruel. This
mild, amiable, and self-sacrificing Kohen, how was it possible that
he should transform himself to a fiend incarnate? And for me and for
Almah, what possible hope could there be? What fate might they have
in reserve for us? Of what avail was all this profound respect, this
incessant desire to please, this attention to our slightest wish, this
comfort and luxury and splendor, this freedom of speech and action?
Was it anything better than a mockery? Might it not be the shallow
kindness of the priest to the victim reserved for the sacrifice? Was
it, after all, in any degree better than the kindness of the cannibal
savages on those drear outer shores who received us with such
hospitality, but only that they might destroy us at last? Might they
not all belong to the same race, dwelling as they did in caverns,
shunning the sunlight, and blending kindness with cruelty? It was an
awful thought!

Yet I had one consolation. Almah was with me, and so long as she was
spared to me I could endure this life. I tried for her sake to resist
the feelings that were coming over me. I saw that she too was a prey
to ever-deepening sadness. She felt as I did, and this despair of soul
might wreck her young life if there were no alleviation. And so I
sought to alleviate her distress and to banish her sadness. The songs
of these people had much impressed me; and one day, as I talked about
this with Almah, she brought forth a musical instrument of peculiar
shape, which was not unlike a guitar, though the shape was square and
there were a dozen strings. Upon this she played, singing at the same
time some songs of a plaintive character. An idea now occurred to me
to have an instrument made according to my own plans, which should be
nothing less than a violin. Almah was delighted at the proposal, and
at once found a very clever workman, who under my direction succeeded
in producing one which served my purpose well. I was a good violinist,
and in this I was able to find solace for myself and for Almah for
many a long hour.

The first time that I played was memorable. As the tones floated
through the air they caught the ears of those outside, and soon great
numbers came into the apartment, listening in amazement and in rapt
attention. Even the painful light was disregarded in the pleasure of
this most novel sensation, and I perceived that if the sense of sight
was deficient among them, that of hearing was sufficiently acute.
I played many times, and sometimes sang from among the songs of
different nations; but those which these people liked best were the
Irish and Scottish melodies--those matchless strains created by the
genius of the Celtic race, and handed down from immemorial ages
through long generations. In these there was nothing artificial,
nothing transient. They were the utterance of the human heart, and in
them there was that touch of nature which makes all men kin. These
were the immortal passions which shall never cease to affect the soul
of man, and which had power even here; the strains of love, of
sadness, and of pathos were sweet and enticing to this gentle race;
for in their mild manners and their outburst of cruelty they seemed to
be not unlike the very race which had created this music, since the
Celt is at once gentle and blood-thirsty.

I played "Tara," "Bonnie Doon," "The Last Rose of Summer," "The Land
of the Leal," "Auld Lang Syne," "Lochaber." They stood entranced,
listening with all their souls. They seemed to hunger and thirst after
this music, and the strains of the inspired Celtic race seemed to come
to them like the revelation of the glory of heaven. Then I played more
lively airs. Some I played a second time, singing the words. They
seemed eager to have the same one played often. At last a grisly
thought came to me: it was that they would learn these sweet strains,
and put their own words to them so as to use them at the awful
sacrifices. After that I would play no more.

It is a land of tender love and remorseless cruelty. Music is
all-powerful to awaken the one, but powerless to abate the other; and
the eyes that weep over the pathetic strains of "Lochaber" can gaze
without a tear upon the death-agonies of a slaughtered friend.



CHAPTER XIII

THE AWFUL "MISTA KOSEK"


The terrible sacrifice marked the end of the light season. The dark
season had now begun, which would last for half the coming year. No
more sunlight would now be visible, save at first for a few joms,
when at certain times the glare would be seen shooting up above the
icy crests of the mountains. Now the people all moved out of the
caverns into the stone houses on the opposite side of the terraces,
and the busy throng transferred themselves and their occupations to
the open air. This with them was the season of activity, when all
their most important affairs were undertaken and carried out; the
season, too, of enjoyment, when all the chief sports and festivals
took place. Then the outer world all awoke to life; the streets were
thronged, fleets of galleys came forth from their moorings, and the
sounds of labor and of pleasure, of toil and revelry, arose into the
darkened skies. Then the city was a city of the living, no longer
silent, but full of bustle, and the caverns were frequented but
little. This cavern life was only tolerable during the light season,
when the sun-glare was over the land; but now, when the beneficent and
grateful darkness pervaded all things, the outer world was infinitely
more agreeable.

To me, however, the arrival of the dark season brought only additional
gloom. I could not get rid of the thought that I was reserved for some
horrible fate, in which Almah might also be involved. We were both
aliens here, in a nation of kind-hearted and amiable miscreants--of
generous, refined, and most self-denying fiends; of men who were
highly civilized, yet utterly wrong-headed and irreclaimable in their
blood-thirsty cruelty. The stain of blood-guiltiness was over all the
land. What was I, that I could hope to be spared? The hope was
madness, and I did not pretend to indulge it.

The only consolation was Almah. The manners of these people were such
that we were still left as unconstrained as ever in our movements, and
always, wherever we went, we encountered nothing but amiable smiles
and courteous offices. Everyone was always eager to do anything for
us--to give, to go, to act, to speak, as though we were the most
honored of guests, the pride of the city. The Kohen was untiring in
his efforts to please. He was in the habit of making presents every
time he came to see me, and on each occasion the present was of a
different kind; at one time it was a new robe of curiously wrought
feathers, at another some beautiful gem, at another some rare fruit.
He also made incessant efforts to render my situation pleasant, and
was delighted at my rapid progress in acquiring the language.

On the jom following the sacrifice I accompanied Almah as she went
to her daily task, and after it was over I asked when the new victims
would be placed here. "How long does it take to embalm them?" I added.

Almah looked at me earnestly. "They will not bring them here; they
will not embalm them," said she.

"Why not?" I asked; "what will they do with them?"

"Do not ask," said she. "It will pain you to know."

In spite of repeated solicitation she refused to give me any
satisfaction. I felt deeply moved at her words and her looks. What was
it, I wondered, that could give me pain? or what could there still
be that could excite fear in me, who had learned and seen so much? I
could not imagine. It was evidently some disposal of the bodies of
the victims--that was plain. Turning this over in my mind, with vague
conjectures as to Almah's meaning, I left her and walked along the
terrace until I came to the next cavern. This had never been open
before, and I now entered through curiosity to see what it might be.
I saw a vast cavern, quite as large as the cheder nebilin, full of
people, who seemed to be engaged in decorating it. Hundreds were at
work, and they had brought immense tree-ferns, which were placed on
either side in long rows, with their branches meeting and interlacing
at the top. It looked like the interior of some great Gothic cathedral
at night, and the few twinkling lights that were scattered here and
there made the shadowy outline just visible to me.

I asked one of the bystanders what this might be, and he told me that
it was the Mista Kosek, which means the "Feast of Darkness," from
which I gathered that they were about to celebrate the advent of the
dark season with a feast. From what I knew of their character this
seemed quite intelligible, and there was much beauty and taste in the
arrangements. All were industrious and orderly, and each one seemed
most eager to assist his neighbor. Indeed, there seemed to be a
friendly rivalry in this which at times amounted to positive violence;
for more than once when a man was seen carrying too large a burden,
someone else would insist on taking it from him. At first these
altercations seemed exactly like the quarrels of workmen at home, but
a closer inspection showed that it was merely the persistent effort
of one to help another.

I learned that the feast was to take place as soon as the hall was
decorated, and that it would be attended by a great multitude. I felt
a great interest in it. There seemed something of poetic beauty in
this mode of welcoming the advent of a welcome season, and it served
to mitigate the horrible remembrance of that other celebration, upon
which I could not think without a shudder. I thought that it would be
pleasant to join with them here, and resolved to ask Almah to come
with me, so that she might explain the meaning of the ceremonies. Full
of this thought, I went to her and told her my wish. She

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